Bob Collins
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. 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 →
Hold on tight, NPR is moving the furniture around, announcing it’s replacing its long-time musical theme on Morning Edition. How long-time? It’s been the same theme since the show debuted during the Carter administration.
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It seemed like a good idea when it got its start. Panera started several stores in which people could pay whatever they want. The idea was some people would pay more to help those who had little choice but to pay less.
Nice, right? Read more →
Not popular, perhaps, with the anti-Trump crowd, but we can see the point of the authorities with the National Snow Sculpting Championships in Lake Geneva, Wis., to ban Dusty Thune’s snow sculpture depicting Donald Trump. Read more →
The governor of New Mexico has figured out a way to stand out from the crowd of politicians saying the predictable things people say after a State of the Union speech. Read more →
The Grand Forks Herald says these are tough times for single people in North Dakota. A WalletHub survey ranks the state 40th in the percentage of single adults, and ranks dead last for gender balance, probably because of the number of men who moved to North Dakota to work in the Oil Patch. Read more →
There’s good news and bad news in the story of Jay Mitchell, the homeless man who wouldn’t give up his dog in the brutal cold of a Minnesota winter and paid the price with severe frostbite.
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Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
Since December 2010, Larry Englund has been capturing the jazz scene in the Twin Cities, a genre generally ignored around here, on his blog, Rhythm and Grooves. Read more →
Lovell Tims died a few weeks ago but good luck finding anything about him online, even though he was quite the iconic figure at the U.S. Bank Plaza in downtown Minneapolis. Tims was a shoeshine guy and obituaries cost money, so one was never printed nor published. Read more →
Where did North Dakota go to find a logo and slogan to capture its essence? Minnesota. Read more →
Some kids learn important lessons by what others consider failure. You show up, you work hard. Sometimes it doesn’t work out, so you keep working on it because someday it might. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →