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.
United Airlines and American Airlines are standing up against the Trump administration’s policy to take children away from parents who cross the border. You’re up, Delta. CNBC says the two airlines have asked the government not to fly the kids to detention centers on their airline. Read more →
In Russia, nothing sells burgers like a promotion offering free Whoppers to women who agree to get impregnated by soccer players in the World Cup.
Burger King has now apologized for the promotion. Read more →
The New York Times is under fire in some quarters for spiking an on-the-record audio interview with Stephen Miller, President’s Trump’s senior policy adviser. Read more →
Kingsport, Tennessee’s athletic director wins the competition for understatement this week with this observation after a brawl broke out between parents watching their girls play softball. Read more →
The Iron Range is much like America itself. No matter what is shown on TV that’s happening between families seeking refuge in the United States, if the times are good in the wallet, politicians and voters can shake just about anything else off. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
Over 100 women pilots will prove today they haven’t forgotten their routes or their roots. They’re taking off at 8 a.m. in Sweetwater, Texas, in the 2018 Air Race classic. By nightfall, perhaps, they’ll make Faribault, Minn., enroute to the finish line in Fryeburg, Maine. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
Today marks the 365th consecutive day that John Sievers has worn a different T-shirt, capping his year-long effort to draw attention to his community. Read more →
What’s the opposite of Ronald Reagan’s famous “Morning in America” campaign ad which proved that with some slick marketing, you can put lipstick on a pig?
Minnesota U.S. Senate candidate Richard Painter’s first campaign ad, which he released on Sunday. Read more →
High school commencement speeches can be forgettable things. Not so this year in Plano, Texas, where Sef Scott did the honors.k Read more →
The hardly-used Silver Bay (Minn.) airport is providing a good glimpse into the problem with grant money dangled by the federal government. Read more →
Over the years, the Veterans Administration has worked out a plan to erase the reports of terrible treatment and conditions in VA nursing homes, including a 2009 Pittsburgh Tribune-Review story about a home in Philadelphia where a veteran’s leg had to be amputated after an infection in his foot went untreated for so long his toes turned black and attracted maggots. Read more →
St. Paul police today are starting the “enforcement period” in another crackdown on drivers who don’t stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, a crackdown that is annually necessary because the crackdown is an annual event. Read more →