Bob CollinsIn Round Hill, Virginia, Spencer Bergman worked hard all summer selling lemonade at his stand. He wanted a dog. But a thief wanted the money. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
People doing good
A group of college kids rallied to keep a colleague, who was out of money, in school. In 24 hours, they raised enough money to keep their friend in college.
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Friends help take the sting out of a hurtful high school “joke.”
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In the nick of time, a third season of ‘It’s Aaron’ has debuted.
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Lillian Weber makes a dress each day as she sits by the sewing machine in her Iowa farmhouse. She sends them to people she doesn’t know in Africa. Read more →
Justin and Tia met in elementary school in Kentucky, but fate kept them apart. Her family moved to Green Bay. He joined the Air Force and moved to Italy. After nine years of speaking online, they finally have been reunited, thanks to The Buried Life, the show of four guys whose “bucket list” includes asking Read more →
Brigette Mengerson, one of our favorite readers from North Minneapolis, is an unabashed fan of NoMi as we’ve noted in the past. She hardly overlooks its flaws, not the way many people do with the good stories that exist there. Like this one, which she forwarded today. It’s certainly good enough for me to pause Read more →
No matter what’s going on in the world, reflected by today’s news stories, there are still first-grade teachers. No one changes the world like a first-grade teacher.
A man was getting on a train in Perth this morning when he stepped back and into the gap between the train and the platform. He couldn’t get out. No problem, though. Because people saved him by moving the train. “Everyone sort of pitched in,” a spokesman for the transit authority said. “It was people Read more →
When a police officer is killed in the line of duty, there’s not a lot individuals can do. We’re powerless in that fact. So, as in other times of tragedy, we light a candle, write a note, or leave some flowers. Reminding us and others that we’re connected in this world of anonymity is about Read more →
The world responds to a Facebook posting about a little boy who may have little time left. Read more →
A suburban signpost spreads a little love. Read more →
You can probably understand why Nathan Steffel didn’t want to remember his daughter like this. But he didn’t have much choice. “Since she was in the hospital her whole life we never were able to get a photo without all her tubes,” he wrote this week on Reddit. His daughter died in a Cincinnati children’s Read more →
What do you do after you’ve made your fortune developing games for Playstation and other devices? For John Rowe and his friend, Lale Labuko, retirement involved stopping ritualistic killing of children. Rowe and Labuko are tackling the problem of Mingi in Ethiopia, the belief that a baby is “cursed” if it is born out of Read more →
It’s bad enough that a mudslide inundates your home, sending you running for your life. But when you find out your home is gone and insurance won’t give you a dime, it’s an extra punch to the gut. Homeowners insurance generally doesn’t cover flooding nor “acts of God.” It happened to Randy Carlson, who has Read more →