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Weird Stories Daily, New York, NY (2026)

10/17/2026

Clint Eastwood had just $1,000 to spend on a song for his first film as a director. Roberta Flack was about to give him something worth far more than that.

In 1971, Eastwood was directing *Play Misty for Me*, a psychological thriller about a radio disc jockey whose life is disrupted by an obsessive admirer. For a romantic scene in the film, he wanted a particular song. He had fallen in love with Flack’s recording of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and knew its gentle, emotional sound was exactly what the scene needed.

The song had originally been written in 1957 by British folk singer Ewan MacColl. Flack recorded it for her debut album, *First Take*, released in 1969. Although critics praised the album, it attracted relatively little commercial attention, and the recording had yet to reach a wide audience.

Eastwood contacted Flack to ask permission to use the song in his film. He explained that he had only $1,000 available for the recording. Flack later recalled that she told him he could use it for nothing.

Eastwood included the song in a love scene between his character and Donna Mills. When *Play Misty for Me* opened in November 1971, audiences heard Flack’s remarkable voice accompanying one of the film’s most intimate moments. The scene introduced the recording to millions of people and helped change the course of her career.

In 1972, Atlantic Records released an edited version of the song as a single. It quickly climbed the charts and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, where it remained for six consecutive weeks. The following year, Flack won Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year, among other honors connected to the recording.

A song that had spent nearly two years receiving little commercial attention had become one of the most memorable recordings of the decade. Eastwood had been looking for the perfect song for a scene in his first film as a director, and the decision to use Flack’s recording helped bring her music to a much larger audience.

What began with a budget of just $1,000 became a turning point in Flack’s career. Eastwood had asked to use the song for his film, and Flack had offered it for free. The recording went on to earn major awards and reach millions of listeners, proving that a small decision made for one movie could have a lasting impact far beyond the screen.

10/16/2026

The woman is not holding a baby. She is holding her own right breast, which has swollen to nearly a foot long. A thin worm is slowly emerging from it. Jimmy Carter stands frozen, taking in the scene. Around him, in the village of Denchira, nearly 350 people are suffering from the same disease. It is called Guinea worm, and for many of them, the pain has become a part of everyday life.

People become infected by drinking contaminated pond water. Tiny larvae live inside water fleas, which are swallowed when people drink the water. Once inside the body, the worm grows for about a year, sometimes reaching three feet in length. Eventually, it begins to emerge through a painful blister in the skin. There is no cure and no vaccine. The only treatment is to slowly wind the worm around a small stick, a little at a time, over the course of several weeks. Looking at the suffering around him, Carter says, “Well, we can't leave them like this.”

Eight years earlier, in November 1980, few people expected much more from Jimmy Carter. He had just suffered a crushing defeat in his bid for a second presidential term, losing the electoral vote by 489 to 49. At fifty-six, he returned home to Plains, Georgia, while many people assumed his most important years were behind him.

In 1982, Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, established the Carter Center in Atlanta. They were not interested in building a monument to his presidency. They wanted to create an organization that could make a real difference in people's lives. Four years later, in 1986, a group of health experts brought Carter a proposal. They believed there was one disease the world might be able to eliminate completely. Smallpox was the only human disease that had ever been eradicated, and they thought Guinea worm could become the second.

At the time, an estimated 3.5 million people were infected every year across 21 countries in Africa and Asia. Most world leaders paid little attention to the disease because it rarely killed its victims. It mainly affected poor farmers living in remote villages, people who had little influence and few opportunities to make their suffering heard. Carter decided to take on the challenge anyway.

The strategy seemed straightforward. Filter drinking water, keep infected people out of ponds, and teach communities how the worm spread. But putting those steps into practice meant reaching tens of thousands of villages, one community at a time. It was slow, difficult work, and progress depended on people in some of the most isolated places in the world.

In 1995, the campaign faced one of its biggest obstacles in Sudan, where civil war prevented health workers from reaching hundreds of infected villages. Carter responded in a way few people expected. He persuaded both sides to agree to a temporary ceasefire so that medical workers could reach the people who needed help. The agreement became known as the “Guinea Worm Ceasefire.” During the pause in fighting, workers distributed 200,000 water filters and discovered infected communities that had previously gone unnoticed. In the years that followed, the Carter Center sent approximately nine million pipe filters to Sudan, enough to reach everyone considered at risk.

In Nigeria, children welcomed Carter with a large sign that read, “Watch out, Guinea worm, here comes Jimmy Carter!” The campaign was beginning to show results. The number of infections fell from thousands to hundreds, and communities that had lived with the disease for generations began to see the possibility of a future without it.

Then, in 2007, the fight faced another setback in Ghana. Cases surged again, and Carter visited a hospital filled with children and adults suffering from the disease. During his visit, he publicly suggested that Guinea worm should be renamed “Ghana worm.” The comment embarrassed the country, but the campaign continued. Within three years, Ghana had stopped transmission of the disease.

On August 20, 2015, Carter, then ninety years old, faced reporters in Atlanta with difficult news of his own. Cancer had spread to his brain, and he was scheduled to receive his first radiation treatment that same day. Many expected him to focus on his diagnosis and what lay ahead for him. Instead, he spoke about Guinea worm. “I'd like for the last Guinea worm to die before I do,” he told them. Months later, his doctors announced that he was cancer-free.

Even as the campaign approached its goal, however, a new problem emerged. Dogs and other animals began carrying the parasite, meaning that eliminating infections in humans would no longer be enough. In 2024 alone, 664 animal infections were reported across six countries. The fight had become more complicated, and the final stage of the campaign was proving harder than expected.

In February 2023, Carter entered hospice care at his home in Plains. He was ninety-eight years old, but he continued asking for updates on the Guinea worm campaign. The disease had occupied much of his attention for decades, and even as his own life was drawing to a close, he wanted to know how close the world had come to eliminating it.

On December 29, 2024, Jimmy Carter died at the age of 100. He had outlived Rosalynn, his wife of seventy-seven years, by about thirteen months. He never got to see the last Guinea worm die, but the campaign had come remarkably close to its goal. In Carter's final year, just fifteen human cases were reported worldwide. In 2025, that number fell to ten, the lowest figure ever recorded.

The campaign has prevented more than 100 million cases, with approximately $500 million invested in the effort. The World Health Organization has certified 200 countries as free of the disease, and health workers say they know every remaining human patient by name.

In 1980, many people believed Jimmy Carter's most important work was over. Instead, he spent the next forty-four years helping people in places that often received little attention from the rest of the world. He took on a disease that many leaders had overlooked, and he kept working even when progress was slow and the finish line remained uncertain. He never needed the spotlight to keep going. He simply believed that people suffering in forgotten villages deserved help, too.

10/16/2026

The X-ray on the glass board showed a right arm almost completely destroyed. The bones around the elbow were not simply broken. They had been crushed into countless small, sharp fragments.

A doctor stood beside the bed in a quiet hospital room, holding a metal chart as he explained the situation in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. Under the medical practices of the time, there were two main options. The doctors could amputate the arm, or they could use steel pins to hold it straight. Keeping the arm straight would allow the injured man to walk normally and carry things at his side, but it would also mean losing the ability to play guitar the way he once had.

The man in the bed looked down at his damaged body and shook his head. He wasn't asking for the safest option. He wanted the doctors to set his arm at a very specific angle. His name was Lester Polsfuss, better known to the world as Les Paul. He was a working guitarist who spent his spare time building his own solid-body electric guitars.

It was January 1948, and Les was driving along Route 66 in Oklahoma when a sudden winter storm turned the road into a sheet of ice. His car slid out of control in the freezing wind, smashed through a wooden guardrail, and plunged off a bridge into a snow-covered riverbed. The metal roof caved in, leaving him trapped inside the wreckage in the cold and darkness.

His ribs were badly fractured, his back was seriously injured, and the force of the steering wheel had caused severe internal injuries. But the damage to his right arm was especially devastating. His elbow had been crushed beyond recognition. Rescue workers used heavy tools to pull him from the wreck and rushed him to a nearby hospital. The pain was constant and overwhelming, but Les soon understood that the injury itself wasn't the only thing threatening his future.

If the doctors fixed his arm in a straight position, he would probably never play guitar again. A straight arm would make it nearly impossible to reach across the body of the instrument and pick its steel strings properly. His career could be over before he had a chance to recover.

Music was more than a way for Les to earn a living. It was how he expressed himself and connected with the world. A straight arm might allow him to return to an ordinary life, but it would take away the thing that mattered most to him. The hospital followed the medical standards of the 1940s, when the priority was to stabilize a severely damaged limb and prevent further complications. A straight arm could help someone return to factory work or a desk job while reducing the risk of additional injury.

From the doctors' perspective, the decision was practical. Their job was to save his life, protect what remained of his arm, and give him the best chance of functioning independently. They were treating a serious injury, not trying to preserve an artist's career. But Les could not accept an outcome that would leave him alive while taking away his music.

A nurse brought fresh white bandages into the room on a metal tray, and the doctor prepared to mark Les's skin before surgery. Looking at the lines drawn across his pale arm, Les felt as though the future he had imagined was slipping away. If his arm were fixed straight, the life he had built around music would be gone.

He stopped the doctor and asked to speak with the lead surgeon. When the senior surgeon returned, Les made an unusual and risky request. He wanted his arm set at a sharp angle, close to ninety degrees, so that he could continue playing guitar. He wasn't asking for a normal, fully functioning arm. He wanted one positioned specifically for his instrument.

The doctors struggled to understand why he would choose such an arrangement. An arm permanently bent at that angle would look unusual, make some everyday movements difficult, and complicate simple things such as getting dressed. Les understood the disadvantages, but he was willing to accept them.

To show the doctors exactly what he meant, he asked them to bring a guitar into the hospital room. Lying flat in bed, he rested the wooden instrument against his stomach and carefully moved his injured right hand over the strings. He worked out the position he needed to hold a flat plastic pick and showed the surgeon where he wanted the arm fixed. His instruction was simple: “Pin it right here.”

The operation lasted for many hours. The doctors took a piece of bone from his pelvis and used it to help reconstruct the damaged elbow. They also inserted metal plates and screws to hold the bones together. When Les eventually woke up, his arm had been fixed at the angle he had requested. It would never straighten again.

Recovery was long and difficult. Les spent a year and a half wearing a heavy plaster cast that covered much of his upper body. His body grew weak, and he had to learn how to move, sleep, and dress himself while living with an arm that could no longer bend or straighten normally. Everyday tasks, including opening a door, became exhausting challenges.

When the cast finally came off, the arm had healed in the position he had chosen. He could hold his guitar again and reach the strings well enough to play. But he was not physically the same as before the crash. His right arm remained stiff, his movements were limited, and he could no longer rely on the same speed and freedom he had once brought to the stage.

Meanwhile, the music industry was changing. New performers were pushing toward louder sounds and faster arrangements, and Les wanted to keep exploring what a guitar could do. If his body could no longer produce everything he heard in his head through playing alone, he would need another way to create it.

He turned to the place where he had always felt most comfortable experimenting: his garage. Les had long enjoyed taking radios and machines apart to discover how they worked. He obtained an early Ampex tape recorder, an expensive piece of equipment mainly used for radio broadcasting, and began modifying its internal mechanisms.

He added a second recording head and started experimenting with a technique that allowed him to layer sounds. First, he recorded a simple guitar part onto magnetic tape. Then he rewound the tape and played another guitar part while the original recording played through a speaker. The machine captured the sounds together, allowing one performance to build on another.

He repeated the process, adding bass lines, more guitar parts, and layers of harmony sung by his wife. Each new recording added another element until the music sounded fuller, almost like an entire orchestra playing in the same room.

Les Paul helped pioneer multitrack recording, developing the sound-on-sound technique that transformed how music could be made. Before such methods became available, musicians generally had to perform together in the same room and capture the entire song in one take. If someone made a mistake, they often had to stop and begin again. Recording in layers changed those limitations, giving musicians the freedom to build a song piece by piece.

The techniques Les explored became an important foundation for modern music production. Multitrack recording is now central to the way countless pop, rock, and hip-hop songs are created. A devastating injury had forced him to rethink how he worked, and he responded by using technology to do things his damaged arm could no longer manage on its own.

The crash threatened to end Les Paul's musical career, but he refused to let the injury make that decision for him. He chose a difficult recovery, accepted a permanent physical limitation, and found new ways to create the sounds he wanted. His story is not only about surviving a terrible accident. It is also about what can happen when someone refuses to give up the work that gives their life meaning.

Sources: Archives of the Les Paul Foundation and historical medical and police accounts of the 1948 Route 66 crash. Some minor details have been summarized for clarity.

10/16/2026

Cecile Richards was born in 1957 to Ann Richards, a woman who would go on to become one of the most beloved and controversial governors in Texas history. Cecile didn’t learn about politics from textbooks alone. She grew up watching it unfold around the dinner table, seeing how her mother handled life in a state where a woman who spoke her mind could quickly become a target.

Ann Richards was sharp, funny, and never afraid to speak openly. She fought for women’s rights, better education, and criminal justice reform. Her keynote speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention became famous, especially her line about George H. W. Bush: “Poor George, he can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.” Through her example, she taught Cecile that leadership was not about winning everyone’s approval. It was about standing up for people who had little power to defend themselves.

Cecile carried that lesson into her own career. In 2006, at the age of forty-nine, she took on one of the most difficult jobs in American public life when she became president of Planned Parenthood. It was not a position many people would willingly choose. The organization provided healthcare services such as cancer screenings, STI testing, birth control, prenatal care, and abortions, yet it faced constant criticism, political attacks, and efforts to cut off its funding. Planned Parenthood served millions of people, including many low-income women who had few other places to turn for medical care. For some, it was the only healthcare provider they could afford to visit.

Despite the range of services it offered, Planned Parenthood became a major target in America’s culture wars. Political opponents focused heavily on abortion, which made up approximately three percent of the organization’s services, rather than the broader healthcare it provided. Abortion had been constitutionally protected since 1973, but that did little to stop the growing political campaign against the organization. Cecile stepped into the role knowing she would face harassment, threats, and relentless political battles. She also understood how easily complicated medical issues could be reduced to slogans and talking points. Still, she accepted the challenge.

During her twelve years as president, Planned Parenthood faced one of the most sustained political assaults in its history. State legislatures passed hundreds of laws intended to restrict or close clinics. Some were known as TRAP laws, short for Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers. They imposed requirements that critics argued were medically unnecessary, such as specific hallway widths and admitting privileges for doctors at nearby hospitals, even though abortion is a very safe procedure and usually does not require hospitalization. Mandatory waiting periods also forced patients to make multiple trips to clinics. Supporters described these measures as safety protections, but opponents argued that their real effect was to make abortion services harder to provide. Many clinics closed, leaving entire regions without nearby reproductive healthcare.

For patients, the consequences could be severe. Some had to travel hundreds of miles or wait weeks for appointments. Outside clinics, they faced protesters shouting at them as they arrived. Taking time off work, paying for petrol, or arranging overnight accommodation was impossible for some families. Even though the healthcare remained legal, getting access to it became increasingly difficult for millions of women.

The hostility also turned deadly. In 2009, Dr. George Tiller, a physician who provided abortion care, was murdered in his church in Kansas by an anti-abortion extremist. Tiller had faced years of threats, and his clinic had been firebombed, yet he continued treating patients until his life was taken. Six years later, in 2015, a gunman attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, killing three people and injuring nine others. After his arrest, he reportedly told police, “no more baby parts.” His words reflected inflammatory claims that had falsely portrayed Planned Parenthood as selling fetal tissue. Across the country, healthcare providers received death threats, clinic employees wore bulletproof vests, and security became a necessary part of daily operations. Even so, staff continued showing up to care for their patients.

Cecile Richards led the organization through these years of fear and pressure. In September 2015, she testified before Congress during a hearing that became one of the most hostile in recent memory. For five hours, Republican members of Congress interrupted her, berated her, and accused Planned Parenthood of illegal activity based on undercover videos that had been heavily edited and presented in a misleading way. The hearing often seemed less concerned with establishing the facts than with turning Richards into the villain of a political story. The millions of patients who relied on the organization were reduced to talking points.

Throughout the questioning, Cecile remained composed. She answered questions, challenged misinformation, and defended the people who worked for her. She refused to apologize for providing legal healthcare. When one representative demanded that she apologize for the organization’s abortion services, she declined. “Planned Parenthood is proud to provide abortion,” she said. “It's a necessary part of healthcare.” She could have tried to soften her position or distance the organization from abortion in the hope of protecting its funding. Instead, she stood by the providers and patients who depended on that care. She believed that healthcare professionals should not be made to feel ashamed for offering a legal medical service, and that suggesting otherwise would betray the people who needed it.

The political pressure continued. Several states cut Planned Parenthood out of public funding programmes, including Medicaid reimbursements and Title X funding. In Texas, removing Planned Parenthood from state programmes contributed to clinic closures and reduced access to contraception and other reproductive healthcare. Research found that when Planned Parenthood lost funding, unintended pregnancies could increase, while access to birth control and cancer screenings declined. The consequences often undermined the very health outcomes politicians said they wanted to improve. For Cecile, the fight was not simply about money. She believed it was also about control over women’s lives and efforts to restrict abortion by any available means.

As the attacks continued, Richards became one of the most recognizable figures in the American reproductive rights movement. She testified before Congress repeatedly, gave interviews and speeches, raised money, and rallied supporters. She refused to let Planned Parenthood be pushed out of public life without a fight. When the Trump administration introduced a rule preventing clinics receiving Title X funds from referring patients for abortions or even discussing abortion with them, Planned Parenthood withdrew from the programme rather than comply. The decision meant giving up around $60 million in federal funding, creating a major financial challenge for the organization. But Richards believed protecting patient care was more important than keeping the money.

It was a decision shaped by the lesson she had learned from her mother: power was not about protecting an institution at any cost. It was about protecting people. In 2018, after twelve years leading Planned Parenthood through an especially difficult period, Cecile stepped down. She had faced attempts to defund the organization, hostile congressional hearings, violence against providers, and persistent efforts to close clinics. Through it all, she had worked to keep the organization operating and to defend the people who relied on its services.

Leaving the presidency did not mean leaving the fight. Richards went on to found Supermajority, an organization focused on building women’s political power, and continued organizing and advocating for women’s rights. Then, in 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion that had been recognized for nearly fifty years. Many of the consequences Richards had warned about became reality in states across the country. Clinics closed, abortion bans took effect, doctors faced uncertainty about providing care, and women were denied services they had once been able to access. The decision also brought new attention to the importance of the struggle Richards had spent decades leading.

Cecile Richards chose a role that few people would want and that made her a target for constant criticism. She led an organization under relentless political attack, endured congressional hearings designed to discredit her, and watched healthcare providers face threats and deadly violence. Yet she continued to defend the care Planned Parenthood provided and the patients who depended on it. She had grown up watching her mother use political power to stand up for people who needed protection, and she carried that example into her own life.

Richards understood that leading Planned Parenthood would bring fierce opposition, that clinics would be targeted, and that patients and providers would become the subjects of political arguments. She took on the job anyway and stayed through some of the organization’s most difficult years. For her, leadership was never about applause or popularity. It was about standing beside people when they needed someone to defend them, especially when the institutions meant to serve them failed to do so.

10/15/2026

Will Sampson was born William Sampson Jr. on September 27, 1933, in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. A member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, he showed an early talent for art. His sister later remembered that he had been drawing for as long as he could hold a pencil. He taught himself to paint, filling page after page with horses, dancers and scenes reflecting the traditions of his people.

At just 14, Will began riding in rodeos. For the next 20 years, he competed across the American West, specialising in bronc riding. He also served in the Navy and worked in construction, the oil fields and as a lineman to support his large family. Painting was always important to him, but it rarely brought in enough money to pay the bills.

In 1975, producers Saul Zaentz and Michael Douglas were preparing a film adaptation of *One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest*. They needed someone to play Chief Bromden, a towering Native American patient in a psychiatric hospital who pretends he cannot hear or speak. The role required a man who could hold the audience’s attention alongside Jack Nicholson, often without saying a word. After searching for some time, the producers received a suggestion from rodeo announcer Mel Lambert, who knew a very tall Muscogee cowboy who also painted. Finding Will took some effort, but eventually they arranged a meeting.

Will was in his early 40s and had almost no acting experience. His only previous film work had been as an uncredited extra. He brought several of his paintings to the meeting, hoping he might be able to sell some of them if the acting opportunity did not work out. The producers only needed to meet him once before deciding he was right for the role. They also bought his paintings, something few people know about the story.

During filming, Will said very little, but his presence spoke for itself. One of the film’s memorable moments came when Chief Bromden finally spoke to Nicholson’s character over a stick of gum. “Mmmmmm, Juicy Fruit,” he said. One magazine later remarked that if anyone could steal a scene from Jack Nicholson, it was Will Sampson.

When *One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest* opened in November 1975, it became a sensation. At the Academy Awards on March 29, 1976, the film won all five major Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay. Only one other film had achieved that sweep before, back in the 1930s. The closing scene belonged to Will. Chief Bromden lifts a massive marble fixture, throws it through a window and runs toward freedom. The moment became one of the most memorable endings in movie history.

Hollywood soon came calling again, and Will went on to appear in 22 films. He played Ten Bears in *The Outlaw Josey Wales* and Crazy Horse in *The White Buffalo*, but he never lost sight of his identity as an artist. “I’m first, last, and always a painter,” he once said. His work eventually found a home in major museums, including Oklahoma’s Gilcrease Museum and Philbrook Museum.

Will also refused to stay silent about the way Native Americans were represented in Hollywood. For decades, white actors had been cast in Native roles while Native performers were pushed aside or reduced to stereotypes. While working on *The White Buffalo*, Will discovered that non-Native actors had been hired to play most of the Native characters. He refused to continue working, and production shut down for a day. His protest drew attention to an issue that had long been overlooked.

In 1983, Will and his assistant, Zoe Escobar, founded the American Indian Registry for the Performing Arts with a $30,000 grant. The project created a directory of Native actors that filmmakers could consult when casting productions. Years later, the registry’s book reached the team behind *Dances With Wolves*, which cast Native actors in Native roles and went on to win seven Oscars.

In 1986, Will appeared as a wise medicine man in *Poltergeist II*, but by then his health was deteriorating. He had scleroderma, a rare disease that hardens the skin and can damage the heart and lungs. His weight dropped from around 270 pounds to just 150. In April 1987, doctors in Houston performed a transplant, giving him a new heart and new lungs. At first, he appeared stable, and there was hope that he might recover. But complications developed, and on June 3, 1987, Will Sampson died of kidney failure following the surgery. He was only 53. Jack Nicholson later said, “I will miss a great friend.”

Will was brought back to Okmulgee, where his family held an all-night wake before laying him to rest in Oklahoma. His influence did not end with his death. A road in Okmulgee County now carries his name, and his son Tim later played Chief Bromden on Broadway in 2001. Two of Will’s other sons became musicians and honoured their father through song.

Will Sampson entered Hollywood with a stack of paintings and almost no acting experience. He became a memorable screen presence, stood up for Native performers, and helped create opportunities for those who followed him. He left behind more than a celebrated film role. He helped open a door that had been closed to many others.

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