WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Firefighters have rescued an injured cat from an icy river in downtown Wichita after the animal apparently was thrown off an overpass.

A motorist spotted the black cat Thursday afternoon and called 911. Wichita Fire Lt. Kenneth Ast says the cat was sitting on ice in the middle of the Arkansas River when crews arrived.

 

 

Fire Capt. Neko McBee says the ice “was starting to crack” when rescuers in wetsuits and an inflated boat reached the animal. The fire department said in a tweet that it’s believed the cat was thrown off the overpass.

Firefighter Kuffler of the WFD Technical Rescue Team retrieves a cat from the frozen Arkansas River Thursday afternoon. The cat is believed to have been thrown off of the Kellogg overpass onto the frozen river. @craighacker photo pic.twitter.com/ZX6C5IeCjI

— WichitaFire.org (@wichitafireorg) February 9, 2018

The animal rescue group Beauties and Beasts has dubbed the cat “River” and said on Facebook that he sustained “severe” injury to his rear legs. The group asked for “loving thoughts.”

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

By Dewey Terrill

GEARY COUNTY — A jury has convicted a Kansas man of murder.

A Geary County District Court jury found Joseph Crag guilty in the January 2016 shooting death of David Phillips, 23, Manhattan., at a West 12th Street Apartment in Junction City. 

During the preliminary hearing in this case there was testimony that indicated that Phillips had been shot in the head three times.

Craig was also found guilty of Intentional Second Degree Murder, Conspiracy to Commit First Degree Murder, Conspiracy to Commit Aggravated Robbery, Aggravated Robbery, and Felon in Possession of a Firearm, According to Geary County Attorney Krista Blaisdell,

Sentencing in the case is set for April 17th at 2 p.m.

A second defendant in this case, Gabrielle Williams, has been scheduled for sentencing February 20th at 10 a.m. According to the County Attorney Williams pleaded guilty to Conspiracy to Commit First Degree Murder.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House including 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.

All four member from Kansas voted in favor of the measure.

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.”

EDWARDS COUNTY — A Kansas man died in an accident just after 9 p.m. Thursday in Edwards County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2007 Cadillac DTS driven by Michael C. Jones, 71, Kinsley was southbound in the 800 block of Colony Street in the city limits of Kinsley.

The Cadillac left the roadway to the right, traveled through three private yards, crossed over a sidewalk, through a wooden fence and hit a tree.

Jones was transported to Edwards County Hospital where he died. He was not wearing a seat belt, according to the KHP.