Bob Collins
Madden Humphreys was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate. He also has complete heterochromia iridum, which gives him two different colored eyes.
That makes him a target for the most vicious animal on earth: kids at school. Read more →
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.
Guilherme Assuncao became something of a big deal at the grocery store where he works in Watertown, Mass., in December, when he agreed to stand in for a sound check in advance of a concert the store was hosting the next day.
Who knew ‘just some guy’ in a grocery store could sing? Read more →
In the buttoned-down world of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Elvis Francois and William Robinson are finally getting the payoff from their years of studying and the rigorous and exhausting pace of being orthopedic surgery residents: they got to meet Ellen. Read more →
Yelling ‘dilly dilly’, which apparently is a thing in golf now, will get you tossed out of The Masters golf tournament at Augusta National later this week.
Good. Can we get ‘get in the hole!’ added to the list?
Read more →
What separates the police of Asheville, N.C., from some of the gendarmes in the rest of the country is they don’t shut off their body cameras when it hits the fan. Read more →
If not for science, what would we do for a daily reminder of the power of education, research and the human capacity for greatness?
Read more →
Caelan Johnson, 21, of Baxter, Minn., wants people who might be thinking of taking their own life to think about her and the rest of her family, who say they have nothing but questions after Tom Johnson, her father, shot himself to death in January. Read more →
You had one job. Read more →
Hear are the topics and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
The Minnesota Twins are finding themselves at the center of an ongoing debate in sports: Are baseball’s unwritten rules insanely stupid or just mildly dumb? Read more →
Jim Abbott proved some years ago that you could make it to Major League Baseball as a pitcher without one hand. He even pitched a no-hitter against the Cleveland Indians in 1993.
But can you be a catcher with just one arm? Read more →
There was a time when broadcasters were limited in the number and location of broadcast properties they could own. Now, we’re seeing why. Read more →
In Hutchinson, Minn., the City Council holds a moment of silence if pastors aren’t available to provide an invocation for meetings. Read more →
Vadnais Heights is one of 10 northeast metro communities under a court order to reduce water usage, but it has the highest per capita use, 83 gallons per person. That’s 11 gallons per person more than the second-biggest user of water (Stillwater). Read more →
The Justice Department claimed reduced ticket service fees, even lower ticket prices, might result from a merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Fat chance, and eight years later, it’s been exactly what music fans and several venues expected Read more →