Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Target’s Getting In on the THC Drink Thing
Or at least, it's dipping its toes into a nearby puddle to see if carrying low-dose, hemp-derived drinks will make the struggling big-box retailer some money. Last Friday, the company began selling 12 different THC bev brands—Birdie, Cann, Gigli, Hi Seltzer, Indeed, Señorita, Stigma, Surly, Trail Magic, Wonder, Wyld, and Wynk, according to this MJ Biz Daily story—at around a dozen Target liquor stores in Minnesota.
“I don’t think any of us had on our bingo card that in three short years, you’d see these on Target shelves,” Minneapolis Cider Co./Trail Magic co-founder Jason Dayton tells Brooks Johnson and Carson Hartzog at the Star Tribune. “As a former Target employee myself, I know they have a strong legal team. They put in the legwork, and we hope this shows other retailers this can be done.”
It can be done—but can you find it? While all Minnesota Target locations have been OK’d by the Office of Cannabis Management to sell hemp-derived products, only "10 select stores" are stocking products, per Marijuana Moment, and it's not clear from searching the website which locations have THC offerings. Thankfully, there are literally thousands of businesses already selling weed bubbly, and some even have DEI policies!
Remembering Towns in Their Twilight Years
If you’ve ever road tripped through northern Minnesota, you’ve probably driven by a few of our state’s many ghost towns. When photojournalist Laura Grisamore finds one, she often stops to explore, photograph what remains, and talk with the locals still calling the area home. “Even though when you drive by it, it doesn't look like there's much of a town there, there is this whole world and this history and these amazing stories and people,” she tells Dan Gunderson in this interesting story for MPR News. “I found it very important to pay attention to that.”
Grisamore, who lives in a tiny town herself—Huntersville in Wadena County—has been visiting and documenting these areas for three years. Along the way, she’s uncovered a variety of cool stories, including a general store visit from Billy the Kid, a man who remembers the ice cream he had at a grocery store opening 70 years ago, and people who still love living in their “dead” towns. “This town used to be a hoppin’ place,” one resident of Ponsford, an unincorporated community located about four hours northwest of the Twin Cities, tells Grisamore. “Had they not put in that highway, I wonder what this town would be today.”
MSP Airport Opts Out of Propaganda
It’s a classic trope of dystopian flicks: The main character stands in a slow-moving line where they’re forced to watch an ominous government-produced video on loop. But hey, we live in hell, so that trope is now reality.
Instead of the usual TSA video warning people to toss their lighters and get their Real IDs ready, the feds are now asking airports to air a new video from Kristi Noem at Homeland Security. In it, she blames Democrats for the government shutdown, despite Republicans being in control of the House, Senate, and the White House right now.
“Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this, many of our operations are impacted,” she says, “and most of our TSA employees are working without pay.”
But at least for now, you won’t see it while standing in the TSA line at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, as the Metropolitan Airports Commission is weighing in on the legality of screening a politically slanted video intended for a public service.
And MSP is not alone. Others are refusing to screen the video as well, including airports in Phoenix, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Portland, Oregon.
Nice: 69 Cities in MN Have No Kings Rallies Planned
Want to fight fascism this weekend? You’ll have options, as No Kings returns with nationwide protests across the country this Saturday. The inaugural event was this summer on June 14, coinciding with Trump’s sad military parade. (It was also on the same day as Mike and Melissa Hortman’s assassination and the manhunt that followed.)
So far, around 2,500 events are planned across the U.S., with around 20 happening in the Twin Cities and 52 scheduled outside of the metro. (Some cities, like Minneapolis, are hosting more than one rally.) To find an event, folks can check out the No Kings website, but Brianna Kelly over at Bring Me the News also did a magnificent job compiling times and locations into this super handy list. As a calendar editor myself, I salute your work!
