(HOUSTON) — All eight of the victims have been identified in the deadly stage surge at the Astroworld Festival concert.
23-year-old Arturo Sanchez, an attendee, said his heart literally stopped as he was trampled by the crowd, and he believed he was going to die himself.
Bruised and battered, Sanchez told ABC News from his hospital bed on Sunday about the panic and chaos that erupted during the opening song of rapper Travis Scott’s performance.
He said that as soon as Scott began to sing, the crowd surged forward, knocking him off balance and causing him to fall to the ground near the front of the stage.
“I was on the floor screaming for help and trying to reach for people’s hands so they could see me and no one could see me,” Sanchez said. “I just kind of accepted the fact that I was going to die and I did for a little bit. My heart stopped, apparently.”
Sanchez said doctors told him he suffered a heart attack and had briefly flatlined.
He said he remembered a large man falling on him and sitting on his chest as he struggled to breathe and then passed out.
Sanchez said a registered nurse attending the concert performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on him and helped get him to an ambulance.
“She saved my life, honestly,” Sanchez said.
Last victim identified
The medical examiner was able to identify the last of the eight victims who died on Sunday after asking for the public’s help in identifying the man.
Oscar Acosta confirmed to ABC station KTRK in Houston that his son, Axel Acosta, died at Memorial Hermann Hospital. He said his son traveled from Washington to see Scott perform.
Acosta identified his son after the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences released a post-mortem photo of the 6-foot-2, nearly 500-pound man, and asked the public for help in identifying him.
Axel Acosta, 21, was among the concertgoers killed when throngs in the estimated crowd of 50,000 packed into NRG Park — which is next to NRG Stadium, home of the Houston Texans NFL football team — suddenly surged toward the stage, authorities said. Another 25 people were injured, one just 10 years old, officials said.
Five other people killed were identified by either their families or the schools they attended.
‘An innocent young soul’
Danish Baig, 27, of Dallas was killed while trying to save his fiancee, Olivia Swingle, who had fallen and was reportedly about to be trampled by concert-goers pushing forward, his brother Basil Baig told ABC News.
“He was an innocent young soul who would always put others before him,” Basil Baig said in a statement. “He was a hardworking man who loved his family and took care of us. He was there in a heartbeat for anything. He always had a solution to everything.”
Basil Baig said in a Facebook post that he also was at the concert, promoted and organized by Live Nation, and described it as being “poorly” managed and supervised. He alleged that Scott provoked the crowd to move toward the stage.
“Travis Scott and his team and everyone associated in the event should and will be held responsible,” Basil Baig said in his statement to ABC News.
In videos Scott posted on Instagram Saturday, he said he tried to spot people in the crowd having physical problems and paused during the show to try to get help to fans that appeared in need.
“I could just never imagine the severity of the situation,” Scott said in one of the videos.
In a separate statement, Live Nation said, “We will continue working to provide as much information and assistance as possible to the local authorities as they investigate the situation.”
The youngest victim
The youngest victim who died was 14-year-old John Hilgert, a freshman at Memorial High School in Houston, according to a letter the school’s principal sent to parents.
“Our hearts go out to the student’s family and to his friends and our staff at Memorial,” principal Lisa Weir wrote in the letter. “This is a terrible loss, and the entire MHS family is grieving today.”
One victim had passion for dance
Also killed was 16-year-old Brianna Rodriguez, a junior at Heights High School in Houston, her aunt, Iris Rodriguez, told ABC News.
Iris Rodriguez said her niece had a passion for dance.
“Now she’s dancing her way to heaven’s pearly gates,” the Rodriguez family wrote on a GoFundMe page that included a series of photos of Brianna.
College senior dies
Franco Patiño, 21, a senior at the University of Dayton in Ohio, was identified by the school as one of the concertgoers killed.
In a letter addressed to members of the university’s campus community, the school’s president, Eric Spina, said Patiño was from Naperville, Illinois, and was majoring in mechanical engineering technology with a minor in human movement biomechanics.
Patiño was also a member of Alpha Psi Lambda, a Hispanic-interest fraternity, and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Spina wrote. Patiño had been working in an engineering coop program in Mason, Ohio, according to Spina.
‘Huge hole in our lives’
The family of Jacob “Jake” E. Jurinek said in a statement Sunday that he was among those killed. Jurinek was a junior at Southern Illinois University and was majoring in art and media, his family said.
“We are all devastated and are left with a huge hole in our lives,” said Jurinek’s father, Ron Jurinek.
Rodolfo Pena, 23, from Laredo, Texas, and Madison Dubiski, 23, from Cypress, Texas were also killed.
Bedlam ensues
The concert bedlam unfolded around 9:30 p.m. local time Friday when the “the crowd began to compress toward the front of the stage,” Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña told reporters during a news conference Friday night.
“That caused some panic, and it started causing some injuries,” Peña said.
At least 13 people injured remain hospitalized, including five under the age of 18, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told reporters during a briefing.
As of Sunday night, at least one lawsuit has been filed against Scott.
What triggered the surge is under investigation by the Houston Police Department. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he has ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to make state resources available to support the investigation.
Scott has history of issues at concerts
Problems have previously occurred at other Travis Scott concerts. In 2015, the rapper was arrested on charges of inciting a crowd to jump barriers at a Lollapalooza concert in Chicago. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid a fine, according to officials.
In 2017, Scott was arrested again after he invited more people to come closer to the stage, prompting fans at the Walmart Music Pavilion in Rogers, Arkansas, to breach barricades and overrun security. In that case, he also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct and paid a fine.
Prior to the fatal surge at Scott’s concert on Friday night, some 300 people had been treated throughout the day at the music festival by on-site medical personnel, authorities said. There were “many instances” where they had to administer Narcan, which is used to treat a narcotic overdose, said Peña, who did not have an exact number.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said that during the pandemonium, a private security guard working at the festival was possibly injected in the neck with drugs as he was attempting to grab or restrain someone.
“When he was examined, he went unconscious,” Finner said during a Saturday afternoon briefing. “(Medical staff) administered Narcan. He was revived, and the medical staff did notice a prick that was similar to a prick that you would get if someone was trying to inject.”
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso, Jenna Harrison, Kendall Coughlin, Darren Reynolds and Marcus Moore
Van Morrison is being sued for libel by Northern Ireland Health Minister Robin Swann after the singer called the politician “dangerous” in a series of recent outbursts criticizing Swann over his policies related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Sunday Life newspaper reports.
According to the paper, Swann has hired libel lawyer Paul Tweed, who has represented such high-profile clients as Harrison Ford, Justin Timberlake and Jennifer Lopez, and is preparing for a High Court showdown with Morrison this coming February, unless the case can be settled before that.
Swann’s lawyers claim that Van’s public comments were equivalent to accusing the minister of misusing his office and endangering the public, and maintain that the singer falsely suggested that Swann had misrepresented facts regarding the pandemic.
The lawsuit stems from three separate incidents where Morrison verbally attacked Swann. The first occurred at a June concert in Belfast where Morrison, angered that some of his upcoming concerts had been canceled because of the pandemic, attempted to lead the audience in a chant of “Robin Swann is very dangerous.”
The second incident occurred when a Sunday Life reporter asked Van to comment about whether he regretted his remarks about Swann at his Belfast show and Morrison responded, “No, no I don’t regret it…Of course he’s dangerous.”
The third instance cited was a pair of videos Van posted on his YouTubechannel in which he explains why he feels Swann is dangerous, while also expressing disdain for the politician over a then-recent op-ed piece Swann wrote for Rolling Stone in which he criticized Van’s anti-lockdown views and his series of recent protest songs he’d released in which he expressed those views.
Starting last year, Morrison began releasing songs protesting U.K.-imposed regulations meant to curtail the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. Van believes the regulations are taking away people’s freedoms and destroying musicians’ livelihoods.
(MCLEAN, Va.) — First lady Jill Biden is taking the administration’s push for child COVID-19 vaccinations on the road to Northern Virginia on Monday by visiting a school that is of historic importance in vaccinations in the U.S.
Biden, along with Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, will visit Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C.
Franklin Sherman Elementary School was where the first polio vaccine was administered to children in 1954, according to the White House.
The visit is a step in the Biden administration’s push for youngsters to get the jab after the Food and Drug Administration granted full authorization to the vaccine in children ages 5-11, making more than 28 million American kids eligible for the vaccine.
In addition to visiting schools, the administration sent letters to superintendents and elementary school principals across the country on Monday, urging school officials to set up vaccination clinics in their schools.
“Schools play a vital role in providing access to and trusted information on the vaccine,” Health Secretary Xavier Becerra and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona wrote in the letter.
The schools themselves would not administer the vaccines, they would partner with a local vaccine provider, like a community health clinic or pharmacy, to give the shots to students. The schools would have access to federal cash from the American Rescue Plan to help with costs from providing spaces for vaccines and organizing the vaccine appointments.
The letter also asked schools to distribute information fact sheets, social media and emails to families in the schools. Officials said another way schools can help is by fostering community dialogue with existing organizations, like Parent-Teacher Associations.
“Parents rely on their children’s teachers, principals, school nurses, and other school personnel to help keep their students safe and healthy every school year,” Becerra and Cardona wrote in the letter. “The communications you issue – in languages accessible to your parents – will be critical in helping families learn more about the vaccine.”
Officials encouraged schools by pointing out that increased vaccinations could mean fewer cancellations of class and activities given outbreaks.
“Vaccination is the best tool we have to keep our students safe from COVID-19, maintain in-person learning, and prevent the closure of schools and cancellation of valued extracurricular activities,” Becerra and Cardona wrote in the letter.
ABC News’ Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — To help educate kids about the COVID-19 vaccine and encourage them to get it, Big Bird from “Sesame Street” announced that he just got the shot and is feeling great about it.
“I got the COVID-19 vaccine today!” Big Bird tweeted over the weekend, breaking a months-long hiatus on the social media site. “My wing is feeling a little sore, but it’ll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy.”
The beloved character also revealed something he recently found out, which is “I’ve been getting vaccines since I was a little bird. I had no idea!”
Big Bird’s vaccination announcement received a shout-out from President Joe Biden, who replied, “Good on ya, @BigBird. Getting vaccinated is the best way to keep your whole neighborhood safe.”
While the character has been entertaining kids for decades, Big Bird is technically 6 years old, which means he recently became eligible for the Pfizer vaccine. The vaccine was authorized for kids ages 5 to 11 by the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week. Shots are now being administered to children of that age group.
For those who may be puzzled as to why the “Sesame Street” character has joined the ongoing conversation about pediatric vaccinations, Big Bird has, historically, been the go-to muppet on vaccine PSAs.
In 1972, the giant yellow canary spoke about the importance of getting the measles vaccine, according to a resurfaced video shared by Muppet Wiki in a Twitter thread.
(NEW YORK) — This report is a part of “Rethinking Gun Violence,” an ABC News series examining the level of gun violence in the U.S. — and what can be done about it.
Paul Kemp, a founding board member and the president of Gun Owners for Responsible Ownership, has been a gun owner for most of his life.
He grew up in Michigan and owns a hunting rifle, a couple of handguns and a .22-caliber rifle.
He also said he was taught about gun safety growing up and thought he had a good understanding of the gun laws in the country.
But when his brother-in-law, Steve Forsyth, a youth sports coach and father of two, was shot and killed by a man armed with an AR-15 style rifle in 2012, “I realized how misinformed I was,” he said.
Kemp said he had “no idea that we had such a patchwork of gun laws around the country.” While he noted the National Firearms Act, first enacted in 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the Brady Law, which amended the GCA in 1993, there is a “a lot of latitude for very weak gun laws in states,” he said.
Watch ABC News Live on Mondays at 3 p.m. to hear more about gun violence from experts during roundtable discussions. And check back tomorrow, when we look at Chicago’s violence disruptors and how they try to bring peace.
The U.S. is awash in guns, with nearly 400 million in the United States, according to a 2018 report from the Small Arms Survey, a Switzerland-based global research project.
And gun violence has been rising in the past several years (gun deaths are up 56% from 2014-2020, and injuries increased 73% in the same time period, according to Gun Violence Archive).
Many people who own firearms agree that violence is a problem — but fundamentally disagree as to why, leaving the debate at an impasse.
So, ABC News interviewed some gun owners to get their perspective on potential solutions to the spate of gun violence plaguing the country. Their perspectives represent slices of the highly charged debate that plays out at the national level between advocates, legislators and groups such as the NRA.
Here’s what they had to say:
Safe storage
The shooter at the Clackamas Town Center Mall in Oregon killed Forsyth and 54-year-old hospice nurse Cindy Yuille with a Stag Arms AR-15 rifle that he had taken from a friend, who had purchased the gun legally but left it loaded and unsecured in his house, the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office public information officer told Kemp.
He said one of his first thoughts was, “Well, doesn’t Oregon have a safe storage gun law?” The officer told him no.
“I said, ‘You’re telling me that guy who owned that gun faces no consequences?’ and he said, ‘That’s correct.'”
There are 11 states in the U.S. that have some form of safe storage law on the books, according to the Giffords Law Center, a gun violence prevention organization. Massachusetts was the first state to require all firearms be locked up while not in use; Oregon became the second this summer when Gov. Kate Brown signed the Cindy Yuille and Steve Forsyth Act into law, named to honor the two who died in the shooting.
Safe storage laws generally require that a weapon must be stored unloaded, in a locked container or with a trigger lock, a device that goes over a firearm’s trigger and can be locked and unlocked using a key or numerical combination. While Massachusetts and Oregon enacted these rules for all gun owners, regulations in some states, such as Colorado and California, only apply these laws to gun owners who live with a person who is legally prohibited from possessing a firearm.
The punishments vary. In Colorado, it’s a fine and/or up to a year in jail. In Oregon, it’s a maximum $500 fine, which can rise to $2,000 if a minor obtains a firearm as a result of unsecured storage.
Approximately 4.6 million children in the United States live in a home where a firearm is stored loaded and unlocked, according to a national survey conducted by Harvard Injury Control Research Center in 2015. Safe storage could prevent up to a third of suicide and unintentional firearm deaths, a 2019 study published in JAMA Pediatrics found.
And safe storage regulations are popular.
In a 2019 report from the American Public Media Research Lab, more than three-quarters of the 1,000 Americans surveyed said they support mandating locked gun storage.
Universal background checks — including for private sales
Shannon Flores said her family currently owns somewhere around 37 guns at last count. Flores owns a Springfield XD-S handgun. Her wife, Scarlett, is a gun collector and hunter and has multiple kinds of firearms. Plus they have some .22 caliber rifles that their 9-year-old twins use for “plinking” — or practicing shooting clay pigeons, cans and hay bales.
Like Kemp, Flores emphasizes the importance of safe storage.
She said most of her family’s guns came with a gun lock when they purchased them, they have gun safes for the rifles, small safes for the handguns and Flores’ handgun also has a biometric lock.
But Flores, a Texas-based organizer for Giffords’ Gun Owners for Safety, also pointed to universal background checks — a system that would require all gun buyers to go through the National Instant Criminal Background Check (NICS) before purchasing a firearm — as a potential solution to curb gun trafficking and help prevent people who are prohibited from owning firearms from obtaining them.
Between November 1998 and September 2021, there have been just over 2 million denials out of more than 400 million federal background checks, according to a report from NICS, though this does not account for denials that may have happened due to a state background check. About half the time, FBI data shows, the reason for denial is because a person was previously convicted of a crime.
When combined with data from states that conduct background checks for point-of-contact sales, more than 300,000 people were stopped from buying a gun illegally in 2020, according to FBI data, raising the rate of barred would-be firearm purchasers from 0.6% to 0.8% over the past two years.
But those numbers only account for licensed gun dealers. Under federal law, unlicensed sellers — such as gun shows or private sales — aren’t required to perform background checks. Fourteen states and Washington, D.C., have laws closing this loophole, according to Giffords Law Center, but a majority do not.
Under the concept of universal background checks, the idea is that no matter where someone buys a gun — at a store, a gun show or through a friend or online — they would have to go through a background check via a nationwide database.
For instance, when Scarlett Flores sold a gun to a friend, they headed over to a local gun range in Houston that holds a FFL — a federal firearms license — and could serve as the point of transfer.
“She explains to clerk that she wants to sell a weapon. There’s an exchange of IDs, it goes through the system, small fee like $15, system is updated to prove this weapon was transferred and there’s a background check that goes with that,” Shannon Flores said.
This not only provides a background check of the purchaser, but it also documents that Scarlett no longer owns that gun and records the name of who now does.
Like safe storage laws, universal background check requirements have been popular in recent years: 89% of Americans support background checks for all gun purchases, including private and gun show sales, according to a 2019 ABC News/Washington Post poll.
Conversations about gun violence — and the ineffectiveness of gun laws — often reference Chicago, where there are restrictive regulations but a significant level of violence. Many people committing crimes with guns, some argue, obtain firearms illegally, so universal background checks wouldn’t make a difference.
According to the Department of Justice’s 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, 43% of people who used a gun in a crime obtained the firearm off the street or in the underground market, 25% got it from an individual, either from a friend or family member or as a gift, 10% purchased the firearm at a retail source like a gun store or pawn shop, 6% stole it and 17% obtained it in some “other” way such as finding it at the scene or the gun was brought by someone else.
But Shannon Flores said having a patchwork of gun laws across the 50 states “makes it really easy to traffic guns” along what’s sometimes called the Iron Pipeline — a route from the South, where gun laws are fairly relaxed, up the East Coast, where gun laws are more restrictive.
“I was one of them, the way I used to think about gun violence and crime in cities … The gun violence makes news all the time,” Kemp said. But then he began “looking into things,” he said. “Everybody says Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, but Wisconsin right next to them has some of weakest gun laws, and Indiana has some of the weakest gun laws … they feed firearms into Chicago.”
According to a 2017 report from the City of Chicago, 60% of guns that are recovered after being used in crimes come from out of state, especially from Indiana.
“Guns that are trafficked between states nearly always originate from states without strong background check laws,” Rob Wilcox, the federal legal director for Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit gun control advocacy organization, told ABC News.
In May, three Army service members stationed at Fort Campbell, on the border of Tennessee and Kentucky, were charged with the illegal purchase and transfer of dozens of firearms to Chicago. An investigation — which began after Chicago police responded to a mass shooting incident and found five firearms at the scene from the Clarksville, Tennessee area — found that the three soldiers had purchased more than 90 guns from federally licensed dealers in the region, most within five months.
Teaching responsibility
Some gun advocates say that regulation is beside the point and that what is needed instead is proper education.
John Harris, a lawyer and the executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association, a gun rights advocacy group, argued that for decades, guns were not a “prohibited concept that was demonized.”
Teaching firearms safety in school could be something to consider, he said, “so there is an appreciation that firearms are not some video game entertainment item, but that they are useful — but potentially dangerous — items that you have to know how to use, know how to respect and only use respectfully.”
Some schools do teach gun safety. Utah lawmakers recently passed a bill creating a program to provide a firearm safety course in public schools. Both the Connecticut State Department of Education and the Virginia Board of Education have published guides for schools to develop lessons on firearm safety.
Shannon Flores, said her 9-year-old children, who use .22 caliber rifles for sport, have grown up around guns just like she did.
“We have conversations with them regularly about guns and lethality,” she said. “My kids have gone hunting with my wife … I grew up hunting, too, so I grew up seeing what a bullet can do to a living organism.”
Flores acknowledged that not all children grow up hunting or around guns at all. She pointed to a recent gun safety resource in her state called “Keep Em Safe, Texas.” The campaign has materials on safe storage and offers presentations for both adult and child audiences, but since the campaign was just launched in October 2020 there is no data yet as to its efficacy.
“As gun owners, we have to be the ones sending the message” when it comes to teaching gun safety to children who don’t learn about guns the way she did, Flores said. “Not everyone has the opportunity to explore guns in same manner.”
In Oregon, Kemp worked with a pediatrician to create a script for doctors and nurses to talk to teens and their parents about firearms and safety.
The National Rifle Association also has a program called the Eddie Eagle GunSafe program to prevent firearm accidents among children. It aims to teach kids that if they find a firearm, to stop, don’t touch it, run away and tell a grown-up.
Studies over the years have shown that teaching gun safety to children is generally ineffective in preventing accidental injuries or in reducing children’s interest in playing with guns.
“The most effective way to prevent unintentional gun injuries, suicide and homicide to children and adolescents, research shows, is the absence of guns from homes and communities,” according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, which also notes that if a family does still keep guns in the home, then they should be store “locked and unloaded, with ammunition locked separately.”
What happens now?
Despite an acknowledgement that the level of gun violence in the United States is much, much higher than it should be, there’s not agreement among all gun owners when it comes to what to do about it.
Many gun owners support what Flores called “reasonable regulations.” The 2019 American Public Media Research Lab report showed more than two-thirds of gun owners supported safe storage laws. A 2019 ABC News/Washington Post poll found eight in 10 people in gun households supported universal background checks.
But there is still a population of gun owners who don’t see any legislative path forward.
The NRA has been waging a battle against numerous gun control efforts for decades, especially when it comes to legislation — and its message has an effect.
A 2018 study from Monmouth University showed that 78% of gun owners who are not NRA members supported background checks for all firearms purchases. That dropped to 69% of NRA members.
“They just became a lot more militant about their stance on things,” Kemp argued. “They have been incredibly effective communicators with their group, and their members are highly motivated and very vocal.”
The organization also has the NRA Civil Defense Fund, which according to its website, offers “legal and financial assistance to select individuals and organizations defending their right to keep and bear arms.”
The NRA Civil Defense Fund currently has ongoing litigation in 20 states.
Harris, who said he feels the Second Amendment gives Americans the “individual God-given right to possess any weapon they may have a use or need for, for political or self-defense purposes,” said there’s nothing he understands about gun control advocates’ position.
This is a position largely echoed by the NRA.
Attitudes about gun control laws have changed in the U.S., even in the past couple of years.
In a ABC News/Washington Post poll earlier this year, 50% percent of Americans said they would prioritize enacting new gun violence laws, while 43% prefer a focus on protecting the right to own guns.
The level of support is down from 57% after the mass school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018.
It is also unclear if proposed measures such as universal background checks have maintained their overwhelming popularity as measured in 2019.
This fundamental divide has resulted in gridlock at the national level, even with mass shootings on the rise as well as homicides and other gun violence.
In Flores’ view, gun owners, who understand guns and how they work, need to come together with organizations such as Giffords’ Gun Owners for Safety or Kemp’s Gun Owners for Responsible Ownership to come up with laws they can agree on — and get politicians on board, too.
“The argument that gun safety laws won’t make a difference is moot, because to not try anything is just to continue the bloodshed,” she said.
ABC News’ Marlene Lenthang contributed to this report.
Sarah Jessica Parker did not hold back when sharing her thoughts about the criticism she and her Sex and the City co-stars have received about their aging looks.
Speaking recently to Vogue, the 56-year-old actress declared, “There’s so much misogynist chatter in response to us that would never. Happen. About. A. Man.”
“‘Gray hair, gray hair, gray hair. Does she have gray hair?’ I’m sitting with Andy Cohen and he has a full head of gray hair, and he’s exquisite. Why is it okay for him? I don’t know what to tell you people! Especially on social media,” she continued. “Everyone has something to say.”
Some frequent comments Parker highlighted were “She has too many wrinkles” and, interestingly, “She doesn’t have enough wrinkles.”
Says Parker, “It almost feels as if people don’t want us to be perfectly okay with where we are, as if they almost enjoy us being pained by who we are today, whether we choose to age naturally and not look perfect, or whether you do something if that makes you feel better.”
“I know what I look like. I have no choice,” she remarked, “What am I going to do about it? Stop aging? Disappear?”
Sex and the City producer Michael Patrick King, who’s co-producing the HBO Sex and the City continuation And Just Like That…, also shared his contempt for the beauty double standard.
“Wow, so it’s either you’re 35, or you’re retired and living in Florida. There’s a missing chapter here,” he quipped, and stressed the SATC revival is important because it showcases a cast of women who are predominately in their 50s — something he says is uncommon in television.
The 10-episode And Just Like That… premieres in December 2021 on HBO Max.
After 18 seasons, Grey’s Anatomy is still kicking, and while there are no signs that the ABC medical drama is ending anytime soon, creator Shonda Rhimes is teasing what that will look like when the time comes.
Speaking with Variety, the acclaimed producer, screenwriter, and author admitted that she’s “written the end of that series, I want to say, a good eight times.”
“I was like, ‘And that will be the end!’ Or, ‘That’ll be the final thing that’s ever said or done!’ And all of those things have already happened,” she shared. “So I give up on that, you know what I mean?”
Rhimes also explained that she’s not sure she’ll know the exact details of how Grey’s Anatomy will wrap, considering that she “handed off all the reins” to its current showrunner, Krista Vernon, back in season 14.
“Am I going to be the person who decides like what the final scene is? I don’t know!” Rhimes revealed. “If you’d ask me this question three years ago, or prior to Krista arriving, I would have said, ‘Yes, I can tell you exactly how it’s going to end. But once you hand off the ball for real, it’s just different. So I don’t know yet.”
One thing Rhimes does have control over is when Grey’s Anatomy will take its final bow, at which time she says, “I take full responsibility for that when or if everybody gets mad at me.”
Grey’s Anatomy airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.
“It’s been such a long time,” Cierra Chub said Monday on “Good Morning America.” “Each [of my kids] came up to visit once, but it’s not the same.”
Cierra Chubb, of South Carolina, was hospitalized with COVID-19 in July, while she was around 37 weeks pregnant.
Just two days after she was admitted to the hospital, she had to undergo an emergency cesarean section because her pregnancy was in distress.
She delivered her third child, a son named Myles, on July 26, two weeks before his due date.
While Myles was born healthy, Cierra Chubb’s condition quickly deteriorated after his birth. She was put on a ventilator and then an ECMO machine, on which she stayed for nearly 30 days, according to her husband, Jamal Chubb, who became the sole caregiver for their three children and documented his wife’s journey on TikTok.
“It’s just one of those things where you’re living life and then all of a sudden everything feels like it’s collapsing,” Jamal Chubb said on “GMA.” “At first I started sharing the story on Tiktok just because I wanted to update people because I kept getting a lot of text messages, and then it grew from updating to informing people on what I’m seeing with COVID firsthand and encouraging people to get vaccinated.”
“It kind of took on a life of its own,” he said, adding that his family has received “so many prayers” from people around the world.
In what Jamal Chubb described as “truly a miracle,” his wife’s condition began to improve over the past two months.
Cierra Chubb, who was not vaccinated when she was diagnosed with COVID-19, was able to walk out of the hospital on Oct. 27. She was cheered on by medical staff who lined the hallways to say goodbye.
“I had been there so long that I’d gotten to know the nursing staff and the respiratory specialists very well, but I wasn’t expecting that there were going to be that many people invested in my wellness,” she said. “It was incredible.”
Her recovery continued at a rehabilitation center — where she relearned everything from walking to writing — until Monday, when she was able to go home.
“I’ve been crying in the car all morning on the way up here,” Jamal Chubb said of his final drive from the family’s home to the rehabilitation center. “It is just surreal that this is the last time I’ll have to make this drive and she’ll be home with our family.”
He said his wife’s last words before she was put on a ventilator were, ‘I’m coming back to my family,’ and he put those words on his own social media so he could use them as motivation.
“That’s the hope I held onto as you progressed,” Jamal Chubb said to his wife. “It gave me hope every day to read it because that’s what I knew you wanted to do, you wanted to come back.”
Cierra Chubb said she was amazed at how her husband stepped up as a single dad to their three children, ages 7, 2 and nearly 4 months.
“Raising kids by yourself is just taxing,” she said. “When you get married, you are never expecting to have to do that part on your own, it’s a partnership and Jamal and I have always shared things equally.”
“He’s a very involved dad so I think this jump for him versus maybe your average guy wasn’t that big, but with me being sick on top of it, has to have been exhausting to say the least,” she said. “He’s been a rock star the entire time.”
(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — Police are hailing a Nashville, Tennessee, pastor as a hero after he tackled a gunman at the church altar.
Dezire Baganda, 26, was sitting at the front of the Nashville Light Mission Pentecostal Church on Sunday when he allegedly took out a gun and headed to the altar where the pastor was praying with congregants, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department said.
Surveillance video showed the suspect waving the gun and pointing it at worshippers. Police said Baganda told everyone to get up.
The pastor quickly tackled Baganda, police said, and several church members jumped in to help take away the gun.
No shots were fired, police said.
“The heroic actions of a local pastor and several of his parishioners saved a church from further violence,” police said in a statement.
Baganda was not a church member but had been to services there before, according to the pastor.
Baganda is charged with 15 counts of felony aggravated assault, police said, adding that more counts are expected.
Luke Combs is still trying to determine what to perform at the CMA Awards, and he’s calling on fans for their help.
On Sunday, Luke took to Twitter to share that he’s toying with different performance ideas, including debuting a new song that fans will be able to access immediately after the show.
“Still trying to decide what I want to sing on the CMA Awards this Wednesday. Would y’all be cool with a brand new, unreleased song? And I’ll have it available to stream/purchase everywhere after my performance,” he teases.
Fans were quick to reply in the comment sections, with some requesting recently shared unreleased songs “Joe” and “The Kind of Love We Make,” and another suggesting “The Great Divide,” his bluegrass collaboration with Billy Strings.
“Omg that would be amazing! Your music speaks to people so whatever you decide to do will be the right decision,” writes one encouraging fan, while another says, “You can sing anything YOU want we love it all!!” alongside a heart emoji.
Luke is up for three of the night’s awards, including the pinnacle Entertainer of the Year, along with Male Vocalist of the Year and Song of the Year for “Forever After All.” The CMA Awards air live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on ABC on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET.
