Bob CollinsA situation in a community north of Boston on Saturday takes the pay-it-forward craze to a new level. Generally, it starts when someone at a drive-thru pays for the food of the person behind them in line. It’s a nice day-brightener. Consider this story from Amesbury, Mass., where 55 consecutive cars in line at the Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Archives for July 2013
Documenting the demise of the lost art of baseball score keeping. Read more →
Small-town newspaper fold because there aren’t enough people who care about people’s dreams and the places they’re going. Read more →
What can you do in the wake of the Zimmerman verdict that can make a difference, the once-a-day-phone-call economy, in praise of the innovators, to be a farmer in Minnesota, and for the love of baseball. Read more →
A San Francisco area TV station is getting an unwarranted free pass now that the National Transportation Safety Board has acknowledged that a summer intern “confirmed” the names of the pilots in charge of Asiana Flight 214, the one that crashed last week on a San Francisco runway. http://youtu.be/YU2m3xf99R4 The names, of course, were offensive Read more →
If listeners contribute directly to NPR, what happens to local public radio? Read more →
The NTSB just released this picture of the interior or the jet that crashed in San Francisco last week. The pilots had initially told people to stay in their seats after the plane landed. The picture confirms that it was pretty poor advice.
Shades of Brodkorb at the Capitol, a tuition freeze at the University of Wisconsin, even for Minnesota kids, a compromise takes shape on student loan interest rates, no food stamps in the farm bill, closing arguments in the Trayvon Martin case, and did DNA just prove who the Boston Strangler was? Here’s today’s news conversation Read more →
A deal is a deal when it comes to surrogate birth, even if the mother changes her mind, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled today. The court ruled in the case of Monica Schissel of Columbus, Wis., who changed her mind after agreeing to bear a child for David and Marcia Rosecky of Menomonee Falls, using Read more →
There might be more to a second than a second. In the course of a day, on which our standard of time is based, the planet wobbles a bit. So some days are longer or shorter than others. The atomic clock keeps a more accurate record of the time, but that may soon be obsolete, Read more →
Is it time for the Twins to fire their manager, when is it OK to mention a woman’s appearance in a news story, health care for your pet, how to wash your hair in space, and one small step to fight hunger. Read more →
Our first look at Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the defense rests in the Zimmerman trial, the Wisconsin Supreme Court sidesteps a question on religious freedom, smoke from a distant fire in Minnesota, a lower gambling age, and why I wouldn’t be a young person today for anything in the world. Here’s today’s news conversation with Mary Lucia Read more →
Last night’s Frontline episode profiling two middle-class families who plunged into poverty through no particular fault of their own will do little to fix the problems faced by people who once were middle-class working Americans. But maybe it can help them feel less like failures. The Stanley family, one of the families profiled, is at Read more →
The tension is certainly rising in northern Wisconsin where the presence this week of paramilitary guards has ratcheted up the controversy over a proposed open-pit iron mine. Gogebic Taconite isn’t backing down from its decision to bring in the security force from an Arizona firm, citing a June confrontation between opponents of the mine and Read more →
ESPN has unveiled its first brand promo for ESPNw, its website dedicated to women athletics. The site has been around for a few years, so think about that fact: This is the first brand promo, the AdFreak blog says. http://youtu.be/Tr175IEjUpQ