Chaotic White House Correspondents’ Dinner: All the MN-Specific Angles

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.

All the Local Angles Fit to Print: Yet Another Trump Assassination Attempt

On Saturday night, at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, 31-year-old California man Cole Tomas Allen allegedly stormed into the Washington, D.C., Hilton with guns, knives, and the hope of assassinating President Trump. One law enforcement agent was hit by gunfire but is expected to recover. Pertinent to our readership, the local angles are as follows...

• Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer were both in attendance. Frey was invited to a "buzzy" coinciding MS NOW event, where attendees of the so-called “Democracy After Hours” party received custom engraved flasks.
• Independent journalist Georgia Fort attended the dinner to protest via an event walkout, but tells Cathy Wurzer of MPR News that those plans were dashed for obvious reasons.
• Allen, the alleged gunman, was reportedly a big fan of Minnesota-based liberal pundit Will Stancil over on Bluesky—huh! Here's an outline of his manifesto; online sleuths are producing screenshots that suggest Allen held pro-Israel beliefs, disliked leftist influencer Hasan Piker, and, yeah, was apparently a Stancil ditto-head.
• Many observers have noticed that Aaron Rupar, the famous/prolific online Trump chronicler from Minneapolis, was logged off when the president was hit by a would-be assassin's bullet in 2024. Surely Rupar wouldn't be spending a rare moment off his laptop during this latest attempt at taking Trump's life... right? Wrong! The reporter was logged off and enjoying that evening's Timberwolves playoffs victory over the Denver Nuggets, as much as any fan can enjoy a game that saw injuries to Donte DiVincenzo and Anthony Edwards, anyway.

For more on that quirky latter, ahem, bullet point, here's Rupar, straight from my DMs to your screen:

Since I've watched almost every event Trump has done over the past decade live, people get a kick out of quipping about how I had the poor timing of logging off during each of the last two Trump assassination attempts. But to me it's a reflection of the fact that we live in a world where terrible things seem to be happening all the time—even on Saturday nights where reporters like me are trying to enjoy a concert, as was the case of the Butler shooting in 2024, or a Timberwolves playoff victory, as I was last weekend. That said, if I announce I'm missing a Trump event because I'm doing something fun, be mindful of the fact that crazy news might be coming

Noisy, Energy-Hogging Hyperscale AI Data Centers: Minnesotans Don't Seem to Want Them

Is "a bipartisan backlash" brewing against data centers? That's the thrust of Brian Martucci's latest for the Minnesota Reformer.

On one side, you have the physical manifestation of the tech oligarchy, promising jobs and tax-base benefits to communities around Minnesota as they attempt to power the AI revolution. On the other side, you have residents of places like Hermantown and Pine Island, calling bullshit as they attempt to deny rezoning and tax-break pleas from companies like Google.

“Whatever a corporation ‘commits’ to means nothing to me because they can back away from those commitments. I don’t trust big tech at all,” says state Sen. Erin Maye Quade (DFL-Apple Valley), the cosponsor of a bill that would ban local government officials from signing NDAs with tech firms and another that would impose a moratorium on permitting new data centers.

“There’s a total lack of meaningful process when it comes to these ‘hyperscale’ data centers…it’s a real glaring mismatch,” adds state Sen. Jen McEwen (DFL-Duluth), who has authored similar bills. Opposition in Republican-friendly parts of the state is "widespread," the Reformer reports. Elsewhere in the story, we hear from data center supporters who accuse critics of falling for “propaganda."

Martucci, also an occasional Racket contributor, recently landed a new newsletter gig with MinnPost about all things energy. We recommend you subscribe!

"A Lot of Deaths" In Minnesota Group Homes

MPR News and APM Reports filed a damning and depressing report Monday: Since 2022, at least 50 residents of Minnesota group homes have died under circumstances that triggered state investigations. Investigators determined that 19 of those cases involved the neglect of vulnerable residents.

“That’s a lot of deaths. I’m frankly in shock that this isn’t known,” Sue Abderholden, who advocates for Minnesotans struggling with mental health, tells MPR/APM. “There needs to be more happening, including shutting down a facility if they really can’t make adjustments in order to keep people safe. Slapping on a fine is not going to make sure people are safe in the future.”

Making matters more infuriating, the state-issued fines Abderholden mentioned total between $1,000 and $5,000 per incident of maltreatment. These types of group homes are mostly taxpayer funded, and the lack of accountability around them has led to residents drinking themselves to death, overdosing, and, in the sad case of disabled 44-year-old Ryan Riggs, possible hypothermia. The Health Department denied interview requests from reporters Ellie Roth, Jennifer Lu, and Christopher Peak.

Move Over, Communion Wine: Church Beer Could Cure South Minneapolis Craft Brewery Desert

In a previous Flyover, we highlighted an Axios scoop on south Minneapolis's Mount Olivet Lutheran Church hoping to demolish its original chapel from 1938 and, in its place, build a nonprofit brewery/taproom/coffee house.

Last week Erik Tormoen of Twin Cities Business published a lengthy follow-up: Mount Olivet still wants to get into the holy beer biz, and earlier this month it cleared a regulatory hurdle when the Minneapolis City Council overruled the Heritage Preservation Commission's attempts to save the ol' church at 1700 W. 50th St. (HPC argued the Gothic Revival building was remarkable; church leaders said it wasn't, and deemed rehab “financially unfeasible.")

So, with the blessing of Mayor Jacob Frey, Mount Olivet is churning ahead not with a $11 million restoration plan that'd retrofit the existing structure, but rather with a $6 to $7 million one that'd replace it with a 15,000-square-foot new build. “Although we’re calling it ‘demolishing,’ we really want to deconstruct it so as to reuse as much of the existing materials as possible,” senior pastor David Lose says, adding that parking options will remain ample—we feel your blood pressure rising, urbanist fellas.

For much more on the finances, blueprint ideas, and, yes, “phenomenal parking" around Lose's ambitious/boozy vision for combatting the current "pandemic of isolation,” check out Tormoen's full report.