Monday, August 16

A new survey indicates Minnesota companies received a record $108 million in venture capital funding in the second quarter of this year. Venture capital generally refers to investments in start-up firms that are not yet mature enough to seek funding in the stock market. But as Bill Catlin reports, Minnesota still lags in the share of venture capital it receives.

In 1997 and 1998, a series of almost a dozen suspicious fires destroyed a number of older buildings in Superior, Wisconsin. Investigations into the causes and perpetrators of the fires were inconclusive. Author Mike Savage draws on the arson episodes in his new mystery novel Burn baby Burn. Minnesota Public Radio's Amy Radil reports.

St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman delivers his budget address tonight. St. Paul is facing a budget shortfall in the coming year and will be faced either with raising taxes or cutting city services. To gather opinions on how to balance the budget, Mayor Coleman posted a questionnaire on the Internet asking residents to decide whether particular services should be cut or funded with new taxes. Joe Reed is the Budget Director for St. Paul, and he's on the line now.

Tomorrow, St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman will lead a group of St. Paul residents, business leaders and officials to Denver to attend a baseball game in Coors Field. It's the first of several tours intended to show supporters and skeptics how new baseball stadiums have affected the economy of other cities. The St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce is paying for the trip and financing a campaign to promote St. Paul's November ballot initiative on the stadium. Ray Faricy is a former DFL state legislator and a current resident of St. Paul's Lowertown neighborhood, a potential location for a new stadium.

Last year Congress passed the Internet tax freedom act, which imposed a three-year moratorium on any new state and local taxation of goods sold over the Internet until a 19-member blue-ribbon commission studied the situation. The commission is plugging away, and its recommendations are due next March. Don McCubrey chairs the department of information technology and electronic commerce at the University of Denver. He says there's a lot at stake.

The financial markets remain focused on inflation but the latest set of numbers were benign. The question remains, though, about what the Federal Reserve will do the week after this. Here's what Minnesota Public Radio's chief economics correspondent, Chris Farrell, thinks.

A delegation of St. Paul business and government leaders is heading to Denver today to tour that city's baseball stadium and the surrounding neighborhood. Many supporters of an open-air ballpark in downtown St. Paul point to Denver's "Coors field" as an example of how a new baseball stadium can help spur economic development. One of the questions ballpark skeptics have raised about the St. Paul plan involves the lack of a roof. It's been almost nineteen years since the Minnesota twins played a home game outdoors. The attraction of outdoor baseball on balmy summer days is undeniable but its practicality on Minnesota's chilly spring and autumn evenings is more debatable. Minnesota Public Radio's William Wilcoxen reports.

For most of this century, churches across the country kept their doors unlocked 24 hours a day. Church was a place to head any time, for sanctuary. Today, you would be hard-pressed to find a church, in the city or the country, without a lock on its door. Burglary and theft of church property; from electronic equipment to religious articles, has become common. In a recent incident in Fargo, police caught a man they think is responsible for a series of burglaries at area churches. Church officials realize their sanctuaries are no longer immune from crime. Now they face the task of balancing locked doors with open arms. Mainstreet Radio's Tim Post reports.

Soccer star Brianna Scurry was back in Minnesota last night. Scurry was one of the heroes of the US Women's World Cup final victory last month. She blocked a kick from the Chinese team during the final shoot-out. Scurry was born in Dayton, Minnesota and attended Anoka High School. She was in town last night for the Minnesota Lynx final game against Cleveland. She says things have changed for the better since she was young.

Governor Jesse Ventura is proposing that the state Commerce and Public Service departments be merged. At a news conference yesterday Ventura said the merger makes sense because Commerce regulates banking and insurance, while Public Service regulates utilities. The change can be stopped by the Legislature. Kris Sanda served as Public Service Commissioner during the Carlson administration and as one of four commissioners in the Commerce Department during the Quie administration. She joins us now in the studio.

Late last week, the FBI and Twin Cities' law enforcement officials arrested five men who allegedly ran a juvenile prostitution ring. Authorities say the men are members of a Minneapolis crime family who operated their prostitution ring in 24 states. They say at least fifty women - some as young as 14 - were forced to work in massage parlors or escort services. In St. Paul, the police department is also fighting prostitution, and it has a website featuring convicted clients and prostitutes. Michael Jordan is the spokesman for the St. Paul Police Department, and he's on the line now.

Huge white pines once covered the Great Lakes region. But turn of the century logging wiped out almost all the old growth pines and new diseases have taken a toll on the white pine grown in their place. Now foresters with the DNR have stepped up their efforts to replant white pine in large numbers. And as Kathryn Herzog reports, researchers are going to great lengths to ensure the trees will survive for centuries to come.

Call it an obsession. This morning, book aficionados in Duluth are lining up outside the doors of the downtown public library for what has become an institution as well as a library fund-raiser: the annual book sale. They are prepared to mow people down or elbow them aside, all in the interests of finding the perfect cheap summer reading. Minnesota Public Radio's Amy Radil reports.

A federal jury in Minneapolis has cleared WCCO-TV and Anoka County in a defamation lawsuit that attracted national interest. A former Minnesota woman sued WCCO after she was named as a suspect in her husband's 1993 murder but was never charged. The case raised the question of how far a news organization must go to ensure that public officials comments are true. Minnesota Public Radio's Patty Marsicano reports.

MPR's William Wilcoxen reports from Denver on the ballpark junket.

Residents of Minneapolis may have noticed more of the dreaded painted orange rings around the elm trees in their neighborhood this year. The orange ring means the tree is infected with Dutch Elm disease and will be cut down. Last year 800 trees were cut down in Minneapolis, this year that number could be as high as 2000. Ralph Sievert is the Director of Forestry for the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board and he's on the line now.

A group from St. Paul has returned from a scouting trip to a major league baseball stadium in Denver. Residents and business people toured Coors field and the surrounding neighborhood with an eye toward how St. Paul might build a similar ball park for the Minnesota Twins. Minnesota Public Radio's William Wilcoxen was along on the trip and he has this report.

The watchdog group Common Cause Minnesota has filed a complaint against Governor Jesse Ventura, alleging the Governor violated state conflict of interest laws by agreeing to guest referee a pay-per-view wrestling match. The law prohibits state employees from profiting from their positions. Some estimates say Ventura could make $1 million in fees and royalties from the World Wrestling Federation event this weekend, which is raising eyebrows among many political leaders. Minnesota Public Radio's Laura McCallum reports.

For the past year and a half we've heard periodically from Tim Dufault, a farmer near Crookston. Late last fall he was worrying about how to pay the bills for another year. Minnesota Public Radios Dan Gunderson paid another visit to the Dufault farm this week.

Representatives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are expected to vote today on an agreement with the Episcopalian Church that's referred to as "Called to a Common Mission." The agreement would allow for a common communion ceremony and the exchange of clergy. The Episcopalians have scheduled their vote for next week. A similar agreement was narrowly defeated by the Lutherans two years ago. Clark Morphew writes about religion for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and he joins us now.

Now that a judge has ruled that it's okay for Governor Jesse Ventura to participate as a guest referee, it looks like everything is set for the World Wrestling Federation's Summer Slam Sunday night at the Target Center in Minneapolis. To get a sense for what we might expect to see at Summer Slam, we turn to Peter Farrell, the 13-year old son of MPR's Chief Economics Correspondent Chris Farrell. Peter is a big WWF fan who has conned his dad into paying for the pay-per-view broadcast of the event.

Housing advocates are cheering a decision to once again postpone demolition of public housing on Minneapolis' near north side. Officials say they'll consider saving seventy units that remain from the hundreds demolished at two public housing projects. The demolition results from a housing discrimination lawsuit charging the city with concentrating poor people in one neighborhood. But advocates worry the postponement is a symbolic victory and doesn't solve the problem. Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson reports.

Two weeks ago hundreds of people in downtown Minneapolis hurled bottles and rocks at police officers in a melee following the closing of Warehouse District bars. Such violence would have been unheard of when the district was primarily home to artists and galleries. But the area has transformed in recent years. Visiting German Journalist Torsten Teichmann visited the Warehouse district and he has this report.

The Minnesota Lynx play the 16th and final home game of their inaugural season in the WNBA tonight at the Target Center in Minneapolis. While the Lynx won't make the playoffs, team officials are calling the season a success because the Lynx have been averaging over ten thousand tickets sold per game. That's the fifth highest attendance in the league. Pam Scmid covers the Lynx for the StarTribune newspaper. She says tonight's crowd could be the biggest of the season.

Meteorologist Mark Seeley talks about a wet growing season in 1999.