May 14, 2004 - Midday continues to broadcast live from the State Capitol. Host Gary Eichten and MPR's political editor Mike Mulcahy talk with key lawmakers at the MPR broadcast table. Guests include Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, DFL-Willmar; Governor Pawlenty's chief of staff, Dan McElroy; Senator Dick Cohen, DFL-St. Paul; Representative Jim Knoblach, R-St. Cloud; Representative Doug Stang, R-Cold Spring; and Senator Stevey Kelley, DFL-Hopkins.
May 14, 2004 - Midday broadcasts live from the Capitol rotunda on one of the last regular days of business for the state legislators. By law, the state legislature must adjourn in three days. Key legislators stop by the MPR broadcast table, including House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon; Senator Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis; Representative Phil Krinkie, R-St. Paul; Senator Keith Langseth, DFL-Glyndon; House Minority Leader Matt Entenza, DFL-St. Paul; and Representative Alice Seagren, R-Bloomington.
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.
June 11, 2004 - As part of the Mainstreet Radio series “Meth in Minnesota,” MPR’s Tom Post reports on the various new challenges methamphetamine creates for Minneosta law enforcement.
June 14, 2004 - "Death is un-American," an "affront to the American Dream." wrote historian Arnold Toynbee in 1969. It was a time of social movements and big change: peace, civil rights, environmentalism and women's liberation. But a quieter revolution was underway, too - one led by a few middle-aged women who wanted to change our way of death. They were the founders of the hospice movement. It was a revolution without protest marches, but its legacy is profound. Today three in ten Americans will die in hospice care. In this new American RadioWorks documentary, John Biewen explores the birth of the hospice movement and traces its influence through one woman's final months of life.
June 14, 2004 - As part of the Mainstreet Radio series “Meth in Minnesota,” MPR’s Tom Robertson reports on a story of how meth has devastated the lives of one northern Minnesota family.
June 14, 2004 - As part of the Mainstreet Radio series “Meth in Minnesota,” MPR’s Cara Hetland reports on the unintended victims of meth…children.
June 15, 2004 - Mainstreet Radio has compiled a series of stories on meth and the effect it is having on the state for the first half of a two-hour special report, “Methamphetamine Madness.” Methamphetamine is one of the most addictive, most abused and most readily available drugs in America. Experts are calling it an epidemic, and Minnesota is anything but sheltered from it.
June 15, 2004 - Mainstreet Radio is live from Collegeville for the second hour of this special report, “Methamphetamine Madness.” Rachel Reabe hosts a call-in discussion about Minnesota's methamphetamine epidemic with three experts.
June 15, 2004 - As part of the Mainstreet Radio series “Meth in Minnesota,” MPR’s Bob Reha reports on new techniques in recovering from meth addiction.