Miniature Therapy Horses Trained to Play Keyboard in Hospitals for Veterans and Sick Children (Exclusive)

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Miniature Therapy Horses Trained to Play Keyboard in Hospitals for Veterans and Sick Children (Exclusive) Meredith WilshereAugust 4, 2025 at 6:00 AM Mini Therapy Horses Piano playing horse In 2008, Victoria NodiffNetanel founded Mini Therapy Horses with her miniature horse, Pearl The nonprofit chari...

- - Miniature Therapy Horses Trained to Play Keyboard in Hospitals for Veterans and Sick Children (Exclusive)

Meredith WilshereAugust 4, 2025 at 6:00 AM

Mini Therapy Horses

Piano playing horse

In 2008, Victoria Nodiff-Netanel founded Mini Therapy Horses with her miniature horse, Pearl

The non-profit charity, made up of nine horses, offers site visits to hospitals, schools, fire departments and wherever else extra care is needed

Now, Nodiff-Netanel tells PEOPLE how the viral video came to be

Victoria Nodiff-Netanel has always been a proud "horse woman."

The former dressage rider knew she wanted to combine her love for horses with helping the community, which led her to become the president and executive director of Mini Therapy Horses. In 2008, Nodiff-Netanel founded the charity with her first miniature horse, Pearl.

Nodiff-Netanel talks exclusively with PEOPLE about her charity and her horses, saying, "my whole life changed with this one little horse."

Victoria Nodiff-Netanel

Victoria Nodiff-Netanel as a dressage rider

"I started training Pearl to do different things, and that's when I got my light-bulb moment of how wonderful it would be to share my passion and connection with horses to help people," she says. "I didn't know anything about animal services, animal therapy, or animal-assisted therapy at the time. I started taking one step at a time with my one horse."

Through training and different certifications, Pearl became the organization's first therapy horse. Since Nodiff-Netanel's father was a veteran, she decided the first place she wanted to visit was the local veterans hospital in California.

"Now, at the VA, we've been in the intensive care unit. We run a program in the lockdown psychiatric ward with the horses, which is rewarding for these veterans. A lot of them are homeless, they're addicts. They're going through a lot," she shares.

"The horses have an extremely calming effect. With the horse, we work together on social, emotional and spiritual behaviors."

Mini Therapy Horses

Horses playing a keyboard.

"When someone's hugging a horse, everybody becomes very quiet. It allows people to make that emotional and spiritual connection. It really helps," she adds. "Sometimes kids or adults will talk to the horses or cry with the horses, hug the horses, things that'll happen that won't happen in other situations."

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Since the first site visit, the charity has expanded from just Pearl to nine highly trained miniature therapy horses.

In addition to weekly visits to the VA hospital, the organization visits children's hospitals, police and fire departments, schools, the Ronald McDonald house, and is a part of the Mayor's Crisis Response Team (CRT), offering equine-assisted activities (EAA) and equine-assisted therapy (EAT).

The horses were invaluable during the recent Los Angeles wildfires, offering services to those who lost their homes, the firefighters and crisis response teams, and anyone else who needed extra love and support during the difficult time.

"We did so much work during the wildfires and in the past with fires, we have now become part of the L.A. City Fire Department," Nodiff-Netanel shares.

Mini Therapy Horses

A Horse playing a keyboard for a child in a hospital.

Her horses recently went viral after Nodiff-Netanel posted a video of one of them waking up a child from surgery by playing an electric keyboard. Nodiff-Netanel says every horse in her care can play the piano, among other things.

Before a visit, all the horses are washed, their hair is braided and they all wear shoes. Each one knows how to maneuver in tight spaces, stay calm in loud situations, smile, play instruments, and adapt to anything. "We rotate them so they never get burned out," Nodiff-Netanel shares.

"Every visit, we come away with special moments. The horses are magical, and the connections they make are magical," she adds. "They react to things so gently, so calmly and with such sensitivity that people feel so comfortable around them. Here's this tiny little horse they can touch and interact with and hug and feel her heartbeat."

Mini Therapy Horses

A horse playing keyboard in the hospital

Nodiff-Netanel notes that none of this would be possible without the passion and commitment of her volunteers, who help with site visits and taking care of the horses. She also credits donations that help keep the organization running.

"It's donations from people who love the horses that keep the horses fed and the programs going," she says. "People can see all the different ways the horses help people. All these places we go to, from the police department, the fire department, to the schools, we're the only horses going there."

"We're the only horses in these hospitals. It takes a team to do this, and I couldn't do it without my volunteers. Volunteers are everything, and people who are like-minded who carry the same passion with the horses make it all work. Without them, I'm just one person with a little horse."

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Miniature Therapy Horses Trained to Play Keyboard in Hospitals for Veterans and Sick Children (Exclusive)

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Why So Many Women Are Quitting the Workforce

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Why So Many Women Are Quitting the Workforce Alana SemuelsAugust 4, 2025 at 8:50 PM Credit PhotoIllustration by TIME (Source images: Billion Photos via Canva) It's a stark number: 212,000.

- - Why So Many Women Are Quitting the Workforce

Alana SemuelsAugust 4, 2025 at 8:50 PM

Credit - Photo-Illustration by TIME (Source images: Billion Photos via Canva)

It's a stark number: 212,000. That's how many women ages 20 and over have left the workforce since January, according to the most recent jobs numbers released Aug. 1 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (By contrast, 44,000 men have entered the workforce since January.) The numbers show a reversal of recent trends that saw more women, especially women with children, finding and keeping full-time jobs.

Data show that between January and June, labor force participation rate of women ages 25 to 44 living with a child under five fell nearly three percentage points, from 69.7% to 66.9%, says Misty Lee Heggeness, an associate professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Kansas. It's a big reversal. The participation of those women had soared in 2022, 2023, and 2024, peaking in January 2025, as flexible work policies helped women join the workforce and generate much-needed income for their families.

Workers have seen flexibility revoked in 2025 on a large scale. President Donald Trump ordered federal employees back to the office five days a week in January, though many had negotiated remote work arrangements and some had even moved far away from their offices. Amazon, JP Morgan, and AT&T also returned to five days a week policies in 2025. Overall, full-time in-office requirements among Fortune 500 companies jumped to 24% in the second quarter of 2025, up from 13% in the end of 2024, according to the Flex Index, which tracks remote work policies.

This has hit women with a bachelor's degree in particular; their labor-force participation rate, which had been falling for decades before the pandemic, started ticking up again in 2020, peaking at 70.3% in September in 2024. It's been falling ever since, and stood at 67.7% in July 2025, according to the most recent jobs report.

Read More: As People Return to Offices, It's Back to Misery for America's Working Moms

It's not a coincidence that women's participation in the workforce is falling as flexibility disappears, says Julie Vogtman, senior director of job quality for the National Women's Law Center. Women capitalized on remote work and flexibility during the pandemic and stopped exiting the labor force, research shows. Now, many are not able to do so.

"Women still take on the lion's share of caregiving responsibilities, and they are more likely than men to be navigating how to meet those caregiving responsibilities while holding down a job," she says. "They are also more likely than men to feel that they have to leave the workforce when their balancing act becomes unmanageable."

Return-to-office policies are not proven to make companies more productive. One 2024 study of resumes at Microsoft, SpaceX, and Apple found that return-to-office policies led to an exodus of senior employees, which posed a potential threat to competitiveness of the larger firm. And nearly two-thirds of C-suite executives said that return-to-work mandates caused a "disproportionate number" of females to quit, according to a 2024 survey conducted by Walr, a data-collection agency, on behalf of Upwork and Workplace Intelligence. Many of those CEOs who reported women quitting said they were struggling to fill jobs because of that loss of female employees and that their overall workforce productivity is down.

"When I hear about these companies making everyone go back to the office, the most normal situation is it's being ordered by some old white male person with what I call care privilege, which is that they have someone who cooks their meals, irons their clothes, or picks their kids up from daycare," says Heggeness.

Read More: Trump's Return-to-Office Push Is a Mistake

The disappearance of flexibility is not the only reason women are leaving the workforce in 2025. Some of the decline in participation comes from lower-income women in jobs that have historically had to be done in person full-time, even during the pandemic. Those women are struggling because federal dollars for childcare have declined significantly in 2025. That money helped many centers stay open and charge lower tuition than they otherwise would have. That funding ended in September 2024, forcing many centers to close or raise tuition, leaving some families without options.

What's more, the mass deportations occurring throughout the country now are affecting childcare providers, about 20% of whom are immigrants, according to Vogtman. Even if workers have legal status, some may be afraid to come to work, and others may have lost their own childcare and have to stay home as a result, she says. The federal funding helped some providers keep their costs down; now, childcare expenses are rising again. The amount of money American families spent on nursery, elementary, and secondary schools fell in much of 2023 and 2024, and then started to rise again in the fourth quarter of 2024, when it jumped 3.3%, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. It has risen every quarter in 2025..

"You have a population of working women who are finding it increasingly difficult to make the math work," Vogtman says.

Those include many federal government workers, who may have been drawn to their jobs because government jobs were long seen as flexible, with good benefits like parental leave, says Heggeness. Research suggests that women are more likely to take a lower-paying job if there are benefits attached like telework and flexibility around timing their schedule, she says. If those jobs then experience massive layoffs—as federal workers have under Trump's downsizing—women could be disproportionately affected.

As women leave the workforce, the Trump Administration is exploring ways to encourage women to get married and have more children in order to slow the country's decline in birth rate. But Heggeness suspects that forcing federal government workers back to the office makes many women choose between having children and pursuing their careers—and many might choose the latter.

"What they are doing right now, with the return-to-work policies and their leading by example, is the exact opposite of what you'd want to be doing from a policy perspective if you really care about increasing birth rates," Heggeness says.

Of course, for some women, leaving the workforce can be a blessing, if their partners have stable jobs that provide a good income. They have more time to spend with their families, and some are freelancing or starting their own businesses.

Sarah Wedge moved out of Philadelphia during the pandemic; her employment ended when her company called employees back to the office, she says, and she decided she didn't want to move her family back. Now, she's freelancing and spending more time with her three-year-old daughter. "I'm a mom, and that's part of why I've enjoyed freelancing; it's the whole fluid schedule that's great," she says.

But there are reasons to be concerned about women leaving the workforce. Without two salaries, many families struggle to afford basics like housing, food, and transportation; they have less money to spend, which means less money circulating in the economy. Their health care and other benefits are more precarious in an economy where only one partner works. Economic growth has slowed in the first half of the year; in the long term, slowing growth worsens people's standard of living.

For many women, this is more than an economic problem: it's a depressing reminder that the brief period of time when work-from-home reigned—when balancing family and work was actually sometimes possible—is over.

Read More: Flexible Employers Were a Pandemic Blip

Big picture, women's labor-force participation has stalled in the U.S. in recent decades, peaking in the early 2000s even as it rose in many countries in Europe. But then, during the pandemic, rates started rising again, as women could handle childcare pickup and dropoff and other caregiving responsibilities while working from home. Among married women, rates rose from 56.9% in Jan. 2021 to 59% in Jan. 2024.

"What is most heartbreaking about all of this is that the pandemic felt like this revolution, where they finally realized we're human beings and they'll treat us with some degree of respect," says a mother of two whose company went back to mandating three in-office workdays, but which granted her a temporary exception, meaning she is still able to work remotely full time. "In the pandemic, they were saying, 'We care about you as people, and we understand that your well-being contributes to your productivity at work,'" she says.

The mother, who does not want her name used because she doesn't want to risk her remote status, has two young children and moved to be closer to their grandparents during the pandemic. Now, she's just waiting for her company to end her employment by reversing her remote work status, which the company says can be revoked at any time for any reason. She's not willing to pick up her family and move back, but she wishes she didn't have to choose.

"There's been a shift in the zeitgeist—now, it's 'We don't care about you, and you're replaceable,'" she says. "It's like we didn't learn anything."

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Tropical Storm Dexter forms in the Atlantic. Is it expected to make landfall in US?

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Tropical Storm Dexter forms in the Atlantic. Is it expected to make landfall in US? Thao Nguyen, N'dea YanceyBragg and Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY August 4, 2025 at 8:08 PM Tropical Storm Dexter is battling shearing winds as it moves northeastward in the Atlantic Ocean and away from the United St...

- - Tropical Storm Dexter forms in the Atlantic. Is it expected to make landfall in US?

Thao Nguyen, N'dea Yancey-Bragg and Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY August 4, 2025 at 8:08 PM

Tropical Storm Dexter is battling shearing winds as it moves northeastward in the Atlantic Ocean and away from the United States. There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect and no hazards to land are expected.

Dexter's maximum sustained winds were 45 mph at 11 a.m. on Aug. 4, and it was moving to the northeast at about 14 mph, according to a forecast written by Philippe Papin, a hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center. Its winds are only expected to strengthen by 5 mph because of the wind conditions and dry air it's encountering.

Dexter became a tropical storm on the night of Aug. 3, forming from a disturbance along a frontal boundary off the coast of North Carolina. On the morning of Aug. 4, it was about 250 miles northwest of Bermuda and expected to stay to the north of Bermuda.

By Aug. 5, Dexter is forecast to encounter "increasingly hostile" conditions over the Atlantic. By Aug. 8, it could become a remnant system or interact with a nearby upper-level trough, the hurricane center said.

Tropical Storm Dexter, which formed on the evening of Aug. 3, is moving to the northeast in the Atlantic Ocean and expected to pass north of Bermuda.

Dexter is the fourth named storm of the 2025 hurricane season in the Atlantic. The average date of the fourth-named storm is Aug. 3, according to Philip Klotzbach, a senior research scientist at Colorado State University. The average date of the first hurricane in the Atlantic is Aug. 15.

Hurricane forecasters were monitoring two other potential systems in the Atlantic Ocean on Aug. 4, including a tropical wave moving off the west coast of Africa and a broad area of disturbed weather a few hundred miles off the southeastern United States.

The system off the Southeast is drifting slowly westward and has about a 30% chance of becoming a tropical storm later in the week, the hurricane center said. National Weather Service offices in Charleston, South Carolina, and Jacksonville, Florida, are closely monitoring the forecast.

The National Hurricane Center is monitoring three systems in the Atlantic, including Tropical Storm Dexter, an area of disturbed weather off the Southeast coast and a tropical wave moving off the west coast of Africa.

The Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, had a quiet start in 2025: June and July showed minimal activity. But hurricane specialists say the tropics are heating up and conditions are becoming more favorable for tropical systems.

The uptick in activity comes after Tropical Storm Gil briefly became a hurricane in the Pacific Ocean on Aug. 1 before weakening again into a tropical storm, according to the hurricane center.

More: August brings ominous hurricane season news. Is another Helene on the way?

Forecasters previously predicted 'above-normal' hurricane activity for 2025

In May, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecasters predicted "above-normal" hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin for the 2025 season.

The agency forecast 13 to 19 named storms with winds 39 mph or higher. Of those storms, six to 10 are predicted to become hurricanes with winds 74 mph or higher, including the potential of three to five major hurricanes.

"As we witnessed last year with significant inland flooding from hurricanes Helene and Debby, the impacts of hurricanes can reach far beyond coastal communities," Laura Grimm, chief of staff for the NOAA, said in a statement.

Atlantic storm map

Contributing: Jennifer Sangalang, USA TODAY NETWORK - Florida

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tropical Storm Dexter forms in the Atlantic. Will it make landfall?

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Tropical Storm Dexter forms in the Atlantic. Is it expected to make landfall in US? Thao Nguyen, N'dea YanceyB...

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Zoo asks public to donate unwanted small pets to feed captive predators

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Zoo asks public to donate unwanted small pets to feed captive predators Haley Ott August 4, 2025 at 11:54 PM Aalborg Zoo A zoo in Denmark is asking the public for donations of unwanted small pets or horses to feed its captive predators.

- - Zoo asks public to donate unwanted small pets to feed captive predators

Haley Ott August 4, 2025 at 11:54 PM

Aalborg Zoo

A zoo in Denmark is asking the public for donations of unwanted small pets or horses to feed its captive predators.

"In zoos, we have a responsibility to imitate the natural food chain of the animals — in terms of both animal welfare and professional integrity," Aalborg Zoo said in a post on social media.

The zoo in northern Denmark said that chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs were an important part of the diet of its predators, which need "whole prey," reminiscent of what they would hunt in the wild.

"If you have a healthy animal that has to leave here for various reasons, feel free to donate it to us. The animals are gently euthanized by trained staff and are afterwards used as fodder. That way, nothing goes to waste — and we ensure natural behavior, nutrition and well-being for our predators," Aalborg Zoo said.

The zoo said it accepts donated rabbits, guinea pigs and chickens on weekdays between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., but no more than four at a time.

It also accepts horses for feeding its animals, which it says on its website are euthanized by a zookeeper and a veterinarian.

Horses to be donated for animal food must not have been treated for illness for at least a month, and are subject to size restrictions, the zoo said on its website. They must also be in a condition where it is safe for them to be transported.

Given that the horse is a donation, the donor can receive a tax deduction for its value.

"Our needs vary throughout the year, and there may be a waiting list," Aalborg Zoo said.

How safe is our Social Security safety net?

Russia downplays Trump's announcement about nuclear submarines

Former Trump prosecutor under investigation for potential Hatch Act violations

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Zoo asks public to donate unwanted small pets to feed captive predators

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Trump’s deadline for the Kremlin looms but Putin shows no sign of making concessions

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Trump's deadline for the Kremlin looms but Putin shows no sign of making concessions The August 4, 2025 at 9:25 PM White House special envoy Steve Witkoff waits for the arrival of President Donald Trump at Teterboro Airport in Teterboro, N.J.

- - Trump's deadline for the Kremlin looms but Putin shows no sign of making concessions

The August 4, 2025 at 9:25 PM

White House special envoy Steve Witkoff waits for the arrival of President Donald Trump at Teterboro Airport in Teterboro, N.J., en route to attend the Club World Cup final soccer match, Sunday, July 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

The coming week could mark a pivotal moment in the war between Russia and Ukraine, as U.S. President Donald Trump's deadline for the Kremlin to reach a peace deal approaches — or it could quietly pass without consequence.

Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff was expected in Moscow midweek, just before Trump's Friday deadline for the Kremlin to stop the killing or face potentially severe economic penalties from Washington.

So far Trump's promises, threats and cajoling have failed to shift the Kremlin's position, and the stubborn diplomatic stalemate remains in place. Meanwhile, Ukraine is losing more territory on the front line, although there is no sign of a looming collapse of its defenses.

Trump's envoy is expected in Moscow

Witkoff is expected to land in the Russian capital on Wednesday or Thursday, according to Trump, following his trip to Israel and Gaza.

"They would like to see (Witkoff)," Trump said Sunday of the Russians. "They've asked that he meet so we'll see what happens."

Trump, exasperated that Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn't heeded his calls to stop bombing Ukrainian cities, a week ago moved up his ultimatum to impose additional sanctions on Russia as well as introduce secondary tariffs targeting countries that buy Russian oil, including China and India.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that officials are happy to meet with Trump's envoy. "We are always glad to see Mr. Witkoff in Moscow," he said. "We consider (talks with Witkoff) important, substantive and very useful."

Trump is not sure sanctions will work

Trump said Sunday that Russia has proven to be "pretty good at avoiding sanctions."

"They're wily characters," he said of the Russians.

The Kremlin has insisted that international sanctions imposed since its February 2022 invasion of its neighbor have had a limited impact.

Ukraine insists the sanctions are taking their toll on Moscow's war machine and wants Western allies to ramp them up. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday urged the United States, Europe and other nations to impose stronger secondary sanctions on Moscow's energy, trade and banking sectors.

Trump's comments appeared to signal he doesn't have much hope that sanctions will force Putin's hand.

The secondary sanctions also complicate Washington's relations with China and India, who stand accused of helping finance Russia's war effort by buying its oil.

Since returning to office in January, Trump has found that stopping the war is harder than he perhaps imagined.

Senior American officials have warned that the U.S. could walk away from the conflict if peace efforts make no progress.

Putin shows no signs of making concessions

The diplomatic atmosphere has become more heated as Trump's deadline approaches.

Putin announced last Friday that Russia's new hypersonic missile, the Oreshnik, has entered service.

The Russian leader has hailed its capabilities, saying its multiple warheads that plunge to a target at speeds of up to Mach 10 cannot be intercepted. He claimed that they are so powerful that the use of several of them in one conventional strike could be as devastating as a nuclear attack.

Separately, one of Putin's top lieutenants warned that the Ukraine war could nudge Russia and the U.S. into armed conflict.

Trump responded to what he called the "highly provocative statements" by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev by ordering the repositioning of two U.S. nuclear submarines.

Putin has repeated the same message throughout the war: He will only accept a settlement on his terms and will keep fighting until they're met.

The war is killing thousands of troops and civilians

Russia's relentless pounding of urban areas behind the front line have killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. It has pushed on with that tactic despite Trump's public calls for it to stop over the past three months.

On the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, Russia's bigger army has made slow and costly progress. It is carrying out a sustained operation to take the eastern city of Pokrovsk, a key logistical hub whose fall could open the way for a deeper drive into Ukraine.

Ukraine has developed technology that has allowed it to launch long-range drone attacks deep inside Russia. In its latest strike it hit an oil depot near Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, starting a major fire.

___

Follow AP's coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://ift.tt/s2KGv1R

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Trump’s deadline for the Kremlin looms but Putin shows no sign of making concessions

Trump 's deadline for the Kremlin looms but Putin shows no sign of making concessions The August 4, 2025 at 9:...

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Air quality maps show how Canadian wildfire smoke is affecting U.S.

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Air quality maps show how Canadian wildfire smoke is affecting U.S. Nicole Brown Chau August 4, 2025 at 11:23 PM Smoke from Canadian wildfires is causing air quality concerns for millions of Americans in the Midwest and Northeast.

- - Air quality maps show how Canadian wildfire smoke is affecting U.S.

Nicole Brown Chau August 4, 2025 at 11:23 PM

Smoke from Canadian wildfires is causing air quality concerns for millions of Americans in the Midwest and Northeast.

Air quality alerts are in effect Monday in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts and Delaware.

On Monday morning, Detroit's air quality was among the worst in the world, ranking third, according to IQAir.

Map shows air quality alerts in effect on Monday, Aug. 4, 2025. / Credit: CBS News

A map of the current Air Quality Index, the federal measurement system, showed ratings of unhealthy and unhealthy for sensitive groups for areas around the Great Lakes and the U.S.-Canada border in the Northeast, Monday morning.

The air index has six ratings:

GoodModerateUnhealthy for sensitive groupsUnhealthyVery unhealthyHazardous

Sensitive groups include those who have a heart or lung disease, as well as older adults, children and pregnant women.

The smoke was expected to sink over the next couple of days, impacting more of the Northeast, CBS News meteorologist Rob Marciano said.

var pymChild = new pym.Child(); pymChild.sendHeight();

There were more than 700 active wildfires in Canada, as of Monday morning, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

How safe is our Social Security safety net?

Russia downplays Trump's announcement about nuclear submarines

Former Trump prosecutor under investigation for potential Hatch Act violations

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Air quality maps show how Canadian wildfire smoke is affecting U.S. Nicole Brown Chau August 4, 2025 at 11:23 PM S...

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Elvis balked about recording the oversexed 'Burning Love.' Then it became his last hit.

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Elvis balked about recording the oversexed 'Burning Love.' Then it became his last hit. Kim Willis, USA TODAYAugust 4, 2025 at 6:01 PM By all objective measures, Elvis Presley was a hunk, a hunk of burning love.

- - Elvis balked about recording the oversexed 'Burning Love.' Then it became his last hit.

Kim Willis, USA TODAYAugust 4, 2025 at 6:01 PM

By all objective measures, Elvis Presley was a hunk, a hunk of burning love. But he clearly wasn't feeling it when he heard a demo of "Burning Love" at RCA Hollywood Studios in March 1972.

The song, a slightly shocking blend of the spiritual and sexual, seemed like a hit to those in the room, with its reverent, raunchy intro:

Lord Almighty, I feel my temperature rising, mmm.Higher, higher, it's burning through to my soul.Girl, girl, girl, girl, you're gonna set me on fire.My brain is flaming, I don't know which way to go, yeah.

"Elvis didn't hate the song, he just wasn't in the mood for it," Jerry Schilling, Elvis' longtime friend who attended the session, tells USA TODAY.

From Elvis to Michael Jackson: The biggest reveals in Lisa Marie Presley's memoir

The cover of "Sunset Boulevard," a new compilation of songs recorded by Elvis Presley in Los Angeles between 1970 and 1975.

In the end, Presley reluctantly recorded the gospel-rock track, giving it his high-octane all: "He knew everyone felt that he should do it, he was a reasonable man," Schilling says. It became Elvis' final Top 10 hit, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 that fall.

"I don't think Elvis was ever too thrilled about singing lyrics like 'Flames are now licking my body,' but he loved having a hit record," Schilling, 83, writes in the introduction to "Sunset Boulevard," a new five-disc, 89-track collection that spans Presley's Los Angeles studio sessions from 1970 to 1975. (Schilling can be glimpsed in the set's archival images: "I'm very proud to be standing behind Elvis on the cover.")

The set includes rare alternate takes − half of which have never been released in the U.S. − rehearsals for his Las Vegas residency, and new stripped-down mixes of classic Elvis cuts, including "For the Good Times," "Tiger Man," "T-R-O-U-B-L-E," "Green, Green Grass of Home," "Pieces of My Life," "Memories" and "Softly As I Leave You."

"I'm kind of a purist, you know: Don't mess with Michelangelo's paintings or change the clouds. Don't mess with the artist," says Schilling, talking from his home in California, which Elvis gifted him in 1974. "There's a tremendous responsibility. When the big questions come up, I go, what would I do if Elvis was sitting next to me? That's how I judge it. I know my friend."

The singer never shied away from the provocation of songs like "Burning Love," Schilling adds. But in the early '70s, as Elvis privately struggled with his disintegrating marriage to Priscilla Presley, he gravitated toward expressions of heartbreak and regret such as the autobiographical "Separate Ways" and "Always on My Mind" (both included in the set).

Over time, he came to embrace the lusty song as part of his live repertoire, breaking it out months later for an epic "Aloha From Hawaii" performance.

"There's a part of Elvis that wanted to be sexy," Schilling says. "And there's a part of him that wanted to be a great gospel singer."

In "Burning Love," he got to be both.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Elvis Presley wasn't fond of 'Burning Love.' Then it became a hit.

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August 04, 2025

Elvis balked about recording the oversexed 'Burning Love.' Then it became his last hit.

Elvis balked about recording the oversexed 'Burning Love.' Then it became his last hit. Kim Willis, USA TO...

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