• Lena Dunham has written a deeply personal essay about coming to terms with permanent infertility at age 31. Vogue.com published Dunham's detailed account Wednesday of her decision to undergo a hysterectomy late last year to relieve what she describes as debilitating pain from endometriosis. The 31-year-old award-winning creator of Girls and LennyLetter.com also shares her profound desire to experience pregnancy and become a mother and her grief around losing her fertility. She says dealing with endometriosis distanced her from her romantic partner. Dunham and musician Jack Antonoff announced in January that they had ended their five-year relationship. Dunham says she has known all her life that "something is wrong with my uterus" and has had nine surgeries to cope with endometriosis, which involves the tissue that normally lines the inside of the uterus growing outside the uterus, since her diagnosis 10 years ago.
• Actress Minnie Driver has resigned from her role as an Oxfam celebrity ambassador, and corporate backers demanded accountability as the aid organization sought to address allegations that senior staff members working in crisis zones paid for sex among the desperate people the group was meant to serve. The Good Will Hunting actress said she will no longer support the organization after its response to a sex-abuse scandal in Haiti after its 2010 earthquake. Britain's top development official has savaged the leadership of Oxfam for its handling of the scandal. On Tuesday, Driver tweeted: "All I can tell you about this awful revelation about Oxfam is that I am devastated. Devastated for the women who were used by people sent there to help them, devastated by the response of an organisation that I have been raising awareness for since I was 9 years old #oxfamscandal." The anti-poverty organization has been reeling since the Times of London reported last week that seven former Oxfam staff members who worked in Haiti faced misconduct allegations that included using prostitutes and downloading pornography. Oxfam says it investigated, but the government and charity regulators have criticized its lack of transparency in its handling of the matter. U.K. Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt has warned that government funding to the group -- about$43.8 million -- is at risk unless it comes clean about the allegations. "While investigations have to be completed and any potential criminals prosecuted accordingly, what is clear is that the culture that allowed this to happen needs to change and it needs to change now," she said.
A Section on 02/15/2018