Kathy Griffin is showing fans what she currently sounds like after having a portion of her left lung removed following a recent cancer diagnosis.
The comedian took to Instagram on Saturday to share a short video, where she directly addressed her followers to let them know she is in good spirits.
“I might start to post little videos about… my recovery and stuff, but my voice is, like, really hoarse, and I don’t want to scare people,” Griffin joked. “Also, for some reason, I laugh at everything now and, if it’s horrible, I laugh way more!”
The following day, Griffin shared an additional update that included new standup material from her very eventful Sunday, which she laughed through. Her voice was also noticeably stronger.
The 60-year-old comic revealed that her husband had an accident in the kitchen and remarked, “If he’s calling for my help, it must be bad because I can’t do anything!”
“I’m going to hell for laughing,” she continued, noting she ran from the bedroom where she was resting and was only in her undergarments. Griffin’s wild story continued as she revealed that, while her husband was away to go get stitched up, someone knocked on their door.
Griffin noted she was “too famous” to safely answer the door but remembered a friend of hers promised to mail her ice cream bars.
“I’m thinking, ‘I don’t care if I have cancer… I’m getting those [damn] ice cream bars,'” she giggled.
Griffin revealed last week that she’d been diagnosed with Stage 1 lung cancer. She underwent surgery the next day to remove half of her left lung.
Among those wishing her well in her latest updates were famous friends Laverne Cox, Kris Jenner and Rosie O’Donnell.
Despite glowing reviews, The Suicide Squad fell short of the $30 million insiders had predicted, only managing to deliver an estimated $26.5 million in its opening weekend. That was in direct contrast to its predecessor, 2016’s Suicide Squad, which opened with $133.7 million amid bad reviews.
To be fair, The Suicide Squad‘s lackluster performance faced new challenges — the new surge in COVID-19 cases and the fact that it was simultaneously available to HBO Max subscribers at no additional cost. The streamer has not made the number of home viewers available.
The movie, from director James Gunn and starring Viola Davis and Margot Robbie — reprising her role as Harley Quinn — along with franchise newcomers Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Pete Davidson, Daniela Melchior, Peter Capaldi and Sylvester Stallone as the voice of Nanaue/King Shark, added an estimated $45.7 million overseas, bringing its worldwide total to $72.2 million.
Last week’s box office champ, Disney’s Jungle Cruise, slipped to number two in its second week, delivering an estimated $15.7 million. That brings the movie’s stateside total to $65.3 million, to go with its estimated $56.5 million overseas, and pushes its worldwide tally to $121.8 million.
M. Night Shyamalan’s horror feature Old earned an estimated $4.1 million, pushing its three-week stateside total to $38.5 million. Marvel’s Black Widow took fourth place with an estimated $4 million, for a domestic box office total of $174 million. Its global total stands at $359.8 million.
Rounding out the top five is Stillwater. The indie thriller, starring Matt Damon, grabbed an estimated $2 million in its second week of release. The film has has yet to open internationally.
Trevor Moore, who co-founded the sketch comedy group The Whitest Kids U’ Know and star of Comedy Central’s The Trevor Moore Show, died Friday in an unspecified accident. He was 41.
Deadline obtained a statement from the comic’s widow, Aimee Carlson, and his family from Moore’s manager, who confirmed his death.
“We are devastated by the loss of my husband, best friend and the father of our son,” the statement read. “He was known as a writer and comedian to millions, and yet to us he was simply the center of our whole world. We don’t know how we’ll go on without him, but we’re thankful for the memories we do have that will stay with us forever.”
The family is requesting privacy as they grieve. Those wishing to honor Moore are encouraged to donate to NEXT for Autism.
Moore’s fellow WKUK troupe members Sam Brown and Sam Cregger honored his memory, sharing in a joint statement, “He was our best friend, and we speak for all of us in saying that the loss of Trevor is unimaginable. We are heartbroken.”
Adam Sandler also mourned Moore’s passing on Sunday, taking to Instagram to share a video tribute and his memories of the late comedian.
“Sending love to his family. Got to hang with Trevor a few times and just thought he was such a great sweet funny man,” Sandler wrote. “Such a tragedy.”
Besides founding WKUK, which won Best Sketch Group at HBO’s U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in 2006, Moore spearheaded the Disney XD comedy series Walk the Prank and executive-produced and co-created the Disney show Just Roll Wwith It. He also created the Trevor Moore Show on Comedy Central.
He is survived by his wife Aimee and their son, August.
Bob Odenkirk is “doing great” after suffering a heart attack on the set of Better Call Saul nearly two weeks ago.
“I am doing great,” he shared in a tweet on Saturday. “I’ve had my very own ‘It’s a wonderful life’ week of people insisting I make the world slightly better,” he continued. “Wow! Thank you, I love everyone right now but let’s keep expectations reasonable!”
Odenkirk was rushed to the hospital July 27 when he collapsed on the set while shooting the sixth and final season of his AMC series in New Mexico. A few days after the incident, the 58-year-old actor tweeted, “I had a small heart attack. But I’m going to be ok thanks to Rosa Estrada and the doctors who knew how to fix the blockage without surgery.”
Odenkirk continued, “Also, AMC and SONYs support and help throughout this has been next-level. I’m going to take a beat to recover but I’ll be back soon.”
(NEW YORK) — Amid mask mandates and social distancing of a global pandemic, Barry’s, a boutique fitness club, says it’s disrupting the industry by giving consumers access to their product in ways that didn’t exist just one year ago.
But what it took to get there was a road wrought with challenge, uncertainty and innovation.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Barry’s, like so many fitness clubs, took a massive economic hit and had no digital offerings or infrastructure in place.
Priding themselves as “the best workout in the world,” Barry’s says it created opportunity in the height of COVID-19 lockdowns worldwide by remaining committed to keeping connections to their community alive and thriving. When it became clear global shutdowns would not be brief, the company immediately launched workouts live on Instagram, then formal at-home classes on video conferencing apps, like Zoom.
As 2020 wore on, the company eventually launched 19 outdoor studios that occupied spaces like parking garages, rooftops and empty, undeveloped land, converting those spaces into their infamous “Red Rooms” across the country.
Reopening their physical brick-and-mortar clubs would prove to have its own set of challenges when it became time.
Developing new operating and safety protocols and augmenting them to meet local government mandates has been an incredibly labor intensive process over the past 16 months, Barry’s told Good Morning America.
“We updated our HVAC system, introduced the use of EPA-registered cleaning supplies and at one point, social distancing in class and added five-minute breaks in between rounds to allow for extra cleaning and mask mandates.”
Now, as the world slowly begins to reopen, despite the lingering threat of COVID-19 and its emerging variants, Barry’s seems to have found footing in developing hybrid models of their business by blending versions of all their pandemic-era products into an omni-channel of offerings, including the newly unveiled “Barry’s X,” which includes live as well as on-demand classes.
According to Barry’s: “Barry’s X” is the first community-driven digital fitness product that seamlessly integrates key touch points of an in-person studio experience into a digital setting. Not only are you checked in by a moderator (who organizes the class and provides the same attention as the front desk), you’re also able to participate in a many-to-many experience which provides their fitness community with the opportunity to see and be seen.
“‘Barry’s X'” was created to provide people with the opportunity to experience the best workout in the world, taught by the best instructors, alongside an incredible global community – no matter where you are,” Barry’s CEO Joey Gonzalez told GMA exclusively.
The company says users will be able to turn their camera on during a live class, allowing the instructor to correct their form in real time, allowing them to see others in the class and be seen themselves. This will allow for an immersive digital experience that will allow instructors to help and correct form during a class, the brand touts, while also being able to check in with friends who are also taking the same class together.
“The camera-on feature allows you to be seen, as well as see old friends, new faces,” Gonzalez said. “And since it’s Barry’s, you can expect to see some famous ones as well.”
Another feature: Users will also be able to connect with their friends by sending friend requests and view their schedules and stats. Friends will also be able to invite each other to a class.
Gonzalez told GMA that they do expect a rise in hybridization as we continue to emerge from the pandemic.
“A number of boutique fitness studios across the country closed permanently during COVID, which means those respective workout communities have been displaced and will be looking for a new studio. As far as digital workouts, the landscape has never been more crowded,” Gonzalez said.
(NEW YORK) — A United Nations climate panel has confirmed — in its strongest language ever — that the impacts of human-caused climate change are severe and widespread, and that while there is still a chance to limit that warming, some impacts will continue to be felt for centuries.
“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land,” the report reads. “Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.”
The UN panel said there is more evidence than ever before that human activity and greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet at a rate unprecedented in the last 2,000 years and that the impacts of that warming are already severe and widespread.
“Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe,” according to the report.
“Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and their attribution to human influence, has strengthened” since the last UN climate science report in 2013.
The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was compiled by 234 authors from 66 different countries who analyzed more than 14,000 scientific reports about climate change. It will set the stage for global negotiations later this year on how to more drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit the impact of warming temperatures as much as possible.
John Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, said the report underscores the “overwhelming urgency” and high stakes for those international talks.
“The world must come together before the ability to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is out of reach. As the IPCC makes plain, the impacts of the climate crisis, from extreme heat to wildfires to intense rainfall and flooding, will only continue to intensify unless we choose another course for ourselves and generations to come. What the world requires now is real action,” he said in a statement.
That review confirmed that warming temperatures are contributing to more extreme events in every inhabited part of the world and that if temperatures increase an average of 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, the world will see increasing heat waves, longer warm seasons, and shorter cold seasons. At 2 degrees of warming, the changes will start to reach levels that could threaten human health and agricultural systems in parts of the world.
Global average temperatures have increased between 0.8 degrees and 1.3 degrees Celsius since the industrial age, and climate researchers around the world have ruled out any natural explanation for the rapid rate of increasing temperatures. The report says “some recent hot extremes over the past decade would have been extremely unlikely to occur without human influence on the climate system.”
The report finds that global surface temperatures, meaning the temperatures of the oceans and on land, will continue to increase until at least 2050, regardless of actions taken to decrease emissions.
And unless greenhouse gas emissions are drastically reduced, the world will exceed 1.5 degrees of warming in the next 20 years. Limiting future warming to 2 degrees Celsius will require “immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” according to the IPCC.
Ko Barrett, a vice chair for the UN climate panel and senior adviser for climate at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said that even though the world’s current path is likely to meet or exceed the amount of warming targeted in the Paris Agreement there is still a chance to limit the amount of warming and limit the impacts of climate change.
“It’s true that unless there are immediate rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will be beyond reach. But there are pathways that take us to keep these levels in check. It just requires strong rapid and sustained reductions in CO2 (carbon dioxide), methane and other greenhouse gases,” she told ABC News.
Barrett said that even with the sobering findings of the report, she’s seen a stronger reaction from governments and young people throughout the world who want to prevent the worst-case scenarios.
“At the same time that it’s, you know, undeniable that these — some of these findings are dire. There also is, at least in my mind, a real sense of hope and a drive for action,” she said.
While drastic emissions reductions could stabilize rising temperatures and prevent more dire consequences from additional warming, the UN panel found that some impacts of climate change to the oceans and ice in the Arctic are locked in for years to come, while the amount of emissions will determine how rapidly those impacts accelerate.
The report found that oceans will continue to warm, become more acidic and contain less oxygen for the rest of the 21st Century — though those impacts can still be made less severe if we reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Glaciers and permafrost are also almost certain to continue melting for decades — or even centuries — and the report says the Arctic may “practically” be ice free in September near the middle of the century under certain greenhouse gas scenarios. September is when we usually see the minimum sea-ice coverage in the Arctic.
“If we were to stop emitting greenhouse gases today the planet would stop warming, but sea level would continue to rise. However, I think it’s important to manage that our emissions matter hugely for the long-term amount of sea level rise and how quickly it comes,” Bob Kopp, an author of the report and director of the Rutgers Institute of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences, told reporters on Sunday.
The report found that global mean sea level has already risen by .656 feet between 1901 and 2018 and will continue to rise at least through 2100.
“In the longer term, sea level is committed to rise for centuries to millennia due to continuing deep ocean warming and ice sheet melt and will remain elevated for thousands of years,” the report says.
While the report lays out some dire impacts of climate change it’s also a call to action for reducing greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to prevent some of these worst-case scenarios and limit these impacts as much as possible.
“Stabilizing the climate will require strong, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and reaching net-zero CO2 emissions. Limiting other greenhouse gases and air pollutants, especially methane, could have benefits both for health and the climate,” said IPCC Working Group I Co-Chair Panmao Zhai.
The IPCC is expected to release two more reports on adapting to the impacts of climate change and possible policy solutions to limit warming and meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement in early 2022.
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 616,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 4.2 million people have died worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 58.7% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing Monday. All times Eastern:
Aug 09, 7:31 am
‘This is not your grandfather’s COVID,’ pediatrician warns
Children with COVID-19 used to make up 1% of patients hospitalized at Children’s Hospital New Orleans. Now they account for about 20%, Dr. Mark Kline, physician-in-chief at Children’s Hospital New Orleans, told “Good Morning America” Monday.
He said about half of the children hospitalized are under 2 years old. Most of the others are between 5 and 10 years old, so too young to be vaccinated.
“This is not your grandfather’s COVID,” Kline said. “This delta variant is an entirely new and unexpected challenge.”
Dr. Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor, warned on MSNBC that with “schools act[ing] as an accelerant, you should assume we’re going to see pediatric intensive care units all across the South completely overwhelmed and even a possibility of small tent cities of sick adolescents and kids.”
Hotez said parents need to know that “delta is something different” and “picking off young people like we’ve never seen.”
“If your adolescent kid is unvaccinated, you should assume there’s a high likelihood that that child is going to get COVID,” he said, adding, “And we haven’t even gotten to the ‘long COVID’ discussion around young people and what that means for their long-term cognitive health.”
Dennis “Dee Tee” Thomas, co-founder and saxophonist of Kool & the Gang, died “peacefully in his sleep” in New Jersey, the legendary funk band announced on Saturday.
Thomas was 70. Further details about his death were not given.
“An original member of Kool & the Gang, Dennis was known as the quintessential cool cat in the group, loved for his hip clothes and hats, and his laid-back demeanor,” Kool & the Gang shared on its Instagram page. “A huge personality while also an extremely private person, Dennis was the alto saxophone player, flutist, percussionist as well as master of ceremonies at the band’s shows. Dennis’ prologue featured on the groups 1971 hit, ‘Who’s Gonna Take the Weight’ is legendary and an example of his showmanship.”
Thomas, the post continued, was Kool & the Gang’s “wardrobe stylist who made sure they always looked fresh.” In the act’s early days, he also “served as the ‘budget hawk,’ carrying the group’s earnings in a paper bag in the bell of his horn.”
Thomas, along with brothers Ronald Bell and Robert “Kool” Bell, Spike Mickens, Ricky Westfield, George Brown and Charles Smith, formed the Jazziacs in 1964. Five years later, they changed their name to Kool & the Gang and released their self-titled debut album that same year.
Since then, the band has earned a pair of Grammy Awards and racked up numerous hits, including “Celebration,” “Jungle Boogie” and “Ladies Night.”
Thomas, who has appeared on every one of Kool & the Gang’s albums — including their upcoming 25th studio release, Perfect Union — last appeared on stage with the band during a July 4 concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
Thomas’ death comes nearly a year after Ronald Bell’s passing last September at the age of 68.
(NEW YORK) — Lawmakers and water utilities in the West are urging residents to conserve water as reservoirs hit record lows amid climate change-driven megadrought.
Among the calls to action is a reminder for residents to make choices that lessen use of municipal water when it comes to maintaining landscaping in desert surroundings.
About 30% of water usage for the average American family is used for the outdoors, such as watering lawns and gardens, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
But in the West, where water is zapped almost instantaneously by either the blazing sun or thirsty vegetation, outdoor water usage increases to about 60% of total household use, according to the EPA.
While water is “pretty cheap” in the U.S. at the moment, that could change as the commodity becomes more precious, John Berggren, a water policy analyst with conservation organization Western Resource Advocates, told ABC News.
However, experts say they have noticed a societal shift in how people in the West approach everyday decisions to protect the precious water supply, including when it comes to how to design lawns.
Landscaping should match the environment
In the summer, a “big chunk” of the water supply in the West goes to irrigating non-native turf grass, which is what is generally used for lawns, Berggren said.
There are benefits to turf grass, Berggren pointed out. It’s aesthetically pleasing and cooling — which helps reduce the urban heat island effect — and it offers functionality for recreation, for kids and pets to run around in and as parks and ballfields. Grasses native to the West don’t offer the same recreational functionality.
The typical grass used for homes and ballfields is Kentucky bluegrass, which is not native to the West, which is why it requires so much water for upkeep, he said.
A solution is to remove the turf grass. While people often think ripping up turf grass means replacing it with cement, the best move is actually to replace it with live vegetation that is native to the area, such as shrubs and trees, Berggren said.
“We have so many beautiful native plants that are adapted to our climates out here in the West,” he said. “You’ll have lots of color. You can have lots of green.”
Once established, native plants require little water “beyond normal rainfall,” according to the EPA.
Along with the aesthetics, the plants will also provide collection for storm water runoff and water quality benefits, Berggren said.
Providing incentives to residents could prove effective, experts say
Development codes enacted in municipalities around the West between the 1960s and 1980s had little to no restrictions on how much turf grass property owners could install. But officials and scientists are starting to rethink the approach to turf grass as the decadeslong drought worsens and populations increase, Berggren said.
However, the cost to transform lawns can’t be overlooked. Adding native plants for a xeriscaping project, or designing the landscape to reduce irrigation, can cost up to $5,000, according to home and garden blog Happy DIY Home.
Water providers and conservation programs are incentivizing homeowners to get rid of their turf grass, with some offering between $1 and $3 per square foot to replace it with native plants, Berggren said.
“And so if you’re replacing a couple 1,000 square feet of turf, suddenly, that’s a pretty big incentive to do so, and you can pay for a lot of the project with that program,” he said.
Turf buyback programs have become so important that states are providing the funds to maintain them.
Last month, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox announced the expansion of a statewide turf buyback program as one of four efforts to conserve water amid the megadrought.
First-of-its-kind legislation passed in Nevada
Municipalities and states are also starting to realize that not all areas where there is turf grass are equal, Berggren said. Plots of land where the turf is purely ornamental, such as median strips on highways, are known as non-functional or non-essential turf, and states in the West are starting to do away with them.
For example, if a patch of grass in southern Nevada is green, that means it’s being irrigated with municipal drinking water, Bronson Mack, public information officer of the Las Vegas Valley Water District, said.
“The one thing to really keep in mind is whether or not those communities are irrigating that grass with water resources, or is that grass just getting naturally irrigated from precipitation,” Mack said. “Here in Southern Nevada, we’d only get 4 inches of rain a year. So, it is not enough water to sustain our outdoor landscaping.”
Lawmakers in Nevada recently passed a law banning non-essential turf in the Las Vegas region served by the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Assembly Bill 356 requires grass at non-residential properties to be ripped out within five years. After Dec. 26, 2026, those properties will no longer be able to irrigate non-functional turf with Colorado River water supplied by the water authority, Mack said.
“So their options are to find a new water source, which is pretty challenging to do,” Mack said.
The new legislation is the first of its kind in the country, he added.
More communities are also instilling caps on how much of any given property can contain turf grass, such as 20%, Berggren said.
The new laws are paralleled by a cultural shift to make people re-think how they use their yards. If they find they only use the backyard, the incentives motivate them to replace the grass in the front yard with native plants, Berggren said.
Prior to the early 2000s, homes in Nevada state had wall-to-wall grass, but 20 years later, landscapes in new developments have no grass and use water-efficient material instead, Mack said, adding that nearly 70,000 residential and commercial landscaping projects to remove more than 200 miles of grass have taken place in Southern Nevada alone since then.
“That’s why it’s good to see so many homeowners kind of being proactive in like ripping up their front lawn and putting in nice, beautiful, native vegetation, because then their neighbors see it, and then people driving down the street see it,” Berggren said.
Communities across the Southwest have embraced the trend to transform lawns to be water-efficient, Jay Lund, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis, and the head of the school’s Center for Watershed Sciences, told ABC News.
“A few years ago, I was walking around the neighborhood of a friend in Albuquerque, and you could see that the neighborhood was going through a transition,” he said. “You could see that the older lawn were lush and green.”
More ways to conserve water
Water-efficient irrigation techniques can reduce water usage by up to 15%, according to the EPA.
Something as simple as replacing sprinkler heads can upgrade irrigation systems to save a significant amount of water, Berggren said.
It is not necessary to water grass every day, according to the EPA, which recommends testing the lawn by stepping on a patch of grass instead. If the grass springs back, it does not need water, the agency says.
Better Homes & Gardens recommends that homeowners in the region let lawns brown during the summer, or give them about 1 inch of water per week.
Do not water lawns during the afternoon, as the water will evaporate before the drops even hit the ground. Water lawns early in the morning instead.
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Melissa DeRosa resigned Sunday as the top aide to embattled New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, less than a week after state investigators said he allegedly sexually harassed 11 women and she was part of the “retaliation” against one of his accusers.
As secretary to the governor, DeRosa was the most powerful unelected bureaucrat in state government and, until now, stood loyally by Cuomo even through recent controversies, including scandals like the sexual harassment allegations to nursing home death data, to the use of state resources to write his book.
Cuomo has denied these allegations and scandals.
In a statement, DeRosa did not mention Cuomo by name but said it had been “the greatest honor of my life to serve the people of New York for the past ten years.”
She added, “the past two years have been emotionally and mentally trying,” but did not explain whether that meant the pandemic or the controversies that have engulfed the governor and have state lawmakers beating the drums of impeachment.
“I am forever grateful for the opportunity to have worked with such talented and committed colleagues on behalf of our state,” DeRosa’s statement said.
DeRosa’s name appears throughout the attorney general’s report, particularly in the section that details accusations made by Lindsey Boylan.
Boylan, who formerly worked as an aide to the governor, spoke out in December in a series of tweets claiming Cuomo “sexually harassed me for years.”
“Ms. Boylan said Ms. DeRosa would scream at her and yell at her for illogical things,” the report said. It also described DeRosa’s role in releasing Boylan’s confidential personnel file to reports after Boylan went public with her accusations against Cuomo.
“Ms. DeRosa made the decision to disclose the confidential files on December 13, the day Ms. Boylan tweeted that the governor had sexually harassed her,” the report said.
Cuomo has denied the allegations raised by Boylan and all other accusations of sexual harassment and misconduct.
