Bob CollinsFour New Jersey Democrats are pushing a bill in that state that would require schools to teach kids how to interact with the police. 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.
The Mesabi Daily News has had it with the big-city folk trying to destroy the Iron Range’s way of life. Read more →
Chris Weeks, of Wylie, Texas, wanted to live long enough to see his three daughters married, but colon cancer had other ideas for the 12-year Army veteran.
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If you don’t mind a good beating, by all means stop to help a lost child in Lakeland, Florida. Read more →
John McEnroe said today he’s not going to apologize for his comments on NPR last weekend in which he refused to call Serena Williams the best tennis player in the world.
Under McEnroe reasoning, women athletes can never be considered ‘the best’ because they can’t beat men at the game. Read more →
Nothing can disrupt a political debate like a human face put on the issue.
Alison Chandra did that this week. This face. Her son. Read more →
Theoretically, the supporters of taking health care away from 22 million Americans — as the Congressional Budget Office predicts the U.S. Senate health insurance bill will — shouldn’t be too bothered by today’s full-page ads in the Star Tribune that warn a dispute between an insurer and Children’s Hospital threatens health care for kids.
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Every time there is a major event in the Twin Cities — the Republican National Convention, for example — we are told that it will also be accompanied by a large increase in prostitution. It’s that way in other cities, too, particularly when the Super Bowl comes to town, as it will in Minneapolis next winter. Read more →
Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and Fox News host Jesse Watters are essentially in the same business: show business. Read more →
Researchers at the University of Washington studied Seattle’s phased-in increases — first from $9.47 to $11 per hour in 2015 and to $13 per hour in 2016 — and found the second wage increased reduced work hours in low-wage jobs by 9 percent while wages increased only 3 percent.
They concluded that the reduction in hours cost the average employee $179 per month, while the wage increase added only $54. Read more →
Only Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor sided with a state law
— similarly to one in 39 states — that explicitly bars state funds from going directly or indirectly to any religious sect or denomination. Read more →
Anybody who knows baseball will tell you fans of the St. Louis Cardinals are the most savvy and knowledgeable of all baseball fans.
Today’s proof?
This fan didn’t need a glove to catch a foul ball. Read more →
Appearing on Weekend Edition Sunday, James said white people “need to police their own imaginations.”
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Even if the pitcher grooved the pitch for a 45-year-old man, Kevin Millar’s curtain call for the St. Paul Saints on Saturday was baseball perfect.
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There is a moment when we all must pass the torch and it is no different for a man who created the Western States 100, the world’s oldest trail run.
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