failure

Shohei Ohtani wore the same mask of calm that he always wears.

He spoke with detachment, as he often does.

By the time Ohtani walked into the interview room at Dodger Stadium after his team’s 6-2 defeat in Game 4 of the World Series, however, he was already devising his redemption.

“Of course, I’d like to prepare to be available for every game in case I’m needed,” Ohtani said in Japanese.

Ohtani wants to pitch again in this World Series.

He wants to pitch again, even after he was saddled with the loss on Tuesday night by the Toronto Blue Jays.

He wants to pitch again, even after the physical demands of reaching base nine times in an 18-inning victory the previous night clearly diminished him on the mound.

If Ohtani pitches, he would almost certainly pitch in relief.

Pitching in middle relief doesn’t make sense for Ohtani, considering that when he departs the game as a pitcher, rules would require the Dodgers to play him in the outfield or lose him as a hitter for the remainder of the game.

They might as well use him as a closer, and they might as well use him in a World Series clincher, either in Game 6 or 7.

This is who Ohtani is. This is what he does.

He won’t let the disappointment of his World Series pitching debut scare him away from pursuing another dream. He isn’t afraid of failure.

Game 4 was a failure.

The six-hour 39-minute game the Dodgers played the night before offered Ohtani cover. He reached base a record nine times. He homered twice and doubled twice. His leg cramped at some point. He went to sleep at 2 a.m.

But Ohtani didn’t take any of the excuses that were offered to him.

“I have no plans of saying the game yesterday was this or that,” he said.

The truth was revealed in his play.

Ohtani looked exhausted. He sweated profusely and looked as if he might be dehydrated. He looked, well, human.

His fastball uncharacteristically never touched 100 mph, but he pitched well for the most part. His only notable mistake was an elevated sweeper he threw in the third inning to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. that was deposited over the left-field wall for a two-run home run.

Ohtani struck out the side in the fourth inning, as well as the first batter he faced in the fifth. Manager Dave Roberts said that pitching coach Mark Prior approached Ohtani in the sixth innings and asked him how much he had left.

“He said he had three more innings,” Roberts said.

Ohtani couldn’t make it out of the seventh inning. In fact, he couldn’t even record an out in the seventh, starting the inning by giving up a single to Daulton Varsho and a double to Ernie Clement. With Ohtani clearly gassed, Roberts called in Anthony Banda, who allowed the two inherited runners to score.

Ohtani’s final line: Six innings, four runs, six hits, a walk and six strikeouts.

He said his goal was to pitch seven innings.

Ohtani didn’t have the game he wanted in the batter’s box, either. It didn’t help that he didn’t have any form of lineup protection. No. 9 hitter Andy Pages, who batted in front of him, was 0 for two and is now batting .080 this postseason. Mookie Betts, who batted behind him, was hitless until the eighth inning when the game was already out of reach. Betts is batting .158 in this World Series.

Ohtani walked in the first inning but was hitless in the three at-bats that followed. Not one of the 14 pitches he saw from Blue Jays starter Shane Bieber was near the middle quadrant of the plate.

Being a starting pitcher and leadoff hitter in the same game was hard enough. Being a starting pitcher and a leadoff hitter in the same game after an 18-inning battle was revealed to be downright impossible. Because if Ohtani couldn’t do it, nobody could.

Instead of moping over the setback, Ohtani has started eyeing his next boundary-pushing maneuver: To be a leadoff hitter and high-leverage reliever in the same game.

The World Series is now tied, two games apiece. The fixation Ohtani has with finding new methods to win games could be why the Dodgers finish as champions again.

WASHINGTON — Late last month, an immigrant seeking asylum in the U.S. came across social media posts urging her to pay a new fee imposed by the Trump administration before Oct. 1, or else risk her case being dismissed.

Paula, a 40-year-old Los Angeles-area immigrant from Mexico, whose full name The Times is withholding because she fears retribution, applied for asylum in 2021 and her case is now on appeal.

But when Paula tried to pay the $100 annual fee, she couldn’t find an option on the immigration court’s website that accepted fees for pending asylum cases. Afraid of deportation — and with just five hours before the payment deadline — she selected the closest approximation she could find, $110 for an appeal filed before July 7.

She knew it was likely incorrect. Still, she felt it was better to pay for something, rather than nothing at all, as a show of good faith. Unable to come up with the money on such short notice, Paula, who works in a warehouse repairing purses, paid the fee with a credit card.

“I hope that money isn’t wasted,” she said.

That remains unclear because of confusion and misinformation surrounding the rollout of a host of new fees or fee increases for a variety of immigration services. The fees are part of the sweeping budget bill President Trump signed into law in July.

Paula was one of thousands of asylum seekers across the country who panicked after seeing messages on social media urging them to pay the new fee before the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1.

But government messaging about the fees has sometimes been chaotic and contradictory, immigration attorneys say. Some asylum seekers have received notice about the fees, while others have not. Misinformation surged as immigrants scrambled to figure out whether, and how, to pay.

Advocates worry the confusion serves as a way for immigration officials to dismiss more asylum cases, which would render the applicants deportable.

The fees vary. For those seeking asylum, there is a $100 fee for new applications, as well as a yearly fee of $100 for pending applications. The fee for an initial work permit is $550 and work permit renewals can be as much as $795.

Amy Grenier, associate director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Assn., said that not having a clear way to pay a fee might seem like a small government misstep, but the legal consequences are substantial.

For new asylum applications, she said, some immigration judges set a payment deadline of Sept. 30, even though the Executive Office for Immigration Review only updated the payment portal in the last week of September.

“The lack of coherent guidance and structure to pay the fee only compounded the inefficiency of our immigration courts,” Grenier said. “There are very real consequences for asylum-seekers navigating this completely unnecessary bureaucratic mess.”

Two agencies collect the asylum fees: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), under the Department of Homeland Security, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), under the Department of Justice, which operates immigration courts.

Both agencies initially released different instructions regarding the fees, and only USCIS has provided an avenue for payment.

The departments of Homeland Security and Justice didn’t respond to a request for comment. The White House deferred to USCIS.

USCIS spokesman Matthew J. Tragesser said the asylum fee is being implemented consistent with the law.

“The real losers in this are the unscrupulous and incompetent immigration attorneys who exploit their clients and bog down the system with baseless asylum claims,” he said.

The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), a national membership organization, sued the Trump administration earlier this month after thousands of members shared their confusion over the new fees, arguing that the federal agencies involved “threaten to deprive asylum seekers of full and fair consideration of their claims.”

The organization also argued the fees shouldn’t apply to people whose cases were pending before Trump signed the budget package into law.

In a U.S. district court filing Monday, Justice Department lawyers defended the fees, saying, “Congress made clear that these new asylum fees were long overdue and necessary to recover the growing costs of adjudicating the millions of pending asylum applications.”

Some of the confusion resulted from contradictory information.

A notice by USCIS in the July 22 Federal Register confused immigrants and legal practitioners alike because of a reference to Sept. 30. Anyone who had applied for asylum as of Oct. 1, 2024, and whose application was still pending by Sept. 30, was instructed to pay a fee. Some thought the notice meant that Sept. 30 was the deadline to pay the yearly asylum fee.

By this month, USCIS clarified on its website that it will “issue personal notices” alerting asylum applicants when their annual fee is due, how to pay it and the consequences for failing to do so.

The agency created a payment portal and began sending out notices Oct. 1, instructing recipients to pay within 30 days.

But many asylum seekers are still waiting to be notified by USCIS, according to ASAP, the advocacy organization. Some have received texts or physical mail telling them to check their USCIS account, while others have resorted to checking their accounts daily.

Meanwhile the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) didn’t add a mechanism for paying the $100 fee for pending asylum cases — the one Paula hoped to pay — until Thursday.

In its Oct. 3 complaint, lawyers for ASAP wrote: “Troublingly, ASAP has received reports that some immigration judges at EOIR are already requiring applicants to have paid the annual asylum fee, and in at least one case even rejected an asylum application and ordered an asylum seeker removed for non-payment of the annual asylum fee, despite the agency providing no way to pay this fee.”

An immigration lawyer in San Diego, who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution, said an immigration judge denied his client’s asylum petition because the client had not paid the new fee, even though there was no way to pay it.

The judge issued an order, which was shared with The Times, that read, “Despite this mandatory requirement, to date the respondents have not filed proof of payment for the annual asylum fee.”

The lawyer called the decision a due process violation. He said he now plans to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, though another fee increase under Trump’s spending package raised that cost from $110 to $1,010. He is litigating the case pro bono.

Justice Department lawyers said Monday that EOIR had eliminated the initial inconsistency by revising its position to reflect that of USCIS and will soon send out official notices to applicants, giving them 30 days to make the payment.

“There was no unreasonable delay here in EOIR’s implementation,” the filing said. “…The record shows several steps were required to finalize EOIR’s process, including coordination with USCIS. Regardless, Plaintiff’s request is now moot.”

Immigrants like Paula, who is a member of ASAP, recently got some reassurance. In a court declaration, EOIR Director Daren Margolin wrote that for anyone who made anticipatory or advance payments for the annual asylum fee, “those payments will be applied to the alien’s owed fees, as appropriate.”

Russia’s foreign policy framework places emphasis on adopting a plurality of approaches, including serious dialogues through conventional diplomacy, to all kinds of disputes and has taken concrete steps to coordinate the resolution of those in the Arab world. After lengthy preparations toward hosting the “Russia-Arab world” summit, primarily aimed at discussing regional security and energy relations and showcasing Moscow’s enduring influence in the Middle East, the Kremlin abruptly put off the scheduled gathering, citing contradictory positions and extremely low interest among Arab leaders, including those in North Africa.

The Russia-Arab Summit was supposed to open and be decisive for advancing the agreements on the Gaza Strip, agreements that have been energetically promoted by Egypt and Qatar, considered friends of Russia. It was also meant to address aspects of the Palestinian issue, to stop the bloodshed as soon as possible, and to offer possible pathways for the grave humanitarian issues faced by the people.

Notably, the overwhelming majority in the Arab world showed little interest in Russia being the organizer. Later, considering the apathy towards participation, “President Vladimir Putin reached an understanding with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Al Sudani and the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to postpone the summit,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Arab media reporters on October 13, during his media briefing.

“The final documents are practically ready, so we will still have the opportunity to get together, back for the summit,” Lavrov reassured. The relations with Arab countries are steadily progressing. The League of Arab States has demonstrated its value and is consolidating its role as a key pillar of the emerging multipolar world, authoritatively and actively participating in global affairs—in economics, finance, and increasingly contributing to the resolution of regional and, more broadly, political issues.

There is a noticeable sustained growth in trade turnover with the League’s member states, which has now exceeded $34 billion. Whilst this figure is modest compared to the trade volumes the United States and the People’s Republic of China maintain with the Arab world, it is several times greater than the trade turnover recorded two decades ago. That lapses, however—the growth dynamics are still positive. Arab partners are also showing keen interest in agricultural cooperation, including supplies of Russian food products and fertilizer.

Furthermore, in the sphere of cultural cooperation, Russia has traditionally maintained strong educational ties with many Arab states, a practice dating back to the Soviet era. Tourism is growing bilaterally. The fundamental trend remains the development of constructive relations grounded in mutual respect, the accommodation of each other’s interests, and the consolidation of a stable balance between them.

According to various reports monitored by Modern Diplomacy, the Kremlin was forced to shelve the gathering after only a handful of leaders, including Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and the head of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, confirmed their attendance. For nearly a decade, the Middle East served as the stage for Putin’s long-sought return to global prominence. But analysts say the Arab majority expressed little interest in participating in deliberations, geopolitics, and conflict settlement with Moscow.

Nevertheless, an aide to the president of Russia, Yury Ushakov, in mid-October explicitly explained that “naturally, the Russian side outlined its principled position in favor of a comprehensive Middle East settlement on a generally recognized international legal basis that would ensure lasting peace for all the peoples in that region.”

In particular, Ushakov noted that Vladimir Putin provided a detailed assessment of the current situation, stressing Russia’s interest in achieving a peaceful resolution through political and diplomatic methods in the region and other similar conflicts around the world. In this context, Putin congratulated Donald Trump on his successful efforts to normalize the situation in the Gaza Strip. The US president’s peace work has been duly appreciated in the Middle East, in the United States itself, and in most countries around the world.

In several frank exchanges of views, experts noted the essential political developments in the Middle East and stressed the growing significance of the necessity for establishing peace. “But Russia’s diplomatic role in the Middle East has declined as a result of the Ukraine war,” said Hanna Notte, a Berlin-based expert on Russian foreign policy. “When it comes to all the big developments, the major players in the region don’t look towards Moscow anymore.”

But, the fact remains for geopolitical reasons, the primary objectives and challenges, that the situation has been very difficult and the future trends are uncertain in the region—the Middle East and North Africa. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, meeting with his Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita, also acknowledged Moscow’s readiness to work together with other interested countries to help resolve the issues facing the Middle East and North Africa.

“This certainly envisages continued cooperation as part of Russia’s interaction with the Arab League,” according to Lavrov. With Israel and Palestine, Russia hoped the agreements on Gaza reached through the mediation of Egypt, Qatar, the United States, and Turkey will be strictly and fully adhered to in every context and in the logically established international legal framework. 

On September 29, the White House released US President Donald Trump’s comprehensive plan to resolve the situation in the Gaza Strip. The 20-point document includes, among other measures, the establishment of temporary external administration in the Palestinian enclave and the deployment of international stabilization forces there. On October 9, Trump announced that Israeli and Hamas representatives had agreed on the first step of the peace plan after negotiations. According to Trump, the agreement included the release of all hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli troops to an agreed-upon line in Gaza.

Despite years of cultivating ties with the Arab countries, Putin called off, on 10th October, the Russia-Arab world summit, a clear sign of Russia’s dwindling influence in the Middle East. Notwithstanding that, Russia has been jostling to sustain its traditional relations across Central Asia and the Caucasus, and also with the former Soviet republics—including Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

Substantive steps have been taken on Gaza, for instance, during the summit held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on October 13, and hopefully, the agreements on Gaza, reached with the mediation of Egypt, Qatar, the United States, and Türkiye, will be strictly and fully implemented. Key priorities include ensuring the unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid to all those in need, creating the necessary conditions for the return of displaced persons, and addressing the comprehensive destruction of the enclave’s civilian infrastructure. 

The UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions can additionally bring a long-awaited and lasting peace to all the peoples of the Middle East—an outcome in which we are deeply invested, achieving long-term stabilization in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict zone and the wider Middle East.

A woman who worked as a hairstylist for Fox Sports has resolved most of a lawsuit that alleged former host Skip Bayless made repeated, unwanted advances toward her — including an offer of $1.5 million to have sex with him.

Noushin Faraji is still seeking class-action status for her and others who worked at Fox in California over her allegations of unpaid wages and business expenses.

Fox Sports said in a statement: “We are pleased that this matter has been resolved. There will be no further comment.”

An attorney listed for Bayless in the lawsuit, Robert H. Platt, did not immediately respond to an email from the Associated Press seeking comment.

Faraji had claimed Fox executives fostered a hostile work environment that allowed senior managers and on-air personalities including Bayless to abuse workers without fear of punishment. The AP does not generally identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted or subjected to abuse unless they have publicly identified themselves, as Faraji had in filing the lawsuit.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Laura A. Seigle granted Faraji’s request to dismiss several allegations because “those claims were resolved,” according to an order by the judge filed this week. The judge’s order does not include details on the resolution.

The individual allegations that were dismissed include sexual battery, failure to prevent harassment and wrongful termination. Faraji was seeking unspecified damages when her lawsuit was filed in January.

Claims that remain for Faraji and allegedly others include failure to pay minimum wages and failure to reimburse business expenses, according to the judge’s order.

Faraji was a hairstylist at Fox for more than a decade. She claimed in her lawsuit that the advances by Bayless, which began in 2017 and continued until last year, included lingering hugs, kisses on the cheek and comments from Bayless that he could change Faraji’s life if she had sex with him.

In 2021, she claimed in the suit, Bayless offered Faraji $1.5 million for sex and, after she refused, later threatened her job.

Bayless worked for Fox Sports until 2024 when his show was canceled after its ratings plummeted with the departure of his co-host, Shannon Sharpe.

Faraji said she was fired in 2024 based on “fabricated” reasons. The lawsuit said she initially remained quiet about her treatment at Fox, believing she could be in danger if she went public.

“Real Housewives of Potomac” star Karen Huger’s time in prison is over, earlier than expected.

The reality TV star was released Tuesday from the Montgomery County Detention Center in Maryland, a spokesperson for the Montgomery Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation confirmed to The Times. Huger left six months into a yearlong prison sentence. She was sentenced in February to two years in prison with one year suspended after she was convicted in 2024 of driving under the influence in Potomac.

Representatives for Huger, 62, did not immediately respond The Times’ request for comment on Tuesday.

Huger waved to bystanders from her SUV as she exited the facility shortly after her release, according to video shared by Fox 5 DC reporter Stephanie Ramirez.

Maryland police arrested Huger in March 2024, citing her for driving under the influence after she crossed a median and hit street signs, crashing her Maserati. She was booked on suspicion of driving under the influence and other traffic violations and was later released from police custody.

Shortly after her arrest, Huger attributed the accident to grief and her mother’s 2017 death. “Grief comes and goes in waves, and with Mother’s Day approaching, it has felt more like a tsunami,” she told TMZ at the time.

A Maryland jury convicted Huger in December of driving under the influence and negligent driving charges. The jury also found the Bravo-lebrity guilty of failure to control speed to avoid a collision and failure to notify authorities of an address change. She was cleared on a reckless driving charge.

Huger’s attorney A. Scott Bolden told People in a December statement that they were “disappointed” by the jury’s verdict but “of course respect their decision and appreciate their time hearing our case.”

Amid her legal woes, Huger was absent from the “Real Housewives of Potomac” Season 9 reunion. In a prerecorded message played during the special, Huger said she entered a private recovery program to address her “taking antidepressants and drinking.”

“This is very frightening, but I accept full responsibility for everything with my car accident,” Huger tearfully told producers. “I don’t care about me right now. I care about my children; I care about my family. They’re so hurt.”

Roberto Delgado and his wife were praying the rosary on the night of Jan. 7 when they heard two loud booms that shook their Sylmar home. Then came a flash of light so bright that in the dead of night they could briefly see out their window the rocks and gullies of the San Gabriel foothills behind their house.

Seconds later, Delgado said in an interview, the couple saw flames under two electric transmission towers owned by Southern California Edison — even more shocking because they had seen a fire ignite under one of those towers just six years before.

“We were traumatized,” he said. “It was almost the exact same thing.” In both fires, the family was forced to race to their car and flee with few belongings as the flames rushed through the brush toward their home, which survived both blazes.

Edison’s maintenance of its power lines is now under scrutiny in the wake of January’s devastating Eaton fire, which destroyed a wide swath of Altadena and killed 19 people. Video captured by eyewitnesses shows the Eaton fire igniting under Edison transmission towers.

A lawsuit making its way through Los Angeles County Superior Court is raising new questions about Edison’s role in the 2019 Saddle Ridge fire in Sylmar and whether the company was transparent about the cause of the blaze. The fire killed at least one person and destroyed or damaged more than 100 homes and other structures. Firefighters were able to contain the more recent Sylmar fire, called Hurst, before any homes were destroyed.

The lawyers contend that both fires were caused by the same problem: an improperly grounded transmission line running through the foothills of Sylmar that Edison failed to fix, which the company denies.

In a court filing, the lawyers included a deposition they took of an L.A. Fire Department captain who said he believed that Edison was “deceptive” for not informing the department that its equipment failed just minutes before the 2019 blaze ignited, and for having an employee offer to buy key surveillance video from that night from a business next to one of its towers.

Edison has flatly disputed the lawyers’ assertions, calling their claims about the 2019 fire an “exotic ignition theory” based on “an unproven narrative.”

Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokeswoman for Edison, said that the utility had complied with the requests of investigators looking into the two fires and that “there is no connection” between the incidents.

Dunleavy said Edison did not tell the fire department about the failure of its equipment in 2019 because it happened at a tower miles away from where the fire ignited. And she said it is common for any investigator to seek to obtain video that could aid in an investigation. “SCE’s investigator did not offer to buy surveillance video,” she said.

“We follow the law. Period,” she said.

Dunleavy said the company has completed tests that show the transmission line is safe. She declined to share the results and pointed to testimony by Edison’s expert in the case — Don Russell, a Texas A&M professor of electrical engineering — who said the line was properly grounded.

As for the Jan. 7 Hurst fire, the utility told regulators in a February letter that it believes its equipment “may be associated with the ignition” of the blaze. The letter said the company found two conductors on the ground under a Sylmar tower. The repairs, the letter said, included replacing equipment at several towers and more than three miles of cable.

Delgado and Perez say that on the night of the fire they heard two loud booms and a flash of light so bright they could briefly see out their window the rocks and gullies of the San Gabriel foothills.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Undergrounding of towers questioned

In dispute is whether the failure of steel equipment at the top of an Edison transmission tower on the night of Oct. 10, 2019, caused a massive power surge across the system, resulting in multiple towers becoming electrified and intensely hot.

The tower, where the steel part known as a y-clevis broke, sits just off the 210 freeway in Sylmar on land shared with a nursery. The Edison tower behind Delgado’s home where investigators say the 2019 fire ignited is more than two miles away from the nursery.

The attorneys said in court filing that Edison made a “cost-saving choice” when building the transmission line in 1970 to not include “any purposeful grounding devices” that would enable power surges to dissipate down the tower and into the earth. Instead, the company used “only insufficient concrete footings,” the lawyers said in their filing.

Mark Felling, an electrical engineer and paid expert in the case, testified that he found that the size of the cement footings under the towers along the line varied by a factor of 10. The size of the footings, he said,affects whether the tower is properly grounded.

Felling said he believed that a sudden power surge could cause some towers to become “electrified and potentially very hazardous.”

Edison has disputed that theory and said in court that the electrical surge caused by the failure of equipment at the tower by the nursery safely dispersed. The utility said it was scientifically impossible that the electrical surge caused a fire 2½ miles away.

“The undisputed material facts cannot support plaintiff’s theory that SCE caused the Saddleridge fire,” the company wrote in a motion this month, which asked the judge to dismiss the case. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for Oct. 6.

Edison’s motion included a copy of the L.A. Fire Department’s investigation, which included new details of how the company responded to fire investigators days after the 2019 fire.

Delgado said his rosary and prayers were important to surviving the fires.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Failure to report power surge

L.A. Fire investigator Robert Price arrived at the dirt road leading up to the hillside transmission line where the fire had ignited the night before to see the yellow crime scene tape lying on the ground and an Edison truck driving out, Price said in his report.

Price also wrote that Edison’s equipment recorded a fault that resulted in a surge of electricity about three minutes before Delgado reported the fire to 911 at 9 p.m. But the company did not tell the Fire Department about the fault, Price wrote.

Instead, L.A. Fire Capt. Timothy Halloran learned from a news report that Sylmar resident Jack Carpenter had recorded a large flash of light on his dashboard camera at 8:57 that night as he was traveling west on the 210 freeway.

Halloran traced the flash to a transmission tower built on land used by Ornelas Wood Recovery Nursery. Halloran interviewed employees at the nursery, who told him that an Edison employee had offered to buy the surveillance footage from the nursery’s camera, according to a deposition Halloran later provided to lawyers representing the victims.

A nursery employee also had taken photos of the broken steel equipment he found at the foot of the tower, according to Price’s report. The employee told Halloran that an Edison crew came the day after the fire and cleaned up the shattered pieces.

Halloran said in the deposition, according to a June court filing, that the company’s failure to report the fault and its offer to buy the nursery’s surveillance video made him believe that the company’s actions were “deceptive.”

Price said in his report that he also saw Edison crews cleaning the towers along the line three days after the fire’s start. An Edison employee told him that the utility cleans the towers once a year but had decided to clean them that day “because they were dirty from the smoke and fire,” Price wrote.

The cleaning did not prevent fire investigators from finding burn marks at the bottom of a second tower not far from where Delgado and his wife live, which Price said may be related to the “catastrophic failure” of equipment at the tower by the nursery.

In his final conclusion on the fire, Price wrote that it was “outside my expertise” to determine whether the failure of equipment at the tower above the nursery “could cause high voltage to travel back through the conductors … and cause a fire, possibly through the tower’s grounding system” more than two miles away.

“Therefore the cause will be undetermined,” Price wrote.

Dunleavy said that Edison had notified the California Public Utilities Commission about the fire before it began cleaning up the broken pieces of equipment found under the tower at the nursery. That cleanup and the company’s repairs, Dunleavy said, were needed to “ensure safety and reliability” of the line.

She added that it was common practice for utilities to wash down equipment after a fire before the system was reenergized.

According to an L.A. Fire investigator, Edison’s equipment recorded a fault that resulted in a surge of electricity about three minutes before Delgado reported the fire to 911 at 9 p.m.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

State utility investigators find violations

Also investigating the 2019 fire in the days after its start was Eric Ujiiye at the Public Utilities Commission.

The commission’s safety staff investigates fires that may have been caused by electric lines to determine whether the utility violated safety regulations.

Ujiiye said in his report that he found that Edison violated five regulations, including failing to safely maintain its equipment at the tower by the nursery.

Even though Price’s investigation for the L.A. Fire Department stated that the cause is undetermined, Ujiiye said in his report that he believed that the failure of equipment at the tower by the nursery “could have led to a fire ignition” at the pylon more than two miles away.

The commission’s staff asked Edison to perform tests to show that the towers on the line were properly grounded. According to a written response from Edison, the utility objected to the request as “vague and ambiguous.” But the company agreed to do the tests, which would be observed by the commission inspectors.

Terrie Prosper, a spokeswoman for the commission, said that the agency’s staff was planning to meet with Edison at the transmission line to witness the tests. However, COVID-19 pandemic restrictions delayed that meeting and the requested undergrounding tests. She said that commission staff later learned that Edison had performed similar tests soon after the fire. Those test results “sufficed,” Prosper said, and the company “was not made to re-do the tests.”

Prosper said the commission did not fine or otherwise penalize Edison for the five violations because the LAFD report said the cause was undetermined. She said company had corrected the violations.

April Maurath Sommer, executive director of the Wild Tree Foundation, which has challenged Edison’s requests to have utility customers pay for fire damages, questioned the commission’s handling of the 2019 fire.

“You would think that the Public Utilities Commission would use fines to address really egregious behavior in the hope it would deter future behavior that causes catastrophic fires,” she said.

Maurath Sommer noted that Edison has been repeatedly found to have failed to cooperate with investigators looking into the cause of devastating fires. For example, commission investigators said in a report that the utility refused to provide photos and other details of what its employees found at the site where the Woolsey fire ignited in 2018. The Edison crew was the first to arrive at the scene of the fire that destroyed hundreds of homes in Malibu. Edison argued that the evidence was protected by attorney-client privilege.

Edison’s Dunleavy said the allegation by commission investigators was later resolved. “We take our obligation to cooperate with the CPUC seriously,” she said.

Prosper of the commission said, “Public safety is, and will remain, our top priority,”

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1. Fire fighters kept an eye on the wild fire burning behind Olive View Medical Center. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times) 2. A firefighting plane drops red Phos-Chek, a fire retardant, to protect Olive View Medical Center from wind driven Saddle Ridge wild fire in October 2019. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times) 3. Interstate 5 and California State Rute 14 were closed to traffic through Newhall Pass due to the Saddle Ridge fire. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times) 4. Firefighters cleared brush and mopped up a hillside along California State Highway 14 due to fire in 2019. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

Another fire in Sylmar

At about 10:30 on the night of Jan. 7, Katherine Twohy heard a loud crack and saw a bright flash. Edison’s transmission towers in Sylmar skirt around the edge of the Oakridge Mobile Home Park, where Twohy, a retired psychologist, lives.

“I was just coming in my back door and there was just this incredible flashing of white lights,” Twohy said. “Incredibly blue-white lights.”

She walked to her living room window where she can see two Edison towers, which are separated by more than a hundred yards. Twohy said she could see flames at the base of each one.

“The fires had made little circles around the base,” she said.

Twohy said she saw flames under the same towers the night the Saddle Ridge fire ignited in 2019.

“I thought, ‘Oh my god, it’s just like last time,’” Twohy said.

In court, lawyers representing victims of the 2019 fire have seized on Edison’s admission that its equipment may have sparked the Jan. 7 fire.

“The evidence will show that five separate fires ignited at five separate SCE transmission tower bases in the same exact manner” as the 2019 fire, they wrote in a June court filing.

Delgado’s home sits next to the dirt road leading up to the towers. The Jan. 7 fire melted his backyard fence but did little more damage. In the days after the fire, he found that some of the same Edison employees he spoke to in 2019 as a witness reappeared.

“I saw the exact same people from Edison show up,” he said. “I told them your towers almost killed my family again.”

Times staff writer Kevin Rector contributed to this report.

As global plastic treaty talks end in failure, with no agreement, all is not lost in the global momentum to cut plastic pollution. United States lawmakers recently introduced the Microplastics Safety Act, for example, mandating the Department of Health and Human Services to study microplastics exposure and health impacts. The bill reflects growing concern in Congress about the plastics health crisis and the broad bipartisan support to address it.

However, given that plastic production, use, and hence exposure, continue to increase every year, we should not wait idly for the US report’s findings or more failed global plastic treaty talks. There is enough evidence to take action now. Below, we highlight three areas that can help reduce everyone’s exposure to microplastics: culture, business and policy.

In culture, there are many default behaviours that we can rethink and re-norm. What if we saw more people bringing their own metal or wooden cutlery to the next barbecue, more shoppers bringing home whole fruit instead of plastic-wrapped pre-cut, and more kids and employees bringing their own refillable water bottles and coffee mugs to school and work? The more we see it normalised, the more we’ll do it. That’s how social norming works.

And having Hollywood in on this would certainly help. Two years ago, Citywide, a feature film shot in Philadelphia was Hollywood’s first zero-waste film, which is a great start. More of this is welcome, including walking the talk within movie, television and advertising scenes by swapping in refillable and reusable containers where single-use plastics would otherwise be the default or showcasing repeat outfits on characters to decentre environmentally harmful fast fashion, much of which is made from plastic.

In business, thankfully, some local grocers allow shoppers to go plastic-free. More grocers should make this shift because consumers want it. Providing staples like cereal, oats, nuts and beans in bulk bins and letting shoppers bring their own containers is a good start. Buying in bulk tends to be more affordable but unfortunately, few stores offer that option, especially stores that target shoppers with lower incomes. Even shoppers with higher incomes lack options: Whole Foods, for example, has bulk bins but in most of its locations requires customers to use the provided plastic containers or bags, which defeats the purpose.

More low-hanging fruit for grocers: try using the milk bottle approach. In some grocery stores, milk is still available in glass bottles, which is good, albeit it comes with a steep deposit. Let’s extend that model of returnable containers to other products, and at a more affordable rate. Take yoghurt, for example. Stores could have an option to buy it in returnable glass containers, since the current plastic containers aren’t recyclable. This is not a fantasy but a possibility: a newly opened grocery store in France offers all of their items plastic-free.

For restaurants, more and more businesses across the US are supporting the use of returnable containers and cities like the District of Columbia offer grants to help ditch disposables. This is exactly what we need more of. People want the option to bring their own containers or use a returnable container so that they can have take-out without risking their health and the environment with exposure to plastic. Let’s give the people what they want.

Policy is arguably the hardest of the three paths to tackle since culture and business track more closely and immediately with consumer demand. To be clear, most Americans, in a bipartisan way, are sick of single-use plastics, which is why plastic bag bans are popping up across the US, and state capitals are seeing more legislative proposals to hold producers of plastic responsible for the life cycle of plastic. What makes policy the more difficult space is the petrochemical lobby that often stands in the way, keeping policymakers mum about the human health and environmental impacts while encouraging industry subsidies: the US has spent $9bn in tax subsidies on the construction of new plastics factories over the past 12 years.

Given the health and environmental harms associated with plastics production, the obvious policy fix is to make the producers responsible for the pollution, forcing them to clean up in places locally like Beaver Creek, Pennsylvania, where the local economy suffered after an ethane cracker plant started operating there. And then to clean up globally for the harm done, since governments are left with the tab of $32bn while the public is left with the costs of health impacts from endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in plastic.

The industry, meanwhile, is fighting tooth and nail to keep selling its harmful products, misleading the public into thinking recycling is an effective solution to plastic waste. It’s not, of course, which is why California is suing ExxonMobil for deception about plastics recycling. Meanwhile, the industry continues to interfere with United Nations global plastics treaty negotiations.

It’s time we diverted those billions of dollars that taxpayers spend subsidising deadly plastics production and, instead, develop products, companies and systems that make the low-plastic life the default option for everyone. That’s the healthier future we want to live in.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

In Nicholas Boggs’ lively and vigorously researched biography of James Baldwin, the great writer’s search for the source of his art dovetails with his lifelong search for meaningful relationships. Black, gay, born without the benefit of money or guidance, repeatedly harassed and beaten in his New York City hometown, Baldwin physically removed himself from the turmoil of America, living abroad for long stretches to find proper distance and see his country plain. In “The Fire Next Time,” “Another Country” and “Giovanni’s Room,” among other works, Baldwin gleaned hard truths about the ways in which white people, white men in particular, deny their own sexual confusions to lash out at those who they feel may pose a grave threat their own machismo codes and their absolute dominion over Black Americans. In his novels and essays, Baldwin became a sharp beacon of hard truths.

Baldwin was reared in an oppressive atmosphere of religious doctrine and physical violence; his stepfather David, a laborer and preacher, adhered to an quasi-Calvinist approach to child-rearing that forbade art’s graven images in the home and encouraged austerity and renunciation. Books, according to Baldwin’s father, were “written by white devils.” As a child, Baldwin was beaten and verbally lashed by his father; his brief tenure as a religious orator in the church was, according to Boggs, a way to “usurp his father at his own game.” At the same time, Boggs notes, Baldwin used the church “to mask the deep confusion caused by his burgeoning sexual desires.”

As a child, Baldwin is marginalized for being too sensitive, too bookish, a “sissy.” At school, he finds mentors like Orilla “Bill” Miller and the Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen, who introduced him to Dickens and the 18th century Russian novelists. When his stepfather loses his job, it is down to Baldwin to support his mother and eight siblings. Taking a job at a local army base, he is confronted with virulent race-baiting from his white supervisor and co-workers.

Baldwin leaves Harlem behind shortly thereafter and falls into the artistic ferment of Greenwich Village in the ‘40s. He shares ideas about art, music and literature with a fellow budding aesthete named Eugene Worth until he jumps to his death from the George Washington Bridge in the winter of 1946. His death “cast a pall over Baldwin’s life,” Boggs writes, “but it would also play a major and enduring role in his development as a writer.” Baldwin, who had developed strong romantic feelings for Worth but never made them plain to his friend, makes a promise to himself, vowing to adjoin his private life as a gay Black man to the public life of an artist, so that “my infirmities might be forged into weapons.”

Beauford Delaney, a respected painter and Village fixture, becomes Baldwin’s lodestar and encourages him to confront his sexuality head-on in his art. What that art might entail, Baldwin doesn’t yet know, but it would have something to do with writing. Delaney would become a lifelong friend, even after he began suffering from mental deterioration, dying after years of hospitalization in 1979.

Baldwin’s life as a transatlantic nomad begins in 1948, when he arrives in Paris after winning a scholarship to study there. More importantly, he meets 17-year-old Lucien Happersberger, a Swiss painter, and a relationship blossoms. Happersberger shares deep artistic and sexual affinities with Baldwin, but Lucien is also attracted to women and becomes a kind of template for Baldwin’s future partners, most notably the Turkish actor Engin Cezzar, that he would pursue until his death in 1987.

Baldwin held these romantic relationships in tantalizing suspension, his love affairs caught between the poles of desire and intimacy, the heat of passion and long-term commitment. The love triangles these relationships engendered became a rich source for his fiction. Boggs asserts that many of the author’s most enduring works, including “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and his breakthrough novel about gay love “Giovanni’s Room,” sprang from these early, formative encounters. “The structure of a not fully requited love was a familiar and even eroticized one for Baldwin,” Boggs writes, “and would come to fuel his art.”

Away from the States, Baldwin was freed “from the trap of color,” but he was pulled ever deeper into the racial unrest in America, taking on journalism assignments to see for himself how systemic racial oppression worked in the Jim Crow South. In Atlanta, Baldwin meets Martin Luther King Jr., who invites him to Montgomery to witness the impact of the bus boycott. Entering a local restaurant, he is greeted with stony stares; a white woman points toward the colored entrance. In Mississippi, he interviews NAACP organizer Medgar Evers, who is busy investigating a lynching. Baldwin notes the climate of fear among Black citizens in the city, speaking to him like “ the German Jews must have talked when Hitler came to power.”

Nicholas Boggs tracked down a previously unwritten-about lover of James Baldwin for his new biography.

(Noah Loof)

These eyewitness accounts would feed into Baldwin’s impassioned essays on race such as “Down at the Cross” and his 1972 nonfiction book “No Name in the Street.” For Boggs, Baldwin’s nonfiction informed his fiction; there are “continuities and confluences between and across his work in both genres.” The throughline across all of the work was Baldwin’s ire at America’s failure to recognize that the “so-called Negro” was “trapped, disinherited and despised, in a nation that … is still unable to recognize him as a human being.”

Baldwin would spend the rest of his life toggling between journalism and fiction, addressing racism in the States in articles for Esquire, Harper’s and other publications while spending most of his time in Turkey and France, where a growing circle of friends and lovers nourished his muse and satisfied his need for constant social interaction when he wasn’t wrestling with his work, sometimes torturously so. Boggs’ book finds Baldwin in middle age poised between creative fecundity and despair, growing frustrated with America’s failure of nerve regarding race and homosexuality as well as his own thwarted partnerships. Despite a powerful bond with Engin Cezarr and, later, the French painter Yoran Cazac, who flitted in and out of Baldwin’s Istanbul life across the 1970s, the picture of Baldwin that emerges in Boggs’ biography is that of an artist who treasures emotional continuity but creatively feeds on inconstancy.

In fact, Cazac had never been cited in any previous Baldwin biography. Boggs discovered him when he came across an out-of-print children’s book called “Little Man, Little Man,” a collaboration between Cazac and Baldwin that prompted Boggs’ search. After following a number of flimsy leads, he finally finds Cazac in a rural French village, and they talk.

The novels that Baldwin penned during his last great burst of productivity, most notably “If Beale Street Could Talk” and “Just Above My Head,” have been maligned by many Baldwin fans as noble failures lacking the fire and dramatic power of his early work. Yet Boggs makes a strong case for these books as successful formal experiments in which Baldwin once again transmuted the storms of his personal life into eloquent indictments of systemic racism. The contours of Baldwin’s romantic engagement with Cazac, in particular, would find their way into “Beale Street,” the first time Baldwin used a female narrator to tell the story of a budding young romance doomed by a gross miscarriage of justice. Boldly experimental in both form and content, “Beale Street” and “Just Above My Head” were, in Boggs’ view, unjustly criticized, coming at a time when Baldwin’s reputation was on the decline. Only novelist Edmund White gleaned something special in his review of “Just Above My Head,” Baldwin’s final novel, finding in his depictions of familial love a Dickensian warmth which “glow with the steadiness and clarity of a flame within a glass globe.”

A literary biography needn’t be an artful accretion of facts, nor should it traffic in salacious gossip and cheapen the subject at hand. Boggs’ even-handed and critically rigorous biography of James Baldwin is guilty of none of these things, mostly because Boggs never strays from the path toward understanding why Baldwin wrote what he did and how his private and public lives were inextricably wound up in his work. Boggs has dug much deeper than his predecessors, including Baldwin’s biographer David Leeming, whose book has been the standard bearer since its 1994 publication. “Baldwin: A Love Story” is superlative, and it should become the new gold standard for Baldwin studies.

Weingarten is the author of “Thirsty: William Mulholland, California Water, and the Real Chinatown.”

Aug. 16 (UPI) — The deadly explosion in the Steel Clairton Coke Works near Pittsburgh occurred when a gas valve was flushed in preparation of planned maintenance, U.S. Steel said in preliminary findings.

Two people died and 10 people were hospitalized on Monday in the explosion at the plant about 15 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Black smoke could be seen for miles.

“Pressure built inside the valve, leading to valve failure and coke oven gas filling the area and ultimately exploding when finding an ignition source,” U.S. Steel spokeswoman Amanda Malkowski said in the statement to KDKA-TV and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Workers were charging ovens and pushing coke out of them as part of normal operations, Executive Vice President Scott Buckiso said at a news conference earlier this week.

“We want to reinforce that this investigation is in its early stages, and we will provide more information when we can,” Malkowski added. “Our focus remains on our employees and their families during this difficult time.”

She said company employees, agencies and experts have been reviewing video and interviewing workers.

“I thought something like this would take two to four to five months for it to unfold,” Calirton Mayor Rich Lattanzi said Friday. “I’m thinking what they found is a smoking gun.”

JoJo Burgess, who works at the plant and is mayor of nearby Washington, said he wants more information.

“Did someone know before it happened, so that they could have tried to stop the process?” he told KDKA-TV.

Bernie Hall, director of United Steelworkers District 10, said the union needs to learn more before speculating.

The explosion occurred around 11 a.m. Monday at the plant. Two people were initially reported missing, but the workers’ bodies were found in the rubble.

Killed were Timothy Quinn, 39, who lived with his disabled mother, and Bryan Dascani, 52, who was married and had two daughters, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Three other people remain in critical condition.

On Monday, U.S. Steel said the initial blast occurred inside the reversing room for batteries 13 and 14. Secondary explosions ensued but those blasts didn’t injure anyone.

U.S. Steel CEO Dave Burritt said local, state and federal personnel are investigating, including the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.

On Tuesday, Gov. Josh Shapiro said during a news conference he wants Clairton and its surrounding communities to be protected. The blast could be felt miles away.

The Clairton plant settled a 2017 suit for $8.5 million over pollution, including $6.5 million to reduce soot emissions and noxious odors, CNN reported.

WTAE-TV uncovered past violations and injury reports at the plant over the past decades.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Management Program enforcement analysis found that over five years, the plant was listed in “high priority violation” of the Clean Air Act and 32 “formal enforcement actions.” This is four times more violations than at similar places at the same time.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration found the plant had nine serious injury reports as of early 2024. They include trips and falls, resulting in broken bones or cuts.

There are around 1,300 workers at the plant.

“U.S. Steel had a record-setting safety performance in 2024 and an over 99% environmental compliance record. Safety is our top priority every single day,” the company said in a statement.

“Over the last five years, U. S. Steel has invested over $750 million in improvement projects at its Mon Valley Works facilities, including roughly $100 million annually being spent at the Clairton facility on environmental compliance.”

The company’s headquarters are in Pittsburgh.

U.S. Steel, which was founded in 1901, has about 22,000 employees with revenue of $15.6 billion in 2024.

She lost her pregnancy in prison in what she describes as “a miscarriage of justice”. 

The experience Ayodele Bukunmi had in detention tore her heart apart and still haunts her to date. Now 23, Bukunmi was only 17 when she was thrown behind bars in Ondo State, South West Nigeria. It was October 2020, during the nationwide EndSARS protests against police brutality in the country. On her way to visit a friend in the Akoko-Akungba area, police officers waylaid and whisked her away, alongside protesters.

The police forced her to admit to obtaining flammable materials and causing riots in the state amid the #EndSARS protests, she said. After a few hours of interrogation, they locked her in a crammed cell in the Special Investigations Department of the Ondo State police. Bukunmi insisted she was just a passerby and not a participant in the protest that turned violent, yet, a month later, she was moved to the Surulere prison facility in Akure, the state capital. 

For weeks, no one knew she was at the prison facility. She was held incommunicado until her boyfriend, worried about her safety, found out. 

She was not alone in this situation; Kemisola Ogunbiyi was also arrested and detained in a similar fashion. Kemisola was on her way to buy drugs for her sick mother when the police picked her up, claiming she was among the #EndSARS protesters.

Kemisola and Bukunmi languished in the Surulere correctional facility with blurry hopes for justice. The duo came from different families and locations, but fate brought them together in a government confinement, where the slow justice system subjected them to torture and inhumane treatment. Interestingly, they both found out they were pregnant while in detention, begging to be given a fair hearing.

The Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) was enacted in 2015 to reform criminal procedure, promote speedy trials, and protect the rights of suspects, defendants, and victims. However, the criminal justice system in Nigeria has been criticised for being riddled with mediocrity and systemic flaws. With overcrowded correctional facilities, more than 70 per cent of inmates are detained often for years without formal charges or access to legal representation, according to media reports.

A report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) shows how indigent defendants, especially women, suffer disproportionately due to underfunded legal aid and systemic corruption. What the teenage detainees experienced at the correctional facility in Ondo confirms this report. For months, they were held in the police cell without being charged in a court. When the police raided the street and arrested them, they were framed for offences they insisted they knew nothing about. Bukunmi recalled how the officers wrote statements on their behalf, forcing them to confess to crimes they never committed. As hoodlums infiltrated the protests, burning houses and vehicles, including the All Progressive Congress (APC) secretariat, the state authorities unleashed police officers onto the streets to pick up the arsonists; Bukunmi and Kemisola, among others, were scapegoated.

“I was new to Akure at the time and knew nowhere, but they framed me and accused me of arson. They tortured me until I lost consciousness, and at the police station, they didn’t give me any chance to explain myself. I was humiliated and harassed,” Bukunmi said.

When they were finally charged in court, they had no lawyer to back them, and lost their voices before the judge. From the police station, they were moved to an all-female correctional centre in the state, where they would face another level of ill-treatment and dehumanisation. 

“They gave us terrible meals – watery beans and lumpy soups. We ate rice occasionally, and our regular stew was simply hot pepper and water. No palm oil, fish, meat, the typically grounded pepper, or tomatoes,” Bukunmi told HumAngle five years later. “I faced hell in detention and still went through hell after I regained freedom.”

The prison officials were cruel and tolerated no one, Bukunmi reminisced. She was once locked in a single, dark cell for over a week, with her legs chained and hands tied for disobeying an officer. She can’t recall the officer’s name, but she described her as “very dark” and newly recruited at the time. Her offence? She hesitated to help the officer clean her shoe. The officer reported her to a superior official, who ordered her to be locked in solitary confinement. They untied her hands once a day to serve her food and water while she was serving the punishment.

“I was still pregnant at the time, and I think these could have contributed to why I had a miscarriage,” she told HumAngle. “The prison space is not for the weak; you could be on your own, and an officer would accuse you of looking at them disdainfully and punish you for no reason. I didn’t really mean to disobey the officer; I was tired and sluggish at the time, and she accused me of hesitating to clean her shoe.”

No detainee dared greet an officer standing, even if they were older, she said. “You must always greet them because if you refuse, that could be a reason to be punished. And you must speak to an officer, you must be on your knees, with your head facing down.”

The ill-treatment meted out on them, experts said, violates section 8(1) of ACJA, which mandates that all suspects be treated with dignity and prohibits inhumane or degrading treatment. The Act also encourages non-custodial sentencing, such as community service and suspended sentences, particularly for minor offences. However, implementation remains inconsistent across states, and many people are still detained in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions. 

They were in and out of the courtroom for about eight months without a clear direction, until the story broke in the media in April 2021. Despite getting pro bono legal backing, the court still refused to hear their appeal, aggravating their condition in detention. This slow pace of judicial proceedings worsened their case, further violating ACJA regulations. 

The ACJA had introduced reforms like day-to-day trials and limits on adjournments to reduce delays, yet courts remain overwhelmed by case backlogs. A critique published on Academia.edu points out that despite the ACJA’s innovations, poor funding, lack of training, and resistance to change have hindered its effectiveness. Vulnerable defendants often languish in detention while their cases stall, violating their constitutional right to a fair and timely trial.

Foetus lost, baby born in prison

Bukunmi broke the news of her pregnancy to her boyfriend, Balogun Segun, when he visited her in detention. He didn’t believe her initially, but something terrible happened two days later. She started bleeding, and her stomach wouldn’t stop aching. She lost the pregnancy to the daily stress and discomfort she witnessed at the Surulere facility. The pregnancy was four months when she had a miscarriage, leaving her in pain and anguish. Her boyfriend cried out to journalists at the time that Bukunmi had no medical attention, despite her condition.

“She is not being given any medical attention,” he complained. “In fact, the foetus inside her hasn’t been flushed out. She needs help.”

Kemisola also found out she was pregnant in detention, but she scaled through the inhumane conditions. A few months later, she delivered the baby at the facility, catching more media attention. She was one month pregnant when she was arrested and detained in October 2020; she delivered the baby in June and still spent days in detention with the newborn. Her situation sparked social media outrage, with #FreeKemisola trending. Activists and social media influencers pressured the state government until Charles Titiloye, the state’s Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, promised to intervene.

A few weeks later, Kemisola was released, gaining public sympathy and receiving donations from well-wishers. The baby was christened and celebrated by notable Nigerians such as Naomi Ogunwusi, the estranged wife of the Ooni of Ife, a first-class monarch in Osun state. Amid the media outrage over Kemisola’s case, however, Bukunmi was left in limbo with no freedom insight. The dead foetus stayed in her belly for months, making her sick. Some online sympathisers protested and moved on quickly. But her mother and boyfriend protested while speaking to journalists, expressing fears that the public might have forgotten the detainee.

“I’m afraid something might go wrong with her in prison due to her health condition,” Iyabo Ayodele, Bukunmi’s mother, lamented. “Help me beg the public not to forget her there.”

She was not allowed to visit a hospital even after complaining on several occasions that her stomach ached badly. At the prison facility, only one matron attended to their medical needs, and she was accused of handling serious issues with levity and sometimes oversimplifying complex health conditions. When she complained bitterly about her aching stomach after having a miscarriage, the matron gave paracetamol, but that changed nothing. She said she endured the pain for months, until she regained freedom.

Three months after Kemisola was released, Bukunmi regained freedom after enduring gruelling complications from the miscarriage. Her life never remained the same, even when she became free. The memory of those moments still haunts her, continually flashing through her mind, she said. When she falls deeply asleep sometimes, she said, she finds herself in a dark dungeon, weeping bitterly to be set free. Other times, she appears in dramatic scenes, dragging matters with the police in her dream.

“Even after I was released, I suffered a lot, physically and mentally. Unknown to me, the miscarriage had affected my womb. But God, time and medical efforts helped me take in the second time,” she added.

ACJA protects the rights of vulnerable women like Bukunmi and their unborn children in detention, but the reality in many Nigerian prisons is different. Section 404 of the Act states that if a pregnant woman is convicted of a capital offence, the death sentence must be suspended until after childbirth and weaning. While this provision offers some relief, it does not prevent pretrial detention of pregnant women, even for non-violent offences. One woman, Fausat Olayonu, for instance, was pregnant when she was detained for stealing a radio set worth ₦20,000. Like Bukunmi and Kemisola, she had no legal representation and had resigned to fate that her unborn child would be delivered in prison. The International Association of Women Judges reports that over 1,700 women in Nigerian prisons are awaiting trial, many of them pregnant or nursing, with limited access to medical care and legal support.

Although the ACJA provides a robust framework for reform, experts, including social justice activists and lawyers, say its impact is limited by weak enforcement and institutional malfeasances such as prolonged detention and inadequate care. Abdullahi Tijani, a lawyer and pro-freedom activist, says bridging the gap between legislation and reality requires stronger oversight, better funding for legal aid, and targeted interventions for vulnerable populations. 

“Until these systemic issues are addressed, the promise of justice under the ACJA will remain largely unfulfilled,” Abdullahi argued. “No doubt, Nigeria has proper frameworks to reform its criminal justice system, but compliance is a barrier.”

Ridwan Oke, a Nigerian lawyer and criminal justice activist, says reforming the criminal justice system begins with law enforcement agents, especially the police. During the #EndSARS protest, Ridwan helped facilitate the release of several protesters randomly arrested without a thorough investigation. The legal practitioner said the police need to check their system in terms of arresting people indiscriminately and charging them with ridiculous offences not backed by evidence.

“If the police can always check themselves by not arresting indiscriminately without any evidence, the criminal justice reform becomes easier,” he urged. “Police officers are fond of arresting people indiscriminately, releasing those they can release and charging others to court before looking for evidence.”

He also advised the court to be more critical of cases presented before them, especially cases lacking basic evidence. “Now, anybody can charge anybody without any evidence. That’s bad for our criminal justice system. The court should always put people in critical check and reduce bail conditions for lesser offences so that there would be no delay in justice delivery.”