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.
The sports arena “arms race” in the Twin Cities took a step forward today when the Minnesota Wild and Xcel Energy Center announced a “technology upgrade” that includes a new video scoreboard that will be six times larger than the one that’s there now. It was installed in 2000. The Wild press release indicates the Read more →
White Bear Lake still has plenty of room to take your overflowing lakes, Minnesota. That just goes to show you just how far the lake has been drained in recent years as the aquifer is pumped dry. Not that this 2010 image didn’t, mind you. Despite a record month for rainfall in Minnesota, it’s been Read more →
Edward Schumacher-Matos’ contract with NPR is up in about a month and since the NPR ombudsman authored a takedown of his employer’s coverage of the removal of Native American children from their families in South Dakota, he has written very few analyses of NPR since. Today he authored an assessment of NPR’s decision to cancel Read more →
ProPublica is trying to find out if the same thing happened with the funds for Hurricane Sandy victims, but this time the Red Cross is fighting back. Read more →
People who like watching planes at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport gave a lot of attention over the weekend to the Antonov 225, the longest and heaviest airplane ever built.
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People who bought their homes at the low end of the housing crash are pulling equity out of their homes as a quick source of cash again. Read more →
Gage Stroening was camping in Wisconsin when he was struck by lightning. But he still made the show. Read more →
After the Netherlands eliminated Mexico, 2-to-1, in today’s World Cup soccer match, KLM Dutch Airlines, which apparently doesn’t need any business from Mexico, issued this tweet. ‘ The tweet was “racially insensitive,” according to Mashable and it has since been taken down. But not before stirring up Twitter. @KLM I use to fly your airline Read more →
By now you’ve probably seen the pictures of professional kayaker Hunt Jennings’ plunge over Minnehaha Falls on Thursday. What did it look like from his point of view? This. He writes: After seeing a picture of this waterfall for the first time, I was instantly intrigued. At the end of a long, but awesome Colorado Read more →
Pilot Gary Bipes of Hector went for a ride over the New Ulm area last evening to get a look at the flooding after a week of rain. Read more →
Of course, with more rain, predictions will change. But for now, it’s more of a nuisance than a disaster. Read more →
MPR’s Department of What Were They Thinking sends along today’s head scratcher. In Leawood, Kansas, authorities have told Spencer Collins, 9, his Little Free Library has to go. “Reading is one of my favorite things to do,” he tells a local TV station. “We built it on Mother’s Day as a present for my mom Read more →
Is it too early to start thinking about what life will be like when all the mosquitoes hatch after 20 inches of rain? Read more →
Does a picture of a professional kayaker going over Minnehaha Falls make you want to do the same, likely plunging to your death? Read more →
We’ve had about 20 inches of rain this month so far. And yet people are still pumping out the aquifers to water their lawns.
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Bob Collins