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.
Westminster, Massachusetts, a little rural town deep in the heart of the ancestral homeland of NewsCut, became a national battleground in smokers’ ‘rights’ this week when it was poised to become the first community in the country to ban the sale of tobacco products. Read more →
The big news in science today is that a guy smart enough to help land a spaceship on a comet was dumb enough to wear this shirt to talk about it.
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Myron J. Schober, 78, has died. Schober was an old-school newspaperman and says the most important words ‘I ever did’ were these. Read more →
Today’s must-read comes from the Washington Post where a woman who says she was raped — twice — by Bill Cosby asks important questions that she’s had for 30 years: Why didn’t anyone believe her?
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Add the Star Tribune editorial to the list of journalists who find no redeeming quality in Jay Kolls’ sloppy expose of Mayor Betsy Hodges door-knocking campaign in which she was alleged to have flashed gang signs. Read more →
Justus Belfield, 98, of upstate New York, had his moments of fame this week when this picture of him saluting in uniform from his nursing home bed raced around social media. Read more →
John Doar was “one of us” in the classic way we proudly claim ownership of legends. But his contributions to the world were often overlooked, especially here, for some odd reason. Read more →
Politifact is making a big deal today out of finding out this meme on social media is actually true. Read more →
This is the video that’s going to inflame Americans. Read more →
Today’s attempt to land a space probe on a comet tests whether space exploration is still capable to inspiring people on terra firma.
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There’s more to ‘living up to the hype’ than how much money business made on the deal. Read more →
There are 58,286 names on a granite wall in Washington. They’re not there to honor the policies that put them there. They’re there to honor the people who were swept up and sent to Vietnam.
By now, we should have been able to understand the distinction. Read more →
Garth Brooks, who’s in the middle of a bigger winning streak than anyone else who’s ever played at Target Center, got a chance to meet the woman for whom he stopped his Minneapolis concert last week.
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If Sal Guinta didn’t fully understand being a Medal of Honor recipient when it was given to him in 2010, he understands it now, thanks to some of the 75 other living Americans who have a medal just like his. Read more →
Last month, Zoe Galasso was shot and killed at a lunch table in the school cafeteria in Marysville, Washington.
Of the people who were shot by her classmate, Jaylen Fryberg, Zoe was the first to die. Fryberg took his own life.
Fryberg’s mother stopped by the Galasso household a few days later. Read more →
Bob Collins