Despite some last minute support from tenant advocates, embattled North Side landlord Ronald Folger could not persuade the Minneapolis City Council to let him keep his rental licenses, Randy Furst reports. After the council committee's unanimous decision to move ahead with the revocations from 16 of Folger's properties, council member Don Samuels made no apologies for the city's crackdown on negligent landlords. Randy broke the news of Folger's problems in a Whistleblower story. The committee meeting Monday saw the reappearance of the Minneapolis Property Rights Action Committee, a group of militant low-rent landlords who sued the city over its policies and once shouted down a City Council meeting in 1998.

SWAT officers started using flash-bang grenades in the early 1980s, and now they're standard equipment for police nationwide. But the devices have also caused fires, injuries and even deaths, Corey Mitchell reports. Flash-bang devices have come under renewed scrutiny after the $1 million settlement approved for Rickia Russell, who was burned in a botched Minneapolis police drug raid in February 2010.

After the Metrodome's fabric roof collapsed under the weight of December snow (what happened to that stuff?) the Minnesota Vikings quickly shifted their venue to the TCF Bank stadium. The U gave the Vikings a discount on their short stay, but the two are still settling the bill, Mike Kaszuba reports. The bills are paid at the Guthrie Theater, and despite attendance slipping somewhat, the big blue palace on the river ended the year in the black, Rohan Preston reports.

The last Minnesota-made Ford Ranger will soon roll off the assembly line across the river, but the original Ford plant - in Minneapolis's Warehouse District - has a new life in the service economy, Janet Moore reports. Hundreds of members of the creative class will do their work where blue-collar workers used to assemble Model Ts.