Burger Dive, the local burger-centric outfit from Josh Thoma, Kevin Fitzgerald and chef Nick O’Leary, is moving from the Potluck Food Hall in Rosedale Center to its own space in the mall.

The restaurant will occupy the spaces that previously housed Chipotle and Potbelly. It’s closer to the AMC Theaters and has its own exterior entrance.

“We’ve had great success at Potluck for the last six years and are excited to offer even more at our new location,” Thoma said in a news release. “The bigger footprint allows us to offer a larger menu, including breakfast, plus space for a pull tab booth, karaoke, trivia, and more.”

This Burger Dive, which will open Jan. 12, will seat 180 and has a large bar and patio space.

Keeping with the theme, the interior will sport wood paneling and neon beer signs.

Breakfast, which includes items such as omelettes, corned beef hash, country fried steak and a breakfast burrito, will be available until 5 p.m. daily, but the full menu is also available starting at 8 a.m.

The space inside Potluck, which was previously shared by Burger Dive and Smack Shack, will still be a Smack Shack. Its menu will expand to include more appetizers, sandwiches, chicken wings, mac and cheese, and gourmet hot dogs.

The new Burger Dive will be open from Sunday through Thursday from 8 a.m. until 11 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 8 a.m. until midnight.

Burger Dive’s other location is on Randolph Avenue and Bay Street in St. Paul.

Burger Dive (Roseville): 1595 Minnesota 36, Roseville; 651-340-2389; burgerdivemn.com

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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.