Who shoots people “just for fun?” Plus: Should Wisconsin raise the speed limit? Guns at the Minnesota Capitol. Aid to Egypt. Big bucks from cigarette taxes. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news

The plug was pulled on Al Gore’s Current TV this afternoon and the Al Jazeera America era is underway. Qatar-based Al Jazeera paid $500 million to buy Current TV. “Some people ask, ‘Is it jihad journalism?’ It’s hard to have a dignified conversation about that,” Paul Beban, the Denver correspondent, tells the Denver Post. Read more →
The National Transportation Safety Board says the pilot of a small plane that crashed last summer near Brainerd was probably stoned while flying. The NTSB has posted the findings of its investigation into the crash on Upper Whitefish Lake near Crosslake. It said the medical examiner found drug paraphernalia in the shirt pocked of the Read more →

The e-cigarette debate, the empty nest, why farmers don’t quit, a free shot at college, and hate 101. Read more →
Mubarak could be back, Wisconsin spikes the idea of employers asking for Facebook passwords, Paul Bunyan humor falls flat on Bemidji, and a Pennsylvania county clerk turns DOMA on its head. Read more →

A klutzy Paul Bunyan is selling insurance. Should Bemidji be worked up? Read more →

This is street art — Best Buy style.
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The Minnesota Court of Appeals today ruled the state has the right to strip the driver’s license of anyone who refuses officers’ orders to drive faster. Read more →

Visiting the future of America, Ernie and Weldon’s reunion, from tee to shining tee, the price of being a Good Samaritan, and the boss the rest of us want. Read more →
My youthful indiscretion with coffee might as well be part of my epitaph. Read more →

Former Kansas City Star sports reporter and SportsInReview.com editor Martin Manley shot himself in front of a police station yesterday morning. He also left a whole website explaining his actions. Read more →

You’ll never see a more detailed and intimate visual report on Chicago’s gun violence problem than in the Tribune’s “Under the Gun” series. Read more →

Finding fault, more on the NPR ombudsman controversy, Jane takes more steps after the Marathon bombing, the anti-fracking nuns, and those darned hybrids. Read more →

Slate has posted a brutally intimate photo essay of the Ku Klux Klanby photographer Anthony Karen. Read more →