March 24, 2014 - The University of Minnesota women's hockey team lost to Clarkson 5-4 in the NCAA championship game yesterday. The loss prevented the Gophers from winning their third straight title. MPR's Phil Picardi spoke with Howard Sinker, a digital sports editor for the Star Tribune, about the game and the fact that it wasn't on television.
January 20, 2012 - A broadcast of "Heckuva Farewell," an event for MPR’s Gary Eichten, held at the Fitzgerald Theater on January 19, 2012. For his last Midday show, Gary interviews Vice President Mondale, Minnesota's senior statesman. The two hold a wide-ranging political discussion.
May 31, 2010 - On a special Memorial Day edition of Midday, Vietnam Veteran and author Tim O'Brien reflects on "The Things They Carried." This month is the 20th anniversary of the celebrated war novel, and O'Brien marked the occasion with an audience at the Club Book series. Tim O'Brien spoke recently at the Schwann Event Center in Blaine, as part of the "Club Book" series organized by the Metropolitan Library Service Agency and the Library Foundation of Hennepin County.
April 8, 2010 - Nick Hayes, professor of history at Saint John's University in Collegeville, joins Midday in the studio to talk about his memoir "And One Fine Morning: Memories of My Father." The book traces his family origins and his father's story, including his father's experience growing up Catholic in Protestant Minneapolis.
January 15, 2010 - There's a memorial service at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. today for former Pioneer Press executive editor Deborah Howell. She was hit by a car and killed in New Zealand earlier this month. Howell led the paper to two Pulitzer Prizes in the 1980s. She later went on to Washington and was most recently the ombudsman for the Washington Post. New York Times columnist David Carr says Howell cut her teeth in the tough, male-dominated newspaper business at an early age
September 29, 2009 - America faces difficult choice in Afghanistan, to send more troops there or not. The U.S. has been in Afghanistan nearly eight years, and yet the situation there is increasingly unstable. With debate brewing over further troop increase, Midday’s Gary Eichten talks with U.S. Representative Tim Walz about the path that lies ahead. Walz also answers listener questions.
August 19, 2009 - On this Midday program, MPR’s Gary Eichten talks with U.S. Representative Tim Walz, who represents Minnesota's 1st Congressional District. Walz is holding a town meeting on health care reform in Mankato. In advance of that meeting, he joins Midday to talk about healthcare reform and other issues facing Congress.
September 18, 2007 - In north Minneapolis the Lowry Avenue bridge over the Mississippi River is being closed during daylight hours this week for detailed inspections. The Minnesota Department of Transportation is checking the bridge for structural deficiencies. Hennepin County bridge engineer Jake Bronder says the bridge, which is called a "fracture critical" span, has only two main load-bearing members. And if one of the two were to fail, he says, the entire bridge could fall. So far, Bronder says, no problems have been found with the bridge and he doesn't expect state inspectors to close it down. Bronder says the bridge gets regular inspections, but in the wake of the 35W bridge collapse, Governor Pawlenty ordered MnDOt to take a closer look at all "fracture critical" bridges.
April 17, 2005 - The winners of the 17th annual Minnesota Book Awards include a Macalester College anthropology professor and a former investigative reporter whose father was a bank robber. Minnesota Public Radio's Phil Picardi has more.
August 18, 2003 - Though the Democratic presidential nominating convention isn't until next summer, several of the nine candidates vying for George Bushs' job have been making Minnesota a must-stop-state on the campaign trail. Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich Helms reports.