Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard discusses former President Joe Biden’s ‘extremism’ characterizations of Republicans, national security and more on ‘The Will Cain Show.’

by Frank Bergman, Slay News: South Korea is raising the alarm after the nation’s surging excess deaths have been linked to severe adverse events caused by Covid mRNA “vaccines.” The alert was issued after the South Korean government published the findings of a bombshell new study on skyrocketing mortality rates among the Covid-vaccinated. The study […]

On a spring morning in March 2025, a group of women gathered in a hall above a bus station in Hackney, about 4.5 miles from London. In front of them was a dazzling array of conditioners, serums, mousses and hairbrushes, punctuated by the odd mannequin head. Amid merriment and banter, they learned how to use different products and tools and felt the texture of their own hair. They learned about the optimum amounts of product needed to keep their hair looking fabulous — even if they could not see it for themselves.  This was no ordinary hair styling session. Led by hair stylist Anna Cofone, who has tamed the manes of Lana Del Rey, Dua Lipa and other glamorous stars, this workshop taught people with vision loss how to experiment with hairstyles and products and feel their way around different brushes. Learning to groom themselves, Cofone believes, could help over two million people in the United Kingdom who live with vision loss to feel more included by the fashion and beauty industry — and become more self-reliant and confident.  Attendees practice on mannequins at a Hair & Care workshop as Anna Cofone looks on. Courtesy of Hair & Care Project Growing up with a father who had retinitis pigmentosa and began losing his eyesight in his twenties, Cofone witnessed first-hand how vision loss erodes confidence, lowers self esteem and renders the person, as Cofone puts it, ‘invisible.’ One of the hardest things for Cofone was to watch him walk into a room, and just not be seen or acknowledged. “I realized that people tend not to really see people with disabilities,” she says. “It was quite sad as a child looking at my dad’s life; his world was so small.”  People with disabilities around the world face this lack of visibility. Although the WHO estimates that one in every six people has a disability of some sort, the global fashion and beauty industries often lose sight — forgive the pun — of this statistic.  “For my father, self-care and his appearance played a vital role in him retaining his sense of identity and enabling him to feel seen,” Cofone says, “and that was the reason I founded the Hair & Care Project in 2019.” The project aims to make fashion and beauty more accessible for people with vision loss. It organizes free hair styling workshops for people with blindness and low vision every month, and works with fashion designers to make their work more accessible.  “Hair is your crown of beauty, and knowing how to take care of your hair is knowing how to take care of yourself,” says 26-year-old Jessikah Inaba, the first barrister in the UK who is Black and blind. “People who are visually impaired tend to rely on other people to decide how to style their hair. Taking ownership of that is almost like you’re reclaiming a part of yourself.” During the pandemic, Inaba chaired a group for visually impaired girls between 11 and 25 years of age. She first encountered Hair & Care when the project conducted an online session with girls from the group. The girls loved the workshops, she says, and this was when she realized how useful something as basic as hair care could be.  In a large studio in Hackney, Cofone and her team of volunteer hair stylists work with attendees, many of whom are regulars, to curl, braid and style their locks. “Almost all of our participants emphasize that they do not feel included by the beauty industry, and more specifically within hair care available to them,” Cofone says. The Hair & Care workshops teach them how to look good and, more importantly, feel good.  “There is an assumption that blind or low-vision people don’t care about clothes or hair or makeup,” Cofone says. But she has found that the opposite is true. Courtesy of Hair & Care Project Each three-hour workshop is centered around the specific needs of the participants. In the March workshop, for example, attendees explored the uses of different conditioners, serums, mousse and lotions, and learned to shape and define their curls. Previous workshops have taught attendees to safely use heated tools and different types of brushes to achieve different looks. “We make sure that we have a volunteer hair stylist per person so that everyone gets one-on-one guidance and support,” Cofone says, “and they are trained especially on how to give accessible instructions to participants.” Often, attendees practice on mannequin heads before they practice on themselves.  Over 300 blind and low-vision women have participated in Hair & Care workshops so far. Since they are free for participants, funding is a perpetual challenge. Cofone estimates that the project’s annual running costs are around £30,000, or about $38,500 U.S. The workshops are supported by international hair care brands like Denman and Authentic Beauty Concept. Additionally, U.K.-based organizations like the National Lottery, People’s Postcode Society and Hackney Council have helped Hair & Care expand its reach and continue to keep its workshops free.  Weighed down by negative news? Our smart, bright, weekly newsletter is the uplift you’ve been looking for. [contact-form-7] In 2024, Cofone decided to extend the idea of bridging the disability gap to fashion. “There is an assumption that blind or low-vision people don’t care about clothes or hair or makeup,” she says, adding that the workshops have shown her that the exact opposite is true. While working backstage at London Fashion Week designing hair looks for several fashion shows, she had access to some designers. “I went to those designers and said to them, ‘How about you make your show accessible for blind and low vision people?’” she recalls. And some, such as Sinéad O’Dwyer, Roksanda, SS Daley and Chet Lo, agreed.   Blind since she was a few months old, Inaba loves fashion, describing herself as “a dressy person.” “But I never thought of going for fashion shows as they weren’t accessible,” she says. During the 2025 London Fashion Week, however, she went to Hair & Care’s special preview of Asian American designer Chet Lo’s collection. “We were able to feel the clothes … talk about the texture … feel the stretch [of the fabric] and think about the different body types that could fit into the type of clothing we had in front of us,” Inaba recounts.  Blind attendees were able to touch the fabrics that designer Chet Lo used in his 2025 collection. Courtesy of @PHOTO_WINDOW_T / Hair & Care Projet Project Making fashion shows accessible is a labor of love. First, Hair & Care works with the designer to create detailed audio descriptions of the collection, describing the colors, shapes and fabrics. This requires a whole new way of thinking about clothes. A checked pattern, for example, is described as being made up of little squares, and classically worn in the office. At the show venue, visually impaired guests are seated in a relatively quiet area and given noise-canceling headphones so they can listen to the commentary undistracted by the customary loud music at such events. Some designers, like Chet Lo and SS Daley, have even developed fabric swatch booklets for visually impaired fashionistas to touch. Designer Chet Lo developed fabric swatches and audio guides for blind guests for his 2025 show at London Fashion Week. Courtesy of @PHOTO_WINDOW_T / Hair & Care Project “Touching the actual clothes worn during the show helped me imagine what they would look like,” Inaba says. Indeed, some research on accessible fashion indicates that in addition to promoting individual expression and autonomy among people with visual impairments, it may also stimulate their creative development by helping them make mental representations of shapes, patterns and even colors.  Moreover, accessible fashion shows go a long way toward making people with low or no vision feel included. Inaba was lucky to grow up with an elder sister as her style guru, but says that many young women like her have a hard time trying to figure out the prevalent fashion and beauty trends. “When fashion is not accessible to girls like them but is accessible to everyone else, it’s almost like they’re left in the Dark Ages and the rest of society is advancing,” she says. Clearly, the highly visual world of fashion with its exacting, unattainable beauty standards still has a long way to go before it becomes truly inclusive, but attitudes are beginning to shift. Some of this is market-driven. Estimates suggest that globally, people with disabilities are a larger market than China, with a population that exceeds 1.85 billion. Fashion brands are catching on; for example, Gucci is using a visual interpreting service to improve in-store accessibility for disabled consumers. Fashion media, too: Since 2024, British Vogue magazine has published a braille edition. Inaba appeared in its first braille issue, and felt it was very inclusive. “They described all the dresses that people were wearing in braille and also in an audio version,” she says. “So now if anyone who has a visual impairment wants to be a la mode as we say in French, they’re able to do so independently, by interacting with the same platforms that other people do.”  Wait, you're not a member yet? Join the Reasons to be Cheerful community by supporting our nonprofit publication and giving what you can. Join Cancel anytime Meanwhile Cofone continues her crusade to help bring the visually impaired into the purview of mainstream fashion. “Underneath its very superficial and materialistic level, hair and makeup and fashion have quite a profound impact on [visually impaired] people in terms of their confidence, sense of identity, their sense of belonging,” she says. “And if it makes them want to go out, have a different type of social life, and potentially find a job, then that’s amazing, isn’t it?” The post How Blind Women Are Learning to Rock a Look appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.

Brandon Boyd tells Metal Hammer about how selling out the Hammerstein Ballroom on September 15 and 16, 2001 brought “lightness in a dark period of time”

Jason Bradley DeFord, professionally known as Jelly Roll, grew up in the Antioch neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee. His path to stardom didn’t follow a traditional arc—he carved out his name in the gritty underground rap scenes of the South long before he crossed over into country and rock. The hardships of his youth, including repeated incarceration as a teenager, would go on to shape the raw storytelling and emotional authenticity that permeate his music. These formative experiences became not only lyrical inspiration but a foundation for a career rooted in redemption, resilience, and real-world grit. Jelly Roll first gained attention The post Complete List Of Jelly Roll Songs From A to Z appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

George Michael was raised in the London suburb of East Finchley, the son of a Greek Cypriot restaurateur and an English dancer. Born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, he grew up immersed in music and pop culture, developing early aspirations of stardom. His musical partnership with childhood friend Andrew Ridgeley led to the formation of Wham! in 1981, a project that would launch him into global fame within a few short years. The duo’s infectious energy, danceable hooks, and Michael’s undeniable charisma quickly made them pop royalty, beginning with their debut album Fantastic in 1983. The commercial explosion came with Wham!’s second The post Complete List Of George Michael Songs From A to Z appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

Scientists have concluded that some planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system may be covered with oceans of liquid water, but the question of their potential habitability remains open. The study was published on the preprint server arXiv. Astronomers have conducted a new study of planets orbiting the star TRAPPIST-1 at a distance of 40 light years from us, which is considered close by cosmic standards. The first planets in this system were discovered 8 years ago, and today it is known that the TRAPPIST-1 system consists of seven rocky planets. That is, these are Earth-like worlds with a solid surface. At the same time, some planets are slightly smaller than Earth in size, and some are larger. Three planets are in the habitable zone of their star, where the temperature allows liquid water to exist on the surface. Scientists continue to study these planets to look for potential signs of life, and now, using the Webb Space Telescope, scientists have discovered that these planets may be covered in oceans of liquid water. And water is known to be a key ingredient for life. The TRAPPIST-1 star is a red dwarf, meaning it is smaller and cooler than the Sun, but emits more ultraviolet radiation. Previous studies have shown that some planets in the system may have a lot of water, but the radiation from the star is likely causing it to evaporate quickly. New study of planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system Recent observations have shown that TRAPPIST-1c may have water vapor and oxygen in its atmosphere. For water vapor to exist, a source of water, such as volcanic outgassing, is needed. According to current theories, when planets form, their water is contained in rocks. But due to powerful volcanism early in the planet’s evolution, this water evaporates into the atmosphere. If conditions are right, this water will cause oceans to form on the surface, where life may emerge. To explore this possibility, the scientists created simulations of volcanic outgassing based on the rocky planets of the solar system, namely Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. They then compared these data with observations of the planets. The study found that the outgassing rate on all seven planets ranged from 0.03 to 8 times that of Earth. At the same time, they found that the magma movement rate in the planets’ interiors was similar to that of Mars. But Mars is considered a volcanically dead planet, and the same may be true for the TRAPPIST-1 planets. The study found that water release rates on TRAPPIST-1 planets are likely lower than on Earth, but the likely range also includes outgassing rates that are an order of magnitude higher than on Earth. The results also indicate that the TRAPPIST-1 planets may have relatively dry mantles, like Earth. Yet water on these planets may make up as much as 1% of their mass. On Earth, water makes up only 0.02% of the planet’s mass. Scientists have concluded that the three planets in the habitable zone of the star TRAPPIST-1 may not have volcanic activity, but have different levels of water content. These may be water worlds covered in oceans of liquid water. But whether these worlds are suitable for life is still very difficult to say. The post Astronomers Have Discovered Water Planets Near Earth appeared first on Anomalien.com.

Although my own family never lost a loved one in war, my childhood best friend, “Buddy,” did. His uncle Jack was killed in Vietnam in 1967. More specifically, Buddy’s mother — my “emergency backup mom” growing up — lost her kid brother in that war. She remains part of my life to this day. Buddy was too young at the time to remember Jack or the news of his death. But Jack’s picture hung on the wall of their house, and his memory quietly lingered. The family held him in reverence. Grandfather didn’t just want to remember Jack — he needed to believe his son’s sacrifice mattered. As the 1970s turned into the 1980s, Jack began to feel like a figure from a distant past — rarely discussed except on Memorial Day and increasingly removed from the rhythm of everyday life. Then, in the early 1990s, our two families planned a multigenerational beach vacation on the Gulf Coast. Buddy and I were now young adults. His grandparents — Jack’s parents — joined us from out of state. In that rented beach house, I finally understood the depth of their loss. Twenty-five years after losing his only son, Buddy’s grandfather still talked about Jack often. He told stories about Jack’s strength of character, his patriotism, and how much he would have loved to be with us. He said Jack would have been a great father. He wished Buddy had cousins — the kids Jack never lived to father — playing with us on the beach. One morning, as Buddy, my dad, and I packed up for a fishing trip, Grandfather told us that Jack had loved to fish. He would have joined us, if only he could have. Each night at supper, Grandfather bowed his head and thanked God for the years they had with Jack. He prayed that Jack would remain in God’s care until the family could one day be reunited in heaven. He also talked about the war. About the helicopter shot down in Gia Dinh Province. About the impossible task of finding meaning in that loss. He didn’t just want to remember Jack — he needed to believe his son’s sacrifice mattered. Buddy’s grandmother cried often during that trip. The grief never left her, not even after 25 years. It stayed with her until the day she died. I pray she and her husband are now reunited with Jack. Buddy’s mother still mourns the brother she lost 58 years ago. We are blessed to live in a country where men like Jack give everything they have — willingly — for a cause greater than themselves. May God comfort those they left behind. And may He give us the wisdom and courage to build a world where fewer families must endure such loss.