MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Now that the weather is finally warm enough to head outside without a long-sleeved shirt or pants, the mosquitoes, ticks and black flies have appeared.

“They always bite my ankles,” said one woman sitting in a Minneapolis park Tuesday afternoon. “They love my ankles.”

That had us wondering: Why do bug bites itch?

According to Jim Stark, the executive director of the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District, we’re allergic to the mosquito saliva.

While male mosquitoes are vegetarians who feed on nectar, female mosquitoes bite humans. They need human blood as nutrients to develop their eggs.

“When the female mosquito feeds on us, she gives off a little saliva,” Stark said. “That saliva acts as a coagulant to keep the blood flowing readily.”

Once our body recognizes something foreign is present, it releases histamine, which causes our blood vessels to swell, hence the redness and irritation.

“There are proteins in their saliva that are irritants to our skin, and we have a little allergic reaction to that,” Stark said.
Mosquitoes reach the human blood by using their straw-like mouth part to puncture the skin to get to the blood vessels underneath. Ticks stick their mandibles into the skin and black flies slice open the skin.

“The black fly will make a little incision into your skin and then sponge the blood,” Stark said.

Scientists still haven’t figured out why some people are more susceptible to bug bites. They do know mosquitoes are attracted to the carbon dioxide in our breath and the lactic acid in our sweat and skin. They’ve also found a genetic link when it comes to reactions to bug bites, but they don’t know exactly why some people’s body smells are better at masking those attractive compounds to throw off the mosquitoes.

“If you could develop a repellent that is good at that, you’d be making a lot of money,” Stark said.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Democratic voters in Minneapolis got together this weekend to pick their preference for the city’s next mayor.

They couldn’t reach a decision, but if the recent past is any indication, the next mayor of Minneapolis will be a DFLer.

Of the 25 biggest U.S. cities, only Indianapolis and Fort Worth have Republican mayors.

So why are most major cities headed by Democrats?

The last Republican mayor in Minneapolis served from 1957 to 1961. Before then, the parties would switch every few elections.

Mayor R.T. Rybak says while Minneapolis has some of the state’s poorest and richest residents, it’s not the political views of the residents that have shifted over time.

“I grew up in southwest Minneapolis, and at the time I was growing up it was the most Republican part of the state,” Rybak said. “Today it’s the most democratic part, and the people haven’t changed that much.”

Dr. Kathryn Pearson of the University of Minnesota backs up Rybak’s observation.

“There were plenty of moderate and even liberal Republicans during the 1950s, but that’s just not the case today, when most Republicans tend to be conservative and most democrats tend to be liberal,” Pearson said.

She says more residents of urban areas identify themselves as Democrats.

“Urban areas tend to be more diverse, but diverse in ways that favor the Democratic Party,” she said, referring to populations of color, the LGBT community or lower-income families.

Minorities are more likely to live in cities. According to CBS News exit polls from the 2012 election, 93 percent of blacks and 71 percent of Hispanics voted for Democratic President Obama compared to only 39 percent of whites.

In terms of annual income, 60 percent of families who made under $50,000 voted Democratic compared to 45 percent who made over $50,000.

In 2009, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman won with 68 percent of the vote. Mayor Rybak took 74 percent.

“Any quality Republican is not likely to run for office in an urban area. They’re more likely to run for office in a suburban area, an exurban or a rural area,” Pearson said.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – With college debt topping $1 billion, some are wondering whether four years of college is worth the money. For years, we’ve known four-year college grads make hundreds of thousands of dollars more over their lives than those who don’t continue with school.

But there is new research that shows, in this new technological economy, that those who don’t end up graduating from a university can find good paying jobs.

At 30 years old, Zach Brenna decided construction wasn’t for him.

“You hit the peak of what you make, and your back starts hurting,” he said.

So now he wants to go for a two-year electronic engineering technology degree at the Dunwoody College of Technology. He knows he’ll make more money with that technology training than he would have continuing construction.

According to the Hamilton Project, a four-year college graduate is 20 percentage points more likely to have a job than someone with a high school degree.

On average, that graduate will make more than $12,000 per year.

But Dr. Steve Hine, the research director at Minnesota’s Department of Employment and Economic Development, says it’s “absolutely” possible to get a good-paying job without a four-year degree.

“For individuals with the right training, right proficiencies, if that be in math, engineering, science or something of that sort, there are employers out there anxious to reward those proficiencies,” he said.

According to a study from the Brookings Institute, half of all science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) jobs are available to people without a bachelor’s degree. As fields like medicine, manufacturing and building have become more technical, so have the available jobs.

“The car mechanic that 30 years ago could swap out a carburetor now has to be proficient at operating highly complex computerized machinery,” Hine said.

Those STEM jobs without a four-year degree also pay about $53,000 a year – 10 percent more than non-STEM jobs with the same education. For Brenna, he’s hoping his two-year degree will lead to a career.

“While I’m at it, get a house in the suburbs, and have three little kids running around,” he said.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen much sun these past few weeks, But Deeann Kraemer from Alexandria is a little more optimistic than me. She asked the following: Does partly cloudy or partly sunny give us more sunshine?

I had to take this one to WCCO meteorologist Lauren Casey.

“Partly cloudy is more sunshine and less clouds. Partly sunny is more clouds and less sunshine,” she said. “It would go sunny, mostly sunny, partly cloudy, partly sunny, mostly cloudy, cloudy.”

S. Belair from Minneapolis wanted to know: How long does a person have to claim the Powerball winnings?

Depends on the state. Here in Minnesota, it’s a year. In other states, it can be six months or 180 days.

Also, you have to show up in person to the lottery headquarters for your prize. By state law, the folks at the headquarters have to make your name and hometown public. If you want to stay anonymous, though, that’s allowed in five states, including North Dakota.

It is, however, public in Florida, though… so congratulations, Mrs. Mackenzie.

Mary Royer from Litchfield wanted to know: What should we do with old license plates?

Well, if you’re like most people, you should put them in a junk pile in your garage, but you can recycle the aluminum plates by taking them to a motor vehicle office.

In some states, you have to return them to the state, but in Minnesota there’s no requirement to return them or recycle them. The only rule is that you can’t put old plates on a different car.

In Minnesota, new license plates are required every seven years. That’s because they get weathered and the reflective surface wears off.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Most of us are used to throwing out round numbers when it comes to negotiating. Perhaps it’s $30 for Twins tickets instead of $28? Or perhaps it’s $250,000 instead of $249,600 for a new home?

A new study in the upcoming Journal of American Psychology finds people who start negotiations with precise number will ultimately end up with a better price.

The study’s results haven’t yet been published.

“People who use precise numbers seem more informed, they’ve done more research, they know more about the market,” said Dr. Malia Mason, Gantcher Associate Professor of Management at Columbia Business School. “People who use round numbers come across as uninformed, they’re just estimating and the numbers seem arbitrary to the recipients.”

Mason videotaped and studied simulated negotiations with 1,254 students. She found negotiations that led with precise rather than round numbers are more effective and have better settlements.

“Don’t just throw a number out there. Tell people where it comes from,” she said. “To the extent that you seem informed and prepared, you’re going to be better off in a negotiation.”

A similar Cornell University study found three zeros at the end of a home’s asking price lowered the final price by .73 percent.

As far as salary discussions, Mason thinks that’s bit of a different story. In that case, people aren’t just talking about pricing decisions, but other factors like vacation or office space than can affect the negotiations.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – With graduation and wedding seasons going strong, many people are giving and receiving gifts.

And, with those gifts, many of us were taught the proper response is a hand-written thank you note.

But, a recent survey found 67 percent of adults think the ability to write a thank you note has died out as texting and emailing has become more popular.

So, that has Stephanie Gustafson of Minneapolis wondering, “Is writing thank you notes becoming a thing of the past?”

“I do believe thank you notes are a lost art,” said Minneapolis etiquette expert Liz Taylor.

She strongly advocates handwriting for personal and business reasons.

“No. 1, it’s personal. No. 2, it makes people feel good. No. 3, it’s an easy way to make a favorable impression,” she said. “But, above and beyond anything, it’s common courtesy.”

The overwhelming majority of people who wrote into WCCO agree.

Amber Lenhoff tweeted, “When I was little, the rule was we had to write the thank-you note before we could play with them. I write them still.”

Temp firm Accountemps did a survey of HR managers and found the most common way they get a thanks for a job interview is email — 62 percent.

Another 23 percent said thank you over the phone. As for a hand-written note, it was 13 percent.

When those same people were asked what is the appropriate way to say thanks, 87 percent said email, 81 percent said phone, 38 percent said hand-written note, 27 percent said social media and 10 percent said text.

Beverly Franklin, a North Minneapolis artist, thought so much of thank-you notes, she started her own line to have people, “ appreciate and think about each other.”

As for children who receive gifts but can’t write yet, Taylor recommends a parent write the note and sign the child’s name. For graduating seniors, she’s adamant that anyone who gives a gift gets a note.

She recommends sending the note 24 hours after receiving a gift.

“It’s a thoughtful three sentences,” she said, “It might take you four minutes to write.”

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Every time there is the threat of a tornado, hundreds of storm chasers take their cameras and drive towards the danger. On Friday, three of the most respected chasers died during a tornado outbreak in Oklahoma.

Meteorologist Tim Samaras, his son Paul and their friend Carl Young were killed when their car got caught up in the twister.

No storm chaser has ever died before, but these deaths have some people questioning the value of chasing tornadoes. The people who do it say they risk their lives to better understand tornadoes.

Doug Kiesling of stormchasingvideo.com has been chasing weather since 1987. His SUV is hooked up with gear that allows him to transmit live HD video straight to the National Weather Service.

“We’ve been able to show them ‘Yes there’s a tornado on the ground. Yes, there is rotation on the ground,” Kiesling said.

He sells his video to news organizations and gives it away to the National Weather Service for training weather spotters. There is no professional association or licensing to chase. Kiesling estimates only 10-15 percent of storm chasers actually know what they’re doing.

“Unfortunately, you have a lot of people who see what we’re doing, and going, ‘That’s cool, we’re gonna go do that,” he said.

Kiesling knew the Samarases and Carl Young. He said they were among the safest chasers around. Tim Samaras’ scientific research was well-respected and he was a sought-after speaker at weather and emergency management conferences. He had been scheduled to speak at an emergency management conference in Minnesota later this year.

Todd Krause, warning coordinator meteorologist for the National Weather Service, believes storm chasers have saved lives.

“I really do. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind,” he said. “There’s no doubt when we get reports of tornadoes on the ground, people take shelter more quickly.”

Krause says there are three main ways storm chasers help the National Weather Service. The first is research. Since 1987, meteorologists have been able to increase their average warning time from four minutes to 14 minutes.

“Even within a few miles near tornadoes, things are radically different,” he said. “You do need to have those measurements close to the tornado.”

Second, Krause uses video from storm chasers to train his weather spotters.

“It’s amazing the number of people who don’t know what a wall cloud is,” he said.

Third, and most immediately important, storm chasers can tell the National Weather Service in real time about tornadoes that are forming or already on the ground.

“Radar is great, but radar is still just a machine,” he said. “You have to have people out there watching the storm to tell us what’s really going on.”

Storm chasing won’t go away with these rare deaths, but they hope it will keep away some of those inexperienced people.

As for the research, the National Weather Service says 20 years ago, scientists hardly knew anything about tornadoes. But they now know a lot more.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Some studies have shown running to be a better exercise when it comes to our health.

But, other studies – even from the same data set – have seemingly shown the opposite.

So, what is better: running or walking?

According to Rebekah Mayer, the national run training manager for Lifetime Fitness, “It really depends on your goals.”

One study from the journal of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise that looked at a database of 47,000 runners and walkers found when it comes to weight loss, running is better.

Even when people ran and walked the same distance (and, thus, expended the same amount of energy) runners still fared better when it came to keeping weight off.

A study from the Journal of Obesity found that might be due to a hormone produced by running that suppresses appetite.

But, another study published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology found that if you’re looking for overall better health indicators, walking the same distance as running is slightly better for blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease.

“The same amount of walking and running from an overall health perspective is going to be similar,” Mayer said.

She said people shouldn’t fear running because of the belief if causes more injuries.

She said both running and walking build strong bone density because of the impact, but runners have to be more careful to have good shoes and build up slowly.

“If you come in with some injuries, walking is definitely lower-impact, so it’s probably a good starting point,” she said. “But, if you’re not naturally really injury-prone, runners don’t necessarily have bad knees because they run. It’s more of a myth than anything.”

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — For more than five years now, Jason DeRusha has helped us better understand everything from politics to Pinterest, the war on terrorism to Twitter.

On Wednesday night, Jason was with the 10 p.m. news crew one last time to answer a final Good Question: What were your best Good Questions?

Watch the video above to see which of the 1,350 questions made the cut.

And don’t be worried. Jason isn’t leaving ‘CCO. He’ll join the WCCO This Morning team as an anchor alongside Mike Augustyniak and Natalie Nyhus.

And the Good Question segment isn’t going anywhere either. Heather Brown will now be taking your Good Questions.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Poverty is growing faster in Twin Cities suburbs than in most areas of the country, according to a recent report.

“It certainly is astounding how much poverty grew in the suburbs,” said Paul Mattessich, the executive director of Wilder Research, who’s been watching poverty for years in the Twin Cities.

In 2000, there were 95,000 suburbanites below the poverty line. By 2011, there were 205,000.

That’s about 1 in 12 suburban residents in poverty.

Is it possible to win the war on poverty?

“I would say yes, largely,” Mattessich said.

For an individual, the poverty line is marked at $11,484 a year. For a family of four, it’s $23,02 a year.

In 1965, about 15 percent of people were below the poverty line. Since then it’s moved up and down, but it’s always in that 12 to 15 percent range.

“It comes down to having enough jobs,” Mattessich said. “There is no inherent reason why a certain portion of the population must live in poverty.”

Some researchers think we are winning the war on poverty.

People at all income levels are consuming more, which means that programs like food stamps and the earned income tax credit are making a difference.

With more manufacturing jobs going overseas, they argue, poverty should be even worse.

The future, they say, is about education.

The suburban jump in poverty is eye-opening. But Wilder Research wants you to remember that there is still much more poverty in the cities.

One in four people in Minneapolis and St. Paul lives below the poverty line.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Each week, some of our best Good Question emails come from kids.

Let’s start in Coon Rapids.

Jane Hammes, a second-grader at Hoover Elementary School, asked on behalf of her class: “We want to know why barns are red?”

Back in the day, farmers didn’t have access to paint. They sealed their barns with linseed oil, which comes from the flax plant. And it’s orange-colored.

A lot of farmers added ferrous oxide to the oil. That’s rust. Rust killed fungus and moss and was a good sealant.

When paint became available, red was one of the cheapest colors. Farmers kept it red because of tradition. And that continues today.

Here’s a question from 7-year-old Eliza Hanson of Lakeland: Is a coconut a fruit or a nut?

Great question, Eliza. We asked a nutrition professor from the U of M, who told us a coconut is a fruit.

It is controversial, because nuts are technically classified as a fruit. A nut has one seed, so does a coconut.

But, technically, it’s a drupe — a kind of fruit that has a several layers, including a fleshy outer layer.

Peaches, Nectarines, mangoes and coconuts are all drupes.

Ten-year-old Bobby Wiesner, of Minneapolis, emailed in to ask a great question about our canine friends: “Do dogs have tears like humans do?”

The answer is no. Dogs do get liquid in their eyes, but vets wouldn’t call those tears.

Dog tear ducts work in reverse; they drain the fluid that keeps the eyes moist back into the dog’s nose and throat. So if you see a dog’s tears, it means the tear duct is blocked.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Managing money is the top thing couples fight about. And research shows that men and women have different habits, different styles of dealing with money.

Nicole Middendorf owns Prosperwell Financial. She thinks women get a bad rap, especially when it comes to spending.

“Men and women spend a lot of money,” she said .

But a 2011 Gallup poll showed that men spend $11 more a day than women.

What about financial literacy?

One researcher asked: Does buying a single company’s stock usually provide a safer return than a stock mutual fund?  Those questioned were given three choices: (1) Yes.  (2) No.  (3) I Don’t Know.

The answer is No.

Men got it right 57 percent of the time. Women, just 47 percent.

But the women clicked and admitted they didn’t know no often.

“And when they took out the don’t know, it was fairly equal. I think a lot of it was confidence [issues] for women,” Middendorf said.

One researcher analyzed 50,000 investment accounts and sorted it by gender.

“Women on average earn 5 percent more in their accounts than men,” Middendorf said.

There is one area of concern, where women are behind men, and that comes in investing in retirement accounts.

Forty-four percent of women are in their 401ks, compared to 51 percent of men.

Women tend to invest later, and they invest less.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Most of us don’t have a hard time finding the words to describe our feelings about the record-high gasoline prices facing Minnesota drivers. “Ridiculous” and “crazy” came from some gassing up in Uptown Minneapolis on Wednesday.

According to GasBuddy.com, it took just three days for prices to rise 50 cents, peaking at an average of $4.35 for a gallon of unleaded.

But from last Friday until Tuesday, the price has been dropping. Slowly. It’s been a 12 cent drop.

Why do gas prices rise quickly, but fall so slowly?

According to a 2010 report by the Federal Trade Commission, retail prices rise four times faster than they fall, when there’s a corresponding move in wholesale prices.

Researchers call it the rocket and feathers effect.

“You do tend to see a delay when there’s a reason to drop price,” said Akshay Rao, a pricing researcher and professor at University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.

Rao said when refineries catch fire or go down, prices should go up right away, so gas stations have cash to buy the next delivery.

“My current inventory has to take into account what the market is doing,” he said.

But when fires go out and supply starts to climb, we don’t notice.

“It’s less visible, less salient, and consumers are not hammering saying, ‘Hey supply went up, prices should be dropping,’” Rao said.

On the way up, we’re all noticing the price. We’ll go elsewhere to save a penny. It’s a competitive pricing situation, and perhaps counter-intuitively, the very high prices might involve less profit-taking. On the way down, however, all of the parties involved in the production and distribution of gasoline take advantage of our lack of knowledge.

“Most if not all markets are typified by significant factions of consumers who are not well informed,” said Rao, noting “there is profit-taking” and “greed” going on.

Some researchers have found that people are less likely to drive around comparison shopping on the way down, because of the “reference price” phenomenon. When you paid prices at $4.35/gallon, seeing a price at $4.25/gallon feels like you’re saving money.

Plus, gasoline isn’t a truly competitive market, because consumers typically buy gasoline when they need it, where they usually find it.

“People are habitual shoppers when it comes to gasoline,” Rao said. “They go to two or three stations.”

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The skies turn gray. The lightning cracks. Thunder booms. For most of us, a fleeting moment of fear is as bad as it gets.

“I was petrified of tornadoes. Would almost pass out when the sirens went off,” said Kathy Lauer on my Facebook page.

“Even when there’s not a storm, [kids are] checking the weather, they’re feeling nervous if it gets overcast. That’s different,” said Dr. Steven Whiteside, a Mayo Clinic child psychologist who specializes in anxiety.

He added: “When we’re working with anxious kids, we never promise something bad’s not going to happen. We try to get them to accept is that the chances of something bad happening are very low, and are not high enough to be worth worrying about.”

It can be a particular challenge when tornado damage dominates the news, as it has in the aftermath of the Moore, Okla., tornado. Schools were leveled, children were killed.

Should parents talk about it with their kids? Shield their kids from the news?

“It’s challenging, because we know kids talk about these things among themselves,” Whiteside said.

He suggested following your kids’ lead.

“In general, we encourage parents to let their kids talk about it, find out what they know, and try to respond to that,” he said.

Whiteside recommended that parents set the example.

“Kids pick up from their parents how they should react in a situation,” he said.

Tell children things like: thunder won’t hurt you. Explain that storms are a normal part of nature.

According to Whiteside, the same type of exposure-based behavioral therapy used to defeat many worries and phobias works well with weather-related phobias.
The theory is that parents can gradually help their children face their fears. Specifically, it can help to read stories about storms, research storms, watch videos of tornadoes or other storms. Ultimately you start watching rainstorms together, and even go outside to play in the rain.

“If we tend to avoid things that make us nervous, we never get the chance to learn that it’s not as bad as we thought they were,” Whiteside said. “That’s what can lead to anxiety getting worse over time.”

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – It’s important to remember that sometimes there’s nothing anyone could do. Tornadoes are powerful, mysterious, and random. But many of you had good questions related to the tragedy in Oklahoma.

• Why aren’t there basements in Oklahoma? – Betty Cozatt

It’s because of the soil. Some of it is really clay-like, which gets wet and causes basement flooding. The rest of it has bedrock, which can be very expensive to chip away at, if not impossible. If you want a basement, you might need to use explosives to clear the bedrock.

Nationally, only 31 percent of newly constructed homes have basements, according to the National Association of Home Builders. In Minnesota, it’s closer to 81 percent.

• Why don’t schools have storm shelters? – Brandy DuToit

It’s an expense issue. After a tornado in Joplin, Miss., they rebuilt schools with shelters which ended up costing more than $26 million.

In Wadena, where a tornado ripped through in 2010, the new high school has a 6,500-square-foot safe room designed to handle up to 250 miles per hour. It holds 1,100 people.

All schools in Minnesota do tornado drills. The standard procedure is to cover your head in the hallway, but when a tornado flies through at 200 miles per hour, there’s really nowhere that’s 100-percent safe above ground – unless you’re in a specially-designed structure.

• Does Minnesota get tornadoes with that kind of destructive power? – Meg Brownson

According to the National Weather Service, the last EF5 tornado in Minnesota was 1992 in Chandler. The weather service estimated winds reached 260 miles per hour. One person was killed, 35 were hurt and there was $50 million in damage.

Over the past 30 years, we average 37 tornadoes a year, but EF4 and EF5 tornadoes are extremely rare.

• What’s the best way to help Oklahoma tornado victims? – Greg Herman and Libby Otto

Right now the Salvation Army and American Red Cross are already on the scene and helping. No doubt other aid agencies will quickly respond.

Salvation Army: https://donate.salvationarmyusa.org/uss/eds/aok, or Text “STORM” to 80888 to make a $10 donation.

American Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org/charitable-donations, or text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10 to American Red Cross Disaster Relief.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Saturday’s Powerball jackpot is a record $600 million. And Kjirsten Johnson from Forest Lake asked: What happens if a winner doesn’t claim it?

By law, if someone wins, but doesn’t claim their prize, the money goes into the state’s General Fund — the main bank account for state government.

That happens with scratch offs, or any Minnesota Lottery game.

If it’s a multi-state game, like Mega Millions or Powerball, they take the prize and send it back to all the states involved in the game.

So Minnesota would get a piece of an unclaimed Powerball, in proportion to the percentage of tickets typically sold in the state.

Sherrie Stableski from St. Louis Park wondered: Can leaving my cell phone charger plugged in really run up my electric bill?

Sherrie, WCCO wants to know, since I have a bunch of chargers plugged in at my desk.

Phone chargers typically consume 0.1 watts of electricity when not charging. Compare that to a microwave, which consumes 3.5 watts.

Your Nintendo Wii, moreover, is the equivalent of 95 mobile phone chargers.

The truth is that your cell phone charger is barely sucking up a trickle — and having a couple chargers plugged in is not a big deal.

Every Friday at noon for years, WCCO has had an adopt-a-pet segment. Jessica Barnum from Bemidji wondered: How many WCCO pets get adopted?

We asked Carrie Libera from the Animal Humane Society, and the answer is…all of them.

They don’t know if the TV segment directly leads to the adoptions — they don’t track that.

However, Carrie said the phones start ringing the minute the pet is on TV.

It generates a lot of interest, and often, but not always, the pet goes home with a viewer.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Tom and Marcia Sheppleman asked: Where does Minnesota’s gas come from?

Almost all of Minnesota’s gasoline is refined here in Minnesota, according to the Department of Commerce. The Flint Hills Resources Pine Bend refinery near Rosemount makes 70 percent of the state’s gas. The rest comes from the Marathon Refinery in St. Paul Park.

Minnesota’s oil comes almost exclusively from Canada. But the amount fluctuates, according to Jake Reint, spokesman for Flint Hills in Minnesota.

He said that 80 to 90 percent of the oil for they purchase to make gasoline is from Canada. Pine Bend also brings oil in from North Dakota. In the past they’ve brought some in from the Gulf of Mexico.

Sheila from Stacy asked: What does a couple closed Chicago refineries have to do with our prices?

Because those repairs are taking a while, Minnesota refineries were selling gas to Chicago, according to Patrick DeHaan, petroleum analyst from GasBuddy.com. Right now the entire region has a tight supply… and so prices here jumped quickly.

Diane Runyan from New Brighton: Where is the North Dakota oil going?

According to Justin Kringstad and North Dakota’s Pipeline Authority, 71 percent of the oil goes out on train cars to refineries on the coasts.

Eight percent of the oil stays in North Dakota at its only refinery. Twenty percent goes on pipelines to the Midwest, some to Minnesota.

Dave Johnson from Owatonna: Why do they shut down several refineries at the same time?

Different companies own those refineries, and right now it would be against anti-trust laws to coordinate like that.

If you knew that two refineries were going to do maintenance, you might stockpile and take advantage of the higher price, according to Reint from Flint Hills.

“If you know the markets going to be short a certain number of barrels, you’d have a huge issue,” Reint said.

He said the equipment is set up to do maintenance on a part of the facility while continuing to produce gasoline from other parts of the operation.

“It’s a very competitive marketplace, and there are serious anti-trust rules. We don’t know what other refineries are doing,” said Reint.

Regardless, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), is calling for an investigation to see if there are ways to prevent having multiple closures in the same region at the same time.

“Scheduled maintenance should not be allowed to contribute to such a major gasoline shortage,” Klobuchar said.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – In a time where much has changed about marriage, one thing has not: the decision to keep your name, take your husband’s, hyphenate, or do something else.

Are women taking their husbands’ last names as often as they used to?

“I’m just really excited to now be my husband’s wife,” said Natalie Nyhus, WCCO-TV’s morning traffic reporter, who recently married and changed her name from Natalie Kane.

“One of the first things I did was change it on social media,” she said, noting “I didn’t want to live half as Natalie Nhyus and half as Natalie Kane.”

Despite the fact that women are getting married later, and participating in the professional world at a higher rate, women are actually getting rid of their maiden names at a higher rate than they were in the 1990s, according to several research efforts.

A Harvard University study analyzed Massachusetts birth records (which record the mother’s maiden name), Harvard University alumni records, and New York Times wedding announcements. They found that in the 1980s, only about 9 percent of brides kept their names. By the 1990s, it was 23 percent. But over the last 10 years there’s been a reversal. In the 2000s, only 18 percent of women kept their names.

A survey of 11,000 brides on TheKnot.com in 2011 found just 8 percent kept their names, 6 percent more hyphenated.

“It’s incredibly counter-intuitive,” said Carol Bruess, the director of Family Studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.

“This idea of taking the husband’s name is a sexist cultural practice,” she said, noting that its history is rooted in the idea of a man taking a wife as his property.

“The trend is so powerful, we just keep doing it,” Bruess said.

Researchers haven’t pinpointed why the trend continues, but Bruess said she suspects we’re “clinging to tradition in an age where so much is new and novel.”

The research doesn’t show women like Sarah Fleegel, now Averbeck, who made her maiden name her middle name. Nor does it show women who have invented new last names, by combining the maiden name and the husband’s name.

Bruess said she was married 22 years ago, and took her husband’s name.

“If I had to do it over again, sorry honey, I’d probably keep my own name,” she said.

“Naming is a practice in power,” she added. “When you look at it from the power perspective, this gives men, the patriarchy, a lot of power.”

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The cell phone video of a wall of ice marching towards Izatys Resort on Lake Mille Lacs is amazing. The slow-motion avalanche pierced the wall of at least one home.

When the weather gets crazy, does insurance cover it?

Troy Thompson, an agent with Pinnacle Insurance Agency in Coon Rapids, says “yes” In the case of the ice tsunami.

“You’d definitely be covered, because wind made the damage,” Thompson said.

Much like the winds of a tornado tossing objects into homes and causing damage, the winds from the ice tsunami destroyed at least two boat houses, and sent ice inside at least one resort condo along Lake Mille Lacs.

The same phenomenon hit a lake in Manitoba, Canada – destroying six homes and damaging 14 others.

“Wind is a named peril, which means it’s covered by your insurance company,” he said.

Floods are the only weather event generally not covered by standard homeowner’s insurance. Lightning, tornados and hail damage are all covered.

“Things like falling objects may not be covered, like meteors,” he said.

In Minnesota, earthquakes are extremely rare – but they have happened. If one hits your home, Thompson says insurance will not cover the damage.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – When you have a heart attack and are rushed to the hospital, you’re not usually thinking about doing some comparison shopping on price. But for the first time Thursday, the U.S. government released pricing information from hospitals around the country. And that data showed vast disparities in the amount hospitals are charging for the same procedures.

For example, a major joint replacement surgery costs $22,787 at Methodist Hospital, $38,550 at Maple Grove Hospital, and $56,102 at Unity Hospital.

“I’m gonna have to be truthful and say this is a black box,” said Dr. Roger Feldman, a professor of insurance at University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

Feldman said that it’s a mystery how different hospitals can arrive at vastly different prices for essentially identical procedures, although there are some factors that contribute to it.

“Every hospital has a charge master, a list of over 20,000 separate items that goes into a patient’s visit or admission,” he said. “How your charges develop depends on the accounting used.”

And every hospital does it differently. Take two hospitals both up-charging drugs 50 percent to keep their pharmacy operation breaking even. One might charge 1.5 cents for a one cent aspirin, marking that pill up 50 percent. Another might charge $25.01, deciding that the average pill cost is $50, so the policy is to mark up every medication $25.

“We should be outraged. No business should be doing this,” Feldman said.

Another example in the local data is heart failure treatment costs. At Methodist, the charge is $13,205. North Memorial charges $35,557, and the University of Minnesota Fairview Hospital charges $60,611.

“The government sees through this. They pay more or less the same for the same procedure. Private patients are likely to be charged the higher number,” Feldman said.

Private insurers also negotiate discounted rates from the sticker price.

But that’s not the only factor in the variety of sticker prices. “There is some gaming going on” by some hospitals, according to Feldman.

In effect, there’s an incentive to jack up the sticker price, knowing there’s a percentage of people who will not pay their bills. For-profit hospitals write the unpaid bills off as a loss, which help lower their taxes. Nonprofit hospitals in Minnesota are able to write that off as charity care.

Does it need to be this complicated?

“No, it doesn’t. Just like car pricing doesn’t need to be. I’m looking forward to the day when hospitals will be having real prices,” Feldman said.

To look up procedures at your hospital, you can see the government’s data online here.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The kind of kidnapping that captivates the country — and the media — is thankfully very rare. On average 115 children under the age of 18 are abducted by strangers each year, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Still, every parent wonders what to tell their kids about being safe from abduction. Should kids avoid strangers? Should they run? Or fight?

What is the right thing to teach our kids about kidnappings?

“We’re teaching about behavior,” said Karen Notsch, a Minneapolis Police Department crime prevention specialist.

According to Notsch: “Stranger Danger” is out.

“That’s not what we’re teaching,” she said, noting “it’s not always the strangers that are the ones they should be suspicious about. It could be a close family member.”

Every year, the Department of Justice says 200,000 young people are abducted by a parent, typically as part of a dispute.

Another 60,000 young people are kidnapped by people the kids knew.

“We need to talk to kids about that. Tell them, ‘You need to talk to me first before uncle so-and-so or your cousin gets you in the car,’” Notsch said.

Another change has come to the idea that if the kidnapper has a weapon, a kid should just go along. Notsch said says they should fight back.

“I think they need to draw attention and hopefully an adult nearby will notice,” shesaid.

Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped in Utah in 2002 and survived 9 months in captivity. She’s started a foundation that teaches kids to fight back.

Here’s why. The National Center for Missing Children looked at 7,000 attempted abductions between 2005 and 2012 and found 81 percent escaped by fighting back or by running away. Only 19 percent who escaped did so because an adult helped.

“I am amazed at kids’ intuition; they know when something doesn’t make them comfortable,” Notsch said.

The Jacob Wetterling Resource Center recommends teaching toddlers their name and to stay within sight, preschoolers how to use 911 and how to yell for help, and to give elementary school kids a family password and teach them the buddy system.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Maybe you remember Joe Mauer’s batting average, but forget your boyfriend’s birthday. Or you always remember a face, but never remember a name.

We are bombarded with millions of pieces of information every day, so why do we remember some things and forget others?

“It’s extremely complicated,” said Dr. Michael Rosenbloom, a neurologist and the director of HealthPartners’s Memory Clinic in St. Paul.

It all starts in the frontal lobes.

“The front of the brain also decides what’s important, what’s not important, what can we forget,” Rosenbloom said.

That’s where the working memory makes the first decision. But that short-term waiting room only has a couple seats.

“Seven pieces of information, plus or minus two. If it’s more than that, basically, it decays with time. This is one way the brain filters information and lets us hone in on the most important stuff,” he said.

The next stop is the temporal lobes and hippocampus…where memories get stored. Some memories are stored in the part of the brain dealing with visual memories, or verbal.

“It has to do with genetics. And a lot of times our experiences influence how good our memory is. For instance, I find artists have really good visual memories. For people who teach or are writers, their verbal memories are better,” Rosenbloom said.

Finally, the memories go to long-term storage in the cortex.

“There’s eventually a process called consolidation. When that happens, information is sent via a neural network to the cortex,” Rosenbloom said.

What’s fascinating is that this process is playing out constantly, and fairly efficiently.

But if the brain is filtering out unimportant stuff, how does the brain know what’s important?

“That’s a good question, and we could spend hours talking about that,” Rosenbloom said. “Somehow my brain has figured out how to hone in on what’s important to my life.”

The more connections the better. If you can attach a name to a face and link those with an emotion, it’s more likely you’ll remember that name.

Rosenbloom said there are several types of memories. Episodic memories are the day-to-day events and conversations of life. Working memory is that short-term processing place.

“There’s a different type of memory called semantic memory – which is more encyclopedic knowledge. ‘Who was the President during World War II?’” Rosenbloom said. People tend to retain that knowledge most relevant to their own careers and interests.

The strongest memory seems to be the procedural memory, the kind that lets us ride a bike or drive a car.
What kind of things can make your memories harder to retain?

Most commonly, insomnia affects memory. And if you’re not paying attention, it doesn’t make it to the rest of the brain, Rosenbloom said.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – When the Minnesota Vikings cut outspoken punter Chris Kluwe Monday, the team said it was strictly a football decision.

But Kluwe didn’t always see eye-to-eye with special teams coordinator Mike Priefer, who said late last season that he was getting tired of Kluwe’s public stances, suggesting Kluwe needed to focus more on punting.

Kluwe was outspoken in favor of same-sex marriage, gaining quite a bit of media and public attention. The punter responded on Twitter, essentially mocking his boss.

Whatever the real reason the Vikings had for cutting Kluwe, every employee and employer struggles with the line between at-work conduct and off-hour behavior.

Can you be fired for what you say outside of work? Justin Cummins, a labor attorney who represents employees in court, says “yes.”

Cummins points out that Minnesota, like 48 other states, is an “at-will” employment state.

“An employer can fire an employee for a good reason, a bad reason or no reason at all. As long as it‘s not for an illegal reason,” Cummins said.

Those illegal reasons include things like discrimination or retaliation.

Cummins says employees are protected when they speak out about conditions in the workplace. Complaining about wages, benefits or safety issues to coworkers is protected by National Labor Relations Act.

“They’re advocating for terms and conditions of employment superior to what they have, or they’re criticizing their conditions of employment,” he said.

Cummins says the protection extends to social media as well.

“It is certainly lawful to criticize the employer in social media. The National Labor Relations Board has said so,” he said. “The key, though, is that the criticism needs to be tied to the conditions in the workplace.”

What about political conversation? What if your employer simply disagrees with your political views?

“Political speech, generally speaking, is not protected in the way that, for example, complaining about terms and conditions of employment is,” he said. “Potentially you could be fired for it.”

The reality, according to Cummins, is that employers have good reasons to not fire people for politics. It’s bad PR, and it’s “chilling” for the work environment.

His advice is simple: Be careful of what you say.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — If we ever get out of winter, it’ll be sidewalk patio season. Heidi Jensen in St. Paul wondered: Can restaurants just put chairs and tables wherever they want?

Heidi sent me a picture of a sidewalk café, which she said was difficult to get around when she tried to push a stroller by.

I called the city of St. Paul, which said there are restaurants that can just put out tables without a special license. And they are all located in downtown St. Paul.

Everywhere else in St. Paul restaurants need a sidewalk cafe license, and it costs $86.

By law in St. Paul and Minneapolis, restaurants have to leave a clearance of 48 inches so a wheelchair can get through.

The place Heidi sent a picture of had a license. But an inspector went out to make sure they had enough clearance on the sidewalk.

—

You’ll see it in the sale papers on Sunday — he ads for Target or Best Buy. Cody Nelson wanted to know: Why does new music only get released on Tuesday?

Cody, it used to be random, but then some record stores got an advantage. If you got the album first, you got all the sales. So the record companies set up a street date. It used to be Monday, but then if there was a shipping problem, there was no chance to correct it.

Now it’s set to arrive on Monday. If something goes wrong… it can be overnighted for Tuesday.

—

Marie and Quinn in Litchfield wondered: Why is your elbow called your funny bone?

Nothing funny about it, it’s also not a bone.

Inside your elbow is the ulnar nerve. When your humerus bone rubs the ulnar nerve, it hurts. The nerve provides pinkie and ring fingers with feeling, and that’s why it tingles when you hit your funny bone.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – In a time where individual choice rules the way Americans save for retirement, Americans are making a lot of bad choices.

We have to opt into a 401(k), pick the percentage of our income we contribute, and pick the mutual funds we invest in.

“There’s a lot of reasons why we are bad at it,” said Aaron Sojourner, a human resources assistant professor at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.

Sojurner has researched the decision-making process behind retirement savings plans.

“[Americans are] not making perfectly well-informed decisions right now,” he said.

Could the government force people to save money for retirement?

They’re already doing that with Social Security, Sojurner said, so the legal precedent is there.

But Social Security was intended to be a safety net in a time where most workers were enrolled in defined-benefit pension plans. Today, most of us are on individual plans.

We pay about 6 percent on our income under $113,000 into social security. The average benefit is around $14,000 a year, the maximum is $30,000.

In Australia, they have a mandatory retirement program not unlike social security, but the contribution is 9 percent. Most experts say we need to save 15 to 18 percent of our income for retirement.

Sojurner said he doesn’t think there’s the political will to expand Social Security into a larger program, or set up a secondary, parallel mandatory retirement saving plan.

“What the government could do — and what companies could do — is to change that default,” he said.

For most employees, the default contribution rate is zero percent, and you have to opt-in to a 401(k). Some 65 percent of us do that, according to consultant Aon Hewitt, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal.

However, when companies automatically enroll employees, forcing them to opt-out if they want to, 83 percent contribute. That’s a major change, just by automatically enrolling employees.

So if a company forces you to initially enroll in a 401(k), what’s the right contribution rate?

“That’s exactly why this is controversial,” Sojurner said. “The question becomes where do you default people into? Is it 3 percent, 6 percent, 12 percent?”

It matters, because people tend to just stick with whatever percentage the company picks. That, however, can lead people to save less than they would have if they had to opt-in and set their own contribution rate.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – No one at Haskell’s in downtown Minneapolis or at The Four Firkins in St. Louis Park expected Minnesota’s liquor laws to change Tuesday.

Again, an effort to end the ban on Sunday liquor sales went down in the Minnesota Legislature. This time it was by a vote of 106-21. Not even close.

So how does Minnesota compare to other states when it comes to liquor laws?

“Minnesota has some of the most restrictions on liquor sales,” said legislative auditor James Nobles.

He said that the Sunday restriction was just part of it. Minnesota doesn’t allow liquor sales inside grocery stores. And owners are restricted to one license for a liquor store in any given city.

“There’s a lot of inertia,” said Bryan Buser, a certified cicerone at Four Firkins in St. Louis Park. Buser and Four Firkins have been at the forefront of trying to change Minnesota’s law banning Sunday sales.

“We’ve been used to being able to buy alcohol Monday through Saturday,” said Beau Farrell, part of the family that owns Haskell’s Liquor Stores.

Every border state and Canada allows Sunday liquor sales. Across the country, Minnesota is part of just twelve states that still have the Sunday blue law: Alabama, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia.

“Only 12 states left, more and more are changing every year. Colorado changed recently, New York changed recently, neither of their liquor industries have gone down the drain,” Buser said.

The public wants it. The last poll showed 59 percent want Sunday sales, 29 percent are opposed.

But the vast majority of liquor stores like the current law.

“We’re gonna see the same amount of business over seven days,” Farrell said.

Part of what makes Minnesota different is the combination of privately-owned liquor stores and city-owned municipal liquor stores. According to the Minnesota Municipal Beverage Association, 210 cities own municipal liquor stores.

“We’re a very unique place in the country when it comes to that,” Farrell said.

That creates a powerful group fighting for the status quo. The cities, private stores, and liquor wholesalers all fight as a team.

“The liquor lobby is talking to them every single day and they’re not really hearing from the people that it matters to,” Buser said.

In Minnesota, you can’t sell beer and wine inside a grocery store – 33 states allow that, according to the Minnesota Grocers Association.

And an owner can only have one store in any one city. That’s why there’s only one Haskell’s in Minneapolis.

The theory, according to Farrell, is: “Let’s, you know, keep sales up…and not rock the boat, so to speak.”

We are not, however, as restrictive as in some places. In Pennsylvania, for instance, all the liquor stores are run by the state. Almost 40 percent of Alabama’s counties don’t allow the sale of alcohol at all. In Kentucky, 39 counties are totally dry: no liquor sales at stores or restaurants.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – For almost every criminal convicted in the state of Minnesota, the Court of Appeals is their last and only shot.

“A lot of cases get appealed, but very few succeed,” said Donald Lewis, dean of Hamline University’s Law School. He said there’s one obvious reason most criminal appeals don’t succeed.

“Most criminal defendants are, in fact, guilty of the crimes they’ve committed,” Lewis said.

But the rules of the appeals court make it tough to get a case overturned. The three-judge panel isn’t re-trying the facts of the case, they’re primarily fixing errors.

“On issues of fact the court of appeals has a high level of deference to the fact-finder, to the juror,” Lewis said.

Are they really looking for gross screw-ups?

“It’s important to remember that a criminal defendant is not entitled to a perfect trial, a defendant is entitled to a fair trial,” Lewis said.

So the errors have to have directly led to the guilty verdict.

According to data from the Minnesota Judicial Branch, lawyers filed 816 criminal appeals last year. The national average is that 4 percent of those appeals succeed, compared to 21 percent civil cases that are overturned.

However, success doesn’t mean you’re off the hook, it means you get a new trial.

“Both sides get a second crack at the jury,” Lewis said.

But if so few are successful, why go through with the whole process?

“Because there’s a lot at stake. If someone is being imprisoned for 5-10-15 years, it actually may be worth the gamble,” Lewis said.

Also, it’s a fairly low-cost thing to do. Many people appealing aren’t spending their own money to appeal they’re using a public defender.

Minnesota has only had a Court of Appeals for thirty years. It’s become a key part of the system.

“Judges are not infallible. They make a mistake occasionally,” Lewis said.

The number one error people file appeals over is evidence – either included or excluded. But those claims rarely succeed, according to research from the National Center for State Courts.

To use a baseball analogy, the appeals court isn’t going to get worked up over a balls and strike call like that.

Incorrect interpretation of the law, or a mistake in merging different offenses into one charge, those come up less often, but they have a higher success rate.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The long winter has meant frozen lakes, iced-over garden beds and many questions about when we can put the spade to dirt and start planting the garden.

Even 5-year-old Edina gardener Ari Farsht wants answers. He gardens with his mother, Amy. Last year he planted tomatoes and cucumbers.

“I want to know when it’s warm enough to plant a garden” Farsht said.

Gardening expert Trace Tomforde from Minneapolis’ Mother Earth Gardens says the warm spurt over the past five days has made a significant difference.

You can now plant potatoes, onions, carrots and spinach, lettuce, kale, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower.

But Ari said he’s worried about the changing weather forecast for this week.

“I don’t think you should plant it today because it’s going to be slushy snow sometime this week,” Farsht said.

Tomforde said all of those seeds and seedlings are hardy enough to go in the ground before the last frost, which means they’re certainly ready to go now. But tomatoes, peppers and eggplant are not ready.

“Those things can’t go into the ground until it’s significantly warm, which is usually late May,” Tomforde said.

This is the same recommendation experts make every year. According to Tomforde, this year is really not that abnormal in the scheme of typical Minnesota winters. But gardener Dawn Yeager begs to differ.

“This winter though has been so long and so cold and so much snow. And so the three days of sun you’re just going crazy, like ‘Let’s just get going,’” Yeager said.

Still, there may be casualties of the late defrosting like veggies that prefer cool soil – namely peas and snow peas.

Tomforde also said that some of the flowers that typically bloom in the spring aren’t going to put on their normal show, like magnolias, tulips, daffodils. They may still bloom, but they’ll be spent very quickly.

Instead of enjoying tulips for two weeks, we may enjoy for two days.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — With the Baby Boomers aging, elder care is a reality that almost every American is going to have to deal with. According to Genworth Financials 2013 Cost of Care study, nearly seven out of 10 Americans older than age 65 will spend time in an elder care facility.

The staff isn’t being highly compensated. So why do nursing homes cost so much?

“When I first came, I couldn’t walk, couldn’t stand, couldn’t hardly talk” said Joyce Jackson, a Minneapolis woman who spent more than a month in a coma before being admitted to Benedictine Health Center, a nursing home.

Her care was intense and around the clock.

“You have nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists,” she said.

Jackson said her insurance covers the $300-a-day cost for Benedictine, which multiplies out to $109,500 a year.

“We’re not getting rich, we’re covering our bills,” said Dave Brennan, an administrator at Benedictine.

“It does, on the face of it, seem very expensive,” said Todd Bergstrom, a research director at Care Providers of Minnesota, a trade group of elder care facilities.

According to him, the average nursing home cost is about $170 a day in Minnesota.

“That’s about $62,000 a year,” he said,

For $170 a day, that’s about $7 an hour of around-the-clock care for the frailest of the elderly, he added.

So what drives the cost? About 65 percent of the cost of nursing care goes to pay the staff. At Benedictine, Brennan said he has 200 full-and part-time employees caring for 93 residents.

“It’s a lot of people, but it’s the amount of people needed to give that amount of care,” Brennan said.

But each individual employee isn’t making big money. According to data provided by The Longer-Term Care Imperative, a coalition of groups that provide elder care, a nursing assistant in a Minnesota nursing home makes $12.03 an hour. In a hospital, that same employee averages $17.82 an hour.

A registered nurse makes $24.57 an hour in a Minnesota nursing home, while in a hospital that’s more like $41.96 an hour.

“It’s difficult to provide wage increases if you can’t raise your prices,” Bergstrom said.

In Minnesota, unlike in most states, the government sets nursing home rates. Different centers charge different amounts (Minneapolis nursing homes charge more than rural homes do, generally); but inside each one, everyone pays the same, regardless of ability to pay or completeness of insurance coverage.

“Minnesota’s unique in that the rates that nursing facilities charge for private or Medicaid are set by the state,” Bergstrom said.

The money goes for all the medical care, the utilities, rent, insurance, taxes, all the costs of running around-the-clock medical care.

“It’s quite significantly less than you’d pay in a hospital,” Brennan said.

Minnesota’s nursing homes have had their rates frozen for four years. In fact, about a third of them lost money last year.
Assisted living centers are harder to talk about. Some are bare bones, others are like the Taj Majal.

“If you’ve seen one assisted living center, you’ve seen one assisted living center,” Bergstrom said.

A newer assisted living facility in Maple Grove charges $120 a day for rent, then you pay extra for medical care.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – When the Twins repeatedly have April snow-outs, and Duluth gets a record 50 inches of snow during spring, it makes it challenging to convince people to change energy policy because of the threat of global warming.

MN obviously didn't get the memo on global warming.—
  (@Sounintha) April 23, 2013

So is “global warming” the wrong term to use?

“What we have is more extremes,” said Michael Noble, executive director of Fresh Energy, a Minnesota nonprofit fighting for less fossil fuel use. He’s studied climate change for decades.

“It’s true that the globe is warming,” said Noble. “It’s just that warm is not the only impact.”

Noble said that many people think global warming means that our weather will always be warmer, but there are far more impacts to climate change.

“Severe drought would be an impact, severe flooding would be an impact, straight-line winds would be an impact, more forest fires would be an impact, rising sea levels would be an impact,” he said. “So warming doesn’t describe all the impacts.”

So what would be a better term?

“How about ‘climate chaos,’ or ‘climate disruption,’” Noble said.

Chris Grossmeir tweeted: “I still favor the labeling it ‘More Extremes.’”

Years ago, author and activist Hunter Lovins came up with the term “Global Weirding.”

“When you have a day you’re cursing the snow tenth day out of the past twenty… [global warming] isn’t the best term, probably,” Noble said.

But some climatologists do think the warming is leading to more severe winters. The theory is that the melting of the Arctic ice caps is causing bursts of arctic air to head here, leading to bursts of extreme cold and snow.

“I would say every day’s weather is different because we’re changing our climate,” said Noble.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Aurora, Newtown, Boston. All are sites of horrible mass killings. But only the Boston bombings have been labeled an act of terrorism.

When is an act of violence a crime and when is it terrorism?

Eric Schwartz is dean of the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey institute, and a former assistant secretary of state and staffer at the National Security Council. He says the definition is not always clear.

“You will read that there are over a hundred definitions of terrorism”, Schwartz said. “What terrorism involves is a combination on the one hand of a violation of the law that’s generally connected to the effort to coerce or intimidate to achieve a political aim.”

Schwartz says government officials often “hotly debate” on whether to label a specific crime, like the Boston Marathon bombings, as an act of terrorism.

Because the motives in the Boston bombings are not clear, the U.S. made the call to label this a terrorist case on the facts so far.

“It’s a presumption based on the fact that it’s kind of hard to conceive of what else it might be,” he said.

The terror label allows the government to use investigative techniques and evidence gathering that it can’t use in criminal acts.

“The government is given under the Patriot Act additional tools with respect to wiretapping,” he said.

And the “terror” label brings with it additional and often greater punishments.

“For a terrorism-related activity, there are very significant civil and criminal penalties under the Patriot Act,” he said.

Schwartz says the terrorism label also allows the government even greater powers when a suspect is not an American.

If Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wasn’t an American citizen, he could have been tried in a military court as an enemy combatant. Instead, he’ll be prosecuted in the federal court system.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – This Minnesota April has been highly unusual for the Minnesota Twins — a rain-out, a snow-out and several days with game-time temperatures around freezing.

So why not move the game on bad-weather days to the Twins’ old home, the Metrodome?

“The Twins, technically, could play here, but they’re not set up to do that,” said Michele Kelm-Helgen, the chair of the Minnesota Sports-Facilities Authority.

She says the Twins have never asked.

“They would have to approach us,” she said. “Would we accommodate it? Sure.”

“It’s just not feasible. We play at Target Field, that’s where we play,” said Kevin Smith, vice-president of communication for the Twins.

He added: “They changed the baseball field when we left. It’s not a Major League Baseball-ready facility.”

The infield no longer has dirt on the mound and the base paths, for example.

“It wasn’t even contemplated in any way shape or form. I don’t know if the league would let us do it,” Smith said.

Plus, even without the Twins, the Metrodome is largely booked. Last week it was covered with dirt for a motocross championship event. Now it’s booked with high school and college baseball games.

Kelm-Helgen said it would be able possible to cancel those games, theoretically, if they had an arrangement to be a backup for the Twins.

But setting up concessions, security, TV and radio broadcasts would all be nearly impossible.

“Everything…changed when the Twins left,” she said.

The seat numbers and rows and sections, of course, wouldn’t line up. So if you had front row seats in Target Field, you wouldn’t have a comparable seat at the Dome.

“I don’t think you’d like that if you were a Champions Club seat-holder,” Smith said.

The team would have to just let everyone for general admission seats, he said. Essentially, you’d have to just have the game – no concessions, no broadcast, and minimal fans.

Rainouts, Smith said, are part of baseball in every market – Minnesota April weather or otherwise. Would fans rather watch an April game in the Metrodome, or just wait and watch it at Target Field in August?

“For one game, it wouldn’t be worth it,” Smith said.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Within an hour of the Boston Marathon bombing, we were watching video of the explosion.

Now, the volume of video authorities are pouring over to try to find a suspect is staggering. So how do investigators analyze all that video?

“Unfortunately, it takes a lot of hours of sitting at a computer, looking at video, oftentimes from multiple cameras, whatever angles,” said Cmdr. Scott Gerlicher, the Minneapolis Police Department’s top cop at the Strategic Information Center.

Strategic Information Center is where all the police and city surveillance cameras are centralized.

The job, Gerlicher says, is tedious — “usually frame by frame.”

Near the bomb sites in Boston, there are more than 600 surveillance cameras.

“It’s an overwhelming task,” said former FBI deputy director Tim Murphy in an interview with CBS News correspondent John Miller.

“All that information will be in a repository. And you’ll be able to search across, and the system itself will make a link,” Murphy said.

But think of the time it takes. All the images have to be gathered and uploaded into the system. Not just the surveillance video, also the cell phone videos and photos people take.

“Taking all those images, downloading them, putting them in sequential chronological order: It’s extremely complex, takes hours and hours, it’s very sophisticated,” Gerlicher said.

The software is getting more sophisticated, especially with the equipment available to federal investigators, he added.

But it’s the people in front of computers who really do the work.

“It’s extremely labor intensive, I wish there were shortcuts. It takes human beings to go over this,” Gerlicher said.

There are forensic video experts analyzing the video at FBI headquarters in Virginia, at Homeland Security in Washington D.C., in Boston, and who knows where else. The central video system helps all those people communicate.

“When you have an incident of this magnitude, all hands on deck. You’re able to free up dozens of forensic video analysts, everyone’s working towards the same goal. It does seem daunting, but from a law enforcement perspective – no matter what type of disaster, everybody’s able to coordinate and divide up the work,” Gerlicher said.

Over the years, video has been both helpful and not so helpful in investigating major crimes.

In 1996, authorities asked for people to share their videos and pictures from the Olympic Park bombing, but no one caught the bomber.

Times have changed. Today, most of us have camera phones.

During the 2011 Vancouver riots, average people shared 5,000 hours of video, leading police to the most violent protestors.

The volume of video in Boston will be way more than that, according to Murphy and Gerlicher.

As for the search for the suspect, that just takes time.

“There are ways for those experts to try to enhance those images and make them to a point where you can see it. There are computer programs that they utilize. But first you have to get to the point where you think you have a suspect: That is the hard part,” Gerlicher said.

He added: “You really don’t know what you’re looking for until you find it. It’s not like you know you’re looking for the guy in the red jacket with the bomb with a fuse on it. At an event like that, everybody’s carrying a backpack. You can see where it becomes complex.”

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, America changed. Congress passed the Patriot Act. New federal agencies formed to search us at the airport and to look for terrorists at home and abroad.

But until a Monday afternoon, at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, virtually no terror attacks have hit us at home.

“We expected many attacks like this. The really remarkable story is that so many have been prevented,” said former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani on CBS This Morning.

Over 12 years, we’ve spent more than $636 billion on Homeland Security, according to one analysis. Another said that number is closer to $800 billion.

Did that money get results? Have we been lucky?

I asked a security consultant CEO if he was surprised there haven’t been more terror attacks.

“Surprised, no? Thankful might be the better word,” said Michael Rozin, CEO of Rozin Security Consultants.

Rozin is a former sergeant in the Israeli Defense Forces and he helped create Mall of America’s counter-terrorism practices.

He said there are two types of responsible parties for terror threats: organizations like al-Qaida and individual homegrown extremists.

“When you’re talking organization, the U.S. has dismantled their organizational capabilities. So that’s one of the reasons we haven’t seen a successful attack from them,” Rozin said.

But with the individual extremists, Rozin said we’ve been lucky and they’ve been stupid.

“They still try to mimic the grandiosity of 9/11. They try to think of complex, very sophisticated attacks that are really hard to execute,” Rozin said.

Our vigilance and good intelligence has thwarted at least 50 attacks since September 11, 2001. From the Shoe Bomber to an attack on Chicago’s Sears Tower, relatively few terror attacks have succeeded on U.S. soil.

“It has been a successful effort on the intelligence side, I think the U.S. has done an incredible job,” said Rozin.

There is another factor, according to Twin Cities-based security expert Bruce Schneier
writing in The Atlantic:

“Give the FBI credit for rolling up terrorist networks and interdicting terrorist funding, but we also exaggerated the threat.”

He added: “It turns out that terrorism is much harder than most people think. It’s hard to find willing terrorists, it’s hard to put a plot together, it’s hard to get materials, and it’s hard to execute a workable plan.”

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The first robin is often thought of as a sign of spring. But the first hundred robins hanging out in your front yard? That’s the sign of a Good Question.

Jay Kane of Plymouth emailed WCCO after he noticed his yard had been invaded by hoards of these songbirds.

“Never seen this many birds in this area at all,” Kane said.

The trees outside Kane’s home look like they’re going to collapse under the weight of the robins, with dozens of them perching on the tree branches.

“I opened the door and let the dog out this morning, and it was like a scene from ‘The Birds’ – they just scattered,” he said.

It’s a little freaky, and very unusual, according to bird expert Sharon Stiteler – author of ‘1001 Secrets Every Birder Should Know,’ which will be released in May.

“The robins are in their migratory flocks. Some are pushing north. Some are setting up territory here. And the birds that need to go north can’t go north because of the crazy weather,” Stiteler said.

According to Stiteler, the birds would be further north in a normal year.

“The birds that are stuck in our yard now would be up in Duluth or heading in to Canada. So they’re just going to get kind of a late start this year,” she said.

Normal migration is hitting a snowy and icy wall, so all these birds are now hanging out in the Twin Cities.

“What are they doing for food? Obviously with the snow they’re not pecking worms,” Kane said.

Not to worry, said Stiteler.

“They can find all sorts of things, and robins are resourceful,” she said. “A lot of the hackberry trees that we have here still have berries on them. They’re looking under leaf litter, they’re looking at the trunks of trees, they’re finding spider eggs.”

The snowy, cold weather does have Stiteler concerned about some of our feathered friends.

“The birds that are really in trouble right now are the swallows that return early. Tree swallows have been seen by the hundreds soaring over open water at places like Coon Rapids Dam,” she said.

Tree swallows eat flying insects, but because of the cold weather -there simply are not enough flying insects around, Stiteler said.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Louisville basketball player Kevin Ware is recovering after breaking his leg during the NCAA tournament.

Miriam Ring from Burnsville, Minn., wondered: Who pays college athletes’ medical bills?

At Louisville, they have a secondary insurance policy on varsity athletes, but just like most college kids, athletes are generally on their parents insurance.

Being an athlete is technically not a job, so it’s not covered by workers compensation laws.

And the NCAA only requires that athletes have proof of insurance – not that the school provide it.

If you have a claim that’s more than $90,000, the athlete qualifies for the NCAA’s catastrophic coverage, which has some continuing coverage. But in general, when you’re out of school and out of athletics, you’re out of luck.

Jesse Koester from Vadnais Heights was looking around and wondered: Why are all the street signs green?

Jesse, there was a time that they were not all green. Different cities would have different local colors until the 1980s, when the federal government created National Standards for Traffic Control Devices.

All street signs had to be green with reflectable white lettering. Green was the contrast to the red stop sign: green meaning proceed.

Amy Hahn from Gaylord wanted to know: Why do they call it a Spelling Bee?

We’ve used it since at least 1875, but according to spellingbee.com, “bee” refers to a social gathering.

The earliest known example in print is a spinning bee in 1769.

It’s not likely related to the buzzing bumblebee, linguists think. It may have come from the Middle English word bene, which means “a prayer” or “a favor.”

Because people would come together to knit or spin wool as a favor for friends, bee may have been a shortened for of bene.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – With all the snow we’ve seen this winter, it’s hard to believe that Minnesota is in a severe drought.

There’s lots of moisture out there in the form of snow, but most of it runs off to streams and rivers when the snow melts, because the ground is frozen.

But does getting a lot of wet snow in April help with the drought?

“We’ll take moisture in any form at this point,” said Pete Boulay, the assistant state climatologist.

But before Boulay could tell if the snow was helping or not, he tested the soil to see if it had thawed.

He pulled a device called a frost tube out from ground near the University of Minnesota farm fields, and the top four inches of water in the tube were liquid. The lack of a warm-up has kept the ground frozen, that is, until this week.

“And this is important, because now we have four inches of thawed soil, so the water can get into the ground, finally. Before that, it was all running off into the streams,” Boulay said.

So, yes. Thursday’s snow was the first snow that actually made a dent in the drought.

But isn’t it better just to get heavy rain?

“Snow is probably better,” Boulay said. “You get a longer chance to get that into the ground.”

Bare soil, Boulay said, tends to defrost earlier than soil with grass on top of it, because the grass serves as a shield, keeping the sunlight and heat from hitting the frost below.

“We have 5 feet of soil that we need to replenish the moisture in. Right now, we’re only replenishing about [4 inches] of it,” Boulay said.

He said we need it to warm up, so the soil defrosts, and we need a wet spring to try to recharge the soil to make it good for growing.

Maybe a couple more six-inch April snowfalls?

“That would help, that would do it,” Boulay laughed.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Sometimes it snows in April in Minnesota, so we’re replying all to questions about April snow in Minnesota.

Biggest April Snowstorm?

The biggest Twin Cities April snow was April 13 and 14, 1983. The airport measured 13.6 inches of snow during that storm 30 years ago.

It snowed so hard, it sliced the Metrodome’s roof, causing the staff to turn off the blowers and deflate the dome to avoid a larger tear. Four hundred schools closed. Mail delivery to homes was stopped.

Top April Snowstorms?

April 13-14, 1983 — 13.6 inches
April 27-28, 1907 – 13 inches
April 19-21, 1893 – 10 inches

Least snowy Aprils?

2010 — No snow
2005 — Trace
1946 — 0.1”
1921 — 0.1”

Snowiest Aprils?

1983 — 21.8 inches
2002 — 20 inches
1928 — 16.9 inches
1907 — 13 inches
1893 — 13 inches

When’s the latest we’ve had a large April snow?

April 29, 1984 — 6.6 inches

How long does April snow take to melt?

It’s all about the sun angle. Right now, the sun is similar to what we see at the end of August to early September, so even if it doesn’t get super-warm, the sun’s rays are powerful melters.

Even a foot should be gone within two or three days, according to WCCO-TV chief meteorologist Chris Shaffer.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – More than 50 million Americans get a social security check every month. But some Democrats and liberal groups are upset about a proposed change in the way the cost of living adjustment is calculated. Making a switch could save more than $100 billion in 10 years.

So how are Social Security benefits calculated?

“There is a very complicated, neat formula social security uses,” said professor Larry Jacobs of the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

The Social Security Administration takes 35 years of salaries. The formula pays you a percentage of the average monthly income.

“They weight it a little if you’re lower income, so you get a little bit better return,” Jacobs said.

Every year you get a cost-of-living raise. Right now, it’s tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is the key measure of inflation.

Some want inflation to be tracked using a different measure of inflation, called the Chained CPI.

“The basic idea of Chained CPI is: You’re in the store, the price of a brand of bread you like starts going up, you look for a different brand of bread that’s less expensive,” Jacobs said.

Both stats are computed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The current CPI is created using a basket of 200 different products and services, including cereal, apples, men’s shirts, and prescription drugs.

The Chained CPI is similar, but different.

“[It would] adjust the cost of living calculation for Social Security to take into account that people make decisions to search out the lower cost item,” Jacobs said.

Historically, there have been many changes to Social Security, according to Jacobs. The retirement age has gone up, the benefit percentages have changed, and payroll taxes have gone up as well.

But experts disagree with how big of a deal it is to switch to chained CPI, because, right now, it’s not that different from the regular one.

However, little changes matter. If you cut everyone’s monthly benefit by $1 a month, that’s $646 million a year.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – While getting to the Final Four is a big deal, winning it is even bigger. But how much do schools directly benefit from winning the championship game?

• Direct Money

Schools can earn huge bonus money by making it to the Final Four, but they don’t directly get the money, nor do they earn any additional money for making it to the championship game. The NCAA pays using a formula designed around “units.”

Each game a team plays in, except the championship game, is one unit. This year units are valued at $245,500. It takes five games to get to the championship game, so getting there is worth $1.2 million. That money is paid out repeatedly for six years. The money goes to the team’s conference, so Michigan’s money goes to the Big Ten, Louisville is currently in the Big East.

With the annual increase in the unit value, getting to the Final Four this year is worth nearly $10 million!

Most conferences share their pot of NCAA money with all their colleges. So the University of Minnesota benefits from Michigan’s success.

• Coaches

The real winners of the championship are the coaches, who have performance incentives built into their contracts. University of Michigan’s John Beilein gets a $25,000 bonus for winning it all. Louisville coach Rick Pitino gets a $150,000 bonus for being the national champion.

• Fundraising

The schools get a direct money boost. Forbes looked at the average national championship team and found their revenue went up 14 percent the following year. On average, that’s a 14.2 percent increase for a championship team.

Just getting to the big game can mean big money for schools. Butler University reported having its best fundraising year in history the year they lost in the championship game.

The same happened with Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), according to spokesman Michael Porter.

“Athletics giving increased 376 percent. Overall giving is up 46 percent. And VCU has received requests from 25 new cities to add alumni chapters,” Porter said.

Tom Weede, Butler’s vice-president of enrollment management, says he received some very lucrative phone calls.

“I took a call personally from someone who said, ‘Loved what I’ve seen, I’d like to donate $25,000,’” Weede said. “Season ticket sales have gone up significantly. We saw alumni participation increase.”

• Increased Applications

The excitement and the exposure isn’t just a big deal with alums. Applications for the general student body can take a leap as well.

After VCU made the Final Four in 2011, they saw their applications go up by 1,700 students – around 11 percent.

Butler saw an even more dramatic increase of 43 percent after two years in the Final Four.

“We saw the quality of the students go up, the geographic diversity go up. One of the things that’s really important for our story – we could not have sat down and dreamed up a story that was as good as the one that came out,” Weede said.

In 2010, Butler’s team went to class the day of the championship day.

The school did a study that valued all of the free publicity the school got at more than $600 million.

“There’s absolute truth to that. What do you measure of advertising? We looked at the value of the actual airtime on games,” he said. “For the way the story came out, when the games were played it was like having a documentary about Butler because the story was so unusual.”