Bob CollinsLet this be a lesson: pay your taxes on time. 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.
Ryan Larson, the man falsely suspected of killing of Cold Spring police officer Tom Decker in 2012, might have a struggle in court proving his defamation suits against — so far — WCCO and KSTP, but with any luck, he’ll succeed in getting local news media to take a step back and a deep breath in similar stories in the future. Read more →
When you’re facing elimination in the Stanley Cup playoffs, you’ll grasp at anything.
The Wild was on the edge last night against the Colorado Avalanche, having coughed up a two-goal lead. The Minnesota sports fan was sure this would end badly. How could it not? It’s Minnesota sports. Read more →
If I learned nothing else from my friends who fought the Red River in Moorhead, it’s this: during flooding, the enemy is inside your home.
Judging by the crowd in two separate hardware stores’ sump-pump sections this afternoon, I wasn’t alone in fighting the beast: the burned-out sump pump. Read more →
MPR News has added John Enger to the staff as a reporter. He’ll be working for the website out of Bemidji. He comes from good North Woods stock that recognizes the value of ice out. Read more →
When it comes to sportsmanship, female athletes rarely disappoint. They seem to get it more than their male counterparts. Evidence of this comes to us today from Lakeland, Florida, where Chelsea Oglevie, a senior at Florida Southern College, was just one pitch away from wrapping up her collegiate softball career. Eckerd College’s Kara Oberer ruined Read more →
Every year on Holocaust Remembrance Day I post a video similar to this one. Israel comes to a stand still for a couple of minutes. Read more →
Would you be able to function if you woke up to find it’s 1986? A couple in Ontario has spent the last year living in 1986, the year they were born. Today, they returned to 2014 Read more →
You have to skim pretty far down the New York Times story about Minnesota Orchestra conductor Osmo Vanska to get to the part that’s got the local artistic tongues wagging today: He has a romantic relationship with concertmaster Erin Keefe. Mr. Vanska, who is divorced, says this is a private matter, unlikely to affect Ms. Read more →
After being a secret for decades, Sir Nicholas Winton’s achievement has been out for a few years. He went to Prague in 1938 for a little vacation and ended up saving children from the Holocaust.
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The world isn’t going to wait for the Federal Aviation Administration to come up with rules governing the use of drones, or — more accurately — quad copters. Read more →
Did the Minnesota Wild lose a game because of a blown offside call? It’s too close to call. Read more →
The Los Angeles Clippers reportedly thought about boycotting this afternoon’s playoff game with the Golden State Warriors, in protest of the racism of the team’s owners. They should have. Read more →
You may recall the ice attack on the south shore last May. On Sunday the ice hit the northwest shore this time: U.S. Highway 169 just south of Garrison, Minn., thanks to 35 mph wind. Read more →
It’s going to be tough for the mayor of Minneapolis to succeed in her plan to have more people bragging about her city. People here don’t know how good they’ve got it.
That much seems clear by virtue of a new Gallup poll that shows only 61% of the people surveyed here think Minnesota is ‘one of the best possible states to live.’ Read more →