Bob Collins
He sells firewood by the side of the road — $5 a bundle. He’s been doing it since last year and when he first started, his wife, Helen, was alongside him.
This is how he pays his wife’s medical bills, his daughter says. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Health
It wouldn’t be a bad thing if the world were a little more like Jacob Carrigan.
He’s the bicyclist who was struck by a woman who was fleeing in her vehicle after allegedly trying to hang a young child. Read more →
The reaction to this year’s presidential election allows us to see the difference between Republicans and Democrats, men and women.
In the aftermath of President Obama’s two wins, men headed to the gun stores to stock up on weapons and ammunition.
After President-elect Trump’s victory, women have headed to their gynecologists, to stock up on birth control.
Read more →
If there’s anyone who deserved a good retirement, it’s Buddy. And that’s what he’s getting today at age 30.
Buddy is a therapy horse with We Can Ride, a Minnetonka therapeutic horseback riding program for people with special needs. Read more →
If the election 2016 was an opportunity for a comprehensive discussion of health care insurance, the nation failed badly. Instead, it was a debate over a word and a general concept — Obamacare. You’re either for it or you’re against it.
That’s too bad because there are people — Republicans and Democrats and everyone in between — who are suffering under the byzantine health insurance system, just as they suffered under it in the pre-Obamacare days. Read more →
Acting on the advice of experts, schools have pretty well lowered the cone of silence on the issue of suicides by students. They’re worried that it will lead to a copycat syndrome.
So it’s shocking to learn, as we did via NPR today, that middle school suicides have reached an all-time high, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Read more →
Today’s must-read item comes from Mara Gottfried at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, who tells the story of Ali Bility, a 17-year-old who was in the starting lineup last night when Como Park’s football squad took the field.
Suffering from depression, Bility had attempted suicide last winter. Read more →
It’s tempting to note that it’s quite a coincidence that John Oliver’s focus last night on Last Week Tonight was the opioid epidemic, coming as it did on a weekend in which authorities announced that two people are dead — so far — in a wave of nine overdoses of opioids in the Twin Cities. Read more →
For the most part, parents can be pretty over-the-top when it comes to protecting their kids from risks real and imagined. So why are they letting them play youth football? NBC reports on a study being released today that shows the brain changes after just one season of suiting up, even if the player doesn’t Read more →
Karl Randa has cancer and, from the sound of things, the prognosis isn’t great. It didn’t help when someone broke into his family’s home and stole many possessions. It didn’t help when the family was faced with losing their home. It helped when his friends stepped in. Read more →
Today’s daily dose of bittersweetness comes from Peter DeMarco, a Boston writer whose 34-year-old wife died after an asthma attack. Read more →
Today’s daily dose of sweetness comes from Derry in Ireland where Alexandra Johnston, 14, is fighting cancer for the second time. While undergoing chemotherapy treatment, she finished off all seasons of Sons of Anarchy in one-month and has developed a bit of a thing for motorcycles. Read more →
Norma Bauerschmidt, of Michigan, became an online celebrity thanks to her daughter-in-law’s Facebook page, Driving Miss Norma, which started over a year ago after she was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Read more →
This afternoon, Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek released a study showing half of the inmates at the Hennepin County jail would benefit from or are in need of mental health services. Read more →
Woodstock the therapy chicken is dead. Read more →