If you’re a public radio fan, you probably already know about Serial, the podcast from the creators of This American Life.
The series explores the 1999 killing of Hae Min Lee, a popular high-school senior in Baltimore. Her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, is serving time for her murder.
If reported traditionally, it’s just another murder with just another person serving time who says he didn’t do it. Read more →
Under the 6th Amendment to the Constitution, you have the right to face your accuser. But what if your accuser is your own car? Read more →
The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reports a bookmaker in New York has pleaded guilty to trying to launder a check for $230,000 that paid off gambling debts. The check was a New York Islanders paycheck and the paper is suggesting it might have been Thomas Vanek’s. He now plays for the Minnesota Wild.
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No doubt, the creepiest part of the video I posted a day or so ago featuring the woman walking in New York, is the person who walked alongside her for several minutes. Read more →
Canadian filmmaker Omar Albach took to the streets of Hamilton, Ontario — hometown of the soldier who was shot to death last week in Ottawa — to conduct what he says was a ‘social experiment’ in which a white man appeared to confront a Muslim man. Read more →
They’re holding the funeral today in Hamilton for Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, who was gunned down while standing guard at the National War Monument in Ottawa. Read more →
A man who lives near Wausau is suing the sheriff’s department in Marathon County, Wisc., because when it came time to collect a civil judgment against him, the department sent a SWAT team. Read more →
The ‘Kryptonite’ U-lock has been conquered by thieves. Read more →
Looking at it in hindsight, ABC’s decision to move an episode — Crime and Punishment — of its sitcom, ‘Blackish’, because it was scheduled to run too soon after Adrian Peterson was charged with beating his son in the name of discipline seems misplaced. Read more →
Lost in the tragic shooting in Ottawa today is a blockbuster story that’s gotten little attention: The white police officer who shot and killed an African American man in Ferguson, Missouri, triggering weeks of racial strife, may well have had a good reason. It started with a report early this morning in the St. Louis Read more →
Members of Parliament in Ottawa barricade the door against a person with a gun. Read more →
In a decision a justice calls ‘rare’, the Minnesota Supreme Court today overruled a lower court in Crookston that had let a man convicted of rape avoid prison. Read more →
What part of the ‘stop for a school bus’ law don’t some Minnesota drivers get? All of it, apparently. Read more →
The Minnesota Court of Appeals today ruled that a man who stole a BMW from a Bloomington car dealer doesn’t have to sell his Mercedes to pay restitution for his crime. Read more →
Back in the ’90s, the Minnesota Supreme Court struck down the law that allows the state to incarcerate people after they’ve served their prison sentences because they might offend again. The court said it was unconstitutional to place the burden on the men to prove they wouldn’t commit more crimes, shifting the burden to the state.
Ostensibly the men are in the Moose Lake facility for sex offenders for “treatment,” not punishment. But only two have been released over the last 20 years, a fact that more than suggests the court decision of the ’90s really didn’t change anything, and neither has the Legislature, which punted on the recommendations of a task force. Read more →
Bob Collins