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Good morning, Minnesota! Don't you love it when a band electrifies one of their best acoustic tracks? This is one of my favorites 🎶 On to the news. 📢

City of Minneapolis

Two seasons in Minnesota. Summer. Construction. Yadda yadda yadda.

With that out of the way, let's talk about some of the infrastructure projects in store for the Twin Cities, scheduled for what's otherwise the most pleasant time of year in this region of the North Star State.

For starters, it's about to get a whole lot tougher to set out on a leisurely bike ride that involves crossing the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. The city is about to start work on the 9th Street and Plymouth Avenue bridges, which will happen concurrently with the ongoing closure of the Stone Arch Bridge.

That means detours to Broadway, Hennepin Avenue, 3rd Avenue or Franklin Avenue for anyone hoping to take in the sights on either side of the mighty Mississippi.

In St. Paul, business owners are asking for $2.2 million to mitigate the impacts they say they're seeing as much of the east side of the city undergoes construction.

Tim Harlow and Josie Albertson-Grove have stories about those construction projects at the links below.

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Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune

Have you ever heard of a frogsicle?

Some frogs in Minnesota actually freeze during the winter, then come back to life in the spring.

That revival is happening right now as temperatures warm.

Learn more about the fascinating seasons of freezing and thawing wood frogs in This Week in Nature. Watch a National Geographic video documenting one frog’s reawakening, linked in the story.

Happy spring!

--Pam Louwagie, Outdoors desk senior team leader

Paul Klauda/ The Minnesota Star Tribune

Say so long to your neighborhood Strib newspaper rack.

Our colleague Paul Klauda posted on social media that, as of last week, virtually all of the metal coin racks or vending boxes that used to sell the Minnesota Star Tribune in the Twin Cities have stopped being serviced. According to a letter posted next to the box near him, our operations leaders say the decision was due to the nature of our business "changing and evolving" plus the fact "it's tough to carry that many quarters." 

"That you could only see the top half of the paper behind the glass fed a long-standing journalism practice: Get the biggest news and strongest photo above the newspaper's fold," posted Klauda, who works as the nation/world editor. "Make those promos above the nameplate as compelling as possible. All to feed the idea of selling the paper, that it would be enough to make someone passing by reach into their purse or pocket, pull out a dime (way back) or quarter (early '80s), drop it in the coin slot, and walk away with the day's news. And in a remarkable bond of trust, while that door was open you only took one. Until now."

Don't worry. Retired racks can be repurposed into anything from Little Free Libraries to home statement pieces.

--Nicole Norfleet, Today Desk team leader

Eder Campuzano, reporter

David Taintor, editor