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• Post #4249776

  "Mill District" in the news— We got a an email from the Guthrie Theater downtown, warning us that city-owned parking ramp prices would jump to $50 this weekend, owing to a spectacle at nearby Chicago Avenue Taxpayer Stadium. "Please note that the WWE event at U.S. Bank Stadium may lead to increased traffic and parking demand in the Mill District." Fifty bucks parking? For worldly wrestling entertainment? In a football stadium? There's a workaround for early-arriving...

• Post #4244717

  Stopped the presses— One cool thing about this former printing plant was that it had its own rail spur that entered the building to deliver newsprint. Those days are long gone. "The media company ceased printing operations at the end of 2025 and outsourced duties to a facility in Iowa, citing declining print subscriptions and cost savings. The site is the last piece of real estate owned by the company, which used to control several blocks in and around downtown Minneapolis." Data ce...

• Post #4174858

  'State technology officials say more than 30 Minnesota municipal water systems were targeted in a coordinated cyberattack this week. 'In at least one case, a city’s well and treatment plant were temporarily knocked offline Monday. Other cities reported that the attack targeted communications and automated operations within their water system — forcing a move to manual workarounds. … 'Officials said water in the affected cities remains safe to drink.' Computer network attack ta...

• Post #4147515

  'France's fire, one of the nation's biggest since World War II, has caused an unprecedented "pyrocumulonimbus", a giant fire cloud that creates its own winds and packs lightning that causes more blazes, the National Firefighters Federation of France (FNSPF) said.' https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-27/wildfires-threaten-bordeaux-as-france-and-spain-battle-blazes/106960968 #Europe #wildfires #pyrocumulonimbus

• Post #3997495

  "Bike racks are designed for regular bikes, not an electric horse." We asked a St. Paul grandpa to try an Urban Arrow cargo bike. Here are some takeaways. The St. Paul Pioneer Press https://www.twincities.com/2026/07/12/urban-arrow-cargo-bike-takeaways/ #ElectricBikes #ElectricHorses #BikeRacks #cycling

• Post #3894872

  "Investors are concerned that if people spend less time watching Netflix, it could cause people to cancel their subscriptions and make it more challenging for Netflix to raise prices in markets like the U.S." https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2026-07-17/netflix-stock-drop-second-quarter-earnings #television

• Post #3889244

  Why the hell's it called El Niño? I ask myself after about the hundredth time of reading the term this morning. "El Niño means Little Boy in Spanish. South American fishermen first noticed periods of unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean in the 1600s. The full name they used was El Niño de Navidad, because El Niño typically peaks around December." — NOAA National Ocean Service https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ninonina.html

• Post #3863617

  Hazardous for everyone. 'The worst air quality will be across eastern Minnesota and northern Wisconsin, where the air quality will be hazardous for everyone, the National Weather Service said.' Wildfire smoke concentration is now record-setting. Air quality alerts cover most of Minnesota. The Twin Cities area also remains under an excessive heat warning Thursday. By Tim Harlow The Minnesota Star Tribune https://www.startribune.com/wildfire-smoke-concentration-is-now-record-setting-ai...

• Post #3857905

  Boundary Waters wildfires could smolder until snow falls Fueled by dry fir and spruce trees, the larger forest fires are too intense for firefighters to extinguish without help from the weather. By Dave Orrick and Bob Timmons The Minnesota Star Tribune “It’s way beyond the ability of firefighting crews to suppress,” said Lee Frelich, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Forest Ecology and an expert on the fire ecology of northern Minnesota forests. https://www.startribune.com...

• Post #3843468

  Photo: Wisconsin Public Radio on smoke in the Twin Ports of Duluth-Superior. https://www.wpr.org/news/wisconsin-hazardous-levels-pollution-fires-burn-canada-minnesota #Wisconsin #Minnesota #AirQuality #wildfires

• Post #3784881

  Good morning from Minneapolis, the City of Lakes, the Mill City, the Heart of Hinterlandia. Quite early Monday morning it's 74℉/23℃; fair skies; light winds; visibility 10 miles at the airport. Heat index values will climb to around 100 degrees this afternoon. The greatest impacts from the heat will be felt in the urban core of the Twin Cities metro where little cooling relief is expected overnight. — Hazardous Weather Outlook, NWS Twin Cities/Chanhassen MN 'A new generation of neighb...

• Post #3766593

  Minneapolis. City of Drones. 'For City Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw, it marked another compelling reason Minneapolis should adopt a “Drone as First Responder” program, like an increasing number of neighboring law enforcement agencies have. That system would enable the deployment of autonomous drones from rooftop docking stations in seconds and provide real time video before officers ever arrive on scene. 'Dozens of concerned citizens flooded the council chambers Wednesday, fiercely op...

• Post #3715105

  I quail at the arrival of the Will Bunch Newsletter in my inbox because a constant state of outrage is unpleasant, like inflammation. But what can we do? Read the best political columnist in the U.S. in the hope we don't become inured. We have a long row to hoe, I observe from my figurative garden in Minneapolis. No one likes to hoe. And hoe we must. Will Bunch: "Americans should be alarmed at the bigger picture that’s slowly unfolding before us. After briefly pressing the pause but...

• Post #3693899

  BBC Wales' running story on Bonnie Tyler. Recap: Tributes pour in for Bonnie Tyler, a Welsh icon https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c9326rq1509t #obituary #music #Wales

• Post #3683472

  Of regional interest in journalism circles: Former Star Tribune columnist and reporter Doug Grow dies at 78 'Grow was well-known and appreciated for his infectious laugh heard in all corners of the newsroom. He often went to the coffee machine just before deadline, returning to his desk, saying: “Just 20 more paragraphs,” colleague Dick Meryhew recalled.' https://www.startribune.com/star-tribune-reporter-columnist-doug-grow/601865711?utm_source=gift #Minneapolis #journalism #obituary

• Post #3682831

  Why is everyone saying they talked to Mitch McConnell for 20 minutes? By Melina Khan USA TODAY "Now, the internet is fixating on McConnell's reported conversations and the mystery surrounding his hospitalization, with social media users riffing that they too talked to the senator about dramatized topics." https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2026/07/08/mitch-mcconnell-20-minute-talks-hospital/90847222007/ #Kentucky #kypol #newspapers

• Post #3678975

  Cantilever? More like CANilever. Forth Bridge cab view with the Hastings DEMU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3kr8EZ9V7Y #Scotland #ForthBridge #trains

• Post #3659008

  “Florida seeks to strip public university professors—and by extension their students—of the ability to fully engage with ideas that are, for better or for worse, very popular in some academic circles,” said Judge Britt Grant, an appointee of President Donald Trump and author of the majority opinion. “The State asks us to consider its rules a means of targeting discrimination. But hearing an idea you disagree with is not discrimination; it is an opportunity to come up with a better idea, or maybe...

• Post #3632715

  'That means any angler who’s fished on these lakes in the last eight decades has reported back things like what they were fishing for, the lure they used and catch rates. Sass said he sees a connection to the Wisconsin Idea and admires “the foresight that researchers have had in Wisconsin to do things like this, to think about the long term, to be collecting long-term data.”' https://www.wpr.org/news/5-northern-wisconsin-lakes-research-escanaba-pallette-nebish-mystery-spruce #Wisconsin...

• Post #3597743

  Couple of song suggestions to soundtrack this Fourth of July— Saturday in the Park by Chicago Transit Authority (if you're not into that whole brevity thing) and the vivid Night Ride Home by Joni Mitchell Once in a while In a big blue moon There comes a night like this Like some surrealist Invented this 4th of July Night ride home https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf3Mjlkj8uk #July4 #Nocturnal #horses #music

• Post #3597742

  Geese Management: the stalkin' and the intense stare https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUZIPioyKH8 #BorderCollies #GeeseManagement #dogs #Canada

• Post #3597741

  Let Facts be be submitted to a candid world. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People t...

• Post #3597740

  Dispatch from the Ninth Federal Reserve District, Minneapolis— "While industrial hemp for fiber and seed is relatively low maintenance and grows well in the district’s climate, hemp flower requires a lot more hand-holding. For one, only female plants produce significant cannabinoids, and those degrade after pollination, so care needs to be taken to sort out male plants. Flowers blooming late into the season are also ripe territory for mold and pathogens, so the plants do better if they...

• Post #3597739

  Outstanding universal value. "The Forth Bridge, which spans the estuary (Firth) of the River Forth in eastern Scotland to link Fife to Edinburgh by railway, was the world’s earliest great multispan cantilever bridge, and at 2,529 m remains one of the longest. It opened in 1890 and continues to operate as an important passenger and freight rail bridge. This enormous structure, with its distinctive industrial aesthetic and striking red colour, was conceived and built using advanced civil...

• Post #3597738

  A lift bridge malfunction? That's news! A Lift Bridge Malfunction Sends Duluth’s First Cement Saltie in 2 Years Going in Circles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfVx1l5IVKM #Duluth #ShippingNews #LiftBridge

• Post #3597737

  These slice-of-life holiday stories are hard to do and my three-corner hat's off to the reporters sent out to do them. Minnesotans on the American Experiment, 250 years on Matthew Alvarez, Leah Lemm, Harshawn Ratanpal, Ahmed Hassan and Alex V. Cipolle Minnesota Public Radio https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/07/04/minnesotans-on-the-american-experiment-250-years-on #IndependenceDay #VoxPopuli #muskets #journalism

• Post #3597736

  "The cost of potato salad was down 14 percent in the annual survey. Potato producers in Wisconsin and other top states are struggling with an oversupply of potatoes due to strong crops and reduced export demand." https://www.wpr.org/news/cost-of-july-4-cookout-hits-record-high-in-wisconsin-us

• Post #3581060

  Good morning from Minneapolis, a fine Midwestern city known for our flour, our sailboats, our Saturdays in the parks, and our cries of defiance and not of fear. Can you dig it? Yes we can. Our residents have been very badly treated by our own federal government but we try not to dwell on it. The rest you know from books you've read. Quite early Saturday morning it's 69℉/21℃; light winds; cloudy skies; barometer 29.99" if you like your air pressure measured with a tube of mercu...

• Post #3534907

  What to do about it? What to do about it? Midsommar bluff jump? 'But the target of this book isn’t limited to a superannuated elite. What he calls the “oldigarchy” is propped up by seniors who vote in every “boring and off-cycle” election and “enjoy the most governmental benefits by a vast degree.” Moyn says that a mix of democracy, capitalism and longer life expectancy has created “new and insidious forms of elder rule.” He devotes an entire chapter to enumerating threats to the Republic p...

• Post #3469818

  '“The need became appalling,” the church’s pastor, Rev. George Mecklenburg, told the Minneapolis Star. In response, he created a movement called the “Organized Unemployed,” which set up a bartering system to give people work. They printed their own “scrip” currency and opened a commissary general store. 'They turned the old Central High School into a hub of activity, with a cafeteria, sewing center and even a canning factory in the basement where they turned donated cabbages into more t...