SOUTH SALT LAKE, Utah (KUTV) — An AMBER Alert was canceled after being issued for a 9-year-old boy out of South Salt Lake.

Marie Erika Lynn Marsh, 33, was accused of abducting a 9-year-old non-family member.

The alert was issued at 5:38 p.m. It was canceled just after 6 p.m.

____

The NYPD has pulled back from a proposed security plan that would have created a single checkpoint to enter Washington Square Park after the upcoming Pride parade — one of the few times in recent weeks that the police department has decided not to rein in a gathering in public space.

Local activists and members of the LGBTQIA+ community got the news towards the end of a press conference on Friday morning that had been called to draw attention to the NYPD proposal, which had circulated among Pride organizers and the Sixth Precinct.

Organizers of various Pride events gathered to say they don’t want more barriers on the annual celebration — especially those put up by the police, whose aggression towards lesbians and gays birthed the event itself.

“Pride was started by a rejection of the NYPD’s attempts to control our community,” said Jay Walker, the co-founder of the Queer Liberation March and the president of Gays Against Guns NYC. “That is why Pride exists, but continually, the NYPD tries to hamper our Pride celebration.”

Word had begun to spread in May, when the Sixth Precinct shared the plan that the NYPD would tightly control access to the park after Pride on June 28. According to emails obtained by Streetsblog, precinct officials had told organizers that the closure plan would be similar to the policing strategy on April 20, when cops set up a single entrance to the park and checked everyone’s bag.

LGBTQIA+ groups, plus David Siffert, a candidate for the state Assembly, objected.

“We need to make clear that this park is a public park,” said Siffert, at Friday’s press conference.

For weeks, the NYPD kept organizers in limbo, but at the end of the press conference, Walker finally received a text from his contact at the NYPD that Washington Square Park will be open, as usual, on June 28.

“There is currently no formal plan” to enact restrictions at the park, an NYPD spokesperson confirmed in an email to Streetsblog.

The confusion over Pride mirrors what has been going on in the city this summer, as the NYPD has heightened its presence in public space. Knicks fans trying to celebrate the team’s post-season run were blocked from entering the area surrounding Madison Square Garden by police barricades for the last two championship games. And the NYPD objected to many World Cup watch parties that the Department of Transportation had planned to set up this summer, though the Mamdani administration later created a spate of events at other venues likely chosen to minimize the alleged need for cops.

And World Cup attendees and city residents alike have been told to expect an increased police presence in the city while the matches are happening in New Jersey. Queer New Yorkers worry that the NYPD could impede on their gathering, too.

“Locking down this park is locking out the queer community, locking us out of a place of celebration, protest, and community,” said Lorelei Crean, a young activists for LGBTQIA+ rights.

New York City’s Pride Parade started after the Stonewall Riots of 1969, when the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn, a mob-owned bar that was the epicenter of the queer community. The first Pride Parade was held the next year, and has continued annually ever since. Last year, the parade hosted 75,000 people.

The parade itself doesn’t travel through Washington Square Park, but the park is usually a meeting space for celebrants before, during and after — not only a reflection on the community’s struggles, but also its history of resistance to the police.

“To have to come here and advocate to not have this public space shut down on the historic day is completely outrageous,” said Kei Williams, the executive director for the LGBTQIA+ rights group, the New Pride Agenda.

Williams pointed out the irony that cops would be policing the gay and trans community when, in fact, members of those groups are the ones who are so often targeted with violence.

A Wyoming judge struck down three abortion laws on Friday, the latest instance of the courts here rejecting attempts by state lawmakers to curtail the procedure in the Equality State.

Retired District Judge Thomas T. C. Campbell ruled the laws violated a 2012 amendment to the Wyoming Constitution that protects individuals’ rights to make their own healthcare decisions. The Wyoming Supreme Court in January cited the same provision when it struck down two statewide abortion bans, and a different judge noted the amendment in April when he blocked enforcement of the state’s new “heartbeat” bill. 

Friday’s ruling concerned three laws passed by lawmakers in 2025. One created a mandatory ultrasound requirement and a 48-hour waiting period for patients seeking abortions. The second enacted a set of new and more stringent regulations that critics said were intended to make operating an abortion clinic in Wyoming unfeasible. A third involved abortion restrictions within a larger law governing the prescription of off-label medications.

Campbell temporarily blocked enforcement of all three laws last year after the plaintiffs in the case — which included abortion providers and abortion rights advocates — filed suit in state court. But his final determination that the laws are unconstitutional did not come until Friday.

‘No competent evidence’

In his 34-page decision, Campbell wrote repeatedly that the state, which had defended the laws in court, failed to provide evidence backing its claims. He noted the state alleged that the ultrasound law serves as a way to protect women from the consequences of undiagnosed ectopic pregnancies. But the judge found that the state “offers no competent evidence that such instances are occurring with any measure of regularity.” Additionally, he wrote, the state “offered no cogent evidence illustrating that a waiting period is necessary for any purpose.” 

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs showed that the ultrasound rule would not significantly lessen the risk for ectopic pregnancy complications and that waiting periods have no medical utility, the judge wrote. They also offered “ample evidence” that the ultrasound requirement lacked a compelling government interest, according to Campbell’s ruling.

“The Plaintiffs provide concise evidence undermining the medical necessity of an ultrasound prior to undergoing a chemical abortion,” he wrote. “The Plaintiffs request for relief is underscored by their evidence that abortion is inherently safe. They provide Wyoming Department of Health data indicating zero complications or deaths resulting from abortion in Wyoming. They also specifically cite clinical guidance explicitly proclaiming that ultrasounds are not medically necessary for women seeking chemical abortions.”

Campbell also took issue with what he termed a lack of evidence by state lawyers defending the law that required abortion clinics be regulated as “ambulatory surgical centers,” which come with more stringent, and costly, regulations. The state contended the law constituted a compelling interest because it closed a legal loophole, but did not provide evidence showing that “consistency of laws forms a compelling government interest,” he wrote. 

He also rejected the state’s arguments that the law helped to ensure women’s health.

“Of course, it is conceivable that preserving women’s health could independently invoke a compelling interest,” he wrote. “However, outside of sweeping generalizations, the State again provides no evidence or a causal link of how a surgical abortion facility, operating outside the regulatory framework of an [ambulatory surgical center], negatively impacts women’s health and welfare.”

As for the off-label medication law, which abortion advocates fear would discourage doctors from prescribing common abortion medications, the judge agreed with the plaintiffs, who maintained it was a solution in need of a problem.

Abortion opponents stymied by constitutional amendment

State lawmakers have made several attempts to limit or ban abortion in Wyoming since 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the landmark ruling Roe v. Wade. Since then, the same group of plaintiffs has repeatedly succeeded in convincing the courts that the laws violated a 2012 amendment to the Wyoming Constitution. Voters enacted the amendment after a push by conservatives who feared Obamacare would lead to government infringement on healthcare autonomy. 

The amendment protects adults’ rights to make their own healthcare decisions. The Wyoming Supreme Court in January concluded that “a woman has a fundamental right to make her own health care decisions, including the decision to have an abortion.”

In the aftermath of that ruling, Gov. Mark Gordon called on the Wyoming Legislature to pursue a constitutional amendment that would settle the matter. But lawmakers instead chose to pass a law that made abortion illegal once fetal cardiac activity is detected, which can occur by the sixth week. That law is also tied up in the courts while a legal challenge proceeds.

Still, anti-abortion advocates in the Legislature promised to continue their attempts to end the practice here. 

“We will not quit, we will not give up and we will not stop the fight to protect innocent life,” Speaker of the House Chip Neiman said in a video posted to the Wyoming Freedom Caucus’ Facebook page. “It’s really too bad. It’s quite a testimony, quite a statement about our judiciary that, I think once again, they’ve acted to thwart and to ignore the will of the Legislature and have complete disregard for innocent life in Wyoming.”

Neiman, a Republican who is now running for the state senate, said he expected Wyoming Attorney General Keith Kautz, who advocated against abortion after he retired from the Wyoming Supreme Court, to fight Friday’s ruling, presumably by appealing to the high court.

Meanwhile, the president of Wyoming’s only abortion clinic, Casper’s Wellspring Health Access, hailed Friday’s decision, while also alluding to the likelihood of more legal battles ahead. 

“These politically motivated laws, which unfairly target abortion providers, harm the people we serve by creating unnecessary barriers to essential health care,” Julie Burkhart said in a statement. While we know the fight against these laws is far from over, this outcome strengthens our determination to continue providing comprehensive reproductive health care, including abortion, to the people of Wyoming.”

The University of Wyoming has conducted repeated polls on abortion in Wyoming. The latest, which was released in November 2024, showed that about 10% of Wyomingites backed a total ban on abortion, with another 31% favoring abortion restrictions with exceptions for rape, incest or when a woman’s life is in danger. Another 20% preferred those exemptions and others once the need for an abortion had been clearly established. About 39% said abortion should remain a personal choice.