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NewsCut

MPR News Reflections and observations on the news

By Bob Collins

Bob Collins
bcollins@mpr.org • @newscut

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.

Arts & Culture

The night Bob Dylan ‘talked’

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 17, 2019, 4:01 PM Apr 17, 2019
20

Dylan doesn’t allow pictures to be taken during his concerts but the smartphones were out at a concert in Vienna and so Dylan stopped singing Blowin’ in the Wind and let the crowd have it.
Read more →

Sports

Baseball, a kid, and a player who doesn’t forget his roots

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 17, 2019, 11:39 AM Apr 17, 2019
3

Today’s lesson, courtesy of the best sport ever invented, is (a) don’t forget your roots and (b) don’t miss a chance to make a difference in some kid’s life.
Read more →

Crime and Justice

Seat reclining dispute aboard flight from MSP ends in legal thicket

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 17, 2019, 10:35 AM Apr 17, 2019
30

A four-year legal battle raged over thea question that was answered only this month: in what jurisdiction does a trial take place, given that a flight from Minneapolis crosses eight states? Read more →

Crime and Justice

The case of the big TV delivered to the wrong address

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 17, 2019, 9:45 AM Apr 17, 2019
15

You order a TV from Amazon, but when the delivery comes, it’s a different TV. A better TV. A TV that costs twice as much as the one your ordered. Do you keep it? Read more →

Education

Racist slogan spraypainted on steps of Mankato school

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 17, 2019, 8:30 AM Apr 17, 2019

On the steps of West High School, someone painted ‘Immigration is white genocide’ in time for the kids to see it on their way into the school on Tuesday morning. Read more →

Sports

The winners who finish last

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 17, 2019, 7:22 AM Apr 17, 2019
12

Long after photographers and reporters go home and the cheers fall silent, the best stories emerge from the darkness. Read more →

What’s on MPR News – 4/17/19

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 17, 2019, 6:00 AM Apr 17, 2019
3

Here are the topics, guests, and stories you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →

Crime and Justice · Health

In challenge to rest of country, Calif. cops let drivers out of tickets if they’re organ donors

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 16, 2019, 2:16 PM Apr 16, 2019
7

An idea in California is so brilliant, there’s no good reason it shouldn’t spread to the rest of the country. Read more →

Sports

Marine crawls across finish line in tribute to fallen friends

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 16, 2019, 10:12 AM Apr 16, 2019
1

Micah Herndon, a Marine, was running the Boston Marathon on Monday as a tribute to three Marines he served with who were killed in Afghanistan in 2010. Then his legs gave out. Read more →

Politics

Husband of soldier killed in Afghanistan back in U.S. after deportation

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 16, 2019, 9:39 AM Apr 16, 2019

Gonzalez Carranza is back in the United States, apparently because Immigration and Custom Enforcement knows a bad look when it sees it. Read more →

Education

Wis. teacher on leave in probe of ‘slave games’

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 16, 2019, 8:23 AM Apr 16, 2019
11

A seventh-grade teacher in Wisconsin is on leave after allegedly separating students by race and then telling the kids to research games from their culture.

For the black kids, it was ‘slave games,’ according to a seventh grader in Shorewood, Wis.
Read more →

This or That

Search on for happy family in photo just before Notre Dame burned

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 16, 2019, 7:13 AM Apr 16, 2019
3

Brooke Windsor, 23, a tourist from Michigan, was in a good spot to take this picture of the Notre Dame cathedral not long before it went up in flames on Monday, and now she’s searching for the people in it. Read more →

What’s on MPR News – 4/16/19

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 16, 2019, 6:01 AM Apr 16, 2019
9

Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →

Arts & Culture · This or That

Wife fulfills promise to her husband to preserve his tattoos

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 15, 2019, 2:22 PM Apr 15, 2019
16

Chris Wenzel, a tattoo artist in Saskatoon, died last year of heart failure at 41. His wife, Cheryl, and he ran a tattoo shop.

She says he didn’t see much sense going through the process of getting a tattoo if they were just going to be buried with him, and he would’ve wanted Chris’ body of work to be preserved.
Read more →

This or That

Put the cereal down and drive

Bob CollinsBob Collins April 15, 2019, 11:10 AM Apr 15, 2019
42

Now that the Minnesota Legislature has gotten it together and banned the use of hand-held cellphones while driving, perhaps it’s time to turn attention to bowls of cereal. Read more →

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