Lewis Capaldi has come a long way since he started working on his mental health a couple of years ago, with the Scottish singer-songwriter revealing that he once had a “mental episode” that left him “convulsing” backstage at a show.
While guesting on the Tuesday (July 15) episode of Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast, Capaldi reflected on the tough moments in his career that forced him to confront the fact that he needed help. The musician made headlines in 2023 when he struggled to get through his Glastonbury set that year, but shortly before that happened, he says he had an incident at a concert in Chicago that was “even worse.”
“I couldn’t come back on stage and finish the song,” Capaldi told Von of performing in the Windy City. “I was like, backstage, convulsing and having this crazy panic attack, mental episode. It was really, really bad. It was the first time people at my shows had seen it.”
The musician has been open about dealing with mental health issues as well as Tourette’s, a disorder that causes difficult-to-control movements and sounds known as tics. In April 2023, Capaldi revealed that his struggles with Tourette’s were becoming so severe, he was considering stepping back from music.
After his onstage breakdown at Glastonbury two months later, Capaldi did just that. Immediately after stepping off stage at the festival — where fans had helped him get through his set by loudly singing the words for him — the artist knew it would be his last show until he got some help, he told Von.
“When it happened and when it was happening, it was, like, the lowest moment of my life, and it was horrible,” he recalled on the podcast of Glastonbury 2023. “I had this moment where I was on stage like two, three songs in. I was like, ‘This is the last time I’m going to play a gig for a long time. I need to try and get through the rest of the show, but when I come off, I’m done.’”
Capaldi is now back and better than ever before after spending the past two years reconnecting with himself, with the star telling Von that therapy and exercise have helped him immensely. This past June, he made a triumphant return to Glastonbury with a surprise set, shortly after which he announced that he’d be donating 734,000 hours of free virtual therapy with BetterHelp inspired by his own mental health journey.
While speaking to Von, he gushed that this year’s Glastonbury performance was a “bit of a comeback moment.”
“It was lovely,” he added. “It was a really special moment.”
Multi-service messaging app Beeper, which allows people to connect to all their chat apps from one interface, is relaunching its app on Wednesday to offer a more secure version that no longer requires use of its own cloud services. In addition, Beeper is introducing premium offerings that provide access to more accounts than its free tier and include power-user features like reminders, the ability to send messages later, an incognito mode to read messages without marking them read, AI voice note transcriptions, and more.
Now owned by WordPress.com maker Automattic, which bought Beeper for $125 million in 2024, the app has almost entirely integrated with competitor Texts.com, which Automattic also acquired the year prior for $50 million.
With a combined 30-person team (including contractors) and now operating under the Beeper brand, the messaging app supports WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, X, Telegram, Signal, Matrix, Slack, Google Chat, Discord, LinkedIn, and Google Messages (SMS/RCS). On Mac computers only, Beeper can also connect users with their iMessage chats, though Apple has shut down this access in prior versions.
Image Credits:Automattic/Beeper
The overall goal, according to Automattic, is to simplify the problem of having too many messaging apps to keep up with, while also keeping those chats secure.
The app previously first connected with Beeper Cloud before communicating with the messaging network, said Beeper CEO Kishan Bagaria. While that system remains the default, users will now have the option of switching to Beeper on device, which will see the app connecting directly to the messaging network and skipping the middleman.
“That ensures that end-to-end encryption is preserved and your privacy is as good as the official app,” Bagaria told TechCrunch in an interview ahead of the app’s relaunch. Whether the companies involved will appreciate having their own apps bypassed, however, remains to be seen.
“We have good relationships with some of these companies, and some of them are OK with this,” Bagaria said. “Others, we have not really heard from much.”
Image Credits:Automattic/Beeper
To stave off any potential shutdowns by messaging network providers, Beeper aims to support the business models of the first-party apps whenever possible. For example, if Telegram is showing ads, those ads will be shown in Beeper, too.
In addition, EU regulations requiring interoperable messaging platforms could put pressure on messaging app providers to leave a solution like Beeper’s alone.
Alongside the relaunch, there will now be an option to upgrade to a new $9.99 per month premium plan, Beeper Plus, which allows users to connect with 10 messaging services instead of just the five that free users have access to.
In addition, Plus subscribers have the option to schedule messages to send later, can set reminders to follow up on chats, read messages in incognito mode so they don’t feel pressured to respond immediately, access multiple accounts per network, view AI voice note transcriptions (processed via OpenAI’s Whisper model with user consent), and swap out their app icon for a custom version.
An even higher tier, Beeper Plus Plus, which starts at $49.99 per month, offers access to unlimited accounts and is designed with the needs of businesses or social media managers in mind. (Annual subscriptions are also available at a discounted price of $99.99 per year for Beeper Plus and $499 per year for Beeper Plus Plus.)
Image Credits:Automattic/Beeper
After Automattic acquired Beeper, the company combined its team with Texts.com to develop a new product that offered the best of both services. With Wednesday’s relaunch, those apps are now 99% integrated, Bagaria said, as only a few smaller features remain to be ported over.
Eventually, Automattic’s latest acquisition, the personal CRM Clay, which may be later rebranded), will also be integrated with Beeper, though it will remain a stand-alone app.
“It will mostly be built on top of the Beeper platform — it’ll stay complimentary,” Bagaria said. “Clay is an amazing app [as it] works today. Then, with Beaver, it can just ingest more interactions and data, which will make it like 2x to 10x better. Once that is done, I’m sure Clay can be a very powerful product.”
Beeper today has millions of registered users, including those from Texts.com. A small portion of those who are still using Texts.com are now being offered the option to migrate to Beeper, since it has added the on-device technology, which they prefer.
Image Credits:Automattic/Beeper
Bagaria said there may still be some remaining issues around reliability when moving to the on-device model, but those are being worked out as edge cases pop up. At some later point, Beeper Cloud will be deprecated once the company is sure the on-device model is capable of being everyone’s daily driver.
Further down the road, Beeper aims to make its data available to other companies, with user permission and controls to protect privacy. For instance, an MCP (model context protocol) Beeper one day could let users connect to chat apps via Claude or ChatGPT to ask it things like “summarize all my important messages from this evening.”
Those developments will take some time, as Bagaria says he’s also a “very privacy-conscious user,” and would want a solution that’s very transparent about what data is accessed and when, and one that allows users to even manually say yes or no to data requests, perhaps.
“We also don’t want to have server farms where we have models trained on your data. That’s a complete no-no,” he said.
Marvel Rivals Season 3 has the player base excited, and Kai Cenat is also testing the update out. During a recent stream, several in-game Heroes paid Cenat a visit, including upcoming character Blade. Let’s recap the crossover event and how players can expect Blade to change Marvel Rivals esports.
— Kai Mafia Updates🗽💫 (@Kaimafiaupdates) July 16, 2025
On July 15 2025, Twitch personality and influencer Kai Cenat hosted a Marvel Rivals stream to test out the title’s Season 3 launch. The broadcast was a collaboration with members of Cenat’s content creation group, Any Means Possible (AMP). During his in-game adventures, an unexpected guest wandered into Cenat’s streaming room: upcoming Marvel Rivals Hero Blade.
The Blade cosplayer, wearing the character’s iconic black trenchcoat and futuristic glasses, joked, “I’m your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.” Kai paused his Punisher gameplay and took off his headphones in shock, saying: “Yo, why is Blade in my room?” as ‘Blade’ showed off some heroic poses with a sword.
Two additional Marvel Rivals characters, Wolverine andSpider-Man, also appeared during the livestream. Wolverine flexed his claws inconspicuously during a team fight, and Spidey hovered behind Cenat’s gaming chair while doing idle animations. Several other AMP members got superhero visits during their broadcasts, with one of Cenat’s teammates comically saying he was too distracted to play since Spider-Man was going crazy in his stream room.
Blade will reportedly release with Marvel Rivals Season 3.5. / Marvel; NetEase via YouTube
Blade will reportedly arrive to Marvel Rivals alongside its Mid-Season 3.5 patch. The update is on schedule for Friday, July 11 2025. The current Season will end on Friday, September 12 2025, so Blade will almost certainly be playable before that date.
While we know Blade will release sometime during Season 3.5, there is no guarantee he will launch immediately after the update. Some previous Marvel Rivals Heroes have gone live a few hours to a few days after the major Patch.
For more in-depth information, check out the related article below.
Related Article: Blade Release Date Confirmed for Marvel Rivals Season 3.5
Marvel and NetEase have not yet commented on Blade’s Hero class, but his leaked abilities indicate he is most likely a Vanguard (Tank) hero. He will charge through the battlefield, take and make space, and protect squishier allies.
This will be a refreshing change: Marvel Rivals suffers from Duelist inflation with over 20 DPS characters, compared to just 10 Vanguards and 9 Strategists. Blade’s addition will add variety to an underserved Hero category and attract Vanguard mains back after the crushing Wolverine-Phoenix wombo combo devastated the role. Notably, Blade’s abilities include anti-heal and damage reduction aspects, which could possibly make him a good counter for Wolverine.
Kai Cenat’s stream cameo is just one teaser for the Marvel community’s favorite vampire-slash-vampire-hunter. More information about Blade will likely emerge as Season 3.5’s patch date draws closer. For now, the Marvel Rivals player base is building hype and reminiscing about easter eggs, like Blade’s appearances in the Central Park map and Dracula’s Castle.
Related Article: Marvel Rivals Leaks Reveal Season 3 Heroes Phoenix and Blade
Astronomers have discovered that radiation emitted by a rapidly spinning neutron star, or “pulsar,” is dominated by the impact of its powerful particle winds — and not by the material it strips from a companion star.
The pulsar in question is PSR J1023+0038 (J1023), which sits in a binary system located 4,500 light-years away from Earth. This binary consists of a “dead star,” or neutron star that spins around 600 times a second, as well as a low-mass star upon which the neutron star “feeds.”
The rapid spin of J1023 classifies it as a millisecond pulsar, but because it transitions clearly between an active state — during which it feeds and blasts out beams of radiation from its poles — and an inactive state, it is part of a rare subclass called “transitional millisecond pulsar.” One of just three known transitional millisecond pulsars, J1023 is an invaluable target for astronomers.
“Transitional millisecond pulsars are cosmic laboratories that help us understand how neutron stars evolve in binary systems,” team leader and National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) researcher Maria Cristina Baglio said in a statement. “J1023 is a particularly valuable source of data because it clearly transitions between its active state, in which it feeds on its companion star, and a more dormant state, in which it behaves like a standard pulsar, emitting detectable radio waves.”
The matter this neutron star strips from its companion doesn’t fall straight to the surface of the dead star, but instead forms a flattened cloud, or “accretion disk” around the star. As this disk swirls around the neutron star, gradually feeding it, it emits powerful radiation consisting of wavelengths across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Thus, the team was able to examine J1023 using NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in northern Chile, and the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico, making this the first survey of binary X-ray source over the X-ray, optical and radio bands of the electromagnetic spectrum.
“During the observations, the pulsar was in a low-luminosity active phase, characterized by rapid changes between different X-ray brightness levels,” Baglio said.
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An illustration of a rapidly spinning neutron star or “pulsar.” (Image credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva)/NASA)
Assessing J1023 across three bands of the electromagnetic spectrum allowed the team to determine the polarization of radiation coming from this pulsar. Polarization refers to the orientation of light waves as they propagate.
Of particular note was IXPE’s observation that 12% of the X-rays from J1023 are polarized. That is the highest level of polarization ever seen from such a binary star system.
The radio wave and optical light emissions showed lower polarizations of 2% and 1%, respectively. What was particularly interesting about the optical polarization was the fact that it was oriented in the same direction as the angle of X-ray polarization. This suggests a common mechanism behind the polarization of X-rays and the polarization of optical light.
The findings confirm an earlier theory that suggested the observed polarized emissions from binary systems such as J1023 are generated when pulsars’ winds, streams of high-energy charged particles flowing from these dead stars, strike the matter in the surrounding accretion disks.
This research could finally help scientists understand what powers pulsars, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the sensitivity of IXPE.
“This observation, given the low intensity of the X-ray flux, was extremely challenging, but the sensitivity of IXPE allowed us to confidently detect and measure this remarkable alignment between optical and X-ray polarization,” team member and INAF researcher Alessandro Di Marco said. “This study represents an ingenious way to test theoretical scenarios thanks to polarimetric observations at multiple wavelengths.”
The team’s research was published on July 1 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
While nowhere near as popular as Mario games, Donkey Kong has continuously released some of the best 2D platformers in the entire market. The Donkey Kong Country series, which started on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, has released two remasters on Nintendo Switch specifically. One of these is Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, launched earlier this year for Nintendo Switch, and if you’re a fan of 2D platformers, this is easily a must-own game. Then there’s also Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, which is on sale for the same price at Woot as well.
These deals are part of an ongoing video game sale at Woot, which lasts until August 1 and includes a ton of other Switch games.
Donkey Kong Switch Games Are on Sale at Woot
Donkey Kong Country Returns HD features over 80 levels across nine different worlds. This version of the game brings the new features found in the 3DS release, in addition to a new Modern Mode that increases the number of hearts per level. Some of the levels you’ll come across will be incredibly challenging, but the platforming is very fair and exceptionally fun, whether playing alone or with a friend.
DKC Returns initially launched on the Wii in 2010, but even 15 years later, the game still holds up. We gave the game an 8/10 in our review, stating, “Donkey Kong Country Returns HD is a passable remaster of an amazing platformer – more modern improvements and a larger graphical update would have been nice, but this is still one of the greatest 2D platformers Nintendo has released this century.”
The other deal worth mentioning in this sale is Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, which was originally released for the Wii U. We gave that game a 9/10 in our review, stating, “Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze is a fun and challenging platformer that isn’t afraid to make you work hard.”
Now is the perfect time to jump into DK’s previous adventures, as Donkey Kong Bananza (out tomorrow!) is set to feature numerous references to older games in the series. If you’re excited for Donkey Kong’s big debut on Nintendo Switch 2, be sure to check out our 10/10 review of the game.
Donkey Kong Bananza – Nintendo Switch 2
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Explore a vast underground world—by smashing your way through it! Bash through just about anything with the raw power of Donkey Kong! Exclusively for the Nintendo Switch 2 system. Release Date 7/17/2025.
What is Woot?
If you aren’t familiar with Woot, the easiest way to learn more about it is through the about page on its website. In a nutshell, Woot is a daily deals site that was founded back in 2004 and later purchased by Amazon. They offer deals on just about everything that many other retailers don’t often have. The products themselves are always high-quality and backed by Amazon, so it’s legit. Prime members even get free standard shipping on anything they buy on Woot, so you don’t need to worry about hitting a minimum price or total shipping costs if you already have Prime.
In addition to this video game sale, there’s also a pretty good sale on board games and puzzles worth checking out.
Noah Hunter is a freelance writer and reviewer with a passion for games and technology. He co-founded Final Weapon, an outlet focused on nonsense-free Japanese gaming (in 2019) and has contributed to various publishers writing about the medium.
The recent U.S. pullback from funding global HIV prevention programs through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has sparked concern among public health experts. One of those speaking out is Mulugeta Gebregziabher, Ph.D., a professor of public health at the Medical University of South Carolina and a federal employee with the Veterans Administration.
In an interview with Managed Healthcare Executive, he expressed that although he works for the state and federal government, his views are his own and do not represent the positions of either institution.
Gebregziabher presented his views this week at the IAS 2025 meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, where researchers and other professionals in the field gathered to discuss the future of HIV prevention and treatment.
A U.S. citizen originally from Africa, Gebregziabher highlighted the central role PEPFAR has played in the global HIV response.
According to the 2025 UNAIDS report, the program supported HIV testing for 84 million people and treatment for 20.6 million in 2024 alone. He warned that the Trump administration’s decision to reduce funding for prevention puts decades of progress at risk.
“In the United States, there are approximately 1.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS, and 13% of them don’t even know it,” he said, adding that this means they need testing.
HIV/AIDS continues to disproportionately impact racial and ethnic minorities, gay and bisexual people, and men who have sex with men, he added.
He expects the U.S. to be a leader in this area—especially at a time when the country starts disinvesting from the CDC and USAID and even pulls out from the WHO. He added that infectious diseases don’t recognize borders and that collaboration is crucial right now.
Despite these concerns, Gebregziabher remains hopeful.
He sees promise in prevention tools such as PrEP and believes the global health community will rally to maintain progress toward goals like 95-95-95: diagnosing 95% of people with HIV, getting 95% of those diagnosed on treatment and achieving viral suppression in 95% of those treated.
However, he warned that without stable U.S. leadership and funding, both domestic and international HIV efforts could lose critical momentum.
Physicists with the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Cornell University and collaborating institutions have created a microscopic device that can both detect and control the rapid “dance” of electron spins in antiferromagnetic materials — a leap that could enable a new generation of ultrafast, energy-efficient electronics.
The work was published this month in Science.
Antiferromagnetic materials are solids in which electrons spin in opposite directions, canceling each other’s This zero-magnetism makes them fast, stable and immune to outside magnetic interference.
Until now, scientists could only detect this quantum behavior using bulky lab equipment — making it hard to imagine practical uses in everyday tech.
Why it matters: Antiferromagnets can operate at mind-boggling speeds — trillions of cycles per second — and could support real-world applications that include:
Ultra-secure, lightning-fast wireless communications, well beyond 5G speeds.
Ultra-high-resolution medical imaging.
Safer airport security scanning without X-rays.
Nano-oscillators that convert a static voltage to high-frequency signals, useful in a wide range of applications, including advanced computers and sensors.
And it does all of this with a device just a few atoms thick, using only electric signals — no room-sized equipment required.
The work was made possible by funding from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy — two key supporters of fundamental research driving tomorrow’s technology.
The breakthrough: The team built a microscopic structure called a “tunnel junction” made of three, ultra-thin stacked layers of materials. This tiny device can do two key things:
Detect antiferromagnetic resonance — the natural vibration of opposing electron spins.
Tune that resonance electrically using a force called spin-orbit torque, which nudges the electron spins into motion.
USC Dornsife physicist Kelly Luo. (Photo: Courtesy of Kelly Luo.)
What they’re saying: “This gives us a quantum-scale stethoscope and control knob in one,” said Kelly Luo, co-corresponding author and Gabilan Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Chemistry, and Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at USC Dornsife. “We’re able to listen to the spin dynamics — and then dial them up or down — using nothing but electric current.”
How it’s different: Previous methods for detecting antiferromagnetic behavior relied on bulky lab equipment and relatively large materials. This new device works at the micron scale — roughly 1,000 times smaller — making it the most compact, electrically tunable platform yet.
“We’ve shrunk the technology down to a size that makes practical applications possible,” said Daniel Ralph, co-corresponding author and R. Newman Professor of Physics in Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences. “That’s what makes this so exciting.”
A clever twist: At first, the team couldn’t tell which of the two magnetic layers was responsible for the signal — their behaviors were too closely linked.
Their solution? Twist the layers ever so slightly to break the symmetry. That allowed them to target just one layer with electric current while leaving the other unaffected.
“It was like trying to separate the sound of two violins playing the same note,” said lead author Thow Min Jerald Cham, formerly at Cornell and now David and Ellen Lee Postdoctoral Scholar at Caltech. “That tiny shift helped us tell them apart and control each one individually.”
What’s next? The researchers plan to develop nano-oscillators based on their device — tiny components that generate ultra-fast signals for applications in medical imaging, scientific instruments, telecommunications, quantum computing and more.
They also want to explore “negative damping” — a phenomenon where, instead of fading out, the spin oscillations actually gain energy. That could allow the device to act as a powerful, terahertz radiation source in a footprint smaller than a grain of sand.
About the study
In addition to Luo, Ralph and Cham, study authors include Xiaoxi Huang of Cornell; Daniel Chica and Xavier Roy of Columbia University; and Kenji Watanabe and Takashi Taniguchi of Japan’s National Institute for Materials Science.
Read more on the Cornell University College of Letters, Arts and Sciences’ news website.
Editor’s Note: Darrin S. Joy and Jim Key contributed to this article along with Linda B. Glaser of Cornell.
