After ICE raids, Ramadan in Minnesota is somber, but some hope it offers healing

(RNS) — Interfaith leaders across the Twin Cities are organizing dinners rooted in solidarity with Somali Americans and the Muslim community.

Yusuf Abdulle, executive Director and Imam of Islamic association of North America, leads a prayer as protesters gather at a rally for immigrants outside Signature Aviation near the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, Wednesday, Dec 3, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)

Ulaa Kuziez
February 20, 2026
RNS


(RNS) — For many Muslims in the Twin Cities, Ramadan feels somber after the federal immigration enforcement surge left many immigrant families wary of gathering.

But those who spoke with RNS are hoping the Islamic sacred month of fasting and charity, which began this week, will offer a sense of communal grounding and healing.

Imam Abdisalam Adam, a leader at Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque in Minneapolis and an elementary school principal, said people are still cautious about gathering in large numbers at mosques because of the “unpredictability” of Immigration and Customs Enforcement action. He expects fewer people will attend nightly prayers at his Cedar-Riverside neighborhood mosque but said those who can participate in the month’s communal activities are seeking to process what’s happened in the state with others, leaning into spiritual practices for strength.

“The lessons of Ramadan are most relevant this year because of the fear and despair,” Adam said. “So definitely, people are tapping into their faith for grounding.”

Many mosques will hold free, near daily iftars, or fast-breaking evening meals, for their members throughout Ramadan, which will end March 19 or 20. Interfaith leaders across the Twin Cities are also organizing dinners rooted in solidarity with Somali Americans — a prominent target of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda in Minneapolis— and the Muslim community.

Leading up to Ramadan, community members felt anxious about safety and “what it means to be Muslim in a time like this,” said Sarah Chebli, who organizes events with the Muslim American Society of Minnesota.

Chebli put together a series of events across MAS Minnesota’s seven mosques with a theme of holding firm to faith in the face of hate. The events also encouraged worshippers to support their immigrant community members.

“Ramadan is the month of ibadah (worship) … and also a part of worship is activism,” Chebli said. “It’s important that we keep showing up, that we don’t go back into our caves and forget everything that is happening, but contend with the moment that we’re living in.”

Amina Adan, a Somali American community organizer, said supporting people who are spending Ramadan alone is at the forefront of many people’s minds this month. She said some people in her community are hosting fewer iftar dinners and visits in their homes to create “less traffic and less possibility of anybody getting abducted.”

“There’s a little bit of sadness there,” she said. “But we are finding different ways of trying to give back and connect with others (by) accommodating kids and trying to create activities, and making sure that neighbors and family members that we know that are not able to go to work are getting fed.”

Meanwhile, close to 20 mosques are hosting interfaith dinners known as Taking Heart iftars, in partnership with the Minnesota Council of Churches and MAS Minnesota. For the past two decades, the dinners have mostly focused on educating people on the basics of the Muslim faith through presentations and genuine conversations over food.

Snacks and dates for breaking fast during Ramadan. (Photo by Rachael Gorjestani/Unsplash/Creative Commons)

The dinners this Ramadan, however, are taking on a different tone by calling on Christian communities to stand with Muslims as neighbors, said Suzanne Kelly, CEO of the Minnesota Council of Churches.

“Our Somali brothers and sisters have been under attack both related to these big fraud investigations and also the ongoing ICE activity,” Kelly said. “This small opportunity to dialogue is a way to combat hate with love and rhetoric that speaks of belonging and that we are all God’s children.”

Adam said connections formed through the Taking Heart iftars and other interfaith gatherings over the years have strengthened interfaith solidarity with Muslim Americans during the past couple months in the state.

“It has significantly contributed to the level of trust and care that we have seen from Minnesotans,” he said. “If these relationships were not there, I don’t think we would have had this much of a response.”

For example, Chelbi said that at South Metro Islamic Center in Rosemount, volunteers have stood outside during Friday prayer to watch for immigration agents and support worshippers inside. She said the iftars will be a way to thank them and continue to build their relationship.

“It’s the conversations that Muslims and non-Muslims have at the table that really builds bridges,” she said. “People are not here to learn the rules (of) Islam. They’re here to learn who their neighbors are.”

And with the rare overlap of Lent and Ramadan, religious communities are also using their shared fasting experiences to connect. Jen Kilps, network executive at the Minnesota Multifaith Network, is co-organizing a fish fry iftar that honors Ramadan, Lent and the Bahá’í month of fasting on Friday (Feb. 20). Held at Rabata Cultural Center, a Muslim women’s spiritual educational organization in Arden Hills, the interfaith dinner will feature conversations on building spiritual strength to do the work of healing and resistance.

“We have people working with the Legislature, we have people who are out protesting, we have people out leading vigils and mutual aid groups,” Kilps said. “Our spiritual disciplines and practices can be acts of resistance as well.”

Tom Homan, the Trump administration border czar, said earlier this month that 700 federal immigration officers would leave Minnesota immediately, and more than 2,000 would stay in the state.

But community leaders said the fear and disruption will not go away easily, even if all the agents leave. It will take work and time for immigrants to recover, Kelly said.

“As we look ahead, we have to think about healing, repair, reconciliation, and so events like Taking Heart help begin that process,” Kelly said. “It will take months, maybe even years, but these small steps, I think, send a message that we are resilient and that we are determined to undo the damage that’s been done.”

Hegseth frames Trump policies as ‘biblical’ in address to Christian broadcasters

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) — During an address at the National Religious Broadcasters convention, the defense secretary told attendees that President Donald Trump is fighting for their faith and returning America to its Christian foundations.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth addresses the annual National Religious Broadcasters convention at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (Video screen grab)

Bob Smietana
February 20, 2026
RNS

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth greeted the annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters on Thursday (Feb. 19) by quoting from a famed Christian hymn, often sung on Palm Sunday: “All glory, laud and honor to you, Redeemer King. To whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.”

“No matter what we have accomplished, what levels of success we may have reached, what joys or what trials are in our lives, it is to God alone that the glory belongs,” Hegseth told convention attendees, most of whom are evangelical Christians, in a ballroom at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville.

Hegseth, who was greeted with cheers and music from an Army band, was a headliner of a patriotic celebration at the Christian communications convention, anticipating the 250th anniversary of America’s founding later this year. After an opening prayer from a pastor who thanked God for protecting the country from “pandemics and plan-demics” — a reference to conspiracy theories about COVID-19 — and asked God to protect the United States from communists and foreign invaders, Hegseth took to the stage.

“My fellow Americans, patriots, brothers and sisters in Christ, I bring greetings from a fighter for the people of faith, President Donald J. Trump,” Hegseth said.

The defense secretary then launched into listing Trump’s accomplishments in office and his dedication to conservative Christian causes, like providing funding for religious charter schools, restricting abortion and gender-affirming care, and fighting anti-Christian bias.

Trump addressed the NRB in 2024 while on the campaign trail, appealing to attendees to help him save America and promising to serve their interests. “If I get in, you’re going to be using that power at a level that you’ve never used before,” he said in 2024.

In an address that lasted just under a half hour, Hegseth repeatedly tied the founding of the U.S. to the Christian faith and the Christian Bible and attacked what he called “the Godless left.” He said that the country was based on a “sacred covenant” with God and pointed to references to God in the Declaration of Independence and from early American leaders.

“As you know, there’s a direct throughline from the Old and New Testament Christian gospels to the development of Western civilization and the United States of America,” he said.

Hegseth said he’d brought an emphasis on faith back to the Pentagon, including through a monthly prayer service. Among the speakers at those services has been Brooks Potteiger, who was the pastor at the church Hegseth attended in Tennessee, and Douglas Wilson, a pastor known for founding Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, and defending slavery, arguing that women should not be able to vote, and promoting Christian nationalism.





“We do it because I need it more than anybody else, a time where we pause during a very busy day to give thanks, praise and glory to God in the name of Jesus Christ,” Hegseth said.

Hegseth also said he had helped strengthen the military Chaplain Corps and had eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion and climate change programs. He also said the military is stronger spiritually since he took office.

The secretary urged the pastors and religious broadcasters in attendance to be bold and to speak about politics and social issues, knowing that God is on their side. He also promoted the Trump administration’s immigration policies. “Protecting our borders from criminals who steal from us, assault our loved ones and poison our citizens, is not political. It’s biblical,” he said. “Protecting our culture and our religion from godless ideologies and pagan religions, not political. It’s biblical.”

He ended by telling attendees that “Christ is king.”

Vince Haley, director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, who also spoke at the event, told attendees about plans for faith events celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary, including a prayer event on May 17, aimed at rededicating the U.S. to God.

Other speakers included David Barton, a popular Christian nationalist author whose book on Thomas Jefferson was retracted by its publisher after historians pointed out its factual errors, as well as Seth Dillon, CEO of the Babylon Bee, a Christian satire site.

Barton and his son, Tim, warned attendees that Americans were forgetting the role religion played in national history. They encouraged attendees to come to D.C. and other patriotic sites to recall that history — but told them to ignore tour guides because “they don’t know what they are talking about.” (The Bartons conduct patriotic tours of their own.)

“The reason we are on shaky ground right now is because we have secularized our nation more than at any point in our history,” Tim Barton said.

Dillon told the story of the Bee’s battle with Twitter — the website was suspended from the social media platform in 2022 after a joke about transgender Biden administration official Rachel Levine was deemed as hateful content. That led to an unexpected friendship with billionaire Elon Musk, who, after he bought Twitter, now known as X, the same year, let the Babylon Bee back on the platform.

“We have to stop caring what freedom might cost us,” Dillon said. “If you aren’t willing to pay a price for freedom, you don’t value it.”

At Brazil's Carnival, the country's religions fight for respect on a global stage

(RNS) — Carnival, a spectacle celebrating African deities and Catholic saints alike, has become a battleground for religious groups in Brazil.

A performer from the Grande Rio samba school parades on a float during Carnival celebrations at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Helen Teixeira
February 20, 2026
RNS


(RNS) — Rio de Janeiro’s lavish Carnival parades, which burst to life in the days before Lent begins, are famous for their colorful costumes, giant floats and the driving rhythm of samba that is a hallmark of Brazilian culture and a magnet for tourists from around the globe. Each parade is produced by one of Rio’s samba schools, which work year-round to prepare them, and each has its own “plot” — enredo in Brazilian Portuguese — that guides its aesthetic. Themes range from tributes to historical figures or artists to pop culture to social and political critique.

These parades all compete on craftsmanship, choreography, rhythmic precision, narrative coherence and the poetic quality of their original song lyrics. They are broadcast nationwide and make headlines around the world.

What is less known about the samba communities behind the parades is their Afro-Catholic religiosity — Afro-Brazilian spirituality that coexists with popular Catholicism: Each school has an orixá — an African deity and a catholic saint of devotion — and at the altars found in the rehearsal halls, the schools’ spiritual guides perform rituals and Masses.

“They are recreational organizations, but religion is present in their social life throughout the year,” said Lucas Bártolo, anthropologist and author of a study titled, “On the Altar of Samba: Religion in the World of Carnival.” “Both the worship of orixás and the devotion to Catholic saints organize the religious life of carnival groups and ground their symbolic dimension.”

In Brazil, as in other Latin American countries, the Catholicism of the Iberian Peninsula arrived with colonization. The church maintained strong links with the state, setting dates and festivals that structured the calendar. Carnival begins the Saturday before Ash Wednesday and ends on Shrove Tuesday, also known as Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, before Lent’s 40 days of fasting start.

“It is a festive period, deeply religious, representing an opposition between Carnival and Lent, which is very strong in Iberian culture, and has also been appropriated by African-derived groups,” Bártolo said.

Performers from the Mocidade samba school parade on a float during Carnival celebrations at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, Monday, Feb. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

Afro-Brazilian religions have interacted with Catholicism and Christian festivals since the Portuguese arrived, reinterpreting the colonial religion through their own practices and worldviews, even observing aspects of Lent.

“The origins of Carnival in Brazil are linked to enslaved Africans who were brought here and came together to create samba using percussion instruments,” Aydano André Motta, journalist, screenwriter, writer and Carnival researcher, told Religion News Service. “Samba gave rise to samba schools as community spaces in the neighborhoods where these people settled after abolition — predominantly low-income communities, known as favelas.



“Every samba school has always included a priest or priestess from Candomblé or Umbanda,” Motta added, referring to two dominant Afro-Brazilian religions. “The social dynamics of samba schools are guided by (their) rituals.”

Before official parade competitions began in the 1930s, and before state authorities, the media, wealthy classes, corporate sponsors and tourists became involved, the samba schools were confined mostly to homes in the Afro-Brazilian community.

The rhythms of Carnival are derived from the drumming that is central to communication and spirit invocation in Africa. “The instruments used in ritual spaces are the same as those in the school’s percussion section,” said Carlos Monteiro, a journalist and sociologist from the Federal Fluminense University.

Samba brought together the descendants and the percussion of Africans with distinct languages and cultures. “What the diaspora separated, cultural diasporic practice united,” Monteiro said.

FILE – Performers from the Mangueira samba school parade with a depiction of a crucifixion during Carnival celebrations at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, Feb. 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Of the two main branches of Afro-Brazilian traditions, Candomblé focuses on orixás, while Umbanda is more given to blending Catholic and Indigenous spirituality, religious mixing that emerged when, under slavery, African practices were forbidden. The orixás each have Catholic equivalents: “Oxum is syncretized with Our Lady of Conception, Oxóssi with Saint Sebastian, Xangô with Saint Peter, and more than any other, Ogum with Saint George. Ogum is the orixá of war and metals, and Saint George is the most popular saint in Rio, and therefore in the samba schools,” said Motta.

The Catholic Church’s relationship with Carnival and samba schools has historically involved periods of “absolute rejection and condemnation of public discourse, including attempts to prohibit and criminalize these practices,” according to Bártolo. In Rio, city laws were proposed to restrict or regulate Catholic symbols in parades, claiming they profaned sacred images, and schools have often had to modify images of Mary and other Catholic saints to avoid clashes with religious authorities.

In 1989, when a samba school called Beija-Flor planned to depict Christ as a beggar, the church prevailed, but the float entered the Sambadrome — the stadium built for viewing the parades — covered in black trash bags with a banner reading, “Even forbidden, look upon us.”

The opposition has a racial element, given that samba schools have always been predominantly Black institutions. At times, this opposition takes theological form, particularly in the demonization of Afro-Brazilian deities. Exú, a central figure in Candomblé and Umbanda, is a messenger between the human and divine worlds and has long been associated with the devil by Christian groups. But Afro-Brazilian religions, which don’t have a concept of absolute evil, see Exú as playful.

Although African-derived religiosity has been embedded in samba schools since their origins, it was only in the 1960s that they began to explicitly incorporate Black Brazilian culture into their plots. “From there, numerous parade themes highlighted Black history and figures who had previously been invisible in Brazil’s official history,” Motta said.

FILE – Priestess Laura D’Oya Yalorixa, center, takes part in an Umbanda religious ceremony at the Casa de Caridade Santa Barbara Iansa temple in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021. The faithful of the Umbanda religion, brought to the Americas by West African slaves, perform spiritual protection rituals as part of pre-Carnival traditions. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

Under Dom Orani Tempesta, archbishop of Rio de Janeiro since 2009, and with the election of Pope Francis, the Argentine bishop who championed the Amazon and its culture, the church came to support Catholic-themed parade narratives. “Today, it is common for Masses to be held at samba school headquarters, for Carnival groups to be received in sanctuaries and for their flags to be blessed in churches,” Bártolo said, though he added that the rapprochment still has its limits.


The growth of evangelical Christianity in Brazil since the 1980s has added a new dimension to the religious disputes over Carnival. Initially, evangelicals avoided the celebrations, organizing spiritual retreats during this period. Later, as they became more publicly active and aligned with conservative Catholics in criticizing Carnival, they drew political and social criticism from samba schools, while framing themselves as victims of religious persecution.

RELATED: Brazilian evangelical Christians disrupt pre-Lenten partying with ‘Gospel Carnival’

When Rio elected Marcelo Crivella, bishop of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, mayor in 2017, “he tried, very hard, to destroy samba schools and Carnival,” Motta said.

The debate intensified recently when Pastor Gil, an evangelical Rio de Janeiro legislator, proposed a bill that would ban the use of sacred images or representations deemed disrespectful to Christian, Catholic or Evangelical faith in Carnival parades and events.

Still, Carnival has served as a space for coexistence of Brazil’s wildly divergent social, racial and cultural differences, allowing marginalized groups to gain legitimacy as they express their culture. In recent years, the parades have emphasized Afro-Brazilian religions, as if to say, Bártolo said, “This is religion, too, not just Afro culture or Brazilian culture.”

“The people of samba schools are experts in resistance,” said Motta. “They survived slavery, structural racism, state violence and state repression. The schools survived and will continue surviving.”

Twin Cities Unions Planning ‘Largest US Rent Strike in 100+ Years’ as ICE Occupation Drives Eviction Crisis

“Tenants in Minnesota are in a crisis,” said Minneapolis City Council Member Aisha Chughtai. “The federal invasion forced many of our neighbors to stay home and devastated our local economy.”


Minneapolis City Council Member Aisha Chughtai speaks at a rally outside the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority alongside labor and tenant organizers in support of a statewide eviction moratorium on January 31, 2026 in Minneapolis.
(Screenshot from a video posted by Twin Cities Tenants/Instagram)

Stephen Prager
Feb 17, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Tenant and labor unions in Minneapolis and St. Paul have announced plans to carry out what they said would be the “largest rent strike in the United States in the last 100 years.”

Beginning on March 1, if Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz does not meet their urgent demands for an eviction moratorium and rent relief, a coalition of nearly 26,000 workers has pledged to withhold rent, which they said could create a massive economic disruption.

The plans were announced on Tuesday by the tenants union Twin Cities Tenants, which is joined by five labor unions: Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 26, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota/Iowa, UNITE HERE Local 17, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) 1005, and Communication Workers of America (CWA) 7250.

They argued that a freeze on rents is desperately needed after “nearly three months of federal occupation” under President Donald Trump’s “Operation Metro Surge,” which sent nearly 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other immigration agents to the area, resulting in multiple fatal shootings and a wave of civil rights violations, including explicit racial profiling.



The unions said the daily presence of militarized agents “has taken a painful economic toll on poor and working-class tenants across the Twin Cities.”

“Over 35,000 low-income Twin Cities households were already unable to afford the rent before the federal siege,” they said. “Estimates show over $47 million in lost wages among people who have not been safe to go to work, and at least $15.7 million in additional rental assistance needed due to lost household income—leaving many of those households at imminent risk of eviction.”

Evictions in Hennepin County spiked by 45% between this January and last, while requests for financial assistance have nearly doubled, according to a report this month from the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.

As the federal siege wore on and immigrants remained trapped in their homes, community members raised tens of thousands of dollars through GoFundMe campaigns. But it proved far too little to help the thousands of families suddenly at risk of losing their homes.



On January 30, tenant organizers, union members, and other local activists staged a sit-in at the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority and called for an immediate halt to evictions. Another group gathered outside the governor’s mansion in St. Paul.

“We’re here today because federal immigration enforcement, eviction courts, and the police power of the state are converging to terrorize the same families,” said Jess Zarik, co-executive director of HOME Line. “Housing instability is being used as a weapon, and the scale of this crisis is unlike anything we’ve seen in our 34-year history.”

While city and state leaders have fought back rhetorically against the Trump administration’s highest-profile abuses—including the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by agents last month—and called for accountability, organizers said they’ve been slow to remedy the wider effects it has had on working-class residents across the Twin Cities.

“A lot of people just can’t get to and from work because ICE has been stopping random cars on the road, largely based on what they think the skin color of the driver is,” said Klyde Warren, a Minneapolis renter and Twin Cities Tenants organizer. “How are you supposed to go to work and make money to pay your rent in those conditions? The answer is a lot of people just can’t right now, but the eviction courts are still operating as if things are normal and they’re not normal.”

Last week, Walz’s office told Axios that the governor “does not currently have the legal authority to enact an eviction moratorium.”

Walz enacted an eviction moratorium in early spring 2020, which tenant organizers said allowed renters to stay home safely to avoid risks from the Covid-19 pandemic. He did this using what is known as a “peacetime emergency” declaration, which allows the governor to circumvent typical rulemaking procedures during extraordinary circumstances.

The city councils of both Minneapolis and St. Paul voted unanimously last month for nonbinding resolutions calling on Walz to take similar action to protect vulnerable residents from displacement.

“Tenants in Minnesota are in a crisis. The federal invasion forced many of our neighbors to stay home and devastated our local economy,” said Minneapolis City Council Member Aisha Chughtai (D-10). “We need real solutions for the cliff of the rental crisis we are facing on March 1.”

“I will be going on rent strike on March 1, and I call on my constituents to join me, until we can get a real solution from our state government for this crisis,” she said.



Even as ICE’s operation draws to a close, some agents are still deployed and arresting Twin Cities residents. Organizers said that even after the surge itself ends, the economic fallout will need to be addressed.

“We absolutely need an eviction moratorium,” said Geof Paquette, the internal organizing director at UNITE HERE Local 17. “Our members were struggling to keep up with housing costs before ICE occupied our streets. It has now become an emergency as many of our members are behind in their rent. It’s well past time for some relief.”

The unions have estimated that if just 10,000 of their members withheld their rent, it could cause $15 million in economic disruption and pressure the city and state government into action.

“The people of Minneapolis and St. Paul have shown the way, fighting a federal invasion and caring for their neighbors; their fight and their care continue in this historic rent strike,” said Tara Raghuveer, director of the Tenant Union Federation. “Tenants and workers have decided that... they have no other choice but to strike. In taking this step, they join a storied tradition of struggle. The struggle can end whenever the governor steps in to do what’s right.”

MISOGYNIST AMERIKA

Probe of Fetus at South Carolina Water Plant Highlights Criminalization of Pregnancy Loss

“No one should have to live with the fear that their miscarriage or stillbirth could result in cops showing up at their door,” said one researcher.

Abortion rights protestor Kori Ricketts demonstrates outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC on April 2, 2025, during oral arguments for a case stemming from South Carolina trying to exclude Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program.
(Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Feb 17, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


The number of people who have faced criminal charges related to their pregnancies has soared since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and now, a sheriff’s office in South Carolina is investigating a fetus found at a water treatment plant.

The Sumter County Sheriff’s Office announced Friday that deputies were called to the plant on Edgehill Road after workers found the fetus, which was sent to the Medical University of South Carolina, according to The State. County Coroner Robbie Baker said that “it was a small fetus. Probably not more than 6 inches long. It was somewhat developed.”

Baker shared the findings from the autopsy on Monday: The fetus was just 13-15 weeks, male, and showed no signs of trauma. ABC News 4 reported that he also said this was being ruled a stillborn death—even though a stillbirth is generally defined as a pregnancy loss after 20 weeks, and a loss before that is a miscarriage.

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division is “testing tissue samples to determine the race and locate the mother,” according to WIS News 10. “The coroner said the race could not be immediately determined due to how long the fetus had been sitting in sewer chemicals.”

As Kylie Cheung wrote Monday at Jessica Valenti’s newsletter Abortion, Every Day: “Our immediate questions: Why are pregnancy remains being investigated by law enforcement at all? How can 14-week fetal remains be ruled a ‘stillborn death’? And why are state authorities trying to determine the race of these pregnancy remains? This is particularly concerning given that women of color are overrepresented among criminal cases involving pregnancy.”

Such probes have become “all too routine,” Laura Huss, a senior researcher at If/When/How, told Cheung. “Pregnancy losses aren’t crimes... No one should have to live with the fear that their miscarriage or stillbirth could result in cops showing up at their door, which is what investigations and media stories like this create.”

The advocacy group Pregnancy Justice said last year that “from June 2022 to June 2024—the first two years after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade—prosecutors initiated at least 412 cases across the country charging individuals with crimes related to their pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or birth.”

“So what is the point of this investigation, beyond terrorizing women through control and surveillance of their bodies?”

Since Roe‘s reversal, far-right politicians and anti-choice organizations have ramped up their push for more state and federal restrictions on reproductive freedom. South Carolina groups that fight for such policies—from abortion bans based on gestational age to fetal personhood legislation—are now using the fetus found there to advocate for new state laws.

One proposal would “require the Department of Environmental Services to conduct testing for urinary metabolites in certain wastewater treatment facilities,” Fox Carolina reported. Another would prohibit the “mailing, shipping, or prescribing of abortifacients, including from out-of-state sources,” as well as “classify committing or attempting to commit an abortion using an abortifacient on a mother as a felony punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment or a fine of up to $100k.”



Last month, Pregnancy Justice released a report that “maps the matrix of laws and policies that can be used to criminalize postpartum people for how they respond to their own pregnancy loss in every state.” Its section on South Carolina says:
Although South Carolina does not have a broad prenatal personhood law, criminal or otherwise, its state Supreme Court establishes broad criminal prenatal personhood with the harmful proposition that criminal statutes apply to “viable fetuses” unless the Legislature expressly says otherwise. A former attorney general also noted his position that prenatal personhood applies broadly to South Carolina’s laws. By extension, an attempt to criminalize the “destruction or desecration” or transportation without a permit of viable fetal remains could be made.

Separately, people are also required to report “stillbirth[s] when unattended by a physician.”

Pregnancy Justice legal director Karen Thompson told Cheung that criminal charges shouldn’t be applicable in the case of the fetus found in South Carolina, whether it was a miscarriage or an abortion, because of the “viability” requirement in state law. She added, “So what is the point of this investigation, beyond terrorizing women through control and surveillance of their bodies?”

The South Carolina investigation follows last week’s arrest of a Kentucky couple, Deann and Charles Bennett, after she was taken to a hospital following a reported miscarriage in November 2024. According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, they were each charged with reckless homicide, and she also faces charges of abuse of a corpse, concealing the birth of an infant, and tampering with physical evidence.

Reporting on that case last week, Valenti and Cheung pointed out that “right now, all of the available information is coming from cops and law enforcement—so take it all with a grain of salt. Again and again, Abortion, Every Day has found police lying about these arrests, or misrepresenting what really happened. Too often, local media will parrot those facts’ uncritically and destroy people’s lives in the process.”

“Already, Deann and Charles’ mugshots have been splashed across Kentucky crime pages,” the pair added. “Deann is seen sobbing in hers.”

According to Pregnancy Justice’s January report: “Although Kentucky’s broad prenatal personhood law is enjoined, the state Supreme Court provides that a viable fetus is a human being within the meaning of the penal code. By extension, an attempt to criminalize the nonreporting and disposal of viable fetal remains could be made. Separately, Kentucky has a statute that prohibits ‘concealing [a] birth’ to ‘prevent a determination of whether it was born dead or alive.’”

Marco Rubio’s Imperialist Munich Speech Seen as ‘Cause for Worry, Not Applause’

One analyst called the US secretary of state’s address “one of the most revisionist and imperialist speeches I’ve ever seen a senior American official make, and that’s saying something.”


US Secretary of State Marco Rubio receives a standing ovation after his speech during the 62nd Munich Security Conference on February 14, 2026 in Munich, Germany.
(Photo by Alex Brandon/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Feb 16, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s defense of Western colonialism and imperial power at the Munich Security Conference and the applause his remarks received from attendees were seen as deeply unsettling in the context of the Trump administration’s brazen trampling of international law, including the recent kidnapping of the president of a sovereign nation.

While Rubio gave lip service in his remarks to multilateral cooperation with Europe in what he called the global “task of renewal and restoration,” he made clear the US would carry out its agenda alone if needed and accused European allies of succumbing to a “climate cult,” embracing “free and unfettered trade,” and opening their doors to “unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies,” echoing the rhetoric of his boss, US President Donald Trump.

Rubio lamented the decline of the “great Western empires” in the face of “godless communist revolutions and by anti-colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of the map in the years to come”—and made clear that the Trump administration envisions a return to “the West’s age of dominance.”

“We in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline,” said Rubio. “We do not seek to separate, but to revitalize an old friendship and renew the greatest civilization in human history.”

Attendees at the Munich conference—which notably did not include representatives of Latin America at a time when the Trump administration is embracing and expanding the Monroe Doctrine—gave Rubio a standing ovation:



“Standing ovation for Rubio in Munich. Standing ovation for Netanyahu in Washington,” wrote Progressive International co-general coordinator David Adler, referring to the Israeli prime minister’s visit to the US capital last week. “We are ruled by a transatlantic clique of criminals and midwit minions who clap like seals when their white supremacy is laundered by the language of ‘Western values.’ Sick stuff.”

Critics viewed the US secretary of state’s speech—both the explicit words and its undertones—as a self-serving interpretation of the past and a dangerous vision of the future, and expressed alarm at the celebratory response from the Munich crowd.

Geopolitical analyst Arnaud Bertrand called Rubio’s address “one of the most revisionist and imperialist speeches I’ve ever seen a senior American official make, and that’s saying something.”

“Basically the man is openly saying that the whole post-colonial order was a mistake and he’s calling on Europe to share the spoils of building a new one,” Bertrand wrote on social media. “When an imperial power is speaking to you of sentiments, of how much they like you and how they want to partner with you—the much weaker party—that’s cause for worry, not applause.”

Nathalie Tocci, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Europe, compared Rubio’s address to US Vice President JD Vance’s openly hostile attack on European nations during his Munich speech last year.

“Rubio’s message was more sophisticated and strategic than Vance’s. But it was just as dangerous, if not more so, precisely because it lowered the transatlantic temperature and may have lulled Europe into a false sense of calm,” Tocci wrote in a Guardian op-ed on Monday. “As Benjamin Haddad, France’s Europe minister, said in Munich, the European temptation may be to press the snooze button once again.”

“If Europeans were comforted by a false sense of reassurance as they walked away from the packed Bayerischer Hof hotel in Munich,” Tocci added, “they risk walking straight into the trap that MAGA America has laid for them.”

‘Wake Up Before It’s Too Late,’ Says AOC as Rubio Embraces Autocrat Orbán

“It’s time to take the gloves off and fight for our future,” the democratic socialist congresswoman asserted.


Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio leave the podium after a joint press conference in Budapest, Hungary on February 16, 2026.
(Photo by Alex Brandon/Pool AP/AFP via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Feb 17, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

As US Secretary of State Marco Rubio heaped praise upon Viktor Orbán as he seeks a sixth term as Hungary’s increasingly autocratic prime minister, progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday implored democracy defenders to “take the gloves off and fight for our future.”

Visiting Budapest, the Hungarian capital, on the last leg of a three-country tour of Europe, Rubio pressed the Trump administration’s thumb on the proverbial scale of Hungary’s April election with a ringing endorsement of Orbán, telling him that President Donald Trump “is deeply committed to your success.”

That’s a glaring departure from a 2019 warning from lawmakers including then-Sen. Rubio (R-Fla.) to Trump that democracy had “significantly eroded” in Hungary as Orbán consolidated control over the electoral process, judiciary, and press. Now, Rubio says Orbán’s success is “essential and vital” to US national interests.

“From Orbán to Trump, the rise of far-right movements is tightly coordinated and transcends borders,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Facebook in response to Rubio’s visit. “So too should be our international defense of democracy and the fight for working people. From policy to tactics, it’s time to take the gloves off and fight for our future.”




Although Hungary openly flouted a US ban on importing oil, natural gas, or coal from Russia amid President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing invasion and occupation of Ukraine, Trump recently granted Budapest a one-year exemption from sanctions.

And while Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s pursuit of an independent foreign policy—which included close relations with Russia and China—was cited as a reason for the US invasion of Venezuela and abduction of Maduro, Rubio said that Orbán’s increasingly close ties with Moscow and Beijing are a matter of Hungarian sovereignty.

“We’re not asking any country in the world to isolate themselves from anybody,” Rubio said, although that’s exactly what the Trump administration reportedly ordered Venezuela’s interim government to do to China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba.

“There’s no reason to sugarcoat it. I’m going to be very blunt with you,” Rubio told reporters Monday, adding that Trump and Orbán “have a very, very close personal relationship and working relationship, and I think it has been incredibly beneficial to the relationship between our two countries.”

Speaking Friday at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Ocasio-Cortez accused Trump of trying to usher in an “age of authoritarianism.”

“We have to have a working-class-centered politics if we are going to succeed,” she said, “and also if we are going to stave off the scourges of authoritarianism, which provides political siren calls to allure people into finding scapegoats to blame for rising economic inequality, both domestically and globally.”

Ocasio-Cortez—whose increasingly high profile has sparked speculation of a possible run for higher office—also slammed the “hypocrisies” of US foreign policy, “whether it is kidnapping a foreign head of state, whether it is threatening our allies to colonize Greenland, whether it is looking the other way in a genocide, hypocrisies are vulnerabilities, and they threaten democracies globally.”

“This is a moment where we are seeing our presidential administration tear apart the transatlantic partnership,” she added. “What is happening is indeed very grave, and we are in a new era, domestically and globally.”

Senate Dems Push Trump DOJ to Reveal All Talks With Lobbyists About Ouster of Antitrust Chief

The removal of Gail Slater “raises significant concerns about this administration’s commitment to enforcing the antitrust laws for the betterment of consumers and small businesses,” the lawmakers warned.


Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on February 11, 2026.
(Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Feb 16, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


A group of Democrats in the US Senate is pressuring President Donald Trump’s Justice Department to hand over any and all communications between the agency and corporate lobbyists related to last week’s ouster of antitrust chief Gail Slater, which came weeks before the scheduled start of the closely watched Live Nation-Ticketmaster trial.

In a Saturday letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi—herself a former corporate lobbyist—the Democratic lawmakers raised concerns about the timing of Slater’s departure, pointing to Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s ongoing “attempts to evade responsibility by convincing Justice Department leadership to settle the case on terms favorable to the company, rather than fans, artists, and independent venues.”



Warren Says Trump DOJ Ouster of Antitrust Chief ‘Looks Like Corruption’ as Lobbyists, Wall St Rejoice



‘Pure Corruption Reigns’ at Trump DOJ as Top Antitrust Official Gail Slater Ousted

Slater’s ouster as head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division less than a year after she was confirmed in a bipartisan vote, wrote Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and six other Democratic lawmakers, “raises significant concerns about this administration’s commitment to enforcing the antitrust laws for the betterment of consumers and small businesses, including seeing through its cases against monopolies.”

The antitrust suit against Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company, was launched in 2024 by the Biden administration and a coalition of state attorneys general. Their complaint accuses Live Nation of unlawful anticompetitive conduct that “allows them to exploit their conflicts of interest—as a promoter, ticketer, venue owner, and artist manager—across the live music industry and further entrench their dominant positions.”

Semafor reported earlier this month that Live Nation executives and lobbyists “have been negotiating with senior DOJ officials” in an effort to “avert a trial over whether the company is operating an illegal monopoly.” Those negotiations are reportedly being held outside of the antitrust division previously headed by Slater, who was ousted days after Semafor published its story.

The American Prospect reported that Kellyanne Conway and “MAGA influencer” Mike Davis are among those lobbying the Justice Department on behalf of Live Nation.

In their Saturday letter, the Senate Democrats called on the Justice Department to provide “the dates of each meeting with any representatives of Live Nation-Ticketmaster and the individuals present from the Justice Department, White House, or Live Nation-Ticketmaster for each meeting” and “all communications” between the DOJ and Live Nation-Ticketmaster regarding the dismissal of Slater or her deputies.

One of those deputies, Roger Alford, unloaded on the Bondi-led Justice Department weeks after his firing last summer for “insubordination.” According to Alford, the DOJ is “now overwhelmed with lobbyists with little antitrust expertise going above the antitrust division leadership seeking special favors with warm hugs.”

Alford pointed specifically to the merger settlement deal that the Justice Department cut with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks last year. Bondi’s chief of staff reportedly overruled Slater’s team to push through the settlement.

The Live Nation-Ticketmaster antitrust challenge could be “the next casualty” of the lobbyist-infiltrated DOJ, Alford warned.

As Dem Voters Seek a ‘Fight’ With the Superrich, AOC is Now Their Favorite Candidate: Poll

“An unmistakable majority wants a party that will fight harder against the corporations and rich people they see as responsible for keeping them down,” wrote the New Republic’s editorial director.


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, U.S. representative for New York’s 14th congressional district, speaks at a Townhall panel on populism at the 62nd Munich Security Conference on February 13, 2026 in Munich, Germany.
(Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Feb 15, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Democratic voters overwhelmingly want a leader who will fight the superrich and corporate America, and they believe Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the person to do it, according to a poll released this week.

While Democrats are often portrayed as squabbling and directionless, the poll conducted last month by the New Republic with Embold Research demonstrated a remarkable unity among the more than 2,400 Democratic voters it surveyed.

This was true with respect to policy: More than 9 in 10 want to raise taxes on corporations and on the wealthiest Americans, while more than three-quarters want to break up tech monopolies and believe the government should conduct stronger oversight of business.

But it was also reflected in sentiments that a more confrontational governing philosophy should prevail and general agreement that the party in its current form is not doing enough to take on its enemies.

Three-quarters said they wanted Democrats to “be more aggressive in calling out Republicans,” while nearly 7 in 10 said it was appropriate to describe their party as “weak.”

This appears to have translated to support for a more muscular view of government. Where the label once helped to sink Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) two runs for president, nearly three-quarters of Democrats now say they are either unconcerned with the label of “socialist” or view it as an asset.

Meanwhile, 46% said they want to see a “progressive” at the top of the Democratic ticket in 2028, higher than the number who said they wanted a “liberal” or a “moderate.”

It’s an environment that appears to be fertile ground for Ocasio-Cortez, who pitched her vision for a “working-class-centered politics” at this week’s Munich summit in what many suspected was a soft-launch of her presidential candidacy in 2028.



With 85% favorability, Bronx congresswoman had the highest approval rating of any Democratic figure in the country among the voters surveyed.

It’s a higher mark than either of the figures who head-to-head polls have shown to be presumptive favorites for the nomination: Former Vice President Kamala Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Early polls show AOC lagging considerably behind these top two. However, there are signs in the New Republic’s poll that may give her supporters cause for hope.

While Harris is also well-liked, 66% of Democrats surveyed said they believe she’s “had her shot” at the presidency and should not run again after losing to President Donald Trump in 2024.

Newsom does not have a similar electoral history holding him back and is riding high from the passage of Proposition 50, which will allow Democrats to add potentially five more US House seats this November.

But his policy approach may prove an ill fit at a time when Democrats overwhelmingly say their party is “too timid” about taxing the rich and corporations and taking on tech oligarchs.

As labor unions in California have pushed for a popular proposal to introduce a billionaire’s tax, Newsom has made himself the chiseled face of the resistance to this idea, joining with right-wing Silicon Valley barons in an aggressive campaign to kill it.

While polls can tell us little two years out about what voters will do in 2028, New Republic editorial director Emily Cooke said her magazine’s survey shows an unmistakable pattern.

“It’s impossible to come away from these results without concluding that economic populism is a winning message for loyal Democrats,” she wrote. “This was true across those who identify as liberals, moderates, or progressives: An unmistakable majority wants a party that will fight harder against the corporations and rich people they see as responsible for keeping them down.”

Francesca Albanese Defenders Decry Bid to Remove UN Expert Over Misrepresented Israel Remarks

The head of Amnesty International slammed the “reprehensible” attacks on Albanese “based on a deliberately truncated video.”


United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese speaks during a press conference in Dublin, Ireland on March 20, 2025.
(Photo by Brian Lawless/PA Images via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Feb 16, 2026

Human rights advocates, United Nations officials, and prominent international artists are among those defending UN independent Palestine expert Francesca Albanese in recent days amid a smear campaign by several European foreign ministers and pro-Israel groups, who are demanding her firing over alleged antisemitic remarks she never made.

The foreign ministers of Austria, the Czech Republic, France, and Germany have publicly called for Albanese’s resignation or termination after the pro-Israel group UN Watch—which is unaffiliated with the world body—circulated an edited video of the 48-year-old Italian jurist purportedly calling Israel “the common enemy of humanity” during a February 7 speech at a forum in Doha, Qatar organized by Al Jazeera.



French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said last week that he will demand Albanese’s resignation or removal during the upcoming UN Human Rights Council meeting, calling her alleged remarks “outrageous and reprehensible.”

Other European officials piled on, with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul calling her continued service as a UN expert “untenable.”

However, what’s “reprehensible,” Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard argued Saturday, is that the foreign ministers attacked Albanese “based on a deliberately truncated video to misrepresent and gravely misconstrue her messages.”

This is what Albanese actually said in Doha:
The fact that instead of stopping Israel, most of the world has armed, given Israel political excuses, political sheltering, economic and financial support. This is a challenge. The fact that most of the media in the Western world has been amplifying the pro-apartheid genocidal narrative is a challenge. At the same time, here also lays the opportunity. Because if international law has been stabbed in the heart, it’s also true that never before the global community has seen the challenges that we all face. We who do not control large amounts of financial capitals, algorithms, and weapons, we now see that we as a humanity have a common enemy, and freedoms, the respect of fundamental freedoms is the last peaceful avenue, the last peaceful toolbox that we have to regain our freedom.

“The ministers that have spread disinformation must act beyond merely deleting their comments on social media—as some have done,” Callamard said. “They must publicly apologize and retract any calls for Francesca Albanese’s resignation. Their governments must also investigate how this disinformation happened with a view to preventing such situations.”

“If only these ministers had been as loud and forceful in confronting a state committing genocide, unlawful occupation, and apartheid as they have in attacking a UN expert,” she added. “Their cowardice and refusal to hold Israel accountable stand in stark contrast to the special rapporteur’s unwavering commitment to speaking truth to power.”

On Monday, Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said in a statement that “how we act in the face of fake news and vicious disinformation campaigns is a sign of our moral compass.”

“Over and over during the war in Gaza, we have seen how coordinated campaigns seek to discredit and silence those who speak out about human rights impacts and violations of international humanitarian law,” Lazzarini added. “The latest attacks on Francesca Albanese—an independent expert mandated... to monitor the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory—aim at silencing her voice and undermining the few remaining independent human rights reporting mechanisms.”

Israeli forces have killed more than 370 UNRWA staff members since October 2023. Lazzarini and others have also accused Israeli forces of torturing UNRWA staffers in a bid to force false confessions corroborating their dubious allegations that members of the humanitarian agency are Hamas fighters. The International Court of Justice (ICJ)—which is weighing a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa—found last year that UNRWA has not been infiltrated by Hamas, as claimed by Israeli leaders.

More than 100 prominent international actors, musicians, writers, and other creatives with Artists for Palestine have also signed an open letter supporting Albanese.

“According to the Israeli army itself, at least 83% of those murdered are civilians,” the letter states. “What has the French state done about this for over two years? It has not imposed sanctions against a state that is openly—and even proudly—flouting international law.”

“Worse yet, through political, diplomatic, moral, and material support, the French state, like many of its European counterparts, allowed this senseless massacre to continue, thereby violating all its legal obligations,” the letter continues. “On July 29, 2025, a complaint against [French President] Emmanuel Macron, Jean-Noël Barrot, and other members of the French executive was filed by 114 lawyers before the [International Criminal Court], for ‘complicity in genocide in Gaza.’”

The letter’s signers including actors Javier Bardem, Mark Ruffalo, and Susan Sarandon; musicians Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, and Annie Lennox; and authors Annie Ernaux and Alice Walker.

Albanese has long been targeted for her vocal opposition to what she and a UN expert panel on which she did not serve call Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The administration of President Donald Trump has imposed sanctions on her after she highlighted US companies’ complicity in the Gaza slaughter. US officials have also attempted to discredit her work and called for her removal.

Albanese responded to the attacks by highlighting the number of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, saying on X Friday that “three European governments accuse me—based on statements I never made—with a virulence and conviction that they have NEVER used against those who have slaughtered 20,000+ children in 858 days.”

Albanese underscored that her Doha remarks clearly meant that “the common enemy of humanity is THE SYSTEM that has enabled the genocide in Palestine, including the financial capital that funds it, the algorithms that obscure it, and the weapons that enable it.”