In the past two months, President Donald Trump has deployed over 2,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to occupy the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul for Operation Metro Surge, described by the Department of Homeland Security as “the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out.” It has looked more like an armed invasion. ICE agents deployed to the area have thus far arrested 3,000 (including protesters), assaulted and pepper sprayed many, and killed two people: Renee Good, 37, shot three times in the face by ICE agent Jonathan Ross; and Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, who died by “presumed suicide” in an ICE tent in Texas eight days after being detained in Minneapolis. 

The local resistance to this attack has been extensive. On social media, there are countless videos of people in Minneapolis doing everything in their power to make ICE’s job miserable. By day, they’re tailing ICE agents on foot and in cars, blaring their plastic whistles and car horns to alert the neighborhood. They’re throwing water balloons full of urine at the officers, and pouring quickly-freezing water in their paths so they slip and fall. At night, they’re posted up outside hotels where ICE agents are staying chanting and playing drum sets.

The sun'll come out this weekend, so you should, too. Check out cheap and easy events from Activists Assemble: A Festival of Activism to Susquatch 5 and from and from Skål Beer Hall's 5th Annual Viking Beard Competition to Seahawks vs Rams on the Big Screen! Browse our weekly top picks for more suggestions. GOOOOOOOO HAWKS!

LIVE MUSIC

Benevolent Sol Album Release Party
Seattle band Benevolent Sol's branding uses a lot of thermal imaging, which is kind of how listening to their music feels: like a psychedelic trip. The band celebrates the release of their newest album BILL (Barely.Informed.Local.Lifeform) with the first all-ages show at Belltown's Rendezvous venue in over 30 years. Benevolent Sol got their start in 2023 playing house shows up and down the coast, performing for youthful audiences with the goal of inspiring people to make change in their communities. Fellow colorful psych-rock band Roy G. Biv opens the show—take a listen to their live in the park EP that raised money for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. SHANNON LUBETICH
(Rendezvous, Belltown, $10)

The Shareholders Are Hungry: They must feast on livelihoods! And bones! And they demand more! More! More! Amazon is planning to cut thousands more corporate jobs next week, according to a report by Reuters. Back in October, Amazon trimmed 14,000 jobs. The plan, supposedly, has been to cut around 30,000 jobs. Why? Not because of artificial intelligence, or earnings, but "culture," as per CEO Andy Jassy. Too many people? Too much bureaucracy. Sorry, tech brethren. 

Save the Date: Sound Transit is going to announce when it's going to open its Crosslake Connection and knit together the spine of the 1 line with the east side 2 line. They'll make that announcement at 10 a.m.—which is in the future at the time of this writing. I will update this if I remember.

Two Hikers Dead on Mount Rainier: Two backcountry hikers on Mount Rainier were reported missing earlier this week. Rangers found them, both dead, on Wednesday. 

If the dreary January weather’s got you down, find something fun to look forward to in our rundown of this week’s newly announced events. A$AP Rocky returns with Don’t Be Dumb, his first album in eight years, and a supporting world tour. Washington native Brandi Carlile presents the second edition of Echoes Through the Canyon at the scenic Gorge. Plus, snag a two-day pass for EDM festival Beyond Wonderland. Read on for details plus some news you can use.

ON SALE FRIDAY, JANUARY 23

MUSIC

The Afghan Whigs 40th Anniversary Tour with Mercury Rev
The Showbox (Sun May 17)

A$AP Rocky - Don't Be Dumb World Tour
Climate Pledge Arena (Tues June 30)

Audrey Hobert: The Staircase To Stardom Tour
Paramount Theatre (Wed Aug 12)

Welcome back to Pop Loser! This week, the Crocodile announced that it’s up for sale, Bandcamp banned AI music, and Harry Styles revealed the name of his new album. Plus, I attended the opera for the first time, and coincidentally, electronic music diva Austra shares her early musical inspirations, from operas like Puccini’s La bohème and Mozart’s Magic Flute, in another edition of First Times.

This Week in Music

The Crocodile is up for sale. The owners announced on Tuesday that they’re selling the long-running Belltown venue through a receivership process, which is generally used as an alternative to bankruptcy. According to court documents, the Crocodile has $1.6 million in debt, with the vast majority owed to ticketing platform TicketWeb, and cites decreased attendance and alcohol sales, along with rising operating costs, for its lack of profitability. In the meantime, the venue and its upstairs hotel will operate as usual, booking future shows in hopes of selling the club as a “turnkey situation.”

Who grows your food and what do they deserve?

A bill introduced into the Washington State Legislature Tuesday would grant our state’s farmworkers the same collective bargaining rights you and I share for the first time in our state’s history. But opponents ask: Is it the right time?

Senate Bill 6045, sponsored by Sen. Rebecca Saldaña, D-Seattle, and its identical companion, HB 2409, sponsored by Rep. Sharlett Mena, D-Tacoma, would create a collective bargaining structure for the hundreds of thousands of farmworkers in Washington to band together to negotiate for fair wages, workplace protections, and improved labor conditions. These basic rights are afforded to nearly all workers, but farmworkers have thus far been excluded.

To explain, president of the Washington State Labor Council April Sims led off Tuesday’s Senate testimony with a history lesson.

ICE Detains a 5-Year-Old near Minneapolis: And tried to use him as bait to catch his family. On Tuesday, Liam Conejo Ramos had just been picked up from school when masked agents apprehended him and his father in the driveway. MPR reported that another adult living at the house begged agents to let the boy stay. The agents then marched Liam up to the door and made him knock, hoping this would lure his family members out of the house. Nobody answered the door, and ICE took Liam and his dad away. Their lawyer thinks they’re in a family holding cell in Texas, but isn’t entirely sure. Liam is one of four students in the same school district north of Minneapolis that have been detained by ICE over the last two weeks.

ICE at Our Own Schools: Seattle Public Schools (SPS) is dealing with the aftermath of at least six schools sheltering-in-place Tuesday after unconfirmed reports of ICE activity in South Seattle. At last night’s school board meeting, half a dozen parents, teachers and community members spoke about how stressful that day was. Interim Superintendent Fred Podesta said district policy tells principals when they should order a shelter-in-place, which has worked well for local law enforcement activity. But federal law enforcement? Folks were having to make decisions on the basis of unconfirmed information and little risk assessment. Podesta thinks SPS hasn’t given its school leaders the tools needed to deal with ambiguous ICE reports, and they’re going to correct that. It’s unclear how the district will correct that.

Last Memorial Day weekend, far-right Christian supremacist group Mayday USA used Cal Anderson Park as their own house of worship for a flamboyant event they advertised as a battle in the spiritual war against “child butchers” and demonic forces (queer people and progressivism, respectively).

Hundreds showed up in nonviolent protest, but were met with a very violent Seattle Police Department (SPD). This week, bodycam footage, obtained through a public records request and shared on social media, revealed the cops’ intent to inflict violence on the protesters that day. In the video, Officer Matthew Didier can be heard riling up his fellow cops, saying, “We’re here to fuck people up now,” and “We’re going in this time with guns blazing and all our pieces in place.”

Whole Foods Roosevelt on MLKday

You: cute guy with wide frame grey glasses. Me:tall blonde We kept making eye contact. You waited outside and said hi. I got flustered… try again?

Walking down 15th Ave E on 1/20

U: with curly hair & headphones passing Cafe Ladro Me: light denim puffer. We caught each others eyes a couple times but kept walking. Go 4 coffee?

We are back for Episode Three of Drag Race. This week, we saw RDR Live, the infamous sketch comedy challenge, and as with previous seasons, Season 18’s RDR Live proved that the struggle is real. The writing was inconsistent. The editing was heavy handed. But at least much of the cast surprised us with their improv skills.

It was a bunch of drag queens in a who-can-be-the-stupidest contest, a much needed escape from the chaos in the real world. 

“RuPaul’s School of Overacting”

SNL cast member Sarah Sherman—whose body-horror comedy was once described by the New York Times’s David Cronenberg as “if he had been swallowed by a mulleted clown”—was the perfect guest judge for RDR Live. She arrived on set as a rainbow-brite harlequin, complete with matching ventriloquist puppet. (I think I saw that same doll at an East Vancouver vintage shop last weekend, sitting next to a taxidermied pangolin.)

To celebrate MLK day, my family and I had lunch at a superb soul food restaurant, Paschal’s, in Atlanta, Georgia. There’s a lot of good history in this place. MLK and other civil rights leaders regularly dined here in the 50s and 60s. But what caught my attention during my visit was the robot that served our food. Pictures of MLK on the wall; a robot bringing soul food to the table. What to make of this? Beats me. But I enjoyed my fried chicken sandwich, which came with a bowl of greens. The robot was silent. 

Seattle area firefighters faced three fires last night. One happened in Kent, another near Woodland Park Zoo, and a third in Tacoma. The Seattle Times reports that no one was injured in the first fire, a person was injured in the second one, and the third destroyed an abandoned house. All fires are under investigation.

At least six Seattle public schools sheltered in place after unconfirmed community reports of ICE activity in the city’s South End.

The confirmed schools included Mercer International Middle School, Cleveland STEM High School, Maple Elementary School, Dearborn Park International Elementary School, Beacon Hill International Elementary School, and Aki Kurose Middle School, according to Seattle Public Schools Chief of Staff Bev Redmond.

Photos by John Caplinger for The Stranger

On a gentle January morning, against the backdrop of civil rights being dismantled in plain sight across the country, thousands gathered at Garfield High School, refusing silence in a nation increasingly estranged from its own conscience. The city’s 43rd Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration followed its familiar rhythm: workshops in the auditorium, a rally inside the Garfield gymnasium, then a march spilling into the streets. But nothing about this year felt ceremonial. Not the moment we’re living inside, nor the theme guiding the day.

Where do we go from here?

Dr. King asked that question in the final year of his life, as the nation recoiled from its own civil rights gains and recommitted itself to war, repression, and inequality. Today, the echo of that question hits with the force of a national indictment: in 2026, one year after Donald Trump’s second inauguration—held, grotesquely, on King’s holiday—civil rights enforcement has been hollowed out, voting rights sit under open assault, and diversity itself is framed as a threat. Trans people are targeted with cruelty masquerading as policy. In Minneapolis, communities live under the shadow of federal occupation with ICE raids normalized, dissent branded as insurrection, and militarization treated as governance. History is not merely being revised; it is being weaponized.

In response, people chose presence over retreat at Garfield.

I’m a gay man in my fifties, comfortable in my skin, but I suffered severe bullying throughout school, which was often abetted by teachers. A recent class reunion prompted me to write a tell-all letter to the current school director regarding that trauma. His gracious response was incredibly healing.

My family has accepted me since I came out in my 20s, but they don’t know the full extent of my ordeal. While I shared the letter with my supportive brother, I’ve hesitated to show it to my parents, who are in their 70s. They claim ignorance (“We didn’t know you were suffering!”, “You never told us you were gay!”), yet they acknowledged long ago that I was “different” from toddlerhood, and they often criticized my “un-boyish” behavior when I was a child.

To give you one concrete example: some older kids called me a gay slur when I was seven. I asked my mother what it meant. I can still vividly picture her shock and horror. So they knew I was gay but never initiated a conversation with me about it, and I was too ashamed to speak up back then. Since writing to the school, I feel an urge to finally have a “warts and all” talk with my parents to understand their perspective. Should I open Pandora’s box with my elderly parents now, or leave things be for the sake of family peace? What is the best approach to having this conversation? Thank you in advance for your perspective.

Pandora’s Box Opener