July 11, 2003 - Mainstreet Radio’s Bob Kelleher reports that Minnesota's premier hiking trail is finally complete - it's taken fifteen years. A missing eight-mile stretch of the Superior Hiking Trail has been cleared through northeast Minnesota forest and the trail now runs, without break, 235 miles from Two Harbors to the Canadian border. The trail features wind swept views of the world's biggest lake, challenging hills, beavers, bears, moose, and mosquitoes.
July 11, 2003 - In this edition of Word of Mouth - Mainstreet Radio’s Tom Roberston profiles the writers of the Northwoods, including novelist Will Weaver; writer Kevin McColley; poet Susan Carol Hauser; and non-fiction writer Kent Nerburn / MPR’s Chris Roberts profiles Nathan Keeper’s “Fully Commited” comedy / St. Paul poet Paul Dickson reads a poem on highschool / Arts-round-up
July 12, 2003 - Reverend Naw-Karl Mua the Saint Paul pastor recently released from a Laotian prison, says he wants the U.S. government to help Hmong rebels living in the jungle. Mua spoke publicly for the first time today at a press conference in Maplewood.
July 14, 2003 - For lots of young people, summer means time to go to camp. There are different kinds of camps - hockey camp, language camp, Girl Scout camp. An increasingly popular option for talented young instrumentalists is music camp. MPR's Stephanie Hemphill visits Madeline Island out on Lake Superior, where young people from around the Midwest spend four weeks playing classical music.
July 22, 2003 - Mainstreet Radio's Erin Galbally visits Andrea Een, a hardanger fiddler extraordinaire and a well-known music professor at St. Olaf College. To the untrained eye the Hardanger fiddle, Norway's national instrument, looks much like the violin. But the nine-string fiddle produces its own distinctive sound. That sound and the instrument will be celebrated at St. Olaf College in Northfield, where more than 300 hundred enthusiasts of the violin sibling are expected to attend.
July 23, 2003 - MPR’s Art Hughes reports that new information released by the U.S. Census gives a more detailed look at the state's Hmong population. When the Census was taken in 2000, Hmong Minnesotan's held jobs, but a third of them lived below the federal poverty line. The majority of Hmong are foreign-born, but over 30 percent are born in the state.
July 24, 2003 - The prosecutor in a high-profile Duluth murder case 26 years ago says tests of DNA on an old envelope confirm the prosecution's case. From the beginning, authorities suspected Roger and Marjorie Caldwell of entering Glensheen mansion and killing Duluth heiress Elisabeth Congdon and her night nurse Velma Pietila. As Elisabeth's adopted daughter, Marjorie Caldwell, stood to inherit a substantial sum from Congdon's 8 million dollar estate. Roger Caldwell was convicted of the murder and Marjorie was aquitted. She was later convicted of arson in an Arizona case and is still serving time. Caldwell committed suicide in 1988, but maintained innocence in his suicide note. John de Santo, one of the prosecutors in the murder case, has just co-authored a book called "Will to Murder." He says new evidence proves the couple's guilt.
July 31, 2003 - Minneapolis police officials say they are still looking for suspects in the shooting of a 19-month-old girl Tuesday night. They say Deasha Hazley was sitting in her living room with her family when two gunmen approached the house and fired through a window. The shooting of the young girl was one of several shootings in the same north Minneapolis neighborhood in the last week. City officials are renewing their call for tougher law enforcement and neighborhood leaders are calling on city residents to lend a hand.
August 1, 2003 - As peacekeeping troops wait to enter Liberia, there's another, less visible group, waiting in the wings in the United States. As MPR’s Rob Schmitz reports, many young Liberians are in school receiving training, and developing skills that they hope they can use to rebuild their homeland.
August 13, 2003 - Mall of America officials are disputing a Newsweek article in which an FBI agent says the mall "is a huge recruiting center" for teen prostitution. The article features the Bloomington mall in a photo and an interview with a 16-year-old girl who said she was approached by three pimps while shopping. Mall officials say they have many methods in place to deter pimps---including a parental escort policy, two outreach programs and a substation of the Bloomington police. Leslie Johnson is a spokeswoman for Catholic Charities--and is involved with an outreach program targeting troubled teens at the mall. She says there IS a rise in the number of teenage prostitutes--but it's not just at the Mall of America. Johnson says anywhere teens congregate is a magnet for people who try to recruit teens into prostitution. In her work with the Catholic Charities' Hope Street Program, she sees many homeless teens who are vulnerable to predators.