Bob Collins
Not happy with how your driver’s license picture looks?
It could be worse. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Archives for November 2015
Stand down, Minnesota, there’s no big snowstorm coming on Monday. And anyone who tells you otherwise is spending far too much time on Facebook. Read more →
This film, though, is more than just the story of a man pursuing a dream. It’s about the most important people in our lives who encourage us to chase our passion when all logic may say ‘don’t.’ Read more →
Several studies over the years, however, have said higher speed limits don’t cause more crashes; they just inflate the severity of the ones that occur. So why are there more crashes in Wisconsin, the latest state to raise highway speed limits to 70? Read more →
Minnesota Power has filed for a rate increase for residential customers because it wants to cut the rates for mining companies that are losing business to other parts of the globe. Read more →
All it took for Howard Dean to be forced out of the race for president was a caucus-night scream. Those were good times for off-the-wall moments.
It takes more to be considered ‘unhinged’ in Iowa now, but Donald Trump met the new standard last night. Easily. Read more →
A report today says the Minnesota Timberwolves may soon end up in the hands of out-of-town owners.
Read more →
The Minnesota Department of Revenue has released its annual list of preliminary maximum property tax levies from local governments, which in many cases could lead to higher individual tax bills.
Not surprisingly, considering last week’s local school referenda, the more sizable increases are from the schools. Statewide, it’s about a 7.5 percent increase, with about half of that with the permission of voters in those referenda. Read more →
Meet Florent Groberg. He goes by ‘Flo.’
Flo isn’t from here. He’s an immigrant from France. He didn’t become a U.S. citizen until he was about to graduate high school in 2001.
He has a story to tell. Read more →
In his first years of life, Joshua DeShaney kept getting returned to his abusive father by a Wisconsin county’s child protection system. Again and again, a social worker noted likely child abuse, and again and again the county returned the boy to his father, who had gained custody in a divorce settlement. Read more →
A professor and a student disagreed over whether a test should be canceled in the face of alleged threats to students. Rather than a discussion over the issue, an online campaign began and the professor was forced out. Read more →
Dunkin’ Donuts has parted the coffee and unveiled its Christmas-themed coffee cup, which some say is a rebuke to Starbucks, whose non-religious cup has prevented people from feeding the poor, housing the homeless, and loving their neighbor.
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The word ‘volunteer’ doesn’t begin to convey Virginia Claudon Allen’s service, which took her from helping the most seriously injured fliers at a Florida hospital to rallying morale in Burma as ‘G.I. Jill,’ the antidote to the anti-American messages of Tokyo Rose. Read more →
After watching so much of our architecture destroyed forever in the ’70s for the sake of urban renewal, it’s hard to imagine anyone would entertain the thought that we’d allow a building like this to be shuttered or, worse, to end up as rubble.
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A casket, an empty casket, was found near Friendship, Wis., west of Tomah, the Adams County Sheriff’s Office reports on its Facebook page. Read more →