Bob CollinsTwenty-nine years ago, a McDonald’s manager asked Art Mason if he’d help out for a few hours; he was short staffed. In May, Art will turn 89. 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 →
You can do some interesting things with a Minnesota lake. Take the right temperature, a little snow, and a plow, voila! You’ve got an airport. Read more →
The Minnesota Department of Transportation is running out of ways to get through to Minnesota drivers about how to drive in winter, and it’s not as if the department isn’t trying. Today, another snowplow got hit, this time near Brandon, Minn. Read more →
The law allowing Sunday sales of booze in Minnesota carried a nagging challenge for Vikings fans. If you’re out of booze, and the game starts at noon, how are you supposed to get any when the stores aren’t allowed to open until 11 a.m.? Read more →
Allen Foster, of Bemidji, says he was too excited to get on Lake of the Woods after getting off work. He never checked the weather, he tells the Bemidji Pioneer, which also has video of the dilemma. Read more →
Five other states have tried a similar bill. Five other states have failed even though the evidence is mounting that football scrambles your kids’ brain. Because: football. And: America. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
TV reporters are outrageously vulnerable when they’re doing live interviews and “stand-ups” as we learned in 2015 when a TV reporter and her camera crew were shot to death on live TV.
What happened to a CBC reporter in Toronto the other night wasn’t murder, but it was an assault. Read more →
Its good news for the WASPs, the four chaplains, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Hillary Clinton — all of whom were originally on the list of people to be removed from the curriculum. But John Hancock, Nathan Hale, Stonewall Jackson, and Estee Lauder are, uh, history. Read more →
Humans are amazing when they put their minds to it.
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There’ll be no snow today so we can take a few hours to gather our thoughts and prepare to survive the torture of a few more inches tomorrow. And have you heard it’s going to get ridiculously cold again? Of course you have. Otherwise you wouldn’t be out on that ledge. Read more →
The saddest thing about what Devontae Shuler, a basketball player for Ole Miss, did last Saturday is try to explain why he took a knee during the National Anthem to a nation that knows exactly why he did it and is anxious to change the subject.
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Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
Bullies are made, not born. That’s a fact that Gillette tried to point out last month with its infamous ad about toxic masculinity. If that offended your sensibilities, you’re not going to like a PSA that was released today on the occasion of Canada’s Anti-Bullying Day. It hits like a sledgehammer. Read more →