A national bone marrow donation registry said the rate of new registrants has more than doubled since ABC News’ Robin Roberts said she will need a transplant.
The “Good Morning America” anchor is being treated for MDS, a blood and bone marrow disease. According to the Associated Press, she will require a transplant this fall.
Miss Roberts stopped by a registration drive at ABC News on Tuesday, watching co-host George Stephanopoulos and her boss, ABC News President Ben Sherwood, get swabbed to see if their bone marrow is a match for someone who needs a donation.
Jeffrey Chell, CEO of the registry Be The Match, said some 15,000 people had registered since Miss Roberts announced her diagnosis on June 11. That’s 11,200 more than they would normally receive in that period
’Storage Wars’ star, rapper settle suit over catchphrase
Dave Hester, star of A&E’s hit reality series “Storage Wars,” and rapper-singer Trey Songz have settled the lawsuit over who gets to say “YUUUP!” on television.
Mr. Hester sued Songz (born Tremaine Neverson) in November and sought a court order that would bar the rapper from “interfering” with his use of “YUUUP!”
Both men argued that the exclamation was a signature catchphrase. Songz claimed to have used it first but didn’t try to register it as a trademark, while Mr. Hester had attempted to register “YUUUP!” on three occasions.
Mr. Hester filed a lawsuit after getting a cease-and-desist letter from the rapper’s attorneys demanding that he stop calling out the phrase during the “Storage Wars” auctions of seized goods. In his original complaint, Mr. Hester asserted his “YUUUP!” was different from the rapper’s version, which “resembles an animallike or nonhuman squeal which begins with a distinct ’yeeee’ sound before finishing with a squeal-like ’uuuup’ sound,” according to the lawsuit.
Songz filed a countersuit in April and said that his vocalization was well known to consumers for many years. At concerts, he would engage a call-and-response with the audience on “YUUUP!” The R&B star also said he has been selling the word on clothing and other products on his website since 2009. And he said there wasn’t any difference in the way both were using “YUUUP!” According to the cross-claims, “Hester’s purported mark, as used, is styled identically or virtually identically to Songz’s LLC’s mark, displaying the mark YUUUP! in a sans serif font in all capital letters.”
Songz demanded a cancellation of Mr. Hester’s trademark registration and an injunction preventing him from selling clothing bearing the signature word.
On Friday, Mr. Hester and Songz came together to tell a New York federal judge that they had settled the dispute. The parties didn’t reveal the details of the agreement.
Trebek ’in good spirits’ during heart attack recovery
A spokeswoman said “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek is “up and about” in a Los Angeles hospital as he recovers from a mild heart attack.
Sony Pictures Television spokeswoman Paula Askanas said Monday that Mr. Trebek is “in good spirits” while doctors complete their tests, the Associated Press reports. She said he has been moved to a regular room.
The 71-year-old Mr. Trebek was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Saturday. He’s expected to fully recover and be back at work when “Jeopardy!” resumes production for a new season in July.
Mr. Trebek was hospitalized for a heart attack in 2007. He has been hosting the popular quiz show for 28 years.
’Glee’s’ Kevin McHale returns to ’Glee Project’
“Glee’s” Kevin McHale will be a mentor again for Oxygen’s “The Glee Project.”
The actor behind Artie Abrams has been tapped as the next mentor on Oxygen’s reality competition series and will oversee a new theme for the second-year show: “Adaptability.”
Mr. McHale will bring his three seasons worth of experience on “Glee” to the fifth episode of the season, scheduled for July 3. It will mark his second turn as a mentor following his appearance last year during the show’s “Generosity” hour that saw co-runner-up Lindsay Pearce earn one-on-one time with him.
Upcoming mentors include Jane Lynch making her “Glee Project” debut on July 10 for another new theme, “Fearlessness”; Amber Riley stepping in for “Tenacity,” which was mentored by Max Adler last year; Darren Criss making his third appearance on July 31 for another new theme “Romanticality”; and Chris Colfer debuting in the Aug. 14 hour for “Glee-ality.”
Mr. McHale joins season-two mentors Lea Michele, Samuel Larsen, Cory Monteith and Naya Rivera. “The Glee Project” airs at 10 a.m. Tuesdays on Oxygen.
• Compiled from Web and wire reports.
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