December 27, 2004 - Mainstreet Radio’s Tom Robertson reports on how Anderson Fabrics in Blackduck, Minnesota is looking for immigrants to solve a labor shortage problem. After a failed attempt with Hmong employees due to a culture clash, company hopes to find a solution in the Twin Cities Latino community. Nearly 40 Latino workers moved from the Twin Cities to Blackduck in the fall of 2004. Blackduck school and community leaders are now bracing for what's expected to be a wave of Latino families.
December 29, 2004 - Mainstreet Radio's Tom Robertson reports that Federal agents at the U.S.-Canadian border crossing in International Falls have a new tool to enhance homeland security. Customs officials have begun using digital fingerprint technology to verify the identity of some foreign visitors.
December 31, 2004 - Mainstreet Radio's Erin Galbally reports on a fundraiser to help bring living quarters up to date at a Rochester convent, known as Assisi Heights. The Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi have made Rochester their home for more than a hundred years.
January 3, 2005 - The resettlement process for Hmong refugees will take longer than expected. Officials say it will last until June.
January 6, 2005 - St.Paul's police chief rejects a call from civil rights leaders to fire an officer involved in a scuffle last week with an 85-year-old man. Chief John Harrington says Officer Mike Lee acted appropriately when the man, Leon Nins, refused to cooperate during a traffic stop and began kicking the officer. Lee ended up using pepper spray to subdue Nins. Harrington says officials plan to charge Nins with assaulting an officer.
January 6, 2005 - St. Paul civil rights leaders are demanding an officer who allegedly maced an 85-year-old man be fired. They also want the federal Department of Justice to investigate possible civil rights violations. The demands stem from the arrest last week of Leon Nins as he was taking food to his wife in a nursing home. Officer Michael Lee pulled Nins over for a traffic violation. Nins then says Lee handcuffed him, used a chemical irritant and beat him on the legs and arms with his baton. Friends of Nins' from his church and his family stood by him at a press conference today. His son, Thomas Nins, a Baptist pastor from Connecticut, says he can't understand how his father posed any threat that warranted the officer's reaction.
January 6, 2005 - An 85-year-old man arrested for assaulting a St. Paul police officer says he did nothing to warrant being beaten and sprayed with a chemical irritant. Leon Nins was taking lunch to his wife in a nursing home when he was stopped by Officer Michael Lee. Nins says he couldn't understand why Lee got out of his unmarked squad car yelling at him. Nins claims Lee sprayed and beat him with a baton after he was handcuffed.
January 7, 2005 - Mainstreet Radio's Tom Robertson reports that Governor Tim Pawlenty and leaders of three northern Minnesota Indian tribes say they were pleased with an historic meeting on the White Earth Reservation. Much of the discussion centered on the governor's push to change the landscape of casino gambling in the state.
January 7, 2005 - St.Paul's police chief rejects a call from civil rights leaders to fire an officer involved in a scuffle last week with an 85-year-old man. Chief John Harrington says Officer Mike Lee acted appropriately when the man, Leon Nins, refused to cooperate during a traffic stop and began kicking the officer. Lee ended up using pepper spray to subdue Nins. Harrington says officials plan to charge Nins with assaulting an officer.
January 10, 2005 - The St. Paul officer at the center of a police brutality complaint against an 85-year-old man will face a federal civil rights trail in an earlier case. The US Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled officer Michael Lee and the St. Paul Police Department are not immune from a civil rights complaint in the 2001 shooting of Charles Craighead. Lee mistook Craighead for a car jacker and fatally shot him. Craighead was wrestling over a gun with the suspected carjacker. Frederick Goetz is the attorney for Craighead's family. He says the ruling provides an opportunity to air the facts of the case.