Bob Collins
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. 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.
We have some more footage of the tornadoes that struck parts of southern Minnesota last month, this time an EF-1 tornado in Waterville, Minn. Read more →
An 81-year-old Madison, Wis., man was missing after his car was found in a slough. On Monday, 75 volunteers showed up to find him. As near as we can tell, nobody cared who voted for whom. Read more →
Why would people not pick up the urns containing the ashes of their loved ones? Read more →
Abby Marie Zoellmer, 37, of Mankato, had five mugs of beer and then got in her car and started driving last January.
She struck and killed William Maher, 88, who had gone into the roadway to avoid the ice of the sidewalk. Read more →
If there’s one thing we learned after the big tax breaks for corporations, it’s that when big business sounds like it’s giving a big chunk of money to the little people, the big picture provides an entirely different story.
Read more →
Rick Stein’s family raised the obituary/death notice bar with their obituary in a Delaware paper.
Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
Scott Kelly has a perspective that few others have on the subject on an out-of-control political discourse. His sister-in-law, Gabby Giffords, was shot in the head just a week into her third term in Congress at the same venue in Tucson in which a federal judge was killed. Read more →
The internet and social media has given people the ability to have their voices amplified. Too often, that’s a bad idea.
Read more →
Brainerd, like many Minnesota communities, restructured its fire department to a paid on-call volunteer force, eliminated five full-time equipment operators, ending an arrangement that had kept someone in the fire hall 24 hours a day. Read more →
Dave Lindgren, 53, and Michele Newman,55, were high school sweethearts when they were growing up in Loyal, Wis. But after they’d already broken up, Newman found out she was pregnant. They decided to put the baby up for adoption.
Read more →
In the category of uniquely Minnesotan, Alan Page playing his sousaphone on the route of the Twin Cities Marathon near Kenwood Park still stands above all others. Read more →
A Saudi journalist is probably dead because there’s no country left on the planet using its moral authority to prevent the killing of those who seek the truth about power. Read more →
Here are the topics, guests, and stories you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →