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BOISE, Idaho — A new Idaho organization says it will ask voters to restore abortion access and other reproductive health care rights in the state after lawmakers let a second legislative session end without modifying strict abortion bans that have been blamed for a recent exodus of health care providers. “We have not been able to get a fix from our lawmakers, our politicians. We are going to seek a fix from our people,” Melanie Folwell, a spokeswoman for Idahoans United for Women and Families, said Friday morning. “The people in Idaho understand the contours of this problem.”Idaho has several anti-abortion laws on the books, including one that makes performing abortions a crime even in medical emergencies unless they are done to save the life of the pregnant patient. The federal government has sued Idaho over the ban, contending it violates a federal law that requires hospitals to provide stabilizing care — including abortion — if a patient’s life or health is at serious risk.Idaho’s attorneys say the ban allows for life-saving procedures for things like ectopic pregnancies, and they contend the Biden administration is trying to create a federal “abortion loophole” at Idaho hospitals. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in that case on Wednesday. Idahoans United for Women and Families is fundraising and hopes to have one or more ballot initiatives ready to propose this summer in an effort to get them on the 2026 ballot, Folwell said. Across the country, there have been increased efforts to put abortion rights questions to voters since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and removed the nationwide right to abortion. Voters in seven states have sided with abortion rights supporters on ballot measures, and several other states have signature drives for future ballot initiatives underway. Cynthia Dalsing, a certified nurse midwife in northern Idaho and a board member for Idahoans United for Women and Families, said her region went from offering a “premiere obstetric range of services” to becoming a maternal care desert after the four local obstetricians moved out of state. Pregnant women in the state’s panhandle now must either travel as much as 80 miles away or leave the state entirely for obstetric care, Dalsing said. Some are delivering babies at home because of a lack of other options, she said. Roughly one-quarter of Idaho obstetricians have stopped practicing since a near-total abortion ban took effect in August 2022, along with about half of the state’s maternal fetal medicine doctors, according to data compiled by the Idaho Physician Well-Being Action Collaborative. Three hospitals have closed their labor and delivery units. Some physicians and businesses are warning that the abortion bans carry other ripple effects as well. During a news conference on Thursday, Dr. Jim Souza said the reduced access to prenatal health care means some dangerous pregnancy conditions will be diagnosed later than normal. Souza, the chief physician executive at the Boise-based St. Luke’s Health System, said that could lead to increased need for intensive medical treatment for newborns or expensive medical interventions for mothers that could have been avoided with better access to obstetric care. A coalition of groups including the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce, Levi Strauss

AUSTIN, Texas — A 10-year-old boy has confessed to an unsolved killing in Texas, telling investigators that he shot a man he did not know while the victim slept, authorities said Friday. The boy, who was just shy of his eighth birthday when the man was shot two years ago, has been evaluated at a psychiatric hospital but cannot be charged with the crime because of his age at the time, the Gonzales County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. Texas law requires a child to be at least 10 years old to have criminal culpability. The boy is being held in juvenile detention for threatening a student on a bus in another incident earlier this month, authorities said.Brandon O’Quinn Rasberry, 32, was shot in the head in 2022 while he slept at an RV park in Nixon, Texas, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) east of San Antonio, investigators said. He had just moved in a few days before.The boy’s possible connection to the case was uncovered after sheriff’s deputies were contacted on April 12 of this year about a student who threatened to assault and kill another student on a school bus. They learned the boy had made previous statements that he had killed someone two years ago. The boy was taken to a child advocacy center, where he described for interviewers details of Rasberry’s death “consistent with first-hand knowledge” of the crime, investigators said.The boy said he had been visiting his grandfather, who lived a few lots away from Rasberry in the RV park. He described the 9 mm pistol and its “dirt and army green” color, and said he took it from the glove box of his grandfather’s truck. The boy described entering Rasberry’s RV, shooting him in the head, and shooting again into the couch before leaving, then returning the gun to the truck, investigators said.The boy told his interviewer he had seen Rasberry in the RV park earlier in the day, but never met him and had no reason to be mad at him. Rasberry’s body was found after he failed to show up for work for two days.The boy said his grandfather later sold the pistol. Deputies located it at a pawn shop. Shell casings from the previous crime scene were matched to the gun, investigators said.The boy was placed in 72-hour emergency detention “because of the severity of the crime and because of the continued concern for the child’s mental wellbeing,” the sheriff’s office said.He was brought to a psychiatric hospital in San Antonio for evaluation and treatment and then was taken back to Gonzales County. He was placed in juvenile detention on a charge of making a terroristic threat for the school bus incident. It was not immediately clear if the boy’s family has an attorney. The Associated Press left a telephone message seeking comment at the office of Gonzales County Attorney Paul Watkins.

ATHENS, Ala. — The warden of an Alabama prison was arrested Friday on drug charges, officials with the state prison system confirmed. Chadwick Crabtree, the warden at Limestone Correctional Facility, was charged with the manufacturing of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana, possession of a controlled substance, and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to a statement from the prison system. Court records show that manufacturing charge accuses him of growing psilocybin mushrooms, a hallucinogenic.Court records did not show if Crabtree has an attorney to comment on his behalf. The Alabama Department of Corrections said its law enforcement division, along with a state SWAT team and the Limestone County sheriff’s office, executed search and arrest warrants at Crabtree’s home. Crabtree and his wife were both taken into custody.The prison system did not immediately disclose what led to the search, but said the investigation is ongoing. A search was also conducted at Crabtree’s office at Limestone, the prison system said. Crabtree has been placed on mandatory leave without pay pending further personnel action.