conditions

Sept. 25 (UPI) — The Azores were expected to be hit with hurricane conditions starting Wednesday night, the National Hurricane Center said, as Hurricane Gabrielle continued across the Atlantic Ocean.

The eye of the storm was located about 855 miles west of the Azores, the NHC said in its 3 a.m. GMT Thursday update.

It was moving east at a blistering 31 mph and had maximum sustained winds of 85 mph, a significant decrease from Tuesday when it was a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. As of Thursday morning, it was a Category 1 hurricane.

The government of Portugal had issued a hurricane watch for all of the Azores, an autonomous region of the European nation, due to Gabrielle on Tuesday, but upgraded it to a warning on Wednesday.

A hurricane warning is generally issued 36 hours before the anticipated first impact of tropical-storm-force winds and is signals that one should complete storm preparations.

“On the forecast track, the center of Gabrielle will approach the Azores today and move across the island chain tonight into early Friday,” the NHC said.

Gabrielle had been traveling northwest and turned north toward Bermuda as it gathered strength last week. But the storm shifted east on Monday and passed east of the island Monday night.

It has steadily weakened over the last few days, and forecasters said it could lose a bit of strength, but it is expected to regain some before moving over the Azores.

The swells from the storm will continue to reach the U.S. eastern coast from North Carolina northward, as well as Atlantic Canada, the NHC said, adding that they are expected to persist for another day or so.

“These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions,” it said.

Gabrielle is the seventh named storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season.

Last month, Erin became a Category 5 hurricane with 160-mph winds spreading across a 500-mile area.

UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram explains the desperate conditions families find themselves in while being forcibly displaced from Gaza City by Israeli evacuation orders.

The California Department of Justice will sue the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and its sheriff, Robert Luna, for what Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta called a “humanitarian crisis” inside of the county jails.

Inmates are housed in unsafe, dirty facilities infested with roaches and rats, Bonta said in a news conference Monday, and lack basic access to clean water and edible food. “More alarming, people are dying,” he said.

There have been over 205 in-custody deaths in four years, Bonta said, with 40% caused by suicide, homicides and overdoses. He called for comprehensive reform, but said the county forced his hand by refusing to comply.

“I’d prefer collaboration over litigation, but the county has left us with no choice, so litigation it is,” he said.

Bonta called for L.A. County and the sheriff’s department to provide inmates with adequate medical, dental and mental health care, protect them from harm, provide safe and humane confinement conditions. He also called on jail officials to better accommodate the needs of disabled inmates and those with limited English proficiency.

Bonta painted a dark portrait of L.A. County’s jails, describing filthy conditions, vermin and insect infestations, a lack of clean water and moldy and spoiled food. He said prisoners face difficulty obtaining basic hygiene items and are not permitted to spend enough time outside of their cells.

L.A. County, which houses the largest jail system in the country, has long been criticized for poor conditions. As it has expanded to hold around 13,000 people on any given day, decades — perhaps a century — of mistreatment and overcrowding have been documented.

The system lost a federal lawsuit in 1978 after decades of dirty, mold-ridden and overcrowded jails prompted inmates to fight back through the courts, and frequently faces suits alleging it fails to provide proper food, water and shelter.

The state’s lawsuit comes amid a years-long struggle to close and replace Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles, from which inspectors regularly document poor conditions: mold, mildew, insufficient food and water and, more recently, a report last year that said jailers were too busy watching an “explicit video” to notice a noose hung inside a cell.

“In June 2024, the Sybil Brand Commission reported that multiple dorms at Men’s Central were overcrowded with broken toilets, some containing feces that could not be flushed; a urinal that caused ‘effluence to emerge through the mid-floor drain’ when flushed; and ceilings that had been painted over to cover mold,” Bonta’s office wrote in its complaint.

In addition to Luna and the sheriff’s department, the county Department of Health Services, Correctional Health Services and its director, Timothy Belavich, were also named as defendants.

The lawsuit decried the “dilapidated physical condition of the facility and the numerous instances of violence and death within its walls.” It went on to explain that the county Board of Supervisors voted to close the chronically overcrowded Men’s Central Jail twice, including in 2020.

The sheriff’s department has said it would be difficult to close the jail because of the high volume of inmate admissions and lack of viable alternatives.

But in-custody deaths this year are on track for what Bonta’s office described as at least a 20-year high with 36 reported so far, or about one a week, according to the county’s website.

Inmates have been known to set fires in rooms with no smoke alarms — not to cause mischief, but to cook and supplement cold, sometimes inedible meals.

Some inmates — many of whom have been arrested recently and have not been convicted of crimes — are left to sleep on urine-soaked floors with trash bags as blankets and no access to medications and working plumbing. A 2022 lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union called the conditions “medieval.”

“The LASD jails,” the state attorney general’s office wrote in the complaint, “have a longstanding history of deplorable conditions and constitutional violations.”

YOUNG people being overdiagnosed with mental health conditions has left the state at breaking point, a report warns.

Policy Exchange’s study is backed by Jeremy Hunt, who as Health Secretary in 2012 pushed to give mental health the same importance as physical health.

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He now admits a surge in diagnoses — as parents chased support for kids — had “unintended consequences” by overwhelming the special educational needs (SEND) system.

The report says costs are “unsustainable” and seeks a radical overhaul.

Mr Hunt said: “We seem to have lost sight of the reality that child development is a messy and uneven process.”

He added that in trying to support young people there are “excessive impulses to medicalise and diagnose the routine, which can undercut grit and resilience”.

Earlier in the year, The Sun revealed that nearly one million children and young people were referred for mental health help last year.

Over 958,200 children in England were referred to Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services.

That is equal to eight per cent of England’s population of 12 million children.

And an increase of 10,000 from the previous year, according to research by the Children’s Commissioner. 

Anxiety was the most common reason, followed by neurodevelopmental conditions and autism.

Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza called for urgent action to tackle waiting times.

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Aug. 20 (UPI) — Tropical storm conditions were descending upon the North Carolina coast late Wednesday, according to forecasters who are warning beachgoers against swimming at most U.S. East Coast beaches due to “life-threatening” surf and rip currents.

The Category 2 storm, described as “large” by the NHC, had maximum sustained winds of 110 mph, just shy of a Category 3 hurricane. The eye of the storm was located about 485 miles west of Bermuda and 215 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., and was moving north at a rapid 16 mph, according to the NHC’s 11 p.m. EDT update.

A storm surge warning was in effect for from Cape Lookout to Duck, N.C., while a tropical storm warning was in effect for Beaufort Inlet, N.C., to Chincoteague, Va., including Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds.

Bermuda was under a tropical storm watch.

“Erin is expected to produce life-threatening surf and rip currents along the beaches of the Bahamas, much of the east coast of the U.S., Bermuda and Atlantic Canada during the next several days,” the NHC said. “Beachgoers in those areas should follow advice from lifeguards, local authorities and beach warning flags.”

Forecasters warned weather conditions were expected to deteriorate along the Outer Banks late Wednesday into Thursday. Storm surge and large waves could cause beach erosion and make some roads impassible.

Tropical storm conditions were expected to reach the Virginia coast Thursday and farther north through early Friday.

The season’s first Atlantic hurricane reached Category 5 status Saturday morning, the highest classification, after rapidly intensifying overnight Friday, when it became a Category 1 hurricane, the year’s fifth named storm.

Erin dropped to a Category 4 and then a 3 overnight into Sunday, but regained Category 4 strength late Sunday before again losing strength.

Erin became the first hurricane of the 2025 Atlantic storm season Friday morning.

There have been four named storms so far this season in the Atlantic. Tropical Storm Chantal caused major flooding in North Carolina but has been the only one of the four to make landfall in the United States this year.

The Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1 and ends on Nov. 30. The peak hurricane season runs from mid-August through September and into mid-October.

Ninety-three percent of hurricane landfalls along the U.S. Gulf Coast and the East Coast have occurred from August through October, the Weather Channel reported, citing data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Last year at this time, there had also been five named storms.

A United States federal judge has ordered immigration authorities to improve conditions at a New York City facility following reports of overcrowding, inadequate food and unhygienic conditions.

On Tuesday, Judge Lewis Kaplan issued a temporary restraining order that mandated Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to implement reforms at 26 Federal Plaza, a government building in Manhattan where one floor contains holding cells for migrants and asylum seekers.

The restraining order requires the government to limit capacity at the holding facility, ensure cleanliness and provide sleeping mats.

“My conclusion here is that there is a very serious threat of continuing irreparable injury, given the conditions that I’ve been told about,” Kaplan said.

Under Kaplan’s order, the government will be forced to thoroughly clean the cells three times a day and provide adequate supplies of soap, towels, toilet paper, toothbrushes, toothpaste and feminine products.

He has also instructed immigration officials to allocate 4.6 square metres (50 square feet) per person, shrinking the capacity of the largest room from 40 or more detainees to just 15.

Finally, to ensure access to legal representation, Kaplan said the government must ensure detainees have accommodations to make confidential, unmonitored and unrecorded legal telephone calls.

Inside the complaint

The changes come in response to a complaint filed by lawyers for a Peruvian asylum-seeker named Sergio Alberto Barco Mercado, who was taken into custody on August 8 after appearing for a scheduled court date.

He was imprisoned at 26 Federal Plaza after his arrest. But his lawyers have argued that Barco Mercado and others in the facility have faced “crowded, squalid, and punitive conditions”. They also said they were denied access to their client after his arrest.

Barco Mercado testified that the holding room was “extremely crowded” and “smelled of sewage” and that the conditions exacerbated a tooth infection that swelled his face and altered his speech.

“We did not always get enough water,” Barco Mercado said in a sworn declaration. “There was one guard who would sometimes hold a bottle of water up and people would wait to have him squirt some into our mouths, like we were animals.”

Barco Mercado has since been transferred to a facility in upstate New York.

In court filings, other detainees complained that they had no soap, toothbrushes or other hygiene products while locked in the 26 Federal building.

They also said they were fed inedible “slop” and endured the “horrific stench” of sweat, urine and faeces, in part because the rooms have open toilets. One woman having her period could not use menstrual products because women in her room were given just two to divvy up, the lawsuit said.

A mobile phone video recorded last month showed about two dozen men crowded in one of the building’s four holding rooms, many lying on the floor with thermal blankets but no mattresses or padding.

ICE responds to allegations of ill treatment

At Tuesday’s hearing, a government lawyer conceded that “inhumane conditions are not appropriate and should not be tolerated”.

“I think we all agree that conditions at 26 Federal Plaza need to be humane, and we obviously share that belief,” said Jeffrey S Oestericher, a representative for the US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York.

The government also tried to downplay allegations of overcrowding at the facility and inhumane conditions.

In a sworn declaration, Nancy Zanello, the assistant director of ICE’s New York City Field Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations, wrote that 24 people were held in the building’s four holding rooms as of Monday.

That number was well below the 154-person limit imposed by the city fire marshal for the floor.

Zanello also said that each room was equipped with at least one toilet and sink, and hygiene products were available, including soap, teeth cleaning wipes and feminine products.

The 26 Federal Plaza site has become a flashpoint in New York as the city contends with President Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigration.

The holding cells are on the 10th floor, just two floors below an immigration court. The building also houses the New York field office for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other government offices.

While ICE has conducted high-profile raids on factories, farms and other workplaces elsewhere in the country, New York City has seen its immigration arrests largely unfold in court buildings, as migrants and asylum seekers exit their civil immigration hearings.

Critics have denounced such arrests as violations of the right to due process. They warn that, by carrying out arrests in court buildings, officials could discourage foreign nationals from pursuing lawful paths to immigration.

But in January, the Trump administration rescinded guidelines that limited immigration arrests in “sensitive locations”, court buildings generally considered to be among them.

An analysis published this week by local news outlet The City found that half of all court arrests nationwide in late May and early June took place in New York City.

Arthur Rinderknech collapsed on court in sweltering conditions before retiring from his Cincinnati Open third-round match with Felix Auger-Aliassime.

Rinderknech lost the first set 7-6 (7-4) but was level at 2-2 in the second before collapsing near the baseline as Canada’s Auger-Aliassime prepared to serve.

Auger-Aliassime and the umpire ran over to check on the Frenchman, before medical staff arrived on court.

The 30-year-old, who had been playing for nearly two hours, had a cooling break with ice packs on his neck and legs before declaring he was able to continue.

However, he lasted just two more games before retiring to send Auger-Aliassime through to the last 16.

Players have been struggling with the heat during the tournament, with temperatures regularly exceeding 30C.

British number two Cameron Norrie looked unwell and was often drenched in sweat during his second-round loss to veteran Roberto Bautista Agut on Sunday.

Wimbledon experienced its hottest opening day in June, with temperatures reaching 32.3C. Carlos Alcaraz’s five-set first-round win over Fabio Fognini was completed following a 15-minute pause in the deciding set, when a spectator sitting in the sun was taken ill.

January’s Australian Open also had sweltering temperatures approaching 34C.

Organisers introduced the Australian Open Heat Stress Scale in 2019 to monitor conditions and minimise risk to players’ health.

Canada has become the latest country to announce its intention to recognise a Palestinian state if certain conditions are met. Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the Israeli government for allowing a catastrophe to unfold in Gaza.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will release an estimated $1.3 billion in previously withheld grant money for schools nationwide, but has warned states that it will rescind funding not spent for “allowable activities.”

About $5 billion to $6 billion remains in limbo. In typical years, this funding would have begun reaching states and school districts starting on July 1. California joined about two dozen states this week in suing for the release of the funds, calling the Trump administration action “unconstitutional, unlawful and arbitrary.”

In filing their lawsuit, California officials estimated that they were due close to a billion dollars. The California Department of Education said it received word Friday that the partial release represented about $158 million of that total.

The partial release came after 10 Republican senators on Wednesday sent a letter imploring the Trump administration to allow frozen education money to be sent to states.

The senators said the withheld money supported programs that had longstanding bipartisan support and were critical to local communities. The money had been appropriated by Congress in a bill that was signed by President Trump.

“We share your concern about taxpayer money going to fund radical left-wing programs,” the senators wrote to the Office of Management and Budget. “However, we do not believe that is happening with these funds.”

The Trump administration has argued otherwise, alleging that funding has been used to undermine policy goals that include having all classes conducted in English. The administration also accused agencies of using funds to advocate for immigrants who lack legal status in the country.

The notification to states about the release includes a long list of laws that states are warned not to violate including the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bans discrimination based on sex.

“To the extent that a grantee uses grant funds for such unallowable activities,” which the notice does not define specifically, “the [Education] Department intends to take appropriate enforcement action … which may include the recovery of funds.”

In separate actions, the Trump administration already has threatened California with pulling all federal funding for violations of Trump administration policy. This threat was made recently in connection with the state allowing trans athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s sports and government officials designating their jurisdictions as sanctuaries for immigrants.

What the money pays for

The withheld money paid for after-school and summer programs, adult literacy, English language instruction, teacher training and migrant education supports. The Office of Management and Budget said it held back the funds as part of a review to align spending with White House priorities.

The funds released Friday were partly intended to support many summer school programs, some of which shut down across the country due to the hold-back. This funding also supports after-school programming during the regular school year.

Without the money, school districts and nonprofits such as the YMCA and Boys and Girls Clubs of America had said they would have to close or scale back educational offerings this fall.

The money released Friday also pays for child care so low-income parents can work. In these programs, children also receive reading and math help, along with enrichment in science and the arts.

Despite the money’s release Friday, schools and nonprofits have already been disrupted by two weeks of uncertainty. Some programs have made plans to close, and others have fallen behind on hiring and contracting for the fall.

“While we are thrilled the funds will be made available,” said Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance, “the administration’s inexplicable delay in disbursing them caused massive chaos and harm.” Many after-school programs had canceled plans to open in the fall, she said.

David Schuler, executive director of AASA, an association of school superintendents, praised the release of after-school money but said that the remaining education funding should not be withheld.

“Districts should not be in this impossible position where the Administration is denying funds that had already been appropriated to our public schools, by Congress,” Schuler said in a statement. “The remaining funds must be released immediately — America’s children are counting on it.”

Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who chairs the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees education spending, was among the senators who signed the letter, which called for the full release of funds, including for adult education and teaching English as a second language.

“The decision to withhold this funding is contrary to President Trump’s goal of returning K-12 education to the states,” the senators wrote. “This funding goes directly to states and local school districts, where local leaders decide how this funding is spent.”

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) called on the White House to release the rest of the money.

“At this very moment, schools nationwide are crunching the numbers to figure out how many teachers they will need to lay off as Trump continues to hold up billions in funding,” Murray said Friday in a statement. “Every penny of this funding must flow immediately.”

Ma writes for the Associated Press.

Uprooted by the ongoing violent conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), locals in the Bahunde chiefdom of North Kivu are lamenting the dire humanitarian conditions they have faced since their return. The Congolese, mainly from the Bishange and Luzirantaka areas, previously fled their homes when they were caught between the DRC army and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.

In a letter to the global humanitarian community, the returnee crisis committee highlighted how food insecurity affects thousands of households across the Bishange and Bitonga zones. They report that since returning to their homes, residents have received no assistance, despite losing everything during violent clashes in their communities.

“The food and non-feeding needs are enormous because we lost everything during the armed violence in our zone,” the returnees stated in the letter. “We call on humanitarian organisations to take this question seriously because we are already recording cases of serious malnutrition due to a lack of food. We call on international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to save lives.”

The locals returned to their villages after the area was occupied by M23 rebels, following intense clashes with government forces.

The fighting devastating the DRC has lingered for decades, with M23 rebels, among others, waging a war against the government. The conflict is deeply rooted in long-standing ethnic, political, and economic tensions in the country’s eastern region. After defecting from the Congolese army, a Tutsi-dominated rebel group founded the M23 in 2012. The group accused the DRC government of refusing to adhere to the 2009 peace agreement, particularly regarding protecting Tutsi communities and political inclusion. They were defeated in 2013 after capturing Goma, a bustling city in the country, forcing them to flee to Rwanda and Uganda. 

The group re-emerged in 2021 and launched a new offensive in 2022, rapidly gaining territory in North and South Kivu provinces. By early 2025, M23 had seized major cities like Goma and Bukavu, displacing millions and triggering a humanitarian crisis. The DRC government, the United Nations, and several Western powers accused Rwanda of providing direct military support to M23, including troops, weapons, and logistical aid. A 2025 UN report, for instance, concluded that Rwanda exercised “command and control” over M23 operations, with thousands of Rwandan troops active in eastern Congo. 

Rwanda, however, denied these allegations, claiming its actions are defensive and aimed at neutralising the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu rebel group in the DRC linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Analysts argue that Rwanda’s motivations go beyond security concerns, pointing to its interest in controlling mineral-rich territories in eastern Congo. The resurgence of M23 is widely seen as a proxy strategy by Kigali to assert regional influence and secure access to valuable resources like gold, coltan, and cobalt. The conflict remains unresolved despite international pressure and sanctions, with peace efforts complicated by deep mistrust and competing regional interests.

Israeli forces have killed at least 109 Palestinians in attacks across the Gaza Strip, medical sources told Al Jazeera, even as United States President Donald Trump claimed that Israel had agreed to “the necessary conditions” to finalise a 60-day ceasefire.

Trump wrote on his Truth Social site on Tuesday that the US would work “with all parties” to end the war on Gaza during the ceasefire, and called on Hamas to agree to the deal.

Trump’s comments came after a particularly bloody day in Gaza, as Israeli attacks destroyed clusters of homes in the north and south of the enclave, amid fears of yet another looming ground invasion.

The attacks come ahead of a planned visit next week by Netanyahu to Washington, DC. Trump said on Tuesday that the Israeli prime minister wanted to end the war on Gaza, even as his forces ramp up attacks in Gaza.

Among the Palestinians killed were 16 hungry aid seekers who died when Israeli soldiers attacked crowds at aid distribution hubs run by the controversial US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), according to medical sources.

They are the latest victims in a wave of daily killings at these sites, which have killed nearly 600 Palestinians since GHF took over limited aid deliveries in Gaza in late May amid a crippling Israeli blockade.

More than 170 major international charities and nongovernmental organisations have called for an immediate end to GHF, which rights groups say is operating in violation of international principles.

“Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,” a joint statement read.

GHF brings “nothing but starvation and gunfire to the people of Gaza,” it added.

Israeli forces also attacked Gaza City in the north, where it recently issued forced evacuation orders for residents of the area, which has already been bombarded into rubble. At least five people were killed when an Israeli quadcopter struck a gathering of people, local news agency Wafa reported.

At least 82 percent of Gaza is now an Israeli-militarised zone or under forced displacement threats, according to the United Nations, warning people have nowhere to go.

Ismail, a resident of the Sheikh Radwan suburb of Gaza City, said that newly displaced families were setting up tents in the road, after fleeing from areas north and east of the city and finding no other ground available.

“We don’t sleep because of the sounds of explosions from tanks and planes. The occupation is destroying homes east of Gaza, in Jabalia and other places around us,” he said.

‘Waiting room for death’

In Khan Younis and its al-Mawasi area in the south, at least 12 Palestinians were killed when a home belonging to the al-Zanati family was targeted. Separately, a child was killed and several others wounded when an Israeli air strike struck a displacement camp.

Several more were killed in an Israeli attack west of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to sources at al-Awda Hospital, while two others were killed and several wounded in a separate attack on a UN-run school sheltering displaced families in the al-Maghazi refugee camp.

In a statement, the Israeli army said it attacked Gaza more than 140 times in the past 24 hours, claiming all those hit were “terror targets” and “militants”.

The attacks come as hospitals in the devastated enclave struggle to cope with the influx of people amid a severe shortage of medical supplies and much-needed fuel.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said critical services at the al-Shifa Hospital – which has come under attack and besieged several times throughout Israel’s assault on Gaza – will soon come to a halt.

“Critical services at al-Shifa Hospital have either stopped or will stop in the coming hours as backup generators are running out of fuel,” Mahmoud said.

“This hospital was once the largest healthcare facility in Gaza, but has slowly turned into a waiting room for death, not just because of the war wounds, but because of a lack of fuel that keeps everything running,” he said.

Hope for deal ‘next week’

The desperate situation in Gaza is increasing the pressure on world leaders to secure a deal that would end the war.

Trump continues to maintain that a ceasefire deal is close, and that he hopes one will be secured “sometime next week”, during Netanyahu’s White House visit.

Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a close Netanyahu ally, is in Washington this week for talks with senior officials on a Gaza ceasefire, Iran and other matters.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said pressure by Trump on Israel would be key to any breakthrough in stalled ceasefire efforts.

“We call upon the US administration to atone for its sin towards Gaza by declaring an end to the war,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Amman, said there is “cautious optimism” in Israel regarding a ceasefire.

“But there are still a lot of concerns, especially among family members of Israeli captives who have been calling for a deal,” Salhut said, adding that Netanyahu “has never signalled he wants to end the war”.

But Hamas has insisted it would not agree to any deal that does not include a full Israeli withdrawal from the Strip and a permanent halt to the war, which has so far killed more than 56,000 Palestinians since it began in October 2023.

Meanwhile, key mediator Qatar has reportedly sent an updated proposal to Hamas and Israel. According to Axios, the proposal includes a 60-day truce and the release of 10 captives, and would serve as the basis for negotiations aimed at a permanent end to the war and new governance for Gaza.

June 28 (UPI) — Friends and family members of people detained in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids are raising concerns over conditions inside detention centers in California.

One family member reported not being able to meet with his father who is being held at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles and instead having to leave blood pressure medication for him, CBS News reported.

CBS also quoted one immigration lawyer who collectively referred to the Los Angeles facility and others in California being used to detain thousands of people as a “ticking time bomb.”

Other family members report similar conditions faced by detainees.

“She’s saying that she’s not being fed, that she’s sleeping on a concrete floor and that her and a couple of people have to huddle in order to keep warm,” Zulma Zapeta told KTLA in an interview about her mother.

Zapeta’s 41-year-old mother Guadalupe Gutierrez, has been detained at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County, Calif.

Zapeta claims she has not been able to provide necessary medication to Gutierrez, who has been in the United States for over two decades and does not have a criminal record.

Civil rights attorney Sergio Perez called the situation inside several of the state’s federal detention centers “cruel and inhumane,” in an interview with KABC-TV.

“I saw people waiting for hours, elderly women and men without chairs in a concrete hallway infested with flies, and not receiving any information as to how long it was going to take to view their loved ones,” Perez, executive director for the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, said in the interview.

“This year alone, the number of children held for two weeks or longer, as this child and their family was, has increased sevenfold,” the center said on Facebook. “Border Patrol runs some of the harshest and cruelest prisons that will never be safe for children — making every day spent there dangerous.”

Officials are currently holding around 59,000 immigrants in federal detention centers across the country, CBS News reported this week, citing internal government data.

That puts the number of detainees being held at 140% capacity, compared to the 41,500-person figure passed by Congress.

Earlier this month, the city of Glendale, Calif., said it was terminating contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and ICE to house federal detainees at local police stations, calling the issue too “divisive.”

Private prison firm CoreCivic confirmed earlier in the month that it reached a deal with DHS and ICE to convert one of its facilities to house federal detainees. The Nashville-based company is converting its existing detention facility located in California City, in Kern County, Calif. The detention center currently has 2,560 beds for inmates.

ADELANTO, Calif. — As federal immigration agents conduct mass raids across Southern California, the Adelanto ICE Processing Center is filling so rapidly it is reigniting longtime concerns about safety conditions inside the facility.

In less than two months, the number of detainees in the sprawling complex about 85 miles northeast of Los Angeles has surged from around 300 near the end of April to more than 1,200 as of Wednesday, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

The largest detention center in California, Adelanto has for years been the focus of complaints from detainees, attorneys and state and federal inspectors about inadequate medical care, overly restrictive segregation and lax mental health services.

But now, critics — including some staff who work inside — warn that conditions inside have become increasingly unsafe and unsanitary. The facility, they say, is woefully unprepared to handle a massive increase in the number of detainees.

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“It’s dangerous,” a longtime Adelanto detention center staff member told The Times, speaking on condition of anonymity because they did not want to lose their job. “We have no staffing for this and not enough experienced staff. They’re just cutting way too many corners, and it affects the safety of everybody in there.”

On Tuesday, U.S. Rep Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), toured Adelanto with four other Democratic members of Congress from California amid growing concern over the rapidly increasing number of detainees and deteriorating conditions inside the facility.

The facility’s manager “has to clearly improve its treatment of these detainees,” Chu said at a news conference after inspecting the facility for nearly two hours.

Some detainees told lawmakers they were held inside Adelanto for 10 days without a change of clothes, underwear or towels, Chu said. Others said they had been denied access to a telephone to speak to loved ones and lawyers, even after repeatedly filling out forms.

“I was just really shocked to hear that they couldn’t get a change of underwear, they couldn’t get socks for 10 days,” Chu told The Times. “They can’t get the PIN number for a telephone call. What about their legal rights? What about the ability to be in contact with their families? That is inhumane.”

Immigration Customs and Enforcement and GEO Group, the Florida-based private prison corporation that manages the Adelanto detention center, did not answer The Times’ questions about staffing or conditions inside the facility. The Times also sent questions to Homeland Security assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin, but they were not answered.

Lucero Garcia, third from left, gave an emotional account about her uncle who was taken from his work at an Orange County car wash. She and others were outside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center on Tuesday.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Over the last two weeks, new detainees have been forced to sleep on the floors of common areas without blankets and pillows and have spent days in the facility before they were provided with clean clothes and underwear, according to interviews with current detention center staff, immigration attorneys, and members of Congress who toured the facility. Some detainees have complained about lack of access to medication, lack of access to drinking water for four hours, and being served dinner as late as 10 p.m.

One detainee was not allowed his high blood pressure pills when family tried to bring it in, said Jennifer Norris, a staff attorney at Immigrant Defenders Law Center. In some cases, she said, lax medical care has led to emergencies: a Vietnamese man passed out last week because staff didn’t provide him with his necessary medication.

“It’s clear that with the ramp up enforcement, Adelanto just does not have the staff to keep pace with the aggressive enforcement that’s happening now,” Norris said. “It is bizarre. We spend millions of dollars on ICE detention and they’re not even able to provide basic necessities for the new arrivals.”

Long before Trump administration officials announced in May they were setting a new national goal of arresting 3,000 unauthorized immigrants a day, Adelanto workers worried about understaffing and unsafe conditions as the center processed new detainees.

At the end of last year, the facility held only three people. As of Wednesday, the number had swelled to 1,218, according to the ACLU of Southern California.

The climb is only partly due to the ICE agents’ recent escalation of immigrant raids.

The 1,940-bed Adelanto facility has been operating at a dramatically reduced capacity since 2020 when civil rights groups filed a class-action lawsuit demanding a drastic reduction in the number of people detained at Adelanto on the basis that they faced severe risk of contracting COVID-19. A federal judge forced the detention center to release detainees and prohibit new intakes and transfers.

But a series of federal court orders this year — the most recent in early June — has allowed the facility to fully reopen just as federal immigration agents fan out into neighborhoods and workplaces.

“As soon as the judge lifted the order, they just started slamming people in there,” an Adelanto staffer told The Times.

Eva Bitrán, director of immigrant rights at the ACLU of Southern California, said “almost everybody” held in the Adelanto facility had no criminal record before they arrived in the detention center.

“But even if they had a criminal record, even if they had served their time in criminal custody and then been brought to the ICE facility, nobody deserves 10 days in the same underwear,” Bitrán said. “Nobody deserves dirty showers, nobody deserves moldy food.”

The Adelanto ICE Processing Center.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Mario Romero, an Indigenous worker from Mexico who was detained June 6 at the Ambiance Apparel warehouse in downtown L.A., was one of dozens who ended up in Adelanto.

His daughter, Yurien Contreras, said she and her family were traumatized after her father was “chained by the hands, feet and waist,” taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center downtown and then “held hostage” in a van from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. with no access to water, food or a restroom.

“Little did we know,” she said, “it was only the beginning of the inhumane treatment our families would endure.”

At Adelanto, she said, officials try to force her father to sign documents without due process or legal representation. The medical care was “less than minimal,” she said, the food was unsustainable and the water tasted like Clorox.

Yurien Contreras’ father was taken by ICE agents from his workplace at Ambiance Apparel in Los Angeles.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Lucero Garcia told The Times she was concerned about her 61-year-old uncle, Candido, who was detained June 9 as he worked at his job at Magnolia Car Wash in Fountain Valley.

But when she visited him Saturday, “he didn’t want to share much,” she said. “He’s worried more about us.”

This is not the first time the Adelanto detention center has faced scrutiny.

In 2018, federal inspectors issued a report finding “serious violations” at the facility, including overly restrictive detainee segregation and guards failing to stop detainees from hanging braided bed sheet “nooses.”

Five years later, current and former Adelanto detainees filed a class-action lawsuit against GEO Group, alleging the company “systematically poisoned” inmates by improperly using toxic chemicals to clean the detention center. GEO Group has denied the claims in the class-action suit.

In April, the California Department of Justice released a report that found all of the state’s six privately operated immigration detention facilities, including Adelanto, fell short in providing mental health care for detainees, medical record keeping, suicide prevention strategies, and use of force against detainees with mental health conditions.

But two staffers who spoke to The Times said they had never experienced such unsafe conditions at Adelanto.

As the prison population has increased over the last few months, they said, staff are working long hours without breaks, some even falling asleep driving home after their shifts and having car accidents. Shift duty officers with no security experience were being asked to make decisions in the middle of the night about whether to put detainees who felt threatened in protective custody. Officers, including people from food service, were being sent to the hospital to check on detainees with tuberculosis and hepatitis.

“Everyone’s just overwhelmed,” a staffer said.

Officers working over their allotted schedules were often tired when they were on duty, another staffer said.

In May, a detainee went into anaphylactic shock and ended up intubated in the hospital, the staffer said, because an officer wasn’t paying attention or was new and gave the detainee, who’s allergic to seafood, a tray that contained tuna.

At a May meeting, the warden told all executive staff that they needed to come to work dressed down on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the staffer said, because they would have to start doing janitorial work.

On June 2, a detainee at the Annex facility made his way from a medical holding area, through four locked doors, all the way back to his dorm unescorted, the staffer said — a major security breach.

“If he would’ve wanted to escape he would’ve been gone,” the staffer said. “All he did is push the buttons to access the doors and they were open for him, no questions. Apparently, whoever was in central control was too tired to check or too inexperienced.”

The detention center was becoming unsanitary, the staffer said, with trash bins not promptly emptied, bathrooms not cleaned and floors not mopped as they should be.

As new waves of detainees flooded into the facility over the last two weeks, the staffer said, the facility was chaotic and lacking basic supplies.

“We didn’t have enough to provide right away,” they said, “so we’re scrambling to get clothes and mattresses.”

Mark Ferretiz, who worked as a cook supervisor at Adelanto for 14 years until April, said former colleagues told him officers were working 16- to 20-hour shifts multiple days in a row without breaks, officers were slow to respond to physical fights between detainees, and food was limited for detainees.

“They had five years to prepare,” Ferretiz, who had served as a union steward, said of his former supervisors. “I don’t know the reason why they weren’t prepared.”

While the supply shortages appeared to ease some in recent days — a shipment of clothes and mattresses had arrived by Tuesday, when members of Congress toured — the detention center was still understaffed, the current staffer said.

Detainees were being served food on paper clam-shell to-go boxes, rather than regular trays, a staffer said, because the facility lacked employees to wash up at the end of mealtimes.

“Trash pickup’s not coming fast enough, ” a staffer said, noting that piles of trash sat outside, bagged up, beside the dumpsters.

In a statement last week, GEO Group Executive Chairman George C. Zoley said fully opening the Adelanto facility would allow his company to generate about $31 million in additional annualized revenues.

“We are proud of our approximately 350 employees at the Adelanto Center, whose dedication and professionalism have allowed GEO to establish a long-standing record of providing high-quality support services on behalf of ICE in the state of California,” Zoley said.

But after touring the facility, members of Congress said officials did not provide answers to basic questions.

When Chu asked officials about whether California immigrants were being taken to other states, she said, they said, “We don’t know.”

Labour prosecutors allege that workers were brought to Brazil illegally and toiled in ‘slavery-like conditions’.

Brazilian labour prosecutors have filed a lawsuit against the Chinese auto manufacturer BYD and two contractors over allegations of illegally trafficking labourers to live and work under conditions “analogous to slavery”.

On Tuesday, the prosecutors, charged with enforcing labour laws, said in a statement that they would seek 257 million reais ($45m) in damages from BYD as well as contractors China JinJiang Construction Brazil and Tecmonta Equipamentos Inteligentes.

They accused the three companies of trafficking Chinese workers to build a BYD plant in Camacari, in the northeastern state of Bahia. There, the prosecutors allege that the companies subjected the workers to “extremely degrading” conditions.

“In December last year, 220 Chinese workers were found to be in conditions analogous to slavery and victims of international human trafficking,” the statement said.

The damages the prosecutors are seeking amount to a penalty of 50,000 reais ($8,867) per violation, multiplied by the number of workers affected, in addition to moral damages.

The lawsuit is the result of a police raid in December 2024, during which authorities say they “rescued” 163 Chinese workers from Jinjiang and 57 from Tecmonta.

The prosecutors say the workers were victims of international human trafficking and were brought to Brazil with visas that did not fit their jobs.

They also allege that conditions at the construction site left the labourers almost totally dependent on their employers, by withholding up to 70 percent of their wages and imposing high contract termination costs. Some of the workers even had their passports taken away, limiting their ability to leave, according to the prosecutors.

The lawsuit also describes meagre living conditions, including some beds without mattresses.

“In one dormitory, only one toilet was identified for use by 31 people, forcing workers to wake up around 4am to wash themselves before starting their workday,” the prosecutors’ statement notes.

Brazil is the largest market for BYD outside China. The Chinese auto giant has said that it is committed to human rights, is cooperating with authorities and will respond to the lawsuit in court.

A spokesman for the company said in December that allegations of poor working conditions were part of an effort to “smear” China and Chinese companies.

But the Brazilian labour prosecutors rejected the notion that their lawsuit was based on anti-Chinese sentiment.

“Our lawsuit is very well-founded, with a substantial amount of evidence provided during the investigation process,” deputy labour prosecutor Fabio Leal said in an interview.

He stated that the workers, who have all returned to China, would receive any payments related to the lawsuit there, with the companies in Brazil responsible for providing proof of payment.

One of the hardest parts of living with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) for Emily Audu* is becoming emotionally tethered to a ‘favourite person’. Her world revolves around that one person; their words, presence, and approval. The fixation becomes a distraction from the internal chaos she faces daily. Even the smallest disappointment can unravel her, triggering a downward spiral that takes months to escape.

BPD is a mental health condition marked by intense, unstable relationship patterns, impulsiveness, and unhealthy self-perception, which affects the quality of their lives and relationships. People with BPD often experience emotional splits; intense shifts in their emotions and perceptions, leading to mood swings, swinging between idealising people and devaluing them, struggling with ambiguity, and impulsive behaviour. 

These emotional extremes can make maintaining a more balanced perspective and relationships hard, leading to significant internal distress. 

For Emily, some of the symptoms manifest as panic attacks, imagined scenarios she begins to believe and live out, and severe difficulty regulating her emotions. Her emotional pain is so intense, it sometimes feels physical, occasionally leading to short-term paralysis—a state where anxiety and anguish can leave her unable to move. 

“It is a painful condition,” she said.

“It’s often misunderstood and confused with bipolar disorder, but they are not the same. With BPD, there’s usually no middle ground; my day is either amazing or horrible. My emotions are heightened to extremes,” Emily told HumAngle. “Sometimes, to cope, I jokingly refer to myself as a vampire. Living with BPD is unpredictable. I can go from being really happy to having a panic attack and feeling intense emotional pain within minutes. Anything can trigger me.”

Even before the 21-year-old based in Abuja, North-central Nigeria, was diagnosed with the condition, she always sensed she was different. There was a clear distinction between how her brain worked and how others processed things.

She struggles to handle emotions or situations like others around her. People often accuse her of overreacting and jumping to conclusions, and she is swift to believe someone hates her, leading to feelings of betrayal and defensiveness.  She is also prone to pushing people away while simultaneously craving their closeness. 

In relationships, she often self-sabotages. When things fall apart, she blames others, even when she knows she contributed to the breakdown.

“Right now, I am at a point where I feel like giving up on relationships. It’s hard for people to be with me because I recognise that I chase them away,” she lamented. “[The condition] makes it hard for me to live like others. Sometimes, I wish I knew what it felt like to be ‘normal.’ I wear a mask just to get through the day. I would wear makeup to feel like I was hiding from the world.”

The impact on her education has been massive. She struggled for an entire year in university.  Even though she was attending classes, she was absent mentally, feeling trapped in her head. Some days, she couldn’t leave her bed, even when she struggled with sleep. 

“I remember going weeks without sleep, not even a nap. It was during my final year that I managed to pull myself together. I realised how much I had missed, and I was grateful I could catch up and hit my target. But it was a rough, bumpy road,” she recalled. 

Her secondary school years were clouded by depression and anger. She had a lot happening then and didn’t have the time or space to process them.  She was wrapped in a bubble of defensiveness and depression, leading to intense and uncontrollable emotional splits. 

 A long-awaited diagnosis 

For years, Emily didn’t know what was wrong. It wasn’t until a seizure-like panic attack in 2023 that she was finally diagnosed. The episode, later identified as a Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizure (PNES), lasted several minutes and left those around her frightened and confused.

“That was a wake-up call for me. After that experience, I knew I needed help,” she said. 

She began taking various medications, including antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs, but continued to struggle. Her parents failed to understand the depth of her suffering. Often called “lazy”, her reactions were mislabelled as disrespectful.

“My mum tried to be supportive, but not in the way I needed. I never said anything because I knew she was trying her best,” Emily recounted. 

As the eldest child, she felt the need to conceal her struggles. She also experienced abuse at different points in her life, which may be a factor that contributed to her condition. Her family dynamic, she believes, has played a role. Her relationship with her father remains strained. While she shares a stronger bond with her mother, the older woman still doesn’t understand why professional help is necessary for her daughter’s condition. Emily’s mother believes prayer alone should suffice.

Emily, a person of faith, believes in the power of prayer but also knows that her condition cannot be prayed away.

A study by Covenant University, a leading Nigerian private institution, links adverse childhood experiences, including dysfunctional family dynamics, abuse, and neglect, to BPD amongst young people in the country. 

‘I still feel alone’

Emily says another difficult part of living with BPD is how others perceive her. People may see her as “evil” or “toxic” when she struggles with emotional regulation, making her feel like she’s too much to handle. Despite this, she has close friends who understand and support her.

She has paused her medication due to side effects, such as hormonal imbalances and emotional numbness. Though she was meant to revisit her prescription, she never followed through. Therapy, too, is currently on hold. It no longer feels helpful.

“It’s like I have given up on myself,” she said. “My best friend is trying to get me back on track, but when you have tried so many times, you just want to stop trying. From 2020 to 2025, I have attempted suicide seven different times.”

Studies show that women are 50 to 75 per cent more likely to experience adverse side effects from medications, largely due to the historical underrepresentation of women in clinical trials and biomedical research. 

Still, receiving a diagnosis has been life-changing for Emily. 

For a long time, she just wanted to understand what was going on with her instead of feeling like an ‘insane’ person, like she had most of her life. It made her know that even though she had a mental illness, she wasn’t alone in her pain, and that brought her a lot of comfort. 

“I started learning about it and connecting with creators who also had it online. It felt like I had finally found where I belonged, because for the longest time, I didn’t fit in anywhere. I felt alone. I still feel alone sometimes, but now, with a name for what I am experiencing and the knowledge that there are others like me,” Emily told HumAngle. 

Today, Emily is channelling her energy into things she loves, painting, writing, and exercise. She still hopes to find the strength to give therapy and medication another chance, and to believe, truly, that she can heal.

Living with comorbidity

For Erica Michael*, alongside BPD, she has been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), avoidant personality disorder, and severe depression—a case of comorbidity, where multiple chronic conditions coexist and often complicate each other.

“One of the most noticeable symptoms I experience is intense restlessness,” she said. “On some days, I wake up feeling like my brain can’t stay still. I become extremely fidgety and unable to focus or sit calmly, even in places like church, where I usually seek peace. It’s like my mind is constantly racing, and I feel the need to twitch or move.”

In those moments, Erica realised that physical pain brings a strange sense of calm, and she would seek out pain just to quiet the chaos inside her.

Her depression began after experiencing abuse when she was much younger. 

“Survivors of violence have a great risk of experiencing PTSD, substance abuse, depression, anxiety and other mental health issues,” said Chioma Onyemaobi, a clinical psychologist at HumAngle Foundation. 

Over time, she sank deeper into it, thinking about everything that had happened and feeling overwhelmed.

Then came the OCD. She couldn’t leave the house without checking multiple times to see if her mother’s shop was locked or if the gas was turned off. Exhausted by the repetition, she started writing down in a book that she had turned off her gas, closed her windows, and put out her lights to focus on work. 

“When I eventually went to the clinic, I had to undergo some assessments. That was when everything started making sense. I’ve always hesitated to label things I don’t understand, but finally, getting a name for what I was experiencing helped me begin to process it all,” Erica told HumAngle. 

A series of challenges

Before Erica’s BPD diagnosis, there was Avoidant Personality Disorder. She underwent psychological treatment in Lagos State, southwestern Nigeria, where she is based, during which some symptoms began to align more closely with Bipolar Disorder and OCD. She was treated for these conditions with antidepressants and other medications.

However, as the treatment progressed, more symptoms surfaced—ones that pointed towards BPD. 

“I began seeking help in April 2023. That was when I had a moment of clarity and realised I needed to start taking care of my mental health,” she recounted. “I began therapy then, and while I am not fully where I want to be yet, I can say I am doing better than I was before.” 

Experiencing abuse at a young age made her feel like there was always something wrong with her. She became very introverted, always deep in thought, but never speaking up. Her mind was constantly filled with thoughts as a teenager, but she kept everything inside.

This silence affected the 29-year-old deeply. “I didn’t speak up when I should have, and that carried on into adulthood. One significant moment that really affected me was when I had a panic attack and slumped in front of eight important people. That experience reminded me of how much I hold in, and how it still affects me,” she said. 

This silence slowed her down a lot in her career.  She would attend bootcamps and workshops, and even when she knew the answers or had something valuable to say, she kept quiet. She was afraid of judgment, and being wrong, she also struggled with impostor syndrome, making her doubt her worth, even when she had proven skills.

Chioma said that social stigma often prevents survivors from speaking out, especially when they are going through psychological issues and trauma.

As someone with an invisible disability, she gets easily prone to overstimulation and panic attacks due to a lack of proper accommodations, which made her passionate about inclusion and understanding the lack of it in the society she lives in. 

Later on, she was told she had pseudo-dementia, which helped explain some of the memory issues she was dealing with. 

“It’s not the same as actual dementia; it’s more like memory loss or cognitive problems that come from severe depression. For me, it wasn’t just normal forgetfulness. It felt like my mind would just go blank, and even when I tried to remember things, they wouldn’t come. It added another layer to everything I was already feeling, such as confusion, frustration, and the fear that I was losing parts of myself,” she explained. 

Erica struggles with forgetfulness, which sometimes affects her performance at work. It often feels like she can’t think clearly, and while her body craves rest, sometimes for days, she simply can’t afford that luxury. Expressing herself, particularly in writing, remains a challenge. However, she has found a helpful workaround through AI tools, which assist her in navigating these difficulties and organising her thoughts more effectively.

Amidst these challenging experiences, Erica said it opened her eyes to a different view on life. She has met people who inspired her, and has discovered that she can also help others. Her career has also begun to grow after many years of struggle, and while it’s been tough, she has learned much from it.

“It has made me more empathetic towards myself and others who may also be struggling in their own ways,” she said. “I’ve learned the importance of understanding, and I hope to keep using that empathy to help others.”.

The reality of OCD

Erica is not alone. For Angela Emmanuel*, life is shaped by an obsession with counting, symmetry, and structure. Everything, from volume levels to the number of tiles on the floor or letters in a word, has to be even or aligned.

“I don’t realise when it’s happening most times, but I catch myself in moments of boredom or distraction,” she explained. Most of her symptoms lead to obsessions and mental compulsion, though she experiences physical compulsions occasionally. 

Compulsions in OCD are repetitive movements or behaviours done to relieve stress, often disrupting daily life. Obsessive symptoms, on the other hand, are unwanted and intrusive thoughts that lead to intense anxiety. Sometimes, compulsions develop as a coping mechanism to reduce the impact of these obsessions.

A major part of OCD is intrusive thoughts. While the term has become common in pop psychology, especially on social media, often misused to describe fleeting, impulsive ideas, true intrusive thoughts are far more intense and distressing. They are recurring, involuntary, and often involve disturbing images or ideas that can cause shame or fear.

For this 28-year-old, these persistent thoughts about terrible events, imagining her family dying, swerving her car off the road, or harming herself. These thoughts spiral into guilt and self-questioning.

The first time she realised something was wrong was in primary school. 

“I don’t remember my age, but I remember exactly where I was. I had come home from school, and there was an American show on TV, probably a documentary or a health segment on a talk show. They began to talk about this condition and how it manifests, and I could not believe my ears because it matched exactly with what I had been experiencing for years, especially when they talked about pointless compulsive counting and the need to have equal feelings or sensations on different sides of the body. They had a reenactment of something I had just done that afternoon,” she recounted. 

Angela recalls a water filter tap at home. If water accidentally splashed on one hand, she would intentionally splash the other to ‘balance’ the sensation.

It wasn’t until 2020 that she received a proper diagnosis. 

“I have other mental health issues that had been ignored and had piled up since childhood, and it got to a point where I could not ignore them anymore,” said Angela, who works as a research assistant and operations lead.

Her treatment involved medication and psychotherapy. Her first prescription addressed OCD, anxiety, insomnia, and panic disorder, but side effects forced her to stop. Fortunately, a new treatment plan provided relief.

“For that short while, I felt the positive effects and a vast improvement,” she told HumAngle. “Eventually, I would get back on a different set of medication, which I believe really helped to balance out the chemical state of my brain.”

Angela praises the attentiveness of her doctor, who took time to understand her experience and involved her in the treatment process.

However, when she visited a different hospital in Kaduna State, northwestern Nigeria, her suspected Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) was dismissed, due to the misconception that it primarily affects young boys. ADHD symptoms in women often differ, leading to underdiagnosis. She eventually returned to her previous doctor and received an ADHD diagnosis in 2022.

Chioma explained that apart from underdiagnosis, many women face barriers in accessing mental healthcare due to permission requirements, dependence on male family members, or fear of judgment.

‘It shouldn’t be trivialised’

“OCD affects me mentally because it leads to a general state of unease and unrest,” Angela lamented. “It consumes my time and interferes with my daily life. It is exhausting to be in thought spirals. My brain latches onto a thought and won’t let it go, especially things that most people aren’t tormented or bothered by.”

At its worst, the condition leads her to chase symmetry to painful extremes; if she accidentally burned one hand, she would burn the other to feel ‘balanced’. Treatment has helped reduce this compulsion, though it still resurfaces occasionally.

“My wish is to be completely cured,” she said. “I’m managing the OCD fairly well, but ADHD is another story. I haven’t undergone serious treatment or taken medication for it, and it currently affects my life even more.”

Angela is concerned about how OCD is often trivialised in popular culture, frequently reduced to a quirky obsession with cleanliness. In reality, her experience is far more complex; her physical environment may appear ‘messy’, but everything is meticulously organised in her mind.

“The trivialising of OCD doesn’t help with creating awareness and understanding in the general public,” she told HumAngle. “The misconceptions downplay the seriousness of the disorder, and the experience of people with OCD is then invalidated by others due to this.” She urges greater public awareness and curiosity about mental health conditions, so people can learn how to support better those affected.

Angela welcomes the growing awareness of mental health in Nigeria, a shift from the silence of her youth. But she believes much work remains. 

“There are still jokes and derogatory comments, even from those who should know better. Thankfully, it’s happening far less than before,” she said. 

*The asterisked names are pseudonyms we have used at the request of the sources to protect them from stigma.

This is the last part of the ‘Beyond The Masks’ series. Read the first part here. 

ANAL cancer rates have been rising globally – and now scientists have identified a group of people most at risk.

Since the early 1990s, anal cancer incidence rates have increased by more than three-quarters (77 per cent) in the UK, with about 1,500 people diagnosed with it each year.

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A similar trend had been seen in the US, with researchers noting the biggest rise among older women

Lead author Ashley Robinson, a second-year internal medicine resident at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, explained: “Rates of anal cancer are rising fastest among white and Hispanic women over 65 — groups not traditionally considered high risk

“While the exact reasons behind this trend remain unclear, most older women were beyond the recommended age for human papillomavirus vaccination when it first became widely available.”

Human papillomavirus, known as HPV, causes 90 per cent of anal cancers.

As part of the study, the researchers analysed data from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database from 2917 to 2021.

They found anal cancer increased by 2.9 per cent for women and 1.6 per cent for men.

Anal cancers increased fastest among white women over 65, who saw 4.3 per cent increase during the five-year study period, reaching 11.4 cases per 100,000 in 2021.

If the trend were to continue, the researchers said the incidence of anal cancer in women over age 65 would double in less than 17 years.

Hispanic women over age 65 had the second-highest rate of anal cancer, with 7.5 cases per 100,000 people in 2021 and a slower annual increase of 1.7 per cent.

“It’s crucial that we promote HPV vaccination as a key tool for preventing anal cancer, while also keeping health care providers informed as screening guidelines evolve,” Dr. Robinson said.

“These findings highlight specific patient groups who may benefit from targeted screening for anal HPV and anal cancer.”

Anal cancer is considered rare, making up around 2 per cent to 2.5 per cent of gastrointestinal cancers.

Approximately 90 per cent of cases are linked to HPV infections, making it the most significant risk factor.

There’s no national screening programme for anal cancer in the UK because the cancer is rare.

While most cases of anal cancer are linked to HPV, there isn’t currently a reliable test to check for HPV in the anus.

Anal cancer symptoms

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One of the best things to do is to look out for symptoms.

Anal cancer symptoms can be difficult to spot, as they often mimic more common and less serious conditions like hemorrhoids or anal fissures. 

Some individuals may experience no symptoms at all in the early stages. 

The NHS says to watch out for the following six signs:

• bleeding from your bottom
• itching and pain around your anus
• small lumps around and inside your bottom
• a discharge of mucus from your bottom
• having problems controlling when you poo (bowel incontinence)
• needing to poo often with looser, runnier poos

You may be more likely to get anal cancer if you:

• have anal sex
• are over the age of 75
• smoke
• have had cervical, vaginal or vulval cancer
• have a weakened immune system, such as from HIV or an organ transplant

Find out how you can reduce your risk below…