Bob Collins
An estimated 10,000 anglers headed for Gull Lake for the annual Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing Extravaganza. They had no problem finding a place to pull up a bucket; organizers had drilled 20,000 holes. 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.
In matters of winter, we could take a lesson from dogs, and the people who headed to Two Harbors on Sunday for the John Beargrease race. Read more →
Every year safe pilots wince at the risk a pilot takes so that a newspaper can get the signature photo of Crashed Ice in Saint Paul. Read more →
Insurance hassles and regulations are forcing many rural hospitals to close their obstetrics facilities, Read more →
The snow hadn’t even started falling yet in the northeast’s ‘historic’ snowstorm when Minnesotans and other Midwesterners were taking to Twitter to joke about the East’s ignorance of what to do when it snows. Read more →
If you write a news blog for a living, there’s not much better than a debate breaking out on it over a scientific calculation.
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Could you choose which of your kids to save if their lives depended on it? Read more →
Nothing can make a person feel older than when your earliest baseball heroes die. Ernie Banks has died.
Here are 10 questions based on events that happened this week. Good luck! Read more →
If you’ve ever been to a youth athletic league game, you know the type. Perhaps, you are the type. Read more →
North Dakota has the dirtiest snow in America, according to researchers.
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Al Jazeera America this week has been peeling back the veil of indifference that has masked a reality of life in parts of Minneapolis — native American gangs. Read more →
Might the controversy over the missing two pounds-per-square inch of air from a football be blown (no pun intended) a bit out of proportion?
Let’s consider these two images of news conferences in the Boston area this week.
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Not since they dressed up llamas at the Minnesota State Fair have we seen a competition quite like the images from the Miss Universe costume competition today.
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When former Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel was paid to walk away from the company which he led into some of the worst decisions in the history of the retailer, he was given a severance package worth an estimated $61 million.
That figure is being noticed now that Target plans to put 17,000 employees out of work in Canada. Read more →