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.
Sidewalks hearken back to a day in America where people walked to places, maybe even stopped to talk to neighbors. But that romanticized view has no place in America, judging from the reaction of people at a meeting Monday night.
Homeowners in Mankato hate sidewalks. Read more →
What did we learn from a decades-long shakedown of taxpayers for new football stadiums? That the NFL doesn’t bluff. Read more →
There’s probably a social science experiment to be had in one of the most frustrating parts of traveling by air: getting on the plane. Read more →
The theater kids at New Prague High School have learned an important lesson from the blowback from a social media post: Context matters. Read more →
Two people fell through the ice in separate incidents within 45 minutes of each other yesterday, the Brainerd Dispatch says. The first was on Big Portage Lake in rural Backus and the second on Gladstone Lake in Nisswa. Read more →
In the aftermath of last November’s election, the big TV and radio networks sent their Washington reporters out to the Midwest and South to find out about this America thing they’ve been hearing about. Because there wasn’t a reporter in the Midwest who could’ve explained what’s going on there to the rest of the country.
Until now. Read more →
Harrison Ford was nothing if not contrite when he mistakenly flew over the top of an airliner waiting to take off at John Wayne airport in Orange County, Calif., and landed on a taxiway instead.
Read more →
Delta Airlines’ social media department one-upped United Airlines’ beleagured team over yesterday’s refusal by United to allow girls with leggings on a flight. Read more →
Jacqui Helbert, 32, was fired by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, which owns WUTC, the NPR affiliate, after local politicians complained about her coverage of a group of high school students who lobbied against a bill forcing Tennessee students to use restrooms and locker rooms matching the sex listed on their birth certificates.
Read more →
If you want to be employed in Minnesota, health care isn’t a bad choice for a career, a study from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development released today says.
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The Canadian Press reports the organization that governs amateur hockey in Canada is mandating that little kids use smaller rinks.
The organization says it will lead to more skilled players if five- and six-year-olds learn the game on half-rink ice sheets. Read more →
We detect an odd theme in some news offerings this morning: Cursing and the science surrounding it. Read more →
We’ll take a little humanity wherever we can find it these days.
Here’s a little humanity.
In Philadelphia yesterday, a woman neared collapse at the end of a half-marathon she was running. Read more →
It was like old times on the television on Sunday morning. There was Ted Koppel, patiently listening to the person he was talking to — Sean Hannity — shortly before destroying him on the question of the death of journalism. Read more →
United Airlines says it refused to allow two girls to get on a Sunday morning flight from Denver to Minneapolis because they poorly represented the airline. Read more →
Bob Collins