Australian PM ‘devastated’ by violence at rally against Israel president’s visit


By AFP
February 9, 2026


A protester is helped after police deployed pepper spray to disperse demonstrators taking part in a Pro-Palestinian rally against Israeli President Isaac Herzog's visit to Australia in Sydney on February 9, 2026 - Copyright AFP Saeed Khan

Australia’s Prime Minister said Tuesday he was “devastated” by scenes of clashes at a Sydney rally against a visit by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, but defended the police’s actions against protesters.

Herzog’s tightly secured, four-day trip aims to console Australia’s Jewish community after the December shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach that killed 15 people at a Hanukkah festival.

But chaos erupted on Monday evening in the heart of Australia’s largest city as police tried to prevent a rally from marching into an area designated off-limits.

Law enforcement hit protesters and members of the media, including AFP, with pepper spray in rarely-seen violent scuffles in Sydney’s central business district.

Asked about the scenes, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told local radio he was “devastated” to see the violence.

“These are really scenes that I think shouldn’t be taking place,” he said.

“People should be able to express their views peacefully, but the police were very clear about the routes that were required if people wanted to march,” he added.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said the police had been placed in “incredibly difficult circumstances”.

Not far from the protests, he noted, Herzog had been taking part in an event for the victims of the December 14 killings alongside thousands of mourners.

Minns said it would have been a “disaster” if protesters had been allowed to march near that event.

New South Wales police have said they arrested 27 people at the rallies, including 10 for assaulting law enforcement, and have confirmed they deployed pepper spray against the crowd.

But they have sparked outrage with a video circulating on social media showing Muslim men praying near Sydney’s Town Hall being pushed and shoved by the police.

Local Greens lawmaker Abigail Boyd told local broadcaster ABC she had been hurt by police at the march and posted a selfie to social media wearing a neck brace.

“I didn’t know that this was what police could do in our state. I feel just absolutely shocked,” she said.

Herzog’s visit is expected to last until Thursday.

On Tuesday he is expected to meet with the families of victims of the Bondi attack — the deadliest against Jews since Hamas’s assault on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Many Jewish Australians have welcomed Herzog’s trip.

“His visit will lift the spirits of a pained community,” said Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the community’s peak body.

But some in the community disagreed, with the progressive Jewish Council of Australia saying he was not welcome because of his alleged role in the “ongoing destruction of Gaza”.

The UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry found last year that Herzog was liable for prosecution for inciting genocide after he said all Palestinians — “an entire nation” — were responsible for the Hamas attack on Israel.

Israel has “categorically” rejected the inquiry’s report, describing it as “distorted and false” and calling for the body’s abolition.

New York seeks rights for beloved but illegal ‘bodega cats’


By AFP

February 9, 2026


Simba lives at a bodega in Manhattan and is popular with the shop's customers

 - Copyright AFP ANGELA WEISS

Raphaëlle PELTIER

Simba, a large cat with thick ginger and white fur, is one of thousands of felines that live in New York’s corner shops known as “bodegas” — even if their presence is illegal.

Praised for warding off pests, so-called bodega cats are also a cultural fixture for New Yorkers, some of whom are now pushing to enshrine legal rights for the little store helpers.

“Simba is very important to us because he keeps the shop clean of the mice,” Austin Moreno, a shopkeeper in Manhattan, told AFP from behind his till.

The fluffy inhabitant also helps to entice customers.

“People, very often, they come to visit to ask, what is his name? The other day, some girls saw him for the first time and now they come every day,” said Moreno.

Around a third of the city’s roughly 10,000 bodegas are thought to have a resident cat despite being liable to fines of $200-$350 for keeping animals in a store selling food, according to Dan Rimada, founder of Bodega Cats of New York.

Rimada photographs the felines for his social media followers and last year launched a petition to legalize bodega cats, which drew nearly 14,000 signatures.

“These cats are woven into the fabric of New York City, and that’s an important story to tell,” he said.



– Pressure point –



Inspired by Rimada’s petition, New York City council member Keith Powers has proposed a measure to shield the owners of bodega cats from penalties.

His legislation would also provide free vaccinations and spay or neuter services to the felines.

But animal shelters and rights groups say this wouldn’t go far enough.

While Simba can nap in the corner of his shop with kibble within paw’s reach, many of his fellow cats are locked in basements, deprived of food or proper care, and abandoned when they grow old or fall ill.

Becky Wisdom, who rescues cats in New York, warned that lifting the threat of fines could remove “leverage” to encourage bodega owners to better care for the animals.

She also opposes public funds being given to business owners rather than low-income families who want their cats spayed or neutered.

The latter is a big issue in New York, where the stray cat population is estimated at around half a million.



– Radical overhaul –



Regardless of what the city decides, it is the state of New York that has authority over business rules, said Allie Taylor, president of Voters for Animal Rights.

Taylor said she backs another initiative proposed by state assembly member Linda Rosenthal, a prominent animal welfare advocate, who proposes allowing cats in bodegas under certain conditions.

These would include vet visits, mandatory spaying or neutering, and ensuring the cats have sufficient food, water and a safe place to sleep.

Beyond the specific case of bodega cats, Taylor is pushing for a more radical overhaul of animal protection in New York.

“Instead of focusing on one subset of cats, we need the city to make serious investments, meaning tens of millions of dollars per year into free or low cost spay, neuter and veterinary care,” she said.

Unions rip American Airlines CEO on performance


By AFP
February 9, 2026


Robert Isom, CEO of American Airlines, faces rising pressure from the carrier's unions over its lagging financial performance - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File WIN MCNAMEE

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom faced pressure Monday from labor unions frustrated with the carrier’s financial performance and handling of recent weather disruptions.

The airline’s union for flight attendants issued a “no confidence” vote in Isom, while the pilots’s union amplified a demand to meet with American’s board of directors after describing conversations alone with management as fruitless.

“We’re just not hearing what the long-term strategy is,” said Dennis Tajer, spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, which headlined a recent message, “We Need Decisive Action.”

Isom, a board member, would be expected to join the meeting, said Tajer, adding that the union is not seeking Isom’s ouster.

“We don’t really care who’s running the airline,” Tajer told AFP. “We just want them to be wildly successful.”

American Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In 2025, American Airlines reported profits of just $111 million. United Airlines made $3.4 billion in profit last year, while Delta Air Lines reported profits of $5.0 billion.

The weak results translate into lower bonuses for employees under American’s profit-sharing plan.

Tajer said some of the gap is because a greater share of American’s business is domestic, which has underperformed compared with international travel.

But some of American’s problems have been self-inflicted. In 2024, American scrapped an attempted revamp of its corporate booking system, denting performance.

The unions are also frustrated with the carrier’s handling of the recent Winter Storm Fern, which battered the company’s hubs in Dallas and Charlotte.

The storm had led American to cancel more than 9,000 flights, making it the “largest weather-related operational disruption in our history,” Isom said on January 27 conference call.

But the unions say the carrier was poorly prepared for the bad weather, which left workers stranded away from homes, sleeping in airports and placed on hold for six hours or more.

“When the recent winter storm hamstrung our operations to the point where flight attendants were sleeping on airport floors, Robert Isom’s response was that it was just ‘part of our job,” said Julie Hedrick, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants.

“His tone-deaf leadership shows a complete disregard for the human element and is actively harming both American Airlines and the people who keep it running every day.”

Warming climate threatens Greenland’s ancestral way of life

By AFP
February 9, 2026


Musher Nukaaraq Lennert Olsen rides with his sled dogs near the 'dog town' of Sisimiut, Greenland - Copyright KCNA VIA KNS/AFP STR

Nioucha ZAKAVATI

Standing in his boat with binoculars in hand, hunter Malik Kleist scans the horizon for seals. But this February, the sea ice in southwestern Greenland has yet to freeze, threatening traditional livelihoods like his.

“Normally the seals are on the ice or in the more calm waters. But today we had to sail all the way into the fjords to find them,” the 37-year-old tells AFP.

The Arctic region is on the frontline of global warming, heating up four times faster than the rest of the planet since 1979, according to a 2022 study in scientific journal Nature, causing the sea ice to retreat.

Seals rely on pack ice to give birth, to rest and for protection.

Hunters increasingly have to sail farther along the jagged coast of Sisimiut, navigating into the fjords for several hours to find them.

Traditionally, hunters’ boats would head straight out to sea, slowly pushing through the ice and creating holes that attract seals coming up for air.

But without any ice, “it’s too windy and the waves are too big,” Kleist says.

Last year was exceptionally warm in the vast autonomous territory, with several temperature records beaten, according to the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI).

In December, the Summit Station, located at the height of Greenland’s ice sheet, recorded an average temperature of -30.9 degrees C (-23.6 Fahrenheit), 8.1C higher than the December average during the period 1991-2020.

“It affects everything we do. Because normally around November, December the ice comes. And this year there’s no ice, so it affects our living a lot,” Kleist says.

– Financial woes –

For the same reason, the government has also had to postpone the annual winter musk ox hunt that was due to start on January 31.

There wasn’t enough snow and ice to transport the massive animals that roam the Arctic tundra back from Kangerlussuaq where they are predominantly found, around 165 kilometres (103 miles) away. Greenland has no roads connecting its towns.

That has left some Sisimiut hunters with less income than usual.

“This time of year there is not much to hunt. So we rely on musk ox meat and skin,” Kleist says.

“Many of my fellow hunters are struggling with money right now.”

Every part of the animal, from the fur to the meat, is either used or sold.

The summer hunting season has therefore gained importance, enabling Greenlanders to fill their freezers to get them through the winter months, he tells AFP over a steaming bowl of fish stew.

The shorter winter season has also impacted another key activity in Greenland, one that has become increasingly important to the tourism sector: dogsled tours.

In the Sisimiut neighbourhood where the dogs are kept, their thunderous barking mounts as Nukaaraq Olsen, a 21-year-old musher, attaches them to the sled.

Raring to get going, his 18 dogs are hard to hold back. Twenty minutes later, the group bounds off.

But the road is bumpy, and several times Olsen has to get up to manually push the sled, stuck on the tundra’s rocks in patches where there is no ice.

“This year we had a lot of hot, warm days, even though it’s December or January,” he says.

Other parts of the route are no longer safe to use, due to repeated melting and freezing of snowfall which causes uneven layers, he explains.

– Dehydrated dogs –

The dogs’ health is also affected by the changing climate.

They are used to quenching their thirst with snow, but with little or no snowfall, they can easily get dehydrated. Mushers have to take that into account when caring for their animals.

Many have even had to get rid of their dogs, the business of maintaining them no longer profitable with the dogsled season shrinking to just two months, says Emilie Andersen-Ranberg, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen who runs a dog clinic in Sisimiut.

Others, such as 72-year-old Johanne Bech, are finding novel ways to adapt.

She plans to put wheels on her sled to continue running dogsled tours during the summer period.

That solution is growing in popularity, as “the window with snow is getting more and more narrow,” the veterinarian says.

Over the past 20 years, the number of sleddogs has been halved from 25,000 to 13,000, according to a 2024 article from the University of Greenland in 2024.

Yet Johanne Bech remains optimistic about the future.

“I hope this is just for a short time, so we can go back to a little more stable snow or more ice in the future.”

Solar, wind capacity growth slowed last year, analysis shows


By AFP
February 10, 2026


Just a small fraction of wind and solar growth came from rich G7 countries, the Global Energy Monitor found - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File JUSTIN SULLIVAN

Planned or under-construction solar and wind projects slowed last year, analysis showed Tuesday, casting doubts on whether countries will hit a goal of tripling renewable capacity by decade-end.

Dozens of nations agreed in 2023 to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 as part of efforts to limit global warming.

But announcements and construction starts of new wind and solar projects grew 11 percent in 2025 — down from 22 percent in the previous year, as wind development projects faced hurdles, Global Energy Monitor (GEM) said.

“Wind developers experienced political barriers and a streak of failed wind power auctions in wealthy nations,” GEM research analyst Diren Kocakusak said.

US President Donald Trump has blocked wind projects, and made no secret of his antipathy towards renewables, though the global slump was not attributable to any one country, Kocakusak said.

GEM’s research also found that just a small fraction of wind and solar growth came from rich G7 countries, with the “centre of gravity” now shifting “decisively toward emerging and developing economies.”

As has been the case for years, China is expanding renewable capacity on a scale unmatched elsewhere.

It accounted for around a third of global capacity growth in 2025 — 1.5 terawatts — more than growth in the next six countries combined.

But that was not enough to set the world on track to meet the 2030 goal.



– ‘Disappointing developments’ –



Even if all the projects currently announced and under-construction proceed, the world would still fall short.

GEM’s research has found almost 40 percent of planned projects begin operations after their announced start date, or are put on hold or scrapped.

However, Kocakusak said that did not mean the goal was out of reach.

“Momentum appears to be slowing, but that’s not due to a lack of potential,” he told AFP.

There is still “enough time” for countries to ramp up capacity, and solar projects that have not yet been announced could be completed before 2030, he said. Wind projects can take longer to get up and running.

More than 3.5 terawatts of wind and solar projects have also been announced without a confirmed start date, and could help meet the 2030 goal if they come online quickly enough.

Some wealthy countries are supporting renewable growth, with Japan seeking to revise wind auction guidelines and Britain boosting investment.

These policies sit alongside “disappointing developments”, though, like reports Germany may limit grid priority for renewables, Kocakusak said.

“Whether the 2030 tripling target is achieved will depend on the level of commitment and implementation from countries and developers,” he said.

Back to black: Philips posts first annual profit since 2021



By AFP
February 10, 2026


Philips gets into the green - Copyright AFP Patrick T. Fallon

Dutch electronics and medical device manufacturer Philips said Tuesday it had bounced back into the black in 2025, as it seeks to turn the page on a scandal over faulty sleep apnoea machines.

Philips posted a profit of 897 million euros last year, after three straight years of losses.

“We strengthened our company while navigating a dynamic macro environment. We ended the year with strong, robust margin expansion despite tariffs,” chief executive Roy Jakobs said in a statement.

The profit came in above the consensus forecast of analysts polled by the company of 775 million euros.

Once famous for making lightbulbs and televisions among other products, Amsterdam-based Philips in recent years has sold off subsidiaries to focus on medical care technology.

It posted overall sales of 17.8 billion euros in 2025, compared to the 18.0 billion euros it banked in 2024.

Analysts’ consensus forecast was for sales of 17.7 billion euros.

Looking ahead, the firm said it expected sales growth of between 3.0 and 4.5 percent for 2026.

This outlook includes the impact of “currently known tariffs” but excludes potential costs from the ongoing saga of its sleep apnoea machines, Philips said.

Since 2021, the company has been battling a series of crises over its DreamStation machines for sleep apnoea, a disorder in which breathing stops and starts during sleep.

Millions of devices were recalled over concerns that users were at risk of inhaling pieces of noise-cancelling foams and fears it could potentially cause cancer.

In April, it announced it had reached a $1.1 billion deal to settle US lawsuits from the faulty machines.

Turning to the fourth quarter, Philips posted a profit of 397 million euros, above the forecast of 276 million euros.

In the third quarter of last year, the firm banked profits of 187 million euros on sales of 4.3 billion euros.

The firm has continued to shed jobs. It employed 64,817 people at the end of 2025, compared to 67,823 at the end of 2024.

Philips also announced a proposal to reappoint Jakobs as CEO.

“(This) reflects the Supervisory Board’s recognition of the progress made since 2022 and its confidence in his leadership as Philips enters the next phase of driving profitable growth,” the firm said.

AI chatbots give bad health advice, research finds


By AFP
February 9, 2026


ChatGPT image: — © AFP/File SEBASTIEN BOZON

Next time you’re considering consulting Dr ChatGPT, perhaps think again.

Despite now being able to ace most medical licensing exams, artificial intelligence chatbots do not give humans better health advice than they can find using more traditional methods, according to a study published on Monday.

“Despite all the hype, AI just isn’t ready to take on the role of the physician,” study co-author Rebecca Payne from Oxford University said.

“Patients need to be aware that asking a large language model about their symptoms can be dangerous, giving wrong diagnoses and failing to recognise when urgent help is needed,” she added in a statement.

The British-led team of researchers wanted to find out how successful humans are when they use chatbots to identify their health problems and whether they require seeing a doctor or going to hospital.

The team presented nearly 1,300 UK-based participants with 10 different scenarios, such as a headache after a night out drinking, a new mother feeling exhausted or what having gallstones feels like.

Then the researchers randomly assigned the participants one of three chatbots: OpenAI’s GPT-4o, Meta’s Llama 3 or Command R+. There was also a control group that used internet search engines.

People using the AI chatbots were only able to identify their health problem around a third of the time, while only around 45 percent figured out the right course of action.

This was no better than the control group, according to the study, published in the Nature Medicine journal.

– Communication breakdown –

The researchers pointed out the disparity between these disappointing results and how AI chatbots score extremely highly on medical benchmarks and exams, blaming the gap on a communication breakdown.

Unlike the simulated patient interactions often used to test AI, the real humans often did not give the chatbots all the relevant information.

And sometimes the humans struggled to interpret the options offered by the chatbot, or misunderstood or simply ignored its advice.

One out of every six US adults ask AI chatbots about health information at least once a month, the researchers said, with that number expected to increase as more people adopt the new technology.

“This is a very important study as it highlights the real medical risks posed to the public by chatbots,” David Shaw, a bioethicist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands who was not involved in the research, told AFP.

He advised people to only trust medical information from reliable sources, such as the UK’s National Health Service.

Iraqi calligrapher's handwritten Quran ends 6 years of artistry and craft

ISTANBUL (AP) — The finished work consists of 302 double sided scrolls, each measuring 4 meters (13 feet) in length and 1.5 meters in width. The sheets, resembling heavy parchment, were custom made for Zaman with a blend of traditional materials including eggs, corn starch and alum.

Ayse Wieting
February 2, 2026

ISTANBUL (AP) — Iraqi calligrapher Ali Zaman gazes with pride at his masterpiece — a colossal, handwritten manuscript of the Quran that has taken six years of craft and devotion to complete.

The finished work consists of 302 double sided scrolls, each measuring 4 meters (13 feet) in length and 1.5 meters in width. The sheets, resembling heavy parchment, were custom made for Zaman with a blend of traditional materials including eggs, corn starch and alum.

“Anytime I think of this Quran … it gives me very nice feeling that the mighty God gave me the life to be able to finish this thing and complete it. I feel very proud,” the 54-year-old told The Associated Press at a mosque in Istanbul l where the manuscript is kept.

Islamic calligraphy is regarded as one of the most valued artistic traditions in the Muslim world. The art form served to preserve and embellish Islam ’s holy book and was later also used to adorn mosques, palaces and manuscripts.

In Turkey, it flourished during the Ottoman era when the art was supported by the state and calligraphers developed distinctive styles.

Today, Istanbul is considered an important center for the art, known as “hat” in Turkish.

Art expert Umit Coskunsu says that because of the Islamic tradition’s restrictions on depicting figures, calligraphy became a central form of artistic expression. He describes “hat” as a form of worship.

“The art of hat is not just calligraphy, it is seen as a means of worshipping God and coming closer to Him,” Coskunsu said.

Zaman was born in Ranya, a town in Sulaymaniyah governorate, in Iraq’s northern semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

He moved his family to Istanbul in 2017 to pursue his Quran project and to hone his craft because, he says, the art of calligraphy is more valued in Turkey than in his home country.

Zaman says he developed an interest in Islamic calligraphy around the age of 12 when he was first exposed to it in Iraq.

“The art of calligraphy was very attractive to me… I felt that I could find my soul in it,” he said.

Each sheet of the manuscript was entirely handwritten. Zaman says he labored from dawn to dusk over a period of six years in a small room reserved for him at the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque in Istanbul.

The manuscript is being touted as the world’s largest, though it has not received that recognition officially. According to Guinness World Records, the largest printed Quran was achieved by the Holy Quran Museum in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in March 2025.

Zaman’s son remembers long absences while his father worked on the project.

“We only saw him when we would bring him food or when he came home at night to sleep,” said Rekar Zaman. “Thank God, we see more of him now.”

The manuscript is stored in stacked scrolls, and covered for protection from dust and moisture, at the mosque where he created it.

His ultimate wish is for it to go to a buyer who can put it on public display.

“I want for this Quran to be in a country — in a museum, or in a place that is special for calligraphy — where it can be appreciated and valued,” Zaman said.

__

Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser contributed from Ankara, Turkey.

How women are reinterpreting the menstrual taboos in Chinese Buddhism

(The Conversation) — In some cultures, menstruation and childbirth are treated as polluting, not life-giving. One Buddhist text’s interpretation of ‘Blood Pond Hell’ shows how far such beliefs go – and how women respond.

'Blood Pond Hell 'detail depicted in a 1940 Taipei Hell Scroll. 

(The Trustees of the British Museum)

Megan Bryson
February 6, 2026
RNS

(The Conversation) — In many religions and cultures, women who are menstruating or who just gave birth are not allowed to enter sacred sites, such as temples, or participate in religious rituals. This is because they are often seen as ritually impure.

Early Christians cited menstruation as the reason for not allowing female deacons or priests. Modern Catholic teachings do not express this attitude directly, but some Catholic feminists argue that views of women’s blood pollution still influence the church’s position against women’s ordination.

According to certain Hindu texts, menstruating women should be cut off from the rest of the household and avoid participating in ritual life. In Hinduism, as well as other religions and cultures, traditional taboos related to menstruation and childbirth are, however, no longer practiced widely.

An extreme attitude toward the ritual pollution of menstruation and childbirth appears in a Chinese Buddhist text called the “Blood Bowl Scripture,” which I have studied in my research on East Asian Buddhism.

This text, written in China by the 13th century, spread to Japan soon after. It describes a complicated chain of events in which a woman gives birth at home, then washes her bloody clothes in a nearby river. People downriver don’t realize that the water has been polluted with the blood of childbirth, and they use the water to make tea that they offer to the gods. As punishment for offending the gods with tainted water, the woman who gave birth is condemned to fall into the “Blood Pond Hell” after she dies.

Rebirth in the hells is one possible form of reincarnation in Buddhism, which teaches that the quality of people’s karma in their present life determines where they are reborn in their next life. The “Blood Pond Hell” is one of many kinds of hells found in traditional Buddhism. According to Buddhist worldviews, people are reborn in the hells when their bad karma severely outweighs their good karma. However, after people serve their time in the hells, they can be reborn in other realms.

Japanese Buddhists expanded on this idea to claim that the pollution of menstrual blood alone led to rebirth in the Blood Pond Hell, which condemns all menstruating women to this kind of suffering.

Mural depicting the hell of blood and filth, Dizang Temple, Yunnan, China.
Megan Bryson, CC BY

Most educated Buddhist monks in premodern China rejected the Blood Bowl Scripture because it didn’t come from India. Buddhism originated in India, and Buddhist scriptures are supposed to be the words of the Buddha, so the Blood Bowl Scripture was not included in official scriptural catalogs. But the text and its practices became an important part of popular Chinese Buddhism.

For example, a famous Chinese novel from the 17th century, “The Plum in the Golden Vase,” describes its female characters practicing rituals based on the Blood Bowl Scripture.

Blood Pond Hell beliefs and practices still exist today. However, they are not as common as they used to be – and women have developed new interpretations.
Beliefs in modern China

For most women in human history, giving birth has been a requirement, not a choice. Yet, for women in premodern China and Japan, fulfilling the social obligation to have children simultaneously condemned them to “Blood Pond Hell.”

The “Blood Bowl Scripture” encourages adult children to hire Buddhist monks to perform rituals that will save their mothers from this unpleasant fate.

How hell realms are interpreted in Buddhism.

Though not all Buddhists today believe in the hells, including the “Blood Pond Hell,” some do. Visitors to temples and Buddhist theme parks in Asia may find paintings or three-dimensional dioramas of women in a bloody pond.

People who do not believe in the hells may still perform the rituals to save their mothers from the “Blood Pond Hell” to show love and gratitude. In some parts of China, women preemptively save themselves from the “Blood Pond Hell” by performing their own rituals, usually as part of women’s religious associations.

Emphasizing mothers’ self-sacrifice

In many parts of China, middle-aged and older women form voluntary religious associations. The religious associations get together twice a month and on holidays to recite scriptures, make offerings to the gods and go on pilgrimages to sacred sites.

Most women who participate are already menopausal, with grown children. Pre-menopausal women are allowed to participate if they aren’t menstruating.

In the religious associations of southeast China’s Fujian province, women perform a ritual called “Returning to the Buddha” that aims to purify them of bad karma before they die. In this ritual, women atone for different kinds of bad karma, which includes spilling the polluted water they used to clean up after childbirth.

Women reciting scriptures together while facing a statue of their main temple’s deity in southwest China.
Megan Bryson, CC BY

Women’s religious associations across China also recite scriptures to repay mothers’ kindness. Reciting scriptures is seen as creating good karma, which the women dedicate to their mothers. These scriptures still portray uterine blood as polluting, but they also recognize the sacrifices mothers make in bringing their children into the world.

One such scripture describes how mothers sacrifice for their children first in life, then in death when they fall into the “Blood Pond Hell.” The women who recite these texts both express gratitude for their mothers’ sacrifices and recognize their own sacrifices as mothers.

Reframing the female body

In addition to reinterpreting the “Blood Pond Hell” through the lens of mothers’ sacrifice, women in modern China have developed new interpretations of how female bodies are portrayed in “Blood Pond Hell” beliefs and practices.

Buddhist texts often claim that being reborn as a woman is a karmic punishment, and some texts describe female bodies with disgust. For example, a repentance text for saving women from the “Blood Pond Hell” claims that menstruation is caused by 12-headed worms living in the birth canal that vomit blood and pus once a month.

However, in my research I encountered a sermon about this repentance text by the Taiwanese nun Venerable Shi Changyin. She claims that “worms” really meant “bacteria” or “cells,” but premodern people lacked the biomedical terminology to express this properly.

Changyin’s reinterpretation of worms as cells reflects other ways for women to think about the blood of menstruation and childbirth. The negative views of female bodies expressed in the “Blood Bowl Scripture” are one perspective among many in contemporary Chinese culture.

Buddhist teachings that downplay the importance of gender, traditional Chinese medicine, and biomedicine offer other perspectives on reproduction and female bodies. Many scholars and practitioners of Chinese Buddhism reject “Blood Pond Hell” beliefs as remnants of negative attitudes toward female bodies in early Buddhism.

They see Mahayana Buddhism, the main form practiced in China, as promoting gender equality. In traditional Chinese medicine, blood is an important part of women’s health as a source of vitality rather than impurity. And biomedicine avoids concepts like purity and pollution when treating issues related to menstruation and childbirth.

A narrative of empowerment

The “Blood Bowl Scripture” demonizes the blood of menstruation and childbirth and, by extension, reproductive female bodies in general. Yet many women, past and present, have participated in the scripture’s rituals to save their mothers or themselves from this fate.

It is important not to just dismiss women’s participation as internalized misogyny, but to understand what women get out of these practices.

Women in Chinese Buddhism have taken the initiative in emphasizing maternal self-sacrifice over ritual pollution and in using other frameworks to make sense of menstruation and childbirth.

(Megan Bryson, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Tennessee. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)


The Conversation religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The Conversation is solely responsible for this content.

Polygamous sect's sway has dwindled in twin towns on Arizona-Utah line. Residents enjoy new freedoms

COLORADO CITY, Ariz. (AP) — Until courts wrested control of the towns from a polygamous sect whose leader and prophet, Warren Jeffs, was imprisoned for sexually assaulting two girls, youth sports, cocktail hours and many other common activities were forbidden.

Jacques Billeaud
February 2, 2026

COLORADO CITY, Ariz. (AP) — The prairie dresses, walled compounds and distrust of outsiders that were once hallmarks of two towns on the Arizona-Utah border are mostly gone.

These days, Colorado City, Arizona, and neighboring Hildale, Utah, look much like any other town in this remote and picturesque area near Zion National Park, with weekend soccer games, a few bars, and even a winery.

Until courts wrested control of the towns from a polygamous sect whose leader and prophet, Warren Jeffs, was imprisoned for sexually assaulting two girls, youth sports, cocktail hours and many other common activities were forbidden. The towns have transformed so quickly that they were released from court-ordered supervision last summer, almost two years earlier than expected.

It wasn’t easy.

“What you see is the outcome of a massive amount of internal turmoil and change within people to reset themselves,” said Willie Jessop, a onetime spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who later broke with the sect. “We call it ‘life after Jeffs’ — and, frankly, it’s a great life.”

A dark turn

Some former members have fond memories of growing up in the FLDS, describing mothers who looked out for each other’s kids and playing sports with other kids in town.

But they say things got worse after Jeffs took charge following his father’s death in 2002. Families were broken apart by church leaders who cast out men deemed unworthy and reassigned their wives and children to others. On Jeffs’ orders, children were pulled from public school, basketball hoops were taken down, and followers were told how to spend their time and what to eat.

“It started to go into a very sinister, dark, cult direction,” said Shem Fischer, who left the towns in 2000 after the church split up his father’s family. He later returned to open a lodge in Hildale.

Church members settled in Colorado City and Hildale in the 1930s so they could continue practicing polygamy after the sect broke away from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the mainstream Mormon church that renounced plural marriage in 1890.

Stung by the public backlash from a disastrous 1953 raid on the FLDS, authorities turned a blind eye to polygamy in the towns until Jeffs took over.

After being charged in 2005 with arranging the marriage of a teenage girl to a 28-year-old follower who was already married, Jeffs went on the run, making the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list before his arrest the next year. In 2011, he was convicted in Texas of sexually assaulting two girls ages 12 and 15 and sentenced to life in prison.

A court-ordered overhaul

Even years after Jeffs’ arrest, federal prosecutors accused the towns of being run as an arm of the church and denying non-followers basic services such as building permits, water hookups and police protection. In 2017, the court placed the towns under supervision, excising the church from their governments and shared police department. Separately, supervision of a trust that controlled the church’s real estate was turned over to a community board, which has been selling it.

The towns functioned for 90 years largely as a theocracy, so they had to learn how to operate “a first-generation representative government,” Roger Carter, the court-appointed monitor, pointed out in his progress reports.

The FLDS had controlled most of the towns’ land through a trust, allowing its leaders to dictate where followers could live, so private property ownership was new to many. People unaccustomed to openness and government policies needed clarification about whether decisions were based on religious affiliation.

Although the towns took direction from the sect in the past, their civic leaders now prioritize residents’ needs, Carter wrote before the court lifted the oversight last July.

‘Like a normal town’

With its leader in prison and stripped of its control over the towns, many FLDS members left the sect or moved away. Other places of worship have opened, and practicing FLDS members are now believed to account for only a small percentage of towns’ populations.

Hildale Mayor Donia Jessop, who was once distantly related to Willie Jessop through marriage, said the community has made huge strides. Like others, she has reconnected with family members who were divided by the church and quit talking to each other.

When a 2015 flood in Hildale killed 13 people, she was one of many former residents who returned to help look for missing loved ones. She got a chance to visit with a sister she hadn’t seen in years.

“We started to realize that the love was still there — that my sister that I hadn’t been able to speak to for in so many years was still my sister, and she missed me as bad as I missed her,” the mayor said. “And it just started to open doors that weren’t open before.”

Longtime resident Isaac Wyler said after the FLDS expelled him in 2004, he was ostracized by the people he grew up with, a local store wouldn’t sell him animal feed, he was refused service at a burger joint and police ignored his complaints that his farm was being vandalized.

Things are very different now, he said. For one thing, his religious affiliation no longer factors into his encounters with police, Wyler said. And that feed store, burger joint and the FLDS-run grocery store have been replaced by a big supermarket, bank, pharmacy, coffee shop and bar.

“Like a normal town,” he said.

People with no FLDS connections have also been moving in.

Gabby Olsen, who grew up in Salt Lake City, first came to the towns in 2016 as an intern for a climbing and canyoneering guide service. She was drawn to the mountains and canyons, clean air and 300 days of sunshine each year.

She said people asked “all the time” whether she was really going to move to a place known for polygamy, but it didn’t bother her.

“When you tell people, ‘Hey, we’re getting married in Hildale,’ they kind of chuckle, because they just really don’t know what it’s about,” said Olsen’s husband, Dion Obermeyer, who runs the service with her. “But of course when they all came down here, they’re all quite surprised. And you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, there’s a winery.’”

A ways to go

Even with the FLDS’ influence waning, it’s not completely gone and the towns are dealing with some new problems.

Residents say the new openness has brought common societal woes such as drug use to Hildale and Colorado City.

And some people are still practicing polygamy: A Colorado City sect member with more than 20 spiritual “wives,” including 10 underage girls, was sentenced in late 2024 to 50 years in prison for coercing girls into sexual acts and other crimes.

Briell Decker, who was 18 when she became Jeffs’ 65th “wife” in an arranged marriage, turned her back on the church. These days, she works for a residential support center in Colorado City that serves people leaving polygamy.

Now 40 and remarried with a child, Decker said she thinks it will take several generations to recover from the FLDS’ abuses under Jeffs.

“I do think they can, but it’s going to take a while because so many people are in denial,” Decker said. “Still, they want to blame somebody. They don’t really want to take accountability.” ___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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