Donovan McNabb knows he should still be quarterback -- did you know that?

​Christian Ponder has lit up the Minnesota sports scene, which had been starved for anything but darkness and pain.

But, as Minnesotans heat their ice-blue hands on the warmth of Ponder's youthful glow, not everyone is celebrating the new guy in town.

For example, Donovan McNabb, who was reportedly the Minnesota Vikings quarterback as recently as earlier this month, is not sure Vikes coach Leslie Frazier made the right decision. Asked by NFL Network reporter Andrea Kramer if he should still be the starting quarterback, McNabb gave an answer that's blunt, candid -- and unpopular.

"Absolutely," McNabb said. "Absolutely."

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Kim Kardashian, Kris Humphries: The end of the Great American Love Affair.

​Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries, the couple that stole America's heart and ate America's brains, are officially, finally done.

The news broke today via TMZ, which has since obtained (read: got faxed from Kim's publicist and/or her mom) the official divorce filing. In those fateful pieces of paper, signed by Kim herself, the split is explained as being the result of "irreconcilable differences."

Given that those differences have emerged after only 72 days of wedded bliss, we can only assume that the major difference between Humphries, a native Minnesotan, and Kardashian, who was born on the internet, cropped-up just moments after they tied the knot in a two-hour television special.
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Duluth is a tourist destination for Twin Cities residents who don't have the internet.

​Duluth has spent more than $10 million to promote itself as a tourist destination. Now, a marketing firm has spent a bit more money to see if that did any good.

The results are mixed, according to the newly released study from local consulting firm aimClear. To be fair, aimClear's analysis was aiming, clearly, at a pretty high bar.

Among the questions the study sought to answer was, "Is Duluth, slowly but surely, becoming legendary like The Grand Canyon, Nantucket or Hilton Head as a world-class recreation spot or travel destination?"

Maybe next time, the city could save a bit of dough on the follow-up analysis, and City Pages could just answer that one for free: Emphasis on the "slowly," hold the "surely."
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Michele Bachmann won't talk about us. Is it something we said?

​Michele Bachmann will never forget where she came from. Wait, she's from Iowa, right?

A new analysis of the last handful of Republican debates shows that certain states keep coming up as a topic of conversation. Among the nine major Republican presidential candidates, each has proper name-dropped at least one individual state during their time on the mic.

In fact, some candidates can't stop talking about states. Rick Perry, for example, has trouble uttering words that are not "state," "of," or "Texas."

Sadly, Minnesota is not one of the states that they're talking about. At all. Not once.

Not even Michele Bachmann, who, back in 2009, used to be a congresswoman from here, and has since relocated to pretty much everywhere else.
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The city's 2003 plans imagine a Metrodome-less downtown.

​The Metrodome, in its current form, has become an afterthought in recent weeks as Gov. Mark Dayton and Mayor R.T. Rybak push for the Vikings to stay somewhere in Minnesota.

Though one Rybak proposal imagines an $895 million renovation of the Metrodome, it seems obvious that the 'Dome's days as an NFL stadium are numbered. Will the city load up the 30-year-old venue with dynamite? And if it does, what will downtown look like without the stadium?

The city has a plan on the books examining that very question, the Downtown East / North Loop Master Plan, which came out in 2003. In a plan designed to "encourage renewed interest in living, working, and shopping in downtown Minneapolis," the city considered the increasingly likely scenario in which the Minnesota Twins and Vikings no longer needed the Metrodome.

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Michael Beasley claimed innocence, but his benefactor says otherwise.

​Michael Beasley is suing Joel Bell, the street agent who pursued Beasley when he was a 14-year-old prospect and tried to lock up his future rights. Among Beasley's allegations in the lawsuit are benefits that Bell and other men set up for Beasley's mother, Fatima Smith, paying off car and rent dues during B-Easy's one year at Kansas State University.

The lawsuit did not identify Smith's benefactor, but now a Washington, D.C., accountant has stepped forward and acknowledged that he was the mystery man.

Gregory Holloway told the Washington Post that he did indeed provide major benefits to Beasley's mom, violating NCAA rules. But, Holloway said, it's wrong for the Timberwolves forward to now claim innocence or ignorance.

"Beasley knew everything," Holloway told the Post. "His mother knew everything."
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David Carr remembers when RT Rybak was an alt weekly publisher.

​David Carr reaches back to his days as a Minneapolis alternative weekly editor in today's issue of the New York Times, calling on Mayor RT Rybak for an assist.

Carr's column revives the age-old rivalry between the Twin Cities Reader and City Pages. Back then, Rybak was the publisher of the Reader, and he made a bold decision to eschew sex ads, which had long been a staple of alternative weeklies.
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​Felix Pedraza is the lead suspect in a case of a weekend party that resulted in the fatal shooting of 21-year-old father of three Francisco Hernandez.

Minneapolis police were called to a south Minneapolis apartment complex, where they found a man, later identified as Hernandez, suffering from gunshot wounds. First responders attempted to resuscitate Hernandez, but he was declared dead at the scene by EMS.

Cops soon arrested Pedraza, who had left the scene and was himself bearing stab wounds from the incident. Inside the apartment-turned-murder-scene, police found more than 10 adults and several children, who had apparently been attending a party at the time of the deadly altercation.
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Michele Bachmann and Bradlee Dean: Friends no more?

​Things are not looking good for Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign these days.

Earlier this month, her entire New Hampshire staff jumped ship. Recent polls show she's slipped into a distant fourth place in the race for the nomination.

And now, even Bradlee Dean has turned against her.

On his radio show last week, the hard-rock minister explained why a certain female presidential candidate's "shameful" and stinky behavior has gotten him "jacked" up lately. And not in a good way.

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Somalia's civil war claims another Minnesotan.

​A suicide bomber who blew himself up in Mogadishu yesterday in an attack that killed 10 had traveled to Somalia from Minneapolis in 2008.

Abdisalan Ali had emigrated to Minnesota with his family when he was 2 years old, but was among 20 local youths who returned to the war-torn land to fight in its civil war back in 2008. He is the fourth American to kill himself in a suicide attack in Somalia.

In a clip posted by an Al-Qaida-linked militant group on Somalimemo.net today, the man alleged to be Ali urges fellow Muslims to conduct attacks in Western countries.

"My brothers and sisters, do Jihad in America, do Jihad in Canada, do Jihad in England, anywhere in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in China, in Australia," the suicide bomber urges.

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