Dr. Peter Grossman, of Los Angeles’ Grossman Burn Center, gave the media an update Wednesday on Jay Leno‘s condition, after he was seriously burned in a garage fire last week.
Grossman explained that although Leno’s burns to his face, hand and chest were serious, the comedian and former Tonight Show host was in good spirits Wednesday. He has been up and walking around the hospital, even handing out cookies to children in the burn unit.
Grossman clarified that Leno suffered “significant, deep second-degree” burns and “possibly” some third-degree burns in the incident, during which the avid car collector and gearhead was sprayed with gasoline from an antique car and set ablaze by a stray spark in his Burbank garage.
Leno has also been receiving hyperbaric therapy to minimize the damage and stimulate healing. Grossman said Leno underwent a skin graft procedure, noting it’s “too early to tell” if more will be needed.
The 72-year-old was listed in good condition despite his injuries, with a full recovery expected. Grossman, who is also a plastic surgeon, remarked it “is still way too early to tell” if there will be permanent scarring from the burns.
Seether has announced a reissue of the band’s 2002 debut album, Disclaimer.
The expanded package is due out January 20, 2023, and includes the original record accompanied by a previously unreleased full live recording of a 2003 live show, as well as a live acoustic cover of Nirvana‘s “Something in the Way.”
“If there was ever a little engine that could, against all odds, with every possible obstacle thrown at us, this is the record,” says frontman Shaun Morgan in the updated Disclaimer liner notes. “We managed to somehow surmount everything.”
Disclaimer spawned the singles “Fine Again,” “Gasoline” and “Driven Under.” It was followed by 2004’s Disclaimer II, which featured slightly reworked versions of the songs from the first Disclaimer, as well as a new version of the song “Broken” featuring Evanescence‘s Amy Lee.
Seether’s most recent album is 2020’s Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum.
Lizzo granted Georgia author Aurielle Marie‘s wish to wear one of her iconic dresses to a New York ceremony.
The Atlanta-based writer will be honored in the 2022 Out100 ceremony, which will highlight LGBTQ+ literary and publishing stars. The author was previously celebrated for their published collection of poems Gumbo Ya Ya, which they say is about “growing up fat, Black and queer in the south.”
Marie, who is also the 2022 Georgia Author of the Year, took to TikTok to ask Lizzo for a big favor.
Marie said they “can’t find anything to wear… I can’t find anything, anywhere.” The author said finding a bold “red carpet ready” dress for their body type hasn’t only been difficult, but the longer they spend hunting for the dress, the less they want to go to New York for the ceremony.
Marie ended their video by asking Lizzo if they could borrow the dress she wore to the 2022 Emmy Awards.
The singer caught wind of the request and did send off one of her dresses, but it was the custom tulle Dominique Galbraith ball gown she wore to the 2019 American Music Awards that made it to Marie’s doorstep. Not only that, Lizzo ensured it was tailored to fit the author.
Marie made a follow-up TikTok of them modeling the gown and showing off their excitement. They wrote, “I might’ve gotten a few tears on your dress @lizzo, my bad babe!”
Thomas Rhett and his family are celebrating a very special birthday this week. The youngest of the singer’s four children, Lillie, is officially a one-year-old.
“Lillie bug…how are you one already?” TR wrote on social media. “It seems like yesterday. For real.”
In his birthday post, the singer shared a snapshot of little Lillie offering the camera a grin with big, purple sunglasses on her face. That sunny demeanor is pretty typical of his baby girl, Thomas says in the rest of his post’s caption.
“Every time I look at you you are smiling!” he goes on to say. “Don’t ever lose that! Happy birthday to you little baby.”
Thomas and his wife, Lauren Akins,share four daughters, whose ages span from 7 to 1. Over on Lauren’s social media, she shared a snapshot of the family’s “hot tub party” celebrating Lillie’s birthday.
Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness has premiered a new song called “VHS.”
“Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves about where we come from and what we’ve been through are the very things that keep us from truly living in the moment,” McMahon says. “I’m no stranger to this trap. If you’re lucky, as I have been, you have people in your life who remind you that living in the here and now frees you from the past and the future.”
He adds, “‘VHS’ was written to remind myself of that universal truth.”
Wiz Khalifa has dropped the official video for “Memory Lane,” the lead single off his album Multiverse.
The song hears Wiz going down, well, memory lane, as he reflects on his relationship with a past lover. “When the days turn to nights / I keep thinking ’bout you moving on,” he raps. “Makes me wonder if you hear this song / Would you right the way that we went wrong?”
His vision was “to do something special with the video and tell a more in-depth story” of the track, Wiz revealed in a press statement.
That story shows a woman making her way into a doctor’s office for an appointment in which a team of physicians attach wires to her head, bringing her back in time, specifically to the days of her relationship with Wiz. She’s seen looking back on the rise and fall of their former bond.
The video for “Memory Lane” is now available to watch on YouTube.
(LOS ANGELES) — Twenty-five police recruits were injured while on a run in Los Angeles early Wednesday when they were struck by a man driving the wrong way, officials said.
About 75 recruits were on the run. The group was mostly Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department recruits, but also included others from nearby police departments, including Pasadena and Glendale.
“It looked like an airplane wreck, there were so many bodies scattered everywhere,” LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said at a news conference.
Five of the recruits were critically hurt, four suffered moderate injuries and 16 have minor injuries, officials said at a news conference.
Injuries include head trauma, loss of limb and broken bones, officials said. At least one victim is on a ventilator, the sheriff said.
The 22-year-old driver, who has been detained, has minor injuries, Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Sheila Kelliher said.
The cause of the crash is unknown. The California Highway Patrol said it’ll investigate whether the crash was intentional or the result of distracted driving or driving under the influence.
Villanueva said the driver blew a 0.0 on a Breathalyzer test.
“It looks like it’s an accident, a horrific accident,” Villanueva said.
The recruits were running on a routine route at the time of the crash, which took place around 6:29 a.m. Wednesday, while it was still dark out, officials said.
“Road guards” wearing reflective vests ran on the outside of the recruits, officials said.
The sheriff’s office also had two patrol cars escorting the runners.
The accident took place just outside of a fire station, so firefighters immediately raced to the scene, officials said.
Some recruits estimated the car was going about 30 mph, officials said.
“It is hard to see, because these young people are getting ready to go put themselves in the line of danger in their career. And who knows that while you’re training to do that you are actually in harm’s way,” Kelliher said at a news conference. “So my heart goes out to all of them as they pursue this career. I hope that they all have speedy recoveries.”
Bruce Springsteen recently sat down for his first-ever interview with Howard Stern,and now, fans are going to able to see what went down.
Variety reports the two-hour interview, which originally aired on Halloween, is set to debut on HBO on November 27 at 10 p.m.; it will also stream on HBO Max.
The conversation had The Boss discussing a wide range of subjects, including his latest album, Only The Strong Survive. It also featured several performances on guitar and piano of such tunes as “Thunder Road,” “The Rising” and “Born to Run.”
(Note Language) Neil Young is one of the many artists who in recent years have sold the publishing rights to their catalog, and for him, doing so was a no brainer.
“I wanted to sell my songs because I don’t have to worry about a f****** thing now,” he tells Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1. “I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. I’ve got the end of my life to go out doing exactly what it is I want to do and not doing what I don’t want to do.”
Neil adds, “That’s the way I feel about it. I don’t have to go on a tour if I don’t want to go on a tour.”
But even with the sale, Neil insists he doesn’t want to hear his music “associated with a product or with a movement or with a politician or with a sport or with anything,” adding, “I like the songs to be the songs.”
And fans shouldn’t think the sale means Neil’s about to stop making music. “It’s what I have to do. I want to do this,” he says. “That’s why there’s 51, 52 albums because I want to do this and I can still feel it. I’d be crazy to stop.”
(NEW YORK) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday disputed a claim by Poland that a missile strike that hit a Polish village killing two people came from Ukrainian air defenses. Polish President Andrzej Duda earlier had called the incident a “tragic accident.”
“I have no doubt that it was not our rocket,” Zelenskyy told reporters. He said Ukraine should be a party to the investigation over the strike.
But U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in an on-camera briefing Wednesday said there’s “nothing that contradicts President Duda’s preliminary assessment that this explosion was most likely the result of a Ukrainian air defense missile that unfortunately landed in Poland.”
The missile caused an explosion Tuesday about 10 miles from the Polish-Ukrainian border, in the farming village of Przewodow, killing the owner of a granary that was struck and a tractor driver who was transferring maize and corn to the facility, according to Poland’s Law and Justice Ministry.
In response to the incident, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Tuesday called an urgent meeting with the Polish Committee of the Council of Ministers for National Security and Defense Affairs. Duda said the NATO ally also strengthened the readiness of the Polish armed forces, including air defenses.
The Polish foreign minister also summoned the Russian envoy to explain the explosion near the Ukrainian border.
The incident came on the same day Russian forces fired 90 missiles into Ukraine, affecting power systems, enterprises and residential buildings, according to Zelenskyy.
Russia denied responsibility for the missiles that landed in Poland. After Polish authorities released images from the site, Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed the wreckage was elements of an S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile, which it claimed is used by the Ukrainian Air Force.
Duda said that it was probably a Russian-made S-300 missile, but that there is no evidence that it was a missile launched by the Russians.
Russia claimed that its precision strikes were carried out on targets within Ukrainian territory and at a distance no closer than 35 km from the Ukrainian-Polish border.
After he was briefed on the incident, President Joe Biden spoke with Duda and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday.
Biden expressed “deep condolences for the loss of life in Eastern Poland” and offered “full U.S. support for and assistance with Poland’s investigation,” the White House said in a statement.
Hours after the explosion, the White House held an emergency roundtable meeting with G-7 and NATO world leaders in Bali, Indonesia regarding the explosion in Poland. Biden met with leaders of Germany, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, the Netherlands, the U.K. and the EU.
After the meeting, Biden told reporters it is “unlikely” that the missile that hit Poland was fired from Russia and said leaders would support the investigation into what happened.
“I’m going to make sure we find out exactly what happened,” Biden said.
Biden also said that recent Russian missile attacks on Ukraine have been “totally unconscionable” and were a point of discussion at the meeting. The White House also condemned the attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure, calling them “barbaric.”
Russia called Biden’s response “reserved and far more professional reaction” compared to other countries.
However, Austin blamed Russia on Wednesday for the ongoing conflict.
“Whatever the final conclusions may be, the world knows that Russia bears ultimate responsibility for this incident, which launched another barrage of missiles against Ukraine specifically intended to target Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure,” Austin said.
-ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge, Luis Martinez, Will Gretsky and Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.
