As a decades long staple to the listening audience, Morning Edition combines a host program in St. Paul and NPR hosts in Washington and Los Angeles, bringing news from overnight and information throughout the state and world. Programming includes reports and interviews.
April 2, 1997 - MPR’s Bob Potter interviews Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton about an arbitrator’s decision than former Minneapolis police officer Mike Sauro is to be reinstated, after being fired by the city for second time. Sayles Belton shares why she disagrees with the decision, her concerns over off-duty work by officers in businesses that serve alcohol, and need for officer training.
April 3, 1997 - MPR’s Bob Collins reports that despite latest stadium bill being roundly disliked, it has been stalled…but not dead. By a single vote, the House Local Government and Metropolitan Affairs Committee refused to refer bill to Taxes Committee.
April 8, 1997 - Mainstreet Radio’s Leif Enger reports on Governor Arne Carlson address to appeal for cool heads at Lake Mille Lacs. Rising tensions over imminent Ojibwe spearfishing and netting prompted the governor to make a statewide three-minute address asking for forbearance. Around Mille Lacs, lakeside residents responded to Carlson with a mixture of relief and doubt.
April 10, 1997 - MPR's Jon Gordon reports that there will be no spears or gillnets on Mille Lacs Lake, for now. A federal appeals court has refused to allow eight Ojibwe Bands, including six from Wisconsin, to spear and gillnet on Mille Lacs and other Minnesota lakes this spring. The move comes after landowners and some counties appealed a federal judge's order allowing the bands to begin fishing in the 12 county area of east-central Minnesota.
April 11, 1997 - Mainstreet Radio's Catherine Winter visits “Patzoldts' Lost Frontier" in Grand Rapids, the farthest north commercial maple syrup producer in the United States. A cold snap has halted maple syrup production around the state. Sap had started running in the maple trees, but when temperatures plunged, it stopped abruptly. In some cases, the sudden freeze may have damaged the equipment maple syrup producers use.
April 18, 1997 - MPR’s Bob Potter interviews Grand Forks police official Byron Sieber about flooding in the town and a mandatory evacuation order.
April 22, 1997 - Mainstreet Radio’s Mark Steil reports that the Minnesota legislature is considering a measure which changes how rights of way are managed. Utilities can run their cables and pipes under our roads because they're part of the right of way. Some city officials say the companies leave a mess when they're through. A compromise before the legislature gives cities more control over rights of way but leaves a major issue unsettled…rent.
April 25, 1997 - Mainstreet Radio’s Catherine Winter talks with northern Minnesota painter Liz Sivertson about her work and what forms her creative inspiration. They preview and exhibition of paintings by Sivertson: colorful, whimsical pictures she did for the children's book “North Country Spring.”
April 29, 1997 - MPR’s Karen-Louise Boothe reports on members of the Minnesota House debating for more than two hours the merits DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), a measure banning same-sex marriage. The roll call vote was preceeded by more than two hours of sometimes very personal and emotional testimony. In the end, representatives voted overwhelmingly to keep it as amended to the omnibus health and human services bill.
April 30, 1997 - Ojibwe Band members had hoped to be spearing and netting fish on dozens of central Minnesota lakes by now. For seven years a group of tribes, led by the Mille Lacs Ojibwe, worked through the courts to restore fishing and hunting rights given them by treaty in the 19th century. It appeared the tribes would finally exercise those rights this spring. But a group of local landowners won an injunction earlier this month, halting the Indians' plans, at least for now.