Bob Collins
George Mendonsa has died and you’re forgiven if the name doesn’t ring a bell. For a number of years, we only knew him by one moment on V-J day. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
By Bob Collins
Bob Collins retired from Minnesota Public Radio in 2019 after 12 years of writing NewsCut and pointing out to complainants that posts weren’t news stories. A son of Massachusetts, he was a news editor 1992-1998, created the MPR News regional website in 1999, invented the popular Select A Candidate, started several blogs, and every day lamented that his Minnesota Fantasy Legislature project never caught on.
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
A funny thing happened at a wrestling tournament for little kids in Kimberly earlier this month: some wrestling broke out. Read more →
Like most of our sports stars, Crashed Ice has put the Twin Cities in its rear-view mirror and cuddled up to Boston. Read more →
‘If you want to live in a province that protects its children, occasionally you have to roll over in bed and check your phone,’ a columnist in Toronto writes in response. Read more →
Jalen Johnson, one of the nation’s best high school basketball players, went to the free-throw line Wednesday night for his suburban Milwaukee team when Port Washington fans tried to distract him by holding and waving posters with his image.
They appeared to show him wearing blackface, which is odd because Johnson is African American. Read more →
If you needed another example of why our private health insurance system is broken, you needed to look no further yesterday than this tweet thread about a guy who fell into the bureaucratic black hole of the insurance industry and tried to get some common sense to prevail. Read more →
Back in the winter of 1971, Ron Knappen, of Galesville, Wis., went for a drive while he and his wife were on a trip to visit relatives in Illinois for Christmas. He came back with eight old wood wall telephones which he’d bought from someone for $50 each. Read more →
Politics makes Minnesotans insane. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
Stephen Martin, who owns a sporting goods store, has a lot in common with a guy he doesn’t much care for: Colin Kaepernick, who angered some people for protesting racial inequality in America.
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It was entirely predictable what would happen today at the funeral for James McCue, 97, who died at a home for old folks in Methuen, Mass., outliving all the family he had. Read more →
Every once in awhile, a day comes along when a simple tweet captures everything that is good in the world.
Today is that day.
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Minnesotans are particularly bad at a number of things: taking the last piece, the zipper merge, and catching turkeys.
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In a decent society, you ought to be able to go to work without seeing a racist message spraypainted on your business when you get there.
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