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Emma Hemming Willis shares video about Bruce Willis’ life after diagnosis: “It’s filled with joy.”
Emma Hemming Willis, the wife of Bruce Willis, shared a message on Instagram on Sunday about her husband’s life after being diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia. She said she had been “triggered” by seeing a headline about her husband that claimed there was no more joy in his life.
“I can just tell you, that is far from the truth,” she said in an Instagram video.
Primary progressive aphasia is a medical condition that leaves patients struggling to understand language and communicate. It can make it difficult to form sentences and make the person hard to understand. Willis was also was also diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, a group of brain disorders that affect the brain’s frontal and temporal lobes, which are associated with personality, behavior and language, Mayo Clinic explains.
But Hemming Willis said his life isn’t over. “I need society and whoever’s writing these stupid headlines to stop scaring people, stop scaring people to think that once they get a diagnosis of some kind of neurocognitive disease that it’s over, let’s pack it up, nothing else to see here, we’re done,” she said.
She said it’s actually the complete opposite of that. While she is dealing with grief and sadness, they’ve started a new chapter. “And that chapter, let me just tell you what it is,” she said. “It’s filled with love. It’s filled with connection. It’s filled with joy. It’s filled with happiness. That’s where we are.”
In a second video on Sunday, Hemming Willis said such headlines are harmful to other caregivers or partners of people with dementia, because the headlines make it sound “all dark and scary and gloomy.”
“I’m not saying that dementia is rainbows and unicorns. It is not,” she said. “But there is also another side of it that is so beautiful.”
After revealing his diagnosis, Willis announced he was stepping away from acting. Last month, talk show host Wendy Williams announced she was also diagnosed with the same two conditions after previously stepping away from her show. She was on occasion seen unable to form words and acted erratically, including during tapings of her talk show, which left many fans concerned and confused.
Hemming Willis has posted several videos on Instagram raising awareness for her husband’s conditions, in one, sharing a message for paparazzi trying to capture shots and video of her husband as he was getting coffee with friends.
“I know this is your job, but maybe just keep your space,” she said. “For the video people, please don’t be yelling at my husband, asking him how he’s doing or whatever. The woohoo-ing and the yippee ki-yays – just don’t do it. OK? Give him his space. Allow for our family or whoever’s with him that day to be able to get him from point A to point B safely.”
Willis and Hemming Willis have two daughters. The actor also has three daughters with ex-wife Demi Moore.
NEW YORK — Former New York Gov. David Paterson and his stepson were attacked in New York City on Friday night, authorities said.
The incident occurred just before 9 p.m. on Second Avenue near East 96th Street on the Upper East Side, according to the New York City Police Department.
Police said officers were sent to the scene after an assault was reported. When officers arrived, police say they found a 20-year-old man suffering from facial injuries and a 70-year-old man who had head pain. Both victims were taken to a local hospital in stable condition.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the former governor said the two were attacked while “taking a walk around the block near their home by some individuals that had a previous interaction with his stepson.”
The spokesperson said that they were injured “but were able to fight off their attackers.”
Both were taken to Cornell Hospital “as a precaution,” he added.
Police said no arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.
The 70-year-old Paterson, a Democrat, served as governor from 2008 to 2010, stepping into the post after the resignation of Eliot Spitzer following his prostitution scandal. He made history at the time as the state’s first-ever Black and legally blind governor.
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A 17-year-old boy was critically injured and a person is in custody after a gunman opened fire on a SEPTA bus in North Philadelphia Friday evening, police said.
At around 6:15 p.m., Philadelphia police were notified about a shooting on a SEPTA bus traveling on Allegheny Avenue near 3rd and 4th streets in North Philadelphia, Inspector D F Pace told CBS News Philadelphia.
There were an estimated 30 people on the bus at the time of the shooting, Pace said, but only the 17-year-old boy was believed to have been shot. Investigators said they believe it was a targeted attack on the teenager and that he was shot in the back of the bus at close range.
According to Pace, the SEPTA bus driver alerted a control center about the shooting, which then relayed the message to Philadelphia police, who responded to the scene shortly.
Officers arrived at the scene and found at least one spent shell casing and blood on the bus, but no shooting victim, Pace said. Investigators later discovered the 17-year-old had been taken to Temple University Hospital where he is said to be in critical condition, according to police.
CBS Philadelphia
Through their preliminary investigation, police learned those involved in the SEPTA shooting may have fled in a silver-colored Kia.
Authorities then found a car matching the description of the Kia speeding in the area and a pursuit began, Pace said. Police got help from a PPD helicopter as they followed the Kia, which ended up crashing at 5th and Greenwood streets in East Mount Airy. Pace said the Kia crashed into a parked car.
The driver of the crashed car ran away but police were still able to take them into custody, Pace said.
Investigators believe there was a second person involved in the shooting who ran from the car before it crashed. Police said they believe this person escaped near Allegheny Avenue and 4th Street, leaving a coat behind.
According to Pace, police also found a gun and a group of spent shell casings believed to be involved in the shooting in the same area.
“It’s very possible that there may have been a shooting inside the bus and also shots fired from outside of the bus toward the bus,” Pace said, “We’re still trying to piece all that together at this time.”
This is an active investigation and police are reviewing surveillance footage from the SEPTA bus.