May 20, 1999 - Low income people enrolled in Minnesota's public health care programs are having an increasingly difficult time getting access to dental care. MNCare and other medical assistance programs don't fully reemburse dentists for treating patients on public assistance. Such patients are finding it increasingly difficult to find dentists willing to treat them, especially in rural areas. The Health and Human Services Omnibus Bill just approved by the Minnesota Legislature directs nearly $3.2 million dollars toward the problem, but some say it's only a band-aid for an issue that's reaching crisis proportions.
May 20, 1999 - A farm in southwest Minnesota probably is not the first place you'd expect a professional mezzo soprano to call home, but that is exactly what MPR’s Mark Steil found when talking with Gary Overgaard, a farmer, and his wife Emily Lodine, an opera singer.
May 20, 1999 - Nearly half of Northwest Airline's unionized employees continue to work without new contracts, more than two and a half years after the agreement that cut their pay expired. Typically airline employees threaten to strike as a way of putting pressure on management. But an alternative tactic often referred to as "CHAOS" is growing in popularity among some unions. "CHAOS" involves small scale SURPRISE work interruptions designed to trigger domino effects. Northwest's flight attendants are threatening a version of CHAOS if negotiations break down. The union the airline's mechanics voted to join is an even more enthusiastic proponent of the strategy.
May 21, 1999 - A Midday broadcast of Walking Out of History: The True Story of Shackleton's Endurance Expedition, an American RadioWorks documentary about Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance Antarctica expedition. MPR’s John Rabe presents various interviews, readings, sounds, and commentary.
May 21, 1999 - Clean-up time has begun at the state capitol. Legislative leaders and the Governor's staff are beginning to sift through the thousands of pages of legislation passed in the final few hours of the session on Monday -- with an eye to weed some of it out before it has a chance to become law.
May 21, 1999 - The wrangling over the largest tax cut in state history ended last Monday night, but the fight over who gets to take credit for it has just begun. The state Republican party bought a full-page ad in the Star Tribune yesterday thanking House Republicans for the tax cut -- and suggested Governor Ventura and the Democrats opposed it.
May 21, 1999 - On Sunday evening, NBC will broadcast "The Jesse Ventura Story" a made for TV movie commissioned shortly after Ventura was elected Governor of Minnesota. Critics have panned the movie, calling it shallow and inaccurate. Still it presents a generally favorable --- if simplistic --- view of Ventura and his anti establishment message.
May 21, 1999 - There is more bad press for the University of Minnesota men's athletic department. A report in today's Star Tribune says between 1993 and 1997, UofM athletics officials repeatedly intervened in assault and criminal sexual conduct investigations against athletes, and kept the cases from being submitted to prosecuters. University President Mark Yudof says if the allegations are true, the University won't tollerate it.
May 21, 1999 - The upper midwest has been hit by the worst nature can dish out the past few years with floods, tornadoes and blizzards. But apparently it has the leaders to handle those disasters. For the second year in a row President Clinton will present the Phoenix leadership award to a midwest mayor. Last year it went to Grand Forks North Dakota's Pat Owens for her work following the city's devastating 1997 flood and fire. Next week the Phoenix award will be given to a small town southern Minnesota mayor who's leadership helped energize a community left for dead by a tornado.
May 21, 1999 - The massive emergency spending bill to pay for the war in Kosovo passed the Senate today, 64 to 36, after being approved by the House earlier this week. Tucked away in the nearly 15 billion dollar bill is long awaited money to help for farmers facing low commodity prices following several seasons of bad weather. But some long-time ag supporters voted against the bill -- and farmers say it's still not enough.