October 5, 1999 - It's been a year now since Minnesota's settlement with the tobacco industry created a non-profit anti-tobacco organization called M-PAAT...the Minnesota Partnership for Action Against Tobacco. State health officials say about 22-percent of Minnesota adults smoke...about the same as the national average. One of M-PAAT'S missions is to help smokers quit, but it's not required to reduce smoking rates. So what is M-PAAT doing? Minnesota Public Radio's Patty Marsicano reports in the second of a three-part tobacco series.
October 6, 1999 - Governor Ventura took his cabinet to Mankato yesterday for the official roll-out of what he calls his "Big Plan." The Plan is the Governor's comprehensive vision for the rest of his term in office, and it emphasizes his philosophy of governing, rather than offering specific new policy proposals. The few legislators who attended the speech reacted with caution, and at least one lawmaker says he has a hard time taking Ventura's policy statements seriously, in light of Ventura's Playboy interview.
October 6, 1999 - When Minnesota lawmakers created anti-smoking endowments with money from the state's tobacco settlement, they gave the health department an ambitious goal - cut teen smoking rates by thirty-percent in the next five years. Because the endowments won't generate interest money until January, so far all officials have been able to do is plan. Health officials are hoping to learn from states that HAVE successfully reduced youth smoking, and plan to involve teens every step of the way. In the last of our three-part tobacco series, Minnesota Public Radio's Laura McCallum reports.
October 6, 1999 - The legal turmoil around Donald Blom continued in Carlton today, with judges and defense lawyers seeking to have each other removed from his case. Judge Dale Wolf went one step further, seeking to have the public defender boss Fred Friedman removed from his JOB. Motions and appeals are mounting over who should represent Blom in his trial for the kidnapping and murder of Katie Poirier. And in the middle of the wrangling Minneapolis lawyer Anthony Torres, one of Blom's former attorny's, is back on the scene, although he says he doesn't know for how long.
October 7, 1999 - In less than a month, Mayor Norm Coleman's plan to build a new Twins ballpark in downtown St. Paul will face a crucial test at the polls. If St. Paul voters approve a new sales tax to fund the stadium, the debate will move to a leery state legislature. Even if the referendum fails, the discussion isn't necessarily over. In the fourth and final part of our stadium series, Minnesota Public Radio's Michael Khoo examines what happens after the vote.
October 7, 1999 - University of Minnesota researchers say state and local action is needed to head off a projected teacher shortage next year. A new study from the university's College of Education recommends fast-track training programs for new teachers, new rules to allow the hiring of non-licenced teachers and more state money targeted to teacher recruitment.
October 7, 1999 - Real Estate developer Donald Trump announced today he's formed an exploratory committee for a Presidential run. He's having dinner in New York tonight with Governor Ventura, who's urged him to consider running on the Reform Party ticket. Dean Barkley who ran Governor Ventura's successful campaign and is now Ventura's Planning commissioner has been mentioned as a possible Trump campaign manager. Barkley says neither he nor his boss have made ANY committment to Trump yet.
October 7, 1999 - The results are in for the first in a two-part, state-wide compliance check of liquor stores. Twenty-five percent of the liquor stores checked sold alcohol to minors. MOf the 166 liquor stores Minnesota's Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement Division checked, 42 sold alcohol to someone under twenty-one years old. The AGED, an arm of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, trained police and sheriff's departments around the state to conduct the compliance checks. AGED trainer Tom Ludford is a retired state patrol officer.
October 8, 1999 - Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad has signed a letter of intent to sell the team pending approval of a new ballpark in downtown St. Paul. If the deal goes through, sports moguls Glen Taylor and Robert Naegele will head up the new ownership group. Taylor and Naegele are, respectively, the principal owners of the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Minnesota Wild. A sale would give them control of three of the Twin Cities' four major professional sports teams.
October 8, 1999 - Tomorrow is Leif Erikson day in the United States. This year, the date serves as a kick-off for year long celebration marking the millenium of the famous Viking voyage to North America. Norway, Iceland, the United States and Canada are planning events to honor the European who reached the New World almost five hundred years before Columbus. Urn Ardnar is a Counsul for Iceland and is a memeber of the Minnesota Leif Eriksson Millennium Commission of Iceland. He says the biggest event will be next year's re-enactment of the voyage using reproductions of Viking ships.