November 29, 1999 - To close out the millennium, Minnesota Public Radio's All Things Considered presents a look back at Minnesota life in 1900 via a 12-part series, entitled “A Minnesota Century.” This segment is the story of Fredrick McGhee, a civil-rights advocate and Minnesota's first black lawyer, who left an important local and national legacy.
November 29, 1999 - The World Trade Organization begins its Seattle round of trade talks tomorrow. The negotiations create the ground rules for global trade discussions over the next three to five years. Negotiators have been unable to even agree on an agenda for the talks. Agriculture is one of the top items on the agenda, and one of the most troublesome. The tough negotiations highlight the complexities of domestic and international agriculture policy.
November 29, 1999 - Mankato residents will have to sort through no fewer than a dozen candidates in an upcoming special election for mayor. Typically a candidate's political philosophy can be the most important factor in a race. But when Mankato residents elect a new mayor in February, their stand on a controversial railroad expansion will be centerstage.
November 29, 1999 - Will Paul Wellstone break his long-standing promise not to run for a third term in the U.S. Senate? In an interview published in the Mesabi Daily News over the weekend, Wellstone seemed to suggest he'd consider running a third time. Today he said those comments were just speculation, and he says he still intends to come back to Minnesota at the end of his second term. But Wellstone ALSO opened the door wider for a campaign for Governor in 2002.
November 29, 1999 - A ninety-year-old beerhall, disguised as a more mundane cafeteria for most of the century, is about to reappear in the basement of the Minnesota State Capitol. A team of restoration experts has been working for a year and a half on the cafeteria, scraping away 20 layers of paint to reveal the room's original, German beerhall-style murals. The work has been arduous -- restorers spent the first six months chipping the paint off the ceilings with scalpels. Now the project is almost done, and Minnesota Public Radio's Martin Kaste took a tour with the Romanian-born expert overseeing the project.
November 30, 1999 -
November 30, 1999 - Saint Paul school district officials say they want more public input on their plans to end the social promotion of students. School board members and administrators discussed the proposed promotion and retention policy last night. But a final vote won't come until early next year.
November 30, 1999 - The state won't receive its first payment from the tobacco settlement endowment until January, but the health department is making plans to launch a massive anti-smoking campaign aimed at teens, more and more of whom are picking up the habit. Katie Tilley is a senior at Eagan High School and one of two teens who serves on the Tobacco Endowment Advisory Group. Katie recently traveled to Florida to see how that state has cut teen smoking by about twenty percent in ONE year.
November 30, 1999 -
November 30, 1999 - The last cars went through Minnesota's emmissions testing stations today, as the program officially came to an end after 8 years.