May 5, 2004 - A group of mostly-immigrant workers at a meat-packing plant in Buffalo Lake turned down a chance to unionize today. Union organizers charge some workers at the Minnesota Beef Industries plant were threatened or intimidated into not voting to unionize. Minnesota Beef would not comment on the matter. An increasingly large immigrant labor force is changing the way Minnesota's meat-packing plants do business -- and the wages they're willing to pay. Katherine Fennelly (FENN-a-lee) is a professor specializing in immigration and public policy at the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota. She says immigrants are doing work that others won't.
May 10, 2004 - Up until last Friday, most Twins baseball games were only broadcast on the team-owned Victory Sports One, a channel available to very few cable TV subscribers across the state. But a new eight-year contract with Fox Sports Net will put games back onto the regional Fox sports channel, available to many more viewers. The deal effectively ends the ambitious Victory Sports experiment.
May 13, 2004 - Flyte Tyme, the hit producing Edina-based recording studio run by Jimmy Jam Harris and Terry Lewis, is relocating to Los Angeles. Roberts reports on how the news is being received in the Twin Cities, and the legacy Harris and Lewis are leaving.
May 18, 2004 - Mainstreet Radio's Cara Hetland reports that The Weiner Memorial Hospital in Marshall is announcing it's merge with a regional health care system. For the last year the board has struggled between independence and the desire to grow. Officials have decided the benefits of joining with a larger system outweigh the loss of autonomy.
May 26, 2004 - On this Midday program, Minnesota Public Radio president Bill Kling is in the MPR studios to talk with host Gary Eichten about the station, the new MPR building, and topics on the minds of MPR listeners.
June 7, 2004 - Mainstreet Radio's Annie Baxter reports that for thirty years, St. Cloud has had an ordinance on its books that forbids immigrants from driving taxis. It wasn't enforced; in fact, most people had forgotten about it. City officials were embarrassed to learn of the ordinance recently, and promptly swore they'd get rid of it. The matter is under consideration in the city council, but even so, Somalis say they can't get jobs as taxi drivers...and they're wondering why.
June 17, 2004 - MPR’s Art Hughes reports on the growing Latino population in Minnesota. As the Hispanic population grows, so does their economic power--estimated by marketing experts at more than $3 billion. Hughes interviews Hispanic business owners about marketing and supprting Latino community.
July 13, 2004 - Thanks to the Internet, statistic-hungry baseball fans have more information at their fingertips than ever before. The official web site of Major League Baseball, MLB.com, is one of the most popular sports sites on the Internet, and actually makes a profit. Fans can listen to games, watch video highlights, check detailed box scores, and more. The most popular MLB.com product is "Gameday," a free service that lets fans follow any game in near real-time. They can see the location of every pitch, what happens to every ball that leaves the batters box, and get just about any stat imaginable.
July 14, 2004 - The company that makes The Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner is out with a new line of cleaners. The company says the new silver pizza-shaped machines clean longer between chargings; can seek out dirt; and pick up more of it.
July 15, 2004 - Hewlett-Packard and Dell have announced free programs to encourage US consumers to recycle computers and electronics. HP has teamed with Office Depot stores to offer free recycling for any make of computers, monitors, digital cameras, fax machines, cell phones and other electronics. Consumers can drop off electronics at any Office Depot store between July 18 and Labor Day.