TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Two-term Republican U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner is not running for reelection this year in his GOP-leaning eastern Kansas district so that he can spend more time with his four young children, he announced Thursday.

LaTurner is among nearly two dozen Republicans in the U.S. House who are not running again or seeking another office.

“The unrepeatable season of life we are in, where our kids are still young and at home, is something I want to be more present for,” LaTurner said.

LaTurner’s announcement leaves Republicans with no declared candidates in a district he likely would have had little trouble winning again. While the district includes Democratic strongholds in the state capital of Topeka and northern Kansas City, they’re offset by rural areas that heavily favored former President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.

LaTurner, 36, has put on hold what seemed a promising long-term political career, saying also that he wouldn’t seek any office in 2026. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly is term-limited and Republicans had mentioned LaTurner as a possible candidate for the job that year.

He worked for U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins when he won a state Senate seat in 2012 at age 24, and he became Kansas’ youngest-ever state treasurer at 29 when then-GOP Gov. Sam Brownback appointed him to fill a vacancy.

LaTurner’s statement mentioned “the current dysfunction on Capitol Hill,” with the narrow Republican majority in the House and a threat from the hard-right to topple Speaker Mike Johnson, but he also said he’s optimistic about the nation’s future. Instead, he said, serving in Congress has taken a toll on him, his wife, Suzanne, and their children.

“I am hopeful that in another season of life, with new experiences and perspectives, I can contribute in some small way and advocate for the issues I care most about,” his statement Thursday said.

While Republicans have represented the 2nd District in 27 of the past 30 years, Democrats have waged aggressive campaigns since Jenkins decided not to seek reelection in 2018. One Democrat, former teacher Eli Woody IV, has filed to run in November.

In the 2020 primary, LaTurner handily defeated Republican Steve Watkins and won the November election by almost 15 percentage points. In 2022, LaTurner won his general election race by a slightly wider margin.

In June 2022, the congressman beefed up security at his home and Topeka office out of concern for his family’s safety after a man left a threatening voicemail after hours that said, “I will kill you.”

The man, Chase Neill, is now serving a sentence of nearly four years in prison after being convicted in federal court of one count of threating a U.S. official. LaTurner testified at the trial, and Neill, representing himself, cross-examined him personally.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate advanced legislation Thursday that would reauthorize a key U.S. surveillance tool as lawmakers and the Biden administration rushed to tamp down fresh concerns about the program violating Americans’ civil liberties.

The bipartisan legislation would reform and extend a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act known as Section 702, which U.S. officials say is vital to preventing terrorism, catching spies and disrupting cyberattacks. A bill renewing the program passed the House last week after a dramatic showdown on the floor over whether the FBI should be restricted from using the program to search for Americans’ data.

But the same concerns that nearly derailed the bill in the House are flaring again in the Senate, with both progressives and conservative lawmakers agitating for further changes. It’s a dynamic that could ultimately jeopardize the bill’s passage in the upper chamber, though supporters remain optimistic that the program will be reauthorized without much deal.

The Biden administration has spent the week on Capitol Hill providing classified briefings to senators on the crucial role they say the spy program plays in protecting national security. Officials warn that some of the changes being proposed to the tool could handicap the FBI’s efforts to thwart threats to the U.S.

Opponents remain unfazed and have demanded that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer allow votes on amendments to the legislation that would seek to address what they see as civil liberty loopholes in the bill.

“The administration is making the case that if there’s any changes, it’s going to jeopardize the program,” Democratic Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont said Thursday. “That’s asking a lot of the Senate to basically abdicate its responsibility.”

The legislation in its current form has the backing of not only the Biden administration but also the leaders of the national security committees in Congress, who have urged detractors to accept the mild reforms to the program. Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the changes being proposed by the various groups are “unnecessary” and would “destroy the purpose” of the program.

“If certain amendments like that were to pass, the bill would go back to the House and I just don’t know what posture the House is going to be in to be able to take up legislation because we’ve got so much going on,” Rubio said.

Though the spy program is technically set to expire Friday, the Biden administration has said it expects its authority to collect intelligence to remain operational for at least another year, thanks to an opinion earlier this month from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which receives surveillance applications.

Still, officials say that court approval shouldn’t be a substitute for congressional authorization, especially since communications companies could cease cooperation with the government if the program is allowed to lapse.

Overall skepticism of the government’s spy powers has grown dramatically in recent years, particularly on the right. Republicans clashed for months over what a legislative overhaul of the FISA surveillance program should look like, creating divisions that spilled onto the House floor last week as 19 Republicans broke with their party to prevent the bill from coming up for a vote.

In the end, House Speaker Mike Johnson managed to appease some critics of the reauthorization bill by shortening the extension of the program from five years to two years.

First authorized in 2008, the spy tool has been renewed several times since then as U.S. officials see it as crucial in disrupting terror attacks, cyber intrusions and foreign espionage. It has also produced intelligence that the U.S. has relied on for specific operations.

But the administration’s efforts to secure reauthorization of the program have repeatedly encountered fierce, and bipartisan, pushback, with Democrats like Sen. Ron Wyden who have long championed civil liberties aligning with Republican supporters of former President Donald Trump, who in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday stated incorrectly that Section 702 had been used to spy on his presidential campaign.

A specific area of concern for lawmakers is the FBI’s use of the vast intelligence repository to search for information about Americans and others in the U.S. Though the surveillance program only targets non-Americans in other countries, it also collects communications of Americans when they are in contact with those targeted foreigners.

In the past year, U.S. officials have revealed a series of abuses and mistakes by FBI analysts in improperly querying the intelligence repository for information about Americans or others in the U.S., including about a member of Congress and participants in the racial justice protests of 2020 and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

___

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

NEW YORK (AP) — The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money trial ordered the media on Thursday not to report on where potential jurors have worked and to be careful about revealing information about those who will sit in judgment of the former president.

Judge Juan Merchan acted after one juror was dismissed when she expressed concerns about being “outed” for her role in the case after details about her became publicly known.

The actions pointed to the difficulties involved in trying to maintain anonymity for jurors in a case that has sparked wide interest and heated opinions, while lawyers need to sift through as much information as possible in a public courtroom to determine who to choose.

Despite the setback, 12 jurors were seated by the end of Thursday for the historic trial over a $130,000 hush money payment shortly before the 2016 election to porn actor Stormy Daniels to prevent her from making public her claims of a sexual meeting with Trump years earlier. Trump has denied the encounter.

The dismissed juror told Merchan she had friends, colleagues and family members contacting her to ask whether she was on the case. “I don’t believe at this point I can be fair and unbiased and let the outside influences not affect my decision-making in the courtroom,” she said.

Merchan directed reporters not to report it when potential jurors told the court their specific workplaces, past or present. That put journalists in the difficult position of not reporting something they heard in open court, and some media organizations were considering whether to protest having that onus placed on them.

Even if that specific information wasn’t released, there was some concern that enough information about potential jurors would get out that people might be able to identify them anyway.

As an example of what is getting out there, Politico on Thursday identified one potential juror as “a woman who lives in Manhattan and works as an asset manager.” She grew up in England and Hong Kong and lives with a self-employed boyfriend.

Another potential juror was identified as “an attorney for a large media company who lives in Gramercy Park.”

On Fox News Channel Wednesday night, host Jesse Watters did a segment with a jury consultant, revealing details about people who had been seated on the jury and questioning whether some were “stealth liberals” who would be out to convict Trump.

“This nurse scares me if I’m Trump,” he said. “She’s from the Upper East Side, master’s degree, not married, no kids, lives with her fiance and gets her news from The New York Times and CNN.”

Besides his order about employment history, Merchan said he was asking the media to “simply apply common sense and refrain from writing about anything that has to do, for example, with physical descriptions.”

He said “there was really no need” for the media to mention one widely-reported tidbit that a juror speaks with an Irish accent.

Anonymous juries have long existed, particularly in terrorism and mob-related cases or when there is a history of jury tampering. They have been ordered more frequently in the last two decades with the rising influence of social media and the anonymous hate speech that is sometimes associated with it. Usually courtroom artists are told they aren’t permitted to draw the face of any juror in their sketches; New York courts do not permit video coverage of trials.

During the Trump defamation trial in Manhattan federal court earlier this year, jurors had heightened protection of their identities by a security-conscious judge who routinely did not allow anyone in his courtroom to have a cellphone, even if it was shut off. Jurors were driven to and from the courthouse by the U.S. Marshals Service and were sequestered from the public during trial breaks.

When asked general questions about themselves during jury selection in that case, prospective jurors often gave vague answers that would have made it nearly impossible to determine much about them.

After the ruling in that case, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered the anonymous jury not to disclose the identities of any of the people they served with, and advised jurors not to disclose their service. So far, none have come forward publicly.

New York criminal defense lawyer Ron Kuby said New York state law requires trial attorneys be provided the names of jurors, even when they are otherwise anonymous. However, he said, the right can be overridden by the need to protect jurors’ safety.

As for the media, he said the judge can’t control what is reported but he can severely restrict what reporters see and hear if necessary.

“There are actions the judge could take. Courts have extraordinary powers to protect jurors from tampering and intimidation. It is really where a court’s power is at its peak,” Kuby said.

He said the ability of lawyers at Trump’s trial to research the social media history of jurors was important.

“Both sides have interest in preventing sleeper jurors who have their own agenda from serving on the jury,” he said.

Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor who is president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers, said the difficulty at the Trump trial is weeding out people with extreme viewpoints.

“Everyone in the entire country knows who Donald Trump is,” Rahmani said. “Some think he’s a criminal traitor and insurrectionist. Others think he’s a hero. You don’t have a lot of people in the middle.”

___

Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak and Jake Offenhartz contributed to this report.

DENVER (AP) — Artificial intelligence is helping decide which Americans get the job interview, the apartment, even medical care, but the first major proposals to reign in bias in AI decision making are facing headwinds from every direction.

Lawmakers working on these bills, in states including Colorado, Connecticut and Texas, are coming together Thursday to argue the case for their proposals as civil rights-oriented groups and the industry play tug-of-war with core components of the legislation.

Organizations including labor unions and consumer advocacy groups are pulling for more transparency from companies and greater legal recourse for citizens to sue over AI discrimination. The industry is offering tentative support but digging in its heels over those accountability measures.

The bipartisan lawmakers caught in the middle — including those from Alaska, Georgia and Virginia — have been working on AI legislation together in the face of federal inaction. The goal of the press conference is to highlight their work across states and stakeholders, reinforcing the importance of collaboration and compromise in this first step in regulation.

The lawmakers include Connecticut’s Democratic state Sen. James Maroney, Colorado’s Democratic Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez and Alaska’s Republican Sen. Shelley Hughes.

“At this point, we don’t have confidence in the federal government to pass anything quickly. And we do see there is a need for regulation,” said Maroney. “It’s important that industry advocates, government and academia work together to get the best possible regulations and legislation.”

The lawmakers argue the bills are a first step that can be built on going forward.

While over 400 AI-related bills are being debated this year in statehouses nationwide, most target one industry or just a piece of the technology — such as deepfakes used in elections or to make pornographic images.

The biggest bills this team of lawmakers has put forward offer a broad framework for oversight, particularly around one of the technology’s most perverse dilemmas: AI discrimination. Examples include an AI that failed to accurately assess Black medical patients and another that downgraded women’s resumes as it filtered job applications.

Still, up to 83% of employers use algorithms to help in hiring, according to estimates from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

If nothing is done, there will almost always be bias in these AI systems, explained Suresh Venkatasubramanian, a Brown University computer and data science professor who’s teaching a class on mitigating bias in the design of these algorithms.

“You have to do something explicit to not be biased in the first place,” he said.

These proposals, mainly in Colorado and Connecticut, are complex, but the core thrust is that companies would be required to perform “impact assessments” for certain AI systems. Those reports would include descriptions of how AI figures into a decision, the data collected and an analysis of the risks of discrimination, along with an explanation of the company’s safeguards.

The contention is mainly who gets to see those reports. Greater access to information on the AI systems, such as the impact assessments, means greater accountability and safety for the public. But companies worry it also raises the risk of lawsuits and the revelation of trade secrets.

Under bills in Colorado, Connecticut and California, the company wouldn’t have to routinely submit impact assessments to the government. The onus would also largely land on companies to disclose to the attorney general if they found discrimination — a government or independent organization wouldn’t be testing these AI systems for bias.

Labor unions and academics worry that over reliance on companies self-reporting imperils the public or government’s ability to catching AI discrimination before it’s done harm.

“It’s already hard when you have these huge companies with billions of dollars,” said Kjersten Forseth, who represents the Colorado’s AFL-CIO, a federation of labor unions that opposes Colorado’s bill. “Essentially you are giving them an extra boot to push down on a worker or consumer.”

Tech companies say greater transparency will reveal trade secrets in a now hyper-competitive market. David Edmonson, of TechNet, a bipartisan network of technology CEOs and senior executives that lobbies on AI bills, said in a statement that the organization works with lawmakers to “ensure any legislation addresses AI’s risk while allowing innovation to flourish.”

The California Chamber of Commerce opposes that state’s bill, concerned that impact assessments could be made public in litigation.

Another contentious component of the bills is who can file a lawsuit under the legislation, which the bills generally limit to state attorney generals and other public attorneys not citizens.

After a provision in California’s bill that allowed citizens to sue was stripped out, Workday, a finance and HR software company, endorsed the proposal. Workday argues that civil actions from citizens would leave the decisions up to judges, many of whom are not tech experts, and could result in inconsistent approach to regulation.

“We can’t stop AI from being woven into our daily lives, so obviously government has to step in at some point, but it also makes sense that the industry themselves wants a good environment to thrive,” said Chandler Morse, vice president of public policy and corporate affairs at Workday.

Sorelle Friedler, a professor who focuses on AI bias at Haverford College, pushes back.

“That’s generally how American society asserts our rights, is by suing,” said Friedler.

Sen. Maroney of Connecticut said there’s been pushback in articles that claim he and Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Texas, have been “pedaling industry-written bills” despite all of the money being spent by the industry to lobby against the legislation.

Maroney pointed out one industry group, Consumer Technology Association, has taken out ads and built a website, urging lawmakers to defeat the legislation.

“I believe that we are on the right path. We’ve worked together with people from industry, from academia, from civil society,” he said.

“Everyone wants to feel safe, and we’re creating regulations that will allow for safe and trustworthy AI,” he added.

_____

Associated Press reporters Trân Nguyễn contributed from Sacramento, California, Becky Bohrer contributed from Juneau, Alaska, Susan Haigh contributed from Hartford, Connecticut.

___

Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

MECHANICSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania school district has canceled an upcoming appearance by actor and children’s book author Maulik Pancholy after district leaders cited concerns about what they described as his activism and “lifestyle.”

Pancholy, who is gay, was scheduled to speak against bullying during a May 22 assembly at Mountain View Middle School in Cumberland County. However, the district’s school board voted unanimously Monday night to cancel his talk after some members voiced their concerns and others noted the district’s policy about not hosting overtly political events, news outlets reported. The policy was enacted after the district was criticized for hosting a rally by Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign for president.

Pancholy, 48, is an award-winning actor, including for his roles on the television shows “30 Rock” and “Weeds,” and as the voice of Baljeet on the Disney animated series, “Phineas & Ferb.” He also has written children’s books and in 2014 was named by then-President Barack Obama to serve on the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, where he co-founded a campaign to combat AAPI bullying.

Pancholy’s appearance was scheduled by the school’s leadership team, which each year schedules an author presentation as a “unique educational experience for students,” according to the district.

While discussing the appearance at Monday night’s meeting, school board members said they did not know what Pancholy’s talk would be about, but one member said he didn’t “want to run the risk” of what it might entail.

“If you research this individual, he labels himself as an activist,” Bud Shaffner said, according to Pennlive. “He is proud of his lifestyle, and I don’t think that should be imposed upon our students, at any age.”

The Associated Press sent an email message to Pancholy’s publicists Thursday afternoon.

The board’s vote sparked criticism from several parents, students and community members who called the decision “homophobic.” Some have started online petitions urging that Pancholy’s appearance be reinstated.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — An attorney has been added to the special prosecution team that is pursuing an involuntary manslaughter charge against actor Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the Western movie “Rust,” court officials confirmed Thursday.

The district attorney for Santa Fe has appointed Erlinda Johnson as special prosecutor to the Baldwin case, which is scheduled for trail in July. She was sworn in Tuesday.

Baldwin has pleaded not guilty to an involuntary manslaughter charge in the shooting of Halyna Hutchins during an October 2021 rehearsal at a movie-set ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe.

Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer for “Rust,” was pointing a gun at Hutchins during rehearsal when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.

Johnson’s experience as a criminal defense and personal injury attorney include representing former New Mexico secretary of state Dianna Duran, who resigned from elected office in 2015 amid revelations she used campaign funds to fuel a gambling addiction. Duran received a 30-day jail sentence after pleading guilty to embezzlement and money laundering charges.

Johnson previously worked as a federal prosecutor on drug enforcement and organized crime investigations after serving as assistant district attorney in the Albuquerque area.

Prosecutors are turning their full attention to Baldwin after a judge on Monday sentenced movie weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez-Reed to the maximum 18 months in prison at a state penitentiary on an involuntary manslaughter conviction in the death of Hutchins.

Prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed for unwittingly bringing live ammunition onto the set of “Rust,” where it was expressly prohibited, and for failing to follow basic gun safety protocols. She was convicted in March at a jury trial.

Defense attorneys for Baldwin are urging the judge to dismiss a grand jury indictment against their client, accusing prosecutors of “unfairly stacking the deck” in grand jury proceedings that diverted attention away from exculpatory evidence and witnesses.

Special prosecutors deny those accusations and accuse Baldwin of “shameless” attempts to escape culpability, highlighting contradictions in Baldwin’s statements to law enforcement, workplace safety regulators and the public in a televised interview.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump lost a bid Thursday to pause a string of lawsuits accusing him of inciting the U.S. Capitol attack, while the former president fights his 2020 election interference criminal case in Washington.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington denied defense lawyers’ request to put the civil cases seeking to hold Trump responsible for the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on hold while the criminal case accusing him of conspiring to overturn his election defeat to President Joe Biden plays out.

It’s the latest legal setback for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, whose trial in a separate criminal case related to hush money payments made during the 2016 campaign began this week with jury selection in New York.

The lawsuits brought by Democratic lawmakers and police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 seek civil damages for harm they say they suffered during the attack, which aimed to stop Congress’ certification of Biden’s victory.

Trump has claimed he can’t be sued over the riot that left dozens of police officers injured, arguing that his words during a rally before the storming of the Capitol addressed “matters of public concern” and fell within the scope of absolute presidential immunity.

Washington’s federal appeals court ruled in December that the lawsuits can move forward, rejecting Trump’s sweeping claims that presidential immunity shields him from liability. The court, however, said Trump can continue to fight, as the cases proceed, to try to prove that his actions were taken in his official capacity as president.

In court papers filed last month, Trump’s lawyers told the judge that “basic fairness to criminal defendants” warrants pausing the civil cases until after the 2020 election criminal case is resolved. They argued that allowing the lawsuits to proceed could force Trump to “prematurely telegraph” his defense strategies in the criminal case.

Mehta, who was appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama, said the public has an interest in the prompt resolution of the civil lawsuits in addition to the criminal case. And the judge said “appropriate safeguards” can be put in place to allow for the lawsuits to advance without infringing on Trump’s Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination.

The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments next week on Trump’s claim that he is immune from criminal prosecution in the election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith. The ruling will determine whether Trump will have to stand trial in the case accusing him of a sprawling conspiracy to stay in power after Americans voted him out of office.

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — The man accused of starting a fire outside independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Vermont office earlier this month will remain detained pending further legal proceedings, a federal judge ordered Thursday.

Shant Michael Soghomonian was indicted by a grand jury on a charge of maliciously damaging or attempting to damage and destroy by fire a building used in interstate commerce, according to the indictment filed with the court. Soghomonian, 35, has not yet been arraigned.

Surveillance video shows the man throwing a liquid April 5 at the bottom of a door opening into Sanders’ third-floor office in Burlington and setting it on fire with a lighter, according to an affidavit filed by a special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The motive remains unclear, and Sanders was not in the office at the time.

Seven employees working in the office were able to get out unharmed. The building’s interior suffered damage from the fire and water sprinklers.

Soghomonian, who was previously from Northridge, California, had been staying at a South Burlington hotel for nearly two months and was spotted outside Sanders’ office the day before and the day of the fire, according to the special agent’s report.

Prosecutors argued that Soghomonian is a danger to the community and a flight risk and should remain detained. A phone message was left with his public defender and was not immediately returned.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A civilian interrogator who worked 20 years ago at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq denied abusing detainees Thursday, and told jurors he was actually promoted for doing a good job.

Steven Stefanowicz, who worked for military contractor CACI when he was assigned to Abu Ghraib in 2003 and 2004, has long been a key figure in the abuse scandal that emerged when photos became public showing U.S. soldiers smiling as detainees were forced into shocking poses of physical and sexual humiliation.

While multiple soldiers were convicted and sentenced to prison in courts-martial for their roles at Abu Ghraib, neither Stefanowicz nor any other civilian contractor who worked at the prison has ever been charged with a crime.

Stefanowicz’s testimony Wednesday and Thursday in front of a federal jury in Alexandria comes as his former employer defends itself in a civil suit brought by three Abu Ghraib survivors who allege that CACI’s interrogators share responsibility for the abuse they endured.

The lawsuit, delayed by more than 15 years of legal wrangling, is the first time that Abu Ghraib detainees have been able to bring their abuse claims in front of a U.S. jury.

Jurors previously heard testimony from two retired Army generals who investigated Abu Ghraib, and both concluded that Stefanowicz had a role in the abuse of detainees, either by directing military police to “soften up” inmates for interrogation, by using dogs to intimidate them, and by other means of mistreatment.

The reports also concluded that Stefanowicz lied to Army investigators in 2004 when he was questioned as part of those investigations.

At trial Thursday, Stefanowicz acknowledged that he implemented a “sleep management plan” for a detainee he was interrogating, meaning that military police played loud music at night to prevent him from sleeping.

But Stefanowicz said the sleep deprivation plan was approved by Army officers who oversaw his work.

He said he hewed to the Army’s rules for interrogations and that while he requested the ability to use dogs during interrogations, he never did because he never received approval.

During testimony that came in through a recorded deposition he gave last month, Stefanowicz said he never sought to abuse or humiliate detainees and said his duties were to “extrapolate information to thwart the war on terror.”

Stefanowicz said he left Abu Ghraib in 2004, after photos of detainee abuse came to light, but only because his parents were receiving death threats after his work at the prison became public.

In fact, he said he was promoted by CACI to become their site lead at Abu Ghraib.

Jurors saw emails indicating that Stefanowicz was being promoted in April 2004 from his job as interrogator and receiving a 48% pay raise, to $140,000 annually. The pay raise and promotion came three months after the Army had begun its investigation of detainee abuse and two months after Stefanowicz had been questioned by then-Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba about his conduct.

While CACI may have been pleased with Stefanowicz’s work at Abu Ghraib, evidence introduced Thursday showed that CACI officials initially had serious doubts about his ability to work as an interrogator.

An email sent by CACI official Tom Howard before the company sent interrogators to Iraq described Stefanowicz as a “NO-GO for filling an interrogator position.”

“Though he has a crafty resume he is neither trained nor qualified for the interrogator position,” Howard wrote.

Stefanowicz had spent time in the Navy reserves and at the U.S. Embassy in Oman, but he acknowledged that he’d never had training as an interrogator.

When he first went to Abu Ghraib, he was initially classified as a screener who took information down about incoming inmates to decide how they should be classified.

He testified that within a day, Army personnel decided to promote him to interrogator.

Mark Billings, a contracting officer with CACI, testified Thursday that the company struggled to find qualified interrogators to fulfill its contract with the Army, which needed to rapidly increase its intelligence capabilities after the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Billings said the Army bore the responsibility for supervising the work of Stefanowicz and other contractors. On cross-examination, though, he was shown language in the CACI’s contract with the Army requiring CACI to take responsibility for supervising its own personnel.

CACI continued to present evidence in its defense Thursday, though it was thwarted to some extent by the U.S. government, which invoked the state secrets privilege over evidence CACI sought to introduce.

Multiple witnesses who served as civilian and military interrogators at Abu Ghraib were allowed to testify only by audio that distorted their voices. They were identified only as “interrogator C” or “interrogator G” and were not allowed to testify about their identity or their interrogations of certain detainees.

CACI is seeking to show that any of the abuse suffered by the three specific plaintiffs in the case came at the hands of personnel other than CACI interrogators.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema has expressed frustration throughout the case about the government’s invocation of state secrets. Earlier in the trial, government lawyers jumped up to object to an exhibit listing a series of names identified in one of the generals’ Abu Ghraib investigations, even though the names have been a public part of that report for 20 years.

On Thursday, outside the jury’s presence, she said the government’s assertions over seemingly petty issues like a witness’ educational background or whether a witness had been trained about protections accorded in the Geneva Convention “makes the U.S. government look very foolish.”

By Dietrich Knauth

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Florida jury on Thursday concluded that Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder talc product did not cause the ovarian cancer of a Florida woman who died in 2019.

The lawsuit was brought by family members of Patricia Matthey, a Sarasota County resident who used Johnson’s baby powder daily from 1965 until August 2016, when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, according to her family’s lawsuit.

J&J’s Worldwide Vice President of Litigation Erik Haas said the company was vindicated by the jury’s decision.

“Consistent with decades of scientific research, the jury appropriately found that talc is safe, does not contain asbestos and does not cause cancer, which is the same outcome the company achieved in 16 of 17 ovarian cases tried to date,” Haas said.

Leigh O’Dell, an attorney for the Matthey family, said she respects the jury’s decision, but will remain “undeterred” in future cases against J&J.

“The science supports the association between genital talc use and ovarian cancer, and we will continue to seek justice for the victims of J&J’s neglect and indifference,” O’Dell said.

Before her death, Matthey testified that advertisements for baby powder made her think that she was “dirty and smelly” and that she “needed Johnson’s baby powder to be a good clean person,” according to evidence presented by her family’s attorney Lance Oliver during the trial.

The Matthey family alleged that J&J knew for decades that the talc it mined for use in baby powder could be contaminated with carcinogenic asbestos fibers. J&J suppressed scientific evidence linking talc products to increased cancer risk, according to the complaint.

J&J argued that there was no “conspiracy” to suppress research. Instead, the scientific evidence simply does not support the Matthey family’s claims that its talc products cause cancer, according to J&J.

“This is fundamentally a case about science,” J&J’s attorney Morty Dubin said during opening statements in the trial.

J&J faces more than 50,000 lawsuits over talc, most by women with ovarian cancer, with a minority of the cases involving people with mesothelioma. Asbestos exposure is a known cause of mesothelioma.

J&J has attempted to reach a comprehensive settlement of the talc litigation through bankruptcy, but courts have rejected its two previous attempts.

Haas has said that the company is considering a third bankruptcy filing, and is trying to build more support for a bankruptcy settlement among the plaintiffs that have sued the company.

Haas said on Thursday that J&J will “continue to defend the meritless talc claims in the tort system,” while those negotiations continue.

J&J’s bankruptcy strategy put the talc litigation on hold from 2021 to 2023, but trials have resumed after the latest bankruptcy case was dismissed.

Trials in the talc cases have had a mixed record, with major plaintiff wins including a $2.1 billion judgment in 2021 awarded to 22 women with ovarian cancer.

A New Jersey appeals court in October threw out a $223.7 million verdict against the company, finding the testimony of the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses unsound. The most recent case to go to trial ended in a hung jury on March 5.

J&J has recently settled some cases involving plaintiffs with mesothelioma, but the company has not provided details about the dollar amounts involved or said how many people they covered.

(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; Editing by Bill Berkrot)