Bob CollinsIn Willmar, Minn., over the weekend, several hundred residents could do the only thing they could to grieve for two Somali boys who drowned last week. They walked. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
People doing good
The area surrounding their home in China has been decimated by pollution.
So they started planting trees. One tree at a time. So far, they’ve planted 10,000 trees. Read more →
Sister Jean Thuerauf started a religious program on Tuesday afternoon for the kids in the neighborhood and baking cookies was one of the activities, Read more →
Chong Lee, of Wausau, Wis., lost his arm when he was just a boy when mortar shells rained down on his backyard in Laos in 1968.
After years in a refugee camp, his family migrated to Wisconsin, he learned to speak English, and for the last few years he’s worked as a janitor at Wausau East High School.
He has a prosthetic arm, but it’s too heavy and uncomfortable, so he works with just one arm. Read more →
Target employees and customers at a store in Connecticut are getting applause after coming to the defense of a woman who was breastfeeding her baby.
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The world needs more dog stories. So here’s a dog story, world. Read more →
‘We have no idea why someone would do such a horrible thing, but we couldn’t let these wonderful people who served our country go without their flags,’ said Kenyon police chief Lee Sjolander. Read more →
Michael Kelly talked to his mother on the phone on Mother’s Day, which isn’t particularly unusual except that Mary Reynolds hasn’t talked to her boy in about 10 years. He’s homeless in San Francisco.
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Élise boissonneault was going to be married this weekend. But then the Alberta wildfire wiped out her city of Fort McMurray and when she fled, she left her wedding dress behind. Read more →
The growing movement to end tipping will find few fans in tiny Lisbon, N.D., southwest of Fargo. Read more →
This is the proper technique for releasing an eagle back to the wild.
Eyes to the sky. Feet wide apart. Tongue out. Read more →
Randall Thom, from Lakefield, Minn., showed up at the home in Monticello and gave the family the dog wrapped in an American flag. Read more →
There should be an alternative for a veteran with PTSD than a cell. But when Joe Serna, 41, a former Special Forces member who has been awarded three Purple Hearts, appeared in a court, North Carolina District Court Judge Lou Olivera didn’t have a lot of choice when Serna admitted he lied about a recent urine test. He sentenced him to a day in jail.
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Let the record show that when the Minnesota veterans of World War II and the Korean War walked into a restaurant on their Honor Flight to visit the World War II and Korean War memorial on Saturday, the people in the restaurant knew just what to do. Read more →
Maybe Gabriel will achieve his dream of flight someday, maybe not. Many of his neighbors watch his attempts and laugh at his folly. But he now has the knowledge to build a plane at his fingertips, courtesy of two brothers from Dayton who heard similar laughter, and present-day pilots who know how to make it stop Read more →