Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Athletic Workers, Including Several of Your MN Favorites, Ask NYT to Recognize Union
In 2022, the New York Times purchased online sports website The Athletic for $550 million. The following year, the newspaper shuttered its in-house sports section in favor of The Athletic. (Previously, Athletic co-founder Alex Mather had said, "We will wait every local paper out and let them continuously bleed until we are the last ones standing"—nice!) Fast-forward to today: Those 200ish Athletic editorial workers just asked the NYT to voluntarily recognize their push to join the Times Guild, the union that reps around 1,500 folks at the mothership.
"Over the past several months, we have organized around the principle of preserving what makes The Athletic great—our staff, our work, and our loyal readership," Katie Strang, a senior investigative reporter, says via press release. "The work we do is union work, and we believe we should be afforded the same benefits and protections as the Times Guild members under their current contract."
Why are we telling you, the humble Midwestern reader, about this coastal media shakeup? Because some of the biggest Athletic writers cover teams in this very market. We're talkin' Michael Russo (hockey), Jon Krawczynski (hoops), and Aaron Gleeman (hardball), to name just a few. In fact, covering Minnesota sports has become major part of the engine that drives The Athletic. "Yeah, the Minnesota coverage dramatically out-performs the market or team success or anything else, really. It's amazing," an Athletic worker tells Racket.
If Times bosses refuse to recognize the union, the National Labor Relations Board will oversee an election; a spokesman says "the company [is] reviewing the request."
MN Daily Humanizes Homelessness
On Monday afternoon, yet another dramatic explosion hit a homeless encampment in south Minneapolis. Details, including whether anyone was hurt or killed, remain scarce at press time, though volunteers with mutual aid org Sanctuary Supply Depot are on the ground near the disaster at 14th Avenue and the Midtown Greenway; you can donate to support their vital work here.
If the ghoulish comments littering Fox 9's aerial coverage of the explosion are any indication, our homelessness crisis is being exacerbated by a lack of humanity toward unhoused people. To combat that, the Minnesota Daily's Spencer White (a Racket contributor), wrote this humanizing profile of Minneapolis man Jacob "Beetlejuice" Williams.
"Humor is, like, beyond the most important thing in my life. That’s what keeps me going," says Williams, who suffered injuries after becoming homeless over a decade ago. “I thank God for letting me see another moment.”
A Dinkytown fixture, Williams is known for his bicycle covered in Christmas lights and his always-bumping Bluetooth speaker. We learn that Williams once competed in BMX competitions, and that he entertained careers in stand-up comedy and tattooing. These days, he's happy to not be known as "a scourge," but rather as a smiling neighborhood personality who picks up trash and repairs old bikes.
“[People are] only one missed rent payment away from being living on the street," Williams tells the Daily.
Meet the Father of That MN-Shaped Forest
Way back in 1987, Bill Lockner was a rookie forester with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. He was assigned to outline the geographic boundaries of a timber sale in the Beltrami Island State Forest, and he opted to have a little fun with it.
“I decided to do something different on this spot, just because it doesn’t matter where the lines are, and I just decided to do it,” Lockner tells MPR News of his decision to trace the outline of Minnesota amid the trees, creating an eventual landmark. His DNR bosses were reportedly less than thrilled about this outburst of bureaucratic artistry (plans to trace a loon were scrapped), though the artist remained unfazed. "No one is going to see it, except for pilots,” he thought at the time.
Once Google Earth came to prominence in the early '00s, however, lots of people noticed the enormous swath of trees shaped like Minnesota; it goes viral with regularity. Lockner, who retired after 37 years with the DNR, has no regrets and he certainly doesn't have an ego—the ol' forester declined to be photographed by MPR.
“I don’t want to be famous," he tells Dan Gunderson. "I just wanted to do something cool.”
Minneapolis City Council Votes for DOJ-Overseen Policing Overhaul
Remember that damning Department of Justice report from 2023, the one that outlined decades of violations committed by the Minneapolis Police Department? On Monday afternoon, the Minneapolis City Council finally voted unanimously to authorize a consent decree, which will see MPD practices overhauled under federal oversight. DOJ lawyers and city officials raced to hammer out the agreement before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. “This agreement reflects what our community has asked for and what we know is necessary: real accountability and meaningful change,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a statement.
Minneapolis joins 16 other cities with consent decrees, which recommend policing changes related to operations, training, policies, and discipline. The agreements can take a decade to complete, the New York Times notes, and it's unclear how they might change when they're handed over to the incoming Trump administration. Unfortunately semi-related: Current burger reviewer/ex-MPD union head Bob Kroll is currently lobbying Trump for a job with the U.S. Marshals, likely due, in part, to his being banned from local law enforcement. He has at least one enthusiastic booster in local media... who happens to be his wife.
