All posts tagged: loss

Undone by the loss of his brother Eddie, Alex Van Halen looks back in a new memoir : NPR

Undone by the loss of his brother Eddie, Alex Van Halen looks back in a new memoir : NPR

Brothers Alex (top) and Eddie Van Halen in an undated photo. HarperCollins hide caption toggle caption HarperCollins When guitarist Eddie Van Halen died of cancer in 2020, his older brother Alex was overwhelmed by grief. Only 20 months apart in age, they had grown up together as “a yin and yang … the two halves of a whole,” Alex says. Raised by a Dutch father and an Indonesian mother, the brothers immigrated to the U.S. from the Netherlands when Alex was 8 and Eddie was 6. In California, they learned to play music — mostly classical and military marches — but their focus switched to rock once they started listening to The Beatles and The Dave Clark Five. In 1974, they formed the band Van Halen, with vocalist David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony. Initially, Alex was the guitarist in the family, but he discovered that he had “no connection with the instrument,” he says. “I just wasn’t feeling it.” His brother’s link to the guitar, on the other hand, felt like fate. “The …

New York City Utterly Screwed Up Insurance for Employees Taking GLP-1 Weight Loss Drugs

New York City Utterly Screwed Up Insurance for Employees Taking GLP-1 Weight Loss Drugs

Image by Jaap Arriens / NurPhoto via Getty / Futurism After insurance for New York City employees began covering GLP-1 weight-loss injectables at the beginning of the year, nearly 1,000 city workers and their dependents began using the drugs. And now they’re being told that coverage was accidental and they need to stop. In a statement to Gothamist, a city spokesperson admitted that municipal employee insurance coverage for these fullness-mimicking medicines was made “in error.” “The city never planned to cover these drugs,” spokesperson Liz Garcia told the website, “due to the steep costs that would fall on city employees.” While those who take GLP-1s for diabetes will continue to have their medication covered by municipal insurer EmblemHealth, those who use them strictly for weight loss will be left out in the cold. For longtime NYC Department of Education employee Sarah Kalemkerian, that means her Zepbound prescription will go from costing $25 every three months to $550 per month — a price increase she can’t afford on her own. Kalemkerian told Gothamist that she’d tried every fad diet before …

Liam Payne death latest: Zayn Malik postpones tour after ‘heartbreaking loss’

Liam Payne death latest: Zayn Malik postpones tour after ‘heartbreaking loss’

One Direction singer Liam Payne dies aged 31 Sign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Get our Now Hear This email for free Liam Payne‘s father has “thanked” his son’s fans for their support over the singer’s sudden death, aged 31, after he fell from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires. Geoff Payne was seen reading tributes and kissing photos of his son outside the hotel where he died, one day before the singer’s sister said “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you” in a moving Instagram post. Payne’s former One Direction bandmates have said they are “devastated” over the singer’s death, while Cheryl, the mother of Payne’s 7-year-old son Bear, has opened up about her grief at an “indescribably painful time.” The singer, who shot to fame after joining the pop group on reality TV contest The X Factor in 2010 along with Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson, was described as …

Matlock star Kathy Bates looks so different in latest outing after 100 lb weight loss

Matlock star Kathy Bates looks so different in latest outing after 100 lb weight loss

Kathy Bates is unrecognizable from her Misery days in her latest appearance on the Matlock press tour. The iconic actress arrived at the CBS Mornings studio on Tuesday to discuss the upcoming second season of the detective show, but all anyone could talk about was her incredible transformation.  Kathy wore eye-catching green cat-eye glasses, a green sweater and a shiny puffer vest on top as she greeted fans outside the studio.  You may also likeThe trailer for NCIS: LA star Eric Christian Olsen’s new CBS drama, Matlock This year, she made headlines for her dramatic weight loss, revealing that she had lost over 100 pounds during her health journey. During her morning show appearance, the 76-year-old explained how her life has improved dramatically since her weight loss.  “I feel like a different woman, I really do,” she began. “I look in the mirror and go ‘Oh, my gosh‘. I went into my costume fittings and I’m wearing a size ten, and it’s so different from being a 3X and being able to walk and move and pick things …

New Weight Loss Drug Has Small Problem: Uncontrollable Vomiting

New Weight Loss Drug Has Small Problem: Uncontrollable Vomiting

Image by Getty / Futurism A Swiss pharmaceutical company hoping to cash in on the weight loss drug trend is having its dreams dashed amid new results showing that the drugs cause a broad majority of patients to yak. As the Financial Times reports, the drugmaker Roche found in trials for the experimental drug, dubbed CT-388, that a majority of people who took the highest dose of it in both injectable and pill form suffered from nausea and vomiting. Revealed during the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes last week, these new side effect results found that a whopping 75 percent of those who take the highest dose of the injectable version of the as-yet-unbranded drug experienced vomiting. Results for the pill version, which Roche acquired along with injectable CT-388 when it purchased Carmot Therapeutics at the beginning of this year, were similar. Trying to quell investor concerns that saw its stock fall five percent in the wake of the trial results, a Roche representative suggested that the side effects were …

How Your Mindset Shapes Your Weight Loss Journey

How Your Mindset Shapes Your Weight Loss Journey

The following post is first authored by Sydney Earl. Earl is a research consultant on healthy weight management and behavior change in the digital health industry and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Applied Social Psychology at North Carolina State University. When it comes to weight loss and body image, we’re bombarded with advice—whether it’s the latest trending diet, a new high-intensity workout challenge, wearable fitness trackers, or apps promising to shed pounds effortlessly. But what if the key to lasting change lies not in what we do, but in how we think? Recent research sheds light on how our mindsets—specifically, our beliefs about whether or not we can change our weight—can profoundly impact our health behaviors, weight loss success, and even protect against the damaging effects of body shame or weight stigma. The Power of a Growth Mindset Mindsets are a lens through which we see ourselves and the world around us. These mindsets fall along a continuum. A fixed mindset indicates a belief that traits, abilities, and conditions can’t be changed. For …

Seeking Meaning in Love and Loss

Seeking Meaning in Love and Loss

There’s a beautiful red maple tree in our yard. It stands vibrantly and serenely about 30 feet high—now. But it wasn’t always that way. My mom and dad gifted the maple to us as a small young tree about 25 years ago. Nobody would have predicted that this modest, crimson sapling would survive the challenges it has faced in its many years, for it was planted in its burlap bag so that its roots grew tightly wrapped around its trunk. Yet it has survived. Not only has it survived, but it has flourished, bringing resilience, beauty, shade, wisdom, and love into our lives. Like my mom, who survived numerous challenges in her life, the tree has survived the many odds stacked against it. Source: Inna/Pixabay While the remarkable tree still stands, after her long life, my mom has passed away. Yet even in her final days, like the maple tree, my mom shared profound lessons in resilience, beauty, wisdom, and love. Mom was still getting up and walking until just a few weeks before she …

Google Sued by Yelp After Antitrust Loss from DOJ

Google Sued by Yelp After Antitrust Loss from DOJ

The government’s antitrust victory over Google has cleared the way for a lawsuit against the company from Yelp, a competing online service that lets users find and review local businesses. In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, Yelp accuses Google of leveraging its monopoly power in general search to divert people away from local search providers and toward its own offerings. It seeks a court order blocking Google from further engaging in anticompetitive conduct, as well as unspecified monetary damages. The filing of the complaint follows a federal judge earlier this month finding that the tech giant violated antitrust laws by building a moat around its monopoly over search through anticompetitive agreements, such as exclusive deals with Apple and Samsung to have Google as the default search engine on their phones and browsers. The decision is expected to have ripple effects across the digital ad market, with hearings scheduled to start in September that will consider remedies, which could include breaking up the company. In that case, U.S. District Judge …

Sherwood star Monica Dolan’s private life: from tragic family loss to love life

Sherwood star Monica Dolan’s private life: from tragic family loss to love life

The BBC’s critically acclaimed drama Sherwood returns to our screens on Sunday night with its highly-anticipated second season about a Nottinghamshire town divided by tensions caused by the 1980s miners’ strike.  Season two introduces a fresh batch of characters as two new families find themselves intertwined with the infamous Sparrows, a local crime clan who were at the centre of season one’s investigation into Gary Jackson’s murder.  BAFTA-winning actress Monica Dolan has joined the cast as crime family matriarch, Ann Branson. While viewers will recognise the 55-year-old for her roles in W1A, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, and Black Mirror, how much do you know about her life away from the cameras? Keep reading for all we know… WATCH: Will you be watching Sherwood season 2? Monica’s childhood and tragic family loss Monica was born in Middlesbrough to Irish parents. While her mum, from Enniscorthy, studied botany and biochemistry before becoming a research worker and then a teacher, her father was a chemical engineer from Dublin.  While Monica didn’t follow in her parents’ footsteps …

Ozempic: Weight Loss Drug or Supermodel Shortcut?

Ozempic: Weight Loss Drug or Supermodel Shortcut?

Ozempic, the weight loss medication that diminishes one’s sense of hunger, has been used as a simple and yet effective treatment for obesity. There is debate on whether the use of drugs to combat weight gain is healthy, or should be pushed back against by simply eating better and engaging in regular exercise. Now, though, a certain brand of Ozempic users is complicating the discussion. People, particularly the young, are starting to use Ozempic to carve out the ideal beach bod. But the risks to this aren’t benign, according to a report by the New York Post. Using Ozempic or other weight loss drugs without a proper prescription can be dangerous. Per the Post: “Drugs including Ozempic and Wegovy should only be used by people prescribed them for obesity or diabetes,” Stephen Powis — the national medical director of NHS England, the country’s publicly funded healthcare system — urged last week at a conference in Manchester. “I’m worried about reports that people are misusing them — they are not intended as a quick fix for people trying …