A man charged under an Ohio fetal homicide law with trying to force his pregnant girlfriend at gunpoint to get an abortion pleaded guilty Thursday to attempted murder, weapons and abduction counts.

Dominic Holt-Reid pulled a gun Oct. 6 on girlfriend Yolanda Burgess, who was three months pregnant, and forced her to drive to an abortion clinic, police said. Burgess, who was 26 at the time, did not go through with the procedure but instead passed a note to a clinic employee, who called police.

Prosecutors had brought their case against Holt-Reid using the state's 1996 law that says a person can be found guilty of murder for causing the unlawful termination of a pregnancy.

Holt-Reid, 28, faces up to 20 years in prison and a $40,000 fine. A presentencing investigation was ordered, and the next hearing was scheduled for June 9.

Holt-Reid had previously pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder, kidnapping, improper handling of a firearm and carrying a concealed weapon. His guilty pleas in Franklin County Common Pleas Court came a day after Prosecutor Ron O'Brien told The Associated Press in a statement that a plea deal was in the works.

Texas has long considered beaches to be public property up to the vegetation line, but a Supreme Court ruling put that in doubt. In November, the court cited early Texas history and ruled that Galveston Island's West Beach could be considered private property.

The Supreme Court agreed to rehear the case on Tuesday morning after the General Land Office complained the more recent Open Beaches Act superseded the earlier law.

The lawsuit arose after Hurricane Rita eroded the sand and left several homes on the beach. The GLO tried to foreclose on those structures, but the property owner took the state to court.

The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the first scheduled execution of a Texas death row inmate using a new drug cocktail on Tuesday, although the proposed lethal mix was not mentioned in the court's decision to reconsider the merits of the condemned man's appeal.

Cleve Foster was to have been executed hours later for the 2002 slaying of a Sudanese woman in Fort Worth — the first Texas execution since the state switched to pentobarbital in its three-drug mixture. The sedative has already been used for executions in Oklahoma and Ohio.

On Tuesday morning, the high court agreed to reconsider its January order denying Foster's appeal that raised claims of innocence and poor legal help during his trial and early stages of his appeals.

Foster's lawyers also have argued that Texas prison officials violated administrative procedures last month when they announced the switch to pentobarbital from sodium thiopental, which is in short supply nationwide. Foster's lawyers contend that the rules change in Texas required more time for public comment and review. Lower courts have rejected their appeals and attorneys had planned to take their case to the Texas Supreme Court.

New York's top court will hear arguments whether a New York Police Department sergeant's failure to get statements from two witnesses to a stabbing in a Times Square theater means a man's assault conviction should be overturned.

The trial judge refused to let defense lawyers cross-examine the sergeant about the unknown bystanders, who he overheard saying the injured man pulled the knife — not suspect Kenneth Hayes — but did not question because he was busy securing the scene.

The judge also ruled the police failure to get their contact information didn't violate the Brady requirement that prosecutors disclose information to the defense that could prove their client innocent.

A midlevel court divided 3-2 in rejecting Hayes' appeal.

He was also found guilty of weapon possession in the scuffle with Charles Shell, although Hayes claimed self-defense.

A federal judge has refused to expand a lawsuit beyond the seven people who are suing a South Dakota urology clinic and its owners.

The plaintiffs sought to make it a class action suit representing more than 6,000 patients.

The lawsuit against Siouxland Urology Center in Dakota Dunes and doctors alleges that the former patients could have been exposed to blood-borne infections because medical equipment that was intended for single-patient use was reused at the clinic.

U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier ruled that the complaint did not meet all the requirements for class action status.

The plaintiffs, identified as Iowa residents, seek more than $5 million on allegations that include negligence, medical malpractice, and emotional distress.

A measure that would bar Iowa county officials from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples faces a bleak future as it sits in a House committee.

Top Republicans on Thursday said they have no plans to debate the issue, viewing it a nod to the party's social conservative wing. Top Democrats argue the measure is unconstitutional and violates a 2009 Iowa Supreme Court decision striking down a state law defining marriage as being between one man and one woman.

Backers say introducing the measure is one more opportunity to voice their displeasure with how the marriage issue has been handled.

Republican Rep. Betty De Boef (dee-BUFF') says the issue has been handled badly and that some lawmakers want to take every opportunity to make that point.