Bob Collins
These kids — Arianna Talmage, 6, Aidan Talmage, 10, and Tyler Talmage, 14 — are all dead now. So is their mother.
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MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
By Bob Collins
Bob Collins retired from Minnesota Public Radio in 2019 after 12 years of writing NewsCut and pointing out to complainants that posts weren’t news stories. A son of Massachusetts, he was a news editor 1992-1998, created the MPR News regional website in 1999, invented the popular Select A Candidate, started several blogs, and every day lamented that his Minnesota Fantasy Legislature project never caught on.
A tweet of St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter’s skit during the MinnPost fundraiser last week raced around the InterTubes, but, taken on a smartphone from the audience, the audio was difficult to hear.
MinnPost has now posted a produced version of the bit. Read more →
It’s Star Wars Day — May the 4th — get it?
Everyone can stop trying to one-up everyone else on witty Star Wars references now, though.
Heathrow Airport wins.
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Jake Maser, a high school baseball player in Bound Brook, N.J., hit a ball to the centerfield gap during a game in 2016. Easy double.
But Maser figured he could get a triple out of it, so he headed to third which has now sent his coach — John Suk — to court. Read more →
Every now and again, we need a reminder that everything is going to be OK as long as there are people like Paul Pyykkonen and Todd Sandberg who walk among us. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
A Planet Money story is a nice tale, indeed, with the appropriate recognition of the state that lies just west of Wisconsin, but we remain troubled by the 2013 warning from Mother Jones that the very ‘miracle’ that the Honeycrisp and SweeTango provided, threatens the biodiversity and future of apples varieties. Read more →
There’s not much anyone can really say about a short story in the Pioneer Press today other than, ‘what’s your story?’ Read more →
Eleven years after a history professor asked that the statue be removed, Winona State University has done so, moving it to an indoor location. Read more →
The Vietnam War hasn’t ended. Just ask Lan Thi Kim Do, of Rochester, Minn., who only met her father for the first time on Wednesday when Wayne Brown, 72, of Los Angeles arrived at the airport in Rochester.
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We have reached the stage of the Minnesota Legislature’s annual session when it is forced to cram its work into the last few days, creating the illusion that it is working. It’s not. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
As sure as the sun will rise in the morning, there will be debates over appropriate prom attire in the spring in the nation’s high schools. Until this week, it’s been a pretty quiet prom season on the prom dress front.
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When Tyler Johnson was told by a police officer in North Branch in November 2015 that he could be charged with a more serious felony if he did not agree to urine or blood testing because of a suspicion that he was driving under the influence, he was getting bad information. Read more →
Given the hate they’re still getting online, Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson could be forgiven if they’d sued everyone involved in their ouster from a Philadelphia Starbucks. Read more →