THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2026 INSIDE CULTURE Who Named Your Vagina? HUMOR The 7 Deadly Sins of Trader Joe’s DEAR READER Stop Asking Me How My Retirement Is Going LIFE I Turned 51 and Somehow Became the Man of My Dreams Good morning, October always feels like a shift. Summer is officially over, the year suddenly feels shorter, and there's a lot going on in the world that deserves our attention. I've been thinking about what it means to get loud, get angry, and get involved. And I keep coming back...

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2026 INSIDE WELLNESS Untangling the Honey Plot CULTURE Broadway Is Having a Very Good Fall DEAR READER I Was Ready for It to End. Then It Did. LIFE She Used to Love to Swim. So Did I. Good morning, Tuesday, I sat in a room listening to some of the smartest women in media talk about what comes next. The panel was hosted by Ms. magazine, and one message came through loud and clear: women are going to need independent media. At the end, I raised my hand, introduced myself...

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2026 INSIDE WELLNESS Your Bones Start to Weaken at Menopause. Why Are We Waiting Until 65 To Look? CULTURE Apparently, We Have Food to Waste LIFE The Houses We Kept DEAR READER Bomb Shelters, Brides, and Resilience in a War Zone Good morning, This week's story about bone density was supposed to run last week. We pulled it because new information had come out days earlier. Some of the data deserved another look. So three editors, including me, went back through it with...

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2026 INSIDE CAREGIVING The Big Sisters Are Tired CULTURE Seeing The Odyssey Made Me Realize I Was a Calypso LIFE When Everyone You Love Is a Blue Dot DEAR READER The Weight of What We Inherited Good morning, There's something about the week after Labor Day that always feels like a reset. Maybe it's years of school calendars, but September still feels more like the beginning of something than January ever does. You may notice that PROVOKED looks a little different this...

THIS WEEK: SAYING NO • SKINCARE TEST • BOOK CLUB DRAMA • EXPLAINING OURSELVES THURSDAY • SEPTEMBER 3 • 2026 Good morning, A few weeks ago, my husband and I checked into a hotel in Midtown Manhattan around 11 at night. There was another couple behind us. The young woman checking us in looked at the four of us and asked if we were all together. “No,” I said. “Just the two of us.” She looked at the reservation. “But you have a room with two queen beds?” “Yes.” “But you're not together?” “No.”...

THIS WEEK: DOLLY • FEMALE CHEFS • ESTROGEN • FITNESS FADS • BEAUTY THURSDAY • AUGUST 27 • 2026 Good morning, I was 20 when 9 to 5 came out, still in college, studying to be an engineer at a maritime college where I spent my days in uniform surrounded mostly by men. I was blonde and buxom, preparing to enter a profession that looked nothing like me. I already knew people made assumptions about how smart I was. I thought my job was to prove them wrong. Or so I thought. Dolly Parton didn't...