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.
Victoria Islamic Center in Victoria, Texas burned nearly to the ground on Saturday night. The cause of the fire isn’t known yet and it could be months before it is. But the people of Texas aren’t waiting. They’re pulling together to get it rebuilt. Read more →
It takes a lot of thinking to make a statue of a woman throwing her hat into the air. Gwen Gillen, who died two days after Mary Tyler Moore, is the woman who beat 20 other sculptors for the right to make the MTM statue that might have seemed like a tacky project at the time — after all, it promoted a TV network — that has, instead, become a symbol of Minneapolis. Read more →
After World War II, area residents planted more than 1,000 trees to honor service members in a living tribute on Minnesota Highway 22 between Mankato and Mapleton. But road needs change and now the trees must go. Read more →
It was a nice story, but in these times, nice stories often don’t last. In Hibbing,you may recall, the community came together to support the Koslucher family, which lost Christmas presents in a fire just before Christmas when someone reportedly stole them after the blaze. Read more →
You’d think by now people would know it’s a bad idea to utter the ‘B word’ at an airport but an Indian man did it in Grand Forks anyway with predictable results. Read more →
There aren’t a lot of obituaries that end up on the editorial page, but Casey Schwartzmier, who died of a heroin overdose earlier this month, would have wanted it that way. Read more →
The high school in Pine City, Minn., is known more for arts than sports. But that might be changing because of a coach who believes there are only two shots worth trying in basketball: Shots from the paint and beyond the three-point arc. Read more →
Dan Backhaus, a Wisconsin native, would like you to get to know his neighborhood even if you’re the type who doesn’t want to. Read more →
Rod Carew, the beloved former Minnesota Twin, returned home over the weekend, more than a month after his heart transplant. Read more →
The actors, actresses, directors, and producers of entertainment needn’t have bothered with their various statements of opposition to the Trump administration last evening.
The administration’s support comes largely from the portrayal of the creative class as elites who look down upon the common person. Read more →
Winter in the upper Midwest, 2017. Read more →
When we heard NPR’s segment the other morning about why the network didn’t refer to Donald Trump’s repeated assertion that millions of illegal immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton, denying him a popular vote victory, a ‘lie’ we figured that NPR’s ombudsman would surely hear about it. She did. And she’s issued her ruling. Read more →
Surely someone would notice if their pig was missing, right? Not, apparently, in Albert Lea, Minn., where police were called to a neighborhood this week when a pig appeared. Read more →
This just in from MPR’s Department of Gross.
Read more →
For people who live on the Canada side of the U.S. border, emergency health care can be a horror show. Read more →
Bob Collins