The “Til My Last Day” singer says his drinking problem developed gradually, with a casual evening cocktail eventually becoming an all-day habit. Continue reading…The Boot – Country Music News, Music Videos and Songs
Month: August 2026
Ask people in the Chilkat Valley about Dick Rice and many describe him in terms usually reserved for comic book characters, or for a hero from one of his beloved Louis L’Amour westerns.
“His smile would melt glaciers,” said firefighter Al Badgley.
“He never got his feathers ruffled. He never got upset. He was always positive. Just an amazing human being,” said friend Darren Schweinefus.
“Guys wanted to be him and women wanted to be with him,” added fishing buddy Greg Schlachter.
Byron Richard Rice Jr., or Dick, was born on Sept. 26, 1951 in Vero Beach, Florida. He survived a bout with throat cancer in 2018. On Aug. 8, 2023 a hidden glioblastoma revealed itself while he was out shrimping and crabbing. He managed to get the boat and his passenger safely back to shore in Haines, but that caused he and wife Judi Rice to spend two of the last three years in Anchorage before moving to Jacksonville, Florida to be closer to family. He died peacefully early on Feb. 25, 2026 at the age of 74.
Rice made his way to Juneau in 1976, working a string of jobs — harvesting timber on Chichagof Island, teaching skiing at Eaglecrest, guiding raft trips down the Tatshenshini and Alsek. He joined the fire department as a volunteer and worked his way into a full-time job.
Thirteen years later, Judi moved to Juneau too. The first time she saw him, she was out for a run on the airport dike trail; he was walking the other way with a friend. They passed each other, smiled, said hello, and kept going.
They actually met a little while after that, teaching students on the same career day at a local school. By the time the two started dating, Dick had already decided on a better story.
“He’d tell people we met in a dark, smoky bar, and then embellish further by saying it took him ten years to get me off the pole,” Judi said, laughing. “But I knew where it came from, his crazy sense of humor. It always got a laugh.”
They dated six years before they married. He taught lessons in ballroom dancing, along with country and swing. He taught her too. She’d come to Alaska more of a hiker and a climber; “He used to call me ‘terrestrial,’” Judi said. He was a water guy — canoeing, kayaking, running boats.
Dick’s life on the water began with nearly losing it.
He was barely out of his teens when drafted to fight during the Vietnam War. He enlisted in the Coast Guard and was stationed in Hawaii on the Coast Guard Cutter Jarvis, which ran aground in the Aleutians in a violent storm in 1972. It was one of two things that happened to him young enough to leave a mark, Judi said. The other was a bout with Guillain-Barré syndrome which crept up his legs until he couldn’t walk.
“I think it made him realize that nothing lasts forever — you’d better enjoy every day, because you never know,” Judi said.
He came out of the Coast Guard knowing how to run a boat and spent the rest of his life making sure other people knew it too – through Alaska Rescue, a training company that took him from the Chilkat Valley to departments across the northwest. And through guides learning the rivers alongside him.
One of them was Greg Schlachter, who fished with Rice for 25 years. On the Chilkat River, Rice ran his jetboat like he was still teaching a course rather than just taking everybody for a ride.
“He had a protocol about running a jetboat that was way stricter than anything I would do, even with clients,” Schlachter said. Wading rivers taught more than years of doing it alone – including a trick for keeping his footing that Rice picked up from kayaking: brace with the rod, then slap the water with it to catch yourself before you went in.
Out on the ocean, Rice had a favorite place to push people past where they thought they could go – just outside the Haines harbor breakwater, where the water turns into a washing machine when it’s kicking up.
“Most people would never think to go in there,” said Joe Oesterling, who founded the town’s sea kayak symposium with Rice. “But with him, they felt confident enough. He’d say ‘it’s ok, let’s go do it.’ People would follow him in, and it’d be fine, and they’d learn a lot.”
Judi watched the same instinct develop over three decades. When she met him he was still primarily a guide, someone who liked to wander the world. Somewhere along the way, teaching became the thing he built his life around.
“He had an uncanny ability to work with a really wide range of people and somehow see their strengths and weaknesses,” she said. “He could identify what someone needed because he saw who they really were, and he loved people. He wanted to help them be the best versions of themselves, because that’s what he always strived for himself.”
“He was the guide’s guide. He was in his 60s and 70s and still jumping in rivers, teaching you exactly how to do it,” said Schlachter. “He had a way of teaching that felt like pointers from a good friend…without challenging your ego.”
Badgley felt that at the fire department.
“Even though he was really good at his job, he would not boast. You felt comfortable talking to someone that was a lot more knowledgeable than you are, so you don’t feel as intimidated,” Badgley said.
Rice came to Haines to run swiftwater rescue training for the fire department, not because Haines could ever have a full rescue team, Badgley said, but because if somebody ended up in the water, there’d be enough skill in the room to get them out without anyone getting hurt.
People who watched Rice under pressure kept coming back to the same word: control.
Darren Schweinefus was a Glacier Point guide when he met Rice. Schweinefus said he never once saw Rice’s composure crack.
“He never got his feathers ruffled. Never got upset. He was always positive,” Schweinefus said. “He had such control over himself. It was amazing to see.”
Now, when Schweinefus is out fishing or boating and puts himself in a risky situation, he thinks of all of the things he learned. “It’s like I got a book put in my head that Dick wrote a long time ago about how to survive,” he said.
Whatever it cost Rice to hold that together, he never let it show.
“I saw him get short with people sometimes, and I understood why he was doing it,” Schlachter said. “But he never got to the point where the stress was visibly showing. Maybe he had it on the inside – sure – but it didn’t show. ”
In 2020, when a mudslide tore down the mountainside above Beach Road, burying two residents, many in town would show up to the fire hall each morning, not entirely sure what they were walking into. They’d circle up around Rice who’d tell them where to search and how to do it without getting hurt themselves.
“There was a lot of chaos there, but if somebody was going to organize it, he was the prime person to make that happen because of his depth of knowledge on water events,” Badgley said. “People would trust his judgement and look for him to be a guiding light.”
Judi Rice said she feels lucky to have known him, which helps somewhat with the grief. But the emptiness he left behind is daunting.
“He would just give me a big bear hug as soon as we were both up,” she said. “And he would always make us lemon water in the morning after we kind of learned that was good for us. So yep, every morning before we had our coffee.”
It’s easy to understand how a medical condition that caused paralysis would make a man wallow. But Judi said her husband handled it with strength and grace, still trying to make every day the best day while the two were birdwatching, taking in the Florida sunsets, or reflecting on their decades of companionship.
There was one time they went on a river trip to help with a couple who had adopted a little boy, Zane. She said she and Dick fell in love with the three-year-old as the group made their way down the Black Canyon of Gunnison, right below Hoover Dam.
“One night around the campfire, Dick had Zane sitting on his lap, and we were all just looking up at the stars – and a beautiful night – and this three-year-old took a big sigh and said, ‘I’m so happy,’” Judi Rice said.
It stayed with them and became one of those things the two would say to each other when they were having way too much fun or something was so beautiful, there were no words.
During the last year, even when Dick Rice was hurting, he would take the time to look at her and get the words out: “I’m so happy.”
Dick Rice was preceded in death by his mother Ramona Rosa Rice, his father Byron Richard Rice, Sr., his sister JoEve Benedict and his father-in-law Karl Falk. He is survived by his wife Judi, brothers Drew and Dan, his mother-in-law Patricia Falk, his two sisters-in-law, four nieces, six nephews, close cousins and his best friend for 60 years, Joe Worsely.
A celebration of life for Dick Rice will be held Aug. 29 at the Chilkat Inlet Retreat, 1995 Mud Bay Road. A tribute to Rice and shared stories will begin at 2 p.m., dinner will be served between 5 and 6 p.m. Bring a small appetizer or dessert to share. Call or text Judi Rice at 907-209-4780 if you have any questions.
The post The legend of Dick Rice: guide, teacher, firefighter, dead at 74 appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.
Wednesday in the NFL brought us a little bit of everything. Vita Vea and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ended their contract dilemma, agreeing to a deal that will make the defensive tackle among the highest-paid players at his position. In terms of on-field matters, the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots had a competitive joint practice just months after the teams agreed to the A.J. Brown trade. There’s also plenty of injury news around the league, with the Houston Texans losing a key contributor on offense for the rest of the season. Here’s what you should know about what happened around the NFL on Wednesday. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and star defensive tackle Vita Vea reached an agreement on a one-year, $30 million extension, our Greg Auman confirmed on Wednesday. The deal keeps the two-time Pro Bowler under contract for the next two seasons while giving him a $6 million raise for 2026, boosting his salary to $24 million this year. The extension is fully guaranteed, locking in $48 million over the next two seasons. Vea had demanded a trade at the onset of training camp, believing he and the Buccaneers were far off from agreeing to an extension. However, Tampa Bay reportedly had no desire to trade him and now has him under contract as it seeks to make the postseason after falling short last season. Vea has established himself as one of the NFL’s premier interior defensive linemen and the centerpiece of head coach Todd Bowles’ defense. Through eight seasons with Tampa Bay, the 347-pound nose tackle has logged 256 total tackles, 35 sacks, and three forced fumbles. He anchored a defense that ranked top-three in total yards allowed from 2019 to 2021 while surrendering just 92.6 rushing yards per game, playing a pivotal role in the Buccaneers’ Super Bowl LV victory. New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye had himself a day against the Philadelphia Eagles’ defense. Maye reportedly finished the day 16 of 19 and completed 13 consecutive passes. Maye reportedly spread the ball amongst his receivers, with receptions from Pop Douglas, Romeo Doubs, Kayshon Boutte, and top offseason acquisition A.J. Brown before orchestrating a crisp two-minute drill that set up a 52-yard field goal from Andy Borregales. Hurts reportedly went 19 of 27 through the air and threw three interceptions and one of those picks was returned for a touchdown by the Patriots’ defense, according to reporters in attendance. Hurts enters a pivotal 2026 season adjusting to offensive coordinator Sean Mannion — his seventh playcaller in seven pro seasons. The quarterback contrast was compounded by Brown, who caught seven total passes from Maye in his first action against his former team. Brown also revealed to reporters following Wednesday’s practice that he hasn’t spoken to Hurts, who is the godfather to his daughter, since he was traded to New England in June. The Seattle Seahawks secondary added more depth on Wednesday. The Seahawks locked in former All-Pro cornerback Trevon Diggs on a one-year deal, first reported by ESPN, giving their defense a high-upside playmaker. Heading into his age-28 season, Diggs is set to play for his third team in less than a year. After spending his first six years with the Dallas Cowboys, Diggs made a brief late-season pit stop with the Green Bay Packers before officially signing with the Seahawks. The Seahawks also reportedly agreed to a deal to add former Detroit Lions cornerback Terrion Arnold, though the move is on hold. Arnold is expected to head straight for the commissioner’s exempt list since he faces eight felony counts of armed robbery and kidnapping. Diggs joins a defense already stacked with talent, pairing him with All-Pro Devon Witherspoon and Josh Jobe at cornerback, while Julian Love and Nick Emmanwori hold down the safety position. His versatility gives them an adaptable weapon to move around the secondary. The Seahawks aren’t new to building their roster around familiar connections and established culture. Diggs was teammates in Dallas with DeMarcus Lawrence, Dante Fowler Jr., and Noah Igbinoghene, and he also shared a secondary at Alabama with Jobe under defensive backs coach Karl Scott. It seems that familiarity played a key role in Diggs’ decision to sign. Under head coach Mike Macdonald, the Seahawks could be the ideal landing spot to revitalize Diggs’ career. He hasn’t reached the same heights since his standout 2021 season with the Cowboys, when he led the league with 11 interceptions. The Houston Texans’ offense was dealt a tough blow on Wednesday. Tests confirmed that wide receiver Jayden Higgins tore his ACL in Tuesday’s joint practice with the Las Vegas Raiders, ending his 2026 season, according to NFL Network. Higgins’ season-ending injury leaves a gaping hole in the Texans’ passing attack as Tank Dell continues to work his way back to full health. Without Higgins, the team will lean heavily on Pro Bowl wide receiver Nico Collins alongside Xavier Hutchinson and Jaylin Noel. The Texans’ 2025 second-round pick put together a strong rookie season. Higgins hauled in 41 receptions for 525 yards and six touchdowns while proving to be a consistent playmaker in the offense. The Pittsburgh Steelers won’t have their projected starting quarterbacks take the field against the New York Jets in their upcoming preseason game. Aaron Rodgers and Mason Rudolph will sit out Friday’s matchup. Instead, quarterbacks Will Howard and third-round pick Drew Allar will get the nod against the Jets. Howard is set to start before giving way to Allar as the two battle for the third-string spot and one of them potentially battling for the backup job down the line. Allar is coming off a strong preseason debut against the Green Bay Packers. After entering in the second half, he completed 10 of 13 passes for 153 yards and accounted for three total touchdowns, highlighted by a 74-yard strike to Kaden Wetjen. Howard, a 2025 sixth-round pick out of Ohio State, finds himself in a tight battle to make the final 53-man roster. Allar has a chance to be the Steelers’ starting quarterback as early as next season and McCarthy has been on record calling Allar a first-round talent. The New Orleans Saints were already signaling a changing of the guard by signing free-agent running back Travis Etienne this offseason. Now, Alvin Kamara is sidelined after suffering an MCL sprain during Tuesday’s joint practice with the Dallas Cowboys, ESPN reported. Kamara is expected to miss at least a month, putting his status for the start of the season in serious doubt. While Etienne steps into the undisputed lead role, Kamara was still expected to play a role in the Saints’ offense. The five-time Pro Bowler has seen his production dip in New Orleans over recent seasons. In 11 games last season, Kamara posted 471 rushing yards and a single touchdown, adding 33 receptions for 186 receiving yards. Kamara’s 3.6 yards per carry last season was the lowest mark of his career. Surprisingly, he has never recorded a 1,000-yard rushing season, which is something Etienne has already accomplished in three of his four years in the league. With Kamara and No. 8 overall pick in wide receiver Jordyn Tyson out to start the year, Chris Olave and Etienne will have to shoulder the load offensively. Head coach Kellen Moore and second-year quarterback Tyler Shough certainly have their work cut out for them.Latest Sports News from FOX Sports
WESTFIELD, Ind. — If you didn’t know Daniel Jones was coming off a major injury, there’s nothing that would’ve told you otherwise. That was my big takeaway watching the Colts quarterback at training camp Wednesday, when Indianapolis hosted the first of two joint practices with the Atlanta Falcons. Whether it was dropping back in individual drills or taking snaps under center or in the shotgun in team periods, Jones looked normal. For a quarterback coming off an Achilles tear, the true test of health is scrambling and throwing on the move and evading pressure. Running the ball is a big part of Jones’ game, too. And the 29-year-old checked all those boxes as well. Granted, he didn’t need to move around too much Wednesday against what’s expected to be a bad Falcons pass rush (Jalon Walker is out for the season, and James Pearce Jr. is suspended for the first eight games). Jones looked quite comfortable in the pocket, but he moved around with no issues when he needed to. It confirmed what I’d been hearing around the team about Jones, who’s looking to pick up from what was a spectacular 2025 — for him and the Colts — before his devastating right Achilles tear Dec. 7 against the Jacksonville Jaguars. He’s been impressive throughout training camp. The Colts had issues on the ground on Wednesday, but Jones and the pass game were on fire against an above-average Falcons secondary in team drills. He was feasting in the intermediate portion of the field, hitting receivers Josh Downs and Ashton Dulin often. “I think with any major rehab process, you’re always kind of progressing and getting back and getting used to doing everything, building up the reps on it, building up just your conditioning level,” Jones explained post-practice. “I feel really good and there’s nothing I don’t feel good doing.” And for 2026, that means building off what the Colts were last season when he was healthy. Through 10 weeks in 2025, Indianapolis’ offense led the league in yards, scoring, EPA per play, success rate and DVOA. The Colts boasted a plus-115 point differential, and had four wins of 21-plus points. “I think the offense is very versatile,” Jones told me. “There’s a lot of different components to it. I think we’re able to run the ball well. I think we’re good in the RPO game. We’re good throwing it quick. We can throw the ball down the field.” Other Notes From Colts-Falcons Joint Practice: Falcons standout receiver Drake London had one of the best plays from Wednesday’s practice. On what was by far quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s longest completion of the day, the fifth-year pro Mossed Colts cornerback Justin Walley down the left sideline in team drills. It was an underthrown ball from Tagovailoa, but London managed to stretch out his arms over Walley’s shoulders for the insane grab. Speaking of insane grabs, Robinson had one too. In the full team period at the end of practice, the superstar running back made a one-handed catch with his left hand in stride. It was a low pass that would’ve been incomplete in most situations, but Robinson made the snag near his ankles. It was all the more impressive considering how easy he made it look. The Falcons are going to need a lot of that from Robinson and Drake London this season, as well as from All-Pro tight end Kyle Pitts. Atlanta’s quarterback play is a major concern. Tagovailoa is currently in the lead in the team’s QB competition by default, due to the fact that Michael Penix Jr. has not yet been cleared for 11-on-11 work after his ACL injury last season. And the former Dolphins starter has been uninspiring through two outings against other teams. He looked uncomfortable in last week’s preseason opener against the Denver Broncos. In Wednesday’s practice against the Colts, he had just one long completion (the aforementioned London play) and threw a pick-six to Walley. He lived off check downs and bubble screens. The more touches the likes of Robinson, London and Pitts can get, the better the outlook for the Falcons’ offense this season. Because Atlanta won’t be winning games on the back of its quarterback play. Newly signed Colts receiver Keenan Allen didn’t practice Wednesday. He spent his first official day with Indianapolis in shorts and a T-shirt, watching the offense intently and chopping it up with new teammates. But the Colts are already envisioning how the 13-year veteran can help. “He’s been productive every single year he’s been in the league,” Colts coach Shane Steichen said. “So obviously, we want him to be productive again this year.” One of the best players in Chargers history, Allen adds much-needed depth to what’s currently a thin wide receiver room for Indianapolis. With Michael Pittman Jr. out of the picture (traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers) and new WR1 Alec Pierce sidelined following offseason ankle injury, Josh Downs had been the team’s only proven, starting-caliber wide receiver. Allen, who has familiarity with Steichen from their time together with the Chargers, figures to be a tremendous boost for the Colts as a possession receiver, despite his age (34). The six-time Pro Bowler had a league-high 29 first down conversions on third down last season. Overall, Allen caught 81 passes for 777 yards and four touchdowns in 2025. “Danny’s [Daniel Jones] is a guy who is getting better every year,” Allen said. “Last year he was on a big roll, and I want to be part of that and help him be the safety blanket that I am.” In the last team period, Falcons backup running back Brian Robinson trucked Colts defensive back Jonathan Owens at the end of a nice run down the left side of the field. It happened right in front of Atlanta’s sideline, so naturally the Falcons were amped. Colts star tight end Tyler Warren, who’s been excellent in training camp, sustained an injury early in team drills Wednesday and didn’t rejoin practice. After initially leaving the field with trainers, he returned to the sidelines with a wrap around his right thigh. Warren was diagnosed with a strained abductor muscle and could be back on the field as early as next week. But the Colts plan to be cautious in the hope of having the second-year pro ready for Week 1. Indianapolis cannot afford another significant injury to a pass-catcher. With Pierce already sidelined, Jones’ list of primary targets is shrinking for the time being. It makes the Allen signing all the more timely. Courtesy of Keenan Allen, speaking about Colts coach Steichen: “Genius. He knows what he’s doing and he knows what he’s looking at. He doesn’t just have a coach mindset so to speak. He sees it from a player perspective, from a quarterback perspective.”Latest Sports News from FOX Sports
Now they have one more reason to say “congratulations” to Post Malone.
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Michael Cohen and President Donald Trump have apparently patched up their differences in private. Now, they can do it in public.
The president is scheduled to do a phone interview Thursday with Cohen on the New York City radio show that Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” began hosting last month.
Cohen said in an interview ahead of the broadcast that he and his former boss have met privately three times and reconciled since a bitter and very public falling out during the president’s first term.
“I suggest you listen to the show. You may find it extremely interesting,” he told POLITICO.
Cohen, who made a stunning conversion from pro-Trump bulldog to fierce critic, said he wasn’t sure if during the interview he and the president would discuss presidential clemency for the conviction that landed him a three-year prison sentence.
He isn’t sure he will even push for clemency from the president.
“We’ll see,” he said. “Will I make that request down the road? I don’t know. Maybe maybe not.”
That the president’s erstwhile attorney is even considering asking Trump for a pardon is somewhat remarkable.
Cohen was the star witness in New York prosecutors’ 2024 hush money case against Trump, which saw the then-candidate become the first ever former president to become a convicted felon when he was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records to keep word of an affair with former porn star Stormy Daniels from public view.
Cohen, who testified that he lied and bullied for Trump during his years working for the Trump Organization, later turned on his former boss. He told POLITICO in an April 2024 interview, for example, that the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was “grotesque” and predicted “there will never be another election again in America” if he was reelected.
Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 on charges related to hush money payments to help conceal his boss’ affair with a porn star.
He said he sent pardon applications to former President Joe Biden’s administration and the Trump White House but doesn’t consider clemency, which would enable him to recover his law license, critical to his life at this point.
“I’m turning 60 next week. What am I going to go start practicing law again?” he said. “What has the loss of my law license prevented me from actually doing? Though I do believe I’m deserving of it, that’s a whole nother story.”
Thursday’s interview will mark the culmination of a months-long effort by Cohen to get back in the president’s good graces. He told a New York radio station this summer that they had a text exchange that started their reconciliation.
Teasing the interview, Cohen said people will be “interested to hear two individuals that were friends for a decade and a half who have not publicly spoken in eight years” talk about their long shared past. “What could they talk about?” he said.
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WordPress 7.1 is finally here 🥳, and we have been closely following its development.
The new version launched on August 19, 2026, timed with WordCamp US. Its focus is on how you collaborate, style, and manage media on your WordPress website, and it fixes a long list of everyday annoyances along the way.
Whether you run a small blog or a large multi-author site, WordPress 7.1 has changes that will affect how you work every day.
ℹ️ Important: As always, please don’t forget to create a complete WordPress backup before updating to the new release. If you are not using managed WordPress hosting, then you will need to run the update yourself.
Here is everything that’s new in WordPress 7.1:
- Collaborate Better With the Upgraded Notes
- Share a Link to Any Revision
- Responsive Styling Without Writing CSS
- Style Hover and Focus States for Buttons
- New Tabs Block
- New Playlist Block
- A New Image Editor in WordPress 7.1
- Smoother and Smarter Media Handling
- The Admin Toolbar Now Stays Visible When Editing
- A More Personal And Easily Navigable Admin
- Block Improvements in WordPress 7.1
- Changes to Look Out for Before the Update
- What Didn’t Make It Into WordPress 7.1?
- Under the Hood (Developer & Performance Updates)
- Final Thoughts on WordPress 7.1
Collaborate Better With the Upgraded Notes
The Notes feature arrived in WordPress 6.9 as a simple way to leave comments on blocks. WordPress 7.1 turns it into a proper feedback system.
The most useful addition is @mentions. You can type ‘@’ inside a note to bring up a searchable list of collaborators and tag someone directly.
Even better, WordPress now sends an email notification to the person you tagged. This addition landed late in the release cycle, and it completes the feature.
Your teammate no longer needs to keep the editor open to know that feedback is waiting. The email brings them straight back to the right post.
You can also leave inline notes. Instead of attaching a comment to an entire block, simply select a specific sentence or phrase and leave a note on just that text.
The selection stays highlighted, so everyone can see exactly which words the note refers to. In our testing, this removed a lot of guesswork from editorial feedback.
Other Notes improvements include:
- Multiple threads: You can start more than one conversation on the same block.
- Text formatting: Notes now support bold, italic, code, links, and emoji.
- Show more / show less: Long notes collapse by default to keep the sidebar tidy.
- Private by design: WordPress stores notes as a special comment type, and 7.1 now excludes them from your public comment feeds.
These changes make Notes genuinely useful for teams, agencies, and multi-author blogs. It is a solid step toward a better editorial workflow inside WordPress itself.
Share a Link to Any Revision
Visual revisions, which were introduced in WordPress 7.0 have been improved as well. They now include a new feature to share links to individual revisions.
For example, let’s say that you want to show a team member which changes were made to an article. You can now open the revisions screen, pick the exact version, and copy the link from your browser toolbar.
You can then share that link and when opened, the link will take users to the exact revision with changes highlighted.
Visual revisions also get a new picker layout in this release. It makes browsing your edit history easier, with color-coded changes carried over from WordPress 7.0.
Responsive Styling Without Writing CSS
This is the feature we are most excited about. Responsive styling has been one of the longest-standing requests in the block editor, and WordPress 7.1 finally delivers a first version.
You can now define how a block looks at different screen sizes directly in the editor. For example, you can set a smaller font size for headings on mobile without writing a single line of CSS.
Here is how it works: Click the device preview icon in the editor’s top toolbar and turn on the new ‘Responsive styles’ option.
Now, switch the preview to Tablet or Mobile. From this point, any style change you make applies only to that screen size.
During testing, we selected a smaller font size for a button in the Tablet view, and the desktop design stayed untouched. WordPress also shows a small badge in the block settings panel, so you always know which viewport you are styling.
It works on two levels. You can set responsive styles in Global Styles, which apply to every instance of a block across your site, or you can style an individual block on a specific page.
The editor canvas is also more flexible. Instead of being limited to the Desktop, Tablet, and Mobile presets, you can drag the canvas to any width and watch your blocks respond in real time.
Theme developers can even define their own breakpoints in theme.json. That way, the preview widths match the theme you are actually using.
Style Hover and Focus States for Buttons
Alongside responsive styling, WordPress 7.1 introduces interactive state styling.
A new ‘State’ dropdown lets you visually style how blocks respond to interaction. For example, you can set a different background color for a button’s hover, focus, or active state and preview the change live in the editor.
Previously, changing a button’s hover color required adding a custom CSS snippet. Now, it can be easily done inside the editor itself.
There is also a thoughtful refinement when you apply local style changes globally. WordPress now shows a quick review step, so you can choose exactly which modified styles to apply across your site and keep the rest as local overrides.
New Tabs Block
WordPress 7.1 adds a Tabs block that many users have been asking for.
Tabs let you organize content into clickable panels instead of showing everything at once. They are great for product specifications, FAQs, or comparing options without making a page feel long.
The final release has also added toolbar buttons for reordering tabs, which was a rough edge we noticed during the beta. Previously, you had to add tabbed content using a plugin, so it’s great to see this functionality now available as a core WordPress block.
We also like that accessibility was not an afterthought here. The block follows the W3C ARIA Authoring Practices Guide, which means it works properly with keyboards and screen readers out of the box.
New Playlist Block
The second new block in WordPress 7.1 is the Playlist block. It lets you add a collection of audio files to any post or page, complete with track metadata, artwork, and a waveform visualization.
This is a nice upgrade for musicians, churches, educators, and anyone who publishes audio. If you run a podcast with WordPress, you can now list recent episodes in a clean player without a separate plugin.
A New Image Editor in WordPress 7.1
WordPress 7.1 replaces the old inline cropping tool with a dedicated Media Editor modal.
The entry point stays familiar. You still click the Crop button on an Image block, but now a full editing modal opens with freeform cropping, aspect-ratio presets, flip and rotate controls, and metadata editing in one place.
In our testing, the magnified crop view was the standout. It makes fine adjustments much easier, and the crop handles snap cleanly to pixels.
The new editor also works with the Cover block, so you can crop a background image right where you use it.
This will not replace a full photo editor. However, for the basic image editing most site owners need, being able to make them directly in the editor is a big usability win.
Smoother and Smarter Media Handling
WordPress 7.1 continues the client-side media processing work that started in WordPress 7.0. In simple terms, your web browser does the heavy lifting of processing images before they reach your server.
This release expands format support in a meaningful way. WordPress can now handle HEIC photos, which is the default format on iPhones, along with UltraHDR, AVIF, and WebP.
Until now, iPhone users often needed a HEIC to JPG conversion plugin just to upload their photos. With 7.1, that friction mostly disappears.
Uploads are also more resilient. If your internet connection drops mid-upload, then the upload queue pauses and automatically resumes when you are back online.
There are also several tiny improvements that make everyday WordPress tasks a little easier:
- Smarter galleries: A new dynamic Gallery mode can automatically pull in and sort media already attached to the current post.
- Attached images in the inserter: After you upload images to a post, they appear in a new ‘Attached images’ section, so you do not have to dig through the whole Media Library.
- Infinite scrolling: The Media Library grid now loads more items automatically as you scroll. WordPress turns this on by default, and you can bring back the old page-by-page view from your user settings if you prefer it.
Together, these changes mean fewer upload errors and less load on your server. That is especially good news if you are on a budget WordPress hosting plan.
The Admin Toolbar Now Stays Visible When Editing
WordPress 7.1 makes the admin toolbar persistent. It now remains visible in the Site Editor and the Block Editor, instead of disappearing when you start editing.
The toolbar itself has also gotten a design cleanup as part of this change:
- A clear back button (chevron) replaces the confusing W logo that used to double as a back button.
- Your site icon now appears in the toolbar, and your profile avatar is a circle instead of a square.
- Modern SVG icons replace the old Dashicons.
In our testing, this made moving between the editor and the rest of the admin feel much more predictable. Each icon now means one thing everywhere.
The ‘Howdy’ greeting survived another release. The core team discussed removing it during this cycle, but the change did not make it into 7.1.
If you prefer a clean writing canvas, then don’t worry. The toolbar stays hidden in Distraction Free mode.
A More Personal And Easily Navigable Admin
Beyond the toolbar, WordPress 7.1 includes a set of smaller admin improvements that add up.
Command palette improvements. The Command Palette (Ctrl+K on Windows, Command+K on Mac) now groups results into Recent, Matching, and Suggestions sections. WordPress saves your recently used commands to your preferences, so they persist across sessions.
Your admin color scheme in the Site Editor. The Site Editor reflects your chosen admin color scheme instead of always using a fixed dark sidebar. It is a small thing, but it makes the whole admin feel consistent.
A dedicated Identity section. Site identity settings like your title, tagline, logo, and site icon now live in their own Design » Identity section in the Site Editor. You no longer need to hunt through Settings and templates to update these basics.
Excerpts in the Posts list. The Posts list view now shows a short excerpt for each entry, making it easier to tell similar posts apart.
Select many items at once. In the Site Editor’s list views, you can now click one item, hold Shift, and click another to select the whole range. If you manage hundreds of pages or media files, then this saves you time on bulk actions.
Change a comment’s parent. The Edit Comment screen adds an editable ‘In reply to’ control, so you can finally fix comments that ended up as replies in the wrong place.
Block Improvements in WordPress 7.1
Several existing blocks get meaningful upgrades in this release:
- Background gradients and images work together. You can now layer a gradient over a background image on the Group block and several other blocks. This is handy for keeping text readable over hero images.
- Text shadows in Global Styles. Themes and users can now configure text shadows through theme.json and Global Styles.
- Editable content inside the HTML block. The HTML block supports editable nested blocks. This is especially useful when working with AI-generated layouts, which often arrive as custom HTML.
- Mark images as decorative. A new toggle on the Image block lets you mark purely decorative images so that screen readers skip them. Decorative images with meaningless alt text are one of the most common accessibility mistakes, and this makes the fix easy.
- Smarter shortcode handling. Pasting or converting an embed shortcode now creates a proper Embed block instead of leaving raw shortcode text behind.
- Icon block upgrades. The Icon block now includes controls to flip or rotate icons, starts with a sample icon instead of an empty placeholder, and includes an icon picker organized by collections. Plugins and themes can now register their own icon sets, so expect branded icon libraries from your favorite plugins.
- Grid transforms. Columns and Gallery blocks can now transform into Grid layouts while preserving their content.
- Query Loop exclusion. The Query Loop block gets an option to exclude the current post, so your “related posts” section never recommends the post the visitor is already reading.
Changes to Look Out for Before the Update
Most sites can update to WordPress 7.1 without drama. However, if you run a large site with many plugins, then a few under-the-hood changes deserve your attention before you click update.
The editor is now always iframed. WordPress 7.1 completes a multi-year effort to place the editing canvas inside an iframe, and this now applies even when plugins register older-style meta boxes.
In simple terms, the editor content is loaded in a separate frame from the rest of the WordPress admin screen. This keeps admin styles and scripts from affecting the editing canvas as easily, which can make the editor more consistent and stable.
Most users won’t notice the iframe itself. Instead, you’ll mainly benefit from a more predictable editing experience.
There is a compatibility consideration, though. Older plugins that add custom scripts or styles to the editor may not work as expected with the iframe. Blocks also need to use Block API version 3 to render correctly inside the iframe.
WordPress 7.1 updates jQuery UI to version 1.14.2. jQuery UI is a JavaScript library that many older admin plugins use for things like date pickers and drag-and-drop screens. If a plugin on your site has not seen an update in years, then test it on staging first.
WordPress now enforces multisite upload limits everywhere. On WordPress multisite networks, space quotas now also apply when a plugin imports media from a URL (a process called sideloading). Previously, this route quietly bypassed the per-site storage limit, so network admins can expect quotas to hold from now on.
Our advise remains the same: always create a complete backup of your website before hitting update.
What Didn’t Make It Into WordPress 7.1?
A few features we covered during the beta cycle did not ship in the final release.
The core team cut the ‘On This Day’ widget. We previewed this dashboard widget in our beta coverage, and we liked it. The team decided it needs more work, so it may return in a future release.
Real-time collaboration is still in development. Google Docs-style co-editing received a lot of testing during the 7.1 cycle, but the team held it back to keep working on conflict handling and compatibility. You can try an early version in the Gutenberg plugin.
The Classic block stays in the inserter. The team originally planned to hide the Classic block from the block inserter in this release. After community feedback, they reverted the change, so nothing changes for sites that still rely on it.
The team also pulled Unicode email address support during beta testing. That work continues in a community plugin for broader compatibility and security testing before it lands in core.
We think this caution is the right call. A collaboration feature that loses someone’s work would be far worse than a delayed one.
Under the Hood (Developer & Performance Updates)
WordPress 7.1 also ships several technical improvements for developers and site performance:
- Faster editor startup: WordPress now preloads the REST API requests the editor needs on load, so the editor opens faster, especially on content-heavy sites. (#65636)
- Icons API goes public: New functions like
wp_register_icon_collection(),wp_register_icon(), andwp_get_icon()let plugins and themes register custom icon sets with server-side rendering and REST API endpoints. WordPress sanitizes SVGs against a strict allowlist. (Dev note) - Abilities API expansion: The machine-readable registry of WordPress capabilities, introduced in WordPress 6.9, gains filtering for
wp_get_abilities(), execution lifecycle hooks, a unified public exposure flag, and client-compatible JSON Schema output. These are the plumbing that AI agents and external tools use to work with your site safely. (Dev note) - Block Bindings for List Items: Block Bindings now extend to the List Item block, so more content can connect to dynamic data sources like custom fields. (Details)
- Speculative loading configuration: Hosts and developers can now configure speculative loading defaults (loading pages in the background before a visitor clicks) through environment variables and constants. (#65624)
- Accessible tooltips: Core introduces a shared mechanism for accessible tooltips, replacing pointer-only title attributes in several screens. It is part of a 46-ticket accessibility push in this release. (Dev note)
- Design system maturity: The
wordpress/themepackage introduces design tokens and a stable React ThemeProvider for consistent UI theming. (Dev note) - Author notification control: The
notify_post_authorfilter now has the final say on post author notifications, which makes custom editorial notification setups more predictable. (Dev note)
For the complete list of developer changes, see the official WordPress 7.1 Field Guide.
Final Thoughts on WordPress 7.1
We have been following WordPress 7.1 from development to the final release. It may not have a single blockbuster feature, but it fixes a long list of everyday annoyances, and that matters more for most website owners.
Our favorite additions are the upgraded Notes and responsive styling. Tagging a teammate on an exact sentence, and knowing they will get an email about it, makes WordPress modern collaboration tool.
And styling blocks for mobile without touching CSS removes one of the last big reasons beginners needed custom code.
If you haven’t updated yet, then we recommend backing up your WordPress site first. Once you are in, set aside a few minutes to explore Notes, the revisions sharing, and the responsive styling options. They are easy to miss but genuinely useful.
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The post What’s New in WordPress 7.1? (Features & Screenshots) first appeared on WPBeginner.
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