Bob Collins
Remember a month or so ago when we sports fans had tears in our eyes as Kevin Garnett returned to the hardwood of Target Center?
If you see your colleagues dabbing the eyes this afternoon, it’s because of this: Star Wars is back. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Arts & Culture
People don’t appreciate the value of local radio until it’s gone. And once gone, it never comes back. Read more →
For 22 years, the Owatonna Arts Center has hosted the Festival of the Arts, but no more — at least not for a year.
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There’s probably a lesson in the fact that the one World’s Fair people are able to name is the one that wasn’t sanctioned by the international body that awards world’s fairs — New York in 1964 and 1965. Read more →
On the Minnesota-South Dakota border, Trygve Trooien was something of a legend as the bachelor farmer. And a bit of a curiosity. Read more →
Stuart Schumacher finds something new every time he reads a recent obituary for a 4-year-old boy. The boy’s name was Evan, and Schumacher wrote the obituary in the hours after he lost his son. Read more →
Fargo Forum editor Matt Von Pinnon is defending Friday’s front page, which featured the photos of North Dakota House members and their vote on a measure that would have extended discrimination protection to gays. Read more →
Emily Phillips made sure we’ll remember her even though most of us never knew her. She wrote her own obituary. Read more →
If a guy wants to wear women’s clothing, how does that impact you to the point where you beat him up? It’s just cloth. Read more →
Stevie Wonder brought his big tour to the Twin Cities Sunday night. But a smaller performance at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church stole the show. Read more →
A Woodbury school, operated by several school districts, will reinstate its band and orchestra program after initially disbanding in the wake of the layoff of the only teacher licensed to teach it. Read more →
Buried deep — far too deep — in a Woodbury Bullein story about Woodbury’s Valley Crossing Community School, a school operated by three area school districts — is a different twist on the issue of how a teacher is laid off. Read more →
The Dropkick Murphys played a concert for a bunch of roadies Monday night. Read more →
Regrettably, as is often the case in these instances, the online world couldn’t pause the drivers vs. bicyclists debate long enough to mourn her passing. Read more →
Norwegian novelist Karl Ove Knausgaard traveled from Sweden to Canada recently to trace the Viking trail from L’Anse aux Meadows, the first European settlement in North America, into the United States. Destination: Alexandria, Minn., the site of the Viking runestone, which may or may not be fake. Read more →