ALTADENA, Calif. (AP) — Southern California Edison has filed lawsuits accusing Los Angeles County, local water agencies and the Southern California Gas Company of a series of missteps that the utility says made last year's Eaton Fire more deadly.
The utility filed cross-complaints in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday against Los Angeles County, Pasadena Water and Power and five other water agencies, KABC-TV reported. SoCal Edison also filed a separate court complaint against SoCalGas.
The fire that ignited on Jan. 7, 2025, killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,400 homes and other structures. It took firefighters nearly a month to extinguish the blaze, which scorched 22 square miles (57 square kilometers).
The cause remains under investigation, but evidence suggests one of the utility's idled power lines might have sparked the fire.
SoCal Edison claims in the lawsuits that Los Angeles County agencies failed to send timely evacuation warnings to residents in east and west Altadena. Eighteen of the 19 people who died in the fire lived in west Altadena.
Los Angeles County declined to comment about the latest court filings.
The utility also claims water agencies, including Pasadena Water and Power, did not provide enough water as the fire spread, leaving firefighters with limited resources.
In a separate court filing, SoCal Edison blames SoCalGas, claiming the gas utility did not begin widespread shutoffs until four days after the fire started. SoCal Edison says gas leaks and gas-fed fires helped fuel the blaze.
SoCalGas said it is reviewing the complaint and will respond through the judicial process. Meanwhile, Pasadena officials rejected SoCal Edison’s claims, saying the city believes the utility's equipment caused the fire.
SoCal Edison is facing 998 lawsuits from fire victims, insurers and government entities. The U.S. Department of Justice has also sued the company over damage to National Forest land.
FILE - Embers are blown off a burning tree as the Eaton Fire burns in Altadena, Calif., Jan. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Nic Coury, File)
FILE - The Eaton Fire burns a residence Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025 in Altadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope, File)
FILE - Trees sway in high winds as the Eaton Fire burns structures Jan. 8, 2025 in Altadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope, File)
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — President Yoweri Museveni said Sunday that his landslide victory in Uganda's election showed the dominance of his party, which has governed the East African country for four decades.
Museveni said a day after he was declared the winner that the result gave “a good taste of the strength” of his party, known as the National Resistance Movement.
Museveni, 81, has stayed in power over the years by rewriting the rules. The last legal obstacles to his rule — term limits and age restrictions — have been removed from the constitution, and some of his possible rivals have been jailed or sidelined.
Museveni took more than 71.6% of the vote while his closest challenger and Uganda’s most prominent opposition leader, Bobi Wine, took 24.7% of the vote, according to official results rejected by Wine as fake.
“The opposition are lucky,” Museveni said about his victory after low voter turnout in Thursday's election. “They have not seen our full strength.” Voter turnout stood at 52%, the lowest since Uganda's return in 2006 to multiparty politics.
Addressing the nation from his country home in western Uganda, where many dignitaries gathered to hear him speak publicly for the first time since his victory, Museveni said that he believed many of those who didn't vote were members of the governing party.
Wine, a musician-turned-politician whose real name is Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, has the option of launching a legal challenge with the courts, which previously have refused opposition efforts to nullify Museveni’s victories while recommending electoral reforms.
Museveni, Africa's third-longest governing president, will serve a seventh term that would bring him closer to five decades in power. His supporters credit him for the relative peace and stability that makes Uganda home to hundreds of thousands fleeing violence elsewhere in the region.
In his speech, Museveni accused the opposition of trying to foment violence during voting. He urged religious leaders to reach out to young people who are likely to be misled into violence.
At least seven opposition supporters of a losing parliamentary candidate with Wine's party were killed by police after they attacked a polling station with machetes in the central district of Butambala, he said.
“Some of the opposition are wrong but also terrorists,” he said, calling Wine and others “traitors.”
Wine, 43, has previously rejected the charge as false, saying he represents the hopes of millions of young people yearning for political change after decades of the same leader.
On Sunday, Wine posted footage on the social platform X of what he said were alleged incidents of ballot stuffing and the intimidation of his representatives on the eve of voting. Authorities didn't immediately respond to those specific allegations.
Uganda's election was marred by a dayslong internet shutdown and the failure of biometric voter identification machines that caused delays in the start of voting in areas including Kampala, the capital. Wine has also alleged that stuffing ballot boxes happened in some areas seen as Museveni's strongholds.
The failure of biometric machines is likely to be a basis for any legal challenge to the official result.
The security forces were a constant presence throughout the election campaign, and Wine said that authorities followed him and harassed his supporters, using tear gas against them. He campaigned in a flak jacket and helmet because of security fears.
Museveni hasn't said when he will retire, and he has no rivals in the upper ranks of his party.
Veteran opposition figure Kizza Besigye, a four-time presidential candidate, remains in prison after he faced treason charges that he says are politically motivated.
Uganda hasn't witnessed a peaceful transfer of presidential power since independence from British colonial rule six decades ago.
Uganda's security forces patrol a street as supporters of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni celebrate his victory in the presidential election in Kampala, Uganda, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)
Supporters of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni celebrate his victory in the presidential election in Kampala, Uganda, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)
A woman celebrates Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's victory in the presidential election in Kampala, Uganda, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)
Uganda opposition presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, famously known as Bobi Wine of the National Unity Platform (NUP), arrives with his wife to cast their votes, during the presidential election at a polling station, in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)
Billboards of Uganda President and National Resistance Movement (NRM) presidential candidate Yoweri Museveni are seen in Kampala, Uganda, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Samson Otieno)
