ALAN SCHER ZAGIER, Associated Press

ST. LOUIS (AP) — It’s been a quieter night in Ferguson, Missouri. Some demonstrators returned to the streets Wednesday evening to protest the fatal shooting of a black 18-year-old by a white officer, but in diminished numbers.

They marched around a single block in the St. Louis suburb as a thunderstorm filled the sky with lighting and dumped rain. Police still stood guard, but many wore regular uniforms rather than riot gear.

Missouri State Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson, who is in charge of security, says there were six arrests, compared to 47 the previous night. He called it “a very good night.”

Johnson said a visit earlier by Attorney General Eric Holder let people know their voices had been heard. Holder had sought to reassure people about the investigation into Michael Brown’s death.

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — A sales tax increase approved by Leavenworth voters earlier this year is paying off with a 40 percent cut in the city’s property tax.

The City Commission this week passed a $38 million operating budget for 2015 that includes a 21-mill drop in the property tax for homeowners and business owners.

Leavenworth officials note the decline affects only the city’s mill levy, which is separate from other taxing authorities such as the school district and Leavenworth County.

The decrease is funded by a 1 percent increase in the city sales tax approved by Leavenworth voters in February.

Mayor Mark Preisinger called the city’s property tax reduction the largest in Kansas.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Police are searching for whoever abandoned a truck that rolled down a hill and into a Topeka home.

Topeka Police Lt. Jana Harden says the truck was empty when it hit the house Wednesday evening. She says the truck was involved in a hit-and-run crash earlier in the day.

Harden says someone drove the truck up the hill and abandoned it. The vehicle then rolled down the other side, hitting the home.

Police say the driver wasn’t the owner of the truck. They didn’t report the damages to the house or whether anyone was home at the time.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Gov. Sam Brownback plans to outline how his administration is fighting a planned federal labor rule that aims to protect domestic service workers.

The governor scheduled a news conference Thursday at the Independent Living Resource Center in Wichita to talk about the issue.

Kansas contends the new rule that takes effect next year would hurt Kansans who receive home-based services that allow them to continue to live in their own homes. The state says it would increase the cost of services.

The state has asked U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez for an exemption for disabled and elderly Kansans who direct their own care.

The federal agency says the rule is designed to ensure domestic service workers are protected by federal wage and overtime rules.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas state agency has shuttered a Wichita group home after regulators say they found improperly stored medications, rodent infestations and unlicensed staff members.

The Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services on Tuesday ordered the immediate closure of the Atishwin Institute. The state also revoked the license for the substance abuse treatment group home.

The facility has 35 beds and was assisting 25 residents when it was closed.

The agency says the institute was noncompliant with federal regulations through the violations. Inspectors also say they found disconnected smoke alarms.

The institute has 15 days to request a hearing over the license revocation. The agency is helping to relocate the residents.

RIK STEVENS, Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Winter’s going to be colder than usual and next summer hotter. So says the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the familiar, 223-year-old chronicler of climate, folksy advice and fun facts.

Published Wednesday, the almanac predicts a “super-cold” winter in two-thirds of the country, or what Editor Janice Stillman calls “a refriger-nation.” Before unpacking the parka, remember “colder than average” is about 2 to 5 degrees difference.

The almanac says summer will be warmer than usual in most places while a drop in rainfall in the country’s midsection could hurt crop yields.

The almanac says California’s drought will likely continue despite some winter downpours in the west.

It says next year’s hurricane season isn’t expected to be especially active though a major storm could hit the Gulf Coast in late August.

WELLSVILLE, Kan- A Kansas man was injured in an accident just after 4 p.m. on Wednesday in Franklin County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1999 Chevy Suburban driven by Thompson, Jason Lee Thompson, 24, Pomona, was southbound on Interstate 35 four miles west of Wellsville in the number 1 lane.

The passenger rear tire came apart while traveling down the interstate at highway speeds and driver lost control of the vehicle.

The Suburban went through the median into and across the northbound lanes onto the northbound shoulder and rolled two times

The driver was found lying with his feet hanging out the driver’s side window and head in the passenger seat.

Thompson was transported to Overland Park Regional Medical Center.

The driver stated he was not wearing his seatbelt.

To just mourn the brutal death of photojournalist James Foley … seems not enough.

To just be sickened by the shabby and cowardly manner in which he was beheaded by the terrorist group ISIS … feels inadequate.

And to hear his killers say Foley died in retaliation for U.S. military airstrikes in Iraq … is to face the twisted logic of generational vendettas that so scar the Middle East conflict on which Foley was reporting.

Foley, 40, was kidnapped in November 2012 while reporting on the Syrian civil war for a Boston-based online news organization, Global Post. He also had worked by PBS NewsHour and NBC News, and had returned to reporting after being abducted in 2011 and held for nearly 40 days by Libyan government troops.

Dozens of journalists have gone missing in Syria since 2012. And the Committee to Protect Journalists lists, world-wide, nearly 50 journalists and other media workers who have been killed or died thus far in 2014 while gathering and reporting news.

A video posted on YouTube shows Foley reading a statement critical of the U.S. bombings of ISIS fighters in Iraq and then being beheaded by a masked executioner. The video ends by showing another captive American journalist, Steven Sotloff. “The life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision,” says the ISIS figure in black.

Foley’s family created a “Free James Foley” page on Facebook to seek his release, which now carries a plea from his mother, Diane Foley: “We implore the kidnappers to spare the lives of the remaining hostages. Like Jim, they are innocents. They have no control over American government policy in Iraq, Syria or anywhere in the world.”

She also says, “We have never been prouder of our son Jim. He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people.”

The Newseum’s Journalists Memorial, in Washington, D.C., carries the names of more than 2,200 journalists who have died since the 1800s in the pursuit of news. Each year since 1997, the Memorial has been rededicated, and a symbolic group of new names is now added to represent all who died in the previous year, to call the world’s attention to the inherent danger globally in reporting the news.

In a June interview on the Newseum Institute’s “Journalism/Works” online news program, immediately after speaking at the 2014 Memorial rededication, Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of The Associated Press, agreed that there are increased dangers to journalists worldwide.

She noted the irony that the very new media and new technology that make it possible to report the news quicker and to more people also means that journalists no longer are considered noncombatants in war zones.

“Even in the wars in the Balkans 20 years ago, you could still put ‘press’ signs, TV, on your car. And the combatants on all sides wanted their stories told and they felt it was important for you to help tell their story,” Carroll said. “Not that you were taking sides … but you were there to tell their story that otherwise would not be told.”

Carroll said, “That’s really changed a lot. No one labels themselves ‘press’ anymore because that makes you a target. And part of the reason is these factions can tell their own stories. … Journalists are no longer considered a tool to get the message out.”

Sadly, it’s not just in war zones that journalists face injury and death. Among the representative group added to the Newseum’s memorial earlier this year are journalists from all areas of the globe who also challenged political figures and movements and who reported on drug gangs and other criminal activity.

Foley and others who cover conflict, or place themselves at risk reporting or commenting on any number of controversial subjects, are willing witnesses on behalf of all of us — and necessary ones. As Carroll notes, it’s far too easy in this electronic age to shape messages from a singular point of view. The value of having multiple voices is multiplied exponentially by the opportunity we now have to read, see and hear them.

Perhaps the ultimate context in which to place the horror of Foley’s death, and others like it, can be found in history’s lesson that such tactics ultimately fail. Messages can be blocked for a time, and messengers stilled for the moment — but not for all time. Even now, the world knows ISIS for what it is.

And to those left to carry on the work of James Foley, it may be the words of Winston Churchill, spoken in Britain’s darkest hours of WWII, in late 1941, that offer guidance and inspiration:

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force.”

True then. True now.

Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institute’s First Amendment Center. gpolicinski@newseum.org