A woman who worked at a McDonald’s in South Carolina probably would’ve been happier leaving her nine-year-old daughter home alone, but the home was burglarized and the laptop which might’ve provided a little entertainment was stolen. So Debra Harrell dropped the girl off at a park about a mile from where she worked. The mother Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news

The brewing crisis on America’s southern border should pretty much kill any chance of immigration reform in the future, the Washington Post reports today. Republican support for any plan that allows undocumented immigrants to stay in the U.S. has plunged since February. Nothing got done in Washington when there was actually support for getting something Read more →
Whenever Minnesota examines its Minnesota Niceness, we are prompted to make popcorn, prop our feet up and watch the unfolding entertainment. We’d invite the neighbors over for the fun but we’ve never met them since they moved in two or three years ago. But that’s a story for another day. The Star Tribune kicked off Read more →

What do you do if you’re a trash hauler with customers who don’t pay their bills? In Red Wing, you give them some trash back. Read more →

It is an ill-kept secret that your NewsCut host wants to catch a baseball (foul or fair; doesn’t matter) at a major league game before he expires on the planet. Like this guy almost did in the upper deck at Target Field during the Home Run Derby the other night. Jordan Jacobson stuck out his Read more →

Most of the publicity around small jets for people has focused on Duluth-based Cirrus, which has put a lot of its future in the hands of the VLJ, the very light jet concept. But at nearly $2 million apiece, that’s not an aircraft for typical people. That’s an aircraft for corporations and businesspeople who don’t Read more →
A new study analyzing reporting of political debates finds that political journalists are more stenographers than journalists, depending on how you view the word “objectivity.” Read more →
It probably didn’t get much notice at last night’s All Star game, except, of course, by the people who were at Target Field. But on Twitter last evening, Eileen Smith posted a pretty poignant moment on the Jumbotron. WWII and Korean War vet on the jumbotron at the #ASG. #mlb #hero @twins usher for 14 Read more →

Fox created the controversy in the first place, then dismissed the controversy as the fault of social media. Read more →
If a homeless person has an apartment, are they still a homeless person? If a person isn’t a homeless person, should a neighborhood still be afraid? These are the questions that aren’t being asked in Moorhead in the unfolding drama surrounding a neighborhood’s attempt to boot out a church-sponsored project to build housing for the Read more →
Who are you and what have you done with Joe Soucheray? The most famous crank in the newspaper business in the Twin Cities and long-time opponent of the Central Corridor light-rail project has seen the light in, perhaps, the biggest turnaround in transit history. In his column in the Pioneer Press today, Soucheray took the Read more →
Comcast is trying significant damage control today after a customer posted audio of his attempt to cancel Comcast’s Internet and cable service in his home. Read more →

Jeremiah Heaton of Abingdon, Virginia, is either a very clever man, a too-indulgent father or — perhaps — a little of both. Read more →