BY STEPHEN KORANDA

The Kansas Supreme Court could soon decide whether there’s a right to abortion in the state constitution.

Gov. Jeff Colyer wants lawmakers to consider amending the constitution to establish that such a right doesn’t exist.

In his first address to lawmakers this week, the Republican governor called for amending the state constitution to help protect Kansas abortion restrictions.

That came in response to a case pending before the Kansas high court. Justices are considering a lower court ruling that recognized a right to abortion in the state constitution.It’s an outgrowth from a legal fight over the state’s so-called “dismemberment abortion” ban, which bars dilation and evacuation procedures.

If the court rules the Kansas Constitution includes a right to abortion, that could put many state abortion restrictions on the books in jeopardy.

Colyer, speaking to a joint session of the legislature, said the lower court ruling “cannot stand.”

“This is violence against basic facts,” Colyer said. “The stakes are so high, the issue is so foundational, the people of Kansas must have the final say.”

Republican Rep. Chuck Weber of Wichita said he’s been talking with other legislators about an amendment if the court finds a right to abortion in the constitution.

“(That) would definitely stoke the conversation,” Weber said. “I haven’t heard a lot at this point to push it without that.”

The legislature has approved additional abortion restrictions in recent years and Weber said he believes a constitutional amendment would have broad support.

“A constitutional amendment … would just take this question out of the hands of unelected judges in the future,” Weber said. “It would really reflect the will of the people.”

Democratic Rep. Valdenia Winn of Kansas City, Kansas, said a constitutional amendment would draw the state back into fierce abortion debates.

“Here we’re going to have a fight over, as far as I’m concerned, current law,” Winn said. “Forces that think like me are not going to be intimidated.”

It takes a two-thirds majority of lawmakers and a vote from the public to approve constitutional amendments. House Majority Leader Don Hineman, a Republican from Dighton, agrees there could be wide support for a constitutional amendment on abortion.

“Whether it’s enough remains to be seen,” Hineman said. “It’s a high bar. It’s a high bar for a reason.”

Stephen Koranda is Statehouse reporter for KPR a partner in the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @kprkoranda. 

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Two Topeka police officers who fatally shot a man have returned to work with the police department.

City spokeswoman Molly Hadfield said Thursday that officers Michael Cruse and Justin Mackey returned from administrative leave on Wednesday. She would not reveal their duty assignments.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports officers were placed on leave Sept. 28 after Dominique White was shot and killed near a park in Topeka.

Shawnee County District Attorney Mike Kagay ruled in December that the shooting was justified. He said while White was fleeing from the officers, he moved his hand over a pocket that contained a gun.

In January, city officials said an internal police investigation found the officers followed department policies during the confrontation.

White’s family has consistently questioned whether the shooting was justified.

NEW YORK (AP) — The flu has further tightened its grip on the U.S. This season is now as bad as the swine flu epidemic nine years ago.

A government report out Friday shows 1 of every 13 visits to the doctor last week was for fever, cough and other symptoms of the flu. That ties the highest level seen in the U.S. during swine flu in 2009.

And it surpasses every winter flu season since 2003, when the government changed the way it measures flu.

This season started early and has been driven by a nasty type of flu that tends to put more people in the hospital and cause more deaths than other more common flu bugs.

But its long-lasting intensity has surprised experts, who are still sorting out why it’s been so bad. Flu usually peaks in February.

Some doctors say this is the worst flu season they’ve seen in decades. Some people are saying that, too.

Veda Albertson, a 70-year-old retiree in Tampa, was sick for three weeks with high fever and fluid in her lungs. She said she hadn’t been this sick from the flu since the 1960s, when she was a young mother who couldn’t get out of bed to go to the crib of her crying baby.

“It was like ‘Wham!’ It was bad. It was awful,” she said of the illness that hit her on Christmas Day.

Heather Jossi, a 40-year-old Denver police officer and avid runner, said her illness last month was the worst flu she’s experienced.

“I don’t remember aches this bad. Not for four days,” said Jossi. “It took me out.”

Last week, 43 states had high patient traffic for the flu, up from 42, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Flu remained widespread in every state except Hawaii and Oregon and hospitalizations continued to climb.

So far, however, deaths this season from the flu and flu-related pneumonia have lagged a little behind some recent bad seasons. There are as many as 56,000 deaths connected to the flu during a bad year.

The CDC said the amount of suspected flu cases at doctor office and hospitals last week matched that seen in 2009, when a new swine flu epidemic swept the country and panicked many people. Swine flu, also called pandemic H1N1, was a new strain that hadn’t been seen before. It first hit that spring, at the tail end of the winter season, but doctor visits hit their height in late October.

This flu season, hospitalization rates have surpassed the nasty season of the winter of 2014-2015, when the vaccine was a poor match to the main bug.

Health officials have said this year’s vaccine targets the flu viruses that are currently making people sick. However, preliminary studies out of Australia and Canada have found the shot was only 10 to 20 percent effective in those countries. How well it is working the U.S. won’t be known until next week.

This year, illnesses are commonly being reported in people who got a flu shot. Albertson said she got one in late October. Jossi did not.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Authorities say a school bus with students aboard was damaged and two adults in other vehicles were hurt in a Kansas City gun battle.

Police spokesman Lionel Colón says none of the five children on the bus were injured when gunfire erupted shortly before 5 p.m. Thursday. A window on the bus was shot out before the driver could get it to a safe location. Kansas City Public School spokesman Ray Weikal says the bus was transporting students from an elementary school.

Gunfire also struck two other vehicles, injuring a man and a woman. Police say the woman was hospitalized in serious but stable condition. Police described the man’s injuries as non-life threatening.

Police didn’t immediately make any arrests. Colón says it’s unclear if the man and woman were bystanders.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — An adjunct chemistry instructor living in Kansas who was arrested last week by immigration officials and faced imminent deportation to Bangladesh has been granted a temporary stay of removal but that doesn’t mean he will be allowed to stay in the U.S., his attorney said Thursday.

Syed Ahmed Jamal, 55, a native of Bangladesh who has lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years, was arrested Jan. 24 in the front yard of his home in Lawrence as he walked his children to school.

Federal Judge Glen Baker, of The Kansas City Immigration Court, issued the stay Wednesday and gave the Department of Homeland Security until Feb. 15 to respond to an emergency motion to stay the deportation and re-open immigration proceedings, attorney Rekha Sharma-Crawford said.

Jamal, who was held after his arrest in Missouri jails, is now in El Paso, Texas, and could be deported immediately — without time for an appeal — if Baker rules against him, Sharma-Crawford said. His wife, brother and three children haven’t been able to speak to him since his arrest.

If a longer stay is granted, Jamal will address his legal status in immigration court, said his brother, Syed Hussein Jamal,

“Basically from here, we’re going to fight in court,” Syed Hussein Jamal said during a news conference Thursday. “We’ll see how it goes.”

It was unclear why the Lawrence resident was transferred by Immigration and Customs Enforcement from Morgan County, Missouri, to Platte County, Missouri, to El Paso in one day but Sharma-Crawford said she suspects ICE intended to put him on a flight to Bangladesh without seeing his family again.

ICE officials told The Star earlier this week that a stay of removal is a “temporary humanitarian benefit. The stay is designed to allow the alien to get his/her affairs in order before they return to their home country.”

The arrest and possible deportation prompted a backlash, with an online petition drawing more than 58,000 signatures and a GoFundMe campaign raising more than $37,000 in less than a week. Hundreds of sympathizers also contacted members of Congress. U.S. Kansas Republican Reps. Kevin Yoder and Lynn Jenkins, as well as Democrat Rep. Emanuel Cleaver from Missouri, contacted immigration authorities to discuss the case.

On Thursday, his relatives expressed their thanks to supporters.

“I guess I’ve become an activist,” said Jamal’s oldest son, Taseen, who is 14.

Syed Ahmed Jamal, a Bihari ethnic minority, arrived legally in the U.S. in 1987 to attend the University of Kansas but overstayed his visa while pursuing a doctorate. He has taught chemistry at area colleges and did research at hospitals. For the past five years, the Department of Homeland Security allowed Jamal to remain in the U.S. on orders of supervision, meaning he had to report on a regular basis to ICE offices, where he was issued temporary work authorization cards.

As recently as January, his work card enabled Jamal to secure a teaching position at Park University in Parkville, Missouri. He also has been an adjunct instructor at Rockhurst University and Kansas City Kansas Community College. He was on parental advisory boards at his children’s schools and last year made an unsuccessful run for a seat on the Lawrence school board.

ICE has not explained why it chose to arrest Syed Ahmed Jamal last month.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A chemistry professor living in Kansas who faced imminent deportation to Bangladesh has been granted a temporary stay.

Lawyers representing 55-year-old Syed Ahmed Jamal announced Thursday that a judge issued the temporary stay.

Jamal, who currently teaches at Park University in Missouri, was arrested Jan. 24 at his home in Lawrence, Kansas. He arrived legally in the U.S. in 1987 but after pursuing a doctorate he overstayed his visa. He and his Bangladeshi wife have three American citizen children.

Since his visa expired, he has been allowed to stay in the U.S. and report regularly to immigration authorities.

Jamal’s arrest caused a public outcry, with a petition drive seeking a stay for him drawing more than 54,000 signatures

It wasn’t immediately clear how long his temporary stay would be valid.

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LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Supporters of a Kansas chemistry instructor hope immigration officials will be lenient because he has lived in the United States for 30 years without problems and has a family.

Syed Ahmed Jamal was arrested in his front yard in Lawrence on Jan. 24 as he walked his seventh-grade daughter to school.

The 55-year-old Jamal arrived in the United States in 1987 to study at the University of Kansas. Most recently, he was teaching at Park University.

Jamal’s lawyer, Jeffrey Bennett, says an immigration judge allowed Jamal to remain in the country on a supervised basis provided he checked in regularly.

President Donald Trump has toughened immigration enforcement. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say Jamal lost an appeal of a removal order four years ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House moved swiftly early Friday to reopen the federal government and pass a $400 billion budget deal, overcoming opposition from both liberal Democrats and tea party conservatives to endorse enormous spending increases despite looming trillion-dollar deficits.

The 240-186 vote came in the pre-dawn hours, putting to bed a five-and-a-half hour federal freeze that relatively few would notice. Many who did quickly labeled it a pointless, head-scratching episode. The shutdown was the second in three weeks.

The breakdown came largely in the Senate, when after a day of inaction, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky went rogue and stalled a vote in protest over his party’s willingness to bust the budget. But Democrats also had their divisions and wrangling, largely with liberal upset the measure were not tied to any plans to assist the “Dreamer” immigrants.

Most Democrats opposed the measure, following the lead of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who tried and failed to use the moment to secure a promise for a separate vote on immigration. Up to the final minutes, it was not clear the bill would pass and many Democrats held their votes, allowing the tally to creep slowly and giving no indication which way it might fall.

House Speaker Paul Ryan urged Congress to avoid a “second needless shutdown in a matter of weeks — entirely needless.”

There was far less drama in the Senate, where the measure sailed through by a 71-28 tally. President Donald Trump has promised to sign the bill into law.

The White House was forced to order the government shutdown shortly after midnight, but leaders quickly hustled to move before federal employees were due back at work, hoping to minimize the disruption. A shutdown essentially cuts the federal workforce in half, with those dubbed non-essential not allowed to work, while military and essential workers remain on the job.

The House vote ensured most employees would report for work as usual.

The White House kept its distance from the quarreling on Capitol Hill. Trump did not tweet and aides did not try to assign blame.

Senate GOP leaders, however, were clearly irked by the debacle. In his attempt to sway Paul to relent, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas declared his fellow Republican was “wasting everyone’s time” and prompting a shutdown for “no good reason.” But Paul, the resident contrarian, repelled suggestions to stand aside.

“I didn’t come up here to be part of somebody’s club. I didn’t come up here to be liked,” Paul said.

The budget agreement is married to a six-week temporary funding bill needed to keep the government operating and to provide time to implement the budget pact.

The bill includes huge spending increases sought by Republicans for the Pentagon along with a big boost demanded by Democrats for domestic agencies. Both sides pressed for $89 billion for disaster relief, extending a host of health care provisions, and extending a slew of smaller tax breaks.

It also would increase the government’s debt cap, preventing a first-ever default on U.S. obligations that looms in just a few weeks. Such debt limit votes are usually enormous headaches for GOP leaders, but the increase means another vote won’t occur before March 2019.

Senate leader had celebrated the budget deal a sign they had left behind some of their chronic dysfunction. Just three weeks ago, Senate Democrats sparked a three-day partial government shutdown by filibustering a spending bill, seeking relief for “Dreamer” immigrants who’ve lived in the country illegally since they were children.

Senate Democrats had no appetite for another shutdown.

House GOP leaders shored up support among conservatives for the measure, which would shower the Pentagon with money but add hundreds of billions of dollars to the nation’s $20 trillion-plus debt.

House Democratic leaders opposed the measure — arguing it should resolve the plight of Dreamers — but not with all their might. Pelosi made it plain she wasn’t pressuring her colleagues to kill the bill, which is packed with money for party priorities like infrastructure, combating opioid abuse and helping college students. She continued to press Ryan for a promise to bring an immigration measure sponsored by Reps. Will Hurd, R-Texas, and Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., up for a vote. But many Democrats back the measure without that assurance.

Ryan said again Thursday he was determined to bring an immigration bill to the floor this year — albeit only one that has Trump’s blessing.

The episode was a clear defeat for those who had followed a risky strategy to use the party’s leverage on the budget to address immigration. Protection for the Dreamers under former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, formally expires next month and there’s no sign that lawmakers are making progress on an agreement to extend the program.

Republicans, too, had their disappointments. Many were sheepish about the bushels of dollars for Democratic priorities and the return next year of $1 trillion-plus deficits. But they pointed to money they have long sought for the Pentagon, which they say needs huge sums for readiness, training and weapons modernization.

“It provides what the Pentagon needs to restore our military’s edge for years to come,” said Ryan.

Beyond $300 billion worth of increases for the military and domestic programs, the agreement adds $89 billion in overdue disaster aid for hurricane-slammed Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, a politically charged increase in the government’s borrowing cap and a grab bag of health and tax provisions. There’s also $16 billion to renew a slew of expired tax breaks that Congress seems unable to kill.

“I love bipartisanship, as you know,” said Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. “But the problem is the only time we discover bipartisanship is when we spend more money.”

TROY, Mo. (AP) – The pilot of a small plane has escaped with only an arm injury after a crash in eastern Missouri.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol says the plane went down Thursday afternoon about seven miles southwest of Troy in Lincoln County. The pilot was the only person on the plane and was taken to a hospital with a possible broken arm.

Authorities aren’t sure what caused the crash. The Federal Aviation Administration will investigate.

The pilot’s name has not been released.