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.
Grocery stores in smaller communities have struggled in recent years and there’s real concern that they won’t be able to make it.
Many of them have tried everything. Almost everything. Most haven’t tried what Paul and Kendra Rasmusson have created in New Prague — a staffless, round-the-clock, self-checkout grocery store. Read more →
It’s the first time in the ‘modern era’ — about 130 years — that the age group was more likely to be living with parents than with a spouse or partner in their own home. Read more →
Micah McDade has had cerebral palsy since birth and has never walked, until he needed to get his high school diploma. Read more →
One in eight college graduates is ‘underemployed.’ And for most young graduates, wages are no higher than they were for the grads in 2000.
Know a 2015 graduate? How did things turn out Read more →
With medical marijuana legal now in Minnesota, has carnage on the road, presently caused by alcohol, multiplied with stoned drivers? It’s too soon to say.
And funny thing about that; scientists who study the brain can’t seem to agree on whether it impairs drivers the way booze does.
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It’s happened again. A pedestrian in St. Paul was hit and seriously hurt in a crosswalk because a driver had — as law dictates — stopped to allow her to cross. Read more →
Karinya, 15, had tickets to last Thursday’s Florence and the Machine concert in Austin, TX. But she was too sick to go. She has cancer and things have been pretty tough.
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How do you sneak in a big ‘She Said Yes’ sign with your girlfriend without her seeing it because you haven’t proposed to her yet? Read more →
The graduating seniors at Worthington High School are getting an important letter — from themselves. Read more →
If not for this picture, Pvt. John P. Sersha’s gravesite in Europe would only carry the name ‘X7429’ and his family in Eveleth would never know what happened to him.
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As is occasionally the case during commencement season, some school administrators are taking advantage of the fleeting opportunity to impose one last petty dictum.
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From the sound of things from the Capitol, just about everyone elected to govern the state hates the way the state was governed during the Minnesota legislative session. But this is what we elected; nobody to blame but ourselves.
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Lake Superior can turn ugly in a hurry but when it wants to be calm and gorgeous, there’s no place better at it. Read more →
Was NPR complicit in selling the Iran nuclear deal to the public? It matters of journalism ethics, only perception matters. Read more →
One of the first ‘retro’ baseball parks that ushered in the stadium building boom in the ’90s is about to be demolished because it’s not enough anymore that a baseball stadium is a great place to watch a baseball game.
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Bob Collins