July 22, 2003 - Water levels in every lake in Wright County are high, and residents are looking for help in dealing with the rising H-2-oh. There are about three-hundred lakes in the east-central Minnesota county, and roughly sixty of them have lakefront properties. Last week, county officials asked the state to request a disaster declaration for the area from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The request was turned down, but other forms of assistance are being pursued. Kerry Saxton of the Wright Soil and Water Conservation District says the area has been inundated with heavy rains this summer. But he says the current flooding is due, in part, to increased lakefront development.
July 18, 2003 - Minneapolis lawyer and human rights advocate Sam Myers says the war against terrorism has had a tremendous impact on civil liberties. Myers spoke yesterday as part of the Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights speaker series on national security. He says the emphasis on homeland security has had a chilling impact on the rights of citizens, and it's done little to ensure the safety of the nation.
July 16, 2003 - Four undocumented immigrants may be denied kidney transplants by Hennepin County Medical Center because they don't have the money to pay for the operations. The state Human Services department estimates that over 21-hundred immigrants are losing General Assistance Medical Care because of stricter eligibility requirements regarding legal immigrant status. Dr. Steve Miles is a professor with the Center for Bioethics in the University of Minnesota's Department of Medicine. He says the fact the patients are illegal immigrants should have no bearing on their ability to receive healthcare.
July 14, 2003 - The state's Department of Employment and Economic Development says the number of Minnesotans applying for unemployment benefits last month increased nearly 22 percent compared to last June. State Economist Tom Stinson says that although the economy is still struggling, the new unemployment numbers are a bit misleading. He says about one third of the increase stems from the fact that June contained five Mondays.
July 10, 2003 - For collectors of stoneware, Red Wing is a mecca. Nearly thirty-five hundred pottery fanatics have arrived in the Minnesota town for today's start of the annual Red Wing Pottery convention. People from across the country have come to buy, sell, and trade pottery. Kay Wilshusen is the business manager of the Red Wing Collectors Society. She says the group's members cross the nation in search of pieces that can date back more than a century. She says some have been known to pay up to thirty-seven thousand dollars for a Red Wing crock.
July 9, 2003 - The Fine Line Music Cafe will re-open tonight after being shut down by a pyrotechnics accident on February 17th. On that night, the band Jet City Fix set off fireworks that ignited the club's ceiling. About 120 people escaped unharmed, but the Minneapolis warehouse-district club sustained extensive smoke, water, and fire damage. Today owner Dario Anselmo says he feels blessed that his club is finally ready to re-open, but he says he can't seem to get the sights and sounds of February 17th out of his mind.
July 9, 2003 - A plane released 100 gallons of pesticide on the city of Fargo last night. It was the area's first aerial spraying for mosquitoes in almost 20 years. Heavy rain in North Dakota has led to a dramatic increase in the number of mosquitoes, prompting worries about the spread of West Nile virus. While pesticides have long been the preferred way to keep mosquitoes in check, the U.S. Agriculture Department is looking at using diseases to kill the bugs and slow the infection-rate of mosquito-borne illnesses. At an Agriculture Department lab in Gainesville, Florida, research entomologist Jim Becnel is working on what he calls "bug bioterrorism." Becnel says naturally-occuring diseases can be used to control pest populations.
June 23, 2003 - During the nearly three decades he played drums for the Grateful Dead, Mickey Hart made it a point to introduce audiences to percussion instruments and musical traditions from around the world. Today he's working to preserve and restore the audio created by human civilizations throughout history. In his new book, Songcatchers: In Search of the World's Music, Hart chronicles his quest to document sound. He says his passion for world music was inspired by a lucky twist of fate.
June 20, 2003 -
June 19, 2003 - Former Minneapolis mayor and U.S. Congressman Donald Fraser says back in the eighties, the United States overlooked human rights abuses in any country that proclaimed it was anti-communist.