SEDGWICK COUNTY —After a dramatic increase in crime in December that included six gang related shooting incidents and a double murder on Christmas Eve, new Wichita Police Chief Joseph Sullivan held a news conference Friday morning.

(Click below to watch the press conference)

Chief Sullivan&nbsp;acknowledged the great work of his detectives, patrol officers, K-9 officers and CSI technicians who spent time during the holidays away from their families to help solve these crimes. He also thanked the department's community based partners for their assistance this month.

SEDGWICK COUNTY —After a dramatic increase in crime in December that included six gang related shooting incidents and a double murder on Christmas Eve, new Wichita Police Chief Joseph Sullivan held a news conference Friday morning.(Click below to watch the press conference)<div><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?height=314&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FWichitaPolice%2Fvideos%2F717524703364613%2F&show_text=false&width=560&t=97" width="560" height="314" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowFullScreen="true"></iframe></div>Chief Sullivan&nbsp;acknowledged the great work of his detectives, patrol officers, K-9 officers and CSI technicians who spent time during the holidays away from their families to help solve these crimes. He also thanked the department's community based partners for their assistance this month.

🎥New police chief responds to violent December in Wichita

Final goodbye: The influential people we lost in 2022

ELLIS COUNTY —Just before 4:30 p.m. Friday the police received a call about a man on the grain elevator in downtown Hays, according to a media release from Hays Police.

Officers responded and set up a perimeter blocking off streets close to the grain elevator.&nbsp; Attempts to get the man down were made over the police vehicle loudspeaker. 

Fire fighters and emergency medical services were called to the area as well. 

The man was someone who had recently arrived in Hays and already had contact with law enforcement in the few days that he had been in town. &nbsp;

The distraught man was yelling and pacing back and forth on the very top of the tallest grain elevator in downtown Hays. 

The man could be heard yelling but officers were not able to hear him well enough to understand what the man was yelling about. 

He took his jacket off in the cold and was pulling things off the top of the roof. 

He had thrown debris off the roof along with a hammer and at one point he tore off a metal rod and was flinging it around. &nbsp;

Employees from the Midland Marketing grain elevator assisted law enforcement with making entry inside the dusty grain elevator and updated them on the hazards inside.

 The employees provided sealed flashlights to the officers. 

The special flashlights were to help reduce the risk of flash explosion with the grain dust inside the elevator. 

Officers had to ascend the grain elevator inside in a very small one-person elevator and climb some slick ladders inside. 

Once officers were as close as they could safely get, attempts to communicate and negotiate with the man were made. 

The man did come to the edge a couple times and utter some things to the negotiator that were hard to discern and then he left the edge and communication was never re-established with the negotiator.

A drone flown by Rooks County Deputy James Balthazor, who also is an associate professor at Fort Hays State University, helped officers on the ground see what the man was doing. Information was relayed to the Hays Police personnel and one Ellis County Sheriff’s Deputy inside the grain elevator. 

Attempts to communicate via the drone were waved off and then ignored by the man. Officers inside the grain elevator could hear the man banging and digging away at the top of the roof as he ignored the attempts of the negotiator who was trying to regain communication. &nbsp;

Once the man started smoking on top of the grain dust-filled elevator, officers started retreating to exit the potential explosive hazard and regroup. 

As one negotiator started descending inside the one-man elevator, officers had observed the man through a window crawl along the edge. 

Once he was on the south side of the top of the elevator, he slung himself over the edge and dropped himself down about 20 – 25 feet to the next level.

 His actions were also observed on the ground via the drone and binoculars. &nbsp;

The officers inside the grain elevator responded to the man’s location but were unable to get to the outside level to the man without crawling out a window and dropping down or climbing up a ladder from a lower level to get to him. 

The man had sustained serious injuries when he fell to the next level. 

He was on his back and able to communicate to the officers who were talking to him out the window. 

The drone was deployed at the time and responders on the ground at the command post observed his fall and started working up a rescue plan. At this point firefighters and emergency medical technicians entered the grain elevator to start working the rescue.

Over the next several hours, responders worked to secure the man, lift him up through a window into the grain elevator, lower him down to the next floor and carry him to a small three-foot by three-foot elevator shaft where a firefighter was attached to the man, and they were lowered to the bottom of the grain elevator inside together. 

Several emergency responders had to rig up pulleys, ropes, and safety lines to move the man to safety. 

The conditions were dark, slick from dust on the floors, dust in the air, cramped quarters, and they had to watch where they stepped so they didn’t fall through the numerous holes in the floor. Some holes were covered with lids that would not support the responders' body weight and were a hazard that they had to work around. 

The drop if a responder fell through a hole was a long way down. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Hays firefighters along with firefighters from Goodland set up the rigging and eventually got the man to the ground safely. 

The responders did an amazing job in safely maneuvering through the difficult environment to work together and get everyone out of the building safely. 

The man was eventually taken to the Hays Medical Center for medical treatment. We are not releasing the name of the man.

Thank you to the Kansas Highway Patrol, the Ellis County Sheriff’s Office, the Ellis County Emergency Services personnel (EMTs/paramedics), the Goodland Fire Fighters, Rooks County Deputy James Balthazor for his drone work, the grain elevator employees for their advice and assistance, and to the Hays Fire Department and police personnel.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/12/1672512978685.jpeg" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>ELLIS COUNTY —Just before 4:30 p.m. Friday the police received a call about a man on the grain elevator in downtown Hays, according to a media release from Hays Police.Officers responded and set up a perimeter blocking off streets close to the grain elevator.&nbsp; Attempts to get the man down were made over the police vehicle loudspeaker. Fire fighters and emergency medical services were called to the area as well. The man was someone who had recently arrived in Hays and already had contact with law enforcement in the few days that he had been in town. &nbsp;The distraught man was yelling and pacing back and forth on the very top of the tallest grain elevator in downtown Hays. The man could be heard yelling but officers were not able to hear him well enough to understand what the man was yelling about. He took his jacket off in the cold and was pulling things off the top of the roof. He had thrown debris off the roof along with a hammer and at one point he tore off a metal rod and was flinging it around. &nbsp;Employees from the Midland Marketing grain elevator assisted law enforcement with making entry inside the dusty grain elevator and updated them on the hazards inside. The employees provided sealed flashlights to the officers. The special flashlights were to help reduce the risk of flash explosion with the grain dust inside the elevator. Officers had to ascend the grain elevator inside in a very small one-person elevator and climb some slick ladders inside. Once officers were as close as they could safely get, attempts to communicate and negotiate with the man were made. The man did come to the edge a couple times and utter some things to the negotiator that were hard to discern and then he left the edge and communication was never re-established with the negotiator.A drone flown by Rooks County Deputy James Balthazor, who also is an associate professor at Fort Hays State University, helped officers on the ground see what the man was doing. Information was relayed to the Hays Police personnel and one Ellis County Sheriff’s Deputy inside the grain elevator. Attempts to communicate via the drone were waved off and then ignored by the man. Officers inside the grain elevator could hear the man banging and digging away at the top of the roof as he ignored the attempts of the negotiator who was trying to regain communication. &nbsp;Once the man started smoking on top of the grain dust-filled elevator, officers started retreating to exit the potential explosive hazard and regroup. As one negotiator started descending inside the one-man elevator, officers had observed the man through a window crawl along the edge. Once he was on the south side of the top of the elevator, he slung himself over the edge and dropped himself down about 20 – 25 feet to the next level. His actions were also observed on the ground via the drone and binoculars. &nbsp;The officers inside the grain elevator responded to the man’s location but were unable to get to the outside level to the man without crawling out a window and dropping down or climbing up a ladder from a lower level to get to him. The man had sustained serious injuries when he fell to the next level. He was on his back and able to communicate to the officers who were talking to him out the window. The man said he could not move. The drone was deployed at the time and responders on the ground at the command post observed his fall and started working up a rescue plan. At this point firefighters and emergency medical technicians entered the grain elevator to start working the rescue.Over the next several hours, responders worked to secure the man, lift him up through a window into the grain elevator, lower him down to the next floor and carry him to a small three-foot by three-foot elevator shaft where a firefighter was attached to the man, and they were lowered to the bottom of the grain elevator inside together. Several emergency responders had to rig up pulleys, ropes, and safety lines to move the man to safety. The conditions were dark, slick from dust on the floors, dust in the air, cramped quarters, and they had to watch where they stepped so they didn’t fall through the numerous holes in the floor. Some holes were covered with lids that would not support the responders' body weight and were a hazard that they had to work around. The drop if a responder fell through a hole was a long way down. &nbsp;&nbsp;Hays firefighters along with firefighters from Goodland set up the rigging and eventually got the man to the ground safely. The responders did an amazing job in safely maneuvering through the difficult environment to work together and get everyone out of the building safely. The man was eventually taken to the Hays Medical Center for medical treatment. We are not releasing the name of the man.Thank you to the Kansas Highway Patrol, the Ellis County Sheriff’s Office, the Ellis County Emergency Services personnel (EMTs/paramedics), the Goodland Fire Fighters, Rooks County Deputy James Balthazor for his drone work, the grain elevator employees for their advice and assistance, and to the Hays Fire Department and police personnel.

Man injured by fall from grain elevator after hours-long standoff

KANSAS CITY (AP) —Amiah Manlove used most of her savings to buy a $711 airline ticket to go home for the holidays. Then the Army private got stuck midway through the over 4,000-mile journey from Hawaii to Indianapolis and had to sleep on an airport floor.

Manlove, 20, an active-duty soldier stationed in Oahu, was among the many travelers whose holiday plans were upended when Southwest Airlines&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/kansas-city-plants-dallas-district-of-columbia-business-d2034f41df7a4f78de02db8aa4ba11df">canceled wave after wave of flights</a>&nbsp;across the country. Her father then spent his rent money to buy her a new flight after she was stranded at the Phoenix airport.

“This is the only time that I have to come home, the time we were going to cherish most for the next year — and to lose any of it is just devastating,” said Manlove, who was finally able to make it home the afternoon of Christmas Day. “They would have done anything in their power to get me home.”

Travelers who are in the military are often on fixed schedules that make it challenging to roll with the punches of chaotic airline breakdowns.

The Army typically shuts down basic training and advanced individual training schools for a 10-day break during the Christmas season. Active-duty soldiers can use some of their 30 days of accrued annual leave if they want to travel home during that period, but transportation costs aren't covered.

While she was stranded, Manlove's family searched frantically for solutions, and her father, a home health aide who relies on disability payments, used the $650 he saved for rent to purchase the only flight he could find — a one-way flight to Louisville, Kentucky, a two-hour drive from Indianapolis.

When he came to pick her up, they were so happy to be reunited that he was in tears before she opened the door to get in the car, she said.

Manlove, who is scheduled to fly back to Hawaii on Sunday, said she has not been able to reach Southwest on the phone to get a refund. She called more than 10 times and reached out on social media. The airline expected&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/weather-storms-natural-disasters-dallas-business-5e83632df5d78f85af37c5ed2f602fee">to resume normal operations</a>&nbsp;on Friday.

The family still doesn't know how her father is going to pay rent, she said. For now, they've just been trying to enjoy the time they have together.

“It put a lot of stress on me because I have so many friends and family to see, and 10 days is not a lot,” she said. “It’s not like I can just call my leadership and be like, ‘Oh, hey, can I have some more time?’ That’s not how that works.”

“I’m sure their hearts would be just as heavy as mine, telling them what happened, but I have a duty and a job to do, and I can’t spend all the time in the world here at home.”

Crystal and Steve Molidor in Trout Creek, Montana, said they’ve been waiting 15 months to see their son, who serves in the Air Force and just returned to the U.S. from being deployed. He is now stationed in Anchorage, Alaska, and his mother said his flight home on Southwest Airlines has been canceled at least four times already.

“We lost four plus days and Christmas with him due to their complete incompetence,” she said. “We can’t extend his trip because he can’t change up his leave dates at this point.”

Crystal Molidor said she was on hold with Southwest for six hours Tuesday night and into the early hours of Wednesday morning trying to reach a customer service representative, but wasn’t able to get through to anyone. When she woke up Wednesday, she tried again but gave up after a few more hours of silence.

She said the family finally decided to spend a couple hundred dollars to schedule a flight home for him on a different airline for Thursday, she said.

“I know this isn’t a lot of money – it’s more the stress they’ve caused our family and the principle of it,” she said. “To continue to let people rebook instead of looking at other options when they knew the flights would be canceled is wrong. Had they been honest upfront, we could have gotten him here a few days sooner.”

“I’ll just be glad when he’s home,” she said.

Veterans have faced their own challenges. Air Force veteran Kevin Moffitt was finally able to schedule a flight home to Atlanta for Thursday after being stuck since Monday in Philadelphia, where he flew last week to visit family for Christmas.

The 51-year-old, who served in Afghanistan and now works in law enforcement, said the delays caused him to miss work and a long-awaited appointment for a scan he needs for back pain at the veteran’s hospital.

He said he had to spend $579 with Delta for his new flight after being rescheduled multiple times by Southwest. He said he tried calling Southwest five times to discuss a refund but to no avail. On Wednesday, he received an email from the airline telling him he was getting a $15 refund with no context explaining what it was for.

Meanwhile, he’s been paying to park his car at the Atlanta airport on top of a $50-a-day charge to board his dog.

But he said his biggest concern was that he ran out of medication he relies on to treat his PTSD. When he misses a day, he experiences nausea, vomiting and severe headaches, among other symptoms.

“Hopefully nothing goes wrong," he said of his next flight. "I’m hoping and praying nothing happens.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/12/1672320886223.png" alt="Travelers who are in the military are often on fixed schedules that make it challenging to roll with the punches of chaotic airline breakdowns. photo courtesy KMBC" />
 <figcaption>Travelers who are in the military are often on fixed schedules that make it challenging to roll with the punches of chaotic airline breakdowns. photo courtesy KMBC</figcaption>
 </figure>KANSAS CITY (AP) —Amiah Manlove used most of her savings to buy a $711 airline ticket to go home for the holidays. Then the Army private got stuck midway through the over 4,000-mile journey from Hawaii to Indianapolis and had to sleep on an airport floor.Manlove, 20, an active-duty soldier stationed in Oahu, was among the many travelers whose holiday plans were upended when Southwest Airlines&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/kansas-city-plants-dallas-district-of-columbia-business-d2034f41df7a4f78de02db8aa4ba11df">canceled wave after wave of flights</a>&nbsp;across the country. Her father then spent his rent money to buy her a new flight after she was stranded at the Phoenix airport.“This is the only time that I have to come home, the time we were going to cherish most for the next year — and to lose any of it is just devastating,” said Manlove, who was finally able to make it home the afternoon of Christmas Day. “They would have done anything in their power to get me home.”Travelers who are in the military are often on fixed schedules that make it challenging to roll with the punches of chaotic airline breakdowns.The Army typically shuts down basic training and advanced individual training schools for a 10-day break during the Christmas season. Active-duty soldiers can use some of their 30 days of accrued annual leave if they want to travel home during that period, but transportation costs aren't covered.While she was stranded, Manlove's family searched frantically for solutions, and her father, a home health aide who relies on disability payments, used the $650 he saved for rent to purchase the only flight he could find — a one-way flight to Louisville, Kentucky, a two-hour drive from Indianapolis.When he came to pick her up, they were so happy to be reunited that he was in tears before she opened the door to get in the car, she said.“It was heartbreaking,” she said.Manlove, who is scheduled to fly back to Hawaii on Sunday, said she has not been able to reach Southwest on the phone to get a refund. She called more than 10 times and reached out on social media. The airline expected&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/weather-storms-natural-disasters-dallas-business-5e83632df5d78f85af37c5ed2f602fee">to resume normal operations</a>&nbsp;on Friday.The family still doesn't know how her father is going to pay rent, she said. For now, they've just been trying to enjoy the time they have together.“It put a lot of stress on me because I have so many friends and family to see, and 10 days is not a lot,” she said. “It’s not like I can just call my leadership and be like, ‘Oh, hey, can I have some more time?’ That’s not how that works.”“I’m sure their hearts would be just as heavy as mine, telling them what happened, but I have a duty and a job to do, and I can’t spend all the time in the world here at home.”Crystal and Steve Molidor in Trout Creek, Montana, said they’ve been waiting 15 months to see their son, who serves in the Air Force and just returned to the U.S. from being deployed. He is now stationed in Anchorage, Alaska, and his mother said his flight home on Southwest Airlines has been canceled at least four times already.“We lost four plus days and Christmas with him due to their complete incompetence,” she said. “We can’t extend his trip because he can’t change up his leave dates at this point.”Crystal Molidor said she was on hold with Southwest for six hours Tuesday night and into the early hours of Wednesday morning trying to reach a customer service representative, but wasn’t able to get through to anyone. When she woke up Wednesday, she tried again but gave up after a few more hours of silence.She said the family finally decided to spend a couple hundred dollars to schedule a flight home for him on a different airline for Thursday, she said.“I know this isn’t a lot of money – it’s more the stress they’ve caused our family and the principle of it,” she said. “To continue to let people rebook instead of looking at other options when they knew the flights would be canceled is wrong. Had they been honest upfront, we could have gotten him here a few days sooner.”“I’ll just be glad when he’s home,” she said.Veterans have faced their own challenges. Air Force veteran Kevin Moffitt was finally able to schedule a flight home to Atlanta for Thursday after being stuck since Monday in Philadelphia, where he flew last week to visit family for Christmas.The 51-year-old, who served in Afghanistan and now works in law enforcement, said the delays caused him to miss work and a long-awaited appointment for a scan he needs for back pain at the veteran’s hospital.He said he had to spend $579 with Delta for his new flight after being rescheduled multiple times by Southwest. He said he tried calling Southwest five times to discuss a refund but to no avail. On Wednesday, he received an email from the airline telling him he was getting a $15 refund with no context explaining what it was for.Meanwhile, he’s been paying to park his car at the Atlanta airport on top of a $50-a-day charge to board his dog.But he said his biggest concern was that he ran out of medication he relies on to treat his PTSD. When he misses a day, he experiences nausea, vomiting and severe headaches, among other symptoms.“Hopefully nothing goes wrong," he said of his next flight. "I’m hoping and praying nothing happens.”

Airline breakdown upends holiday leave for service members

GEARY COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating an accidental shooting.

Just before 9p.m. Friday, the Geary County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to a residence on Humboldt Creek Road for a pre-teen with a gunshot wound, according to a media release.

During the investigation it was revealed to deputies the victim received his wound as an older sibling was attempting to clean a firearm. The firearm was discharged and the victim was struck in the shoulder.&nbsp;

An ambulance transported the victim to Via Christi in Manhattan where he was treated for what appeared to be a non-life threatening injuries.

This incident appears to be accidental, according to the sheriff’s office. Check the Post for additional as they become available.

GEARY COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating an accidental shooting.Just before 9p.m. Friday, the Geary County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to a residence on Humboldt Creek Road for a pre-teen with a gunshot wound, according to a media release.During the investigation it was revealed to deputies the victim received his wound as an older sibling was attempting to clean a firearm. The firearm was discharged and the victim was struck in the shoulder.&nbsp;An ambulance transported the victim to Via Christi in Manhattan where he was treated for what appeared to be a non-life threatening injuries.This incident appears to be accidental, according to the sheriff’s office. Check the Post for additional as they become available.

Sheriff: Juvenile injured in accidental shooting at rural Kan. home

By SHUANG-YE WU <a href="https://theconversation.com/2022s-us-climate-disasters-a-tale-of-too-much-rain-and-too-little-196713">The Conversation</a>

The year 2022 will be remembered across the U.S. for its devastating 
flooding and storms – and also for its extreme heat waves and droughts, 
including one so severe it <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/mississippi-river-reopens-barge-traffic-after-low-water-closures-us-coast-guard-2022-10-10/">briefly shut down traffic</a> on the Mississippi River.

During a period of five weeks over the summer, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/23/flood-united-states-climate-explainer/">five 1,000-year rainfall events</a> occurred in <a href="https://www.weather.gov/lsx/July262022Flooding">St. Louis</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-intensifying-the-water-cycle-bringing-more-powerful-storms-and-flooding-heres-what-the-science-shows-187951">eastern Kentucky</a>, <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/illinois-flash-flooding-rain-climate-change-184218523.html">southern Illinois</a>, California’s <a href="https://www.nps.gov/deva/learn/news/death-valley-experiences-1-000-year-rain-event.htm">Death Valley</a> and <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/22/dallas-flooding-fort-worth/">Dallas</a>, causing devastating and sometimes deadly flash floods. Severe flooding in Mississippi <a href="https://theconversation.com/intense-heat-and-flooding-are-wreaking-havoc-on-power-and-water-systems-as-climate-change-batters-americas-aging-infrastructure-189761">knocked out Jackson’s troubled water supply</a> for weeks. A <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-making-flooding-worse-3-reasons-the-world-is-seeing-more-record-breaking-deluges-and-flash-floods-185364">historic flood in Montana</a>, brought on by heavy rain and melting snow, forced large areas of Yellowstone National Park to be evacuated.

In the fall, <a href="https://www.weather.gov/ilm/HurricaneIan">hurricanes Ian</a> and <a href="https://www.weather.gov/sju/fiona2022">Fiona</a> deluged Florida and Puerto Rico with over 2 feet (6.6 meters) of rain in areas and deadly, destructive storm surge. Ian became <a href="https://apnews.com/article/floods-europe-pakistan-climate-and-environment-87a354ddc9f2333e3175d0578c50a592">one of the most expensive</a> hurricanes in U.S. history. And a <a href="https://theconversation.com/typhoon-merbok-fueled-by-unusually-warm-pacific-ocean-pounded-alaskas-vulnerable-coastal-communities-at-a-critical-time-190898">typhoon pounded</a> 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of the Alaska coast.

While too much rainfall threatened some regions, extreme heat and too little precipitation worsened risks elsewhere.

Persistent heat waves lingered over many parts of the country, setting temperature records. Wildfires raged in <a href="https://tucson.com/news/local/photos-wildfires-in-arizona-2022/collection_6555f988-c4dd-11ec-a7da-effb4de9da49.html#1">Arizona</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/10/business/new-mexico-climate-change-wildfires-floods.html">New Mexico</a> on the background of a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01290-z">megadrought in the Southwestern U.S.</a> more severe than anything the region has experienced in at least 1,200 years.

Drought also left the <a href="https://theconversation.com/record-low-water-levels-on-the-mississippi-river-in-2022-show-how-climate-change-is-altering-large-rivers-193920">Mississippi River so low</a>
 near Memphis in the fall that barges couldn’t get through without 
additional dredging and upstream water releases. That snarled grain 
shipping during the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-mississippi-river-drought-global-impact/?sref=Hjm5biAW">critical harvest period</a>. Along the Colorado River, officials discussed even tighter water use restrictions as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/17/colorado-river-crisis-conference/">water levels neared dangerously low levels</a> in the major reservoirs.

The United States was hardly alone in its climate disasters.

In Pakistan, <a href="https://theconversation.com/pakistan-floods-what-role-did-climate-change-play-189833">record monsoon rains</a> inundated more than one-third of the country, killing over 1,500 people. In <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/01/living-through-indias-next-level-heat-wave">India</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/07/china-reports-most-severe-heatwave-and-lowest-rainfall-on-record">China</a>,
 prolonged heat waves and droughts dried up rivers, disrupted power 
grids and threatened food security for billions of people. Widespread 
flooding and mudslides brought on by torrential rains also killed 
hundreds of people <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/13/africa/south-africa-floods-climate-intl/index.html">in South Africa</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/death-toll-brazilian-floods-rises-57-thousands-displaced-2022-05-29/">Brazil</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/17/world/africa/nigeria-floods.html">Nigeria</a>.

In Europe, heat waves set record temperatures <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/human-caused-climate-change-made-uk-heat-wave-10-times-more-likely-study-says/">in Britain</a> and other parts of the continent, leading to severe droughts, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/13/europes-rivers-run-dry-as-scientists-warn-drought-could-be-worst-in-500-years">low river flows that slowed shipping</a>, and wildfires in many parts of the continent. Much of East Africa is still in the grips of a multiyear drought – the <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/11/1131107">worst in over 40 years</a>, according to the United Nations – leaving millions of people vulnerable to food shortages and starvation.

This isn’t just a freak year: Such extreme events are occurring with increasing frequency and intensity.

Climate change is intensifying these disasters

The most <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-intensifying-the-water-cycle-bringing-more-powerful-storms-and-flooding-heres-what-the-science-shows-187951">recent global climate assessment</a>
 from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found
 significant increases in both the frequency and intensity of extreme 
temperature and precipitation events, leading to more droughts and 
floods.

Extreme flooding and droughts are also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04917-5">getting deadlier and more expensive</a>,
 despite an improving capacity to manage climate risks, a study 
published in 2022 found. Part of the reason is that today’s extreme 
events, enhanced by climate change, often exceed communities’ management
 capabilities.

Extreme events, by definition, occur rarely. A 100-year flood has a 
1% chance of happening in any given year. So when such events occur with
 increasing frequency and intensity, they are a clear indication of a 
changing climate state.

Much of this is well understood and consistently reproduced by climate models.

As the climate warms, a shift in temperature distribution leads to 
more extremes. For example, globally, a 1 degree Celsius increase in 
annual average temperature is associated with a 1.2 C to 1.9 C (2.1 
Fahrenheit to 3.4 F) <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Chapter11.pdf">increase in the annual maximum temperature</a>.

In addition, global warming leads to changes in how the atmosphere 
and ocean move. The temperature difference between the equator and the 
poles is the driving force for global wind. As the polar regions warm at
 much higher rates than the equator, the reduced temperature difference 
causes a weakening of global winds and leads to a <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/global-stilling-is-climate-change-slowing-the-worlds-wind">more meandering jet stream</a>.

Some of these changes can create conditions such as persistent 
high-pressure systems and atmospheric blocking that bring more intense 
heat waves. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-heat-dome-an-atmospheric-scientist-explains-the-weather-phenomenon-baking-california-and-the-west-185569">heat domes</a> over the Southern Plains and South in June and in the West in September were both examples.

Warming can be further amplified by positive feedbacks.

For example, higher temperatures tend to dry out the soil, and less 
soil moisture reduces the land’s heat capacity, making it easier to heat
 up. More frequent and persistent heat waves lead to excessive 
evaporation, combined with decreased precipitation in some regions, 
causing more severe droughts and more frequent wildfires. 

Higher temperatures <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-i/">increase the atmosphere’s capacity</a> to hold moisture at a rate of about 7% per degree Celsius. This increased humidity leads to heavier rainfall events.

In addition, storm systems are <a href="https://thinktv.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nves.sci.earth.hurricane/water-vapor-fuels-hurricanes/">fueled by latent heat</a>
 – the large amount of energy released when water vapor condenses to 
liquid water. Increased moisture content in the atmosphere also enhances
 latent heat in storm systems, increasing their intensity. Extreme heavy
 or persistent rainfall leads to increased flooding and landslides, with
 devastating social and economic consequences.

Even though it’s difficult to link specific extreme events directly 
to climate change, when these supposedly rare events occur with greater 
frequency in a warming world, it is hard to ignore the changing state of
 our climate. 

This year might provide a glimpse of our near future, as these extreme climate events become more frequent.

To say this is the “new normal,” though, is misleading. It suggests 
that we have reached a new stable state, and that is far from the truth.
 Without serious effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions, this trend 
toward more extreme events will continue. 

This updates an article <a href="https://theconversation.com/looking-back-on-americas-summer-of-heat-floods-and-climate-change-welcome-to-the-new-abnormal-190636">originally published</a> on Sept. 21, 2022.

Shuang-Ye Wu is a Professor of Geology and Environmental Geosciences, University of Dayton.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/12/1671575094647.jpg" alt="Image courtesy of Pixabay" />
 <figcaption>Image courtesy of Pixabay</figcaption>
 </figure>By SHUANG-YE WU <a href="https://theconversation.com/2022s-us-climate-disasters-a-tale-of-too-much-rain-and-too-little-196713">The Conversation</a>The year 2022 will be remembered across the U.S. for its devastating 
flooding and storms – and also for its extreme heat waves and droughts, 
including one so severe it <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/mississippi-river-reopens-barge-traffic-after-low-water-closures-us-coast-guard-2022-10-10/">briefly shut down traffic</a> on the Mississippi River.During a period of five weeks over the summer, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/23/flood-united-states-climate-explainer/">five 1,000-year rainfall events</a> occurred in <a href="https://www.weather.gov/lsx/July262022Flooding">St. Louis</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-intensifying-the-water-cycle-bringing-more-powerful-storms-and-flooding-heres-what-the-science-shows-187951">eastern Kentucky</a>, <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/illinois-flash-flooding-rain-climate-change-184218523.html">southern Illinois</a>, California’s <a href="https://www.nps.gov/deva/learn/news/death-valley-experiences-1-000-year-rain-event.htm">Death Valley</a> and <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/22/dallas-flooding-fort-worth/">Dallas</a>, causing devastating and sometimes deadly flash floods. Severe flooding in Mississippi <a href="https://theconversation.com/intense-heat-and-flooding-are-wreaking-havoc-on-power-and-water-systems-as-climate-change-batters-americas-aging-infrastructure-189761">knocked out Jackson’s troubled water supply</a> for weeks. A <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-making-flooding-worse-3-reasons-the-world-is-seeing-more-record-breaking-deluges-and-flash-floods-185364">historic flood in Montana</a>, brought on by heavy rain and melting snow, forced large areas of Yellowstone National Park to be evacuated. In the fall, <a href="https://www.weather.gov/ilm/HurricaneIan">hurricanes Ian</a> and <a href="https://www.weather.gov/sju/fiona2022">Fiona</a> deluged Florida and Puerto Rico with over 2 feet (6.6 meters) of rain in areas and deadly, destructive storm surge. Ian became <a href="https://apnews.com/article/floods-europe-pakistan-climate-and-environment-87a354ddc9f2333e3175d0578c50a592">one of the most expensive</a> hurricanes in U.S. history. And a <a href="https://theconversation.com/typhoon-merbok-fueled-by-unusually-warm-pacific-ocean-pounded-alaskas-vulnerable-coastal-communities-at-a-critical-time-190898">typhoon pounded</a> 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of the Alaska coast. While too much rainfall threatened some regions, extreme heat and too little precipitation worsened risks elsewhere.Persistent heat waves lingered over many parts of the country, setting temperature records. Wildfires raged in <a href="https://tucson.com/news/local/photos-wildfires-in-arizona-2022/collection_6555f988-c4dd-11ec-a7da-effb4de9da49.html#1">Arizona</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/10/business/new-mexico-climate-change-wildfires-floods.html">New Mexico</a> on the background of a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01290-z">megadrought in the Southwestern U.S.</a> more severe than anything the region has experienced in at least 1,200 years. Drought also left the <a href="https://theconversation.com/record-low-water-levels-on-the-mississippi-river-in-2022-show-how-climate-change-is-altering-large-rivers-193920">Mississippi River so low</a>
 near Memphis in the fall that barges couldn’t get through without 
additional dredging and upstream water releases. That snarled grain 
shipping during the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-mississippi-river-drought-global-impact/?sref=Hjm5biAW">critical harvest period</a>. Along the Colorado River, officials discussed even tighter water use restrictions as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/17/colorado-river-crisis-conference/">water levels neared dangerously low levels</a> in the major reservoirs. <figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/12/1671575176537.png" alt=" The U.S. had been hit with 15 climate and weather disasters costing over US$1 billion each by the end of September 2022. The map shows disasters from January through September. NCEI/NOAA " />
 <figcaption> The U.S. had been hit with 15 climate and weather disasters costing over US$1 billion each by the end of September 2022. The map shows disasters from January through September. NCEI/NOAA </figcaption>
 </figure>The United States was hardly alone in its climate disasters.In Pakistan, <a href="https://theconversation.com/pakistan-floods-what-role-did-climate-change-play-189833">record monsoon rains</a> inundated more than one-third of the country, killing over 1,500 people. In <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/01/living-through-indias-next-level-heat-wave">India</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/07/china-reports-most-severe-heatwave-and-lowest-rainfall-on-record">China</a>,
 prolonged heat waves and droughts dried up rivers, disrupted power 
grids and threatened food security for billions of people. Widespread 
flooding and mudslides brought on by torrential rains also killed 
hundreds of people <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/13/africa/south-africa-floods-climate-intl/index.html">in South Africa</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/death-toll-brazilian-floods-rises-57-thousands-displaced-2022-05-29/">Brazil</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/17/world/africa/nigeria-floods.html">Nigeria</a>.In Europe, heat waves set record temperatures <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/human-caused-climate-change-made-uk-heat-wave-10-times-more-likely-study-says/">in Britain</a> and other parts of the continent, leading to severe droughts, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/13/europes-rivers-run-dry-as-scientists-warn-drought-could-be-worst-in-500-years">low river flows that slowed shipping</a>, and wildfires in many parts of the continent. Much of East Africa is still in the grips of a multiyear drought – the <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/11/1131107">worst in over 40 years</a>, according to the United Nations – leaving millions of people vulnerable to food shortages and starvation. This isn’t just a freak year: Such extreme events are occurring with increasing frequency and intensity.<h2>Climate change is intensifying these disasters</h2>The most <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-intensifying-the-water-cycle-bringing-more-powerful-storms-and-flooding-heres-what-the-science-shows-187951">recent global climate assessment</a>
 from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found
 significant increases in both the frequency and intensity of extreme 
temperature and precipitation events, leading to more droughts and 
floods.Extreme flooding and droughts are also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04917-5">getting deadlier and more expensive</a>,
 despite an improving capacity to manage climate risks, a study 
published in 2022 found. Part of the reason is that today’s extreme 
events, enhanced by climate change, often exceed communities’ management
 capabilities.Extreme events, by definition, occur rarely. A 100-year flood has a 
1% chance of happening in any given year. So when such events occur with
 increasing frequency and intensity, they are a clear indication of a 
changing climate state.<h2>Models showed these risks were coming</h2>Much of this is well understood and consistently reproduced by climate models.As the climate warms, a shift in temperature distribution leads to 
more extremes. For example, globally, a 1 degree Celsius increase in 
annual average temperature is associated with a 1.2 C to 1.9 C (2.1 
Fahrenheit to 3.4 F) <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Chapter11.pdf">increase in the annual maximum temperature</a>.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/11/1667578335644.png" alt="The photo on the left shows the Cheyenne Bottoms wetlands in central Kansas filled with water and birds in 2017. The photo on the right shows the same wetlands dry and empty this year as drought parches the region. Catherine Evans / Colby Moorberg / Kansas Geological Survey / Kansas State University" />
 <figcaption>The photo on the left shows the Cheyenne Bottoms wetlands in central Kansas filled with water and birds in 2017. The photo on the right shows the same wetlands dry and empty this year as drought parches the region. Catherine Evans / Colby Moorberg / Kansas Geological Survey / Kansas State University</figcaption>
 </figure>In addition, global warming leads to changes in how the atmosphere 
and ocean move. The temperature difference between the equator and the 
poles is the driving force for global wind. As the polar regions warm at
 much higher rates than the equator, the reduced temperature difference 
causes a weakening of global winds and leads to a <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/global-stilling-is-climate-change-slowing-the-worlds-wind">more meandering jet stream</a>.Some of these changes can create conditions such as persistent 
high-pressure systems and atmospheric blocking that bring more intense 
heat waves. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-heat-dome-an-atmospheric-scientist-explains-the-weather-phenomenon-baking-california-and-the-west-185569">heat domes</a> over the Southern Plains and South in June and in the West in September were both examples.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Buckle in the jet stream can explain how it reached 38°C (100°F) in Canada while dropping significant cold down west and east coasts of North America simultaneously. Very chilly in eastern Canada and Northeast US states. Around record cold here for the time of year. <a href="https://t.co/6hY25JoTpx">pic.twitter.com/6hY25JoTpx</a>&mdash; Scott Duncan (@ScottDuncanWX) <a href="https://twitter.com/ScottDuncanWX/status/1538941467686756352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </div>Warming can be further amplified by positive feedbacks.For example, higher temperatures tend to dry out the soil, and less 
soil moisture reduces the land’s heat capacity, making it easier to heat
 up. More frequent and persistent heat waves lead to excessive 
evaporation, combined with decreased precipitation in some regions, 
causing more severe droughts and more frequent wildfires. <figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/12/1671575360727.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Higher temperatures <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-i/">increase the atmosphere’s capacity</a> to hold moisture at a rate of about 7% per degree Celsius. This increased humidity leads to heavier rainfall events. In addition, storm systems are <a href="https://thinktv.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nves.sci.earth.hurricane/water-vapor-fuels-hurricanes/">fueled by latent heat</a>
 – the large amount of energy released when water vapor condenses to 
liquid water. Increased moisture content in the atmosphere also enhances
 latent heat in storm systems, increasing their intensity. Extreme heavy
 or persistent rainfall leads to increased flooding and landslides, with
 devastating social and economic consequences.Even though it’s difficult to link specific extreme events directly 
to climate change, when these supposedly rare events occur with greater 
frequency in a warming world, it is hard to ignore the changing state of
 our climate. <h2>The new abnormal</h2>This year might provide a glimpse of our near future, as these extreme climate events become more frequent.To say this is the “new normal,” though, is misleading. It suggests 
that we have reached a new stable state, and that is far from the truth.
 Without serious effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions, this trend 
toward more extreme events will continue. This updates an article <a href="https://theconversation.com/looking-back-on-americas-summer-of-heat-floods-and-climate-change-welcome-to-the-new-abnormal-190636">originally published</a> on Sept. 21, 2022.Shuang-Ye Wu is a Professor of Geology and Environmental Geosciences, University of Dayton.<div><iframe src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196713/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade"></iframe></div>

2022 U.S. climate disasters: A tale of too much, too little rain

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the shy German theologian who tried to reawaken Christianity in a secularized Europe but will forever be remembered as the first pontiff in 600 years to resign from the job, died Saturday. He was 95.

Pope Francis will celebrate his funeral Mass in St. Peter's Square on Thursday, an unprecedented event in which a current pope will celebrate the funeral of a former one.

Benedict stunned the world on Feb. 11, 2013, when he announced, in his typical, soft-spoken Latin, that he no longer had the strength to run the 1.2 billion-strong Catholic Church that he had steered for eight years through scandal and indifference.

His dramatic decision paved the way for the conclave that elected Francis as his successor. The two popes then lived side-by-side in the Vatican gardens, an unprecedented arrangement that set the stage for future “popes emeritus” to do the same.

A statement from Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni on Saturday morning said that: “With sorrow I inform you that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesia Monastery in the Vatican. Further information will be released as soon as possible.”

The Vatican said Benedict’s remains would be on public display in St. Peter’s Basilica starting Monday for the faithful to pay their final respects. Benedict's request was that his funeral would be celebrated solemnly but with “simplicity,” Bruni told reporters.

He added that Benedict, whose health had deteriorated over Christmas, had received the sacrament of the anointing of the sick on Wednesday, after his daily Mass, in the presence of his his longtime secretary and the consecrated women who tend to his household.

The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had never wanted to be pope, planning at age 78 to spend his final years writing in the “peace and quiet” of his native Bavaria.

Instead, he was forced to follow the footsteps of the beloved St. John Paul II and run the church through the fallout of the clerical sex abuse scandal and then a second scandal that erupted when his own butler stole his personal papers and gave them to a journalist.

Being elected pope, he once said, felt like a “guillotine” had come down on him.

Nevertheless, he set about the job with a single-minded vision to rekindle the faith in a world that, he frequently lamented, seemed to think it could do without God.

“In vast areas of the world today, there is a strange forgetfulness of God,” he told 1 million young people gathered on a vast field for his first foreign trip as pope, to World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, in 2005. “It seems as if everything would be just the same even without him.”

With some decisive, often controversial moves, he tried to remind Europe of its Christian heritage. And he set the Catholic Church on a conservative, tradition-minded path that often alienated progressives. He relaxed the restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass and launched a crackdown on American nuns, insisting that the church stay true to its doctrine and traditions in the face of a changing world. It was a path that in many ways was reversed by his successor, Francis, whose mercy-over-morals priorities alienated the traditionalists who had been so indulged by Benedict.

Benedict’s style couldn’t have been more different from that of John Paul or Francis. No globe-trotting media darling or populist, Benedict was a teacher, theologian and academic to the core: quiet and pensive with a fierce mind. He spoke in paragraphs, not soundbites. He had a weakness for orange Fanta as well as his beloved library; when he was elected pope, he had his entire study moved — as is — from his apartment just outside the Vatican walls into the Apostolic Palace. The books followed him to his retirement home.

“In them are all my advisers,” he said of his books in the 2010 book-length interview “Light of the World.” “I know every nook and cranny, and everything has its history.”

It was Benedict’s devotion to history and tradition that endeared him to members of the traditionalist wing of the Catholic Church. For them, Benedict remained even in retirement a beacon of nostalgia for the orthodoxy and Latin Mass of their youth — and the pope they much preferred over Francis.

In time, this group of arch-conservatives, whose complaints were amplified by sympathetic U.S.-based conservative Catholic media, would become a key source of opposition to Francis who responded to what he said were threats of division by reimposing the restrictions on the old Latin Mass that Benedict had loosened.

Like his predecessor John Paul, Benedict made reaching out to Jews a hallmark of his papacy. His first official act as pope was a letter to Rome’s Jewish community and he became the second pope in history, after John Paul, to enter a synagogue.

In his 2011 book, “Jesus of Nazareth,” Benedict made a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Christ, explaining biblically and theologically why there was no basis in Scripture for the argument that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus’ death.

“It’s very clear Benedict is a true friend of the Jewish people,” said Rabbi David Rosen, who heads the interreligious relations office for the American Jewish Committee, at the time of Benedict’s retirement.

Yet Benedict also offended some Jews who were incensed at his constant defense of and promotion toward sainthood of Pope Pius XII, the World War II-era pope accused by some of having failed to sufficiently denounce the Holocaust. And they harshly criticized Benedict when he removed the excommunication of a traditionalist British bishop who had denied the Holocaust.

Benedict’s relations with the Muslim world were also a mixed bag. He riled Muslims with a speech in September 2006 — five years after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States — in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as “evil and inhuman,” particularly his command to spread the faith “by the sword.”

A subsequent comment after the massacre of Christians in Egypt led the Al Azhar center in Cairo, the seat of Sunni Muslim learning, to suspend ties with the Vatican, which were only restored under Francis.

The Vatican under Benedict suffered notorious PR gaffes, and sometimes Benedict himself was to blame. He enraged the United Nations and several European governments in 2009 when, en route to Africa, he told reporters that the AIDS problem couldn’t be resolved by distributing condoms.

“On the contrary, it increases the problem,” Benedict said. A year later, he issued a revision saying that if a male prostitute were to use a condom to avoid passing HIV to his partner, he might be taking a first step toward a more responsible sexuality.

But Benedict’s legacy was irreversibly colored by the global eruption in 2010 of the sex abuse scandal, even though as a cardinal he was responsible for turning the Vatican around on the issue.

Documents revealed that the Vatican knew very well of the problem yet turned a blind eye for decades, at times rebuffing bishops who tried to do the right thing.

Benedict had firsthand knowledge of the scope of the problem, since his old office — the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which he had headed since 1982 — was responsible for dealing with abuse cases.

In fact, it was he who, before becoming pope, took the then-revolutionary decision in 2001 to assume responsibility for processing those cases after he realized bishops around the world weren’t punishing abusers but were just moving them from parish to parish where they could rape again.

And once he became pope, Benedict essentially reversed his beloved predecessor, John Paul, by taking action against the 20th century’s most notorious pedophile priest, the Rev. Marcial Maciel. Benedict took over Maciel’s Legionaries of Christ, a conservative religious order held up as a model of orthodoxy by John Paul, after it was revealed that Maciel sexually abused seminarians and fathered at least three children.

In retirement, Benedict was faulted by an independent report for his handling of four priests while he was bishop of Munich; he denied any personal wrongdoing but apologized for any “grievous faults.”

As soon as the abuse scandal calmed down for Benedict, another one erupted.

In October 2012, Benedict’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele, was convicted of aggravated theft after Vatican police found a huge stash of papal documents in his apartment. Gabriele told Vatican investigators he gave the documents to Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi because he thought the pope wasn’t being informed of the “evil and corruption” in the Vatican and that exposing it publicly would put the church on the right track.

Once the “Vatileaks” scandal was resolved, including with a papal pardon of Gabriele, Benedict felt free to take the extraordinary decision that he had hinted at previously: He announced that he would resign rather than die in office as all his predecessors had done for almost six centuries.

“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths due to an advanced age are no longer suited” to the demands of being the pope, he told cardinals.

He made his last public appearances in February 2013 and then boarded a helicopter to the papal summer retreat at Castel Gandolfo, to sit out the conclave in private. Benedict then largely kept to his word that he would live a life of prayer in retirement, emerging only occasionally from his converted monastery for special events and writing occasional book prefaces and messages.

Usually they were innocuous, but one 2020 book — in which Benedict defended the celibate priesthood at a time when Francis was considering an exception — sparked demands for future “popes emeritus” to keep quiet.

Despite his very different style and priorities, Francis frequently said that having Benedict in the Vatican was like having a “wise grandfather” living at home.

Benedict was often misunderstood: Nicknamed “God’s Rottweiler” by the unsympathetic media, he was actually a very sweet and fiercely smart academic who devoted his life to serving the church he loved.

“Thank you for having given us the luminous example of the simple and humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord,” Benedict’s longtime deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, told him in one of his final public events as pope.

Benedict inherited the seemingly impossible task of following in the footsteps of John Paul when he was elected the 265th leader of the Church on April 19, 2005. He was the oldest pope elected in 275 years and the first German in nearly 1,000 years.

Born April 16, 1927, in Marktl Am Inn, in Bavaria, Benedict wrote in his memoirs of being enlisted in the Nazi youth movement against his will in 1941, when he was 14 and membership was compulsory. He deserted the German army in April 1945, the waning days of the war.

Benedict was ordained, along with his brother, Georg, in 1951. After spending several years teaching theology in Germany, he was appointed bishop of Munich in 1977 and elevated to cardinal three months later by Pope Paul VI.

His brother Georg was a frequent visitor to the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo until he died in 2020. His sister died years previously. His “papal family” consisted of Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, his longtime private secretary who was always by his side, another secretary and consecrated women who tended to the papal apartment.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/12/1672490465534.png" alt="FILE - Pope Benedict XVI blesses the faithful as he arrives in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican to bless the nativity scene on Dec. 31, 2011. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the German theologian who will be remembered as the first pope in 600 years to resign, has died, the Vatican announced Saturday. He was 95. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito, File)" />
 <figcaption>FILE - Pope Benedict XVI blesses the faithful as he arrives in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican to bless the nativity scene on Dec. 31, 2011. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the German theologian who will be remembered as the first pope in 600 years to resign, has died, the Vatican announced Saturday. He was 95. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito, File)</figcaption>
 </figure>VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the shy German theologian who tried to reawaken Christianity in a secularized Europe but will forever be remembered as the first pontiff in 600 years to resign from the job, died Saturday. He was 95.Pope Francis will celebrate his funeral Mass in St. Peter's Square on Thursday, an unprecedented event in which a current pope will celebrate the funeral of a former one.Benedict stunned the world on Feb. 11, 2013, when he announced, in his typical, soft-spoken Latin, that he no longer had the strength to run the 1.2 billion-strong Catholic Church that he had steered for eight years through scandal and indifference.His dramatic decision paved the way for the conclave that elected Francis as his successor. The two popes then lived side-by-side in the Vatican gardens, an unprecedented arrangement that set the stage for future “popes emeritus” to do the same.A statement from Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni on Saturday morning said that: “With sorrow I inform you that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesia Monastery in the Vatican. Further information will be released as soon as possible.”The Vatican said Benedict’s remains would be on public display in St. Peter’s Basilica starting Monday for the faithful to pay their final respects. Benedict's request was that his funeral would be celebrated solemnly but with “simplicity,” Bruni told reporters.He added that Benedict, whose health had deteriorated over Christmas, had received the sacrament of the anointing of the sick on Wednesday, after his daily Mass, in the presence of his his longtime secretary and the consecrated women who tend to his household.The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had never wanted to be pope, planning at age 78 to spend his final years writing in the “peace and quiet” of his native Bavaria.Instead, he was forced to follow the footsteps of the beloved St. John Paul II and run the church through the fallout of the clerical sex abuse scandal and then a second scandal that erupted when his own butler stole his personal papers and gave them to a journalist.Being elected pope, he once said, felt like a “guillotine” had come down on him.Nevertheless, he set about the job with a single-minded vision to rekindle the faith in a world that, he frequently lamented, seemed to think it could do without God.“In vast areas of the world today, there is a strange forgetfulness of God,” he told 1 million young people gathered on a vast field for his first foreign trip as pope, to World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, in 2005. “It seems as if everything would be just the same even without him.”With some decisive, often controversial moves, he tried to remind Europe of its Christian heritage. And he set the Catholic Church on a conservative, tradition-minded path that often alienated progressives. He relaxed the restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass and launched a crackdown on American nuns, insisting that the church stay true to its doctrine and traditions in the face of a changing world. It was a path that in many ways was reversed by his successor, Francis, whose mercy-over-morals priorities alienated the traditionalists who had been so indulged by Benedict.Benedict’s style couldn’t have been more different from that of John Paul or Francis. No globe-trotting media darling or populist, Benedict was a teacher, theologian and academic to the core: quiet and pensive with a fierce mind. He spoke in paragraphs, not soundbites. He had a weakness for orange Fanta as well as his beloved library; when he was elected pope, he had his entire study moved — as is — from his apartment just outside the Vatican walls into the Apostolic Palace. The books followed him to his retirement home.“In them are all my advisers,” he said of his books in the 2010 book-length interview “Light of the World.” “I know every nook and cranny, and everything has its history.”It was Benedict’s devotion to history and tradition that endeared him to members of the traditionalist wing of the Catholic Church. For them, Benedict remained even in retirement a beacon of nostalgia for the orthodoxy and Latin Mass of their youth — and the pope they much preferred over Francis.In time, this group of arch-conservatives, whose complaints were amplified by sympathetic U.S.-based conservative Catholic media, would become a key source of opposition to Francis who responded to what he said were threats of division by reimposing the restrictions on the old Latin Mass that Benedict had loosened.Like his predecessor John Paul, Benedict made reaching out to Jews a hallmark of his papacy. His first official act as pope was a letter to Rome’s Jewish community and he became the second pope in history, after John Paul, to enter a synagogue.In his 2011 book, “Jesus of Nazareth,” Benedict made a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Christ, explaining biblically and theologically why there was no basis in Scripture for the argument that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus’ death.“It’s very clear Benedict is a true friend of the Jewish people,” said Rabbi David Rosen, who heads the interreligious relations office for the American Jewish Committee, at the time of Benedict’s retirement.Yet Benedict also offended some Jews who were incensed at his constant defense of and promotion toward sainthood of Pope Pius XII, the World War II-era pope accused by some of having failed to sufficiently denounce the Holocaust. And they harshly criticized Benedict when he removed the excommunication of a traditionalist British bishop who had denied the Holocaust.Benedict’s relations with the Muslim world were also a mixed bag. He riled Muslims with a speech in September 2006 — five years after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States — in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as “evil and inhuman,” particularly his command to spread the faith “by the sword.”A subsequent comment after the massacre of Christians in Egypt led the Al Azhar center in Cairo, the seat of Sunni Muslim learning, to suspend ties with the Vatican, which were only restored under Francis.The Vatican under Benedict suffered notorious PR gaffes, and sometimes Benedict himself was to blame. He enraged the United Nations and several European governments in 2009 when, en route to Africa, he told reporters that the AIDS problem couldn’t be resolved by distributing condoms.“On the contrary, it increases the problem,” Benedict said. A year later, he issued a revision saying that if a male prostitute were to use a condom to avoid passing HIV to his partner, he might be taking a first step toward a more responsible sexuality.But Benedict’s legacy was irreversibly colored by the global eruption in 2010 of the sex abuse scandal, even though as a cardinal he was responsible for turning the Vatican around on the issue.Documents revealed that the Vatican knew very well of the problem yet turned a blind eye for decades, at times rebuffing bishops who tried to do the right thing.Benedict had firsthand knowledge of the scope of the problem, since his old office — the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which he had headed since 1982 — was responsible for dealing with abuse cases.In fact, it was he who, before becoming pope, took the then-revolutionary decision in 2001 to assume responsibility for processing those cases after he realized bishops around the world weren’t punishing abusers but were just moving them from parish to parish where they could rape again.And once he became pope, Benedict essentially reversed his beloved predecessor, John Paul, by taking action against the 20th century’s most notorious pedophile priest, the Rev. Marcial Maciel. Benedict took over Maciel’s Legionaries of Christ, a conservative religious order held up as a model of orthodoxy by John Paul, after it was revealed that Maciel sexually abused seminarians and fathered at least three children.In retirement, Benedict was faulted by an independent report for his handling of four priests while he was bishop of Munich; he denied any personal wrongdoing but apologized for any “grievous faults.”As soon as the abuse scandal calmed down for Benedict, another one erupted.In October 2012, Benedict’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele, was convicted of aggravated theft after Vatican police found a huge stash of papal documents in his apartment. Gabriele told Vatican investigators he gave the documents to Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi because he thought the pope wasn’t being informed of the “evil and corruption” in the Vatican and that exposing it publicly would put the church on the right track.Once the “Vatileaks” scandal was resolved, including with a papal pardon of Gabriele, Benedict felt free to take the extraordinary decision that he had hinted at previously: He announced that he would resign rather than die in office as all his predecessors had done for almost six centuries.“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths due to an advanced age are no longer suited” to the demands of being the pope, he told cardinals.He made his last public appearances in February 2013 and then boarded a helicopter to the papal summer retreat at Castel Gandolfo, to sit out the conclave in private. Benedict then largely kept to his word that he would live a life of prayer in retirement, emerging only occasionally from his converted monastery for special events and writing occasional book prefaces and messages.Usually they were innocuous, but one 2020 book — in which Benedict defended the celibate priesthood at a time when Francis was considering an exception — sparked demands for future “popes emeritus” to keep quiet.Despite his very different style and priorities, Francis frequently said that having Benedict in the Vatican was like having a “wise grandfather” living at home.Benedict was often misunderstood: Nicknamed “God’s Rottweiler” by the unsympathetic media, he was actually a very sweet and fiercely smart academic who devoted his life to serving the church he loved.“Thank you for having given us the luminous example of the simple and humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord,” Benedict’s longtime deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, told him in one of his final public events as pope.Benedict inherited the seemingly impossible task of following in the footsteps of John Paul when he was elected the 265th leader of the Church on April 19, 2005. He was the oldest pope elected in 275 years and the first German in nearly 1,000 years.Born April 16, 1927, in Marktl Am Inn, in Bavaria, Benedict wrote in his memoirs of being enlisted in the Nazi youth movement against his will in 1941, when he was 14 and membership was compulsory. He deserted the German army in April 1945, the waning days of the war.Benedict was ordained, along with his brother, Georg, in 1951. After spending several years teaching theology in Germany, he was appointed bishop of Munich in 1977 and elevated to cardinal three months later by Pope Paul VI.His brother Georg was a frequent visitor to the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo until he died in 2020. His sister died years previously. His “papal family” consisted of Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, his longtime private secretary who was always by his side, another secretary and consecrated women who tended to the papal apartment.

Benedict XVI, first pope to resign in 600 years, dies at 95

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Incoming Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach agreed to help pay a $30,000 penalty to resolve a federal complaint over the improper use of a group's email list during his unsuccessful 2020 campaign for the U.S. Senate.

The Federal Election Commission disclosed Friday that it had approved an agreement with Kobach, his U.S. Senate campaign committee, its treasurer and We Build the Wall — a group that raises money for a privately built wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Attorneys for Kobach's campaign and We Build the Wall signed the agreement in early November — just days before Kobach&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-immigration-kansas-topeka-339a45795e1e479b7754e2fc7a8127ed">was narrowly elected attorney general</a>&nbsp;— and the commission approved it on Nov. 16, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/legal/matter-under-review/7636/">documents available online.</a>

The agreement came more than three years after two watchdog groups, Common Cause and the Campaign Legal Center, filed formal complaints about a July 2019 fundraising email for Kobach's U.S. Senate campaign. Kobach, who is a polarizing advocate of tough immigration measures,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-ap-top-news-religion-kansas-politics-6646c990bce8bd3d93e2722015de87f0">lost the Republican primary</a>&nbsp;for an open U.S. Senate seat in August 2020.

Kobach takes office as Kansas attorney general on Jan. 9.

The FEC agreement didn't say how much each party would pay toward the $30,000 penalty, but records available online show that Kobach's campaign committee paid $5,060 by check on Dec. 6.

According to documents, the issue was the $2,000 paid by Kobach's Senate campaign to rent We Build the Wall's email list. While Kobach's campaign initially considered that to be a fair market price, the agreement said, it later conceded that it was below market value, resulting in an illegal campaign contribution from We Build the Wall.

Kobach served on the group's board of directors and as its general counsel&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/steve-bannon-elections-donald-trump-kansas-board-of-directors-6ed6d081ccf5488dfc63ead9407e4d4c">but resigned</a>&nbsp;in early September, after the group and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/steve-bannon-crime-new-york-manhattan-elections-ff4731f198d9e71df765afb37bb42da6">Steve Bannon,</a>&nbsp;a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump were indicted in New York on allegations of money laundering, conspiracy and fraud over a campaign to raise money to build sections of the border wall. Kobach was not implicated.

Kobach declined to comment Friday on the agreement, and the Washington attorney handling it for him did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/6/1593083581441.png" alt="Kobach takes office as Kansas attorney general on Jan. 9." />
 <figcaption>Kobach takes office as Kansas attorney general on Jan. 9.</figcaption>
 </figure>TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Incoming Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach agreed to help pay a $30,000 penalty to resolve a federal complaint over the improper use of a group's email list during his unsuccessful 2020 campaign for the U.S. Senate.The Federal Election Commission disclosed Friday that it had approved an agreement with Kobach, his U.S. Senate campaign committee, its treasurer and We Build the Wall — a group that raises money for a privately built wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Attorneys for Kobach's campaign and We Build the Wall signed the agreement in early November — just days before Kobach&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-immigration-kansas-topeka-339a45795e1e479b7754e2fc7a8127ed">was narrowly elected attorney general</a>&nbsp;— and the commission approved it on Nov. 16, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/legal/matter-under-review/7636/">documents available online.</a>The agreement came more than three years after two watchdog groups, Common Cause and the Campaign Legal Center, filed formal complaints about a July 2019 fundraising email for Kobach's U.S. Senate campaign. Kobach, who is a polarizing advocate of tough immigration measures,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-ap-top-news-religion-kansas-politics-6646c990bce8bd3d93e2722015de87f0">lost the Republican primary</a>&nbsp;for an open U.S. Senate seat in August 2020.Kobach takes office as Kansas attorney general on Jan. 9.The FEC agreement didn't say how much each party would pay toward the $30,000 penalty, but records available online show that Kobach's campaign committee paid $5,060 by check on Dec. 6.According to documents, the issue was the $2,000 paid by Kobach's Senate campaign to rent We Build the Wall's email list. While Kobach's campaign initially considered that to be a fair market price, the agreement said, it later conceded that it was below market value, resulting in an illegal campaign contribution from We Build the Wall.Kobach served on the group's board of directors and as its general counsel&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/steve-bannon-elections-donald-trump-kansas-board-of-directors-6ed6d081ccf5488dfc63ead9407e4d4c">but resigned</a>&nbsp;in early September, after the group and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/steve-bannon-crime-new-york-manhattan-elections-ff4731f198d9e71df765afb37bb42da6">Steve Bannon,</a>&nbsp;a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump were indicted in New York on allegations of money laundering, conspiracy and fraud over a campaign to raise money to build sections of the border wall. Kobach was not implicated.Kobach declined to comment Friday on the agreement, and the Washington attorney handling it for him did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment.

FEC levies $30K penalty tied to Kobach's 2020 US Senate bid

KANSAS CITY—Law enforcement authorities are investigating a homicide in Kansas City.

Just after 8p.m. Friday, police were dispatched to a shooting in the 6900 block of E. 17th Street, according to Police Captain Leslie Foreman.

 Upon arrival they were directed into a residence were they located a man who was shot and unresponsive. 

EMS responded and pronounced the victim deceased at the scene. One subject of interest has been detained. Detectives and crime scene personnel&nbsp; responded to the scene and&nbsp; actively canvassed for witnesses and processing the scene for evidence. 

Police released no additional details late Friday.

KANSAS CITY—Law enforcement authorities are investigating a homicide in Kansas City.Just after 8p.m. Friday, police were dispatched to a shooting in the 6900 block of E. 17th Street, according to Police Captain Leslie Foreman. Upon arrival they were directed into a residence were they located a man who was shot and unresponsive. EMS responded and pronounced the victim deceased at the scene. One subject of interest has been detained. Detectives and crime scene personnel&nbsp; responded to the scene and&nbsp; actively canvassed for witnesses and processing the scene for evidence. Police released no additional details late Friday.

Person of interest detained after man found dead at KC home

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service this week issued the 2023 
optional standard mileage rates used to calculate the deductible costs 
of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving 
purposes.

Beginning on January 1, 2023, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans, pickups or panel trucks) will be:

These rates apply to electric and hybrid-electric automobiles, as well as gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles.

The standard mileage rate for business use is based on an annual 
study of the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile. The 
rate for medical and moving purposes is based on the variable costs.

It is important to note that under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, 
taxpayers cannot claim a miscellaneous itemized deduction for 
unreimbursed employee travel expenses. Taxpayers also cannot claim a 
deduction for moving expenses, unless they are members of the Armed 
Forces on active duty moving under orders to a permanent change of 
station. For more details see <a href="https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc455">Moving Expenses for Members of the Armed Forces</a>.

Taxpayers always have the option of calculating the actual costs of 
using their vehicle rather than using the standard mileage rates.

Taxpayers can use the standard mileage rate but generally must opt to
 use it in the first year the car is available for business use. Then, 
in later years, they can choose either the standard mileage rate or 
actual expenses. Leased vehicles must use the standard mileage rate 
method for the entire lease period (including renewals) if the standard 
mileage rate is chosen.

<a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-23-03.pdf">Notice 2023-03</a>PDF
 contains the optional 2023 standard mileage rates, as well as the 
maximum automobile cost used to calculate the allowance under a fixed 
and variable rate (FAVR) plan. In addition, the notice provides the 
maximum fair market value of employer-provided automobiles first made 
available to employees for personal use in calendar year 2023 for which 
employers may use the fleet-average valuation rule in or the vehicle 
cents-per-mile valuation rule.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/9/1599869632873.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>IRS&nbsp;WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service this week issued the 2023 
optional standard mileage rates used to calculate the deductible costs 
of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving 
purposes.Beginning on January 1, 2023, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans, pickups or panel trucks) will be:<ul>
 <li>65.5 cents per mile driven for business use, up 3 cents from the midyear increase setting the rate for the second half of 2022.</li><li>22 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes for 
qualified active-duty members of the Armed Forces, consistent with the 
increased midyear rate set for the second half of 2022.</li><li>14 cents per mile driven in service of charitable organizations; the rate is set by statute and remains unchanged from 2022.</li>
 </ul>These rates apply to electric and hybrid-electric automobiles, as well as gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles.The standard mileage rate for business use is based on an annual 
study of the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile. The 
rate for medical and moving purposes is based on the variable costs.It is important to note that under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, 
taxpayers cannot claim a miscellaneous itemized deduction for 
unreimbursed employee travel expenses. Taxpayers also cannot claim a 
deduction for moving expenses, unless they are members of the Armed 
Forces on active duty moving under orders to a permanent change of 
station. For more details see <a href="https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc455">Moving Expenses for Members of the Armed Forces</a>.Taxpayers always have the option of calculating the actual costs of 
using their vehicle rather than using the standard mileage rates.Taxpayers can use the standard mileage rate but generally must opt to
 use it in the first year the car is available for business use. Then, 
in later years, they can choose either the standard mileage rate or 
actual expenses. Leased vehicles must use the standard mileage rate 
method for the entire lease period (including renewals) if the standard 
mileage rate is chosen.<a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-23-03.pdf">Notice 2023-03</a>PDF
 contains the optional 2023 standard mileage rates, as well as the 
maximum automobile cost used to calculate the allowance under a fixed 
and variable rate (FAVR) plan. In addition, the notice provides the 
maximum fair market value of employer-provided automobiles first made 
available to employees for personal use in calendar year 2023 for which 
employers may use the fleet-average valuation rule in or the vehicle 
cents-per-mile valuation rule.

IRS hikes rates again for business mileage

NEW YORK (AP) — Barbara Walters, the intrepid interviewer, anchor and program host who led the way as the first woman to become a TV news superstar during a network career remarkable for its duration and variety, has died. She was 93.

Walters' death was announced by ABC on air Friday night and also by her publicist.

“Barbara Walters passed away peacefully in her home surrounded by loved ones. She lived her life with no regrets. She was a trailblazer not only for female journalists, but for all women,” said publicist Cindi Berger in a statement.

During nearly four decades at ABC, and before that at NBC, Walters’ exclusive interviews with rulers, royalty and entertainers brought her celebrity status that ranked with theirs, while placing her at the forefront of the trend in broadcast journalism that made stars of TV reporters and brought news programs into the race for higher ratings.

Walters made headlines in 1976 as the first female network news anchor, with an unprecedented $1 million annual salary that drew gasps and criticism (while lost in the outcry were her additional duties extending beyond news). Her drive was legendary as she competed — not just with rival networks, but with colleagues at her own network — for each big “get” in a world jammed with more and more interviewers, including female journalists who had followed on the trail she blazed.

“I never expected this!” Walters said in 2004, taking measure of her success. “I always thought I’d be a writer for television. I never even thought I’d be in front of a camera.”

But she was a natural on camera, especially when plying notables with questions.

“I’m not afraid when I’m interviewing, I have no fear!” Walters told The Associated Press in 2008.

Walters is survived by her only daughter, Jacqueline Danforth.

NEW YORK (AP) — Barbara Walters, the intrepid interviewer, anchor and program host who led the way as the first woman to become a TV news superstar during a network career remarkable for its duration and variety, has died. She was 93.Walters' death was announced by ABC on air Friday night and also by her publicist.“Barbara Walters passed away peacefully in her home surrounded by loved ones. She lived her life with no regrets. She was a trailblazer not only for female journalists, but for all women,” said publicist Cindi Berger in a statement.During nearly four decades at ABC, and before that at NBC, Walters’ exclusive interviews with rulers, royalty and entertainers brought her celebrity status that ranked with theirs, while placing her at the forefront of the trend in broadcast journalism that made stars of TV reporters and brought news programs into the race for higher ratings.Walters made headlines in 1976 as the first female network news anchor, with an unprecedented $1 million annual salary that drew gasps and criticism (while lost in the outcry were her additional duties extending beyond news). Her drive was legendary as she competed — not just with rival networks, but with colleagues at her own network — for each big “get” in a world jammed with more and more interviewers, including female journalists who had followed on the trail she blazed.“I never expected this!” Walters said in 2004, taking measure of her success. “I always thought I’d be a writer for television. I never even thought I’d be in front of a camera.”But she was a natural on camera, especially when plying notables with questions.“I’m not afraid when I’m interviewing, I have no fear!” Walters told The Associated Press in 2008.Walters is survived by her only daughter, Jacqueline Danforth.

Barbara Walters, a superstar and pioneer in TV news, dies

KANSAS CITY– The owner of the Rockstar Burgers restaurant in Kansas City, Mo., has pleaded guilty in federal court to allowing his former restaurant building to be used in a drug trafficking conspiracy that is alleged to have distributed more than 150 kilograms of methamphetamine and more than 10 kilograms of heroin, valued at more than $1.7 million, according to the United State's Attorney.

Brian Douglas Smith, 45, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Roseann Ketchmark, to maintaining a drug-involved premises.

By pleading guilty, Smith admitted that he made the building in the city’s West Bottoms, which housed Rock Star Burgers, his part-time residence, a loft, and associated spaces, available to a drug-trafficking organization. Smith knew the drug-trafficking organization used the building for storing and distributing methamphetamine, collecting for methamphetamine sales, and other methamphetamine distribution activities, including the possession, storage, and use of firearms.

Smith’s role, according to the plea agreement, was only in maintaining the building premises for the drug-trafficking organization’s use.

Smith is among 17 defendants in this case who have pleaded guilty or have guilty pleas scheduled. Two of those co-defendants have been sentenced and the rest await sentencing. One co-defendant is scheduled to go to trial on June 5, 2023.

Matthew John Fabulae, 33, of Kansas City, Mo., was sentenced on March 14, 2022, to 15 years in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Fabulae to forfeit to the government $44,000 based on his distribution of at least five kilograms of methamphetamine during the conspiracy. Fabulae pleaded guilty to his role in the drug-trafficking and money-laundering conspiracies; he also pleaded guilty to one count of possessing firearms in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime, one count of being a drug user in possession of a firearm, and one count of possessing methamphetamine with the intent to distribute.

Amy Leann Nieman, 51, of Moorseville, Mo., was sentenced on Feb. 25, 2022, to nine years in federal prison without parole after pleading guilty to her role in the drug-trafficking and money-laundering conspiracies and to possessing firearms during a drug-trafficking crime.

Under federal statutes, Smith is subject to a sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison without parole. Under the terms of his plea agreement, the government and Smith will recommend to the court that he pay a $15,000 fine in lieu of a money judgment or other financial assessments or forfeitures. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bruce Rhoades, Robert Smith, Maureen Brackett, and Byron Black.&nbsp; It was investigated by the Springfield and Kansas City, Mo., Police Departments, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Buchanan County Drug Strike Force, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Clay County, Mo., Sheriff's Department.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/12/1672264763269.png" alt="Smith-photo Platte Co." />
 <figcaption>Smith-photo Platte Co.</figcaption>
 </figure>KANSAS CITY– The owner of the Rockstar Burgers restaurant in Kansas City, Mo., has pleaded guilty in federal court to allowing his former restaurant building to be used in a drug trafficking conspiracy that is alleged to have distributed more than 150 kilograms of methamphetamine and more than 10 kilograms of heroin, valued at more than $1.7 million, according to the United State's Attorney.Brian Douglas Smith, 45, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Roseann Ketchmark, to maintaining a drug-involved premises.By pleading guilty, Smith admitted that he made the building in the city’s West Bottoms, which housed Rock Star Burgers, his part-time residence, a loft, and associated spaces, available to a drug-trafficking organization. Smith knew the drug-trafficking organization used the building for storing and distributing methamphetamine, collecting for methamphetamine sales, and other methamphetamine distribution activities, including the possession, storage, and use of firearms.Smith’s role, according to the plea agreement, was only in maintaining the building premises for the drug-trafficking organization’s use.Smith is among 17 defendants in this case who have pleaded guilty or have guilty pleas scheduled. Two of those co-defendants have been sentenced and the rest await sentencing. One co-defendant is scheduled to go to trial on June 5, 2023.Matthew John Fabulae, 33, of Kansas City, Mo., was sentenced on March 14, 2022, to 15 years in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Fabulae to forfeit to the government $44,000 based on his distribution of at least five kilograms of methamphetamine during the conspiracy. Fabulae pleaded guilty to his role in the drug-trafficking and money-laundering conspiracies; he also pleaded guilty to one count of possessing firearms in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime, one count of being a drug user in possession of a firearm, and one count of possessing methamphetamine with the intent to distribute.Amy Leann Nieman, 51, of Moorseville, Mo., was sentenced on Feb. 25, 2022, to nine years in federal prison without parole after pleading guilty to her role in the drug-trafficking and money-laundering conspiracies and to possessing firearms during a drug-trafficking crime.Under federal statutes, Smith is subject to a sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison without parole. Under the terms of his plea agreement, the government and Smith will recommend to the court that he pay a $15,000 fine in lieu of a money judgment or other financial assessments or forfeitures. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bruce Rhoades, Robert Smith, Maureen Brackett, and Byron Black.&nbsp; It was investigated by the Springfield and Kansas City, Mo., Police Departments, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Buchanan County Drug Strike Force, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Clay County, Mo., Sheriff's Department.

KC restaurant owner made building available to drug traffickers

PAWNEE COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating two suspects on drug charges after a late night traffic stop.

Just after 11p.m. Thursday, a deputy with the Pawnee County Sheriff's Office conducted a traffic stop on US 56 Highway within Pawnee County for a traffic infraction, according to a media release.

During the course of the traffic stop, Pawnee County K-9 Noa was deployed and indicated to the odor of narcotics within the vehicle. Deputies found 47 vacuum-sealed bags within two separate suitcases concealing more than 50 pounds of marijuana.

The driver and passenger were arrested on requested charges of speeding, conspiracy to distribute marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of THC and no drug tax stamp. The Barton County Sheriff's Office assisted with the arrest.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/12/1672415938369.jpeg" alt="Photo Pawnee Co. Sheriff" />
 <figcaption>Photo Pawnee Co. Sheriff</figcaption>
 </figure>PAWNEE COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating two suspects on drug charges after a late night traffic stop.Just after 11p.m. Thursday, a deputy with the Pawnee County Sheriff's Office conducted a traffic stop on US 56 Highway within Pawnee County for a traffic infraction, according to a media release.During the course of the traffic stop, Pawnee County K-9 Noa was deployed and indicated to the odor of narcotics within the vehicle. Deputies found 47 vacuum-sealed bags within two separate suitcases concealing more than 50 pounds of marijuana.The driver and passenger were arrested on requested charges of speeding, conspiracy to distribute marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of THC and no drug tax stamp. The Barton County Sheriff's Office assisted with the arrest.