Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Unicorn Riot Releases Trove of Mass Arrest Videos
Have we mentioned lately how lucky we are to have Unicorn Riot? The Minnesota-based independent media group was responsible for unforgettably good coverage of the unrest in our area during 2020. Today, on the fifth anniversary of Minnesota’s largest mass arrest, its journalists released an incredible resource: 73 MPD videos from that night, when 646+ people were arrested.
Here's what UR journalists had to say:
Recorded just a few months after police killed George Floyd and then brutally reacted to protests, the videos worn by 45 MPD officers showcase three dozen hours of officer interactions and tactic discussions while illustrating MPD’s antagonistic relationship with the community. Strikingly, more than 24% of the 45 officers have killed community members while on duty, and a large swath of other officers had numerous accounts of egregious actions against the community.
Those cops include Kyle Pond, who was among the officers who killed 52-year-old Hmong immigrant Chiasher Vue in December 2019, and Dustin Schwarze, who fatally shot unarmed Black man Jamar Clark in 2015. It's well worth clicking through UR's videos and looking at the list of officers to get a sense for the full scope.
Get Wrecked: 50 Years Since the Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald
On November 10, 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sunk into frigid, gale-whipped Lake Superior and all 29 crew member lives were lost. But we don't need to tell you—you already know the Gordon Lightfoot song-turned-internet meme about the whole affair.
Now, with the 50th anniversary of the freighter's sinking approaching next week, let the Star Tribune's Simon Peter Groebner take you on a tour (gift link) of the memorials and historic sights that honor the sunken vessel and its mates. There's Split Rock Lighthouse, of course, where a 50th-anniversary commemorative event is sold out (but will be livestreamed via Facebook), and there's an all-new Edmund Fitzgerald memorial in Washburn, Wisconsin, which was dedicated on November 1. You also have options in Michigan and Ontario, if you're up for a wreck venture that takes you a little further afield.
On a related note, please enjoy my favorite Halloween costume of 2025:
Let's Hear From MN SNAP Recipients, Grocers
With the Trump administration still cruelly refusing to fund SNAP amidst the ongoing government shutdown, the Minnesota Reformer's Madison McVan spoke with recipients and food providers about the impacts they're feeling. That includes folks like Mary Davis, one of the 440,000-ish Minnesotans rely on SNAP, who typically gets $456 on an electronic benefits transfer card every month to feed herself and her 15-year-old son.
Davis tells McVan she has no idea when more grocery money will arrive, so for now, she's looking for free food wherever she can and even considering taking out loans or turning to “buy now, pay later” services to put food on the table. Other than that? All she can do is pray.
“Really that’s the only other option I have,” she says.
Over at MPR, Hannah Yang has the story on how independent grocery stores are being hurt by delayed SNAP benefits, especially ones located in small rural towns, which are often already struggling to keep their doors open. “These customers who are not getting their SNAP benefits are not coming in to shop,” says Tim Juba, who runs a small grocery store called Juba’s Supervalu in Blue Earth with his father and siblings. “So that’s going to affect our overall sales, which are already in decline. So we are really concerned about this.”
Huh, This Wired Guide to Biz Travel in the Twin Cities Is… Good?
It’s really fun to rip on bad outsider takes on our cities. So we approached this Wired guide for folks traveling to the Twin Cities for business with trepidation and were pleased to find it’s pretty dang good! The restaurant suggestions range from posh/prestigious (Owamni, Spoon and Stable) to low-key (Matt’s, of course), as do the suggested drinking establishments (from Meteor to Lake Monster). The coffee shops, save for the obligatory mention of Minnesota-based Caribou Coffee, are indie shops many of us locals frequent (Spyhouse, Lost Fox). And the co-working roundup is also pretty nice.
So who wrote this practical, solid list? Why, a local, of course. It’s by Amy Nelson, who has worked as an editor and writer for the Pioneer Press and Minnesota Monthly. Inviting local authors to write local guides to a city—what a concept!
