Bob Collins
The Hill reports that the Trump administration is planning to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for Humanities.
It’s part of a package to reduce the national debt by $10 trillion over the next 10 years. 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.
Let’s update a the old misguided and inaccurate barometer to measure presidential performance that surfaced often since the dawn of NewsCut 9 years ago. Read more →
What happens to old playground equipment when affluent suburbs move on to something better?
They end up in a Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon. Read more →
What a terrific piece of reporting Marketplace health beat reporter Dan Gorenstein turned in on the show last night!
It followed a comment from the likely new secretary of Health and Human Services at his confirmation hearings yesterday. Read more →
There isn’t a lot new in Pew Research’s survey today about where people got their news about the election and campaign. Trump supporters mostly used FoxNews and Clinton supporters didn’t.
But there are a few interesting nuggets, including the fact that digital publishers weren’t much of a source. That includes operations such as Breitbart or BuzzFeed.
So the sun hasn’t set quite yet on traditional news ‘brands.’ Read more →
Xcel Energy Center comes out on top as far as Minnesota venues being ranked in Stadium Journey’s assessment of the best places to watch sporting events. The website reviewed 761 sports venues in 2016 and this week ranked the top 100. Read more →
Now that Congress is on the road to repealing the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare — we’re reminded again how the country missed an opportunity to have an intelligent debate during the campaign on health care access. Read more →
It was minus 22 in Duluth, not the best weather for a short-haired dog, but not an impediment for dozens — maybe hundreds — of people who cared enough to help look for Bentley. Read more →
Francisco Javier Ojeda, 50, was struck and killed by a car while crossing a street against the light when walking to work at the Home Depot in Fridley this week. He commuted there from his home in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood, a gauntlet that appears to mirror much of his life.
Read more →
YahooSports’ Adrian Wojnarowski, the NBA’s most well-connected writer, reports that the Minnesota Timberwolves are shopping Rubio and Shabazz Muhammad ahead of the NBA trade deadline. Read more →
During last week’s confirmation hearings for attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., asked Sessions whether he would affirm a Justice Department guideline not to prosecute journalists for doing their job if he is confirmed.
‘Senator Klobuchar, I am not sure,’ Sessions said.
That’s not a good enough answer for the head of NPR News. Read more →
The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled in the case of a man convicted of burglary. A detective obtained a search warrant for the man’s cellphone but was unable to unlock it, so a court ordered him to use his fingerprint to unlock it. Read more →
A lot of schools were delayed or closed today because of the weather. The poor weather didn’t reach Wadena, Minn., where it was 2 degrees at sunrise. It didn’t matter. Read more →
New University of Minnesota football coach P.J. Fleck could make $18 million over five years, the largest contract ever given out to a U of M coach. And some members of the Board of Regents think the board should have something to say about spending that kind of money.
Read more →
As we’ve noted many times in this space over the years, flying cars are a fairly impractical solution to a problem. Most every flying car project that’s underway continues to take investors’ money and delay the rollout. Read more →