May 30, 1996 - Midday presents a live broadcast of the Westminster Town Hall Forum, featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough. His lecture is entitled, “American Society: Civil and Uncivil.”
June 7, 1996 - MPR’s Gary Eichten presents a retrospective of 1978 Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party State Convention. It was noted for a fierce battle within the DFL party over the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota. It fractured the party and paved the way for a Republican sweep in the November general election.
June 11, 1996 - About 400 North Minneapolis residents attended a raucous community meeting to discuss the recent slayings of 11-year-old Byron Phillips and 22-year-old Derrick Adams. Phillips and Adams were shot to death about a half block away from each other, in the space of a week. Police have no suspects as of report.
July 5, 1996 - This Midday program presents speeches by Manning Marable and Glen Loury from the World Conference on Remedies to Racial and Ethnic Economic inequality, which was sponsored recently by the University of Minnesota’s Roy Wilkins Center and the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.
July 15, 1996 - Midday features a special Talk of Minnesota call-in program about number 34, the now-retired Minnesota Twin, Kirby Puckett. Program includes Puckett press conference and listener comments in the creation of an audio thank you letter to “Puck.”
August 1, 1996 - Midday presents a Twin Cities speech by Yale University professor Theodore Marmor, entitled America’s Misunderstood Welfare State. Marmor speaks about the controversies over welfare reform, medical care, and social security.
August 6, 1996 - MPR’s Bill Wareham reports on Mayor Sayles Belton's budget outline. It has no new taxes, and more crime prevention. A new unit is being proposed to investigate misdemeanors, seeing them as “gateway” crimes.
August 29, 1996 - Midday presents Walter Mondale, former vice president and U.S. ambassador to Japan, speaking at Minnesota Meeting held at Marriott Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. Mondale’s address focuses on America’s relationship with Japan and Asia as a whole. After speech, Mondale answers questions from the audience.
September 12, 1996 - Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner, speaks at Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis for the annual Global Voices Lecture series. Heaney reads numerous poems during speech.
September 30, 1996 - A special Midday re-broadcast of national "Congressional Debate" in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. Debate features Newt Gingrich, speaker of the House; Trent Lott, Senate majority leader; Tom Daschle, Senate minority leader; and Dick Gephardt, House minority leader. Topics include Medicare, Family First, tax credits, terrorism, and environment. Debate was moderated by Jim Lehrer, host of PBS’s NewsHour. After debate, political analysts Tom Horner and Bob Meek provide commentary on debates and report on the congressional elections in Minnesota.