Women

A rising number of women, stung by job losses and dropped insurance coverage, are turning to clinics and family planning agencies for routine gynecological exams, contraceptives and abortions. As the economy worsens, some Planned Parenthood clinics are reporting a record number of abortions. Other women's health agencies say they are experiencing heavier call volumes, more visits and more requests for abortion funding.

There's no doubt that next Wednesday's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" will be among the year's biggest blockbusters, on track to record one of the best opening weekends ever. But when the fighting machines take a breather, Warner Bros. is betting the battlebots won't have conquered one critical audience segment: women. In releasing its kid-with-cancer tear-jerker "My Sister's Keeper" directly opposite the "Transformers" sequel, Warner Bros.

Watching Katherine Heigl attempt to inject life into yet another cardboard cut-out of a controlling, manic working woman in "The Ugly Truth," you have to wonder: For this she wants to leave television? Yes, being a movie star is still a bigger deal in America than a being a television star, and "Grey's Anatomy" is battle-weary, but surely the chance to portray a woman who looks like she was constructed of a quiz in Glamour circa 1985 is not why she entered her profession.

George Sodini seethed with anger and frustration toward women. He couldn't understand why they ignored him, despite his best efforts to look nice. He said he hadn't had a girlfriend since 1984, hadn't slept with a woman in 19 years. "Women just don't like me. There are 30 million desirable women in the US (my estimate) and I cannot find one. Not one of them finds me attractive," the 48-year-old computer programmer lamented in a chilling diary he posted on the Internet.

Young women diagnosed with an early stage of ovarian cancer may be able to have surgery for the disease without losing their fertility. Traditionally, treatment of ovarian cancer involves removal of both ovaries and the uterus, which puts younger women into menopause and ends their chances of bearing a child. But a study published today in the journal Cancer, by researchers at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, showed that five-year survival rates for stage 1 ovarian cancer patients were the same for patients who had both ovaries removed and women who had only the cancerous ovary removed.

A Cal State Northridge graduate student who was briefly imprisoned in Iran while working on her master's thesis on women's rights and then prohibited from leaving the country for nine months returned this week to Los Angeles, school officials said Thursday. Esha Momeni, 29, arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday and was greeted by friends and family. "It is wonderful news," Cal State Northridge President Jolene Koester said in a prepared statement. "All of us in the CSU Northridge community have been looking forward to this day. I have met briefly with Esha, and she appears to be in fine spirits."

Advocates for battered women are urging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to release a terminally ill prison inmate who is serving a life sentence for her role in the 1982 murder of her abusive boyfriend at a secluded park near Lawndale. A state parole board decided last month that Deborah Peagler should be released after spending more than 25 years in prison for luring the victim to Alondra Park, where two men beat and strangled him with an electrical cord. The governor has until Aug. 21 to decide whether to reverse the parole board's decision.

Radio Khyber airs in the heart of Pakistan's wild and volatile tribal areas, where women are bound by strict centuries-old codes of conduct handed down by generations of Pashtuns, the dominant ethnic group in northwestern Pakistan. The code's tenets are oppressive and nonnegotiable. Women should confine themselves to their homes and the sole task of raising children. When they go to markets and other public places, a male relative should accompany them. And their voices should never be heard by strangers.

In the realm of power list injustices, this one was a stinker. Forbes magazine released its annual "100 Most Powerful Women" list Wednesday, and Walt Disney Co.'s Anne Sweeney appeared to suffer a bruising fall from grace. A year ago, Sweeney -- who as co-chairwoman of Disney Media Networks oversees such influential TV institutions as ABC, the Disney Channel and ABC Family -- ranked a respectable No. 30. This year, even though her job didn't change, Sweeney came in at No. 98. Forbes, say it isn't so. In fact, it wasn't.

In a reminder that the new strain of H1N1 influenza may be more dangerous than originally thought, federal health officials reported Thursday that 100 pregnant women infected with the virus were hospitalized in intensive care units in the first four months of the outbreak, and 28 have died. "What we are seeing is quite striking," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center on Immunization and Respiratory Disease at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.