Bob CollinsYussuf, 23, is trying to get to Minneapolis from Somalia. His route here isn’t what you might think.
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.
You have to give the Anoka-Hennepin school district, the largest in the state, credit for not exposing itself to the usual headline-inducing solution to parents who don’t pay for their kids’ school lunches.
Read more →
How hard do the old-timers work to make Millennials look like jerks? Really hard. Read more →
Jesse Ventura won $1.8 million in his defamation suit against ‘American Sniper’ author Chris Kyle. In an appeal of that award, judges today focused less on free speech and more on a single comment from Ventura’s lawyer. Read more →
A single-parent, nursing student writes in a commentary today that the Strib ignored a huge side of the debate: hers. Read more →
In Federal Court in St. Paul tomorrow, attorneys for the estate of ‘American Sniper’ Chris Kyle will try to convince a panel to overturn the $1.8 million award a jury gave to former Gov. Jesse Ventura in a defamation lawsuit. Kyle, without mentioning Ventura, claimed in a book that he “laid” him out on the floor after he was “running his mouth” about the war in Iraq and President George W. Bush.
But the court will be very much focusing on the New York Times, Martin Luther King Jr., four members of the clergy in Alabama, and the man who was in charge of police and fire there, because the case is a test of the Supreme Court decision that defined defamation of libel in America when it involves public figures Read more →
The Texas kid who started a national furor when he took a clock he made to school and got detained for suspicion of making a bomb is getting his trip to Washington at the invitation of the president. But Ahmed Mohamed,14, won’t be getting any time with President Obama after all. Read more →
Do people buy more expensive grades of gasoline when the price of gasoline drops? Read more →
Fall foliage from spaceIt’s only Monday but we already have a clubhouse leader in the “I didn’t see that coming” competition. It stems from last week’s Star Tribune feature on the senior dancers at Lynx and Timberwolves games. The women of a certain age might be the most beloved half-time and game-break act in the Twin Cities. Today, Read more →
A mining company based in Cleveland is threatening to throw more people out of work on the Iron Range if a mining company based in India opens up a taconite plant in Nashwauk. There’s your global economy in one sentence that seems to ignore the actual people who live on the Iron Range. Read more →
A high school football player stops what he’s doing at a game to meet WWII vets. Read more →
In Madison, Wisc., the king and queen are dead. Long live ‘Regent Royalty.’ Read more →
On its Facebook page today, the Minnesota State Patrol provides a little shaming for the anonymous driver who was cited during the Patrol’s crackdown on seat belt non-usage. Read more →
The Star Tribune reports the Twin City Model Railroad Museum has been told by landlords to pack up the trains and get out.
Read more →