This poster is heartbreaking in more ways than one.

​Sonic the Hedgehog is missing in Uptown.

When Kyle Coughlin first saw the poster stapled to a telephone poll near an alley at Pleasant Ave. and 22nd St., he thought it was a joke.

"I've seen a few of those fake ones, and I assumed it was one of those," Coughlin said.

Coughlin took a step closer, and realized that the poster was real.

"When I read it," Coughlin said, "it actually looked like someone lost their favorite Sonic the Hedgehog doll and was attempting to find it.
  More >>

One man is standing up against the shutdown.

​There's been a lot of frustration in Minnesota today over the government shutdown.

The whole thing is kind of ironic. Lawmakers who campaigned on the mantra of job creation have now put tens of thousands of state employees at risk for losing the jobs they already have.

This culmination of Minnesota's partisan politics staring contest really couldn't have come at a worse time. For the 4th of July weekend, all state parks, trails, and zoos are going to be closed.

But not everyone is taking this shutdown sitting down. At least one man is flexing his protesting muscles -- literally -- outside the Capitol.

More >>

cytosine

The joke's on Weiner.

​There are Weiners and then there are wieners.

Combine the two on Twitter and you have the public humiliation and potential resignation of Rep. Anthony Weiner.

Combine the latter with Mayor R.T. Rybak on Facebook and you have a politician plainly happy to have a laugh at Rep. Anthony Weiner's expense.

The photo below comes a post about Open Streets yesterday on Lyndale Avenue. The photo below that comes from the locker room.

More >>

David Erickson

The rest of the sign is serious business.

​Sometimes, the simplest, most direct approach is the right way to get your point across. No mincing words. No politeness.

And that's the attitude photographer David Erickson discovered while cruising the ordinarily Minnesota Nice streets of southeast Minneapolis.

Whoever tagged this street sign was damned serious.

More >>

U.S. Army

Lt. Erik Rekedal, White Bear Lake native.

​Almost 10 years on from the 9/11 attacks, we are still at war in Iraq, where 4,4542 Americans have died since the fighting began.

We were thinking about that after we came across this photo on the U.S. Army's Flickr page: It shows White Bear Lake native and 1st Lt. Erik Rekedal, a platoon leader with the 1st Infantry Division, guiding a Humvee along an Iraq road congested with sheep on May 18.

More >>

Mark Dayton and the dead northern pike.

​The annual floating photo op otherwise known as the Governor's Fishing Opener is over, Mark Dayton now gets to have his mug splashed all over the papers while holding a dead fish, and assorted political foes get to pretend for a few hours that they really like the guy and want to figure out a responsible way to tackle the state's legislative agenda.

Thus we have Majority Leader Matt Dean, Speaker Kurt Zellers and Rep. Joe Hoppe posing next to Dayton on the shores of Pokegama Lake with big smiles.

More >>

The Greek god of the Sun. See the similartity? (Work with us here.)

​The Storm Gods got their twister on the other evening, ripping up a garage in St. Michael, scaring the bejeebus out of Twins fans at Target Field and pelting the Twin Cities with enough golf ball-sized hail to give a car insurance salesman a heart attack.

But then, the Sun God appeared, same as ever, and our friend Greg Johnson was good enough to send along a photo capturing Apollo in the moment.

More >>

Pixli

Bachmann and the birther sign.

​Rep. Michele Bachmann happily plays into the birther conspiracy hokum that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya, not America.

So maybe it's not a surprise that at a 200-strong tea party rally in our nation's capital on Thursday, with a scrum of press photographers looking on, she allowed herself to be photographed beside a sign that read, "Somewhere in Kenya, a village is missing its idiot."

Somewhere in Stillwater, a tea party is missing its birther.

More >>

Photo: Liz Bley

The mysterious plume.

​Concerned downtown Minneapolis worker Liz Bley sent us a photo this morning of what appears to be a giant plume of smoke rising over Northeast Minneapolis. Yikes!

We called the fire department to track down the cause, and they said there weren't any fires today worth noting. Then we sent them the photo, and got the word: The spectacular cloud was most likely caused by a roof fire at 2626 Second Street Northeast. The cause of the fire is unknown, says Cherie Penn, of the Minneapolis Fire Department.

More >>

​Today we were surfing Reddit and came across this little gem and we're proclaiming user "DuckSauced" as the Twins fan of the season to beat so far. 
More >>