The boy was seen getting into difficulty at Swanholme Lakes in Lincoln earlier, police say.

Getty Images/Catherine Falls Commercial By Eman Bare ·Updated May 24, 2026 Getting your Trinity Audio player ready…

Every time I learn something new about women’s health, I feel a profound sense of grief. At the center is always rage. Why did I not know this before? I ask myself. How many women in my lineage – in all of our lineages – died without ever knowing this information? That is, without ever knowing how to exist in communion with our bodies.When I first learned about perimenopause, I immediately thought of my mother.  What was she balancing while her body was shifting and asking her to slow down? Did she even know that her cycle would change years before she entered menopause? 

The truth is, in a lot of ways, we weren’t supposed to know. It’s no secret that women’s health is notoriously underfunded and under-researched. Including women in clinical trials only became legally required in 1993, with the passage of Public Law 103-43. Factor in race and cultural stigma, and Black and Brown women are left even more in the dark. 

Perimenopause is the season before your body transitions into menopause. It usually begins in your late 30s to early 40s and is commonly marked by changes in your menstrual cycle, due to fluctuating hormones, which can lead to more severe PMS, sleep disturbances, and hot flashes. There is so much that we still do not know about menopause, and while conversations on perimenopause are becoming more common, they are still relatively new.According to Angelica Lindsey-Ali, a sexual and reproductive health educator, Black and Brown women often miss the signs that they are undergoing any sort of hormonal changes because of chronic stress. 

How Stress Interferes With the Body’s Intelligence 

“When it comes to stress and perimenopause, for a lot of us, we do not realize the signs because stress is neutral for us,” Lindsey-Ali says. “It’s something that we always experience and because we find ourselves in a constant state of hypervigilance, we may not pick up the hormonal shifts and changes. Stress can mute our body’s ability to recognize itself and the processes that it’s going through. From a biological, medical, and emotional standpoint, stress exacerbates symptoms of perimenopause.”

She says that she often sees Black women diagnosed with chronic stress-related ailments, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, during perimenopausal years. While doctors often recommend dietary changes and exercise to mitigate these risks, she says it’s not enough for women experiencing chronic stress.Womb Wellness Educator Chantal Blake says she often meets Black women who are perimenopausal and frustrated with their bodies but unaware of the role strain plays.“So many of my clients tell me that they don’t have time to eat or sleep because of life’s demands, but how we eat and sleep are fundamental to our health. Even if we got through our 20s and 30s with poor self-care, our 40s are the decade of reckoning,” she says.“It might feel like a betrayal when you can’t use your body as you previously did. But the symptoms of perimenopause are opportunities to start giving more intention and attention towards the body that has held you through so much and now needs to be held.”

The Struggle of Slowing Down

A common response I’ve received while having conversations on cycle syncing or preparing for perimenopause is that “we” don’t do that. That our grandmothers and great-grandmothers didn’t need to take a week off during their bleed, and that their bodies were strong and built for durability. But what was done out of survival cannot also be what happens when there is choice. 

And African history shows that was not always the case. 

As Lindsey-Ali points out, traditional African societies saw perimenopause as preparation for becoming an elder. Women weren’t seen as disposable once they entered the golden years of child-rearing. Instead, they were being prepared for another role that would require less physical energy and more spiritual grounding.“When you enter perimenopause, you become the foundation and the pillar for the family. You become the person that people seek out advice from. You become a repository of knowledge and that is a place of deep, deep honor,” Lindsey-Ali says. 

“It’s not a place of like discardment. It’s a place of trust and vulnerability,” she adds. “These are the queen mothers. These are the priestesses. These are the guides. These are the teachers. Not just for the women but for the men, and I feel like that is the spiritual and emotional disconnect that we have with perimenopause, because we feel as if it is like our time is up when really our time is just beginning. It’s a recalibration and a reimagination of what it means to be a woman and the space that women hold in society.” 

When you’ve been socialized to see your value as dependent on your productivity, prioritizing rest can feel like a threat to your nervous system. But studying ancestral wisdom and the ways of traditional communities shows us that the ability to slow down is a strength and a deep-rooted connection to the body. 

Preparing for What’s to Come

Lindsey-Ali says that your 30s is the best time to prepare for this next chapter.  

“I tell younger women: start tending to your liver, your sleep, and your boundaries. Eat foods that support hormonal health, such as leafy greens, seeds, and omega-rich oils. Learn the rhythm of your cycle so that when it changes, you’ll notice. And cultivate spiritual and emotional rest,” she says. 

“We can’t supplement our way out of chronic stress, nor can we fast our way into balance if our souls are exhausted. In the same way we prepare financially for retirement, we should prepare emotionally and physically for menopause. The earlier you begin living with awareness, the gentler the transition will be.” 

Changing our relationship with our bodies is the key to a healthy perimenopause. “The perimenopausal transition can be eased by slowing down our gears a bit. Investing more time into our well-being and personal joy,” Blake says. “Having clearer boundaries in our personal and professional lives. Nourishing our gut health and kidney health. And expanding our ecosystem of care to include acupuncture, massage, naturo rel=”tag”>health and wellness menopause perimenopause Prevent and Protect

The post Prevent And Protect: Now Is The Time To Get Get Ready For Menopause appeared first on Essence.

Emma Raducanu’s French Open campaign comes to an early end as she suffers a frustrating first-round defeat by Argentina’s Solana Sierra.

Emma Raducanu’s French Open campaign comes to an early end as she suffers a frustrating first-round defeat by Argentina’s Solana Sierra.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has a greater than 95 percent chance of defeating incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) in the Lone Star State’s Senate GOP runoff, according to the prediction market Kalshi. As of Sunday afternoon, Paxton had a 95.6 percent chance of winning the runoff, which will be decided on Tuesday after…

Dr. Chris Brown will see you now … because the artist now has an honorary doctorate! Harvest Christian University — a private faith-based school in Dallas, Texas — awarded Brown a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Visual & Performing Arts…

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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Lee Zeldin said Sunday that the Trump administration is providing “flexibility” to businesses by loosening restrictions on the use of super-polluting greenhouse gases in commercial refrigeration. Under the new EPA rule unveiled on Wednesday, supermarkets can use hydrofluorocarbons that are up to 1,400 times as potent as carbon dioxide until 2032….

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei on Sunday interpreted history in suggesting Iran is winning the negotiations with President Trump to end the near three-month conflict. Baqaei, whose country has been battered by the nearly three-month war, posted on the social platform X an image depicting an Iranian archaeological site that shows the Roman emperor…

President Donald Trump’s announcement that the U.S. and Iran have a framework of a peace deal was met Sunday with skepticism from key Republicans — and confusing claims from the president himself.

It remained unclear whether Iran would give up its cache of enriched uranium or reduce its vast missile stockpile — the two top goals that the U.S. and Israel announced when they attacked Iran nearly three months ago. The timing of a full agreement was also uncertain but it would not be signed on Sunday, a senior Trump administration official granted anonymity to discuss details told MS NOW.

Hours after he said on Saturday that the two countries had agreed to a memorandum of understanding “pertaining to PEACE,” the president on Sunday posted an ominous image on Truth Social that was anything but peaceful: An AI-generated photo of an American warplane bombing Iranian-flagged ships, with their soldiers flying through the air into the water.

“Adios,” the accompanying message over the image posted by Trump said.

In another post Sunday morning, Trump said the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports “will remain in full force and effect” until a final agreement is reached. He reiterated his demand that Iran “cannot develop or procure” a nuclear weapon and said he has instructed his negotiators “not to rush into a deal.”

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Trump DoD is ‘least transparent in American history’: Dem Rep. torches Trump’s Iran conflict

May 23, 2026 / 09:09

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a Trump ally and foreign policy hawk, warned Sunday: “President Trump: Stick to your guns in getting a good deal with Iran. Equally important, stick to your guns in insisting Saudi Arabia and others join the Abraham Accords as part of these negotiations.”

The GOP senator hailed what he called a “brilliant proposal by President Trump” after cautioning on Saturday that if the Strait of Hormuz remains unprotected and Iran retains destructive capabilities, “It makes one wonder why the war started to begin with.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said bluntly, “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Noting that the Pentagon claimed months ago that U.S. military forces had “obliterated” Iran’s defenses, Tillis told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, “Now we’re talking about a posture where we may accept the nuclear material remaining in Iran? How does that make sense at all?”

The GOP senator said any deal that isn’t ratified by Congress is “going to be doomed to fail.”

Under the tentative deal, according to the White House official granted anonymity to discuss sensitive details, the U.S. and Iran have agreed to the unfreezing of certain Iranian assets, to negotiate curbing Iran’s nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply normally transits.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the president against such criticism that the emerging framework could amount to a strategic victory for Iran. Rubio said Trump remains steadfast to his repeatedly stated goal that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

“His commitment to that principle, that they’ll never have a nuclear weapon shouldn’t be questioned by anybody, and the idea that somehow this president, given everything he’s already proven he’s willing to do, is going to somehow agree to a deal that ultimately winds up putting Iran in a stronger position when it comes to nuclear ambitions is absurd,” Rubio said Sunday during a state visit to India. “That’s just not going to happen.”

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was blunt in his warning that the “rumored 60-day ceasefire” would be “a disaster.”

The proposal would give Iran 30 to 60 days to negotiate how to resolve its highly enriched uranium, according to The New York Times, which cited three senior Iranian officials.

Other GOP critics of the plan included Mike Pompeo, former CIA director and secretary of state in the first Trump administration, who denounced the framework as “not remotely America First.”

“It’s straightforward: Open the damned strait. Deny Iran access to money. Take out enough Iranian capability so it cannot threaten our allies in the region,” Pompeo wrote on X Saturday.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said if the proposal allows Iran to continue to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon and effectively retain control over the Strait of Hormuz “then that outcome would be a disastrous mistake.”

Tillis, in his appearance on CNN Sunday, criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s leadership of the Pentagon, saying, “I think, with all these mistakes in total, it’s beginning to make Kristi Noem look like a five-star recruit.”

Emily Hung contributed to this report.

The post Trump’s Iran deal up in the air amid GOP blowback appeared first on MS NOW.

Kate White says she is “extremely concerned about the inability to get resources” to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kate White says she is “extremely concerned about the inability to get resources” to the Democratic Republic of Congo.