July 14, 2000 - A professor at Macalester college who studies faraway stars has won a grant for nearly $400,000 from the National Science Foundation to continue her research. Astronomer Kim Venn uses high tech computers and huge telescopes in Hawaii and Chile to analyze the light from stars and learn more about how galaxies are formed. Venn says she got started in her field a little bit differently than most astronomers do.
July 14, 2000 - A University of Minnesota graduate has discovered that many of the people who built the United States Capitol and the White House were black slaves. Edward Hotaling is a journalist and historian in Washington DC. While doing research on the 200th anniversary of the construction of those buildings, he discovered Department of Treasury pay slips which indicated that slave labor was used.
July 13, 2000 - The strike at the Pepsi bottling plant in Burnsville has entered its second month, and there's no end in sight. About 450 workers who bottle and deliver Pepsi products in the Twin Cities area walked off the job in mid-June. They say the company's last offer fell short on several issues, including retirement and health care benefits. Kelly McAndrew is a spokewoman at Pepsi Bottling Group's headquarters in New York. She's on the line now.
July 6, 2000 - Soul Asylum and the Bo Deans will be two of the bands featured at the Basilica Block Party in Minneapolis this weekend. The block party is an annual event at the Basilica of St. Mary, which has been a landmark in Minneapolis for nearly a century. Peg Guilfoyle (GILL foil) has written a new book about the history of the basilica. One of the things she finds most interesting about it is its role as both a public and a private place. She says that dual role is illustrated by an event at the basilica in the early 1940s.
June 30, 2000 -
June 26, 2000 - It could be slow going for drivers on Hennepin Avenue in uptown for the next couple of weeks. Starting this morning, the street will be reduced to two lanes between Franklin and Lake in order to repave it. The construction is part of a 2.7 million dollar project which started at the beginning of June and is intended to create safer intersections and better street surface on Hennepin in the uptown area. Larry Matsumoto (mot -- like tot -- sue MOE toe) is the paving engineer for Minneapolis and oversees all road construction in the city. He's on the line now.
June 26, 2000 -
June 26, 2000 -
June 26, 2000 -
April 26, 2000 - MPR’s Bob Potter talks with Lee Pao Xiong, member of the Metropolitan Council, about what has changed in the past 25 years for the Hmong community. Xiong is the first Hmong appointed by the governor to a state policy-making body.