By JOSH FUNK, Associated Press

The Alaska Airlines pilot who has been universally praised as a hero for safely landing a jet after a door plug panel flew off shortly after takeoff is suing Boeing because he believes the plane maker wrongly tried to blame him and the rest of the crew in past legal filings.

Captain Brandon Fisher was commended by the heads of the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration and even Boeing executives for helping ensure none of the 177 people aboard flight 1282 were killed when the blowout happened in January 2024.

But Fisher’s lawyers say that Boeing’s attempts to deflect liability in past lawsuits despite what the NTSB investigation found led to the pilot being sued by some passengers and caused him great distress.

“Boeing’s lie infuriated Captain Fisher as well, as he was being castigated for his actions as opposed to being lauded,” Fisher’s lawyers, William Walsh and Richard Mummalo, wrote in the lawsuit filed in an Oregon court. “Because he had flown Boeing aircraft for the entirety of his employment with Alaska Airlines, Boeing’s attempts to blame him felt like a deep, personal betrayal by a company that claimed to hold pilots in the highest regard.”

Four flight attendants previously sued Boeing over the incident last summer.

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The NTSB investigation of the blowout found that four bolts securing what is known as the door plug panel were removed and never replaced during a repair as the Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft was being assembled. Boeing and key supplier Spirit Aerosystems, which has since been acquired by Boeing, were both implicated.

The bolts are hidden behind interior panels in the plane, so they are not something that could have been easily checked in a preflight inspection by the pilot or anyone else from the airline. NTSB investigators determined the door plug was gradually moving upward over the 154 flights prior to this incident before it ultimately flew off.

The blowout occurred minutes after the flight took off from Portland, Oregon, and created a roaring air vacuum. Seven passengers and one flight attendant sustained minor injuries, but the plane was able to land safely.

The 2-foot-by-4-foot piece of fuselage covering an unused emergency exit behind the left wing had blown out. Only seven seats on the flight were unoccupied, including the two seats closest to the opening.

Boeing factory workers told NTSB investigators they felt pressured to work too fast and were asked to perform jobs they weren’t qualified for.

Fisher’s lawsuit describes how he and the first officer acted quickly after losing cabin pressure when the panel blew out to fly the plane safely back to Portland while decreasing altitude and working with air traffic controllers to avoid any other planes in the area.

The head of the commercial airplane unit at Boeing, Stan Deal, commended the Alaska Airlines crew for safely landing the plane in a memo to employees after the incident.

Boeing did not comment directly on this new lawsuit. But the company’s CEO, Kelly Ortberg, has made improving safety a top priority ever since he took over the top job at Boeing in August 2024.

The FAA fined Boeing $3.1 million over safety violations inspectors found after the door plug incident. But in October the agency allowed Boeing to increase production of the 737 Max to 42 planes a month because its inspectors were satisfied with the measures the company has taken to improve safety.

Alaska Airlines also declined to comment on the lawsuit, but said the airline remains “grateful to our crew members for the bravery and quick-thinking that they displayed on Flight 1282 in ensuring the safety of all on board.”

The Stillwater Amateur Radio Association is holding a special event this weekend at Belwin Conservancy’s Savanna Center in Afton to honor the Rev. George Metcalf.

“Remembering Father Metcalf-WØJH” will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday through Sunday, Jan. 9-11, at the center, located at 795 Indian Trail S., which was once the home of Metcalf, an Episcopal priest who helped craft a famous World War II prayer and was a ham-radio operator under the call sign of WØJH.

The event is free and open to “anyone interested in communicating with other radio operators around the world,” said Dave Glas, past president of SARA. “This is a way for us to honor Father Metcalf,” Glas said. “We want to recognize his generosity in donating the land and his support of amateur radio and other sciences.”

Metcalf, who died in 1995, served as Gen. George Patton’s personal chaplain during World War II. He was one of two chaplains who drafted the “Weather prayer” that Patton’s troops believed ended three months of cloudy skies and rain in December 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge.

Last year, Brian K. Burgess, an Episcopal bishop from Springfield, Ill., contacted SARA during the annual event. This year he plans to attend in person and operate alongside the SARA hams. He also plans to visit local clergy and officiate, with Fr. Jay Phelan, at the 10 a.m. Sunday service at Stillwater’s Ascension Episcopal Church.

For more information about the SARA event, go to radioham.org.

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By JOHN HANNA

A Texas teachers union sued the state’s education department on Tuesday, accusing it of an improper “wave of retaliation” against public school employees over their social media comments following the killing of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk.

The lawsuit says the free speech rights of teachers and other school staff were violated by the Texas Education Agency and its commissioner, Mike Morath, because they directed local school districts to document what the education agency described as “vile content” posted online after Kirk’s fatal shooting in September.

Despite calls for civility, some people who criticized Kirk after his death drew backlash from Republicans seeking to punish anyone they believe dishonored him.

The lawsuit says the agency has received more than 350 complaints about individual educators that could subject them to investigation. It cites the cases of four unnamed teachers — one in the Houston area and three in the San Antonio area — who were investigated over social media posts critical of Kirk or of the reaction to his death. According to the lawsuit, the Houston-area teacher was fired, while the three San Antonio-area teachers remain under investigation.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Austin by the Texas American Federation of Teachers, which represents about 66,000 teachers and other school employees.

“A few well-placed Texas politicians and bureaucrats think it is good for their careers to trample on educators’ free speech rights,” Texas AFT President Zeph Capo said in a statement. “Meanwhile, educators and their families are afraid that they’ll lose everything: their livelihoods, their reputations, and their very purpose for being, which is to impart critical thinking.”

The education agency said it could not comment “on outstanding legal matters.”

The lawsuit comes less than month after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both conservative Republicans, announced a partnership with Turning Point USA, the right-wing group Kirk founded, to create chapters on every high school campus in the state.

The Associated Press sent emails seeking comment from the governor’s office and Turning Point USA, which are not named as defendants in the suit.

Morath told school superintendents in a Sept. 12 letter that social media posts could violate Texas educators’ code of ethics and promised that “each instance will be thoroughly investigated.”

The lawsuit argues that the letter represents a state policy that is overly broad and too vague, allowing enforcement to be arbitrary and inconsistent. Federal courts previously have ruled that overly broad and vague policies and laws aren’t permissible under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because they could squelch protected speech.

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The lawsuit said the Houston-area teacher expressed a view online that “karma played a role” in the death of Kirk, a strong advocate of gun rights. It said the San Antonio teachers compared the widespread outrage on the right over Kirk’s death to a lack of outrage over other violence, criticized Kirk’s positions on immigration or criticized him for comments that his critics considered racist, anti-immigrant or misogynist.

The lawsuit said none of their posts celebrated or promoted violence, which Morath said wouldn’t be protected speech.

Kirk embodied the pugnacious, populist conservatism that has taken over the Republican Party since President Donald Trump’s political rise, an unabashed Christian conservative who often made provocative statements about politics, gender and race. He launched Turning Point USA in 2012, targeting younger people and venturing onto liberal-leaning college campuses where many GOP activists were nervous to tread. He was shot during such an appearance at a university in Utah.

By DÁNICA COTO and ANDREA RODRÍGUEZ

HAVANA (AP) — The names, ranks and ages of the 32 Cuban military personnel killed during the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces were published Tuesday by the Cuban government, which announced two days of mourning.

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Among the deceased are colonels, lieutenants, majors and captains, as well as some reserve soldiers, ranging in age from 26 to 60.

The uniformed personnel belonged to the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, Cuba’s two main security agencies. The publication did not specify their missions or exactly how they died.

Cuban state media published their details and headshots, which show them clad in olive-green military uniforms.

In a statement Sunday, Cuban authorities acknowledged the deaths of the personnel who were in the South American nation as part of agreements between the two countries.

“Our compatriots fulfilled their duty with dignity and heroism, falling after fierce resistance in direct combat against the attackers, or as a result of the bombing of the facilities,” the official statement said.

Limited details of Cubans killed in strike

Information about the Cuban officers killed began trickling out on Monday night, with Cubans publicly saying they had died for a just cause.

“You have to say that to say the same thing as the government,” said Luis Domínguez, who runs the website, Represores Cubanos, or Cuban Repressors, which doxes officials allegedly involved in human rights abuses and violations of democratic norms.

“Inside, Cubans have to be saying something else,” he added.

Domínguez said he believes that one of those killed, 67-year-old Col. Humberto Alfonso Roca Sánchez, used to be the garrison commander of Punto Cero, where Fidel Castro once lived.

Another officer who was killed, 62-year-old Col. Lázaro Evangelio Rodríguez Rodríguez, is believed to have overseen Cuba’s coast and border guards, Domínguez said.

As top-tier economic and political allies, Cuba and Venezuela have agreements in areas ranging from security to energy, with the sale of subsidized oil to the island since 2000. However, the extent of military or advisory exchanges has rarely been reported.

A post published Monday on the independent website La Joven Cuba, a blog that provides a platform for many opposition voices on the island, featured a profile of 1st Lt. Yunio Estévez. It was written by a journalist who was a close friend. The post included details of the 32-year-old’s life and featured pictures with his three children, whom he had raised together in Guantánamo province in eastern Cuba.

La Joven Cuba report stated that Estévez, a communications expert in charge of a personal security department, was shot during the attack. The post was removed later that evening at the family’s request, the website reported.

A protest and a moment of silence

The U.S. strike on Venezuela prompted the Organization of American States to hold a special meeting on Tuesday, where a protester interrupted the speech of U.S. Ambassador Leandro Rizzuto.

“The majority of people are against this!” cried out Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, a U.S.-based anti-war nonprofit. “Hands off Venezuela!”

She called for sanctions to be lifted as OAS officials called for security guards who eventually led her out of the room.

Rizzuto resumed his speech after Benjamin was removed: “I understand there are many raw emotions.”

He called the strike a “targeted law enforcement action” against an “indicted criminal.”

“Let me be clear, the U.S. did not invade Venezuela,” Rizzuto said. “President Trump offered Maduro multiple offramps. This was not an interference in democracy…it actually removed the obstacle to it.”

He said the U.S. wants a better and democratic future for Venezuela.

“You cannot continue to have the largest oil reserves in the world under the control of adversaries of the Western Hemisphere while the people of Venezuela have no electricity, substandard quality of life, and its profits don’t benefit the people in Venezuela,” Rizzuto said. “The profits are stolen by a handful of oligarchs around the world, including those inside of Venezuela.”

He also called on the release of an estimated 1,000 political prisoners, saying the U.S. supports the request of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to visit the detention center in person.

After Rizzuto spoke, Peruvian Ambassador Rodolfo Coronado called for a minute of silence for the victims of Maduro’s regime.

During the OAS meeting, representatives of several countries strongly condemned the U.S. strike.

Mauricio Jaramillo, Colombia’s vice minister of foreign relations, denounced what he said was an attack against Venezuela’s sovereignty. He said the unilateral military action was a “clear violation of international law” that set “an extremely worrying” precedent.

Before the special OAS meeting began, about a dozen protesters gathered outside holding signs that read, “No war on Venezuela” and “Arepas Not Bombs.”

Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.