Monday, September 14

Northwest Airlines is asking its employees to redouble efforts to improve customer service now that the pilots strike is over. On Saturday leaders of the six thousand member pilots' union approved a contract agreement ending their 15 day strike. The deal the pilots signed will likely set the bar for negotiations with Northwest's five other unions. Minnesota Public Radio's Mark Zdechlik reports.

The DFL candidates for Governor took aim at Attorney General Skip Humphrey in the final debate of the primary campaign. Humphrey is leading in the polls, but his lead is shrinking. Now the other four Democratic candidates are looking for opportunities to bring him down further. Minnesota Public Radio's Martin Kaste reports.

All five DFL Gubernatorial candidates campaigned either by bus or by phone over the weekend, hoping to get the votes needed to win the September 15 primary. Minnesota Public Radio's Karen-Louise Boothe was on the trail with some of the candidates and has this report.

Today is the deadline for offers from bidders interested in buying or investing in the Minnesota Twins . A 30-day bidding period was a condition established in the new Metrodome lease signed by the team. Sports Commentator Jay Weiner has been following this story for Minnesota Public Radio.

Jon Austin, spokesman for Northwest Airlines, joins us for a discussion of the airline's plans to get its planes flying again.

Tuesday, September 15 is the Minnesota primary election. The candidates for the DFL nomination for governor used the final gubernatorial debate at the Fitzgerald Theatre as a last chance to emphasize their positions on key issues. Which of the five DFL candidates for governor will be chosen to run against Republican Candidate Norm Coleman? Joining us in studio with analysis is DFL political commentator Bob Meek and Republican commentator Tom Horner.

The first Northwest Airlines flight since the pilots' strike ended is leaving this morning. A freighter, going from the Twin Cities to Seattle and Tokyo, will transport 30-thousand pounds of company material and supplies needed for bringing the airline back to full operations. Some passenger flights are scheduled to begin on Wednesday. Once the company is back up to full speed a week from now, how well will it be able to compete? Mike Boyd is an analyst for aviation systems research Corporation and he joins us now.

Now that Kenneth Starr's report is out, the financial markets can focus again on the international economic situation. Minnesota Public Radio's Chris Farrell tells Bob Potter that traders won't see very much to their liking.

It's primary election day in Minnesota. The biggest brass ring on the ballot is the DFL nomination for Governor, a five-way race that still seems very much up-for-grabs. But there are other races on the party ballots, some of them just as hard to call as the DFL gubernatorial nomination. Minnesota Public Radio's Martin Kaste reports.

Some Northwest Airlines passenger flights will resume tomorrow and a Northwest Airlines spokesman says the company will have all daily flights back on schedule by early next week. However, more labor negotiations are on the horizon; Northwest's operations could unravel again if there's no contract with the company's biggest union, the International Association of Machinists. Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson reports.

The farm crisis is about to enter a new phase as Minnesota farmers begin their corn and soybean harvests, the state's largest cash crops. The price of these grains is so low most farmers plan to store the crop until prices improve. Farmers and grain elevators are scrambling to find enough space to hold the crop. Mainstreet Radio's Mark Steil reports.

The morning crew at KQRS Radio, led by host Tom Barnard, is again fighting claims of racism after comments made on the air about a tragedy involving a young Hmong girl. As Minnesota Public Radio's John Rabe reports, it's just the latest charge that the show is racist, cynical, trashy, and just plain not funny anymore. Nevertheless, Golden Valley-based KQ has one of the most-successful morning shows in the country.

Ernest Arvai, airline analyst with the Arvai group joins Morning Edition to discuss the winners and losers in the NWA pilots strike.

Secretary of State Joan Growe is not seeking re-election. After spending the past 24 years trying to find ways to get more people to vote, she's predicting turnout may be as low as 20 percent for this election. She joins Morning Edition to explain her forecast.

If adults are finding it difficult to read the Starr Report without blushing, imagine the plight of Patrick Duffy, a Social Studies teacher at Hopkins North Junior High. He anticipated that this subject matter would pose a problem in his lesson plan, so he polled his students and their parents about how he should deal with the Clinton/Lewinsky story in the classroom. Patrick Duffy is in the studio to share the results.

Lt. Mike Morehead of the St. Paul Police Department discusses a new effort to get drivers to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks.

In the race to succeed Skip Humphrey as Attorney General, DFLer Mike Hatch received 44 percent of the vote to defeat David Lillehaug who got 29 percent and Ember Reichgott Junge who received 24 percent of the vote. On the Republican side Charlie Weaver got 62 percent of the vote to easily defeat Sharon Anderson. That sets the stage for a November race between a former commerce commissioner who wants to investigate the health insurance industry and an Anoka state representative who wants to fight juvenile crime. Both winners have different plans for the office that's largely fought consumer fraud under Skip Humphrey's direction for the past 16 years. Minnesota Public Radio's Elizabeth Stawicki reports.

After an exceptionally long primary campaign with an unusually large number of contenders, the DFL party has narrowed its field of gubernatorial candidates to one: Attorney General Skip Humphrey. Strategists for the Republican candidate, St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman, say that now that they know who the opposition is, their campaign will intensify.

Attorney General Skip Humphrey will represent the DFL Party on the ballot for Governor in November. In the 1998 primary election, he defeated four challengers including the party-endorsed candidate Mike Freeman. Election results have cast further doubt on the value of the DFL party endorsement process.

Freeman wasn't the only party endorsee to lose yesterday. Attorney General candidate Ember Reichgott Junge finished a distant third in her race. In fact, only 2 of 6 endorsed candidates for statewide office prevailed yesterday. Minnesota Public Radio's Karen Louise Boothe reports.

Minnesota's race for Governor is now down to three major party candidates. Recent polls had predicted Skip Humphrey would win yesterday's five-way DFL primary. Humphrey, who has consistently had the highest name recognition, captured about 37-percent of the vote. Not surprisingly, Republican Norm Coleman, who faced only token opposition, won his primary; the Reform Party's Jesse Ventura, who had no opponent at all, also goes on to the November general election. Minnesota Public Radio's Laura McCallum reports.

Northwest Airlines planes are carrying passengers this for the first time since pilots went on strike 19 days ago. Northwest's first flight left San Francisco early today and arrived in Minneapolis shortly after 6:00 a.m. Other Northwest jets have departed from Minneapolis for Chicago, Detroit and Memphis.

Steven Schier, chair of the Political Science Department at Carleton College, discusses the results of the election.

In Great Britain, where the world's first test-tube baby was born, infertility doctors are much more closely regulated by the government than their counterparts are here in the United States. For example, British women are not paid for donating their eggs which, critics say, has created an egg shortage. Now, the owner of a Los Angeles egg donation agency is causing a stir by suggesting that American egg donors could fill the gap. Minnesota Public Radio's Stephen Smith has more in our series on infertility. Some of the names in this report have been changed to protect privacy.

The Minnesota Republican Party is spending 150-thousand dollars on a television ad attacking DFL gubernatorial candidate Skip Humphrey. The ad targets Humphrey for votes he made as a state Senator, including one to reduce the sentence for marijuana possession. But those votes were cast 25 years ago, at the time Humphrey's Republican opponent admits he was a pot-smoking college student. Minnesota Public Radio's Laura McCallum examines the ad's charges.

The general election campaign is only a day old and it's already shaping up as an old fashioned battle between business and labor. Minnesota Public Radio's Martin Kaste reports.

Canadian trucks will again be stopped and inspected at the North and South Dakota borders. State officials say grain won't be allowed through South Dakota unless it's proven to be free of disease. Livestock won't be admitted without written proof the animals are free of drugs banned in the United States. South Dakota Governor Bill Janklow says Canada does not play fair in regard to agricultural trade. But trade experts say it's legal harassment that will only hurt US farmers if it's allowed to continue. Mainstreet Radio's Cara Hetland reports on the issues behind the dispute.

U.S. beer sales have been flat in the last several years. Even the once explosive market for small craft-breweries shows signs of leveling off. Yet while other segments of the industry slow or even contract, St. Paul's Summit Brewing is poised to double production at its new brewery. Minnesota Public Radio's Michael Khoo visited the new facility and examines why, in the Twin Cities, the beer continues to flow.

In a new poll sponsored by Minnesota Public Radio, the Pioneer Press and KARE 11, most Minnesotans polled do not think President Clinton should resign over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. But there's a gender gap on some issues; women tend to be more supportive of Clinton's performance as President, and more willing to forgive him for his affair with Lewinsky. Minnesota Public Radio's Laura McCallum reports.

State conservation officers are already planning for the autumn waterfowl hunting season. With special goose hunts set for both September and December, this could be a long fall. Near New London, officers this week took a crash course to get ready, just think of it as spring training, for game wardens. Minnesota Public Radio's Leif Enger has our Mainstreet report.

Ten years ago Phillips residents defeated a plan to build a garbage plant in their Minneapolis neighborhood. This afternoon, a group breaks ground for a new office building on the site where the garbage facility was to be built. Organizers say the fight ten years ago gave residents the skills to begin the rehabilitation of Phillips, one of Minneapolis' poorest neighborhoods. Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson reports.

Earlier this week, the Minneapolis Grain Exchange began trading futures in a commodity with a little more flash than spring wheat: Electricity. If electric utilites in Minnesota are deregulated as expected, consumers may see bigger swings in electric rates. Jim Lindau, president of the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, says trading electricity futures will reduce the risk to consumers and producers of electricity.

Eight out of ten Minnesotans say the recent pilots' strike at Northwest Airlines won't have any effect on whether they decide to fly the airline again in the future. That's according to a Minnesota Public Radio/Pioneer Press/Kare-11 poll. Only 14 percent said they are less likely to fly Northwest because of the strike. We talk to Sis Mishou, Branch Manager of the Travel and Transport agency in St. Paul.

Macalester College in St. Paul could lose about 4 million dollars this year as a result of financial troubles at Reader's Digest magazine. A large portion of Macalester's endowment is made up of Reader's Digest stock. Magazine founder and Macalester alum DeWitt Wallace donated 10 million shares to the college in 1980, but the value of that stock has plunged in recent years from a high of 55 dollars a share to less than 20 dollars. This week, the company announced plans to cut dividends to shareholders. Michael MacPherson, president of Macalester College, says the school's budget is still secure.

Climatologist Mark Seeley says despite the warm weather, the seasonal forecast for fall still calls for below average temperatures.