Featured Stories

In A Line or Two, I share some of my enthusiasms and discoveries as I make my way around the Twin Cities. Call it an editor's note as blog entry. This week: A multi-everything hip-hop/spoken word extravaganza organized by our coolest Lao-American diva and sponsored by the lovable Saint Paul Almanac.

This serious-minded but light-hearted nonprofit tutors at-risk kids in the coolest possible way--by matching them up with adults in creative industries. The result: deep connections, academic achievement, and fun for everybody.

"Placemaking" is a powerful buzzword in 21st-century urbanism. Do we know what it actually means and whom it's supposed to serve? For Brendan Crain of New York's Project for Public Spaces, the idea that it's all about attracting talent to town and building the new economy is wrongheaded. Placemaking, Crain insists, should be rooted in the immediate needs of the people who already live here. 

In A Line or Two, I share some of my enthusiasms and discoveries as I make my way around the Twin Cities. Call it an editor's note as blog entry. This week: A design-y, extremely Parisian patisserie on Saint Paul's Grand Avenue serves up traditonal pastries--and a Franco-Minnesotan hybrid.

When globetrotting dancers and choreographers Uri Sands and Toni Pierce-Sands, formerly of the Alvin Ailey company, decided to establish a new kind of multicultural dance school in Saint Paul, they knew where they wanted it to be: along the Central Corridor in the heart of the city.

According to Amber Collett, a transit and bike activist (and a former Twin Cities resident), we've got reason to envy Portland's bike-friendly transit system. But Minneapolis actually wins in the comparison. Why? Read on.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my enthusiasms and discoveries as I make my way around the Twin Cities. Call it an editor's note as blog entry. This week: A celebrated, exiled Iranian artist brings her images of beauty, repression, and tragedy to Macalester's fine arts center.

The bars and restaurants in this uber-trendy corner of downtown Minneapolis draw national attention. Meanwhile, developers, community groups, and residents are turning the surrounding neighborhood into a pleasantly dense, lively, and livable urban village.

It's officially called "ice cross downhill": many men racing like lunatics down a 300-meter track of ice full of bumps, drops, hairpin turns. For the 2013 Saint Paul event, the track began near the city's enormous Catholic cathedral--a bid to summon divine protection for the participants in this most extreme of skate races? Our photo maven, Bill Kelley, was in the crowd, cranking up his shutter speed and trying to stay warm.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my enthusiasms and discoveries as I make my way around the Twin Cities. Call it an editor's note as blog entry. This week: The Walker Art Center hosts an Aussie touring show unlike any you're likely to see this year.

For executive-search professional Lars Leafblad, recently named head of the Bush Foundation's leadership program, the top-down leadership paradigm is dying. Despite political gridlock, a new ethic of connectivity, consensus, and compromise is struggling to be born--and he has some ideas on how we can all help it happen.

The Central Corridor light rail line (aka the Green Line) won't be finished till 2014, but it's already earning its keep, writes Conrad LeFiebre of MN 2020, as development advances, once-disrupted business stabilizes, and observers add up the unique advantages of a line that connects two downtowns.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my enthusiasms and discoveries as I make my way around the Twin Cities. Call it an editor's note as blog entry. This week: On Monday, the Capitol rotunda in Saint Paul will be surrendered to robots--or, to be more precise, to Minnesota's burgeoning robotics industry.

Despite some women-led startups, high tech here, as elsewhere, is still more or less drowning in testosterone. But some strong local initiatives are pointing the way toward more opportunities for women to get their geek on.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my enthusiasms and discoveries as I make my way around the Twin Cities. Call it an editor's note as blog entry. This week: Thanks to the cooks-with-a-conscience at Eat for Equity, you've got a chance to share a meal, and a cause, with famed activist (and Green Party vice-presidential candidate) Winona La Duke.