MPR News Update

The Minnesota Orchestra and the sound of silence

by Matt Sepic, Minnesota Public Radio,
Hart Van Denburg, Minnesota Public Radio

Today in the MPR News Update: The Minnesota Orchestra is canceling its fall concerts after management locked out musicians amid a labor dispute. A trial begins for a Minneapolis man accused of helping the terror group al-Shabab in Somalia. And mourners remember those who died in Thursday's shooting at a Minneapolis business.

SOUNDS OF SILENCE: Minnesota Orchestra management locked out its musicians at midnight Sunday, and has canceled concerts through November, after the two sides failed to reach a contract agreement. Meanwhile, at the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, management and musicians, facing their own midnight deadline, decided to keep playing under the old contract while talks continue.

IN MOURNING: As two victims remained hospitalized at Hennepin County Medical Center on Sunday, friends and family on mourned five others killed by Andrew Engeldinger with a gun last week at a Minneapolis business. Hundreds of people attended the funerals of Accent Signage owner Reuven Rahamim and his second-in-command, Rami Cooks.

BUSINESSMAN, TINKERER: Rahamim was a classic American success story, friends and colleagues say. As a young sign maker arriving from Israel in the 1970s, he worked for others until he could start his own business in the mid-1980s. Rahamim built Accent into a company with more than $5 million in annual sales and 3,500 customers, rooted in the Bryn Mawr neighborhood but stretching across the world.

AL-SHABAB LINK?: The first trial in the government's investigation into al-Shabab recruitment in Minnesota is set to begin today with jury selection. Mahamud Said Omar, a former janitor at a Minneapolis mosque, is charged with facilitating a second wave of young Twin Cities men who traveled to Somalia in 2008 to join the extremist group.

SCHOOLS TURNAROUND: The state Department of Education will release plans by the state's lowest-performing schools to improve student performance. The plans, which require the state's 130 lowest-performing schools to show how they intend to turn things around, represent another step in how the state has changed its system to evaluate schools' performance.

NO TEST SECURITY: The federal government has no standards to protect the integrity of the achievement tests it requires in tens of thousands of public schools, and test security among the states is so inconsistent that Americans can't be sure those all-important test scores are legitimate, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

SHREDDER EMISSIONS: The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency will vote Monday on whether to require an environmental impact study for a north Minneapolis metal shredding company that wants to increase emissions. Over the objections of some neighbors and several concerned agencies, the MPCA staff has recommended against the impact study.

BOY SCOUT PEDOPHILES: The Boy Scouts of America plan to begin doing what critics argue they should have done decades ago -- bring suspected abusers named in the organization's so-called perversion files to the attention of police departments and sheriff's offices across the country.

HEALTH EXCHANGE CUSTOMER SERVICE: Minnesota and other states are developing health exchanges: an online, one-stop shop for consumers to compare competing health plans. The law provides for assistance from humans as well, but there is a big debate about who should provide that help.

MARRIAGE AMENDMENT ADS: Minnesota for Marriage, a group working to pass a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, announced today that it will start running TV ads in support of their efforts. The group said the two ads are a part of a series of ads that will be run during the final weeks of the campaign. The first ad focuses on the history and tradition of marriage.

BACK ON THE BENCH: When last we saw the chief justice of the United States on the bench, John Roberts was joining with the Supreme Court's liberals in an unlikely lineup that upheld President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. As the new court term begins, there will be more landmark cases that test the chief justice and his colleagues.

HOSPITAL PENALTIES: As of Monday, Medicare will start fining hospitals that have too many patients readmitted within 30 days of discharge due to complications. The penalties are part of a broader push under President Barack Obama's health care law to improve quality while also trying to save taxpayers money.

FACT-CHECKING QUIST, WALZ: In their first debate, 1st Congressional District DFL Rep. Tim Walz and his Republican opponent Allen Quist went head-to-head on a range of topics, from health care to the economy. PoliGraph looked at five of Walz and Quist's claims.