A 17-year-old student charged with robbery at a Lakeville school was reported to be armed with a handgun, though a weapon was not found.

A school resource officer responded to a weapon report on Tuesday at Lakeville Pathways Academy, an alternative high school that’s in the same building as Kenwood Trail Middle School.

The schools have separate entrances, Pathways has its own wing, and there isn’t contact between middle school and Pathways students at school, according to a school district spokesperson.

On Tuesday, a Pathways student used a THC vape in the bathroom (THC is a component of marijuana). The 17-year-old asked to use it and the other student handed it to him. The 17-year-old then “pulled out a gun, pointed the gun at his stomach and said, ‘I’m stealing this from you,’” said a juvenile petition, of what police were told, that was filed in court Thursday.

The 17-year-old exited the bathroom. When a teacher was notified, a staff member got the 17-year-old from class to take him to her office. Before they reached it, the teen ran out a door and through a parking lot.

“Because the student had left the building, and it was unconfirmed if they had a firearm, Lakeville Pathways Academy and Kenwood Trail Middle School immediately went into a secure protocol,” when no one is allowed in or out of the building, Superintendent Michael Baumann wrote to families Wednesday.

“Based on security camera footage and a search that immediately began by our School Resource Officers and the Lakeville Police Department, it became clear that the student had immediately left school grounds,” he continued. “Out of an abundance of caution, our two high schools, Lakeville North and Lakeville South, as well as their closest elementary schools, Lake Marion and Lakeview, were also placed in secure protocols.”

Officers took the 17-year-old into custody just over an hour after he ran from the school. The Lakeville resident was found by basketball courts in a mobile home community in Burnsville. He said he didn’t know anyone who lived in the community, according to the petition.

Police found no gun or vape with the 17-year-old. Before his interview with officers, the teen and his mother “were heard whispering about sticking to a story that (the teen) first told her,” the petition said. “When asked if he had a gun,” he said he did not and that he ran from the school because he had a vape.

Surveillance footage from the school showed the 17-year-old entered the bathroom, and it appeared he was “holding his left arm in front of his body near the left front sweatshirt pocket,” the petition said. When he returned to class, he was seen retrieving his iPad and phone “using only his right hand and his left hand is guarding his left side of his body.”

Baumann wrote that he recognized the “incident is concerning, and may raise worries about your students’ safety while at school.” He credited people for keeping the school safe — when “students saw something concerning, they reported it right away,” plus school leaders, staff and students used their school safety training, he wrote.

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The Gammelgården Museum in Scandia wants to hear your immigrant story.

To mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, museum officials are inviting the public to share a story, poem, photograph or piece of art that shows “how an immigrant has positively impacted their life,” said Ann Rinkenberger, the museum’s executive director.

“This could be a family member (current or ancestor), friend, co-worker, artist, business owner or someone they have read about and are inspired by,” she said.

The deadline for submission for “Minnesota’s Global Heart: A Mosaic of Public Memory” is March 15.

Museum officials plan to compile the materials into a book and/or exhibit to share with the public, Rinkenberger said.

“We’re hoping to get a variety of items that represent a breadth of experiences and diverse narratives about how immigrants have shaped the history of Minnesota and/or Scandia,” she said. “We are looking for everyday individuals — living or dead — who have immigrated to Minnesota and have positively impacted your or your family’s life in some way.”

Items can be submitted via email to Rinkenberger at director@gammelgardenmuseum.org or through the U.S. Postal Service at Gammelgården Museum, P.O. Box 62, Scandia, MN 55073.

Items shipped by UPS or FedEx should use the museum’s street address: Gammelgården Museum, 20880 Olinda Trail North, Scandia, MN 55073.

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By MATTHEW PERRONE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the Food and Drug Administration plans to start offering bonus payments to agency drug reviewers who complete their work ahead of schedule, the latest in a flurry of changes to longstanding norms and procedures.

FDA Commissioner Marty Makary described the effort as a pilot program during a staff presentation Thursday, saying the first quarterly bonus payments would start going out to employees around August. The Associated Press obtained slides and a recording of the presentation.

“My job as your commissioner is to be your advocate and to fight for you,” Makary told FDA staffers, adding that getting approval for the payments took “some wrangling.”

“If you don’t like it, we can get rid of it, but usually everybody loves money,” Makary said.

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The plan raises a number of questions, including exactly how the payments will be distributed across large teams of staffers who typically contribute to drug reviews. Employees who are not directly involved in drug reviews — such as factory inspectors — are not eligible for the payments. The pilot also presents potential ethical dilemmas if FDA reviewers are seen as being rewarded for rushing steps needed to confirm drug safety and effectiveness.

Since the 1990s, the FDA has collected fees from drug companies to help pay for extra staffers to quickly review new prescription drugs and vaccines. Under the agreement with the industry, the FDA has timelines and metrics for completing each review. But the agency has never paid workers directly for meeting or exceeding those goals.

The bonus program is intended “to recognize and reward staff who find ways to be more efficient delivering high-quality work activities that ultimately benefit patients,” according to slides presented to FDA staff.

Senior FDA officials on the call said payments would be based on “weighted time savings” achieved by employees and their teams, as well as ratings-based “work quality and work complexity.”

“This program values speed, but never at the expense of quality,” states one of the slides.

The announcement comes as the agency loses drug review staff to retirements and resignations following broader layoffs and buyouts across many other parts of the agency. Agency records show the FDA’s drug and biologics centers — which oversee prescription drugs, vaccines and biotech drugs — have lost about 20% of their employees since President Donald Trump took office a year ago.

Additionally, some agency reviewers cannot work on certain projects because they are actively interviewing for jobs in the pharmaceutical industry.

The program could also negatively impact the public perception of the FDA, which has often been viewed as too closely aligned with the drug companies it regulates.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the agency, has described FDA staffers as “a sock puppet” of industry since becoming the nation’s top health official last February.

About 70% of the FDA’s drug program is financed by user-fee payments from drug companies submitting their products for review. The arrangement has allowed the agency to hire thousands of additional scientists and cut review times by more than half of what they were prior to receiving the funding.

Since arriving at the agency last April, Makary has announced a series of measures that he says will shorten FDA reviews, including offering one-month drug assessments for new medications that serve “national interests.” In the last two weeks alone, Makary said the FDA would drop its longtime standard of requiring two clinical trials for drug reviews and open a new pathway for therapies that can only be tested in a handful of patients.

The announcements promoting faster, streamlined approvals come as the agency faces criticism over its recent handling of vaccines, gene therapies and other specialty treatments.

The FDA’s chief scientist and vaccine director, Dr. Vinay Prasad, has personally overruled staff in rejecting a string of experimental therapies and biotech drugs, citing the need for additional studies and more definitive evidence.

Earlier this month, Prasad refused to accept Moderna’s application for a new mRNA flu shot, saying its clinical trial was insufficient. Then, less than a week later, the agency reversed course, saying it would review the vaccine after Moderna agreed to conduct an additional study in older people.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

After a run of sold-out pop-ups in January, Steak Frites by Meritage will return on Wednesdays in March.

The downtown St. Paul restaurant, which is usually closed on Wednesdays, will serve the classic French dish steak frites along with moules frites (mussels and fries). And yes, that’s the whole menu — and the whole point. Chef Russell Klein said the idea is to serve just a few things and do them really well.

For $32, guests will receive a prix-fixe menu that includes the following: Warm bread and salted butter, a house salad, choice of steak or mussels and bottomless fries. Yes, you read that right, as many of the best fries in the Twin Cities as you can eat.

In addition, there will be seasonal vegetables and classic ice cream sundaes available to add to the meal a la carte. A limited menu of beer, wine and cocktails will be $11 apiece.

Klein has said the concept is likely coming as a standalone restaurant sometime soon.

If you want a reservation, you should definitely hurry. January’s pop-up booked swiftly, and there is already limited availability for March.

Steak Frites by Meritage: 410 St. Peter St., St. Paul; 651-222-5670; steakfrites.net

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