Bob Collins
The sign at the most-used entrance to Boston’s State House wouldn’t have caused generations of snickers had it simply honored Gen. Joseph Hooker by including his first name.
Instead, the cradle of liberty got this.
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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.
At some point today, Shannon Haines, 29, a fourth-year medical student in Omaha, will find out where she will do her residency.
That fulfills a dream she had in high school of being a doctor, a dream that collapsed — or so she thought — when she got pregnant in high school. Read more →
We don’t get as much snow in the winter, and the air coming into Minnesota and the Dakotas from the Arctic isn’t near as cold as it used to be. In short: we’re losing our reputation. Read more →
New Prague High School is ground zero in the gun debate nationally after a video showed a student, holding a sign that said ‘Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,’ was told he couldn’t hold it during Wednesday’s protest against school shootings. Read more →
Here are the topics and guests you’ll hear on MPR News today. Links to archived audio added throughout the day. Read more →
The Lancaster, Pa., Barnstormers, one of the many independent minor league teams, are patting themselves on the back for their sensitivity to domestic assault by cutting a player after police released a video showing Danry Vasquez beating up his girlfriend in August 2016 at Whataburger Field in Texas, home of the Corpus Christi Hooks baseball Read more →
Teresita Diaz, 17, a junior at Park Rapids Area High School, wants you to know she’s not disrespecting the flag when she sits down and quietly faces it while others recite the Pledge of Allegiance, perhaps without thinking about the words they’re saying. Read more →
Perhaps you’ve noticed spring is in the air. Literally. The geese are returning to flyover country.
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Increasingly, basketball and urology is going hand in hand. Read more →
Anyone who travels on a freeway knows that almost nobody drives the speed limit and the lefthand lane gets plugged with people going a little over the speed limit, followed closely — and I do mean closely — by people going a lot over the speed limit. Read more →
Here are the topics and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
A divided Minnesota Supreme Court today further defined the areas of people’s property where police can’t search without a warrant.
It’s a fascinating case which goes to great lengths to define what area of someone’s property is protected by the Fourth Amendment and what area is fair game for a search by police without a warrant. Read more →
It’s been a rough winter again in New England, where a nor’easter has struck for the third time in the last few weeks.
Fortunately, for the Boston cops, Jason Triplett, 37, had purchased proper winter clothing for pushing a Boston Police wagon out of the snow: Queen Elsa’s costume from ‘Frozen.’
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‘Thirty-one years ago, I was 19, pregnant and scared,’ Christina St. Germaine had just told the Council. ‘I had a miscarriage. I wasn’t able to take time off for work to care for myself to prevent the miscarriage nor post-miscarriage.’
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It’s the annual Vi Hart Rant Against Pi Day Day. Read more →