Five stories from the week that are worth carrying into the weekend.
The men who lost their voices — and sang anyway
Two years ago, Noel Holmes was told he might never speak again after surgeons removed his voice box to treat throat cancer. This month, he stood on the stage of the Cork Opera House and sang.
Holmes is one of five members of Good Vibrations, Ireland’s first laryngectomy choir — founded by voice rehabilitation specialist Trish Rooney for people who have undergone the surgical removal of the larynx. Members relearn to communicate using voice prosthetics fitted over a stoma in the throat, redirecting air to produce speech. Some use hands-free versions. Their voices are deep and rumbly. Their Irish accents come through clearly.
“Learning to communicate again without a voice was very difficult, having to write down everything,” Holmes told AFP backstage at the Cork Opera House. “But you adapt, and getting the voice valve in — oh my God — it’s a new lease of life all over again, to be able to have fun with the grandkids again, and now sing!”
The oldest member, Paddy Fray, 78, said he shied away from meeting people after losing his voice. He performed before a full house in Cork. The choir sang “What a Wonderful World” and “Baker Street” alongside musicians and opera singers. They received a standing ovation. Concert host Evelyn Grant told AFP the appearance was “profoundly moving.” “To see these men in the choir who are getting such pure joy from their singing. They’re joyous to be alive and rehabilitating their voices through song. It’s gorgeous,” she said.
Good Vibrations is already planning further shows and television appearances.
Source: AFP via Kuwait Times/PressReader (wire, confirmed this session); The Journal.ie (Ireland, confirmed this session)
The men who lost their voices — and sang anyway
Two years ago, Noel Holmes was told he might never speak again after surgeons removed his voice box to treat throat cancer. This month, he stood on the stage of the Cork Opera House and sang.
Holmes is one of five members of Good Vibrations, Ireland’s first laryngectomy choir — founded by voice rehabilitation specialist Trish Rooney for people who have undergone the surgical removal of the larynx. Members relearn to communicate using voice prosthetics fitted over a stoma in the throat, redirecting air to produce speech. Some use hands-free versions. Their voices are deep and rumbly. Their Irish accents come through clearly.
“Learning to communicate again without a voice was very difficult, having to write down everything,” Holmes told AFP backstage at the Cork Opera House. “But you adapt, and getting the voice valve in — oh my God — it’s a new lease of life all over again, to be able to have fun with the grandkids again, and now sing!”
The oldest member, Paddy Fray, 78, said he shied away from meeting people after losing his voice. He performed before a full house in Cork. The choir sang “What a Wonderful World” and “Baker Street” alongside musicians and opera singers. They received a standing ovation. Concert host Evelyn Grant told AFP the appearance was “profoundly moving.” “To see these men in the choir who are getting such pure joy from their singing. They’re joyous to be alive and rehabilitating their voices through song. It’s gorgeous,” she said.
Good Vibrations is already planning further shows and television appearances.
Source: AFP via Kuwait Times/PressReader (wire, confirmed this session); The Journal.ie (Ireland, confirmed this session)
The underdogs going to the World Cup
FIFA’s expansion of the World Cup from 32 to 48 teams has opened the door to nations that have never been on the world’s biggest sporting stage — and this summer, four of them walk through it for the first time.
Cape Verde, Curaçao, Jordan, and Uzbekistan will all make their World Cup debuts when the tournament kicks off in the United States, Canada, and Mexico on June 11. Curaçao — a Caribbean island of roughly 150,000 people — becomes the smallest nation by population ever to qualify. Cape Verde, a volcanic archipelago off West Africa’s coast, topped their qualifying group ahead of Cameroon. Jordan, facing reigning champion Argentina in the group stage, completed a campaign that showcased, in the words of those who watched it, genuine football growth. Uzbekistan qualified for the first time in the country’s history.
Haiti returns to the World Cup for the first time since 1974 — a qualification that carries particular weight for a country where gangs control most of the capital and the national team’s coach has never been able to visit. Haiti midfielder Yassin Fortune put it plainly: “As children, we all watched the World Cup. We all dreamed of playing in the World Cup. But it was just a dream, a fantasy when you’re a child. Qualifying and being able to participate is unimaginable.”
Source: Al Jazeera (Qatar, state-funded/editorially independent, confirmed this session); Haitian Times (confirmed this session)
An American pope and a record for the poor
The election of Pope Leo XIV — the first American-born pope — has reinvigorated Catholic charitable giving in the United States. The Papal Foundation, a Philadelphia-based organization dedicated to funding the Holy Father’s charitable projects in the developing world, announced a record $15 million in grants for 2026, supporting 144 Church-led projects across 75 countries. It is the largest grant total in the foundation’s 38-year history.
The funded projects include a safe school for marginalized tribal children in India, professional IT training for vulnerable women in the Philippines, a dormitory in Tanzania to protect girls from early marriage and trafficking, and a well and water tower in the Republic of Guinea. Twenty-five new families joined the foundation in the year since Leo’s election — the clearest signal yet that having an American, English-speaking pope has strengthened the institutional giving infrastructure behind the Church’s global relief work.
Leo met with foundation members at the Apostolic Palace in early May and thanked them for generosity that had allowed, in his words, “countless people to experience in a concrete fashion the goodness and kindness of God in their own communities.”
Source: Vatican News (confirmed this session); AP via ABC News (wire, confirmed this session)
A single dose, two years of hope
Scientists at UC San Francisco have adapted one of oncology’s most powerful tools — CAR-T cell therapy, which reprograms a patient’s own immune cells to hunt and destroy cancer — to fight HIV instead.
In a small study, a single dose of these modified cells suppressed HIV in two patients without their usual antiretroviral medications: one for nearly a year, the other for nearly two years. Dr. Steven Deeks, who led the research, cautioned that larger and longer studies are needed before the therapy’s potential can be confirmed. But for the 40 million people living with HIV worldwide, who currently require lifelong daily medication to keep the virus suppressed, the study represents a genuine opening — the possibility that a one-time treatment could one day replace a lifetime of pills.
Source: AP via Washington Times (wire, confirmed this session)
The bridges built for monkeys
In Penang, Malaysia, conservationists from the Langur Project Penang have found a low-tech solution to a problem that was quietly killing an endangered species: dusky langurs — wide-eyed black monkeys recognizable by the white “masks” around their eyes — were being hit and killed crossing busy roads as their forest habitat was carved up by urban development.
The solution was rope bridges made from upcycled fire hoses, twisted to mimic tree branches, strung between trees and custom poles above the traffic. At the first site, at least eight langurs died in road accidents between 2016 and 2018. No deaths have been recorded there since the first bridge went up in 2019. The project has now installed three bridges across Penang, including a new one in April in the coastal suburb of Batu Ferringhi, and has recorded thousands of wildlife crossings on camera.
The bridges do more than prevent roadkill. They allow langurs to move between habitat fragments that were previously cut off from each other — expanding their range, reducing pressure on any single patch of urban forest, and easing the human-wildlife conflict that had led to trapping and relocation. LPP founder Yap Jo Lin called it a chance for the langurs to “find their way to a safe haven.”
Source: AFP via France 24 (wire, confirmed this session); Malay Mail (Malaysia, confirmed this session)
“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1789
