The longest-serving president of the St. Paul firefighters’ union retired Thursday, the day after the city council recognized him.

They unanimously voted to declare Wednesday as Mike Smith Day. Smith joined the St. Paul Fire Department in 1998 after he was a firefighter for a decade at the Parkside Fire Department in Maplewood.

St. Paul Fire Capt. Mike Smith in a 2019 department photo. (Courtesy of the St. Paul Fire Department)

He was elected to the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 21 board in 2000 and as president in 2009. He was reelected six consecutive times, serving as president for 15 years — the longest in the 107-year history of Local 21, according to the city council proclamation.

Smith was a fire department captain, working on Rescue Squad 1 for the last 12 years at Station 4 on Payne Avenue off East Seventh Street. At Wednesday’s city council meeting, as he stood with fellow firefighters and department leaders, he said his time at the St. Paul Fire Department was “a dream job.”

Fire Chief Butch Inks noted that he and Smith worked together for progress.

“We didn’t always agree on everything, but we always … committed to staying at the table,” he said.

Beyond his union leadership, Inks said Smith is “one of the best firefighters this department’s ever seen.” At a fire, “he’s going to go in, he’s going to sacrifice himself” and make sure the fire is out, the chief said.

As Local 21 president, Smith oversaw negotiations for a 34 percent total increase in base firefighter wages, the proclamation said. The union expanded by more than 60 new members, the largest in Local 21 in 100 years. And Smith received the 2024 Local Leadership Award from the international union.

Smith was instrumental in pushing for state line-of-duty death benefits for the family of St. Paul Fire Capt. Mike Paidar, 53. His 2020 death from occupational cancer was the first recognized by the state as occurring in the line of duty.

Smith didn’t run for re-election in December, due to his upcoming retirement, and Fire Equipment Operator-Paramedic Kyle Thornberg was elected as the union’s new president.

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SALT LAKE CITY — It has been well over a decade since Nick Bjugstad wore the many shades of blue preferred by the Blaine Bengals, since he skated in three state tournaments for them, since he played in one of the first Hockey Day Minnesota games for them, and since he was named Minnesota’s Mr. Hockey as a Blaine senior in 2010.

But even today, living on the other side of the Rockies from the State of Hockey and toiling for the Utah Hockey Club, Bjugstad admits that there’s a feeling hockey players from Minnesota get in their gut come late February and early March. Unmistakably, it’s tournament time.

This week, in addition to prepping for Utah’s third head-to-head meeting with the Wild, Bjugstad admitted working the phones to get the section tournament scores from his home state.

“I’m keeping tabs for sure. I always check in on my Blaine Bengals, to see how they’re doing,” Bjugstad said following Utah’s Thursday morning skate at the Delta Center. “I know they made it to the semis, then lost to Rogers, who sound like a good team. I’m always calling the hometown buddies, seeing what’s going on. It’s fun to keep tabs.”

Even after winning a pair of conference titles with the Minnesota Gophers and spending more than a dozen seasons in the NHL, Bjugstad admitted that being on the ice with his Bengals and winning section titles versus Centennial in 2008, Osseo in 2009 and Maple Grove in 2010 are among his biggest hockey career thrills. At Xcel Energy Center, the Bengals advanced past the first round just once in those three visits, but he still relishes the memories and the nerves that came along with his first experiences playing in front of 18,000 fans.

“I wish I would have been able to handle it a little better than I did, ‘cause I was a mess,” Bjugstad said, with a smile. “I played in some game sevens and whatnot. Definitely, you know it’s one game and if you lose, it’s over. So, I wish I would have had a better coping mechanism for the stress because I was nervous as hell.”

Bjugstad said that playing at the X always produced nerves, even during the two seasons he was a member of the Wild. And even though there is no high school state title on his resume, he looks back fondly at those years in Blaine blue.

“I just have a lot of gratitude for growing up, and playing in the high school environment and being able to play with my buddies in front of 18,000 people there,” he said. “You get excited when it’s that time of year.”

Wild recall Gaunce again

If all goes well over the next week, they won’t need him, but for purposes of forward depth, the Wild recalled Brendan Gaunce from their Iowa AHL team and had the veteran join on the western road trip.

Gaunce, 30, skated in five games earlier this season with Minnesota and has not recorded a point. He has more than 180 NHL games on his resume from previous stops in Vancouver, Boston and Columbus. He signed a two-year contract with the Wild as a free agent over the summer.

While the return date for key forwards Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek from their respective lower-body injuries is not known, Ryan Hartman is scheduled to return from his eight-game NHL suspension in time for the Wild’s March 4 game at Seattle, meaning that extra bodies are needed for their games at Utah on Thursday, at Colorado on Friday and at home versus Boston on Sunday.

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By COLLEEN SLEVIN

DENVER (AP) — Federal prosecutors have charged a woman in a string of vandalism against a Colorado Tesla dealership, including throwing Molotov cocktails at vehicles and spray painting “Nazi cars” on the building along with a message that appeared directed at company co-founder Elon Musk.

Lucy Grace Nelson appeared in federal court in Denver briefly Thursday after being arrested on a federal charge of malicious destruction of property. Her ankles and wrists were shackled and she wore a purple tie-dye shirt and red-and-black checked pants, as she sat in the jury box with other defendants waiting for their cases to be called.

Nelson rocked back and forth slightly as Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter informed of her rights and Nelson’s mother watched from the front row of the gallery.

When Neureiter questioned lawyers about why federal charges were brought, Nelson began to speak but her attorney, public defender Jennifer Beck, rushed across the room to stop her. Cassie Wiemken of the U.S. Attorney’s Office said the federal government had a compelling interest to prosecute the case because of the danger posed by the “incendiary devices” allegedly used.

After Neureiter noted that Nelson did not report any income or expenses in her application for an attorney, Beck told him that she receives support from her family.

Nelson’s mother and attorney declined to comment after the hearing.

Nelson’s sister, Jennifer McCown, said that her sister loves her family and has been recently volunteering to feed the homeless.

“She’s a loving, intelligent person who wouldn’t hurt another person for the world,” McCown said in a text. She did not comment on the allegations Nelson is facing.

Nelson was arrested Monday on separate state charges after police said she returned to the dealership in Loveland, Colorado with “additional incendiary devices” and materials used in vandalism. However, it wasn’t clear whether state prosecutors have filed formal charges against her. Police said Wednesday that they expected federal charges to be filed.

The case comes amid rising concerns voiced by Democrats and some Republicans about Musk’s influence over the administration of President Donald Trump and follows recent protests at Tesla storerooms elsewhere in the U.S.

Trump and cost-costing chief Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have been moving to slash the size of the federal government through large-scale layoffs, contract cancellations and other moves.

According to the federal criminal charges filed against Nelson, she is suspected of starting fires by igniting Molotov cocktails crafted from empty liquor bottles near vehicles that apparently did not cause much damage.

Photos included in the filing showed a small fire on the ground near vehicles. The dealership estimated that several incidents of vandalism over the course of about a month caused between $5,000 and $20,000 in damages, with an estimated $5,000 in damage to the vehicles.

Loveland police spokesperson Chris Padgett said police were investigating the possibility of someone else being involved.

In one of the incidents, someone spray painted an obscenity believed to be directed at Musk before being chased away by a security guard, according to a Loveland police affidavit.

Police said that at the time of Nelson’s arrest, they saw in her car cans of spray paint, gasoline, bottles and various cloth pieces that could be soaked with an accelerant.

By LAURAN NEERGAARD

WASHINGTON (AP) — This year’s harsh flu season – the most intense in 15 years – has federal health officials trying to understand if it sparked an increase in a rare but life-threatening brain complication in children.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 19,000 people have died from the flu so far this winter, including 86 children. Thursday, the CDC reported at least nine of those children experienced brain complications, and it has asked state health departments to help investigate if there are more such cases.

There is some good news: The CDC also reported that this year’s flu shots do a pretty good job preventing hospitalization from the flu — among the 45% of Americans who got vaccinated. But it comes a day after the Trump administration added to the uncertainty roiling government health agencies by canceling a meeting of experts who are supposed to help choose the recipe for next winter’s flu vaccine.

Still, it’s not too late to get vaccinated this year: “If you haven’t gotten your flu shot yet, get it because we’re still seeing high flu circulation in most of the country,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Flu shot effectiveness varies from year to year. While not great at blocking infections, the vaccine’s main role “is to keep you out of the hospital and to keep you alive,” said Vanderbilt University vaccine expert Dr. William Schaffner.

Preliminary CDC data released Thursday found children who got this year’s vaccine were between 64% and 78% less likely to be hospitalized than their unvaccinated counterparts, and adults were 41% to 55% less likely to be hospitalized.

What about those brain complications? Earlier this month, state health departments and hospitals warned doctors to watch for child flu patients with seizures, hallucinations or other signs of “influenza-associated encephalopathy or encephalitis” — and a more severe subtype called “acute necrotizing encephalopathy.” Encephalitis is brain inflammation.

Thursday, the CDC released an analysis of 1,840 child flu deaths since 2010, finding 166 with those neurologic complications. Most were unvaccinated. But the agency concluded it’s unclear if this year’s nine deaths with those complications — four of whom had the worse subtype — mark an uptick.

There’s no regular tracking of those neurologic complications, making it hard to find the answers. In California, Dr. Keith Van Haren of Stanford Medicine Children’s Health said earlier this month that he’d learned of about 15 flu-related cases of that severe subtype from doctors around the country and “we are aware or more cases that may also meet the criteria.” He did not say how many died.

O’Leary, with the pediatricians’ academy, said parents should remember this complication is rare — the advice remains to seek medical advice anytime a child with flu has unusual or concerning symptoms, such as labored breathing.

Doctors see more neurologic complications during severe flu seasons – they may be linked to particular influenza strains — and survivors can have ongoing seizures or other lingering problems, he said.

Meanwhile, vaccine makers already are gearing up for the months-long process of brewing next winter’s flu shots. A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee was supposed to meet on March 13 to help choose which flu strains to include but with that meeting’s cancellation, it’s unclear if the government will decide on its own.

“We have historically worked really hard to get transparency around all of these vaccine discussions,” said O’Leary, who said it’s important for the public to understand what goes into making decisions about the flu vaccine composition and other vaccine recommendations.

“The FDA will make public its recommendations to manufacturers in time for updated vaccines to be available for the 2025-2026 influenza season,” Andrew Nixon, communications director for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in an email.

AP reporters JoNel Aleccia and Mike Stobbe contributed.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.