answers

Credit to Lincoln Riley. USC’s embattled football coach stood and stared directly at what could have been the death knell for his Trojans tenure and said: Not today.

Actually, he said more than that after his unranked Trojans upset No. 2 Ohio State, 30-18 on Saturday.

He had a whole statement prepared to read at the end of his postgame news conference.

“I got one other thing I want to say here,” said Riley, whose victory kept alive the Trojans’ hopes of making the College Football Playoff for the first time on his watch. “I want to make sure to articulate my thoughts.

“This program’s not built on internal joy — excuse me, is built on internal joy — not external applause. This win’s for all the staff members, the players, the leaders, admin, all the people within the walls.

“I said before this game, that I’m the right person for this job, and as long as all those people know that, that’s all I care about.

“I appreciate being a part of this university and all it does. I appreciate our kids and our staff, and I’m going to continue to fight on because that’s what being a Trojan’s all about. Fight On.”

Then he stood and punctuated his address: “Adios.”

The way USC dismantled a Buckeyes team that was considered one of the leading national championship contenders this zany college football season, Riley deserved to crow.

The way his team refused to let go of the rope — even with their head coach on the ropes, Riley deserved a victory lap.

It’s just that before sharing his statement, he didn’t seem all that interested in taking it.

He began his news conference looking, appropriately, to lend perspective to the victory — his first in his USC tenure against a top-10 team — in which the Trojans exploded on a Buckeyes team that hadn’t given up more than 24 points in a game since losing to Oregon 32-31 on Oct. 12, 2024.

“Every win’s important,” said Riley, whose overall record at USC in his fifth season is now 42-20. “When you get a chance, like tonight, to play a really good football team — one of the best programs in America over a long, long period of time — those are great opportunities.”

He gave deserved kudos to his team for staying together and responding after last week’s disappointing 24-7 loss at Wisconsin. And reiterated his usual message, win or lose: “I know what’s building within those walls. Like, I know it. All my years of experience and all that I’ve kind of seen and got to experience in this game tells me that. I believe that with every fiber in my being.”

USC coach Lincoln Riley watches his players warm up before facing Ohio State at the Coliseum on Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Saturday’s victory won’t necessarily be good news for dissatisfied fans rooting for Riley’s ouster. But it was big for anyone partial to a good comeback story — and for those tenuous CFP prospects.

“I keep saying, look at all the craziness across the country,” Riley said. “The teams that just hang in there, keep going, get better, stay together, are going to be the ones that are there in the end.”

The Trojans could be one of those teams. They should be, in fact.

They have the talent, as we saw Saturday when previously injured freshmen Trent Mosley and Mark Bowman gashed a Buckeyes defense that hadn’t allowed a play longer than 36 yards all season with plays of 69 and 70 yards.

And they have the fortitude, as we witnessed when USC’s defense forced Ohio State to settle for a field goal after they had first and goal at the one-yard line late in the second quarter: “Grit play, a toughness deal. A mindset thing,” defensive tackle Alex VanSumeren said.

What made the Trojans’ previous losses so galling was the gauntlet ahead of them, starting with Ohio State.

Before, we wondered: If they couldn’t beat Oregon and its backup quarterback at home, how the heck were they going to beat Ohio State (and its understudy QB, Mission Viejo’s Luke Fahey)?

Earlier, we asked: If Wisconsin was going to force them into the worst offensive showing in the Riley era, what was defending national champion Indiana going to do to them?

And, of course: If they were just sneaking by struggling teams like Rutgers, Penn State and Washington, what chance was there that they could surprise still-undefeated UCLA?

But now, after Saturday’s sensational showing, we’ll spend next week’s bye and then the week ahead of their game in Bloomington against the Hoosiers — who escaped Saturday with a 23-16 overtime win over Minnesota — doing the math and wondering why can’t USC knock off another top-five team?

USC linebackers Ta’mere Robinson, left, and Jadyn Walker leap in celebration following a 30-18 win over Ohio State on Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

And if the Trojans can beat Indiana, why can’t they beat the 8-0 Bruins, who have been taking care of business against opponents who have no business beating them, like Nevada on Saturday, 27-0?

Because the Trojans haven’t folded. In fact, things went so well on this rainy Halloween evening — which ended with pirates and princesses and people in all varieties of costume celebrating on the field with the players — you might have started to wonder whether they had been bluffing.

Just like we assume Riley is bluffing whenever he talks about being able to block out “the noise.”

He might not want to worry himself with the “external applause,” but if he wants to fight on at USC, he’s going to need to continue earning it.

Maiduguri, Nigeria – For more than 15 years, Kashim Mohammed has hoped that his younger sister, Falmata Mohammed, is still alive.

Falmata disappeared in 2011 while travelling with her mother from Maiduguri, the capital of northeastern Nigeria’s Borno State, to Port Harcourt in the south. According to Kashim, the two women were abducted by unidentified gunmen.

Years later, a man approached Kashim at Baga Road Market in Maiduguri with news that briefly revived the family’s hopes of finding the women. He claimed Falmata had been found in Benin and was searching for her relatives.

But the man disappeared without leaving contact details. Kashim said he has never been able to establish whether the information was genuine.

“From then until now, nobody knows anything about the man who brought the information,” he said.

Kashim, 39, chairs the Association for the Well-being of Displaced and Missing Persons’ Families, a community organisation based in Bolori II, Ngarnam ward, Maiduguri. He said years of violence have torn his family apart.

“As a result of the violence, I lost my sister from the same father,” he said.

Their father, Mohammed Kolo, worked at Maiduguri’s State Specialist Hospital. Kashim said his father died at 60 from an illness he attributed to high blood pressure without learning what had happened to his daughter.

Kolo had refused to abandon hope that she would return.

“Our father always said, ‘Wherever she is, I believe my daughter is alive,’” Kashim recalled.

A brother still searching

For Muhammad Alhaji Bashir, the disappearance of his elder brother, Adam Muhammad Bashir, known as Bakura, has left a similar void.

Muhammad, 29, said Bakura went missing around 2012 or 2013 when Muhammad was about 14. His brother, then believed to be in his early 20s, sold cosmetics in a Maiduguri market and was studying civil engineering at Ramat Polytechnic, according to Muhammad.

“I sincerely lost my brother as a result of the Boko Haram crisis,” Muhammad said.

Boko Haram’s armed rebellion began in northeastern Nigeria in 2009. The conflict has devastated communities through attacks, abductions and displacement, leaving families searching for relatives whose fates remain unknown.

Muhammad said Bakura’s family searched across Maiduguri. A rehabilitation centre offered them some hope.

“Whenever we heard that rescued people had been brought to the rehabilitation centre in Bulumkutu, we went there with Bakura’s pictures, but unfortunately, nobody recognised him,” Muhammad said.

Muhammad said his father and stepmother, who was Bakura’s mother, later died from illnesses the family attributed to hypertension. He and other relatives continue to search, without confirmation of whether Bakura is alive or dead.

Thousands of families, thousands of questions

The two families’ experiences reflect the uncertainty facing relatives of people who have disappeared during more than a decade of conflict in northeastern Nigeria.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), working with the Nigerian Red Cross Society, has supported efforts to trace missing people and reconnect separated families.

Local advocates for missing people cited an estimate of 17,000 people missing across northern Nigeria, many of them linked to the conflict involving Boko Haram and its aftermath. Kashim said his association’s records indicated that about 10,000 people are missing in Borno State alone. He added that many families have yet to register their missing relatives.

The sources for the estimates cited by advocates and the association, their geographical coverage, reporting periods and methods of compilation have not been independently established for this article.

Behind the estimates are families who have spent years searching, parents who have died without learning what happened to their children and children growing up without a parent.

Some people reportedly disappeared during attacks on their communities. Others became separated from relatives while fleeing violence or travelling between towns. Families search hospitals, displacement camps and centres receiving people rescued from conflict areas, often following leads that prove impossible to verify.

Even when names, photographs and personal details are submitted to organisations involved in tracing missing people, locating relatives can take time.

An association born out of loss

Kashim said his search for Falmata helped motivate him and other affected families to establish their association in 2023. He said the organisation obtained registration with Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission in 2025.

Members meet monthly to share information and discuss their circumstances. Some families have reported losing eight or nine relatives, according to Kashim.

“In our community of Bolori II, we have many families who lost their relatives as a result of years of violence that ravaged northeastern Nigeria,” he said.

Kashim said the group sometimes receives notices from the Red Cross containing names and details of missing people. These can give families leads to pursue although they do not necessarily mean a relative has been located.

The association also supports children affected by the disappearances. Kashim said it was assisting about 600 orphaned children from affected families. Some attend school while others have dropped out because their relatives cannot afford to pay for their education or other basic needs.

“We are now suffering because of the harsh living conditions,” he said, adding that the ICRC had distributed relief items to some families.

When a missing person is a parent or breadwinner, relatives must cope with lost income while trying to provide food, shelter and schooling for children. The association’s work has consequently expanded beyond tracing missing people to helping families manage the hardships their disappearances leave behind.

Floods add to the losses

The search became harder for some families after devastating floods struck parts of Maiduguri in 2024.

Kashim said floodwaters submerged parts of Ngarnam and destroyed photographs that families had kept to help identify missing relatives.

Photographs can be vital when families try to identify people who have been rescued, displaced or found in unfamiliar communities. Without them, relatives must rely on names, physical descriptions and memories.

Kashim said some families now have little beyond remembered details and surviving records to help identify their relatives.

The floods added another obstacle to searches already complicated by years of conflict, displacement and uncertainty.

Waiting for an answer

For Kashim, finding Falmata would resolve a question that has haunted his family since 2011. His father died believing she might still return, and the family has never established whether the report of her discovery in Benin was true.

Muhammad’s search for Bakura continues without the parents who once helped him look for his brother.

Both families are appealing to anyone who may have information about their missing relatives. For them, finding an answer would mean more than ending a search: It would establish what happened to someone whose absence has shaped their lives for years.

Kashim’s message to his sister remains a plea for a reunion that his family has waited years to see.

“Falmata Mohammed, if you are alive anywhere in this world, we are the family of late Mohammed Kolo in Bolori II, Ngarnam. We are waiting for you,” he said.

Caracas, October 22, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Students from the Venezuelan Experimental University of the Arts (UNEARTE) have staged multiple demonstrations in recent days to press for solutions to infrastructural and administrative issues.

Students from the UNEARTE branch in Maracay, Aragua State, blocked a major intersection on Tuesday to demand “dignified” studying conditions.

“We are staging a peaceful demonstration to demand improvements to our academic conditions,” student José Pérez told local reporters. “We do not have our own campus, and the facilities are inadequate for the artistic areas we are studying.”

Protesters held billboards and banners calling for a “dignified campus.” UNEARTE’s Maracay education programs function in different rented spaces, which students have complained are in deteriorating condition.

The Maracay demonstration followed a number of protests and sit-ins at UNEARTE’s main campus in Caracas. Students denounced that multiple university installations are shut down or in a state of disrepair. The Modest Bor center, which houses UNEARTE’s music program, has been partially closed for several years.

In addition, students decried that UNEARTE centers’ cafeterias have been shuttered for months, while many have additional grievances including inoperative bathrooms and software issues that  left many students unable to properly register for classes. 

In response to the protests, Venezuelan authorities vowed to address the concerns raised by students. UNEARTE Rector Ignacio Barreto approached students during a demonstration and promised that the registration process would start over.

The Ministry of Culture, which is responsible for UNEARTE alongside the Ministry of Higher Education, held an assembly with all university personnel and announced the creation of working groups with student representatives in several areas.

“This commission, apart from listening to the students and the authorities, should have a weekly plan that can be supervised,” Culture Minister Alejandro López told press. “Accountability before the students is key.”

López, Barreto and other officials were seen inspecting several university facilities last week. The minister pledged to address issues of running water, internet connectivity, and transportation in the near term.

UNEARTE was created by former President Hugo Chávez in 2008, bringing together several educational institutes dedicated to the arts with the aim of advancing a popular and anti-colonial pedagogical approach. It offers degrees in music, dance, film, theater, photography, and plastic arts.

The protests over UNEARTE’s disrepair and deficient conditions coincided with the Venezuelan government’s launch of the José Antonio Abreu Music University. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez headlined the inauguration ceremony earlier this month.

The new public university will have its state-of-the-art campus in the traditionally middle-class southwestern Caracas parish of El Paraíso, including three concert halls and a research center. It will also have 18 regional branches, with a maximum enrolment capacity of around 3,500 students.

Other Venezuelan universities have likewise seen student demonstrations in recent days. In the “Dr. Humberto Fernández-Morán” National Sciences University, students held a protest and an assembly on Monday over what they characterized as inadequate transportation.

The campus is located in Los Teques, some 25 kilometers outside Caracas, and was formally inaugurated in December 2024. Though the university promised to provide transportation, students have complained that the assigned buses are unreliable and have insufficient capacity.

Higher education trade unions have also been at the forefront of regular labor protests in recent months. Venezuelan working-class organizations have called for non-wage bonuses to be converted to salaries and for the restoration of collective bargaining agreements.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Philadelphia, USA.