December 13, 2001 - All over Sweden, Norway, and parts of the United States people welcome the beginning of the holiday season with Santa Lucia Day. The celebration has become an important family tradition for commentator Nanci Olesen.
December 13, 2001 - Elk River is the state's second school district to approve a four-day week for its students. The Osseo school board decided last week to institute a shortened week next year. Officials in both districts say the move will allow schools to save on transportation and energy costs. A handful of smaller districts around the country are currently using the four-day week schedule. The tiny Calhan district in central Colorado shortened its week in 1980. District officials estimate the move cut costs by about 2 percent. District Superentendent Bob Selle (Sel-lee) says he was initially skeptical the savings were worth it. But he says four different studies show the four-day week has no affect on achievement:
December 10, 2001 - A delegation of more than 100 Minnesotans is back from a week-long trip to Israel. The group arrived in Jerusalem during a wave of suicide bombings that has so far killed more than two dozen Israelis. Steven Silverfarb represented the Minnesota Jewish Community Relations Council on the trip. He says the most memorable part for him was talking with a group of high school students in northern Israel.
December 6, 2001 - Many parents in the Osseo School district are in shock over the plan to move to a four day school week. Debbie Hanslip is former president of the Elm Creek Elementary Parent Teacher Organization. She says she can't understand the decision.
December 5, 2001 - A Minnesota man is safe but shaken after witnessing today's suicide bombing in Israel. Mark Rotenberg was returning from a prayer service early this morning when he heard an explosion. A suicide bomber had detonated an explosive package of nails and bolts outside a hotel where Israeli foreign ministers were meeting. The attack injured two bystanders and killed the bomber. Rotenberg is one of 125 Minnesotans visiting Israel as part of a goodwill trip. The Minnesota delegates were staying at the King David Hotel just up the block from the bombing. Rotenberg says he was in a taxi at the time of the attack.
November 28, 2001 - Amnesty International is issuing an urgent call for its one million members to write letters to President Bush to protest the detention of Zacarias Moussaoui, (Moo-SOW-ee) a French citizen allegedly connected to the September 11th attacks. Moussaoui was arrested in Eagan last August, but has not been formally charged by the Justice Department. Shortly after September 11th, the FBI labeled Moussaoui the twentieth hijacker. But government officials backed away from that claim earlier this month.
November 27, 2001 - Sun Country executives are meeting today with at least two potential investor groups. Earlier this month the financially-strapped airline announced it was for sale and yesterday it cancelled scheduled services to major east and west coast cities. By the end of this week, the airline will return to its roots by emphasizing charter services to leisure destinations such as Florida, Mexico and the Caribbean. Hobbit Travel President George Wozniak and his group of investors is meeting at this hour with Sun Country. Wozniak says the talks are preliminary, but the group is genuinely interested in purchasing the airline:
November 26, 2001 - The Minneapolis-based American Refugee Committee will soon begin providing medical, legal and economic assistance to Afghan refugees in Iran. Some of the refugees have been displaced from their homes for two decades. A-R-C's General Counsel Michael McCormick and two of his colleagues just returned from visiting refugee camps across Iran. He says people started fleeing Afghanistan when the Soviet Union invaded in 1979:
November 22, 2001 - Henry Bosse was hired by the Army Corps of Engineers to photograph the Upper Mississippi River at the turn of the century. His photographs of the Mississippi from St. Anthony Falls to Grafton, Ilinois show the transformation of the river from an untamed wilderness to the busy commercial corridor of the industrial era. Bosse printed his river photos using iron salts to produce a misty blue image. The photos were first displayed at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. Because they were government property the army sold copies for a mere 40 cents. Today the prints are worth twenty-five thousand dollars. University of St. Thomas Journalism professor Mark Neuzil has compiled Bosse's photos in "Views on the Mississippi: The Photographs of Henry Peter Bosse."
November 21, 2001 - Deena Burnett lost her husband, Tom, on September 11th when the hijacked airliner he was aboard crashed in rural Pennsylvania. He managed to call Deena four times from his cell phone before the plane went down. Tom Burnett grew up in Bloomington. Deena and the couple's three children are spending this Thanksgiving with his family there. She was making breakfast at home in San Ramon, California when she got the first phone call: