David Letterman lands Obama as first new talk show guest

LOS ANGELES - Veteran former U.S. talk show host David Letterman will return to television on Jan. 12 in a new Netflix show where his first guest will be former U.S. President Barack Obama, Netflix said on Friday.

Called "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman," the six-episode series will also feature interviews with actor George Clooney, rapper Jay-Z, radio shock jock Howard Stern, comedian Tina Fey and Pakistani education activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, the streaming service said.

Letterman's interview with Obama will mark the former president's first television talk show appearance since he left office in January 2017.

Letterman, 70, left his job as host of "The Late Show" in May 2015, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family after more than 30 years on late night television.

His return to television for Netflix was announced in August 2017, when the quick-witted host said that Pope Francis and President Donald Trump would be top of his wish-list for the series.

Netflix said the new series would consist of 60-minute episodes centered around "one extraordinary figure whom Dave finds fascinating" and that the interviews would take place both inside and outside a studio setting.

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It's official: the Obamas are Washington homeowners

Former US president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle initially decided to stay in Washington once he left the White House so their daughter Sasha could finish high school.

Now, their presence in the US capital looks more permanent.

The couple paid $8.1 million to buy the mansion in Washington's swank Kalorama neighborhood that they have been renting since January, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The eight-bedroom, nine-and-a-half-bath home is in the same neighborhood as the home of President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner.

Other Kalorama residents include Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.

"Given that President and Mrs. Obama will be in Washington for at least another two and a half years, it made sense for them to buy a home rather than continuing to rent property," Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis told the paper.

The posh neighborhood has a long history as home to government ministers, Supreme Court justices, Treasury secretaries, and other powerful figures in government and business.

Other past presidents who have lived in the neighborhood located about two miles (three kilometers) from the White House include Woodrow Wilson and William Howard Taft.

Franklin D Roosevelt lived there before becoming president.

The Obamas have traveled a fair bit since leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, vacationing in French Polynesia and Italy.

Obama and his wife have signed a contract with Penguin Random House to publish their memoirs, reportedly worth more than $60 million.

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Ex-US President Jimmy Carter says cancer gone from brain

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter delivered an unexpected message on Sunday to the several hundred people gathered at a Baptist church in Georgia for his Bible lesson - his latest brain scan showed no sign of cancer.

Carter, 91, started treatment in August for melanoma that had spread from his liver to his brain. A previous MRI test showed the four spots of cancer that had developed on his brain were responding to treatment, he said.

"When I went this week, they didn’t find any cancer at all, so I have good news," Carter told the crowd at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, according to a video from NBC News.

The former Democratic president, known for his unassuming style, offered a quick smile as people who had come for the Sunday School class he teaches gasped and clapped.

In a brief written statement afterward, Carter confirmed his most recent brain scan "did not reveal any signs of the original cancer spots nor any new ones."

He said he would continue to receive regular doses of pembrolizumab, a new treatment that is part of a promising class of drugs that harness the body's immune system to fight cancer. The immunotherapy is manufactured by Merck & Co under the brand name Keytruda.

While about 30 percent of patients treated with the drug experience significant shrinkage of their cancer, only approximately 5 percent experience complete remission, said Dr. Marc Ernstoff, director of the melanoma program at the Cleveland Clinic's Taussig Cancer Institute in Ohio.

On average, the immunotherapy treatment extends a recipient's life expectancy by a year and a half.

"But people that are in complete remission tend to live significantly longer," said Ernstoff, who is not involved in Carter's care.

Carter, who said after his diagnosis last summer that his fate was "in the hands of God," has defied expectations before.

Critics derided his 1977-1981 presidency as a failure, although he played a key role in negotiation of the 1978 Camp David peace accord between Israel and Egypt. He lost his 1980 re-election bid to Republican Ronald Reagan.

But the former peanut farmer built one of the most successful post-White House legacies, winning a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 and remaining active into his '90s in causes such as fighting disease in Africa and building homes for the poor.

He said in August that his cancer treatment, which has included radiation, would require him to cut back dramatically on his public schedule.

But Carter has continued to teach Sunday School classes and participated in at least one Habitat for Humanity home-building event this autumn. In October, he announced he was also working with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s heirs to help mediate their dispute over whether to sell their father's 1964 Nobel Peace Prize medal and the Bible he carried during the civil rights movement.


Read more at Reuters.

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