By COLLEEN SLEVIN

DENVER (AP) — Three women who were among the more than 100 inmates whose strip search videos were allegedly watched repeatedly by a Colorado jail’s former commander are suing him and government agencies, saying they failed to keep tabs on who was accessing the images and why.

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The proposed federal class action lawsuit, filed Wednesday, alleges that La Plata County and its sheriff’s office knew that Edward Aber had a history of being accused of sexual impropriety or harassment when he was hired and failed to place controls on access to strip search footage, including monitoring who was accessing it.

Aber is already being criminally prosecuted after a state investigation found that he had watched the strip search videos of at least 117 female inmates over about five years, often viewing them weeks and months after they were recorded as part of the jail’s intake process. The searches of female inmates entering the county jail are done by female deputies and recorded on their body cameras to ensure the new inmates are not hiding contraband like drugs on their bodies.

His lawyer in the criminal case, Barrie Newberger King, was traveling and did not immediately return emails or a voice message left at her office, which is closed this week. A telephone message left at a number listed for Aber was not immediately returned.

Interim Deputy County Manager Megan Downing said the county does not comment on active litigation.

Another lawsuit involving the jail was filed last month against the county commissioners, the sheriff and others by the parents of an inmate who died there in 2023 after they say the jail’s nurses and sheriff’s deputies ignored his cries for help over about 15 hours.

Edward Aber, former commander of the La Plata County, Colo., jail, walks through the facility in Durango, Colo., Dec. 13, 2022. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald via AP, File)

Aber was placed on paid leave in July 2024 while he was investigated for “alleged sexual conduct” with female inmates and sexual harassment of sheriff’s office employees, according to an arrest warrant affidavit prepared by an agent from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation in the video case. The previous investigation did not result in any criminal charges being filed against Aber, who resigned in July 2024, but prompted a review of his computer use, the document said.

Between February 2019 and July 2024, investigators found that Aber had logged in to access body camera footage over 3,000 times, mostly to watch footage labeled as strip searches, without any apparent legitimate reason, according to the arrest affidavit. The videos were sometimes watched from home and hotels, often late at night or early in the morning, it said.

Aber was charged last month with one count of first degree official misconduct as well 117 counts of invasion of privacy for sexual gratification, all misdemeanors, for alleging watching the videos of female inmates, including the three women who filed the lawsuit. The lawsuit also seeks to include any other woman whose videos were allegedly viewed by Aber.

The document noted that some videos Aber had accessed were purged from the system, so there could be more women whose videos he watched beyond the videos of the 117 women that remained.

The lawsuit accuses Aber and the others of violating the women’s constitutional rights, including their rights to privacy and to be protected against unreasonable searches.

One of their attorneys, Kevin Mehr, acknowledged that strip searches are needed in jails. But he said there could be some limits on why videos of such intrusive moments can be viewed, such as if contraband was found or if an inmate complains of being mistreated, he said. Otherwise, trust in the criminal justice system can be eroded, he said.

“Seeing this happen and thinking this could happen somewhere else really deteriorates the whole trust in the system,” Mehr said.

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter faces four challengers as he runs for his third term in office: A state lawmaker, an engineer, a scientist and a local business owner.

Candidates had until Aug. 12 to file paperwork to run, and there won’t be a primary. Election Day is Nov. 4.

Mayoral elections are nonpartisan, though they often draw strong party interest. This year will be a little different, however: the St. Paul Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party is not making any endorsements in the race as it works to rebuild itself.

This will be the last year a mayoral election happens in an odd-numbered year in St. Paul. In 2024, voters approved a measure to shift the election to even-numbered years when other major contests are on the ballot.

The mayor is typically elected to a four-year term. But because of the change, the next election will be in 2028. The winner of this year’s election will only serve a three-year term.

Under St. Paul’s ranked-choice voting system, voters can rank candidates in order of preference.

Here’s who is officially running:

Melvin Carter

Carter was first elected mayor in 2017 and won reelection to another four-year term in 2021. He announced he’d run for a third term in January.

During his tenure, Cater has pursued a progressive agenda that has included medical debt forgiveness, college savings accounts for newborns, and a new sales tax to fund roads and parks.

Carter has faced growing challenges in recent years. While homicides and carjackings have fallen since peaking during the pandemic, public safety challenges remain, especially along the Green Line light rail corridor on University Avenue.

Carter also has faced pushback from other local leaders. He clashed with the city council over the 2025 budget, and a difficult year could be ahead amid declining downtown property values and federal funding cuts.

Yan Chen

Yan Chen (Courtesy of the candidate)

Yan Chen is a biophysicist at the University of Minnesota who ran for St. Paul City Council Ward 1 in 2023.

On her campaign website, Chen argues that the city is not doing enough to manage growing operational costs and instead raises property taxes at an unsustainable rate.

“If this continues, residents and businesses will leave, our tax base will shrink, and our city will lose its vibrancy,” she said.

Chen is also a critic of Carter’s endorsement of the 2021 rent control referendum and handling of the city’s garbage contract.

In a 2023 questionnaire with the St. Paul Pioneer Press, when she ran for City Council, Chen said she wanted to strengthen city services and stabilize the budget, and then move to address affordable housing.

In addition to being a scientist, Chen is a landlord. She owns five single-family rental homes in St. Paul.

Adam Dullinger

Adam Dullinger (Courtesy of the Candidate)

North End resident and mechanical engineer Adam Dullinger is the most recent candidate to enter the race.

Dullinger appeared at an April St. Paul City Council meeting to speak against exemptions in the city’s rent control ordinance, but said that issue isn’t the reason he decided to run.

Instead, Dullinger said he wants the city to focus on managing everyday problems like infrastructure maintenance — an area where he says his engineering background would give him an edge.

The political newcomer also said the city should do more to improve the affordability of housing, transportation and food. One way to improve affordability and food access could be municipal grocery stores, he said.

Dullinger also wants the city to continue developing its bicycle infrastructure to reduce road congestion, improve air quality and combat climate change.

Kaohly Her

State Rep. Kaohly Her entered the race earlier this month. The fourth-term St. Paul DFL legislator is the mayor’s most politically prominent challenger.

Rep. Kaohly Her (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Her said she decided to enter the race because she felt there hadn’t been enough debate on issues facing the city — whether it be rising property taxes, public safety and development challenges in districts like downtown.

“I hadn’t seen any engagement with voters in this mayoral race,” she said in an Aug. 4 interview. “It is important for us to vigorously debate the issues and the solutions in front of us, so that voters have a choice.”

Her, who used to work for the mayor, said she supports Carter’s progressive polices like medical debt forgiveness, but doesn’t think it’s a city’s job to provide them. Instead, St. Paul should focus on fundamental services, she said.

Mike Hilborn

Mike Hilborn (Courtesy of Excalibur Portraits / minnesotaheadshots.com)

Mike Hilborn runs a power washing, snowplowing and Christmas tree lighting business and ran as a Republican for downtown St. Paul’s state House district in 2024.

In a biography on his campaign website, he describes himself as “a father, an entrepreneur, a second-chance employer.” The company he started 30 years ago is headquartered on West Seventh Street.

Hilborn’s stated priorities include lowering taxes and promoting law and order. Earlier this year, his website said he would double the size of the St. Paul Police Department while cutting property taxes by 50%

Hilborn, who works with nonprofits that provide work opportunities for the disabled and people getting out of prison, wants to combat homelessness by expanding access to shelter and addressing root causes like addiction and mental health challenges, according to his website.

By SEJAL GOVINDARAO and MEAD GRUVER

Health officials are working to alert hundreds of people in dozens of states and several countries who may have been exposed to rabies in bat-infested cabins in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park over the past few months.

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As of Friday, none of the bats found in some of the eight linked cabins at Jackson Lake Lodge had tested positive for rabies.

But the handful of dead bats found and sent to the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory in Laramie for testing were probably only a small sample of the likely dozens that colonized the attic above the row of cabins, Wyoming State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist said.

Other bats weren’t killed but got shooed out through cabin doors and windows. Meanwhile, the vast majority never flapped down from the attic into living spaces.

Health officials thus deemed it better safe than sorry to alert everybody who has stayed in the cabins recently that they might have been exposed by being bitten or scratched. Especially when people are sleeping, a bat bite or scratch can go unseen and unnoticed.

“What we’re really concerned about is people who saw bats in their rooms and people who might have had direct contact with a bat,” Harrist said Friday.

The cabins have been unoccupied, with no plans to reopen, since concessionaire Grand Teton Lodge Company discovered the bat problem July 27.

Bats are a frequent vector of the rabies virus. Once symptoms occur — muscle aches, vomiting, itching, to name a few — rabies is almost always fatal in humans.

The good news is a five-shot prophylactic regimen over a two-week period soon after exposure is highly effective in preventing illness, Harrist noted.

The cabins opened for the summer season in May after being vacant over the winter. Based on the roughly 250 reservations through late July, health officials estimated that up to 500 people had stayed in the cabins.

They were trying to reach people in 38 states and seven countries through those states’ health agencies and, in the case of foreign visitors, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Others who have not been alerted yet but stayed in cabins 516, 518, 520, 522, 524, 526, 528 and 530 this year should tell health officials or a doctor immediately, Harrist said.

Health officials were recommending prophylactic shots for people who fit certain criteria, such as deep sleepers who found a bat in their room, and children too young to say that they had seen a bat.

The Wyoming Department of Health had no ongoing concern about visitor safety at the Jackson Lake Lodge area. That includes a Federal Reserve economic policy symposium Aug. 21-23 that takes place at Jackson Lake Lodge every summer.

“The lodge company has done a fantastic job of doing their due diligence of making sure everyone that is coming in for that, and for all other visits this year, are going to be as safe as possible,” said Emily Curren, Wyoming’s public health veterinarian.

“Three or four” dead bats from the cabins tested negative and one that was mangled did not have enough brain tissue to be testable, Curren said.

All were brown bats, which come in two species: “little” and “big,” with the larger ones more than twice as big. Officials were unsure which species these were, but both are common in Wyoming.

They typically live in colonies of 30 to 100 individuals, Curren said.

“That’s a lot of bats that we cannot rule out a risk of rabies being in,” Curren said. “There’s no way for us to know for certain about every single bat that got into these rooms.”

There are no plans to exterminate the bats, Grand Teton National Park spokesperson Emily Davis said. Devices fitted to the building were keeping the bats from getting back in after flying out in pursuit of insects to eat, they said.

By KONSTANTIN TOROPIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Air Force says in a new memo that transgender airmen ousted under a recent Trump administration directive will no longer have the chance to argue before a board of their peers for the right to continue serving their country.

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The memo dated Tuesday says military separation boards cannot independently decide whether to keep or discharge transgender airmen and instead “must recommend separation of the member” if the airman has a diagnosis of gender dysphoria — when a person’s biological sex does not match up with their gender identity.

Military legal experts who have been advising transgender troops told The Associated Press that the new policy is unlawful, and while they were not aware of the other services releasing similar memos, they fear it could serve as a blueprint across the military. Advocacy groups say the change threatens to weaken trust in the military’s leadership.

It is the second policy change the Air Force has taken in recent weeks to crack down on transgender service members. The Associated Press reported last week that the Air Force would deny transgender troops early retirement benefits and was moving to revoke requests already approved.

The Air Force declined to answer questions about the policy and its legal implications.

The service provided a statement saying the new guidance “is consistent with and responsive to Department of Defense policy regarding Service members with a diagnosis of, or history of, or exhibiting symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria.”

How the boards usually work

The boards traditionally offer a quasi-legal hearing to determine if a service member set to depart is still of value to the military and should stay on. Fellow service members hear evidence of whatever wrongdoing occurred and about the person’s character, fitness and performance.

The hearings are not a formal court, but they have much the same structure. Service members are often represented by lawyers, they can present evidence in their defense and they can appeal the board’s findings to federal court.

The Pentagon’s policy on separating officers notes that they are entitled to “fair and impartial” hearings that should be “a forum for the officer concerned to present reasons the contemplated action should not be taken.”

This impartial nature means that the boards can sometimes reach surprising conclusions.

For example, the three active-duty Marines who were part of the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were retained.

The commanding officer of the USS McCain, a destroyer that collided with an oil tanker in the Pacific in 2017, killing 10, was not recommended for separation in 2019.

Military lawyers decry the Air Force change

Priya Rashid, a military lawyer who has represented service members before hundreds of separation boards, said she “has never seen an order like this.”

“I’ve seen people with three DUIs retained, I’ve seen people that beat their wives retained, I’ve seen all kinds of people retained because the board is empowered to retain anyone for any reason if they feel it’s in the best interest of the service,” she said.

Rashid said she and other lawyers working with transgender troops view the guidance as telling the boards to automatically order separation based solely on a diagnosis or symptoms of gender dysphoria.

She said that constitutes an unlawful command by the Air Force and upends impartiality.

“This instruction is essentially saying you will not make a determination of whether somebody has future potential in the service,” Rashid said.

The new Air Force guidance also prohibits recording the proceedings.

Rashid said the lack of an independent transcript would not only prevent Air Force leaders from reviewing the hearings to ensure they were conducted appropriately but would undercut any meaningful chance to appeal.

Stepped-up efforts to oust transgender troops

Pentagon officials say 4,240 troops have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, which the military is using as an identifier of being transgender.

The Pentagon got the green light from Supreme Court in May to move forward with a ban on all transgender troops. It offered two options: volunteer to leave and take a one-time separation payout or be discharged at a later date without pay.

Some transgender troops decided to fight to stay by turning to the boards.

Senior Master Sgt. Jamie Hash, who has served in the Air Force since 2011, said she “wanted to face an objective board to be evaluated on my years of proven capability.”

“I wanted the board to see the assignments overseas and at the Pentagon, the deployments to different Combatant Commands, the service medals and the sustained operational and mission effectiveness,” she said in an interview.

But now, she said, that “the path ahead feels more uncertain than it ever has.”

Logan Ireland, a master sergeant in the Air Force with 15 years of service that includes a deployment to Afghanistan, was planning to retire early until his request was denied last week.

After that, he decided he would take a stand at the separation board.

“I chose the involuntary route because I believed in the promise of a fair hearing — judged on my service, my record and the facts,” he said.

“Now that promise is being ripped away, replaced with a process designed to decide my fate before I even walk in the room,” he said, adding that “all I’m asking for is the same fairness and justice every service member deserves.”

Both Ireland and Hash said they have yet to hear from their immediate superiors on what the new policy will mean for them.

Lawyers are worried it will set a precedent that will spread throughout the military.

Rashid said both the Army and Navy are “going to look at what the Air Force is doing as a standard of law … is this the minimum standard of law that we will afford our service members.”

Transgender troops warn the policy could have wider implications

Col. Bree Fram, a transgender officer in the Space Force who has long been seen as a leader among transgender troops, argued that the policy is a threat to other service members.

In an online post, Fram said it “swaps judgment for automation.”

”Today it’s gender dysphoria; tomorrow it can be any condition or class the politics of the moment calls for,” she argued.

If the new policy is allowed to sideline “evidence of fitness, deployment history, awards, and commander input — the very material boards were built to evaluate,” Fram said, it sends a message that performance is no longer relevant to staying in the military.

Cathy Marcello, interim director for Modern Military Association of America, said the change adds to a “growing loss of trust” because outcomes are determined by politics, not performance. The organization advocates for LGBTQ+ service members, military spouses, veterans, their families and allies.

“It’s a signal that identity, not ability or achievement, determines who stays in uniform and who gets a fair shot,” she said.