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.
Marlene Bird, 50, wanted you to know her name.
She struggled with alcoholism and was homeless in 2014 when she was beaten and set afire. Her legs had to be amputated. She lived with a patch covering her eye. She had been sexually assaulted. Read more →
They don’t call the kids on the Caledonia High School football team “champs” for nothing, and it’s not just because they beat Pipestone 57-to-6 on Friday to win the state Class AA football championship, their eighth title in the last 11 years. Read more →
Nearly 200 square dancers once did the bowing and circling and twirling with the Turkey Trotters square dancing club in Worthington. Now, once the snowbirds head south at this time of the year, there are only three. You can’t do much square dancing with three people. Read more →
Ely Timberjay publisher Marshall Helmberger gave voice to his mother last week. She was a legislative aide who was forced out after being abused at the Capitol. Read more →
A dustup from Republican operatives on Twitter yesterday was a perfect example of the ingrained cultural patriarchy. Three media outlets were allowed to interview Sen. Al Franken yesterday in separate interviews and all three reporters were women. Read more →
Just how a big comeback Nazis have made in 2017 was never more obvious than the New York Times’ decision to put a human face on them.
He’s Tony Hovate and he’s just a regular guy, the Times tells us. He’s the Nazi sympathizer next door.
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Here’s today’s list of topics and guests on MPR News and NPR programming. Read more →
In an interview on Sunday with MPR News and several other news outlets in Minnesota, Sen. Al Franken said ‘I know I have a lot of work to do to regain the trust of people I’ve let down.’ Read more →
The Church of Sweden has decided that God is beyond human form and so it will no longer refer to … him… as …. him or he. Read more →
Here’s a list of guests and topics today on MPR News programming. Read more →
NPR’s Story Lab project Inter(Nation)al traveled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to the National Congress of American Indians to talk with tribal leaders, scholars and people in the legal field about these foundational, living documents. Read more →
Here are the guests and show topics today on MPR News programming. Read more →
Last September, Fox 9 reporter Courtney Godfrey lost part of her leg while boating on Christmas Lake. The boat’s propeller took her foot off; doctors had to amputate her leg.
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It is much more difficult now for television — any news outlet, really — to awaken a conscience than it was in 1984. Read more →
Sure, go ahead and call Mike Hughes all the names he’s probably heard before but we’re here today to celebrate his passion, an antidote to America’s pervasive can’t-do spirit.
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Bob Collins