September 14, 1999 - A group of former Excelsior Henderson Motorcycle Company employees has filed a lawsuit claiming the company violated federal law when it laid off nearly 100 people earlier this month. The workers say they were entitled to two months notice prior to the elimination of their jobs.
September 3, 1999 - Excelsior Henderson Motorcycle Company is hoping massive job cuts and a management shakeup will be enough to turn around the company. Excelsior Henderson has been plagued by finanical problems since it began producing its "Super X" motorcycles early this year. The Bell Plaine manufacturer broke news of the restructuring to employees yesterday afternoon. Today industry observers are applauding the changes.
September 3, 1999 - Belle Plaine-based motor cycle manufacturer Excelsior Henderson is cutting its workforce by nearly half to reduce costs and attract additional financing.
August 31, 1999 - Sarah Jane Olson is due back in Los Angeles County Superior Court this morning for a pretrial hearing on charges she conspired to blow up police cars in Los Angeles more than twenty years ago. Olson is the former fugitive "Kathleen Soliah". Her attorneys say prosecutors have no evidence she took part in the attempted bombings. And as her trial nears, they say there are NO negotiations toward settling the charges with a plea bargain.
August 30, 1999 - Among the thousands of Minnesota State Fair workers are senior citizens. MPR’s Mark Zdechlik reports on these older workers and interviews numerous retired individuals about their reasons for taking on roles on the fairgrounds…and it’s not for the money. They reflect a growing number of older Americans choosing so-called post retirement employment.
August 27, 1999 - Northwest Airlines flight attendants have REJECTED a tentative contract agreement by a wide margin. The Teamsters union announced the results of the ballot last night in Detroit, home to Northwest's largest hub. The union and the airline say they're hopeful a new agreement can be reached without work interuptions like the pilot's strike which shut down the airline a year ago.
August 20, 1999 - Health officials are urging doctors to be on the look out for a strain of antibiotic resistant staph that, for the first time, is beginning to surface outside hospital and nursing homes. At least four upper Midwestern children have died from the infections so far, including two Minnesotans.
August 3, 1999 - In less than a month Kathleen Soliah, known as Sara Jane Olson in the Twin Cities, is due back in a Los Angeles County Court room for a pre-trial hearing on charges she conspired to kill Los Angeles police officers. Freed on a million dollars bail, Soliah is waiting under electronic surveillance at home in St. Paul for her trial to begin. A Los Angeles County Grand Jury indicted Soliah in 1975 for allegedly conspiring to commit murder by placing pipe bombs under L.A. police cars. Minnesota Public Radio's Mark Zdechlik spoke with some of the people involved in the case more than twenty years ago and prepared this report.
July 12, 1999 - The St. Paul Companies announced it's getting out of the personal insurance business and cutting hundreds of jobs at its downtown headquarters. The insurance giant is selling its personal insurance divisions to Metlife because it thinks it can make more money focusing on commercial insurance products. 17 hundred people work in the company's personal insurance operation -- 500 in Minnesota. . Metlife says it will retain all of them through the end of the year and that after that it will keep as many as possible.
July 9, 1999 - Agriculture experts from around the world gathered in St. Paul to talk about the future of farming. The University of Minnesota conference comes at a time when farmers are facing unprecedented pressures resulting from plunging prices, rapidly changing technologies, and increasingly stiff competition in world grain markets. The challenge For US policy makers is equally tough, for taking care of farmers at home may clash with equally important objectives -- one of these is inducing Foreign countries to open their markets more fully to American agricultural exports. ANOTHER is get them to end or lower subsidies for their own farmers that may crowd American farmers out of other export markets.