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.”

New Orleans celebrates Mardi Gras, the indulgent conclusion of Carnival season

NEW ORLEANS, La. (AP) — Mardi Gras, also known as Fat Tuesday, marks the climax and end of the weekslong Carnival season and a final chance for indulgence, feasting and revelry before the Christian Lent period of sacrifice and reflection.

A member of the Krewe of Zulu offers up coconuts on Mardi Gras Day, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026 in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)

Sara Cline
February 18, 2026

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — People leaned out of wrought iron balconies, hollering the iconic phrase “Throw me something, Mister” as a massive Mardi Gras parade rolled down New Orleans’ historic St. Charles Avenue on Tuesday.

Mardi Gras, also known as Fat Tuesday, marks the climax and end of the weekslong Carnival season and a final chance for indulgence, feasting and revelry before the Christian Lent period of sacrifice and reflection. The joyous goodbye to Carnival always falls the day before Ash Wednesday.

In Louisiana’s most populous city, which is world-famous for its Mardi Gras bash, people donned green, gold and purple outfits, with some opting for an abundance of sequins and others showing off homemade costumes.

The revelers began lining the streets as the sun rose. They set up chairs, coolers, grills and ladders — offering a higher vantage point.

As marching bands and floats filled with women wearing massive feathered headdresses passed by, the music echoing through the city streets, people danced and cheered. Others sipped drinks, with many opting for adult concoctions on the day of celebration rather than the usual morning coffee.

Each parade has its signature “throws” — trinkets that include plastic beads, candy, doubloons, stuffed animals, cups and toys. Hand-decorated coconuts are the coveted item from Zulu, a massive parade named after the largest ethnic group in South Africa.

As a man, dressed like a crawfish — including red fabric claws for hands — caught one of the coconuts, he waved it around, the gold glitter on the husk glistening in the sun.

Sue Mennino was dressed in a white Egyptian-inspired costume, complete with a gold headpiece and translucent cape. Her face was embellished with glitter and electric blue eyeshadow.

“The world will be here tomorrow, but today is a day off and a time to party,” Mennino said.

The party isn’t solely confined to the parade route. Throughout the French Quarter, people celebrated in the streets, on balconies and on the front porches of shotgun-style homes.

One impromptu parade was led by a man playing a washboard instrument and dressed as a blue alligator — his paper-mache tail dragging along the street, unintentionally sweeping up stray beads with it. A brass band played “The Saints” as people danced.

In Jackson Square, the costumed masses included a man painted from head to toe as a zebra, a group cosplaying as Hungry Hungry Hippos from the tabletop game and a diver wearing an antique brass and copper helmet.

“The people are the best part,” said Martha Archer, who was dressed as Madame Leota, the disembodied medium whose head appears within a crystal ball in the Haunted Mansion attraction at Disney amusement parks.

Archer’s face was painted blue and her outfit was a makeshift table that came up to her neck — giving the appearance that she was indeed a floating head.

“Everybody is just so happy,” she explained.

The good times will roll not just in New Orleans but across the state, from exclusive balls to the Cajun French tradition of the Courir de Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday Run — a rural event in Central Louisiana featuring costumed participants performing, begging for ingredients and chasing live chickens to be cooked in a communal gumbo.

Parades are also held in other Gulf Coast cities such as Mobile, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida, and there are other world-renowned celebrations in Brazil and Europe.

One of the quirkiest is an international Pancake Day competition pitting the women of Liberal, Kansas, against the women of Olney, England. Pancakes are used because they were thought to be a good way for Christians to consume the fat they were supposed to give up during the 40 days before Easter.

Contestants must carry a pancake in a frying pan and flip the pancake at the beginning and end of the 415-yard (380-meter) race.

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.

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.

‘We just need something positive’ – Monks’ peace walk across US draws large crowds


By AFP
February 3, 2026


Led by Bhikkhu Pannakara, Buddhist monks promoting compassion and unity participate in a "Walk for Peace" which has taken them from Texas through eight states to Virginia and on to Washington - Copyright AFP Aaron Mathes

Michael Mathes

Buddhist monks walking from Texas to Washington to promote peace have become a surprise popular hit as they near the US capital — attracting crowds of thousands who line the route or join in for a few miles.

At a time of strife and political tension in the United States, the monks offer a change of tone on their 2,300-mile (3,700-kilometer) odyssey across eight states through freezing temperatures and along ice-covered roads.

On Tuesday, north of Virginia’s capital Richmond, Louella Glessner stood on a mound of plowed snow, flowers in hand, hoping the robed monks and their mission might somehow begin to heal America’s toxic divisions.

“I am a Christian, but this whole concept, I think it’s great,” Glessner, a 62-year trust administrator, told AFP ahead of the monks’ arrival at a Buddhist temple where people gathered on the roadside and in the pagoda grounds.

“It’s what the country needs. We need to have peace and we need to find commonality between all people,” she said.

Since launching their ambitious trek 101 days ago from a Buddhist center in Fort Worth, Texas, the group of about 20 monks have spread a message of unity, compassion, mindfulness, healing and peace.

It has resonated in unexpectedly dramatic fashion, with thousands of people turning up to share in the experience. Last month, 20,000 well-wishers greeted them in Columbia, South Carolina.

The mission’s Facebook page tops 2.5 million followers and its videos have garnered over 100 million views.

The group’s peace dog Aloka, a former stray from India that has accompanied the monks on the trip, has also become a celebrity in its own right.

The monks, who often stay overnight at churches or university campuses, hail from Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

On Tuesday in Glen Allen, onlookers kneeled and offered fruit, police officers shook the monks’ hands, and the monks presented people with blessing threads and other gifts.

Children shyly offered flowers or waved as the group walked past.

Leading the procession has been Bhikkhu Pannakara, a Vietnamese monk whose saffron sash is adorned with sheriff badges from the many counties that have hosted them and secured the roads.



– ‘In the moment’ –



Despite the bitter cold, and the fractious state of US politics during the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency, the monks are accomplishing something few others have: bringing people together.

Two weeks ago in North Carolina, 10,000 people packed a baseball stadium to hear Bhikku Pannakara speak.

“It’s been crowded like this for the last couple of states,” he told those in attendance, urging listeners to avoid “chasing materialism” and to abandon thoughts of greed, anger and hatred.

North of Richmond, Sarah Peyton and her two young sons stood quietly contemplating the monks who walked briskly past.

“Right now I think we just need something positive,” the 38-year-old Black woman and Virginia native told AFP moments later in a hushed voice.

“It doesn’t matter where you’re from, you can come stand here and just witness a peaceful experience.

“There’s nobody dragging anybody out of cars, nobody’s yelling, nobody’s angry. Everybody is just here in the moment.”

The walk has not been without anguish. One monk was struck by a vehicle in a November traffic accident, and his leg had to be amputated. He reportedly reunited with the group in Georgia.

“Our walking itself cannot create peace,” the monks wrote in an early blog post.

“But when someone encounters us… when our message touches something deep within them, when it awakens the peace that has always lived quietly in their own heart — something sacred begins to unfold.”

The monks are expected to arrive in the capital on February 10 and visit the Washington National Cathedral before holding a meditation retreat the following day.

Will the “Walk for Peace” change much? Perhaps it could help Americans to think with more compassion and humility, Glessner suggested.

“If it takes 20 monks walking from Texas to DC,” she’d be thrilled, she said. “People want to try something.”

Living like sultans: Istanbul’s pampered street cats


By AFP

January 25, 2026


'Here people and cats live side by side, as equals,' according to Istanbul residents - Copyright Philippine Coast Guard (PCG)/AFP Handout

Rémi BANET

Kanyon is getting fat: since someone stole his basket, this white cat with grey markings who lives at an Istanbul shopping centre has been showered with snacks, love and affection.

News of his plight brought out countless well-wishers, who have handed him endless supplies of food, toys, a comfortable cat house — and his very own Instagram page run by a fan.

He’s not alone: according to City Hall, Istanbul has more than 160,000 cats living on its streets who are regularly fed and fussed over by the city’s 16 million residents.

These street cats are looked after with an almost religious devotion.

Whether on the Asian or European side of Istanbul — or the ferries connecting them — cats can be seen everywhere, snoozing on restaurant chairs, wandering through supermarkets or curled up in shop windows.

And they are rarely, if ever, disturbed.

“Istanbulites love animals. Here, cats can walk into shops and curl up on the most expensive of fabrics. That’s why they call it ‘the city of cats’,” explains Gaye Koselerden, 57, looking at Kanyon’s toy-filled corner which looks like a child’s bedroom.



– From pre-Ottoman times –



Like Kanyon, many strays have turned into much-loved neighbourhood mascots.

In Kadikoy, locals set up a bronze statue in 2016 to immortalise Tombili (Turkish for “chubby”), a pot-bellied feline whose characteristic pose — lounging on benches with one paw draped over the edge — spawned countless internet memes.

When Gli, the tabby mascot of Istanbul’s sixth-century Hagia Sofia basilica-turned-mosque, died, an obituary in the Turkish press recalled how she was stroked by US president Barack Obama when he visited in 2009.

At the neighbouring Topkapi Palace, for years the opulent residence of the Ottoman sultans, they have just restored a centuries-old cat flap.

“Cats have always been here, no doubt because they are clean and close to humans,” the site’s director Ilhan Kocaman told AFP.

The presence of so many cats in the city has often been explained with reference to “the deep affection the Prophet Muhammad had for them”, explained Altan Armutak, an expert at Istanbul University’s veterinary history department.

When Ottomans seized Constantinople in 1453, “they found cats waiting to be fed outside fish stalls and butchers’ shops,” he said.

“Giving the cats food was seen as an offering in the name of God.”



– ‘Living side by side’ –



Six centuries later, cats have retained their historic presence in Istanbul, although these days City Hall is trying to manage their numbers, sterilising more than 43,000 cats last year, 12 times more than in 2015.

And the authorities are concerned about residents’ often over-generous offerings of food, which they fear is encouraging the spread of rodents.

“Normally, cats chase rats. But in Istanbul, you can see the rats eating the food alongside the cats. We must tackle this,” the region’s governor Davut Gul recently warned.

Although several such clips did the rounds on social media, they seem to have had a limited impact.

“I’ve lived here for four months and I’ve never seen a single rat,” said Fatime Ozarslan, a 22-year-old student originally from Germany as she put out a sachet of wet food in Macka Park, which is home to at least 100 cats.

“In Germany, we have many rats, but here, with so many cats, they must be afraid,” she smiled.

Without its cats, Istanbul just would not be the same, she said.

“Here people and cats live side by side, as equals.”

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for STRAYS 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for STRAY 

AMERIKAN FEMICIDE

Renee Good, Viola Liuzzo and the Fragile Ego

of Masculinism

Phil Wilson

 January 19, 2026

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Viola Liuzzo.

There are a few new things in the US – just recycled atrocities that the media fails to recognize as sequels. In the US flash flood of bad dreams, the latest event in the drive-by-whizz of meaningless horror – the cold-blooded public execution of Renee Good – has come and gone. Good now becomes – at the moment the bullets strike – a sort of wayward example of uncertainty. Why Renee Good? At a casual glance she is none of the things that the US hates murderously – not an immigrant or a communist, not even an atheist. We learn that she has a wife and that she had been previously married twice to male partners. There is no reason to assume that the murderer, Jonathan Ross, knew any of this – and one should not speculate that he acted out of homophobic rage. Have we seen Renee Good before in the shadow play of the US news cycle? Renee Good projects a disturbing ordinariness – an old dog in the back with a grey muzzle, and a child seat next to the dog. Our bleary eyes alight for a moment on a seemingly unremarkable white woman caught in the act of briefly departing from domestic routine. Like all random murder victims, she dies in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We have a history of home-based enemies – Jews, Muslims, atheists, Unitarians, communists, Quakers, socialists – people that the FBI historically side-eyes with a measure of latent disgust, but only sporadically assaults. Fascism pulls up the mask, pulls down the pants, and reveals a fully erect gun that finally has the full blessing of the highest authorities. Renee Good is not the first upstanding White woman to be offered up at the altar of violent sacrifice – even in my own youth, we had Allison Krause (not Allison Krauss, the blue-grass fiddle savant) and Sandra Scheuer. Kent State National Guardsmen panicked and sprayed gunfire. This massacre fell well within the US tradition of mass shootings – the periodic ritual involving guns, crowds, vengeance, and paranoia. Nixon, sociopath, lia,r and war criminal that he was, understood that the optics of repression required that he tread carefully around the issue of murdering upstanding White US citizens. He called a press conference after the shooting and cleverly, in a soft, measured voice, bullshitted the public about his belief that “the protesters” wanted peace just like he did. We are really all on the same side he said. Yeah, this was the sort of flagrant dishonesty that inspired Trump. Trump figured out that racists want their bile in its most transparent form. But America’s homicidal zeal generally has tiptoed around the unique privilege of those living comfortably in the homeland. If Allison Krause and Sandra Scheuer were mere victims of paranoia and chance – catching bullets that momentarily sprayed hatred while seeking random targets – we have an obscure history of political harm toward wayward White women that has been overlooked.

Predictably, Black women are killed by police in greater numbers than White women, but researchers have compellingly argued that class, even more than race, accounts for the demographic details of police killings. One study concluded that poor White people are statistically more likely to be killed by police than middle and upper-middle-class Black people. The murder of Renee Good, however, does not fit into the typical categories of police violence that help us to place the killing of, say, Breonna Taylor into a broader context. Middle and upper-middle-class White women are among the least likely demographics to die by police violence.

However, Good was not killed by police, but by paramilitary forces (even if given official status in the current fascist system). Unlike Breonna Taylor, who was killed in a random hail of bullets by hair trigger police who had forcefully entered Taylor’s apartment in a botched effort to arrest a suspect who was not present, Good seems likely to have been targeted, at least in part, for her gender. We can’t get into the head of the murderer, Jonathan Ross, but it might not be outlandish to guess that Good’s white skin triggered the homicidal response in some way as well. If dark skinned and poor people often risk police ire as a matter of predictable institutional racism, White, educated, middleclass women have a very rare and specific way of falling afoul of violent authorities.

Good’s murder fits into a category so vanishingly small, that I can think of only one single historical incident that shares similar context – the 1965 KKK murder of civil rights volunteer, Viola Liuzzo. It may seem startling to view ICE as the linear offspring of the KKK, but the tie between Klan violence and police killings (as recognized in the famous Rage Against the Machine line, “some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses”) ought to make us aware that right wing paramilitary violence has always been an adjunct to official power structures.

Liuzzo entered America’s most terrifying fantasy when a car with four Klansmen (one being an FBI informer) pulled alongside her vehicle on an Alabama road between Selma and Montgomery. She had Michigan license plates and a 19-year-old Black male passenger next to her. She had bravely gone to Alabama to help organize Black voters, and to ferry disenfranchised people to places of registration – in and of itself, a capital offense in Jim Crow states. Thus, the psychological triggers, within the KKK hypervigilant psyche, made her fate inevitable. Her killers likely imagined her as the very symbol of “miscegenation.” A White woman with a younger Black man on a rural stretch of road might have stirred the most violent fear in the White, masculinist heart. A klansman shot her in the head. Like with Renee Good, her car veered and crashed. Her passenger, Leroy Moton, survived by pretending to be dead. In the hierarchy of masculinist rage, the murderous impulse reserves a place for White women who stray from their cultural niche.

But death was not enough retribution – FBI head, J Edgar Hoover, launched a smear campaign against Liuzzo, accusing her of being an adulterer and a heroin addict. The Klan publicly exulted in her murder, posting pictures of her dead body, and “bragging about the murder.” The masculinist, racist mindset mobilized against Viola Liuzzo’s legacy – in death, she might have become the first White, female martyr in the struggle for racial equality. J Edgar Hoover and his allies in the Klan made every effort to erase Viola Liuzzo from historical consciousness. They succeeded in spectacular fashion. We recall John Brown, Medgar Evans, Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney and Rev. James Reeb with due reverence, but Viola Liuzzo remains as an obscure footnote.

An undergraduate research paper by Alyssa Ness observed:

“When comparing Liuzzo’s murder to other murders during the civil rights movement, it is evident that she not only received less recognition for her heroic dedication in the movement than others but was also heavily scrutinized by the government and the public through the media for defying traditional white gender roles for women of her time. Louis B. Nichols was hired by the FBI in order to manage the bureau’s interactions with news and media. Nichol’s main role in the bureau was to prevent the bureau from gaining negative attention through media and entertainment by promoting its preferred image, and any media outlet that opposed the FBI would be attacked by supporting media outlets. The FBI and press distorted the reason Liuzzo had participated in the march and what the march was about in order to gain public support. Along with Hoover and the press, traditional middle class white women tormented the legacy of Liuzzo with accusations of her being mentally ill because she was not solely fulfilled by the role of a homemaker and mother. The public and media also heavily criticized Jim Liuzzo due to his inability to keep his wife under control. The New York Times published an article calling out Liuzzo for failing to deter his wife from her fate.”

Carolyn Bryant acted out the prescribed role for southern women in the Jim Crow era. Bryant, you may recall, accused Emmet Till of making advances on her as she clerked in her family-owned grocery store in Drew, Mississippi. Till, a 14-year-old boy from Chicago, was abducted, tortured, and murdered by Bryant’s husband and another KKK-affiliated accomplice 11 years prior to Liuzzo’s murder. Perhaps Liuzzo’s killing sheds light on the psychology of Carolyn Bryant. Women like Bryant knew all too well that vigilant male paranoia circumscribed White female sexuality. Miscegenation was a crime on the books in Jim Crow states, and, as Viola Liuzzo’s fate showed, it took little evidence to provoke the paramilitary institutions that enforced antiquated laws with brutal informality.

The lynching of Emmet Till and the murder of Viola Liuzzo are linked directly to current expressions of hyper-masculine self-doubt. Renee Good, like Liuzzo, violated the unwritten rules of racial propriety that racist White men demand. Female moral fortitude in a racist society will often be conflated with sexual abandonment. In a right-wing ecosystem featuring men who obsessively ruminate about rejection (consider the widespread “Incel” movement), acts of White female resistance to racist violence serve as symbols of sexual rejection.

As White women commit themselves to the battle against ICE, the right-wing pundit sphere will indulge in ever more flamboyant methods to label activism as sexual deviance. My point is well illustrated by the lunatic writer, Naomi Wolf, in this post on X:

“Okay, I’ll just say it. I’ve seen enough videos of the faces of liberal white women in conflict with @ICE, to know what is up. Liberal men at this point (sorry) are disproportionately estrogenized, physically passive, submissive due to woke gender hectoring, or porn-addicted. White liberal women are disproportionately sexually frustrated. Policing others as in the pandemic was an outlet for them, but it was not nearly enough. The smiles you see on their faces now say it all: white women long for all out combat with ICE – who tend to be strong, physically confident, masculine men – because the conflict is a form of physical release for them. They long for actual kinetic battle and it will get even uglier.”

The right-wing politicians and pundits now engage in a desperate struggle to tarnish the memory of Renee Good and to prevent her from becoming a martyr. They will alternately insist that she engaged in domestic terrorism or that she channeled her sexual frustrations into a vicarious rendezvous with the “real men” who work for ICE. When Ross murdered Good, he sneered, “fucking bitch,” as her dead body lay in the moving car. How many men have murdered women who rejected them? Now this inchoate rage against rejection becomes a subconscious theme affixed to a new wave of political violence. While Viola Liuzzo stands out as a historical anomaly, violence toward middle-class White women who confront the brutal treatment of dark-skinned targets of the fascist state will almost certainly occur again.

I don’t believe that Renee Good’s legacy will be destroyed as authorities sullied the memory of Viola Liuzzo. We have the video for Good as we did not for Liuzzo. But isn’t it long overdue that Viola Liuzzo be recognized as one of the great heroes of the civil rights era? After all, Liuzzo’s heroism helps us to understand the tragedy of Renee Good.

Phil Wilson is a retired mental health worker who has written for Common Dreams, CounterPunch, Resilience, Current Affairs, The Future Fire and The Hampshire Gazette. Phil’s writings are posted regularly at Nobody’s Voice.

UK

Woke-Bashing of the Week: From Christmas

to cardigans – the latest ‘anti-men’ panic

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead 

18 January, 2026
Right-Wing Watch


Quite what constitutes “the very worst left-wing feminist” remains unclear, beyond, perhaps, a woman who doesn’t particularly enjoy being corrected by men.

With Christmas out of the way and the annual ritual of declaring everything “cancelled” complete, the anti-woke brigade has its sights on the next cultural event – Valentine’s Day.

This time, the outrage is directed at retailer Target, over the release of two colourful sweaters released ahead of February 14. According to the Daily Mail, one is pink and emblazoned with “Dump Him” in bold red lettering, and the other is light blue, with “Emotionally Unavailable” written in black.

Despite what the paper describes as “seemingly harmless messaging,” the Mail reports how the designs were swiftly seized upon by social media users, who accused Target of promoting “anti-men” sentiment. The article quotes a so-called men’s rights activist who posted a photo of the display on X:

“I saw this sweater promoted at Target today. Could you imagine if, in the month leading up to Valentine’s Day, Target was spotlighting a “Dump Her” sweater in the men’s section?” they said.

Others followed suit. “More women hating men propaganda. Gee, shocker,” wrote one user.

“Target is woke,” declared another. “Anti-male garbage. I stopped shopping at Target a long time ago,” snarked a third.

To give the impression of a pattern, the Mail reminded readers of Target’s previous brush with controversy over its Pride collection, specifically, its failure to remove placeholder ‘lorem ipsum’ text from some product tags, as though a design oversight and a pair of tongue-in-cheek sweaters belong to the same moral crisis.

This fixation with an alleged ‘anti-men’ movement has become a recurring theme in the right-wing press. Last month, Telegraph columnist Celia Walden asked: “Are you a woman who hates men? Then the Greens are the perfect party for you.”

Her column cited a leaked 53-page Green Party report which, she claimed, showed party leaders considering an expanded definition of misogyny. Among the supposed horrors was a proposal to include “men who correct women” within that definition. Walden warned that such a move would appeal only to “the very worst left-wing feminist”.

Quite what constitutes “the very worst left-wing feminist” remains unclear, beyond, perhaps, a woman who doesn’t particularly enjoy being corrected by men.

Q&A: AI, the Edge, and the war machine

By Dr. Tim Sandle
SCIENCE EDITOR

DIGITAL JOURNAL

January 1, 2026

The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford will be part of Washington's expanded military presence - Copyright AFP Jaime REINA

The U.S. government is pumping more money into AI research, especially in relation to defence, making AI central to the future strategy. U.S. Department of War (DoW), including the Department of Defense (DoD), is actively developing, testing, and fielding artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities at the edge, meaning the technology runs directly on local devices and in operational environments. The goal is to achieve a decision advantage over adversaries by processing information with greater speed and accuracy on the battlefield.

To help to understand these development, Digital Journal caught up with Sek Chai, CTO, Latent AI.

Digital Journal: With major investments in physical AI (or edge AI) infrastructure from NVIDIA, AMD, and Qualcomm, and others, what overall market evolution do you predict in the edge AI ecosystem by 2026? Which developments do you believe will have the greatest impact on real-world deployment?

Sek Chai: Investments in physical or edge AI are dwarfed by investments in hyperscalar data centres. Smart investors are now realising that $1T expenditures for massive data centres will not bring in immediate returns, if at all. Instead, investments in Edge AI are actually much more logical and less risky. New developments to enable the reliability and robustness of Edge AI will bring Edge AI to the forefront with real-world deployment.

Such a fundamental shift to Edge First approach will bring about standardisation, interoperability, and security to the Edge AI market. These issues have been key elements that are addressed with Latent AI’s product offering.

DJ: From your vantage point, is the software stack (inference runtimes, model compression tools, deployment tools, and secure update pipelines) finally maturing fast enough to enable developers to utilise new hardware in production by 2026 fully? What gaps remain?

Chai: The tools and software stack are maturing, but not fast enough. Especially in edge hardware, it is still a wild-west ecosystem with heterogeneous solutions that are not interoperable. This is where Latent AI shines, by offering a standardized AI runtime with services layers, much akin to how Java offers the necessary abstractions for software.

DJ: What structural bottlenecks inside organizations (data ownership, integrator lock-in, lack of model governance) will most limit edge AI adoption in 2026? How can these be overcome?

Chai: Enterprises fear the unknown and the uncertainty. Thus, they are not readily adopting an Edge First approach because the cloud still offers a platform that is familiar. This bottleneck is now being overcome when they realize the economic, logistical, and sustainability issues to rely solely on the cloud.

DJ: With hardware becoming more broadly available, do you expect 2026 to be the year when Department of War (DoW) can overcome integration, interoperability, and accreditation challenges in edge AI software platforms and finally move the current wave of Edge AI pilots to fielded capabilities?

Chai: DoW are already fielding AI capabilities on the edge. However, these systems cost hundreds of millions of dollars and with many years of development. Furthermore, there’s vendor-lock from integrators that sell entire platforms, from algorithms to hardware. DoW seeks to procure the best of breeds of AI algorithms, without being locked-in to any vendor. Edge AI will scale in deployment as DoW elevates the urgency with an alternative procurement strategy with interoperability in mind.

DJ: Which autonomy initiatives today are showing the clearest pathway from experimentation to fielding, and what inflection points do you expect in 2026 as these programs scale?

Chai: The battlefield is changing and there is an urgent need to build solutions that can adapt to new operational environments. These are evident in the new type of warfare currently in Ukraine, where adaptation is key to mission success. Adversaries now adjust signatures, tactics, and decoys on commercial timelines, not acquisition timelines, so static edge AI models that rely on long, centralized retraining cycles fall behind almost as soon as they are deployed.

The SecWar and DoW’s emphasis on speed, adaptability, and AI-enabled decision dominance highlights a clear pathway where adaptive AI is part of the fielding requirements.

Strange magnetism could power tomorrow’s AI

By Dr. Tim Sandle
SCIENCE EDITOR

DIGITAL JOURNAL

January 1, 2026

In May, the most powerful geomagnetic storm to strike Earth in more than two decades lit up night skies in many parts of the world - Copyright AFP/File Sanka Vidanagama

Scientists from National Institute for Materials Science, Japan have confirmed that ultra-thin films of ruthenium dioxide (RuO2) belong to a newly recognised and powerful class of magnetic materials called altermagnets. These materials combine the best of two magnetic worlds: they’re stable against interference yet still allow fast, electrical readout—an ideal mix for future memory technology.


Altermagnetism is a newly discovered type of magnetism where magnetic moments (tiny magnetic fields created by electrons) align in opposite directions but follow a distinct rotated pattern.

The researchers also found that the performance of RuO2 thin films can be improved by carefully controlling how their crystal structure is oriented during fabrication.

Ruthenium dioxide has long been considered a promising candidate for altermagnetism
Why altermagnetism matters

Standard ferromagnetic materials used in memory devices allow data to be written easily using external magnetic fields. However, they are vulnerable to interference from stray magnetic fields, which can cause errors and limit how densely information can be stored.

Antiferromagnetic materials offer much better resistance to external magnetic disturbances. The challenge is that their internal magnetic spins cancel each other out, making it difficult to read stored information using electrical signals.

As a result, scientists have been searching for materials that combine magnetic stability with electrical readability and, ideally, the ability to be rewritten.

Slow progress

While altermagnets promise this balance, experimental results for RuO2 have varied widely around the world. Progress has also been slowed by the difficulty of producing high-quality thin films with a consistent crystallographic orientation.

The scientists overcame these obstacles by successfully creating RuO2 thin films with a single crystallographic orientation on sapphire substrates. By carefully choosing the substrate and fine-tuning the growth conditions, they were able to control how the crystal structure formed.

Using X-ray magnetic linear dichroism, the researchers mapped the spin arrangement and magnetic order in the films, confirming that the overall magnetization (N-S poles) cancels out. The tea also detected spin-split magnetoresistance, meaning the electrical resistance changes depending on the spin direction. This effect provided electrical evidence of a spin-split electronic structure.

The experimental results matched first-principles calculations of magneto-crystalline anisotropy, confirming that the RuO2 thin films truly exhibit altermagnetism.

These findings strongly support the potential of RuO2 thin films for next-generation high-speed, high-density magnetic memory devices.

Next steps

The scientists plan to develop advanced magnetic memory technologies based on RuO2 thin films. These devices could support faster and more energy-efficient information processing by taking advantage of the natural speed and density offered by altermagnetic materials.

The synchrotron-based magnetic analysis methods established during the study are also expected to help researchers identify and study other altermagnetic materials. This approach could accelerate progress in spintronics and open new pathways for future electronic devices.

The research appears in the journal Nature Communications, titled “Evidence for single variant in altermagnetic RuO2(101) thin films.”