Monday, June 29

Friday night's storms also hit the Twin Cities very hard, knocking down many trees and power lines. In St. Paul 18 thousand NSP customers are still without power. Six thousand homes are still powerless in Minneapolis. Minnesota Public Radio's Laura McCallum reports.

Thirty thousand NSP customers are still without power in the Twin Cities after Friday night's storms. In Southeastern Minnesota the damage was worse. Two people are dead and a third is missing and presumed drowned from storm-related accidents. The Friday night storm flooded homes and roads and began a weekend filled with heavy rains, high winds and rapid-fire lightning. Minnesota Public Radio's Art Hughes reports.

A thousand year old religious tradition arrived in Moorhead over the weekend. More than a hundred guests of honor from Norway attended the dedication of Minnesota's first Stavkirke, an ornate wooden church fashioned from huge logs, covered with carved dragons heads. Minnesota Public Radio's Hope Deutscher reports.

On Future Tense: The Uniform Commercial Code is a set of laws intended to promote uniformity across state lines. Under the UCC, participants in a transaction in Minneapolis have the same rights and responsibilities as participants in an identical transaction in Indianapolis. The software industry is seeking an addition to the commercial code to cover shrink-wrapped software, databases and other information. The industry says the current code works fine for goods and services, but not for software, which it argues is neither a good nor service. The proposed Article 2b designates software as a license so existing regulations about goods and services wouldn't apply. Attorney Marc Nebergall with the software publishers association says Article 2b gives existing software licenses more teeth.

It's a shortened week on Wall Street, thanks to the 4th of July holiday. Traders will keep a wary eye on Asia and corporate earnings. Minnesota Public Radio's Chris Farrell is a bit skeptical about the prospects for a big summer rally.

On Saturday Clinton met with China's President Jiang Zemin. The welcoming ceremony was held on the steps of the Great Hall of the People adjacent to Tianamon Square. Minnesota Public Radio classical music announcer Mindy Ratner is living in Beijing for the year, working as host of a music program on China Radio International. She was invited to the ceremony and says the tight security made it difficult for her to get there.

Tuesday, June 30

It's predicted that $8 billion dollars in business transactions will take place on the internet this year, and that number will top $300 billion dollars by the year 2002. After a somewhat slow start, entrepreneurs in rural Minnesota are starting to venture onto the Internet. Minnesota Public Radio's Tom Robertson reports that many rural communities are just now beginning to develop the infrastructure necessary for businesses to take advantage of what is expected to be an explosion in global electronic commerce.

Federal officials have announced details of a plan to take the grey wolf off the endangered species list. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit says he's asked the Fish and Wildlife proposal to have a proposal ready by this fall, so the wolf could be de-listed sometime next year. Minnesota, with the largest wolf population in the lower 48 states, is at the center of the plan. Minnesota Public Radio's Mary Losure reports.

There's a fight going on in Washington, over our next ambassador to Luxembourg. And the fight is much bigger than the size of that country might imply. James Hormel, President Clinton's nominee and member of Minnesota meat-packing dynasty, would be America's first openly gay ambassador. His nomination is stalled, caught in a bigger, long standing disagreement about homosexuality itself. From Washington, Emily Harris reports.

On Future Tense: Studying the impact of sex on the Internet.

Wednesday, July 1

Farmers are expecting a near record harvest this fall in southern Minnnesota, good news you'd think, except they're worried the crop could overwhelm grain shippers, especially railroads. Using the Union Pacific railroad has been a headache for many farmers in recent years, and they wonder if they'll see more of the same this fall. But railroad officials say they'll do better. Mainstreet Radio's Mark Steil reports.

An environmental group lists Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness as one of the nation's 15 most endangered Wilderness areas. The Wilderness Society says the threat to the BWCA is due largely to new legislation, allowing the return of motor use to some portages. Minnesota Public Radio's Bob Kelleher reports.

University of Minnesota President Mark Yudof will celebrate his first anniversary in the job doing what he did often during the past year, traveling in outstate Minnesota and eating pancakes. He'll visit Waseca later today to meet with community leaders and staff at one of the university's agriculture experiment stations. Yudof says he's learned a lot about Minnesota through such visits. He credits the knowledge gained on the road for helping the university win record financial support from the legislature. It's been a good year for Yudof and he says it's just the beginning. Minnesota Public Radio's Tim Pugmire reports.

On Future Tense: The US Treasury Department is trying a new electronic payment system that e-mails checks over the Internet. So-called "E-checks" work like regular checks, only they involve no paper, they're signed and endorsed with digital signatures, and there's much less "float" time, or delay between when you write the check and when money is deducted from the account. Currently, electronic money transfers like direct deposit of paychecks require a third party to do the accounting. E-checks require no intermediary and are expected to save both time and millions of dollars in processing costs. Martin Mayer, a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, recently saw a demonstration of the echeck system in Boston. He says Americans write 65 Billion checks a year at an estimated cost of over 200 billion dollars. He thinks echecks will be much more efficient... and at the same time will be widely used by banks and businesses because they preserve much of the current system.

Last night, the National Basketball Association owners locked out the players. That means all the teams including the Timberwolves will not be able to sign or work with players until the labor issue is resolved. Meanwhile, today is the deadline that the Vikings have set for offers to buy the team. Planning for the next football season is in limbo until that is resolved. MPR Sports Commentator Jay Weiner is never in limbo and he joins us now.

Praising the "ingenuity and energy" of China's cosmopolitan center of capitalism, President Clinton today urged his communist hosts to open markets, battle corruption and clean up the environment. Clinton expressed disappointment that he and President Jiang Zemin failed to reach agreement on lowering trade barriers and other economic reforms. Noor Doja, executive director of the Minnesota Trade Office, has been following the China trade situation and he joins us now.

Thursday, July 2

This year's severe storms have created a backlog of work for some people, including utility crews repairing and replacing weather damanged components. Minnesota Public Radio's William Wilcoxen caught up with a Northern States Power crew replacing a transformer behind a Grand Avenue storefront in St. Paul.

Citizens from around the state questioned seven candidates for Minnesota Governor at a forum last night. The questions ranged from sports stadiums to affordable housing, but most boiled down to education, taxes and crime. Minnesota Public Radio's Laura McCallum reports.

On Future Tense: During President Clinton's visit to China this week, Commerce Secretary William Daley called on Beijing to ease its control over the Internet. China now has more than 1 million Internet subscribers according to government figures. That's less than one-tenth of a percent of China's population, but a huge increase from 1992 when only 250 people in China were on-line. Beijing is encouraging the growth of the Internet as a tool for commerce, but at the same time keeping tight rein on how it's used. The government owns all the Internet service providers in China. It also blocks access to pornographic and politically sensitive web sites, from Playboy to the New York Times. Hui Pan is director of the Asia Pacific for Information Gatekeepers, a telecommunications publishing and consulting firm in Boston. He says China's leaders want to take advantage of the internet and maintain control of it by building China's own INTRA-net.

In the city of Bloomington thousands of trees that were lost in the storms were burned this week and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is investigating that burn. The MPCA may fine Bloomington becasue if the ash runoff ends up polluting the Minnesota River. Charles Honchell is the Director of Public Works for the city of Bloomington.

In May, 23 percent of all complaints received by the Department of Transportation about air travel were against Northwest Airlines. The May issue of the Air Travel Consumers Report ranks Northwest as the worst U-S airline. In addition to the complaints, Northwest is listed as the second worst airline in on-time performance and baggage handling. Northwest Spokesman Jon Austin says May was an unusally difficult month for the airline.

For the last 39 years Ron Graham has been cracking down on business fraud and he's had to deal with everything from shifty door-to-door salesmen to Internet scam artists. This week Graham is retiring as President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Minnesota, a job he has held for twenty years. He told Minnesota Public Radio's Bob Potter that he's seeing the same basic scams today that he saw at the beginning of his career.

Friday, July 3

San Antonio billionaire Red McCombs has purchased the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings' current owners say McCombs has signed a purchase agreement that needs only the approval of the National Football League to become final. Minnesota Public Radio's William Wilcoxen reports.

Several hundred Laotian immigrants from around the upper Midwest protested the St. Paul visit of the U-S ambassador to Laos last night. Many of the protestors say their family members have been killed by the Laotian government, and they criticized Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin for not doing enough to stop human rights abuses. Chamberlin says there are signs of progress in the communist country. Minnesota Public Radio's Laura McCallum reports.

D-F-L state senator Doug Johnson loves to take jabs at the famous names running for governor this year. He says his rural background and his career as an educator set him apart from the Humphreys, Freemans, and Mondales. But his "common man" rhetoric masks a skillful campaigner who could make a big splash in September's crowded Democratic primary. Minnesota Public Radio's Amy Radil reports from Duluth.

It's the fourth of July holiday weekend. Besides picnics, swimming and boating there will be fireworks. In Minnesota the private use of fireworks is illegal. Some say the laws should be changed to accommodate fireworks for July 4th celebrations. Minnesota Public Radio's Mark Zdechlik reports.

It's not often an artist gets the chance to add to what some already consider a masterpiece. That's exactly the opportunity one Minneapolis composer recently had...as he wrote a soundtrack for a 75 year old silent film classic. Minnesota Public Radio's Gretchen Lehmann reports.

A software industry trade group estimates software manufacturers lost 11.4 billion dollars in 1997 as a result of piracy. A recent report by the Software Publishers Association says 4 in 10 copies of business applications are bootlegged. The SPA and a larger group, the Business Software Alliance, serve as the country's software police, auditing and occasionally raiding companies to see if they have licenses for all the software stored on their systems. One consultant estimates the average corporate workstation stores about 400 dollars worth of unlicensed software. Bill Holder is president of Micropath, a technology asset management company in Bellevue, Washington.

Forty men from Minnesota are in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania this morning to take part in re-enacting the pivotal Civil War battle which took place 135 years ago. The men are representing the First Minnesota Regiment which captured a Confederate flag from the 28th Virginia Regiment during the battle. The flag is currently held by the Minnesota Historical Society, but now the Virginia re-enactors say federal law requires that the flag be returned. Keith Gulsvig is on the battlefield at Gettysburg acting as captain of Company C of the First Minnesota Volunteers. He says he doesn't know if the charge in which the flag was captured will be re-enacted this weekend.

Meteorologist Mark Seeley talks about storms, tornados, etc.

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