Monday, March 16

When an explorer sets off on a new adventure these days, it's a sure bet students are going along too...albeit from their classrooms via the internet. Computer technology allows today's adventurers to instantly share photographs and written accounts of their discoveries. Most schools with computer-savy, crerative teachers have tapped into some form of adventure learning. They say it a great way to motivate students. Minnesota Public Radio's Tim Pugmire reports.

As Minnesota's tobacco trial enters its eighth week of testimony, the state is likely to rest its case. The state and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota are suing tobacco companies for nearly two-billion dollars in treating smoking-related illnesses. Minnesota's case has already gone further than many predicted. Some analysts say a settlement could be right around the corner. Others believe the case is likely to go all the way to a jury verdict. Minnesota Public Radio's Laura McCallum reports.

Duluth's City Council decides tonight whether to either increase the tax on city's restaurants or hotels, to help pay for a planned expansion of Duluth's Convention Center. The City's 12-and-a-half percent tax on some hotel rooms ties Bloomington and St. Paul for highest in Minnesota. A new tax increase also faces an uncertain future in the Minnesota Legislature, which has to approve the increase. Minnesota Public Radio's Bob Kelleher reports.

Get ready to allemande left and dosey doe. Dan Sahlstrom is one of a handful of full time professional square dance callers in Minnesota. Sahlstrom who's from St. Paul calls and teaches squaredancing. He's been doing it since l977. Today on our Odd Jobs report, Sahlstrom talks about his work.

On Future tense: Making the web more useful with XML.

Chris Farrell discusses the mood on Wall Street.

Martin Kaste previews the week ahead at the Capitol.

Tuesday, March 17

California researchers investigating Minnesota's deformed frogs have found new evidence linking the deformities to chemicals known as "retinoids." Retinoids are chemical cousins of vitamin A that can cause abnormalities in laboratory frogs, mice, and other animals----and birth defects in humans. Minnesota Public Radio's Mary Losure reports.

Debate over a proposed ban on certain abortions has been put on hold by the Minnesota Senate. Abortion opponents say the Senate majority leader squelched debate because he didnt have enough votes today to defeat the ban on so-called "partial birth" abortions. From the capitol, Minnesota Public Radios Eric Jansen reports.

At first glance it would seem like a school boards' dream come true: a small school district filled with luxury homes whose owners pay hefty property tax bills. But its a major problem in Pequot Lakes, north of Brainerd. Rachel Reabe of our Mainstreet Radio team has the story.

When you think of Minnesota tourist spots, you probably don't think of Owatonna. But that may change when Cabela's, one of the nation's biggest sellers of sporting goods, opens a retail entertainment complex on I-35. Cabela's ships out 60 million catalogs every year...and a couple of million of the company's customers could bring changes to Owatonna. Minnesota Public Radio's Lynette Nyman reports.

Future Tense host Jon Gordon is at South By Southwest '98 in Austin, Texas this week. It's billed as an interactive festival for web developers, multimedia producers and game developers. Translation? It's a cool place to find gizmoes. At these sorts of conventions, someone always has the hot product that's going to dominate the future. That's why Jon Gordon of Future Tense is there and he thinks he found it...a product that downloads music from the Interent.

What makes a friendship? Many are based on shared values, interests, sometimes simply living in a shared space. But Peace Corps volunteer Marianne Combs finds it difficult to make friends among the women in her new home...a village in the west African nation of Ivory Coast. She's just seems too alien. Here is Marianne's most recent "Letter from Africa."

A form arrives in the mail offering a chance to win thousands of dollars, a car or TV. But the small print says by signing it, you're authorizing a new long-distance company to take over your service. State officials say that's one tactic phone companies are still using to "slam" customers a year after an anti-slamming law took effect in Minnesota. Slamming occurrs when a long distance phone company switches your service without permission. US West says slamming complaints more than doubled last year in its 14-state service area. Scott Wilensky is an assistant attorney general. He says current law penalizes companies by making them refund charges to customers whom they've slammed, but that hasn't stopped the practice.

Wednesday, March 18

Tobacco attorneys say they'll ask the Minnesota Supreme Court to review an order releasing nearly 40-thousand secret industry documents for the state's lawsuit against the tobacco companies. State's attorneys believe this cache of files details damaging conduct by the top levels of the tobacco industry. Minnesota Public Radio's Elizabeth Stawicki reports.

The Minnesota State High School League will decide Thursday if high school teams should be allowed to practice during the summer. Opponents believe its another step toward year round sports. Supporters say athletes who want to practice during the summer with their coach should be given the chance. Mark Steil of Mainstreet Radio reports.

The timpani, sometimes called the kettle drum, takes the spotlight this week at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. The chamber orchestra's principal timpanist Earl Yowell plays a seldom performed concerto for 8 timpani. Percussionists enjoyed special status as court musicians in the old days, and Yowell says their status is rising again among new music composers. Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson has more.

As the editor of the Hungry Mind Review for the last decade and a half Bart Schneider has been examining and critiquing books by others. Now he is experiencing the other side of the literary equation as his first novel Blue Bossa is published. Schneider told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr the book tells the story of an aging jazz trumpeter, who after recieving great acclaim in his youth has given up music, in part because he sees it as the only way to escape heroin addiction.

On Future Tense: Earlier this week, two data marketing giants--Great Universal Stores and Metromail--announced they're combining. It'll form a huge database of consumer credit history. It's also raising concerns about privacy issues. And that issue is going to come to a head later this year when new laws in Europe make it illegal to exchange data with countries that do not have similar privacy laws. That includes the US, which has relied on companies and web sites to regulate themselves. Some people think that's not good enough. Jason Catlett is one of them. He heads Junkbusters, an organization that helps eliminate junk messages and also alerts you to the dangers of direct marketers.

Governor Carlson says he supports spending 50 million dollars in state money on a light rail transit line between downtown Minneapolis and the Mall of the America with a stop at the Twin Cities Airport. Earlier this week, the Metropolitan Airports Commission voted to spend 150 million dollars for new parking ramps, road improvements and a skyway connection between two airport concourses. This is just a small part of a 1.7 billion dollar airport expansion project that is designed to accomodate growth in airport traffic through the year 2010. After that, another billion dollars may have to be spent on a brand new terminal. John Himle sits on the airports commission.

Chris Farrell previews the special on deflation which will air on Midday today.

Thursday, March 19

An economist told jurors in Minnesota's tobacco trial that tobacco companies conspired to prevent the development of a less-harmful cigarette because doing so would throw the industry into a dogfight of competition. The testimony boosts State and Blue Cross Blue Shield claims that tobacco companies broke anti-trust laws by supressing research into smoking and health. Minnesota Public Radio's Elizabeth Stawicki reports.

Surrogate motherhood has been a controversial practice in the United States ever since the widely-publicized "Baby M" case in 1986. That's when surrogate mother Mary Beth Whitehead fought an unsuccessful court battle for custody of a child she was paid to bear for another couple. Since then a quiet and fundamental change has swept through the business known as "commercial surrogacy." Most surrogate mothers today are not genetically related to the children they carry. That fact may increase both the number of babies born through surrogacy and the legal security of the arrangements. Minnesota Public Radio's Stephen Smith has more in the next part of our ongoing series, "The Fertility Race."

When most of us get ill, we expect a doctor to be able to figure out what's making us sick. But in some rare cases, doctors are baffled. It's especially troubling when someone gets seriously ill or dies. Since 1995, the Minnesota Department of Health has catalogued 22 cases where people got critically ill or died for no known reason. As Minnesota Public Radio's Brent Wolfe reports, scientists hope studying the cases will help them prepare to fight new diseases before they have a chance to spread.

In a normal year, March is the snowiest month in Minnesota. Naturalist Kathy Heidel says that trees are specially designed to handle the snow when it comes.

State funding for a new St. Paul hockey arena could be in jeopardy because of questions surrounding a deal between the Minnesota Wild Hockey Team and the company it chose to oversee construction of the arena. The team awarded the construction contract to Minneapolis-based M.A. Mortensen after the company paid the team's 100-thousand dollar N-H-L initiation fee. We get an update from John Knapp who lobbies on behalf of the Minnesota Business Partnership at the state legislature.

For years, senior citizens enrolled in HMOs in Minnesota have received fewer Medicare benifits than their peers in other states. That's because Medicare's funding formula dictated lower payments in places like Minnesota that were cutting health care costs and higher payments in places like Florida that had high health care costs. Last year, Congress tried to fix the problem but the disparities have only gotten worse. Now lawmakers are taking another shot. We talk to 2nd District Congressman David Minge about the problem.

On Future Tense: What will the web be like in the future? What will we use it for? Steven Johnson has thought about these questions alot. Johnson is co-founder of the online magazine "Feed" and author of the book Interface Culture. We have an excerpt of Johnson speaking this week at a conference of digital publishers in Austin, Texas.

Friday, March 20

A Minneapolis lawyer says she will open the first program in Minnesota to recruit surrogate mothers. for surrogate motherhood. The Minnesota Surrogacy Center will match infertile couples with women willing to carry a baby for them...for a fee. Surrogacy arrangements have been conducted privately in Minnesota for more than a decade, but many infertile couples have to travel to other states to find surrogate mothers. Supporters of the plan say a surrogacy program is badly needed. But the center is already drawing opposition from at least one state lawmaker who wants to outlaw paid surrogacy. Minnesota Public Radio's Stephen Smith reports in the next installment of our series, "The Fertility Race."

Tobacco attorneys are celebrating a State supreme court ruling that blocked the release of sensitive tobacco files. The justices issued a stay while they consider whether those files should remain sealed and out of the State's lawsuit against the tobacco industry. Minnesota Public Radio's Elizabeth Stawicki reports.

The economy is strong - unemployment is low...just the equation that MIGHT mean the end for the nation's food shelves. But many food shelf operators say it's likely they'll serve even MORE people this year because of welfare reform. Minnesota Public Radio's Gretchen Lehmann reports.

On Future Tnese: A new philosophy strikes a balance between digital technology cheerleaders and naysaysers. It's called "techno-realism.". Its statement of principles includes such ideas as "the internet is revolutionary, but not utopian.". Perhaps its most controversial principle is that the government has an important role to play on the electronic frontier. That runs counter to a strong anti-government strain that runs deep in the computer and online worlds. Three people dreamed up technorealism as a philosophy. One is Steven Johnson, author of the book Interface Culture and co-founder of the online magazine "feed."

The musician known as the king of the flute makes his Twin Cities debut tonight. Chen Tao is lauded in China as one of the country's most accomplished musicians. The New York Times calls him a "poet in music." Chen and two other acclaimed Chinese musicians will perform a concert of traditional Chinese music tonight in Minneapolis, as Minnesota Public Radio's John Bischoff reports.

Ginny Yingling of the Sierra Club talks about her group's opposition to more logging roads in Nationa Forests.

Meteorologist Mark Seeley talks about the weather.

Nolan Zavoral talks about his book about Iowa wrestler and coach Dan Gable.

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