Authorities say an hourslong standoff at a Missouri home that followed the shooting of three officers is over and a woman found in the house was taken into custody.
A deceased man was also found in the home, according to state authorities.
The three Kansas City, Missouri, police officers were hospitalized after being shot while executing a search warrant Tuesday night, Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said.
Authorities have not said who fired the shots that injured the officers.
The officers’ injuries were not life-threatening and they were able to talk from their hospital beds, Graves said.
“That’s the best situation under these circumstances that I could hope for,” the chief said. “That our officers are alert, they’re awake and they’re talking.”
The officers were part of a tactical response team executing the warrant at a home shortly after 9:30 p.m. local time, Graves said. Graves did not provide details about the investigation or the warrant.
Police knocked and identified themselves and were met with gunfire when they tried to breach the door, she said.
Officers returned fire, but it is unclear how many shots they fired or if they hit the gunman or anyone else in the home, the chief said.
What followed was a standoff around the home that lasted for hours and involved the help of at least one other Missouri police department as well as the state’s highway patrol.
SWAT members from the Missouri State Highway Patrol arrived on scene early Wednesday morning, the agency said on Twitter.
The highway patrol’s SWAT team, with help from FBI SWAT members, secured the house Wednesday evening, it said.
“A male was found deceased & a female was located alive with no injuries. She is in police custody,” the highway patrol said.
Authorities have not said how the man died and it was unclear as of Wednesday night who fired at the three Kansas City officers.
Investigators were continuing to process the scene Wednesday night and the probe is ongoing.
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said in a tweet late Tuesday night he was praying for the officers injured.
“We’ve been reminded too much lately in Kansas City how dangerous police work can be,” he said. “I am praying for a full recovery for our three officers injured this evening and that everyone on duty gets home to their families safely.”
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Quarterback Patrick Mahomes and All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce promised thousands of fans celebrating the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl championship Wednesday that the team will be back for more.
During a boisterous victory rally at downtown’s Union Station after a parade, Mahomes and Kelce joked about “experts” who predicted the just-concluded NFL season would be a rebuilding year for the Chiefs, who defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 on Sunday.
“We’re back again, we’re back again,” Mahomes, the NFL’s regular season and Super Bowl MVP, told thousands of cheering fans clad in the Chiefs’ red and gold team colors.
“When we started this season the AFC West said we were rebuilding,” Mahomes said. “I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know what rebuilding means. In our rebuilding year, we’re world champs, we’re world champs.”
Kelce noted that some “haters” predicted the Chiefs wouldn’t even make the playoffs.
“In all reality, this was this best season of my life,” Kelce said. “I owe it to (the fans), I owe it to the guys on this stage, I owe it to everybody in Chiefs Kingdom and the organization we’ve been able to create.”
Celebrating his second Super Bowl win with the Chiefs, coach Andy Reid told the crowd that “there’s no place you’d rather be, and no greater place to be than right here, baby. … Not very often are you able to say you’re the greatest team in the world, you have the greatest players in the world, have the greatest organization in the world and, most of all, the greatest fans in the world.”
The rally festivites wrapped up a day that began with some fans who slept overnight — and others arriving before sunrise —to get a prime spot downtown to celebrate the Chiefs’ second Super Bowl championship in four NFL seasons.
Players, coaches, team officials, family members and others rode double-decker buses past legions of fans, sometimes standing up to 10 people deep, as the parade rolled down a main downtown street on the way to the Union Station rally.
Many players got off the buses to dance, sign autographs, take selfies and occasionally hand out beers to supporters along the route. Some lucky fans were able to touch the Lombardi Trophy, which denoted the Chiefs’ win.
Most schools, many businesses and some government offices in the Kansas City metro area were closed to allow fans to enjoy the festivities. Most were in good spirits while waiting in long lines for food trucks, merchandise trucks and, of course, portable toilets. Police did not immediately report any major problems during the event.
After decades of championship drought, the city is gaining experience with victory parades. Four seasons ago, the Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers for the team’s first Super Bowl championship in 50 years. That followed the Kansas City Royals winning the World Series in 2015, the city’s first baseball championship in 30 years.
Shellie Diehl, 46, of Kansas City, was seated about a block from Union Station, joined by her 8-year-old daughter, Skyler; 16-year-old daughter, Taylor; and a friend. Diehl said she came to the Chiefs parade in 2020 and decided to have mother-daughter time on Wednesday while celebrating Skyler’s first parade.
“The last one was so much fun, we decided we had to come to this one,” Diehl said. “We’re big Chiefs fans, and we wanted to celebrate a great day with the community.”
Some fans admitted that Kansas City might be getting a little spoiled.
“Kind of getting used to it, but that’s OK,” said Liz Barber, 50, of Shawnee, Kansas. “It is good.”
“We had a 50-year-drought, so it’s about time we had our own dynasty,” said David Cordray, 38, of Kansas City.
Some 25 Chiefs fans who arrived about 6 a.m. cooked up a breakfast feast, complete with corn on the cob, bacon and potatoes and all the trimmings — and they had steaks ready for later in the day. Dominic Zamora, 18, said the group of friends were continuing a tailgating tradition at Chiefs games.
“With Mahomes, there’s more to come,” Zamora said. “It’s going to be fun, and I’m excited to show up.”
Manuel Palacio, 48, was dressed in a cow’s suit in a tribute to Kansas City’s “Cowtown” nickname. He said he was a longtime Buffalo Bills fan who converted to the Chiefs after losing a bet with a Chiefs fan.
“I had to convert,” Palacio said. “It’s like being an Oakland Raiders fan; at some point you have to cheer for the team who keeps winning,” he said, laughing.
The City Council Transportation and Infrastructure Committee earmarked $750,000 for parade-related expenses, while Mayor Quinton Lucas estimated overtime costs for police and firefighters would total more than $1.5 million. The Kansas City Sports Commission was expected to contribute another $1 million in private donations for parade expenses and sponsorships, and the Jackson County Legislature voted to add $75,000.
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Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City contributed to this story.
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This story has been updated to correct that it’s Kansas City’s second championship in four seasons, not in two years.
Republicans in Kansas narrowly picked an activist who has promoted unfounded election conspiracies and promised a shakeup to lead the state Republican Party for the next two years, following weeks of infighting that mirrors the acrimony in the party across the U.S.
Within 30 minutes of the change in the Kansas Republican Party’s leadership, its state committee reviewed a resolution demanding that the U.S. House impeach President Joe Biden for “tyranny” over comments he and his aides made in the summer of 2021 decrying misinformation about coronavirus vaccines spreading within the GOP. The committee tabled the resolution until its next meeting.
The Kansas state committee elected Mike Brown, who has long been active in the GOP in the Kansas City area, as its new chair through the 2024 elections. The vote came three months after Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly narrowly won reelection and the only Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation, U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, won another term handily in her Kansas City-area district.
The Kansas party’s retiring chair, Mike Kuckelman, and its two other Republican National Committee members supported RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel when she won reelection last month. But Brown had called on McDaniel to resign in December, and he said Saturday that the national GOP is seeing an internal “uprising” from members still upset over COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
“The RNC needs to be paying very close attention to that,” Brown said. “It is the future of our party.”
Last year, Brown ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination for Kansas secretary of state. Both he and his opponent, Helen Van Etten, a longtime Topeka activist and former RNC member, promised to revive the Kansas party. But Brown asked fellow Republicans whether they were happy with the results of the past two governor’s races, won by Kelly, and Davids’ election victories.
The vote — with Brown prevailing 90-88 — occurred against the backdrop of the GOP’s unexpectedly poor showing in the 2022 midterms, when it won fewer than expected U.S. House seats and failed to recapture a U.S. Senate majority.
In Kansas, the GOP holds a voter registration advantage, which means that Democrats win big races by attracting votes from moderate Republicans and independent voters, while Republicans generally prevail when the party is unified.
“We need to have more unity,” state Rep. Patrick Penn, a Wichita Republican, told fellow GOP committee members. “That’s the crux of it.”
Some Republicans framed the contest between Brown and Van Etten as a fight between an anti-establishment wing and the establishment.
The infighting ahead of Saturday’s vote was especially intense in Johnson County, in the Kansas City area, the state’s most populous county and home for both Brown and retiring State Chair Mike Kuckelman. The county’s affluent suburbs once were GOP strongholds, but since 2018, they’ve become conspicuously more Democratic — and have been crucial to Kelly’s and Davids’ victories.
The Johnson County GOP’s new chair, a Brown ally concerned about the county’s “purple creep,” told GOP state committee members that Kuckelman had been “absolutely abhorrent” in his treatment of Brown. Kuckelman fired back with several emails, including one accusing Brown of being soft in opposing abortion and supporting gun rights.
With the Republican National Committee, McDaniel overcame opposition from the ultra-Make America Great Again wing of the party despite having been picked for the job in 2016 by former President Donald Trump.
In Michigan, two statewide GOP candidates who denied President Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020 were seeking party offices ahead of a convention next weekend. In Nebraska last year, Republicans who support Trump fired the state chair during a tumultuous convention following a Trump-backed candidate’s loss in the GOP primary for governor.
Brown has promoted unfounded theories that Trump’s supporters have used to bolster the former president’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. He is a construction contractor who served on the Johnson County Commission before losing his seat in 2020.
Brown lost the GOP primary for secretary of state to Republican incumbent Scott Schwab, who has vouched for the integrity of Kansas elections.
Van Etten, a retired audiologist, served on the RNC from 2008 to 2020. She also is a former member of the state board that oversees Kansas’ higher education system.
She promised state committee members a “very aggressive” program of building local party organizations: “We’re ready and willing to unite the party.”
One supporter, conservative Kansas City-area economist, researcher and consultant Michael Austin, said: “We need experience. We need connections.”
During the state committee meeting, Kuckelman defended current party leaders’ record, noting that the party has no debt.
Kim Borchers, a longtime Topeka activist who serves on the RNC, defended McDaniel and pushed back pointedly on complaints against the party establishment. She had the state committee members with more than five years’ of experience stand.
“Welcome to the establishment,” she said. “I call that commitment.”
PHOENIX (AP) — Philadelphia Eagles coach Nick Sirianni is thrilled young aspiring football players all over the world will get to watch two Black quarterbacks face each other for the first time in the Super Bowl.
He’s also pleased they get to watch two really, really good quarterbacks.
“I’m really excited for both quarterbacks, what they can represent to a ton of kids,” Sirianni said at Monday’s Super Bowl media night. “Not only are they two African-American quarterbacks, but they’re the two best quarterbacks in the NFL this year. First-team All-Pro, second-team All-Pro.
“They both play at the highest level.”
There are many storylines for this Super Bowl, but the duel between Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts and Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes is right at the top of the list.
The significance of Sunday’s matchup in Glendale, Arizona, isn’t lost on Mahomes.
“I think about it a lot,” Mahomes said. “The quarterbacks that came before me — Shack Harris, Doug Williams — that laid the foundation for me to be in this position. It goes across all sports. If you think about Jackie Robinson and the people who broke the color barrier in baseball, I wouldn’t be standing here today if it wasn’t for them.
“To be lucky enough to be in this position — and play against another great guy like Jalen — it will be a special moment. I’m glad we’re here today, but how can we keep moving forward? How can we motivate kids who are younger, who want to follow their dreams to be a quarterback?”
It’s not just the quarterbacks who are relishing the groundbreaking matchup. Chiefs running back Jerick McKinnon said players are well aware of what they’re witnessing.
“There’s history being made,” McKinnon said. “That’s a beautiful thing. Something I can look back and tell my kids that, ‘I was a part of that, I experienced that.’ So it’s a blessing. This whole experience is a blessing.
“To have that on top, just adds to it.”
In addition to being good, both quarterbacks are also tough.
Hurts missed two games late in the season with a shoulder injury that’s still bothering him. The Eagles haven’t had to lean on him in two lopsided playoff wins. He has 275 yards passing and two TDs along with 73 yards rushing and two scores, pedestrian numbers by his standards.
Mahomes hobbled around on a badly sprained ankle to help the Chiefs beat the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 and advance to their third Super Bowl appearance in four years.
“It’s amazing — especially being Black History Month as well,” Eagles cornerback Darius Slay said. “I’m thankful for this moment, to be a part of this. This is crazy with two Black quarterbacks in the Super Bowl, one of the biggest games in the world.”
Washington’s Doug Williams was the first Black quarterback to start and win a Super Bowl following the 1987 season. That’s back when Black quarterbacks were fairly rare across the NFL.
This season — 35 years later — began with 11 Black QBs starting in Week 1 and now ends with a historic matchup.
Mahomes can become the first two-time winner if he leads the Chiefs to victory on Sunday. Hurts aims to become the fourth Black QB to win the Super Bowl, joining Williams, Mahomes and Russell Wilson.
Steve McNair, Colin Kaepernick, Cam Newton and Wilson also started in a Super Bowl and lost.
Now it’s Hurts vs. Mahomes.
After McKinnon heard that Sirianni said the two quarterbacks were the top two in the league, he had a one-word response: “Facts.”
“It’s going to be a showdown — all four quarters,” McKinnon said. “It’s going to come down to the last second. Jalen Hurts is phenomenal, I’ve been watching him since college. The things he does and brings to the table are phenomenal.”
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AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi contributed to this story.
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PHOENIX (AP) — Nick Sirianni answered questions about Rocky, Santa Claus and even which of his players on the Philadelphia Eagles he’d want to date his 5-year-old daughter when she grows up.
Welcome to Super Bowl opening night where football talk gives way to the wild and wacky.
The circus atmosphere that kicks off the NFL’s biggest week returned Monday for the first time since 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic forced teams to meet the media on video conferences the past two seasons.
Sirianni and the Eagles took the stage first at Footprint Center, home of the Phoenix Suns. “Fly, Eagles, Fly” chants greeted players and coaches before they spent an hour answering wide-ranging questions from more than 2,000 media members.
Red-clad Chiefs fans took over the arena when Kansas City came out, turning it into an indoor version of Arrowhead Stadium.
It was a new experience for many of the Eagles, who have seven holdovers from the team that beat New England in the Super Bowl five years ago.
Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs are here for the third time in four years so they already got a taste of this media extravaganza in Miami in 2020.
For the record, Sirianni loves the Rocky movies. He identifies with Sylvester Stallone’s fictional movie character, who is part of Philadelphia’s fabric as much as the cheesesteak.
“I live and coach in the greatest sports town in America,” Sirianni said. “It means so much to everybody there. That’s what you want. When you’re a little kid playing in a peewee football game, you want everybody to see you. You want your fans to love it. You want them to be there. You want them wearing green on Friday. You want them to be throwing snowballs at Santa Claus. You want to put talent on display in front of the greatest sports town in America. I love the fact that my kids are growing up in a sports town where football means so much because football means so much to me.”
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, an AP NFL MVP finalist, drew the largest crowd in the early portion. Reporters staked out his spot about an hour before the event started. The first question came from Hall of Fame wide receiver Michael Irvin, an NFL Network analyst.
“I feel like it’s not a time to reflect,” Hurts said about his journey to stardom. “We came here to finish the job.”
Chiefs coach Andy Reid got numerous questions about his time in Philadelphia and food. The cheeseburger fanatic would not name his favorite city to eat outside of Kansas City, Green Bay and Philly.
“They won’t let you back in if I do,” he said.
Overall, opening night wasn’t quite as outrageous as past years.
In Arizona in 2008, a female reporter showed up wearing a white wedding dress and veil and proposed to Tom Brady, who was trying to lead the Patriots to the first 19-0 season in NFL history.
One radio host walked around shirtless wearing a barrel. A television reporter from Mexico asked people to play pin the tail on the donkey and then asked them to toss foam footballs into a basket. Some of the Eagles cheerleaders participated.
Otherwise, it was more about odd questions than odd looks.
Someone asked Mahomes and Sirianni if this was a “must-win game.”
Both said yes in the most polite way possible.
“The job is not finished,” said Mahomes, who is also an MVP finalist.
Mahomes got the loudest ovation of the night.
Oh, his favorite song of all time is Rihanna’s “Umbrella.” Rihanna will be the halftime performer but he won’t be watching.
“Coach Reid said if we go out there to watch to just keep walking,” Mahomes said.
The Eagles (16-3) and Chiefs (16-3) meet on Sunday, both aiming for their second Super Bowl title within five years.
Perhaps the most anxious person in the stadium will be Donna Kelce, mom of All-Pros Jason and Travis.
Donna Kelce, who took part in some of the night’s festivities on stage, wore a jersey that was half-green for Jason’s Eagles and half-red for Travis’ Chiefs. She had No. 87 for Travis on the front and No. 62 for Jason on the back.
Who is the biggest momma’s boy?
Donna held up a photo of Travis.
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Follow Rob Maaddi on Twitter at https://twitter.com/robmaaddi
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The Kansas City Chiefs are advancing to Super Bowl LVII following a 23-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship game on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri.
After suffering a high ankle sprain last week in the Chiefs’ Divisional Round win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, Patrick Mahomes led the team to a victory in a back-and-forth game.
Kansas City got out to a 6-0 lead after two field goals and before halftime, Mahomes found his favorite target – tight end Travis Kelce for a touchdown to take a 13-3 lead. Kelce was listed as questionable to play coming into the game due to a back injury.
Right before halftime, the Bengals drove down the field and kicked a field goal to cut the deficit to 13-6.
On the Bengals’ first offensive possession of the second half, quarterback Joe Burrow found wide receiver Tee Higgins for a 27-yard touchdown to tie up the game at 13. However, a clearly hobbled Mahomes and the Chiefs responded with a laser touchdown throw to Marquez Valdes-Scantling to take the lead right back.
The Chiefs defensive unit shut down the high-powered Bengals offense until the first play of the fourth quarter.
On fourth down, Burrow heaved the ball down the field and found Ja’Marr Chase for a 35-yard strike to move Cincinnati deep into Kansas City territory. Two plays later, the Bengals scored on a 2-yard touchdown run by running back Samaje Perine to tie the game yet again.
The Chiefs sacked Burrow on third down to give them the ball back with less than a minute left and the score tied at 20. Chiefs returner Skyy Moore returned the Bengals punt 29 yards to set the offense up with good field position. On third down, Mahomes scrambled and as he went out of bounds, Bengals defensive end Joseph Ossai pushed him and was called for a 15-yard unnecessary roughness penalty which put the Chiefs in field goal range.
Kansas City kicker Harrison Butker knocked down the 45-yard field goal to send the Chiefs back to the Super Bowl for the third time in four seasons.
The Eagles scored on their first possession and didn’t look back in the rout of the 49ers.
The 49ers were momentarily left without rookie starting quarterback Brock Purdy after he suffered a right elbow injury in the first quarter, on a hit by Eagles linebacker Haason Reddick that forced a fumble. Josh Johnson, who is the fourth string quarterback for San Francisco, filled in for Purdy until the third quarter before being ruled out of the game with a concussion.
Playing on the injured elbow, Purdy re-entered the game but the 49ers offense struggled to tally any points.
Meanwhile, Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia run-game, ran all over the 49ers defense, notching 148 rushing yards and scoring all four touchdowns on the ground. With his rushing touchdown in the fourth quarter, Hurts (15) passed Cameron Newton (14) for most rushing touchdown’s in a single season by a QB in NFL history, including playoffs, according to NFL Research.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Patrick Mahomes finished a full week of practice on his ailing right ankle Friday, and Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid pronounced his All-Pro quarterback ready to go for the AFC championship game against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Mahomes sustained a high ankle sprain in the first quarter of last week’s divisional-round win over Jacksonville, returning after halftime to polish off the victory. That sent the Chiefs to their fifth consecutive AFC championship game, where they will face the AFC North champions on Sunday night in a rematch of last year’s overtime loss to the Bengals.
“He looks good,” Reid said. “I mean, he’s moving around good. He’s going to go out and play.”
Mahomes has had perhaps his best season, throwing for a career-high 5,250 yards with a league-leading 41 touchdown passes, and garnered 49 of 50 first-place votes in All-Pro voting. He is also among five finalists for league MVP.
“I feel like I can still do a lot of things,” he said this week. “We’ll see as we get closer and closer, and we’ll see during the game. You can’t fully do exactly what you’re going to be doing in those moments in the game (in practice), but all I can do is prepare myself the best way possible and then when we get in the game, you hope adrenaline kind of takes over.”
Mahomes vowed to play from the moment the Chiefs beat the Jaguars last Saturday night, striding to the podium just outside the Kansas City locker room and proclaiming his ankle felt better than expected. Mahomes began treatment that night, and a precautionary MRI exam taken the following day showed no structural damage.
His right ankle wasn’t taped any more than the left when Mahomes headed onto the indoor practice field Wednesday and Thursday. He was bouncing around as if nothing was amiss Friday for a final outdoor workout.
“We’re preparing for Patrick Mahomes like he’s 100 percent,” Bengals pass rusher Sam Hubbard said, “because I’m sure he’s going to be playing 100 percent. That’s all you can do.”
The Chiefs have been coy about their game plan for Cincinnati, which has beaten them three times in the last 13 months, including that fateful AFC title game last January. But there’s a good chance Reid and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy tweaked it to protect Mahomes, who is uncanny when it comes to extending plays with his scrambling ability.
Mahomes has dealt with plenty of injuries in recent years, and this isn’t the first to happen on the playoff stage.
Two years ago, Mahomes was placed in the concussion protocol during a divisional win over the Browns, though he came back the following week to lead Kansas City to an AFC title win over Buffalo. Mahomes also was dealing with turf toe, which he said this week was the most painful injury that he’s played through during his time in the NFL.
Mahomes wound up having surgery for it after the Chiefs lost to Tampa Bay in the Super Bowl.
I have a lot of good people around me everywhere,” said Mahomes, who praised the Chiefs training staff along with his personal trainer, Bobby Stroupe. “We’ve done a lot of ankle and knee and foot stuff, especially after the last few injuries I’ve had. I think that’s prepared me to bounce back quickly here and be able to be in a good spot.”
Mahomes also has gotten support from players around the league, including Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady.
“I have a good relationship with him now and he gives me a lot of advice,” Mahomes said. “Why would you not want to learn from the GOAT? So anytime anybody like that wants to give me advice, I’ll take it in, and it’s cool to see the guys that you’ve watched growing up your whole life be able to talk to you in that type of platform.”
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OLATHE, Kan. — Police in Kansas shot and killed a man who approached them with an “edged weapon” after a New Year’s Eve disturbance, police said.
Officers were called to a disturbance Saturday night at a home in the Kansas City suburb of Olathe, Sgt. Joel Yeldell said in a news release.
When officers arrived, a 27-year-old man inside the home pulled out the weapon and moved toward the officers, Yeldell said.
Officers tried to use a stun gun on the man but he continued moving toward them. One Olathe officer shot the man, and he died at the scene, Yeldell said.
No officers were injured.
A Johnson County multijurisdictional team will investigate the shooting.
The officer who shot the man has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the investigation.
DALLAS — Travelers who counted on Southwest Airlines to get them home suffered through another wave of canceled flights Wednesday, and pressure grew on the federal government to help customers get reimbursed for unexpected expenses they incurred because of the airline’s meltdown.
Exhausted Southwest travelers tried finding seats on other airlines or renting cars to get to their destination, but many remained stranded. The airline’s CEO said it could be next week before the flight schedule returns to normal.
Adontis Barber, a 34-year-old jazz pianist from Kansas City, Missouri, had camped out in the city’s airport since his Southwest flight was canceled Saturday and wondered if he would ever get to a New Year’s gig in Washington, D.C.
“I give up,” he said. “I’m starting to feel homeless.”
By late morning on the East Coast, about 90% of all canceled flights Wednesday in the U.S. were on Southwest, according to the FlightAware tracking service. Other airlines recovered from ferocious winter storms that hit large swaths of the country over the weekend, but not Southwest.
The Dallas airline was undone by a combination of factors including an antiquated crew-scheduling system and a network design that allows cancellations in one region to cascade throughout the country rapidly. Those weaknesses are not new — they helped cause a similar failure by Southwest in October 2021.
The federal government is now investigating what happened at Southwest, which carries more passengers within the United States than any other airline.
In a video that Southwest posted late Tuesday, CEO Robert Jordan said Southwest would operate a reduced schedule for several days but hoped to be “back on track before next week.”
Jordan blamed the winter storm for snarling the airline’s “highly complex” network. He said Southwest’s tools for recovering from disruptions work “99% of the time, but clearly we need to double down” on upgrading systems to avoid a repeat of this week.
“We have some real work to do in making this right,” said Jordan, a 34-year Southwest veteran who became CEO in February. “For now, I want you to know that we are committed to that.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has criticized airlines for previous disruptions, said that “meltdown” was the only word he could think of to describe this week’s events at Southwest. He noted that while cancellations across the rest of the industry declined to about 4% of scheduled flights, they remained above 60% at Southwest.
From the high rate of cancellations to customers’ inability to reach Southwest on the phone, the airline’s performance has been unacceptable, Buttigieg said. He vowed to hold the airline accountable and push it to reimburse travelers.
“They need to make sure that those stranded passengers get to where they need to go and that they are provided adequate compensation,” including for missed flights, hotels and meals, he said Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
In Congress, the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee also promised an investigation. Separately, two other Senate Democrats called on Southwest to provide “significant” compensation for stranded travelers, saying that the airline has the money because it plans to pay $428 million in dividends next month.
Leaders of Southwest’s labor unions have warned for years that the airline’s crew-scheduling system, which dates to the 1990s, was inadequate, and the CEO acknowledged this week that the technology needs to be upgraded.
The other large U.S. airlines use “hub and spoke” networks in which flights radiate out from a few major or hub airports. That helps limit the reach of disruptions caused by bad weather in part of the country.
Southwest, however, has a “point to point” network in which planes crisscross the country during the day. This can increase the utilization and efficiency of each plane, but problems in one place can ripple across the country, leaving crews trapped out of position.
Barber, the musician from Kansas City, already missed a performance Sunday in Dallas but had hoped to make it to Washington in time for a New Year’s performance near the National Mall.
“I’m missing out on money,” he lamented.
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AP Writer Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City contributed to this report.
Southwest Airlines scrubbed thousands of flights again Wednesday as the company faces frustration from passengers and scrutiny from federal officials over its handling of its schedule in the aftermath of a massive storm that wrecked Christmas travel plans across the U.S.
According to tracking service Flight Aware, more than 2,500 flights scheduled for Wednesday were canceled before 7 a.m., the vast majority of all the 2,747 canceled flights within, into or out of the U.S. set for that day. On Tuesday, a day after most U.S. airlines had recovered from the storm, Southwest had called off about 2,600 more flights on the East Coast by late afternoon Tuesday. Those flights accounted for more than 80% of the 3,000 trips that got canceled nationwide Tuesday, according to FlightAware.
And the chaos seemed certain to continue. The airline also scrubbed more than 2,300 flights set for Thursday as it tried to restore order to its mangled schedule.
At airports with major Southwest operations, customers stood in long lines hoping to find a seat on another flight. They described waiting hours on hold for help, only to be cut off. Some tried to rent cars to get to their destinations sooner. Others found spots to sleep on the floor. Luggage piled up in huge heaps.
Conrad Stoll, a 66-year-old retired construction worker in Missouri, planned to fly from Kansas City to Los Angeles for his father’s 90th birthday party until his Southwest flight was canceled early Tuesday. He said he won’t get to see his 88-year-old mother either.
“I went there in 2019, and she looked at me and said, ‘I’m not going to see you again.’” Stoll said. “My sister has been taking care of them, and she’s just like, ‘They’re really losing it really quick.’”
Stoll hopes to get another chance to see his parents in the spring, when the weather is warmer.
CEO vows to make it right
In a video that Southwest posted late Tuesday, CEO Robert Jordan said Southwest would operate a reduced schedule for several days but hoped to be “back on track before next week.”
Jordan blamed the winter storm for snarling the airline’s “highly complex” network. He said Southwest’s tools for recovering from disruptions work “99% of the time, but clearly we need to double down” on upgrading systems to avoid a repeat of this week.
“We have some real work to do in making this right,” said Jordan, a 34-year Southwest veteran who became CEO in February. “For now, I want you to know that we are committed to that.”
The problems began over the weekend and snowballed Monday, when Southwest called off more than 70% of its flights.
That was after the worst of the storm had passed. The airline said many pilots and flight attendants were out of position to work their flights. Leaders of unions representing Southwest pilots and flight attendants blamed antiquated crew-scheduling software and criticized company management.
Luis Hernandez, 61, left, Ruth Hernandez, with their dog Sissi wait for a ride home after their Southwest Airlines flight to Omaha, Nebraska, got cancelled at Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
Irfan Khan
Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, said the airline failed to fix problems that caused a similar meltdown in October 2021.
“There is a lot of frustration because this is so preventable,” Murray said. “The airline cannot connect crews to airplanes. The airline didn’t even know where pilots were at.”
Murray said managers resorted this week to asking pilots at some airports to report to a central location, where they wrote down the names of pilots who were present and forwarded the lists to headquarters.
Lyn Montgomery, president of the Transport Workers Union representing Southwest flight attendants, said she and other labor leaders have repeatedly told management that the airline’s scheduling technology is not good enough.
“This has been something we have seen coming,” she said. “This is a very catastrophic event.”
Buttigieg: Southwest should offer cash refunds
The airline is now drawing unwanted attention from Washington.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has criticized airlines for previous disruptions, said his agency would examine the causes of Southwest’s widespread cancellations and whether the airline was meeting its legal obligations to stranded customers.
“While we all understand that you can’t control the weather, this has clearly crossed the line from what is an uncontrollable weather situation to something that is the airline’s direct responsibility,” Buttigieg told “NBC Nightly News.” He said Southwest should at least pay cash refunds for canceled flights and cover stranded passengers’ hotel and meal costs.
In Congress, the Senate Commerce Committee also promised an investigation. Two Senate Democrats called on Southwest to provide “significant” compensation for stranded travelers, saying that the airline has the money because it plans to pay $428 million in dividends next month.
Bryce Burger and his family were supposed to be on a cruise to Mexico departing from San Diego on Dec. 24, but their flight from Denver was canceled without warning. The flight was rebooked through Burbank, California, but that flight was canceled while they sat at the gate.
“It’s horrible,” Burger said Tuesday by phone from Salt Lake City, where the family decided to drive after giving up the cruise.
The family’s luggage is still at the Denver airport, and Burger doesn’t know if he can get a refund for the cruise because the flight to California was booked separately.
At Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, travelers said they were told they won’t be able to catch another Southwest flight until Saturday, according to CBS News DFW.
The size and severity of the storm created havoc for many airlines, although the largest number of canceled flights Tuesday were at airports where Southwest is a major carrier, including Denver, Chicago Midway, Las Vegas, Baltimore and Dallas.
Spirit Airlines and Alaska Airlines both canceled about 10% of their flights, with much smaller cancellation percentages at American, Delta, United and JetBlue.
Consumer advocates urged Congress to adopt new regulations to protect travelers.
“While the awful weather isn’t anyone’s fault, the way travelers were treated and accommodated — or not — sits squarely on the shoulders of most of the airlines,” said Teresa Murray, consumer watchdog with public interest group U.S. PIRG, in a statement.
“As federal officials examine how much of the mayhem was preventable, this catastrophe once again exposes the massive changes that are needed to better protect airline passengers.
“Oh my God, we’re getting on a plane!”
Kristie Smiley planned to return home to Los Angeles until Southwest canceled her Tuesday flight, so she waited at the Kansas City airport for her mother to pick her up. Southwest can’t put her on another plane until Sunday, New Year’s Day.
Smiley said the airline kept blaming the weather after the storm passed and didn’t tell passengers why planes couldn’t take off.
“They like acted like [Tuesday’s flight] was going to go until they started saying, ‘Oh, five more minutes. Oh, 10 more minutes.’ I’m not sure what’s up with them. It seems a little off,” she said.
Danielle Zanin vowed never to fly Southwest again after it took four days, several canceled flights and sleeping in the airport before she, her husband and their two young children got home to Illinois from Albuquerque, New Mexico. They made stops at airports in Denver and Phoenix and reached Chicago only after ditching Southwest and paying $1,400 for four one-way tickets on American Airlines.
“I remember saying, ‘Oh my God, we’re getting on a plane!’ I was honestly shocked because I thought we were stuck in airports forever,” she said.
Zanin plans to ask Southwest to be reimbursed for part of their original tickets plus the new ones on American, and extra spending on rental cars, parking, an Uber ride and food — about $2,000 in all.
“I don’t have good faith that they will do much of anything,” she said.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Baker Mayfield threw two touchdown passes to Tyler Higbee, Cam Akers rushed for 118 yards and three more scores, and the Los Angeles Rams routed the Denver Broncos 51-14 Sunday for their second victory since mid-October.
Mayfield went 24 of 28 for 230 yards in another standout performance for his second win in three starts with the Rams (5-10), who produced the best game of their dismal season on Christmas.
Rookie Cobie Durant returned his second interception 85 yards for a touchdown with 4:08 left to cap the Rams’ first 50-point performance under Sean McVay since their famed 54-51 victory over Kansas City in 2018.
For at least one more week, Los Angeles avoided becoming the first defending Super Bowl champion to lose 11 games. Even with the NFL’s 32nd-ranked offense coming in, Los Angeles became just the second team to score 50 points in the NFL this season, joining Dallas earlier this month, and put together a comprehensively dominant performance.
In his Los Angeles debut, Larrell Murchison made 2 1/2 of the Rams’ six sacks of Russell Wilson, who passed for 214 yards with three interceptions for Denver (4-11).
The beleaguered Wilson was not sharp in his return from a one-game absence with a concussion, throwing interceptions to end Denver’s first two drives. The second pick was by Bobby Wagner, who faced his longtime teammate and friend for the first time after spending a full decade together in Seattle.
Wagner also sacked Wilson during the first half, when the Rams improbably racked up 261 of their 388 yards before halftime and eventually scored on their first eight drives against Denver’s above-average defense, already matching their full-game season high in points with their 31-6 halftime lead.
Denver trailed 41-6 before Wilson hit Greg Dulcich for the Broncos’ only touchdown with 8:30 to play.
Akers continued his late-season surge by producing the Rams’ first 100-yard rushing game of the season, while Higbee led the passing attack with 94 yards receiving for an offense missing its top three wideouts due to injury.
The Rams led by double digits less than nine minutes in when Durant picked off Wilson’s second pass and Mayfield hit Higbee for a 9-yard TD three plays later. Higbee became the Rams’ career franchise leader in touchdown catches by a tight end with his 19th score.
Wagner then poached a pass from Wilson across the middle of the field and made a long return, and the Rams scored two snaps later on Akers’ 3-yard run. Los Angeles had scored just one touchdown off a takeaway all season long before doing it twice more in the first quarter.
The Rams’ 17-point first quarter was their highest-scoring opening period since Week 6 of McVay’s first season in 2017. They subsequently scored touchdowns on four consecutive drives for the first time in McVay’s tenure.
Higbee made his second TD catch early in the second quarter after a smooth 75-yard drive by the Rams’ long-struggling offense. Akers then punched it in again 1:06 before halftime for a 31-3 lead.
Ramsey picked off Wilson’s long heave to the end zone on Denver’s opening drive of the second half. The Rams’ pressure on Wilson improbably was led by Murchison, who signed with LA 13 days ago after Tennessee cut him.
INJURIES
Murchison left in the fourth quarter with a neck injury. … Dulcich was ruled out with a hamstring injury late in the fourth quarter.
UP NEXT
Broncos: At Chiefs on Sunday.
Rams: “At” Chargers on Sunday.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP—NFL
A battering winter storm knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across the United States on Saturday, left millions more to worry about the prospect of further outages and crippled police, fire departments and an airport in snow-blown New York state. Across the country, officials have attributed at least 19 deaths to exposure, icy car crashes and other effects of the storm, including two people who died in their homes outside Buffalo, New York, when emergency crews couldn’t reach them amid historic blizzard conditions.
Deep snow, single-digit temperatures and day-old power outages sent Buffalo residents scrambling Saturday to get out of their houses to anywhere that had heat. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Saturday that the Buffalo Niagara International Airport will be closed through Monday morning and almost every fire truck in Buffalo was stranded in the snow.
“No matter how many emergency vehicles we have, they cannot get through the conditions as we speak,” Hochul said.
Forecasters predicted multiple feet of snow in Buffalo through Sunday, CBS News correspondent Naomi Ruchim reports.
Blinding blizzards, freezing rain and frigid cold also knocked out power from Maine to Seattle, while a major electricity grid operator warned the 65 million people it serves across the eastern U.S. that rolling blackouts might be required.
Pennsylvania-based PJM Interconnection said power plants are having difficulty operating in the frigid weather and has asked residents in 13 states to refrain from unnecessary use of electricity. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides electricity to 10 million people in Tennessee and parts of six surrounding states, directed local power companies to implement planned interruptions but ended the measure by Saturday afternoon.
A woman waits for a bus as below freezing temperatures arrived with a winter storm in Louisville, Kentucky, December 23, 2022.
Matt Stone/USA Today Network via Reuters
Across the six New England states, more than 273,000 electric customers remained without power on Saturday, with Maine the hardest hit and some utilities warning it could be days before power is restored. PJM Interconnection, which covers all or parts of 13 states and and Washington, D.C., also warned rolling blackouts might be required.
In North Carolina, 169,000 customers were without power Saturday afternoon, down from a peak of more than 485,000, but utility officials said rolling blackouts would continue for “the next few days.”
Those without power included James Reynolds of Greensboro, who said his housemate, a 70-year-old with diabetes and severe arthritis, spent the morning bundled beside a kerosene heater with indoor temperatures “hovering in the 50s.”
In the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga, two people died in their homes on Friday when emergency crews could not reach them in time to treat their medical emergencies, according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz. He said another person died in Buffalo and said the blizzard may be “the worst storm in our community’s history.”
Forecasters said 28 inches of snow accumulated as of Saturday in Buffalo — part of an area that saw 6 feet fall just over a month ago, resulting in three deaths. More is expected overnight.
The downfall blocked the furnace in the home of Brian LaPrade, who woke up Saturday morning to temperatures in his Buffalo house dipping to below 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
“This morning I had to go out and dig out the vents,” LaPrade told the Associated Press. “As it was, the snow was taller than my snow blower.”
It was taking ambulances over three hours to do one trip to a hospital, in areas where an ambulance can get through the snow, Poloncarz said. Plows were on the roads, but large snow drifts, abandoned cars and downed power lines were slowing progress.
Ice covers Hoak’s restaurant along the Lake Erie shoreline on December 24, 2022, in Hamburg, New York.
John Normile/Getty Images
On the Ohio Turnpike, four died in a massive pileup involving some 50 vehicles. A Kansas City, Missouri, driver was killed Thursday after skidding into a creek, and three others died Wednesday in separate crashes on icy northern Kansas roads.
A utility worker in Ohio was also killed Friday while trying to restore power, a company said. Buckeye Rural Electric Cooperative said the 22-year-old died in “an electrical contact incident” near Pedro in Lawrence County.
A woman in Vermont died in a hospital Friday after a tree broke in the high winds and fell on her. Police in Colorado Springs said they found the dead body of a person who appeared to be homeless as subzero temperatures and snow descended upon the region. In Madison, Wisconsin, a 57-year-old woman died Friday after falling through the ice on a river, the Rock County Sheriff’s Office announced.
In Lansing, Michigan, an 82-year-old woman died after being found Friday morning curled up in the snow outside of her assisted living community, Bath Township police reported. A snowplow driver found the woman as temperatures hovered around 10 degrees.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said one person died in a traffic accident attributed to the weather in western Kentucky and a homeless person died in Louisville.
Along Interstate 71 in Kentucky, Terry Henderson and her husband, Rick, were stuck in a massive traffic jam caused by several accidents for 34 hours. The truck drivers weathered the wait in a rig outfitted with a diesel heater, a toilet and a refrigerator but nonetheless regretted trying to drive from Alabama to their home near Akron, Ohio, for Christmas.
“I wish we should have stayed,” said Terry Henderson, after they got moving again Saturday. “We should have sat.”
The storm was nearly unprecedented in its scope, stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60% of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, the National Weather Service said.
As millions of Americans were traveling ahead of Christmas, more than 2,360 flights within, into or out of the U.S. were canceled Saturday, according to the tracking site FlightAware. Airlines were playing catch-up with crew shortages and de-icing slowing the return to normal, Ruchim reports. In Seattle, an ice storm shut down multiple runways.
In Mexico, migrants camped near the U.S. border in unusually cold temperatures as they awaited a U.S. Supreme Court decision on pandemic-era restrictions that prevent many from seeking asylum.
Forecasters said a bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm — had developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow.
Western New York often sees dramatic lake-effect snow, which is caused by cool air picking up moisture from the warm water, then dumping it on the land. But even area residents found conditions to be dire on Christmas Eve.
Latricia Stroud said she and her two daughters, 1 and 12, were stranded without heat or power in their Buffalo house since Friday afternoon, with the snow too deep to leave.
“I have to go over a snowbank to get out,” Stroud told the AP. “There’s a warming center, I just need a ride to get there.”
MISSION, Kan. — A wild winter storm continued to envelop much of the United States on Saturday, bringing blinding blizzards, freezing rain, flooding and life-threatening cold that created mayhem for those traveling for the Christmas holiday.
The storm that arrived earlier in the week downed power lines, littered highways with piles of cars in deadly accidents and led to mass flight cancellations.
The storm was nearly unprecedented in its scope, stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60% of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, the National Weather Service said.
Freezing rain coated much of the Pacific Northwest in a layer of ice, while people in the Northeast faced the threat of coastal and inland flooding.
The frigid temperatures and gusty winds were expected to produce “dangerously cold wind chills across much of the central and eastern U.S. this holiday weekend,” the weather service said, adding that the conditions “will create a potentially life-threatening hazard for travelers that become stranded.”
“In some areas, being outdoors could lead to frostbite in minutes,” it said.
Adding to the woes were power outages that by late Friday were still affecting more than a million homes and businesses, according to the website PowerOutage, which tracks utility reports.
As millions of Americans were traveling ahead of Christmas, more than 5,700 flights within, into or out of the U.S. were canceled Friday, according to the tracking site FlightAware.
Multiple highways were closed and crashes claimed at least six lives, officials said. At least two people died in a massive pileup involving some 50 vehicles on the Ohio Turnpike. A Kansas City, Missouri, driver was killed Thursday after skidding into a creek, and three others died Wednesday in separate crashes on icy northern Kansas roads.
In Canada, WestJet canceled all flights Friday at Toronto Pearson International Airport, as meteorologists there warned of a potential once-in-a-decade weather event. While in Mexico, migrants camped near the U.S. border in unusually cold temperatures as they awaited a U.S. Supreme Court decision on pandemic-era restrictions that prevent many from seeking asylum.
Forecasters said a bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm — had developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow.
Even people in Florida were braced for unusually chilly weather as rare freeze warnings were issued for large parts of the state over the holiday weekend.
Activists were rushing to get homeless people out of the cold. Nearly 170 adults and children were keeping warm early Friday in Detroit at a shelter and a warming center that are designed to hold 100 people.
“This is a lot of extra people” but it wasn’t an option to turn anyone away, said Faith Fowler, the executive director of Cass Community Social Services, which runs both facilities.
Emergency weather shelters in Portland, Oregon, called for volunteers amid high demand and staffing issues as snow, freezing rain, ice and frigid temperatures descended upon the area.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said she was deploying the National Guard to haul timber to the Oglala Sioux and Rosebud Sioux tribes and help with snow removal.
“We have families that are way out there that we haven’t heard from in two weeks,” said Wayne Boyd, chief of staff to the Rosebud Sioux president.
On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Harlie Young was huddled with five children and her father around a wood stove as 12-foot (3.6-meter) snow drifts blocked the house.
“We’re just trying to look on the bright side that they’re still coming and they didn’t forget us,” she said Friday.
Calling it a “kitchen sink storm,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency. In parts of New York City, tidal flooding inundated roads, homes and businesses Friday morning.
In Boston, rain combined with a high tide, flooded some downtown streets on Friday.
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Bleed reported from Little Rock, Arkansas. Associated Press journalists Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit; Gillian Flaccus in Portland, Oregon; Zeke Miller in Washington, D.C.; and Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed to this report.
MISSION, Kan. — A wild winter storm continued to envelop much of the United States on Saturday, bringing blinding blizzards, freezing rain, flooding and life-threatening cold that created mayhem for those traveling for the Christmas holiday.
The storm that arrived earlier in the week downed power lines, littered highways with piles of cars in deadly accidents and led to mass flight cancellations.
The storm was nearly unprecedented in its scope, stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60% of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, the National Weather Service said.
Freezing rain coated much of the Pacific Northwest in a layer of ice, while people in the Northeast faced the threat of coastal and inland flooding.
The frigid temperatures and gusty winds were expected to produce “dangerously cold wind chills across much of the central and eastern U.S. this holiday weekend,” the weather service said, adding that the conditions “will create a potentially life-threatening hazard for travelers that become stranded.”
“In some areas, being outdoors could lead to frostbite in minutes,” it said.
Adding to the woes were power outages that by late Friday were still affecting more than a million homes and businesses, according to the website PowerOutage, which tracks utility reports.
As millions of Americans were traveling ahead of Christmas, more than 5,700 flights within, into or out of the U.S. were canceled Friday, according to the tracking site FlightAware.
Multiple highways were closed and crashes claimed at least six lives, officials said. At least two people died in a massive pileup involving some 50 vehicles on the Ohio Turnpike. A Kansas City, Missouri, driver was killed Thursday after skidding into a creek, and three others died Wednesday in separate crashes on icy northern Kansas roads.
In Canada, WestJet canceled all flights Friday at Toronto Pearson International Airport, as meteorologists there warned of a potential once-in-a-decade weather event. While in Mexico, migrants camped near the U.S. border in unusually cold temperatures as they awaited a U.S. Supreme Court decision on pandemic-era restrictions that prevent many from seeking asylum.
Forecasters said a bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm — had developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow.
Even people in Florida were braced for unusually chilly weather as rare freeze warnings were issued for large parts of the state over the holiday weekend.
Activists were rushing to get homeless people out of the cold. Nearly 170 adults and children were keeping warm early Friday in Detroit at a shelter and a warming center that are designed to hold 100 people.
“This is a lot of extra people” but it wasn’t an option to turn anyone away, said Faith Fowler, the executive director of Cass Community Social Services, which runs both facilities.
Emergency weather shelters in Portland, Oregon, called for volunteers amid high demand and staffing issues as snow, freezing rain, ice and frigid temperatures descended upon the area.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said she was deploying the National Guard to haul timber to the Oglala Sioux and Rosebud Sioux tribes and help with snow removal.
“We have families that are way out there that we haven’t heard from in two weeks,” said Wayne Boyd, chief of staff to the Rosebud Sioux president.
On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Harlie Young was huddled with five children and her father around a wood stove as 12-foot (3.6-meter) snow drifts blocked the house.
“We’re just trying to look on the bright side that they’re still coming and they didn’t forget us,” she said Friday.
Calling it a “kitchen sink storm,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency. In parts of New York City, tidal flooding inundated roads, homes and businesses Friday morning.
In Boston, rain combined with a high tide, flooded some downtown streets on Friday.
———
Bleed reported from Little Rock, Arkansas. Associated Press journalists Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit; Gillian Flaccus in Portland, Oregon; Zeke Miller in Washington, D.C.; and Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed to this report.
GREENWOOD, Miss. — A federal trial has been delayed until May for the former leader of a Mississippi grain storage and processing company who is charged with defrauding farmers, banks and the Mississippi Department of Agriculture of tens of millions of dollars.
John R. Coleman of Greenwood, Mississippi, is the former CEO of Express Grain Terminals, LLC. His trial originally was set to begin Jan. 30 in Oxford. U.S. District Judge Michael Mills signed an order Wednesday setting a new trial date of May 8, the Greenwood Commonwealth reported.
Coleman’s attorney, John Colette, requested a delay this week, saying he needed a significant amount of time to obtain, review and go over evidence with Coleman. He said Coleman did not object.
U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner and Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced in early December that a federal grand jury had indicted Coleman on Nov. 15.
Federal court documents say that from June 2018 to October 2022, Coleman altered Express Grain’s audited financial statements to receive a state warehouse license and lied about the amount of debt he owed on corn, wheat, soybeans or other crops held at the facility.
The federal indictment said farmers delivered grain to Express Grain throughout the 2021 harvest season but did not receive payment.
“Coleman’s fraud caused widespread financial hardship and suffering throughout the Mississippi Delta and elsewhere,” the federal indictment said.
In September 2021, Express Grain had $70 million in outstanding loans from UMB Bank in Kansas City, Missouri.
If convicted on the federal charges, Coleman would face up to 180 years in prison.
A Leflore County grand jury also indicted Coleman on five counts of making false representations to defraud government and one count of false pretenses.
Law enforcement agents raided the Express Grain offices and Coleman’s home in February, days before the company’s properties were sold at auction. A legal battle over Express Grain’s proceeds was settled earlier this year. Farmers who chose to participate in the settlement were able to claim a share of $9 million.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A large of swath of the U.S. braced Tuesday for a dangerous mix of below-freezing temperatures, howling winds and blizzard conditions scheduled to arrive on the first day of winter and disrupt plans for millions of holiday travelers.
The blast of wintry weather will descend upon the Plains and upper Midwest on Wednesday, then blow toward Appalachia and the East Coast. Authorities across the country are worried about the potential for power outages and warned people to take precautions to protect the elderly, the homeless and livestock — and, if possible, to postpone travel.
The northern-most regions of the U.S. could see wind chills approaching 70 degrees below zero (minus 57 Celsius) in the coming days.
Even warm-weather states are preparing for the worst. Texas officials are hoping to avoid a repeat of the February 2021 storm that left millions without power, some for several days. Temperatures were expected to dip to near freezing as far south as central Florida by the weekend, raising worries about the homeless.
The drop in temperatures will be precipitous. In Denver, the high on Wednesday will be around 50 degrees (10 degrees Celsius); by Thursday, it is forecast to plummet to around zero (minus 18 Celsius).
The heaviest snow is expected in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, according to the National Weather Service, and frigid wind will be fierce across the country’s mid-section.
“I would not be surprised if there are lots of delays due to wind and also a lot of delays due to the snow,” said Bob Oravec, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland.
Flights nationwide were generally on schedule by midday Tuesday, but not in Seattle. A combination of snow, rain and low visibility caused nearly 200 flight cancellations at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Tuesday morning. Greyhound cancelled bus service between Seattle and Spokane, Washington, due to winter weather.
In Oregon, one person died Tuesday in an accident on Interstate 84 near Rooster Rock State Park when a semi-truck collided with their SUV. Police said the thin layer of ice on the highway may have been a contributing factor.
Nearly 113 million Americans were expected to travel 50 miles or more from home this holiday season, up 4% from last year but still short of the record 119 million in 2019, according to AAA. Most were planning to travel by car; around 6% were planning to fly.
Several inches of snow were expected from Chicago through the Great Lakes region by Friday. Snow also was forecast in the lower Midwest. With the storm approaching, Delta, American, United and Southwest airlines said they were waiving change fees for people at airports impacted by bad weather.
Snow and near-record cold temperatures had Montana under a winter storm warning. The National Weather Service predicted wind-chill levels that could approach 60 degrees below zero (minus 51 Celsius) by Thursday morning. Exposed skin could be frostbitten in a matter of minutes.
Almost impossibly, the forecast was even worse for parts of Wyoming. The 1,500-resident town of Lusk could see wind chills of 70 degrees below zero (minus 57 Celsius.) The National Weather Service’s Cheyenne office said the temperature and wind chill Wednesday night into Thursday “features some of the most extreme values you will ever see!”
“Please take precautions: Check on elderly/vulnerable, protect pets, shelter livestock, cover exposed skin!” the service said on Twitter.
Karina Jones’ family raises about 400 head of cattle in north-central Nebraska near Broken Bow, where wind chills as low as 50 below zero (minus 46 Celsius) are expected Thursday and Friday mornings. She said Nebraska cattle ranchers are “a hearty bunch,” but the bitter cold is rough.
Ranchers “lie awake at night praying that you did everything you could for your livestock,” Jones said.
In Kansas, where up to 4 inches of snow is expected to accompany wind chills dipping to 40 degrees below zero (minus 40 Celsius), Shawn Tiffany runs three feedlots with about 35,000 cattle combined. He’s worried about keeping 40 employees safe and warm.
“Every conversation I’ve had for the last four days has consisted of ‘Are you prepared and are you ready?’ Everybody is taking it very seriously,” Tiffany said.
In Texas, where the temperature is expected to drop to around 11 degrees (minus 12 Celsius), the bitter cold was expected to be another test for the state’s power grid.
A historic freeze in February 2021 led to one of the biggest power outages in U.S. history, knocking out electricity to 4 million customers in Texas and leading to hundreds of deaths.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state’s power grid, said last week it expects to have sufficient generation to meet anticipated electricity demand during this week’s winter blast. The council said it has implemented reforms to increase reliability, including bringing more generation online sooner if needed and purchasing more reserve power.
But a report on the power grid that ERCOT published last month said that Texans could still face possible power outages this winter if an extreme storm prompted very high demand for electricity.
The frigid weather offers another hurdle to the homeless. In Kansas City, Missouri, emergency shelters are opening for anyone needing warmth, food or safety. Organizers warn, though, that capacity is limited overnight.
“We’re going to get in as many as we can,” said Karl Ploeger, chief development officer for City Union Mission, a Christian nonprofit.
If the shelters are over-capacity at night, the mission works with other organizations to try and find alternatives spaces for people.
“If we’re full and some other sources are full, they are going to have to figure out how to keep themselves warm. We try to avoid that, we don’t want that to happen, especially in the dangerous conditions,” Ploeger said.
Northern Florida cities such as Tallahassee see temperatures in the low 20s (minus 3 Celsius) on Friday, Christmas Eve and Christmas nights. The forecast calls for temperatures to drop to near freezing as far south as Tampa.
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Lozano reported from Houston and Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska. Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, Julie Walker in New York, Jeff Martin in Atlanta, Jill Zeman Bleed in Little Rock, Arkansas, Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit and Amy Hanson in Helena, Montana, contributed to this report.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Kansas City charter school with a largely minority student population has fired a white teacher who was recorded repeatedly using a racial slur in his classes, school administrators said.
University Academy officials said in a letter to families that Johnny Wolfe, a history and African American studies teacher in the upper school, had been fired after an investigation prompted by concerns raised last month by students and alumni, The Kansas City Star reported Monday.
University Academy is a public charter school with about 1,100 students, 96% of whom are students of color, and most are Black.
Several videos and recordings of students confronting Wolfe about using the racial slur multiple times were posted on KC Defender, a Black community media platform.
In the recordings, he defends his use of the slur, saying that he was speaking in an “educational context.”
“You can like it, not like it, be upset about it all you like,” he said. “But ultimately this is a ridiculous conversation.”
Students, parents and community members then held a town hall to address racism at the school and a Change.org petition was started to demand that Wolfe be fired.
After an investigation, University Academy officials fired Wolfe and committed to taking several steps to improve diversity and racial awareness, according to the letter.
The steps include mandatory harassment and discrimination training for staff, plus culturally responsive leadership training for administrators. University Academy officials say they will also work to increase the racial diversity of the school’s staff, which is currently 59% white, 39% Black, 1% Asian and 1% Hispanic.
Officials said they are using the incident as an opportunity “to understand where we have fallen short and made mistakes. We are committed to evolve and improve. Our objective is to return University Academy to a manner that ensures an incident of this nature does not occur again.”
The new partnership educates a culturally diverse audience about uterine fibroids
Press Release –
Dec 13, 2022
KANSAS CITY, Mo., December 13, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– MIVA Medical, the leading endovascular treatment center in the greater Kansas City Metro area, is pleased to announce a new marketing partnership with Kansas City’s #1 Hip Hop and R&B radio station KPRS HOT 103 JAMZ.
The new partnership between MIVA Medical and KPRS Hot 103 JAMZ provides an important opportunity for MIVA Medical and the radio station to educate a culturally diverse audience about uterine fibroids; a common condition found in women aged 25-54. Uterine Fibroids are non-cancerous tumors found on the uterus and often are very painful and cause excessive bleeding during menstrual cycles.
“There is a lot to know about uterine fibroids and the treatment options available. We want women in the Kansas City community to know about their treatment choices when it comes to uterine fibroids which are 5x’s more commonly found in African American women and 3x’s more prevalent in Hispanic women,” says Board Certified and Fellowship TrainedInterventional Radiologist Dr. Silas Williams.
“When we heard about what MIVA Medical wanted to do we felt it was important to help our listeners become more educated about this medical condition, so we partnered with MIVA to produce a series of public service announcements called ‘Your Health Matters’ to shine a light on this problem and its treatment options,” said KPRS General Manager Victor Dyson.
MIVA Medical made the decision to team with KPRS Hot 103 JAMZ because its radio station is known to reach an ethnically diverse audience of loyal listeners and is the #1 Urban station delivering women 25-54 all week long. When Hot 103 JAMZ listeners tune in to their favorite radio station they will hear a series of interview segments with Dr. Williams answering most asked questions like “what are uterine fibroids?” How are they diagnosed? What are the symptoms? What treatment options are available besides surgery? And, how does the minimally invasive treatment called Uterine Fibroid Embolization compare to a Hysterectomy?
“Most people are not familiar with interventional radiology as a specialty and the broad range of medical conditions we treat. Thanks to advancements in x-ray and imaging technology, we can navigate inside the body and treat conditions such as uterine fibroids without the need for open surgery. It’s important to help folks understand every option out there and KPRS Kansas City offered us the broadest way to reach women most at risk of developing uterine fibroids” said endovascular specialist Dr. Silas Williams.
Listeners can also find information on the KPRS.com web page where they can click a banner for more info about uterine fibroids taking them to more information and videos at miva-medical.com. There is even a quiz listeners can take at https://miva-medical.com/uterine-fibroids to learn more.
ABOUT MIVA Medical
MIVA Medical (www.miva-medical.com) is an office-based lab that focuses on interventional radiology and minimally invasive options for a variety of patient conditions – including oncology, wounds, leg pain, fibroids, and osteoarthritis. MIVA is dedicated to staying on top and in front of the most exciting advances in treatments for a variety of women’s and men’s health issues with a strong focus on lower extremity arterial disease and liver cancer therapies. MIVA works collaboratively with referring physician colleagues and takes a patient-centric approach to endovascular care. They are committed to the highest level of patient care in a safe, comfortable outpatient setting.
ST. LOUIS — St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner on Friday accused Missouri’s attorney general of seeking sanctions against her “because he has no case” in his effort to keep Lamar Johnson in prison for a murder that Johnson has long contended he had nothing to do with.
Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt asked a St. Louis judge on Thursday to sanction Gardner, a Democrat, accusing her of concealing evidence as she seeks to vacate Johnson’s conviction. Johnson was convicted of killing 25-year-old Marcus Boyd in 1994 in an alleged drug dispute.
At issue in the sanction request is forensic testing on a jacket seized from Johnson’s trunk after his arrest. The crime lab in Kansas City, Missouri, recently determined the jacket contained gunshot residue. Schmitt accused Gardner of concealing that evidence, which Schmitt, in a court filing, called material “because it tends to prove that Johnson is guilty.”
In a response motion on Friday, Gardner said the failure to disclose the gunshot residue testing was a simple oversight — and irrelevant since the jacket in question wasn’t used in the crime. Gardner said her office wasn’t even aware of the gunshot residue report until rechecking emails on Thursday, after Schmitt filed the sanction motion.
“It concerns gunshot residue testing conducted on a red-and-black Chicago Blackhawks jacket that was not even used in the crime,” Gardner’s court filing states. “In 28 years, no eyewitness has ever mentioned a red Blackhawks jacket. Considering that Boyd was shot at close range, one would also expect the jacket to be covered in blood spatter. It’s not.”
Her filing called Schmitt’s motion “a weak attempt to change the narrative because the Attorney General has no case.”
Johnson was convicted of killing Boyd over a $40 drug debt and received a life sentence while another suspect, Phil Campbell, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in exchange for a seven-year prison term.
Johnson claimed he was with his girlfriend miles away when Boyd was killed. Meanwhile, years after the killing, the state’s only witness recanted his identification of Johnson and Campbell as the shooters. Two other men have confessed to Boyd’s killing and said Johnson was not involved.
Gardner launched an investigation in collaboration with lawyers at the Midwest Innocence Project. She said the investigation found misconduct by a prosecutor, secret payments made to the witness, police reports that were falsified and perjured testimony.
The former prosecutor and the detective who investigated the case rejected Gardner’s allegations.
Schmitt’s sanctions filing states that in April, Gardner sent the jacket to the Kansas City lab. The lab report said it found no DNA on the jacket. But last month, another test determined it did contain gunshot residue. Gardner said the “unexpected and nondescript email” that provided the gunshot residue report had gone unnoticed.
In a response filing, Schmitt’s office reiterated that sanctions should stand.
“If an attorney is using her email for the exchange of reports and other evidence, it strains credulity to suggest that emails simply languish unread indefinitely, and it falls short of the care that should be employed when dealing with matters related to discovery in ongoing cases,” the court filing stated.
Gardner was disciplined earlier this year amid allegations of concealing evidence in another high-profile case.
In April, she reached an agreement with the Missouri Office of Disciplinary Counsel in which she acknowledged mistakes in her handling of the prosecution of former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens. She received a written reprimand.
In that case, Gardner conceded she failed to produce documents and mistakenly maintained that all documents had been provided to Greitens’ lawyers in the 2018 criminal case that accused him of taking a compromising photo of a woman and threatening to use it if she spoke of their extramarital relationship.
The charge was eventually dropped, but Greitens resigned in June 2018.
Johnson’s claims of innocence were compelling enough to spur a state law adopted in 2021 that makes it easier for prosecutors to get new hearings in cases where there is new evidence of a wrongful conviction. The new law freed another longtime inmate last year.
Kevin Strickland was released from prison at age 62 in November 2021 after serving more than 40 years for a triple murder in Kansas City. He maintained that he wasn’t at the crime scene, and Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said her review convinced her that Strickland was telling the truth. A judge ordered Strickland freed.
TOPEKA, Kan. — An oil spill in a creek in northeastern Kansas shut down a major pipeline that carries oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast, briefly causing oil prices to rise Thursday.
Canada-based TC Energy said it shut down its Keystone system Wednesday night following a drop in pipeline pressure. It said oil spilled into a creek in Washington County, Kansas, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Kansas City.
The company on Thursday estimated the spill’s size at about 14,000 barrels and said the affected pipeline segment had been “isolated” and the oil contained at the site with booms, or barriers. It did not say how the spill occurred.
“People are sometimes not aware of of the havoc that these things can wreak until the disaster happens,” said Zack Pistora, who lobbies the Kansas Legislature for the Sierra Club’s state chapter.
Concerns that spills could pollute waterways spurred opposition to plans by TC Energy to build another crude oil pipeline in the Keystone system, the 1,200-mile (1,900-kilometer) Keystone XL, which would have cut across Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. Critics also argued that using crude from western Canada’s oil sands would worsen climate change, and President Joe Biden’s cancelation of a U.S. permit for the project led the company to pull the plug last year.
In 2019, the Keystone pipeline leaked an estimated 383,000 gallons (1.4 million liters) of oil in eastern North Dakota.
Janet Kleeb, who founded the Bold Nebraska environmental and landowner rights group that campaigned against the Keystone XL, said there have been at least 22 spills along the original Keystone pipeline since it began service in 2010. She said federal studies have shown the type of heavy tar sands oil the pipeline carries can be especially difficult to clean up in water because it tends to sink.
“All oil spills are difficult, but tar sands in particular are very toxic and very difficult, so I’m awfully concerned,” said Kleeb, who is also the Nebraska Democratic Party’s chair.
But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said there were no known effects yet on drinking water wells or the public, and the oil didn’t move from the creek to larger waterways. Randy Hubbard, the Washington County Emergency Management coordinator, said there were no evacuations ordered because the break occurred in rural pastureland.
TC Energy said it had set up environmental monitoring at the site, including around-the-clock air quality monitoring.
“Our primary focus right now is the health and safety of onsite staff and personnel, the surrounding community, and mitigating risk to the environment,” a company statement said.
Oil prices briefly surged at midday Thursday amid news of the spill, with the cost of a barrel of oil for near-term contracts rising by nearly 5%, and above the cost of oil contracts further into the future. That typically suggests anxiety in the market over immediate supply.
A U.S. Energy Information Administration spokesperson said the Keystone pipeline moves about 600,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada to Cushing, Oklahoma, where it can connect to another pipeline to the Gulf Coast. That’s compared to the total of 3.5 million to 4 million barrels of Canadian oil imported into the U.S. every day.
Past Keystone spills have led to outages that lasted about two weeks, but this outage could possibly be longer because it involves a body of water, said analysts at RBC Capital Markets in a note to investors. Depending on the spill’s location, it’s possible that a portion of the pipeline could restart sooner, they said.
“It’s something to keep an eye on,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, which tracks gasoline prices. “It could eventually impact oil supplies to refiners, which could be severe if it lasts more than a few days.”
The spill was 5 miles (8 kilometers) northeast of Washington, the county seat of about 1,100 residents. Paul Stewart, an area farmer, said part of it was contained on his land using yellow booms and a dam of dirt. The spill occurred in Mill Creek, which flows into the Little Blue River.
The Little Blue feeds the Big Blue River, which flows into Tuttle Creek Lake, north of Manhattan, home of Kansas State University. The EPA said the oil did not affect the Little Blue.
Dan Thalmann, publisher and editor of The Washington County News, a weekly publication, said crews were creating a rock path to the creek because recent rains made fields too soft to move in heavy machinery.
“Gosh, the traffic past my house is unbelievable — trucks after trucks after trucks,” said Stewart, who took down an electric fence he’d finished putting up Wednesday, fearing it might be knocked down and dragged into a field.
Chris Pannbacker said the pipeline runs through her family’s farm. She and her husband drove north of their farmhouse and across a bridge over Mill Creek.
“We looked at it from both sides, and it was black on both sides,” said Pannbacker, a reporter for the Marysville Advocate newspaper.
Junior Roop, the sexton of a cemetery near the spill site, said people could smell the oil in town.
“It was about like driving by a refinery,” he said.
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Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas, and Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska. AP Business Writer Cathy Bussewitz contributed reporting from New York.
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Follow John Hanna on Twitter at https://twitter.com/apjdhanna
