• Kathy Griffin has been diagnosed with stage 1 lung cancer, the veteran comedian and actor announced Monday on Instagram and Twitter. She revealed her condition before undergoing surgery, adding that she is "fully vaccinated" against covid-19. "I've got to tell you guys something," Griffin wrote. "I have cancer. I'm about to go into surgery to have half of my left lung removed. Yes, I have lung cancer, even though I've never smoked!" She added, "The doctors are very optimistic as it is stage one and contained to my left lung. Hopefully no chemo or radiation after this and I should have normal function with my breathing. I should be up and running around as usual in a month or less." Long a vocal critic of former President Donald Trump, Griffin nearly ended her career with a 2017 photo shoot in which she posed with a bloody replica of his head, resulting in an addiction to painkillers and attempted suicide. "The irony is not lost on me that, a little over a year ago, all I wanted to do was die," Griffin said. "And now, all I wanna do is live." In conversation with ABC News, Griffin was still reeling from the shock of her illness while acknowledging her relatively positive prognosis. "When you're a comic, the doctors all wanna be funny," she said. "I love when they try material on me, like it hasn't been happening to me for 40 freaking years. ... He's like, 'Well, you know, the lung is actually a couple of balloons. And so we basically just deflate the lower balloon -- remove it. It's kinda like taking out a used condom. You can use that,' ... And I'm, like, 'OK. Why don't you do the surgery and I'll do the jokes.'"
• Ashley Judd is walking again, nearly six months after shattering her leg deep in a Congolese rain forest. She posted a video of herself on Instagram on Sunday walking up a hill in a national park in the Swiss Alps. "My leg and foot, worked beautifully. I walked uphill on uneven surfaces for an hour confidently and came down carefully and easily," Judd said in the post. She had tripped over a log and broke her tibia in multiple places while joining researchers in a nighttime search for bonobos. She said she spent hours on the forest floor, biting a stick after screaming in pain. Several men carried her back to camp in a hammock tied to a pole, and then she was evacuated by motorbike over dirt roads, with a driver steering and another man "holding the top part of my shattered tibia together." The actress thanked her African colleagues, doctors, therapists, family and fans for their support in her recovery. "My leg will never be the same. She is a new leg. And I love her. We are buddies. We have come a long way and we have a fabulous life ahead," Judd wrote.