DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Senate committee in the Iowa Legislature has approved a bill that would ban most abortions in the state after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The Senate Human Resources Committee voted 9-3 in support of the measure. It’s now available for debate on the Senate floor.

The proposal advanced beyond a legislative procedural deadline this week that stopped a separate personhood bill from moving forward. That bill would have determined that life begins at conception and would have essentially banned abortion. It likely would have faced legal challenges.

The 20-week ban would include some exemptions. A pregnancy between 20 and 24 weeks could be terminated if the fetus had a fatal condition.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri Senate has passed a bill to create a statewide prescription drug tracking program.

Senators voted 20-13 Thursday in favor of creating a database to track when prescriptions for controlled substances are written and filled. The goal is to prevent so-called doctor shopping, when people go to multiple doctors to get prescriptions for opioid drugs and painkillers.

Missouri is the only state without a drug monitoring program.

The bill now moving to the House was proposed by a longtime critic of such programs. Republican Sen. Rob Schaaf says his version has protections to address privacy concerns.

The version passed by the Senate could cost more than $6.5 million in fiscal year 2018. Schaaf says he’s working on changes to make it less expensive.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Mississippi investigators are in Kansas hoping to interview a suspect arrested in a multi-state crime spree that included two Mississippi deaths, a violent kidnapping in New Mexico and a shooting west of Wichita.

Rankin County, Mississippi, Sheriff Bryan Bailey says investigators hoped to talk to 28-year-old Alex Deaton Thursday afternoon.

It’s unclear when Deaton will be returned to Mississippi. A Kansas Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman said deciding the question of extradition could take time.

Bailey says physical evidence was recovered in New Mexico tied to the Mississippi case, including the car that belonged to Deaton’s slain girlfriend, Heather Robinson, and firearms.

Robinson’s body was found in her apartment last week. Deaton is suspected of strangling her and fatally shooting a woman at a church in Neshoba County.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska prison has been placed on lockdown and inmates in a housing unit are refusing to return to their cells. Officials say approximately 40 of unit’s 128 inmates are involved in the disturbance at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution.

A prison spokeswoman said a fire is burning in a prison yard, but authorities did not see any signs of fire inside the unit.

No injuries have been reported. Department spokeswoman Dawn-Renee Smith says all staff members are safe. Smith says the incident is isolated to half of the housing unit and a small fenced yard, and poses no risk to the public.

The prison in southeast Nebraska was the site of a May 2015 riot that injured several staff members, caused widespread damage and left two inmates dead.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A panel has selected three choices for Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens to fill a state Supreme Court vacancy.

The Appellate Judicial Commission’s nominees are state Western District Court of Appeals Judge Lisa Hardwick, attorney Benjamin Lipman and Jackson County Circuit Judge W. Brent Powell.

In Missouri, the Appellate Judicial Commission screens applicants and recommends three nominees to the governor, who makes an appointment.

Greitens on Thursday told members of The Associated Press and Missouri Press Association that he’ll interview all three candidates.

The commission’s picks have been criticized by a top Republican lawmaker.

Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard on Thursday told reporters that there are not enough conservative candidates. He says he’ll talk with Senate Republicans about repealing the state’s nonpartisan court plan used to select the candidates.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri woman who tried to have her former son-in-law killed so she could see her grandchildren more has been sentenced to four years in federal prison.

Sixty-three-year-old Teresa Owen of the Kansas City suburb of Independence was sentenced Thursday. She pleaded guilty last September to using a telephone to commit a murder-for-hire scheme.

Authorities say Owen was embroiled in a custody dispute involving her grandchildren when she reached out to two people by telephone, offering them money to kill her former son-in-law. One of the would-be hit men turned out to be an undercover police officer.

Investigators say Owen agreed to pay $700 for the killing said she wanted her former son-in-law’s death to resemble an accident.

She was arrested and charged in mid-2015.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s U.S. senators are split on support for Attorney General Jeff Sessions following the revelation that he talked twice with Russia’s ambassador to the United States during the presidential campaign.

The conversations seem to contradict sworn statements Sessions gave to Congress during his confirmation hearings.

Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill on Thursday called on Sessions to resign. She says he misled the Senate.

McCaskill is one of a number of Democrats asking the attorney general to step down. Some Republicans want him to recuse himself from an investigation into Russian interference in the U.S. election.

Other GOP lawmakers are rallying around him, including Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt.

Blunt said he takes Sessions at his word that he had no discussions with Russian officials about the election.

OTTAWA, Ill. (AP) — A northern Illinois man has died after being struck by a tree during a powerful Midwestern storm, raising the death toll for the regional storms to four.

Peoria County’s coroner says 31-year-old David A. Johnson of Ottawa died Wednesday of severe head trauma at a Peoria hospital.

Johnson was in a backyard with his spouse and father-in-law Tuesday when the storm uprooted a tree that landed on them.

His 76-year-old father-in-law, Wayne Tuntland, was killed. His spouse was treated at a hospital.

Seventy-one-year-old Thomas McCord also died Tuesday when an apparent tornado struck a building in Crossville, in southern Illinois.

In Missouri, officials say 24-year-old Travis Koenig of Perryville was killed when a tornado blew his vehicle off Interstate 55. Forecasters say the tornado, which damaged more than 100 homes, had wind speeds between 139 mph and 165 mph.

JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — Authorities in southwest Missouri say the suspect in the shooting of a sheriff’s deputy has been taken into custody after a standoff at a Joplin motel.

Police Capt. Rusty Rives tells the Joplin Globe the suspect was bleeding when he emerged from a motel room Wednesday evening but that the nature of his injury is unclear.

Rives says Jasper County Deputy Nolan Murray was shot in the upper body Wednesday afternoon at the Econo Lodge while narcotics officers were serving a search warrant. He says Murray was conscious when he was transported to hospital and required surgery. Rives didn’t have additional information on Murray’s condition Wednesday night.

After the shooting, the suspect barricaded himself in a motel room for about three hours before exiting.

Further details weren’t immediately available.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A federal judge wants to hear oral arguments on a newspaper’s request to disclose the federal government’s reasons for putting wiretaps on the phone communications of a former state legislator, a Wichita businessman and others.

U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren set a hearing for Tuesday in federal court on the motion filed by The Wichita Eagle. Five of the paper’s current or former employees were notified their calls with Sedgwick County Commissioner Michael O’Donnell and businessman Brandon Steven had been intercepted.

The U.S. attorney’s office says disclosing the information would jeopardize its investigation. The government contends no one has been charged and no evidence has been introduced in any civil or criminal proceedings. It calls the request a “thinly veiled First Amendment argument” to obtain access to sealed documents.