Minnesota Public Radio Stories

• Peter Bjorn and John perform in the Current studio
  With the release of their third and most successful album, Writer's Block, Peter Bjorn and John gave us the year's most popular whistle on the track Young Folks which has been called an "Indie-Rock Anthem."3:50 p.m.
• Metrodome is training ground for marathoners
  One of your New Year's resolutions may be to get more exercise. But getting exercise can be a challenge during the gloomiest, coldest part of the year. Still, every week hundreds of people have found a cheap, accessible, warm place to run off those holiday pounds -- they go to one of the largest buildings in Minneapolis.4:45 p.m.
• Upheaval at local newspapers tops 2007's media stories
  As 2007 draws to a close, All Things Considered looks back at the top local media stories of the year.5:20 p.m.
• Students use drama to talk about being immigrants
  Some fourth graders at a St. Paul elementary school are taking a creative approach to the hot topic of immigration, performing a play they conceived and wrote about what it means to be an immigrant.6:25 p.m.

National Public Radio Stories

• Kansas Town's Green Dreams Could Save Its Future
  After a tornado nearly destroyed Greensburg, Kan., in May, city leaders came up with a revival plan: make it the greenest town in America. Among the projects are new homes and buildings that are more efficient than the ones they replaced.
• 'Young Folks' Singer Gets Taken by Trees
  Swedish pop singer Victoria Bergsman has a voice heard by millions around the world: That was her singing on the massive hit "Young Folks," by the indie-pop band Peter, Bjorn and John. But fewer people heard that she also put out a solo record in 2007.
• Former '60s Radical Recalls Days of Rage
  In the 1960s, Cathy Wilkerson was a member of the radical group Weatherman. She went underground for 10 years after an accidental explosion blew up a New York townhouse. The author of a new memoir is apologetic for her group's tactics, but not her politics.
• Riots, 'Disarray' Follow Bhutto's Slaying in Pakistan
  Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated at a political rally in Rawalpindi on Thursday, two months after her return to Pakistan. We hear from Bhutto's media consultant Farah Ispahani, who was at the hospital in Rawalpindi when news of her death was released.
• Details from the Scene of Bhutto's Assassination
  Washington Post Islamabad Bureau chief Griff Witte recounts Benazir Bhutto's assassination and describes the scene at the hospital where her body was taken after the deadly rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on Thursday.
• Bhutto Knew a Return to Pakistan Was Risky
  Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, daughter of an executed president and prime minister, was killed in a gun attack and suicide bombing Thursday in Rawalpindi. The 54-year-old was a fixture in Pakistani politics and was the Muslim world's first female prime minister.
• Bhutto Blamed Musharraf for Lack of Security
  In an e-mail she sent two months ago that was to be made public in the event of her death, Benazir Bhutto blames Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and the Intelligence Service for a lack of security and her ultimate death. The recipient of that e-mail, Mark Siegel, was a business associate and friend who had known her for 25 years.
• Obama, Clinton Make Last Rounds in Iowa
  With a week to go before the Iowa caucuses, Barack Obama gives what he wants to be his closing argument in a Des Moines speech, while Hillary Clinton stumps the length of the state talking up her experience.
• Checking In with New Hampshire as Primary Nears
  Felice Belman, executive editor of the Concord Monitor, and Joe McQuaid, publisher of the New Hampshire Union Leader, talk with Melissa Block about their newspapers' endorsements of presidential candidates and about how things are shaping up with New Hampshire voters before the Jan. 8 primary.
• 'Mister Pip' Brings Dickens Tale to the South Pacific
  On the short list for this year's Man Booker Prize for Fiction was a novel by New Zealand writer Lloyd Jones. The brilliant and compelling Mister Pip is set on a remote South Pacific island called Bougainville as civil war breaks out.

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