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Michael Douglas reunites with Kathleen Turner for the final season of Kominsky Method

Michael Douglas, 76, reunites with his Romancing the Stone co-star Kathleen Turner, 66, after 32 years… for the final season of The Kominsky Method. The dup have reunited for the third and final season of Netflix’s hit series The Kominsky Method. Douglas, 76, and Turner, 66, starred alongside each other in a string of hit movies in the 1980s. Previously, the pair co-starred in Romancing the Stone in 1984 and its 1985 sequel, The Jewel of the Nile. The last time the pair worked together was on the dark comedy War of the Roses, 32 years ago in 1989. Michael Douglas reunited with his longtime costar Kathleen Turner for the third and final season of Netflix’s hit series The Kominsky Method. The 66-year-old actress, who previously made a guest appearance on the series as Douglas’ ex-wife last year, will be taking on a full-time role on the critically-acclaimed as the mother to his daughter Mindy (Sarah Baker). In the first picture of Sandy Kominsky (Douglas) and Roz together, they can be seen sitting together and look in deep conversation. Previously, the pair co-starred in Romancing the Stone in 1984 and its 1985 sequel, The Jewel of the Nile as well as War of the Roses in 1989. The six-episode final season will include Sarah Baker, Paul Reiser, Lisa Edelstein, Emily Osment, Graham Rogers and Haley Joel Osment. Speaking about the decision to play his former spouse on the half-hour comedy-drama about getting older, Turner told People it was a ‘no-brainer.’ ‘Michael and I have always been friends but it was fun just to fall back in the rhythm again of our working together,’ she told the outlet in November 2019. Over the summer, new broke that the series would conclude after three seasons. ‘The Kominsky Method has been a true passion project for me, and it’s been an incredible experience to see the warm response from both audiences and critics,’ the show’s creator and executive producer Chuck Lorre in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter in July. He continued: ‘I’m excited to wrap up the story with this final chapter.’ The Golden Globe Award-winning series first premiered in November 2018. Season 3 will premiere on May 28 on Netflix. Source: DailyMail.co.uk
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Oxford University to trial giving AstraZeneca vaccine as a nasal spray

Oxford University to trial giving AstraZeneca Covid vaccine as a nasal spray with the hope it will trigger a better and faster immune response in the lungs. Oxford university is looking for 30 adults to receive vaccine through nasal spray. Trials could begin next week and are expected to last four months. Trial follows announcements that the university and other researchers are assessing delivering vaccines in non-jab forms. AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine will be administered as a nasal spray as part of a new trial. Oxford University scientists — who developed the jab — have been looking at injection-free ways to dish out the vaccine. It’s thought that nasal sprays may better target immune cells in the lungs, throat and nose, making them even more effective at defending against Covid. Oxford is looking for 30 adults to get the vaccine squirted up their noses as soon as next week. Volunteers will be tracked for four months to see make sure it’s safe as part of the initial trial. If successful, the phase one study will move on and tens or potentially hundreds more adults will be recruited to see if it can ward off the virus as well as a jab. Nasal spray vaccines would be great news for people who have a fear of needles and could alleviate supply issues that have hindered rollouts around the world. This method is already used to give out children’s flu jabs. The university’s study, involving adults over 40, is part of its partnership with AstraZeneca, the Financial Times reported. Professor Sarah Gilbert, one of the lead scientists behind the Oxford university jab, announced last month that her team was working on injection-free ways of delivering the vaccine. Vaccine hesitancy could lead to 20,000 extra coronavirus deaths over the next two years, a study has suggested. Researchers warned that if a significant number of people turn the jab down, it may allow the virus to spread in high numbers when lockdowns are eased, posing a constant threat to the elderly and ill. The gloomy modelling by Imperial College London predicted 305 extra Covid deaths per million people by 2023, the equivalent of 20,130 people in the UK. Other more pessimistic calculations projected even more deaths. Experts warned vaccine hesitancy will lead to flare-ups in cases and hospitalisations which could see lockdown restrictions in place for longer. The study did not specify what constituted as high vaccine hesitancy. But Imperial has been repeatedly criticised for its pessimistic Covid models, which predicted 250,000 deaths in the first wave without further action. So far, uptake in Britain has been far higher than expected, with more than 90 per cent of Britons over the age of 60 having accepted their jab. But officials expect that, as the programme moves to younger, less-vulnerable groups, the turnout rate will drop because young people don’t see the virus as a threat. Government-funded surveys have indicated up to a fifth of people under-30 will turn the vaccines down. Professor Sarah Gilbert told the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee last month that researchers were exploring nasal spray and tablet forms of the vaccine. She said: ‘As you know all the vaccines have been given at the moment as intramuscular injections. ‘That is not necessarily the best way to provide protection against a respiratory virus infection, where we want the immune system to be active in the upper respiratory tract and then in the lower respiratory tract, which is where the virus is causing the infection. ‘We have flu vaccines that are given by nasal spray and this could be a very good approach in the future to use vaccines against coronaviruses.’ Other scientists in the UK began testing a different nasal spray vaccine, known as COVI-VAC, on volunteers at the start of the year. The spray, made by New York-based company Codagenix, contains a genetically modified form of Covid and is being tested on 48 adults in London. The UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) green-lit the trial after positive safety data in animal studies. COVI-VAC is a type of live attenuated vaccine, meaning trialists will get a genetically-modified version of Covid that is weaker than the real thing but still infectious. Live attenuated vaccines — such as the MMR jab — work by stimulating the immune system in the same way that real disease would, but by relying on viruses unable to cause severe illness. Oxford University’s vaccine is an adenovirus vaccine – which uses a weakened virus that causes the common cold that has been modified not to trigger illness and is not infectious. Meanwhile, Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology is also trialing a nasal spray to deliver the country’s Sputnik V vaccine. The institute expects to complete clinical trials of the spray by the end of the year. Scientists at the University of Birmingham are also working on a nasal Covid treatment. But rather than acting as a vaccine, its version aims to prevent Covid infections by capturing the virus in the nose. Researchers hope the spray may be readily available in pharmacies in the coming months. Source: DailyMail.co.uk
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Peer-to-peer home rental

Understand the implications renting your home to strangers Before you consider renting out your home, your guest room—or even your couch—first contact your insurance professional so you fully understand the financial risks and can take the proper precautions. Here’s some general information to jumpstart your insurance conversation. If you are considering renting out your home, your guest room or even your couch your first step should be to contact your insurance professional. Peer-to-peer home sharing opportunities such as Airbnb can be a great way to bring in extra money and are increasingly popular; however, they can also leave you financially vulnerable. If your renter starts a fire and damages your property or is hurt while renting your home, will you be protected? Peer-to-peer home rental Peer-to-peer home sharing opportunities such as Airbnb are increasingly popular and can be a great way to bring in extra money. However, they can also leave you financially vulnerable. If your renter starts a fire and damages your property or is hurt while renting your home, will you be protected? Standard homeowners and renters insurance policies are designed for personal risks, not commercial risks. Some insurers now offer a home-sharing liability insurance policy that can be purchased on a month-to-month basis, but there may be exclusions and limitations, so read the policy carefully. If you plan to rent out all or part of your home on a regular basis, many companies will consider this a business use and you may need to purchase a business policy—specifically either a hotel or a bed-and-breakfast policy. If you are doing the renting If you are the one using a peer-to-peer network to rent a space from someone else, check your own homeowners or renters insurance policy. In most cases, if your personal possessions are stolen or damaged off-premises, you can simply file a claim with your own insurer. And if you accidentally injure someone, you should also be financially protected. Occasional home rental There may be times when a major event in an area—the Super Bowl, say, or a graduation at a major university—depletes local hotel space. In these cases, it’s fairly common for people to rent out their home or part of it for the extra cash it brings in. Many insurance companies take this situation into account when creating a homeowners or renters policy and, with sufficient advance notice, will extend your coverage to the renter on a one-time basis. Other insurance companies may require the purchase of an endorsement to the policy to provide broader coverage for the renters in your home. In both cases, be sure to let your insurance company know ahead of time, so you can be prepared.
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Monkeypox: Time to worry or one to ignore?

If you’re still reeling from the Covid pandemic, well sorry but there’s another virus to get to grips with. This time it’s monkeypox and there are around 80 confirmed cases in 11 countries, including the UK, that would not normally expect to have the disease. So what is going on? Is it time to worry or are we getting overly excited having just lived through Covid? Let’s be clear: this is not another Covid and we’re not days away from lockdowns to contain the spread of monkeypox. However, this is an unusual and unprecedented monkeypox outbreak. It has taken scientists who specialize in the disease by complete surprise and it is always a concern when a virus changes its behavior. Until now, monkeypox was pretty predictable. The virus’s natural home is wild animals, which are actually thought to be rodents rather than monkeys. Somebody in the rainforests of Western and Central Africa comes into contact with an infected creature and the virus makes the jump across species. Their skin erupts in a rash, which blisters and then scabs over. The virus is now outside its usual home and struggles to spread so it needs prolonged close contact to keep going. So outbreaks tend to be small and burn out on their own. Small numbers of cases have cropped up elsewhere in the world before, including in the UK, but all can be immediately linked to somebody traveling to an affected country and bringing it home. That is no longer the case. For the first time, the virus is being found in people with no clear connection to Western and Central Africa It is not clear who people are catching it from Monkeypox is spreading during sexual activities with most cases having lesions on their genitals and the surrounding area Many of those affected are gay and bisexual young men “We’re in a very new situation, that is a surprise and a worry,” Prof Sir Peter Horby, the director of the University of Oxford’s Pandemic Sciences Institute, told me. While he says this is “not Covid-Two”, he said “we need to act” to prevent the virus from getting a foothold as this is “something we really want to avoid”. Dr. Hugh Adler, who has treated patients with monkeypox, agrees: “It’s not a pattern we’ve seen before – this is a surprise.” So what’s going on? We know this outbreak is different, but we don’t know why. There are two broad options – the virus has changed or the same old virus has found itself in the right place at the right time to thrive. Monkeypox is a DNA virus so it does not mutate as rapidly as Covid or flu. Very early genetic analysis suggests the current cases are very closely related to forms of the virus seen in 2018 and 2019. It is too early to be sure, but for now, there is no evidence this is a new mutant variant at play. But a virus doesn’t have to change in order to take advantage of an opportunity, as we have learned from unexpected large outbreaks of both Ebola and Zika virus in the last decade. “We always thought Ebola was easy to contain until that wasn’t the case,” said Prof Adam Kucharski, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It’s not clear why gay and bisexual men are disproportionately affected. Are sexual behaviors making it easier to spread? Is it just a coincidence? Is it a community that is more aware of sexual health and gets checked out? It may also be getting easier for monkeypox to spread. The mass smallpox vaccinations of the past would have given older generations some protection against the closely related monkeypox. “It is probably transmitting more effectively than in the smallpox era, but we’re not seeing anything suggesting it could run rampant,” said Dr. Adler, who still expects this outbreak to burn itself out. Understanding how this outbreak started will help predict what happens next. We know we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg as the cases being detected doesn’t fit into a neat picture of this person passed it on to that person etc. Instead many of the cases appear unrelated, so there are missing links in a chain that seems to spread across Europe and beyond. A recent massive super spreading event, in which large numbers of people gathered and caught monkeypox at the same venue such as a festival and then took it home to different countries, could explain the current situation. The alternative explanation for so many unconnected people getting infected is if the virus has actually been bubbling along unnoticed for quite some time involving a lot of people. Either way, we can expect to continue to find more cases. “I don’t think the general public needs to be worried at this stage, but I don’t think we’ve uncovered all of this and we are not in control of this,” said Prof Jimmy Whitworth, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. But remember we are not in the same situation as we were with Covid. Monkeypox is a known virus rather than a new one, and we already have vaccines and treatments. It is mostly mild, although it can be more dangerous in young children, pregnant women, and people with weak immune systems. But it spreads more slowly than Covid and the distinctive and painful rash makes it harder to miss than a cough that could be anything. This makes the job of finding people who may have been infected and vaccinating those at risk of catching it easier. However, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, has warned that “as we enter the summer season… with mass gatherings, festivals, and parties, I am concerned that transmission could accelerate”. Read more at bbc.com
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Unclaimed life insurance benefits

5 reasons your life insurance benefits might go unclaimed Sometimes life insurance benefits are left unclaimed after a policyholder dies. This is an unfortunate problem under any circumstances, but especially now, when many people are struggling financially. What is more, this is an easily preventable outcome. 1. The life insurance company and the policy owner have lost track of each other The main mode of contact between you and financial institutions (banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, investment management companies, etc.) is by “snail” mail. As with anyone with whom you wish to keep in contact after you move, you must tell them your new mailing address or they will lose track of you. The U.S. Post Office will only forward first-class mail for a year to a forwarding address, and the sender is not aware that the mail is being forwarded to a new address as the Post Office does not inform the financial institution of the change. If you move, immediately inform every financial institution directly of your new mailing address, including your life insurer. Of course, the same principle applies to other forms of communication: tell the life insurance company of new phone numbers (including your mobile number), email address, etc. 2. The life insurance company doesn’t know the insured has died Life insurance companies typically do not know when a policyholder dies until they are informed of his or her death, usually by the policy’s beneficiary. Even if a policy is in a premium-paying stage and the payments stop, the insurance company has no reason to assume that the insured has died. Moreover, there are policies that have benefits called cash values, with an Automatic Premium Loan (APL) feature. An APL policy borrows money from the cash value to pay a premium due if the money does not come in by the end of the grace period; thus preventing an unintended lapse of the policy, which would have the disastrous effect of loss of the entire death benefit should the insured die after premiums due were not paid. Under an APL, the policy would continue in full force until all of the cash value had been borrowed, at which time it would lapse. Also, many policies are in a stage in which no premiums are due. Some life insurance is bought with a single premium or a small number of premiums due (such as 10 or 20 annual payments), but the insured might live a long time after the premium payments end. Thus the life insurance company would stop sending premium notices after all premiums were paid. Moreover, there is no master list of who is alive and who is dead. The Social Security Administration has the closest thing to such a list—a file on its income beneficiaries (those receiving retirement or disability income from Social Security) to record those who are alive and who have deceased, so as to avoid making payments that are not legitimate—but this does not cover everyone. Millions of people, in fact, are not covered by Social Security (federal employees, state employees in four states, railroad employees, etc.), and therefore would not appear on this list. Employers who sponsor group life insurance to active employees will notify the life insurer if a covered employee dies. And, it is possible that the deceased would also have individual life insurance policies with the same company that issues the group policy, but this becomes less likely when people switch jobs but do not switch individual life insurers. Remember to provide your beneficiaries with the name and contact information for your life insurance company, so they can report your death and file a claim. 3. The life insurance company is unable to locate the policy’s beneficiaries There might be one or both of two problems in this scenario. The first is that the descriptions of the beneficiaries might be insufficiently precise for the life insurance company to locate them. This would be the case, for example, if the beneficiary designation says “my wife” or “my children” without naming them specifically and, ideally, providing a Social Security number and a current address for each one. Be sure to provide detailed personal identification information about every beneficiary to each life insurer from whom you have coverage for death benefits so that they can easily be located and their identity confirmed. The other problem is that, even if the company knows who it is looking for, it may be very difficult to track down a beneficiary, especially as it may be many years, or even decades, since the policy was taken out. Keep in mind that, for privacy reasons, until the death occurs, the life insurer cannot even respond to a beneficiary’s inquiry as to whether they are a beneficiary or not. 4. Beneficiaries don’t know that a life insurance policy exists under which they are beneficiaries It may come as a surprise, but sometimes beneficiaries do not know that they are covered by the insured’s individual or group life insurance policy. The insured may have a variety of reasons for keeping this information secret from the beneficiaries, but an unfortunate consequence is that the benefits could end up unclaimed because no one actually realized that they could make a claim. I Tell the beneficiaries of your life insurance (both individual policies and group coverages) that when you die they will be entitled to death benefits. And provide them with the name and location of the life insurance company as well as the policy number. 5. The original life insurance company no longer exists or cannot be located The name of the company that sold the original life insurance policy may have changed, possibly making it more difficult for the beneficiary to locate the insurer in order to make a claim. Life insurance companies are not any different from companies in any other industry in this respect—but the multi-decade length of the contract can transform this type of normal corporate development into an extra hurdle for beneficiaries. >>Read more
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