He is counted among the most infamous drug traffickers the world has ever known — a man who once made the chilling claim that he had taken between 2,000 and 3,000 lives.

So when Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the notorious former boss of the Sinaloa Cartel, walked into a New York courtroom in 2017, US federal agent Eric Balliet had already formed a picture of what he expected to see.

“This was the second most wanted man on the planet at the time behind Osama bin Laden, so I was expecting him to resemble some kind of criminal genius,” he recalls.

“But he looked like any average, middle-aged Hispanic man. He seemed kind of awkward and gave a sheepish wave to his wife. Then, a few minutes later, we started hearing about all the people he’d killed.”

For Balliet, that 2017 hearing marked a defining professional moment. As a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, he had helped drive the operation that ultimately brought down one of Mexico’s most feared cartel leaders.

By intercepting texts exchanged between El Chapo and his closest confidants, Eric helped identify his secret hiding place deep in the group’s bloodstained heartland. 

The drug lord lived much of his life on his phone and at times sent nearly 100 texts a day. And after years poring over his personal communications, Eric gained a remarkable – perhaps unrivalled – window into the daily life, habits and personality of the world’s most powerful drug trafficker.

He found plenty of the murderous, manipulative kingpin depicted in the new Netflix drama Facing El Chapo, with numerous messages detailing contract killings, corruption and multi-million-dollar drug deals.

Others revealed his insatiable sexual appetite, including his frequent use of prostitutes – many disturbingly young – and numerous affairs.

Yet there were also regular glimpses of ‘the other’ El Chapo, with affectionate messages to his children and grandchildren interspersed among talk of drug dealing and murder. 

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail to mark the release of his memoir, Kingpins & Coyotes, Eric reveals how he helped capture the cartel boss not once, but twice – and everything he learnt about his life and criminal empire along the way.

Eric first heard about El Chapo in 2001, shortly after the drug peddler had escaped from Mexico’s Puente Grande Prison in a pile of dirty laundry – the first of a series of audacious jailbreaks he would become known for.

The diminutive son of an impoverished farmer, Guzmán rose to prominence in the 1990s after pioneering the use of sophisticated underground tunnels to move drugs across the US border. 

After taking over leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel, he ploughed the gang’s profits into overseas expansion – while taking care to donate lavishly to community projects to buy the loyalty of local people.

In 2009, he entered Forbes’ list of the world’s richest men at number 701, with an estimated worth of $1billion (£709million) – just a fraction of the $14billion (£10.4billion) he is estimated to have made over his 30-year criminal career.

By 2012, Eric had taken his new job at Homeland Security Investigations, the branch of the federal government tasked with investigating international criminal organisations. 

He began by investigating a money laundering scheme that used aircraft to move drug money between the US and Mexico. But before long, this evolved into looking at a network of drug traffickers who were part of El Chapo’s network.

The group kept in contact using BlackBerry Messenger – at the time a popular instant messaging app – and before long Eric and his colleagues began intercepting their communications.

Homing in on the drug lord’s inner circle of bodyguards and couriers, they gradually built up a detailed picture of his travel patterns and daily routine.

They hadn’t been able to see any texts sent by the boss himself by that point. But in the latter months of 2013, they had a breakthrough.

‘We came across texts that mentioned several key details, including El Chapo’s son – Edgar – who was killed in Culiacán in 2008,’ says Eric. 

‘When we analysed the conversation there was no other reasonable explanation for who it could be. It had to be El Chapo and his second wife, Griselda.’

This was a game changer: rather than simply investigating El Chapo’s network, being able to read messages sent by the kingpin himself raised the possibility they could go one step further and mount an operation to capture him. 

Eric and his colleagues assembled a small team in Mexico, made up of several other HSI agents, as well as operatives from the Drug Enforcement Administration, US Marshals and the Mexican Marines.

Over the coming months, the HSI squad would continue intercepting El Chapo’s communications, before relaying this intelligence to the team in Mexico. 

Each time El Chapo sent a text, it flashed up on a series of computers in Eric’s office. After reading thousands of his messages, the agent developed a remarkably detailed understanding not only of his drug trafficking operation, but of his personal life too. 

‘He liked to eat good food, particularly Chinese food, so he’d tell his courier to ‘bring me Chinese’ and the courier would know what he meant and go to a particular restaurant’, Eric recalls. 

‘He’d be very specific about what he wanted and once ordered birria stew [a traditional Mexican beef dish] for breakfast.’

‘There were two Chapo Guzmáns: one was the man who would have people killed and corrupted anybody if it suited his needs.

‘But then there was this very affectionate side of him when he was talking to his kids, especially about his granddaughters or his young twins, and he’d be saying ‘send my love’ or ‘I’m sending you strong hugs.’

‘He could have had someone brutally killed and then five minutes later be sending someone a cake or an elaborate bouquet of flowers for their birthday.’

Eric recalls one incident that epitomised El Chapo’s lack of regard for human life.

‘There was one time they lost more than 600 kilos of cocaine on a boat west of the Galapagos Islands and they thought a guy stole it.

‘He actually didn’t – it was jettisoned overboard because the local coast guard approached the boat, but they blamed this poor bastard, so El Chapo told them to ‘take care of it’. The guy wasn’t heard of again.

‘I’m sure some clinical psychologists would have a field day trying to understand how you can operate on those different axes.’

That’s not to say El Chapo was always good to his family. In one intercepted conversation, he ordered the killing of one of his nephews, prompting US agents to travel to a Guatemalan prison to warn the man in person.

‘As law enforcement we have an obligation to notify someone if we believe their life is in danger, so we travelled down and told the nephew, who took in the information without saying anything,’ says Eric.

‘Then, about two years later, he was at a Christmas party, got p***d drunk and got into a fight with one of his other relatives before getting shot dead.

‘So he wasn’t killed in prison. He ended up being killed at a Christmas party by a relative, which is kind of ironic.’

The messages also revealed El Chapo’s concerning sexual preference for younger women, whom he ordered to be delivered to him ‘like food’.

‘He was ordering prostitutes multiple times a week. It was gross – he liked them younger, with dark hair and would tell his couriers to make sure they weren’t chubby,’ says Eric.

‘They had this elaborate scheme: person A would pick up the women and take them to location B where another person would pick them up in a car – they’d do that multiple times before ending up at his place.’

Documents later released in a US court contained claims from witnesses that he engaged in sexual acts with minors, who he referred to as ‘vitamins’.

One cooperating witness claimed the cartel boss had him drug girls as young as 13 before he raped them at one of his Mexican hideouts in the late 2000s. The gangster’s lawyers denied the allegations, describing them as ‘extremely salacious’.

Summing up El Chapo’s ‘disgusting’ treatment of women, Eric says: ‘He was ordering women in a similar fashion to how he would order food.

‘He’d say ‘have them dressed like this or that’ and describe exactly what he wanted before his confidantes would go out and find the women for him. He had his fair share of mistresses too.’

One challenge Eric’s team faced was El Chapo’s relatively isolated lifestyle. He rarely travelled and shuffled between several different hideaways around his home city of Culiacán, which he largely controlled.

‘Chapo moved between five different locations,’ he says. ‘They were nice, with high walls, a pool and big screen TVs, but they weren’t elaborate for someone with that amount of wealth.

‘Just south of Culiacán was a little resort with swimming pools and a bay where he felt very comfortable going. He would go there, relax and call his sons. But he didn’t have a massive entourage and lived a fairly isolated existence.’

Every time a new message appeared, Eric would scan it for ‘actionable intel’ about El Chapo’s movements that could be fed back to the team on the ground in Mexico.

The wire tap team began to focus on one man in particular, a courier nicknamed Nariz, or ‘nose’ in Spanish.

‘When we saw a picture of him, we kind of understood why he was given that name,’ Eric laughs.

On the night of February 17, 2014, the Mexican marines picked up Nariz on a street in Culiacán. He broke under interrogation and identified El Chapo’s house, which was then assaulted by the heavily armed soldiers.

But they hit on a problem: the door to the house was heavily reinforced and it took a painfully long time to break it down using rams and sledgehammers.

By the time they rushed inside, El Chapo was gone – scuttling into Culiacán’s sewer system through a secret hatch beneath his bathtub, opened by activating a sequence of light switches.

It was a crushing moment. But rather than curse their luck, the agents were back on the chase – aided by brave Mexican marines who raided every local location associated with El Chapo to try to find him.

Based on information from dozens of seized Blackberry devices, an American agent called Jack traced the gangster to the Miramar Hotel, a 10-storey set of luxury condominiums in the beach resort city of Mazatlán.

In the early hours of February 22 – five days after his bathtub escape – Mexican soldiers smashed down the door of El Chapo’s room on the fourth floor to find him in bed with his new wife, Emma Coronel, a former teenage beauty queen 32 years his junior. Nearby were the couple’s two daughters, aged three to four.

Describing the moment as it was relayed to him, Eric says: ‘Chapo ran into the bathroom, and the soldiers heard him trying to lock and load an AK-47.

‘The commander on the ground said to kill him, but Emma started screaming and begging them not to kill him in front of the kids, that sort of thing.

‘They were ready to start pumping rounds through the door before they saw hands coming around the door.

‘They cuffed him and took him into the basement of the Miramar, where there was that famous photo of someone with their hand on his head.’

Despite his joy at El Chapo’s capture, Eric knew the game was far from over – with the Sinaloa Cartel certain to carry out a rescue attempt.

He began to feel slightly more comfortable after the drug lord was whisked away to a Mexican Navy base in a Black Hawk helicopter and presented to the media in Mexico City, before being thrown into the maximum-security Altiplano Prison. 

But he wouldn’t stay there for long. A year later, on July 11, 2015, he escaped through a shaft connecting his shower to a mile-long tunnel, which had been fitted with a modified motorcycle running along a track.

Back in the US, where Eric and his colleagues had been cataloguing evidence to present at his upcoming trial, the devastating news came in an early morning flurry of text messages.

‘My phone was blowing up – we all had a group chat together and I looked at it to see he had gone,’ he recalls. 

‘I thought ‘there’s no f*****g’ way. He’d managed to escape from a maximum-security prison a second time.’

By then, Eric had moved to Washington DC and, similarly to many of the agents in the original El Chapo operation, had moved on to a new role.

‘I remember my boss calling me from Arizona and asking what he thought we should do. I was like, ‘Dude, we have to get the band back together.’

‘I knew there were only a small number of people in federal law enforcement who were really in Chapo’s head, understood how his network operated and could almost predict where he was going to go.’

Eric’s superiors agreed with him and quickly reassembled the original team – pulling them back from their various new postings into a new operations centre in Chantilly, Virginia.

Immediately, they began combing through data for clues about El Chapo’s likely whereabouts, including the flight manifests of private jets he might have travelled in after fleeing jail.

In October, four months after his escape through the tunnel, Eric heard some truly bizarre news: Sean Penn, the American actor and film-maker, was heading to meet the drug lord for a now notorious interview.

‘I was like, ‘what the f*** are you talking about – Sean Penn?!” he recalls. 

The story of what happened next has been widely documented. El Chapo – keen for a biopic to be made about his life – agreed to sit down with Penn in a meeting brokered by Mexican actress Kate del Castillo.

What is less well known was the fact federal agents – including Eric – were monitoring the actor’s every move in Mexico in the hope he could lead them to El Chapo.

‘The DEA put a team on the ground and were doing surveillance on del Castillo, Penn and the film crew,’ Eric says.

‘They lost him getting out of the airport but managed to identify an airport, and electronic surveillance put them at a ranch in the mountains.

‘There were geopolitical considerations. The Mexican Marines were ready to assault that ranch the moment they realised El Chapo was there.

‘But because Penn was a US citizen and del Castillo held dual nationality, the State Department was concerned a raid could turn into a bloodbath, so they nixed our involvement.

‘A couple of sicarios were killed. We received conflicting reports about whether Chapo had escaped. To this day, I couldn’t tell you whether he was there, but he certainly wasn’t on site when the Marines went in.’ 

The US agents renewed their hunt for the kingpin by focusing on his brutal head of security, El Cholo Iván (real name Jorge Iván Gastélum Ávila), and another figure who went by the moniker ‘Medusa’.

Convinced both men were regularly at El Chapo’s side and would know his whereabouts, the team focused on their daily routines before Mexican Marines zeroed in on a house in the Sinaloan coastal city of Los Mochis.

On January 8, 2016, the soldiers stormed the property, leading to a massive firefight.

‘There’s grenades being lobbed back and forth, sicarios shooting through windows, a guy on the roof with an AK-47 and a pistol,’ says Eric.

Five sicarios were killed in the raid but El Chapo and Ávila managed to flee down an escape tunnel that led to the city’s sewer system – now a familiar tactic. After emerging, they stole a vehicle which quickly broke down, before hijacking a red Ford Focus.

It looked like he had evaded capture again, but before long the pair were intercepted by two federal police officers. In a bizarre twist, they initially pulled them over for speeding but quickly recognised the pair and arrested them without a firefight. 

One year later, El Chapo was extradited to the US before a headline-grabbing trial in Brooklyn – where evidence gathered by Eric and his team was used to convict him.

Since 2019, he’s been languishing in the supermax jail in Florence, Colorado – dubbed the Alcatraz of the Rockies.

Sitting in his home around two hours away from the prison, Eric feels justly proud of the part he played putting him there. 

But does he believe the operation dealt a decisive blow to the cartels? Far from it.

‘These organisations are built to survive – there are always succession plans if someone is arrested or killed,’ he says. 

And of course, he’s right. Following El Chapo’s arrest, the organisation is now partly controlled by his sons. Known collectively as the Los Chapitos, two have been captured, while the remaining brothers, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, remain at large.

They are now embroiled in a violent struggle for power with a rival faction loyal to the cartel’s jailed co-founder, Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada. 

Nonetheless, the cartel remains a force to be reckoned with and continues to operate through a decentralised structure that does not depend on the direction of a single all-powerful leader.

‘At the end of the day, it comes down to supply and demand,’ Eric says. ‘As long as people want drugs, someone will step in to provide them.’

• Kingpins & Coyotes is available to order now. 

It still seems as though America lost Charlie Kirk only yesterday.

The memories of that moment remain sharply etched in my mind.

That week, Charlie and I had been speaking every day as he got ready to launch another national speaking tour on college campuses.

The night before the tour was set to begin at Utah Valley University, I joined a small Zoom meeting he had personally arranged.

Less than 24 hours later, that same campus became the scene of his murder.

Everything about the assassination was astonishing: The unconscionable security failure from the campus police and Charlie’s detail, the fact he was killed while modeling robust and respectful debate, the utterly depraved nature of the act and the apparent transgender-related motive of the accused killer.

I broke down in tears when I heard the news. One year later, it still seems like a bad dream.

Charlie died as a martyr for free speech, a bedrock ideal of the country he loved so much.

He was a thought leader, an institution builder and a grassroots-mobilization visionary.

The cranks and kooks overrunning the online right today are a sad testament to the void he left behind: Charlie, the guardian of the floodgates, was the conservative coalition’s indispensable man.

I feel Charlie’s glaring absence every day.

And one year later, it’s clear that far too many Americans still haven’t learned the right lessons from his martyrdom.

The first of these: the essential importance of free speech.

When Charlie was killed, he was sitting under a canopy emblazoned with his slogan, “Prove me wrong.”

All he ever wanted to do was have a conversation — especially with the liberals who disagreed with him.

Charlie exposed lefty logical fallacies and shattered socialist shibboleths, but he always did so with poise, grace and a winsome smile on his face.

A society that cannot abide polite conversations about the pressing issues of the day is a society that cannot endure.

That’s especially true when the faction of society most unwilling to abide such a conversation is its would-be future leaders — namely, university students.

Americans established our system of free speech because we care about the truth.

We protect free speech because we believe open debate helps us discover what the truth actually is.

That’s the whole point of Socratic dialogue — named after another wise man who died because he asked tough questions.

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But if you reject truth, as so many in the woke mob do, you must reject free speech, too.

One year later, has anything changed? It doesn’t seem so.

In the final year of his life, for example, Charlie was outspoken in warning about the dangers of radical Islam.

Today, as Abdul El-Sayed runs for Senate in Michigan and New York City commemorates the 25th anniversary of 9/11 with Mayor Zohran Mamdani at its helm, America is being forced to have that conversation.

The response has been telling: lots of hysterical leftist cries of “Islamophobia,” and little meaningful exchange of ideas.

The militant left would still rather shut down dissident speech — by any means necessary.

The second lesson of Charlie’s loss: the sanctity of human life.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk — like the attempts on President Donald Trump’s life and the cold-blooded killing of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson — was welcomed with glee by many on the far left.

It was a grisly reminder of the leftist violent streak that goes back as far as the guillotine of revolutionary France.

One might have thought that this year, the 250th anniversary of that great American affirmation of the right to life as the first of all “self-evident” truths, would prove an opportune time to step back from the ghoulish brink.

If anything, the opposite has happened.

The Lindsay Clancy trial in Massachusetts has exposed just how far some Americans have gone in their complete rejection of the value of human life — and their macabre celebration of death itself.

For weeks outside the courthouse in Plymouth, throngs of adoring Clancy fans gathered to cheer her on.

They welcomed her defense attorney like a prizefighter entering the ring, or a rock star walking out on stage.

Except Clancy isn’t Mike Tyson or Paul McCartney — far, far from it.

She is a heinous murderer who killed her three children in the coldest blood imaginable.

But that wasn’t convincing enough for the jury, which deadlocked.

It seems many of our fellow Americans no longer care about the truth, or value life.

Rather, many are content to live by lies — and to glorify no longer living at all.

Charlie Kirk, on the other hand, resisted that depravity.

Even in death, he can still teach so much — at least for those willing to listen.

Josh Hammer is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and author of “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.”

Ukrainian drones reached far into Russia’s Arctic region on Wednesday, triggering a fire at an industrial site in Novy Urengoy, a key city within Russia’s vital natural gas production hub, according to Russian officials and the Associated Press.

Regional Governor Dmitry Artyukhov said Russia’s air defense systems intercepted the incoming drones, but debris from the downed aircraft ignited a blaze at an industrial facility. Officials did not name the site, and authorities were still evaluating the scale of the damage, Reuters reported Wednesday.

Ukrainian defense company Fire Point seemed to hint at responsibility for the long-range strike, writing online: “Guess who covered more than 3,300 km and successfully hit the target.”

The remarkable cross-border attack unfolded as Washington tries to revive efforts to end the war, now in its fifth year, while both Moscow and Kyiv continue escalating long-distance strikes against each other.

Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday, President Donald Trump said he had just spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin and suggested both Moscow and Kyiv may be prepared to negotiate.

“We had a great conversation. He is wanting to make a deal. And if Zelenskyy is wanting to make a deal, that would be very nice,” Trump said.

Asked what was holding up an agreement, Trump pointed to the personal animosity between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling them “two people that hate each other.”

“These are two people that are tired of fighting,” Trump added.

Trump’s comments followed a weekend diplomatic push by U.S. special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who traveled to Moscow and Kyiv in an effort to revive negotiations. The talks produced no breakthrough, according to the Associated Press.

Russia resumed major missile and drone attacks on Kyiv shortly after the American delegation left Ukraine, killing five people and wounding 35 on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

A European intelligence source told News Media that the simultaneous diplomacy and military escalation reflects a long-standing dilemma for Western governments trying to engage Moscow.

“You have to talk, you have to explain,” the source said, arguing that communication is necessary to prevent misunderstandings.

But the source said Russian officials can interpret Western outreach differently.

“Whenever you talk with them, they consider that this is a Western weakness,” the source said, adding that the assessment was based in part on informal contacts with Russian officials.

The source also said Putin’s recent emphasis on Russian “military progress in Ukraine” appeared aimed in part at Washington, projecting strength as U.S. officials seek to revive negotiations.

The escalation is taking an increasing toll on civilians. The United Nations said last month that Russian attacks killed or wounded more Ukrainian civilians in July than in any month since March 2022, with 437 killed and more than 2,600 wounded.

More than 16,800 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and more than 51,000 wounded since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, according to the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. Moscow has repeatedly denied deliberately targeting civilians and says its strikes are aimed at military and military-related facilities.

United24 described Wednesday’s attack as the deepest Ukrainian drone strike inside Russia since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Novy Urengoy lies roughly 1,740 miles from Ukraine’s border. Artem Zhoga, Putin’s envoy to Russia’s Urals Federal District, said a Ukrainian drone had attempted to strike a fuel-and-energy facility in Yamal, according to Meduza.

The city sits in Russia’s Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the country’s dominant natural-gas producing region. About 80% of Russia’s natural gas is extracted there, according to Interfax data cited by the Associated Press.

Artyukhov said there were no reported casualties.

The attack was part of a broader Ukrainian drone assault on Russia. Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces also struck targets around the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, including a naval base, an oil-loading terminal, military port facilities and warships capable of carrying cruise missiles, according to the Associated Press.

Russian authorities said four people, including a child, were killed and 29 wounded in the Novorossiysk attack.

Russia, meanwhile, continued its own long-range campaign against Ukraine Wednesday. Russian drones struck the Starokozache border crossing between Ukraine and Moldova, killing two civilians and wounding three, while another wave of attacks on Kyiv killed one person and wounded 14, according to Reuters.

A Minnesota pastor and father of five has died after suffering a catastrophic spinal injury in a swimming pool aboard a cruise ship.

Stephen Duane Junker, 58, was on a Princess Cruises voyage off the coast of Italy to celebrate his son’s wedding when the tragedy unfolded.

According to a family GoFundMe page, Junker was discovered “face down and unresponsive” at the bottom of the Sun Princess’ pool on August 16.

He was pulled from the water and transported by the Italian coast guard to a hospital in Naples. The circumstances of how he ended up in the pool remain unclear.

Doctors found severe compression on his spinal cord, prompting emergency spinal surgery, and Junker was later placed on a ventilator.

After a long battle in hospital, which initially showed some promising signs, Junker died on September 4.

The fundraisers said that he ‘went to be with Jesus’ surrounded by his family and friends on Friday after ‘further diagnostic testing had revealed injuries that were not treatable.’

Junker, a pastor at Chippewa Lutheran Church in Brandon, is being mourned by his wife Jeanine, alongside their children, his grandson and wider family.

His death comes weeks after Junker underwent emergency surgery on his back.

Despite the operation’s success, the pastor was diagnosed as quadriplegic and was left unable to breathe on his own.

Junker returned home to Rochester, Minnesota, on August 23, where doctors began imaging and testing, the fundraiser created by his daughter Elizabeth said.

Days later, their father remained on a ventilator but was ‘more awake’ and ‘very much here with us.’

‘He’s able to respond to yes or no questions by nodding his head, and communicate through his facial expressions, which has meant so much to all of us. He denies any pain,’ the fundraiser said.

‘His kids have been able to come and say how much he means to them, and he has had some close friends come visit, so there is no doubt in his mind he is loved,’ his daughter wrote. 

‘Nathaniel was able to come sing a song for him today while he was sitting up in bed, which I know meant the world to him.’ 

At the time, Junker still had no feeling below his chest but his family were ‘grateful’ he was awake.

‘As you can imagine, this is an insane situation to navigate, both for the family and for my dad. We are leaning on scripture and prayer to guide us,’ Elizabeth said. 

Within a matter of days, however, Stephen passed away ‘surrounded by his wife, children, parents and friends.’ 

‘We’re grateful to everyone at Mayo Clinic for their excellent care and to everyone who donated to help support Steve and the family. We’re glad we were able to give him the opportunity to receive world-class care and reassured that everything that could possibly be done to help him was done,’ Elizabeth said.  

‘Knowing that Steve is loved by so many people who love him means more to our family than we can put into words.’

The pastor was described as a ‘devoted husband’ to the ‘love of his life’ Jeanine Junker, 54, and a ‘loving father to his five children.’

‘Above all, Steve loved his family,’ his obituary said. ‘Steve faced life and death with a quiet and unshakable faith, never afraid of what was to come. Even in his final moments, his thoughts turned to the church and the people he loved.’ 

Junker began his career as a pharmacist after graduating from Creighton University in Nebraska and ‘dedicated himself to the care of others through medicine.’

He answered a ‘deeper calling’ and attended The Lutheran Brethren Seminary in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, where he earned his Master of Divinity and became an ordained minister.

‘For nearly a decade, he served the congregation and community at Chippewa Lutheran Church in Brandon, Minnesota, with devotion,’ his obituary said.

‘Being a minister was among the greatest joys and honors of his life. He was known for his animated sermons, his love of a good conversation on nearly any subject, and his readiness to help anyone in need, whether that meant offering counsel or simply producing the right tool for the job from his ever-prepared pockets.’ 

The Chippewa Lutheran Church wrote on Facebook: ‘Mourning the loss of a Pastor for our church family is very difficult to understand. Pastor Steve was a wonderful person, loved by many, and had a great impact on many people through his faith.’

‘Nathaniel Junker has said it best when he sang his worship songs as Pastor Steve was welcomed into Heaven, “He closed his eyes to this life and opened his eyes to Jesus.” What more does anyone want!’

Debi Junker Gregory wrote in his obituary that Stephen would ‘always be my special little cousin since we share the same birthdate.’

‘I remember so many fun times with him growing up. Riding the turtle at Como Park. Him helping me drag a life-size frog through the mall. Playing frisbee baseball in the front yard of his house. Praying for the family at this difficult time. Love,’ she wrote. 

Vicki Storm, a community member, said: ‘Pastor was there with my family as my husband was dying. It was a very special moment as Pastor prayed over Paul when his time was near and as he entered into the glorious arms of Jesus. 

‘I can’t think of anything more special than that moment with Pastor Steve’s quiet prayer of comfort, faith and joy for Paul. God bless Pastor Steve’s memory. He will be dearly missed.’

The Daily Mail reached out to the Chippewa Lutheran Church, Princess Cruises, the Italian Coast Guard and attempted to reach Junker’s family for comment. 

The Transportation Security Administration has introduced a new program that lets eligible TSA PreCheck members who are not traveling pass through airport security at select US airports, giving them access to secure gate areas to welcome arriving passengers or say farewell to departing family and friends.

Through the program, approved TSA PreCheck members without airline tickets may clear security and enter concourses and gate areas, restoring a type of airport access that was sharply curtailed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks prompted sweeping changes to airport security.

The initiative could revive the gate-side goodbyes and emotional reunions that were once a familiar part of flying before 9/11. It also gives visitors a way to meet someone during a layover or spend time at airport restaurants and shops beyond the checkpoint.

Since 9/11, access past airport security checkpoints has generally been reserved for ticketed passengers, though airlines have been able to provide gate passes in limited situations.

“As an exclusive benefit for our most trusted travelers, this new program makes it easier to return to the gate for welcomes and send-offs, meet friends during a layover, and enjoy dining and shopping along the way, bringing back the moments that once defined air travel,” the TSA said on its website.

The program, Gateside by TSA PreCheck, is free, but members interested in a guest pass must apply online at least one day and no more than three days before their planned visits and receive approval before showing up at the airport.

If approved, guests can enter security using a TSA PreCheck lane with an acceptable form of identification.

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Visitors who do not have an acceptable form of identification can use TSA ConfirmID to attempt to verify their identity for a $45 fee. TSA does not guarantee that it will be able to verify their identity.

The passes are valid for only one calendar day, although reentries are permitted for that day.

Children can also go through security but must be included on their parent or guardian’s application.

The TSA said members of other trusted-traveler programs who have a Known Traveler Number may also apply for access to the gates.

The initial rollout applies to 13 airports, including Los Angeles International Airport, San Diego International Airport, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Salt Lake City International Airport and Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.

The other participating airports are Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, John Glenn Columbus International Airport, Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport, Indianapolis International Airport, Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport, Will Rogers International Airport and Eppley Airfield.

But the agency said it plans to expand the program to additional airports in the coming months.

This comes as 21 airports across the country have adopted policies allowing non-ticketed visitors to receive a guest pass to move through airport security and into the terminal at no charge, with Pittsburgh International Airport being the first major US airport to enact such a policy in 2017.

A leading figure in Spain’s opposition sharply attacked the country’s Socialist prime minister, accusing him of betraying Spain over the government’s response to a surge of migrants entering a North African enclave.

Santiago Abascal, who heads the right-wing Vox party, made the remarks during a session of parliament, questioning whether Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was facing pressure or blackmail from Morocco as tensions mounted over the migrant crisis in Ceuta.

In the confrontation, Abascal denounced Sánchez as a “traitor” and also referred to him as “a dog.”

Sánchez fired back during the tense exchange, responding: “I may be a dog, but I have no master.”

Abascal then held up sheets of paper one by one that spelled out “Traidor,” Spanish for “Traitor.” Sánchez then sat down.

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Spain has seen major protests in response to the migrant arrivals in Ceuta, with critics blaming Sánchez for the crisis and some accusing him of pandering to Morocco.

More than 70,000 migrants poured into Ceuta in July. Most of them have returned to Morocco, but many remain in the enclave, with some living in tent encampments on the beach.

Meanwhile, Spain’s national intelligence agency issued multiple warnings before the mass crossing of migrants from Morocco into Ceuta in late July, according to declassified documents released by the government on Wednesday, The Associated Press reported.

On July 29, a day before people began crossing into Ceuta, the National Intelligence Center (CNI) sent an alert via WhatsApp to the Spanish government’s delegation in Ceuta about calls on social media “for an assault on the fence and by sea tomorrow at 8 p.m.”

“There are two different groups with a total of 180,000 followers,” the declassified WhatsApp message said, “just to give you an idea of its scale.”