New York

Who Gets to Warn Women About Crisis Pregnancy Centers? Texas AG Ken Paxton Takes Yelp to Court.

PUBLISHED 10/6/2026 by

Search Yelp for “pregnancy care” and you may encounter a crisis pregnancy center (CPC)—an organization that may advertise as a full-service clinic but does not provide abortions or referrals to abortion providers. Yelp labels these listings accordingly.

Now, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is weaponizing its consumer protection law to sue the company over an earlier, since-withdrawn nationwide notice that said crisis pregnancy centers “typically provide limited medical services and may not have licensed medical professionals onsite.”

This under-the-radar case will test how far a state may reach when a national platform posts information that disagrees with state officials.

Epstein Didn’t Act Alone. Survivors Want the Modeling Industry Investigated.

PUBLISHED 10/5/2026 by

Ms. interviewed five Jeffrey Epstein survivors who worked in the modeling industry from the 1990s through the early 2000s, and reviewed public testimony and media accounts from many others. While every survivor’s experience is unique, our investigation showed a clear pattern: young women with big dreams, steered toward powerful men who often abused them.

Survivors of abuse by Epstein and his associates and by other powerful men in the modeling industry are now doing work that many institutions and governments have failed to so far: They’re tracing the relationships, patterns and prosecutorial lapses that allowed the abuse to continue, and mapping a path forward toward accountability.

[Part 2 of The Pipeline to Predators, a four-part Ms. investigation into the modeling industry’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein and survivors’ fight for accountability.]

War on Women Report: ICE Lost Count of Detained Women’s Miscarriages; Sexual Assault Still Rampant on College Campuses; Post-Dobbs Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths on the Rise

PUBLISHED 10/2/2026 by , and

MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide: the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.”

We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—On Wednesday, Sept. 2, Gloria Steinem, feminist, social activist and cofounder of Ms., died in her New York City home. She was 92.
—The family of Tierra Walker, who died in 2024 after she was refused a medically necessary abortion under Texas’ abortion ban, is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and several of Walker’s doctors and nurses in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit.
—House Republicans have formally censured Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) for his documented inappropriate conduct toward women staffers, including excessive unwanted attention and gifts ranging from flowers and purses to personalized handguns.
—Trump’s FCC chair, Brendan Carr, spent a decade as part of a cult that trafficked and sexually exploited children and young women, former members allege.
—Almost 200 women have died in the U.S. due to an ectopic pregnancy between 2020 and 2025.
—“Jane Doe,” a former Cornell University student, has filed a lawsuit alleging she was coerced into taking incapacitating drugs, then gang-raped by seven Chi Phi fraternity brothers over a period of several hours at their fraternity house in October 2024. The plaintiff is suing Cornell University, several fraternity and sorority organizations and the seven Chi Phi members: Matthew Ingalls, Johnathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar.
—A jury in Lima, Ohio, has indicted a 22-year-old woman for “abuse of a corpse” after she was arrested in February when she suffered a miscarriage and placed the fetal remains in the trash.
—The same month the details of the Cornell case emerged, a student at Louisiana State University is seeking criminal charges against a student football player for allegedly sexually assaulting her in October 2025. A Title IX investigation at the university level has found that the student-athlete is “responsible” for “sexual assault” and “forcible rape.” However, an appeals judge reduced his punishment from suspension to probation.

… and more.

‘To Catch a Predator’ at Cornell

PUBLISHED 9/28/2026 by

Feminists on the internet are erupting in rage and recognition after a former Cornell University student filed a lawsuit alleging she was pressured to take ketamine and was subsequently gang-raped for seven hours at a Cornell fraternity house.

At the same time, A24’s new blockbuster Primetime just hit theaters. And as pedophiles and predators continue to occupy the highest echelons of the U.S. government and walk free at universities across the country, Primetime captures why public exposure can feel like the only recourse left when institutions fail to act.

The Cornell case now has a consequential new development: This week, Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten says his office is reopening its investigation and acknowledged his office relied on campus police’s investigation rather than conducting its own.

Public outrage helped bring the case back into view, but it cannot be the primary way that we seek justice. What matters now is whether Cornell and law enforcement answer the questions raised by Doe’s lawsuit … and whether the next student who comes forward has to wait for the Internet to demand those answers.

What Rights Should the Constitution Protect? Alicia Keys and Leigh Blake Are Asking You to Decide

PUBLISHED 9/23/2026 by

On Saturday, Sept. 26, Alicia Keys will use a special performance at the Global Citizen Festival in New York City’s Central Park to amplify the People’s Bill of Rights 250, a civic initiative asking Americans to help define the rights the Constitution should protect during the country’s next 250 years.

During her “Alicia Keys & Friends” performance, Keys will bring the People’s Bill of Rights’ message—“WE THE PEOPLE. AGAIN.”—to tens of thousands of festivalgoers.

“The People’s Bill of Rights 250 is about … passing the mic,” says Keys, “making sure every voice gets heard, and giving people the power to shape what comes next.”

It asks Americans to participate in small online deliberations and ultimately vote on which ideas should move forward. Current deliberations ask Americans to consider whether healthcare, reproductive freedom, equality for women and girls, housing, education and environmental protections should be constitutional rights. You can add your own idea (if you feel like typing), or just swipe right or left on others’ ideas.

Leigh Blake, a longtime activist who has spent decades using music and culture to mobilize people around social causes, co-spearheaded of the People’s Bill of Rights 250. The project is an extension of a decades-long philosophy of activism: that ordinary people have more in common than they are told, that rights are inseparable from human dignity, and that meaningful changes come through collective action and service.

“There’s always going to be people on the fringes,” she says, “but I don’t think we’re divided as a country in the way we’ve been led to believe we are.”

Blake describes the initiative as operating almost like “politics without politicians.” Instead of waiting for elected officials to decide which issues deserve attention, Americans can propose their own ideas and vote on the proposals of others.

The Perfect Victim Is a Dead Woman

PUBLISHED 9/17/2026 by

This is a story about choices that are not really choices. It is a story about impossible circumstances propelling us down pathways we believe unimaginable. You always believe it could never happen to you, until it does.

“Our last encounter was him trying to choke me, and me stabbing him.” Naomi sighs and leans against the passenger seat of my car, ending the story of the night she killed her abuser.

A grand jury indicted her for second-degree murder. A year later, she pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter. Initially facing five to 25 years in prison, her sentence was reduced under New York state’s Domestic Violence Survivor Justice Act to three years’ incarceration, with five years of post-release supervision. Even the District Attorney’s office acknowledged Naomi was a victim of domestic violence, which “was a significant contributing factor” to her behavior.

When the options available to her were kill or be killed, why was she even indicted?

We live in a world that punishes survivors and creates more victims with generous latitude inexplicably afforded to men who have proven themselves dangerous to society. It seems that the only perfect victim is a dead one, a woman who can’t talk back.

Tuesday, Sept. 22 in NYC: A Crucial Conversation on the Future of Feminist Journalism, Hosted by Ms. and Women’s Media Group

PUBLISHED 9/15/2026 by

Ms. magazine and Women’s Media Group will bring together leading journalists, writers and media executives in New York City on Tuesday, Sept. 22, for a timely conversation about the role of feminist journalism, and the power of women’s voices to shape news, culture and public policy.

“Feminist Journalism Today: Continuing the Crucial Conversation About Women’s Voices in Media” will explore where feminist journalism is thriving, which approaches are most effective, the challenges confronting the field and how women in media can steer the national discourse.

Was Mary Oliver a Feminist? 

PUBLISHED 8/29/2026 by

From Pinterest boards to classroom walls, Mary Oliver’s words have become popular in a way that most poets could only dream. People have even gone as far as to call her “Saint Mary.”

But in a new documentary Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World, director and producer Sasha Waters presents Oliver with complexity, hoping that more people will read her poetry with the poet behind it in mind.

“I think there’s also this way in which she becomes a little flattened and one-dimensional through the way that she circulates now,” says Waters. “Understanding that she was very much a complicated person and woman until the end of her life is what I hope people take away from her.”

Madonna Is Still Rewriting the Rules For Women in Pop

PUBLISHED 8/18/2026 by

Thousands of fans, writers, nightlife legends and artists walked between the legs of a towering inflatable Madonna last month—a fitting monument to four decades of Madonna’s subversive expression of female sexuality and autonomy. The giant inflatable served as the entrance to Club Confessions at the Knockdown Center, where she celebrated Confessions II, her 15th studio album and sequel to her landmark 2005 album Confessions on a Dance Floor.

The event followed a summer in which Madonna staged a surprise album launch performance in Times Square; joined Sabrina Carpenter onstage during Carpenter’s headlining Coachella set; and opened the first-ever FIFA World Cup Final halftime show.

Widely regarded as a pioneering voice of women’s sexuality, authorship and autonomy in entertainment, Madonna has paved the way for generations of artists since the 1980s. But the industry moves at a relentless pace, with artists becoming irrelevant after a single album cycle and women in particular expected to endlessly reinvent themselves to remain culturally valuable. Against that backdrop, her newest work radically celebrates her own legacy.

Forty-three years after releasing her debut single, Madonna has fundamentally expanded the possibilities of female autonomy.