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LEGO Launches New Toys Representing Children With Hidden Disabilities

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Over 10 million people in the UK are living with hidden disabilities.

Hidden disabilities encompass both physical and mental conditions, including autism, mental health disorders, diabetes, chronic pain and dementia, just to name a few.

This week, the world’s first toys featuring the Sunflower Lanyard were announced, by The LEGO Group in partnership with the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Lanyard Scheme which has been involved in the development of the new toys. The Sunflower Lanyard is a discreet symbol that indicates the wearer has a hidden disability and may require additional support.

The LEGO ranges which will each feature a character wearing the sunflower lanyard is Duplo, for pre-school kids, LEGO Friends, for 6-12 year olds and LEGO Icons- a range for adults.

Duplo, for pre-school kids, LEGO Friends, for 6-12 year olds and LEGO Icons- a range for adults.

The LEGO Group

Duplo, for pre-school kids, LEGO Friends, for 6-12 year olds and LEGO Icons- a range for adults.

Speaking about these figures, Paul White, CEO at Hidden Disabilities Sunflower
says: “Across the globe, 1 in every 6 person lives with some form of disability and 80% of them have a disability that is non-visible.

“HD Sunflower is excited to partner with the LEGO Group on raising awareness and acceptance across their fan and colleague base and can’t wait to see the impact that this will create.”

“People can wear their lanyards with pride”

HuffPost UK spoke with Tasha Sorhaindo, mum to Jayden and Sunflower user with Systemic Lupus and dilated cardiomyopathy about the difference these toys could make.

Jayden, who is a teen with Long QT Wave Syndrome, a life-threatening heart condition with no visible signs, said: “I feel like [these toys] will mean that people can wear their lanyards with pride.

“I didn’t wear mine until my mum started wearing her own and I thought, ‘you know what? I have a hidden disability, why should I hide it? Why shouldn’t I be seen and heard?’”

She added that normalising these will help people like her, as well as giving those with hidden disabilities the freedom to not have to disclose their disability if they’re not comfortable.

Her mum, Tasha, who also has Long QT Wave Syndrome added: “The more awareness that’s raised, [people] will already know that wearing the lanyard means that somebody is clearly struggling with something, they have a disability.

“I just feel like this collaboration is huge, it will break down barriers… there’s a lot of opportunities for schools to jump on this and hold assemblies to inform children.”

“A significant step in normalising hidden disabilities”

Martin Moxness, autistic adult Sunflower lanyard user and Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Ambassador with ADHD and Tourette syndrome, says about the work: “Seeing the Sunflower lanyard in LEGO sets is a significant step in normalising hidden disabilities. As a child, this would have been life-changing and would have made me feel seen and accepted.

“Even as an adult, it’s deeply meaningful to see such representation in an iconic product. This initiative is a milestone for the entire community and empowers individuals of all ages, inspiring creativity, fostering connection, and promoting inclusion.”

The collection will be released on June 1st, 2025.

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Liz Truss Left ‘Deep And Painful Scar’ On Conservative Party’s Reputation, Mel Stride Says

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Liz Truss and her mini-Budget left a “very deep and painful scar” on the Conservative Party, Mel Stride said.

The shadow Tory chancellor, who did not serve in the Truss government, made the admission during a lunch with Westminster journalists.

Asked by reporters if the Tories needed to publicly distance themselves from the mini-Budget by apologising and promising it will never happen again, Stride just admitted Truss’s £45bn of unfunded tax cuts severely damaged the party’s reputation.

The MP for Central Devon said: “I think it’s fair to say the-called mini-Budget – on which I had a lot to say at the time – as I was chair of the Treasury select and I was very vocal about what was going on during and after that event – it is a very deep and painful scar on the Conservative Party.”

He said: “At a stroke, it severely damaged that mantle of economic fiscal competence that our party has always [had].”

He added fiscal responsibility has to be at the centre of Conservatives’ plan to move forward.

Truss was ousted from government after serving just 49 days as the prime minister due to the chaos her mini-Budget caused.

She was also kicked out of her seat in the July general election when her majority of 26,195 was wiped out and Labour’s candidate Terry Jermy took her South West Norfolk constituency by 630 votes.

Stride actually managed to hang onto his own seat, although his majority dropped from 16,831 to just 61 votes.

July’s general election led to a historic defeat for the Tories who took just 121 seats in parliament, their worst defeat in terms of constituencies in history.

Asked if the Tories deserved to lose, Stride said: “If the question is – did we do everything right? And really did we deserve to win? Then I don’t think anybody could argue that we did everything right; a very, very long way from it.”

But he claimed Covid, Ukraine and inflation had all impacted the Tory reputation.

The Tory frontbencher added: “We’ve been around for 14 years. And what being around 14 years does is it deprives you the ability to readily recast yourself as an agent of change and so forth.”

He also expressed optimism about his party’s future, saying: “We have a long way to go in order to get back into political contention, but I believe we can do it, because I think that Labour victory last time round whilst wide is relatively shallow, and under 34% of the vote.

“We are in very volatile territory at the moment in which almost anything can happen in the future.”

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Bill Clinton Says He Wishes Joe Biden Didn’t Do This Thing Before Pardoning His Son

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Bill Clinton said on Wednesday that you “can’t take the politics out of” presidential pardoning decisions as he weighed in on Joe Biden’s recent pardon of his son Hunter Biden.

“I wish he hadn’t said he wasn’t going to do it. I think it does weaken his case,” Clinton said of Joe Biden, who had vowed he wouldn’t pardon his son, who was found guilty in June of illegally owning a gun in 2018 and pleaded guilty in a tax case in September.

Clinton, in remarks to Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit, said the president had “reason to believe” his son would likely face “far stronger, adverse consequences” than the average person.

On Sunday, Biden said in a statement that his son was “unfairly” and selectively prosecuted, adding that he was “singled out” due to his ties to his father. The move by the president has led to bipartisan condemnation in the days since.

Clinton dismissed comparisons of Biden’s pardon to his own 2001 pardon of his half-brother Roger Clinton Jr, who was convicted of cocaine possession and drug trafficking in 1985.

“The real question was, would he ever be able to vote again? Would he ever be able to have normal citizenship responsibilities?” said the former president, who noted that his half-brother had already served a 14-month sentence in federal prison at the time.

He continued, “And I’ve been sort of upset that there’s been almost no discussion about the larger problem, which is, does the pardon system we have work?”

Bill Clinton, who urged Americans to see Biden’s move in a “larger context,” then turned to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ (Democrat, New York) call for the president to also pardon those “in the federal prison system whose lives have been ruined by unjustly aggressive prosecutions for nonviolent offences.”

He said that Biden is “almost certainly right” that his son received “completely different treatments” than he would have otherwise.

But the issue over the pardon, he said, isn’t “way high” on his “hierarchy of things” he’s supposed to be upset about.

Sorkin later asked Clinton if Biden should pardon President-elect Donald Trump in what could be seen as a “balanced” move prior to the change in administrations.

“Well, I do think we should stop trying to criminalise politics,” Clinton said.

He later continued, “Both of them. … And the people like it when they are not going along with it from right to left. On the other hand, you have to ask yourself, if you do this as a blanket thing, is there anything a president could do that he or she someday would get in trouble for?”

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