Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Fingers Crossed: Federal Thugs May Soon Take Hike Outta MN
Well, it looks like the headline of this (final?) Operation Metro Surge mega blog tempted fate in the best possible way.
White House border czar Tom Homan—who it must be said looks and speaks like an oaf from the Archie Comics universe—addressed reporters Thursday morning to announce “a significant [Operation Metro Surge] drawdown has already been underway this week, and will continue to the next week.”
"I have proposed and President Trump has concurred that this surge operation conclude," Homan said, adding that “a small footprint of personnel will remain for a period of time” to suppress “agitator activity.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Minneapolis City Council President Elliott Payne tells the New York Times. DHS-hounding reporter Amanda Moore voiced skepticism, too, noting that ICE and Border Patrol maintain agents in former surge spots like Chicago.
If true, this means an brutal operation that saw 3,000 federal officers terrorize and, in the cases of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, kill Minnesotans since December will soon end. Homan bragged Thursday that 4,000 arrests were made, though as the Star Tribune notes, "that number is nearly impossible to independently verify."
The following paragraph from recent RacketCast guest Max Nesterak of the Minnesota Reformer sums up Operation Metro Surge in appropriate terms. (Homan, meanwhile, described it as a “great success.”)
Over the past month, immigration agents have shot three people, killing two; racially profiled people, asking them to produce proof of legal residency; detained legal immigrants and shipped them across state lines, including young children; caused numerous car crashes; deployed chemical irritants on public school property; smashed the car windows of observers and arrested them before releasing them without charges; and threatened journalists who were filming them from a distance in a public space, among other high-profile incidents.
And not to keep yielding to the Reformer, but we really liked what top editor J. Patrick Coolican just wrote via newsletter...
Tip of the cap, Minnesota. The winter of 2026 will go down in state history as among our finest hours. What happened here will be studied by social scientists and historians as one of the great victories of nonviolent resistance. Minnesotans showed that brutality and sheer numbers could not overcome communities that were united in their opposition to the usurpers.
At this point you might be asking yourself (but we pray you're not…): How is Tom Homan's disgraced predecessor, ex-Operation Metro Surge leader Greg Bovino, holding up? Well, he spent last night on Twitter, where he fantasized about a woman reporter making him pie and wondered aloud what beaver meat tastes like. PSA: Liquor hits tiny bodies harder, Commander!
Hippo Campus Drops Agency Over Epstein Ties, Does Benefit With Justin Vernon
You might have already seen news of major acts like Chappell Roan, Orville Peck, and Best Coast dropping their talent/marketing agency, Wasserman, after discovering that its founder, Casey Wasserman, was reportedly flirty-friendly with Jeffrey Epstein’s main human trafficker, Ghislaine Maxwell. The fallout is happening locally, too, as Minnesota-based acts like rockers Hippo Campus and singer-songwriter Samia have also announced they're no longer clients
“We stand with victims of abuse and our band will continue to strive for all spaces we inhabit to be safe ones,” Hippo Campus write in an Instagram story.
Strib music reporter Chris Riemenschneider notes that other local music acts repped by Wasserman include Trampled by Turtles, Bon Iver, She’s Green, and Wild Horses. Riemenschneider reports that a splinter group of ex-Wasserman reps might form to take on old clients.
Meanwhile, Hippo Campus and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver will be teaming up this weekend for the I.C.E. OUT! mutual aid fundraiser at First Avenue in Minneapolis. Vernon also just announced the return of Eaux Claires music festival this July; the lineup includes Aimee Mann, Dijon, and Lil Yachty, as well as local acts like Gully Boys and Wisconsin punk rockers Gash, as well as Bon Dylan—presumably a Dylan tribute act from Vernon & Co.
Watch This Nifty Southdale Mini Doc
Any Twin Citian worth their salt knows the world's first indoor shopping mall popped up in Edina circa 1956. But that didn't stop me from watching the just-dropped YouTube video from All Things Architecture about South Center.
In it, writer/narrator/editor Steve Park spends nine minutes recapping architect Victor Gruen's utopian vision for the mall, which he imagined as something of a self-contained indoor city. At the center: The Garden Court of Perpetual Spring, a 50-foot-tall town-square-ish gathering place that combined flowers, modern art, cafes, reflecting pools, and the chirps of exotic birds. That iteration of Southdale is now long gone, replaced by a recent pivot to bougie retail options.
Gruen, who we learn was publicly dissed by Frank Lloyd Wright, understood his ambitious template for suburban community had been overrun by consumerism. "He left his firm in the 1970s, returned to Vienna, and spent his later years criticizing the very buildings that made him famous," Park writes in a companion piece to his video. But hey, don't read nothin' when you could instead watch the beautifully compiled mini doc below.
How to Help: La Mama Restaurant
Business is already slower during the colder months of Minnesota. But things are even worse right now for restaurants in areas of high ICE activity, like La Mama, located in Minneapolis at the corner of Nicollet and Franklin Avenues.
“Because of everything happening, I’ve started to go into debt and haven’t been able to pay my bills,” writes owner Arafa Ahmed on her GoFundMe. “I even thought about closing down, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. La Mama Restaurant is the only source of income supporting my family, and I have five kids who depend on me.”
La Mama serves up a mix of Somali and Mediterranean eats (seriously, go eat there too; we’ve heard good things and the food looks amazing). Ahmed is currently raising funds to pay for rent and electricity, and is about $3,000 away from her $10K goal.
