Labeling it “Orwellian,” the head of a U.N. watchdog expressed grave concern over the prospect of Iran’s potential membership on a key United Nations committee. This powerful group helps shape significant policies surrounding human rights, women’s rights, and counterterrorism efforts.

The U.N. General Assembly is scheduled for a decisive vote this November on Iran’s inclusion in the Committee for Programme and Coordination. This committee, composed of 34 member states serving three-year terms, is likely to see the vote as a mere formality, largely expected to succeed.

Though the committee doesn’t directly craft human rights treaties or condemn violations, it holds substantial sway over the administrative execution of human rights initiatives throughout the U.N.’s operations.

Despite Iran’s well-documented record of systematic human rights abuses, aggressive crackdowns on women, extensive surveillance, and lethal suppression of dissent, the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) put forth its nomination for Iran in April.

Global bodies also consider Tehran a leading state sponsor of terrorism that funds proxy militant groups, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. In addition, Tehran has attacked neighboring Gulf states in recent months amid a war with the United States.

“It’s the last government in the world that should have any influence,” Hillel Neuer, executive director of Geneva-based UN Watch, told News Media.

“Sadly, at the United Nations today — an organization founded after World War II out of great idealism to bring international peace — it is a case of the lunatics running the asylum,” Neuer added. “You have the Islamic Republic of Iran, a regime that beats, blinds, tortures, rapes, and imprisons women for standing up for their rights or showing a few strands of hair.”

News Media reached out to the Iranian Permanent Mission to the U.N. for comment.

Iran’s appointment would not be unprecedented. The U.N. Human Rights Council’s 47 member states currently include nations with severely criticized human rights records, including China, Cuba, Pakistan and Eritrea.

“The United Nations speaks out in the name of values and principles such as human rights, democracy, freedom, equality and women’s rights,” Neuer said. “The reality is that, sadly, at least half the U.N. is made up of dictatorships.”

Tehran continues to brutally suppress basic freedoms. In July, two men were publicly hanged for participating in nationwide anti-government demonstrations, while hundreds more remain jailed or killed for demanding regime change.

In addition, the U.N. has been accused of bias for heavily criticizing Israel’s military actions in Gaza, while often failing to pass formal resolutions or issue direct condemnations against Hamas.

According to Neuer, the most disappointing aspect of Iran’s potential committee appointment is the willingness of Western democracies to acquiesce.

“The short answer is interests, cynicism, politics, dealmaking, and a culture of ‘go along to get along,'” Neuer said. “If you are the French, Canadian, or German ambassador, you don’t want to pick a fight with dozens of countries or trigger friction with Iran. They would rather simply avoid it.”

A relentless deluge of unprecedented rainwater has transformed the streets east of Tokyo into gushing torrents, claiming the lives of at least eight individuals. This devastating weather event has marooned over 10,000 travelers and commuters throughout Japan’s Chiba prefecture.

Approximately 7,000 people found themselves spending the night inside terminals at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport. Floodwaters had cut off essential rail and road links, coinciding cruelly with one of Japan’s peak holiday travel seasons.

Emergency crews were seen distributing essentials like sleeping bags, water, and food as families made temporary beds in cramped departure halls on Thursday night. The scene was a somber testament to the storm’s impact.

Tragically, among the eight fatalities was a man in his 60s or 70s. He was discovered lifelessly adrift on a submerged road in Ichikawa, a grim reminder of the storm’s fury.

In another heart-wrenching incident, a 66-year-old woman perished after becoming ensnared within her flooded vehicle in Sakura. Other victims were similarly found in inundated cars or lying on flooded streets throughout the prefecture.

The scale of the downpour was extraordinary even by the standards of disaster-prone Japan, with over 14 inches of rain falling within 24 hours in parts of Chiba.

Chiba city recorded 4.5 inches in a single hour on Thursday evening, followed by more than 7 inches over three hours and 11.5 inches in six hours.

All three totals smashed local records dating back to 1966.

“This case was an extremely unusual situation, even by Japan’s historical weather standards,” Chiba Governor Toshihito Kumagai said.

“I have responded to many disasters in the past, but I have never experienced a case like this.”

Almost 230,000 residents were urged to seek safer ground as floodwaters poured through streets, swallowed cars and entered homes.

An early damage count found more than 80 homes had been flooded, but authorities warned the true figure was likely to rise as emergency crews reached more of the affected areas.

The rain knocked out power to about 68,000 households at its peak.

Roughly 23,000 remained without electricity on Friday morning.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency issued its highest Level 5 heavy rain warning across 22 Chiba municipalities as the deluge intensified, along with its most severe landslide warning in six areas.

Those warnings were downgraded to Level 4 shortly after 5 a.m. on Friday as the worst of the rain eased.

However, forecasters warned that the atmosphere remained highly unstable and further intense thunderstorms were possible later in the day.

Waterlogged ground and swollen waterways also meant even comparatively modest rainfall could trigger fresh flooding or landslides.

At Narita, the airport company said approximately 7,000 people remained inside the terminals at 4 a.m. after buses and trains linking the airport with central Tokyo were suspended.

“I never thought I’d spend the night at the airport, but it is what it is and we are learning,” one stranded traveller told Japanese broadcaster NHK.

“We’re never going to forget this trip.”

Rail links began reopening in stages on Friday morning, although delays, cancellations and long queues continued.

Flights were operating broadly as scheduled, with Japan Airlines warning that some services could be delayed but saying no widespread cancellations were expected.

The chaos extended far beyond the airport.

More than 4,000 people spent the night inside JR Soga station after surrounding streets were submerged by water that reached as high as an adult’s waist.

As many as 1,700 other people took shelter inside the Chiba prefectural government building and a neighbouring government facility, while 11 temporary accommodation sites were opened across Chiba city.

Dozens of abandoned vehicles remained scattered across flooded roads on Friday morning.

On one stretch of road in central Chiba, more than 20 vehicles blocked traffic across approximately 492 feet.

Major highways linking Narita Airport with Tokyo were also closed or heavily congested, forcing motorists onto alternative routes.

Weather experts said the disaster was caused by a rare combination of cold air high in the atmosphere, an enormous supply of warm, moist air and converging winds over Chiba.

Tropical Storm Lala is gaining strength in the Pacific, and experts caution that it might soon transform into the first hurricane on record to impact Hawaii’s Big Island.

On Friday morning, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) revised the storm’s projected path and intensity, indicating that Lala is expected to reach hurricane force by early Saturday morning.

Amos Lonokailua-Hewett, the Administrator of the Maui Emergency Management Agency, emphasized, “Lala is intensifying, and it is crucial for residents to be ready for the potential of severe winds, torrential rain, flooding, and substantial waves.”

This occurrence would be unprecedented, marking the first recorded instance of a hurricane making landfall on Hawaii’s Big Island since the commencement of precise weather documentation in the 20th century.

AccuWeather Meteorologist Jesse Ferrell noted, “Hawaii’s Big Island has never experienced a hurricane making landfall. Only Tropical Storms Darby in 2016 and Iselle in 2014 have previously reached land on the Big Island.”

NHC upgraded their alert to an official Hurricane Warning for the Big Island (Hawaiʻi Island), and also issued Tropical Storm Watches for all of Maui County, which includes the islands of Maui, Molokai, Lānaʻi and Kahoʻolawe.

Lala currently has sustained winds of 60 mph and is expected to begin impacting the state Friday afternoon, delivering potentially dangerous wind gusts and rain.

Once the storm arrives on Saturday, AccuWeather’s worst-case scenario warns that parts of the Big Island could see up to 30 inches of rain, deadly flash flooding and mudslides, wind gusts reaching 100 mph and ocean surges approaching six feet.

The heaviest rainfall and wind damage is expected to impact the eastern side of the Big Island, however, forecasters now predict that the entire island chain will see at least two to four inches of rain this weekend, with isolated spots seeing eight inches.

AccuWeather predicted that Lala will be a Level 2 out of 5 on their ‘Real Impact’ scale for rating hurricane damage.

This means the storm will likely cause wind damage to small buildings and trees, power outages and significant property damage in coastal communities. 

AccuWeather Lead Hurricane Expert Alex DaSilva warned that the oncoming storm closely resembles Hurricane Hone, which brought severe flooding and dangerous winds to the island paradise in 2024.

‘Despite never making landfall in Hawaii, Hone brought more than two feet of rain to portions of the Big Island, causing significant flooding, as well as winds in excess of 70 mph,’ DaSilva said in a statement.

The only other hurricane believed to have made landfall on the Big Island was the 1871 Kohala Cyclone but there are only unconfirmed reports from local newspapers documenting the extreme weather event.

According to Hawaiian news outlet Big Island Now, the Kohala Cyclone was a Category 3 hurricane when it struck the north side of the Big Island on August 9, 1871.

AccuWeather has projected that Tropical Storm Lala will only reach Category 1 hurricane status overnight, meaning it will have sustained winds of 75 to 95 mph.

More than one million people are spread out across the state, particularly in communities such as Honolulu, Waikiki, Kahului and Kihei.

Hawaii is in the peak of its summer travel season, with roughly 250,000 vacationers visiting beaches and other tourist attractions on any given day from June to mid-August.

Maui, Hawaii’s second-largest island and one of the state’s top vacation destinations, welcomed approximately 2.5 million visitors in 2025, drawing tourists to its world-class white and black sand beaches, luxury resorts, whale watching sites and iconic attractions such as the 64-mile-long highway known as the Road to Hāna.

Mayor Richard Bissen of Maui County said in a statement: ‘County departments have been preparing for Tropical Storm Lala, and we’re asking our community to do the same.’

‘Use today to finish securing property, making sure your home has enough food, water, supplies and medications, and check on kūpuna (grandparents), neighbors and loved ones.’

The National Weather Service added that local evacuations may be necessary in areas where heavy rainfall triggers floods. 

‘Leave immediately if evacuation orders are given for your area,’ NWS officials urged on Friday.

What may seem like harmless attention toward a child can sometimes conceal darker intentions, warns a Kentucky advocate. This caution comes as the state’s newly enacted grooming law results in its first arrest mere weeks after its implementation.

Laura Wills-Coppelman, who established Institutional Complicity Kentucky, known as ICKY, shared with News Media her perspective on the recent arrest. She views it as validation of the new legislation’s purpose, which is to offer law enforcement an earlier chance to intervene before behavior potentially escalates into sexual abuse.

“For the first time, legal measures in Kentucky enable intervention in scenarios where children might face irreversible harm,” noted Wills-Coppelman. “It’s an essential advancement in efforts to thwart child abuse.”

Just a few weeks post-enactment on July 15, the new law led to the arrest of 25-year-old Sadie M. Flores from Mayfield. She faces charges of grooming a minor, classified as a Class D felony.

The Graves County Sheriff’s Office said Flores, an employee at Graves County Middle School, allegedly had an improper relationship with a minor student in the district.

The allegation was initially reported to Graves County Schools, which immediately turned the information over to the sheriff’s office, according to authorities.

Detectives seized electronic records, conducted interviews and took other investigative steps before interviewing Flores and arresting her around 3:30 p.m., the sheriff’s office said.

Wills-Coppelman cautioned against drawing conclusions about Flores, saying the evidence and allegations in the case must now be evaluated through the court system.

But she said the arrest illustrates the significance of creating an earlier point at which authorities can investigate conduct that may precede abuse.

Wills-Coppelman said one of the biggest misconceptions about grooming is the belief that one questionable interaction can be viewed in isolation and labeled grooming.

Instead, she said grooming often unfolds gradually, with behaviors that may seem explainable on their own becoming increasingly concerning when they form a pattern.

“Grooming is a pattern of behavior that is intended to build trust, erode boundaries, and create conditions for a child to be exploited or abused,” she said.

Potential warning signs, she said, can include excessive attention or favoritism, gifts, secrecy and increasingly isolating a child from other trusted adults or peers.

Individually, some of those behaviors may have innocent explanations. The alarm, Wills-Coppelman said, comes when adults begin seeing them develop into a broader pattern over time.

And from the child’s perspective, she warned, grooming may not feel threatening at all.

“Grooming is a form of manipulation,” Wills-Coppelman said, explaining that a child may instead feel “special and seen and validated” by the attention.

“It doesn’t often register as dangerous until it’s too late,” she said.

For parents watching from the outside, however, the same relationship may begin setting off alarm bells.

“Why does this adult need so much access? Why are they being isolated so much? Why so much excessive attention?” Wills-Coppelman said parents should ask themselves.

Wills-Coppelman said survivors her organization has spoken with have repeatedly described another troubling pattern — adults who recognized something felt wrong but did not speak up at the time.

“A lot of people, bystanders, in their situations in retrospect look back and say, ‘I had an icky feeling,'” she said. “I saw something or I heard something that made me feel uncomfortable. I wish I would have spoken up.”

She stressed that reporting concerning conduct is not the same as declaring someone guilty.

Instead, she said, authorities are responsible for examining the evidence and determining whether conduct meets the threshold for criminal charges.

“The point of awareness can be the point of prevention,” Wills-Coppelman said.

That distinction has become particularly important amid concerns that ordinary interactions between teachers, coaches, youth leaders and children could be mistaken for grooming. The law makes clear that legitimate school, work and volunteer-related communications are not what it is designed to criminalize.

Wills-Coppelman rejected that characterization, calling appropriate adult-child boundaries “common sense.”

“Healthy adult-child mentorship respects appropriate boundaries. Grooming erodes them,” she said.

“The intent of the law is to create an earlier intervention point, not to criminalize ordinary relationships between adults and children.”

Wills-Coppelman said the legislation received unanimous support in both chambers of the Kentucky legislature and bipartisan backing.

House Bill 4, primarily sponsored by Republican state Rep. Marianne Proctor, passed the House 98-0 and the Senate 38-0 before the House unanimously approved the Senate’s changes. Gov. Andy Beshear signed it into law April 10.

“This is not a political issue. This is a human issue,” she said.

The pushback she has encountered, she said, has instead largely centered on due process and concerns about what happens after someone reports suspected grooming.

Wills-Coppelman said due process remains an essential part of the law because a report alone does not automatically trigger criminal charges. Investigators must evaluate the evidence before determining whether charges are warranted.

“We can preserve and respect due process and also prioritize the prevention of abuse and the protection of our children,” she said. “They are not competing principles.”

Wills-Coppelman said she ultimately hopes the law results not in more arrests, but fewer children ever reaching the point where alleged abuse occurs.

“The ultimate goal of this law is not more prosecutions,” she said. “It’s earlier recognition, awareness and understanding of what these behaviors look like and ultimately prevention.”

For Wills-Coppelman, passing the grooming law is only one piece of a larger fight.

She said she now wants Kentucky’s educator code of ethics brought into alignment with the new law and is pushing for greater accountability when people in positions of authority become aware of disturbing patterns but fail to report them.

That includes situations in which institutions attempt to handle serious allegations internally rather than referring them to the appropriate authorities, she said.

“My efforts are focused not only on the obvious villain, which is the perpetrator in these cases, but also turning some attention toward enablers, systems and institutions and the people within those organizations that had the capacity and the ability to take action and made a deliberate choice to not do so,” Wills-Coppelman said.

In the Flores case, Graves County Schools said administrators contacted law enforcement immediately after becoming aware of the allegation.

Superintendent Matt Madding said the district has since been informed that charges were filed against the teacher and pledged continued cooperation with investigators.

“We take any allegation involving the safety of a child or the professional conduct of an employee extremely seriously,” Madding said in a statement.

The district said it is limited in what it can disclose because the case remains an ongoing legal and personnel matter.

Wills-Coppelman hopes Kentucky’s approach eventually reaches far beyond the state.

She said Ohio has legislation similar to Kentucky’s, but her goal is for protections against grooming to ultimately become a nationwide standard.

“A child’s protection from grooming and abuse should never depend on geography,” she said.

For now, Kentucky’s first case under the new law will move through the courts, while the legislation itself faces its first real-world test.

And for Wills-Coppelman, its success won’t ultimately be measured by the number of people put behind bars.

“If it prevents even one child from the horrific consequences of abuse,” she said, “that makes it all worth it.”

Whitmer Thomas: Terminal Crew of Dudes, set to air tonight at 9 PM on HBO and HBO Max, breaks the mold of the traditional comedy special. Instead of performing to a packed house, comedian Whitmer Thomas steps into an intimate setting with his closest companions and older brother, weaving together a tapestry of humorous stories, original songs, and nostalgic film clips interspersed with whimsical antics designed to tickle his friends’ funny bones. This refreshing blend of laughter and sentiment captures the essence of a show that is as touchingly inspiring as it is uproariously entertaining.

In Terminal Crew of Dudes, Whitmer Thomas, now 37, opens up about his upbringing in Birmingham, Alabama, a journey that took a dramatic turn when his parents, afflicted by addiction, parted ways. His mother, battling alcoholism, relocated him and his older brother, Johnny, to the coastal enclave of Gulf Springs. Here, fate introduced Whit to Jeramy, a fellow skateboard enthusiast who would become his inseparable best friend. Remarkably, the members of Thomas’s backup band are not mere musicians for hire—they are the lifelong friends who populate his tales of youthful misadventure and camaraderie.

Thomas’s latest offering is a unique blend of utter vulnerability and an infectious skater-boy charisma. Throughout the special, he bravely explores both the darkest and most mortifying moments of his childhood, only to lighten the mood with his trademark juvenile humor. As he repeatedly emphasizes, it’s his loyal friends, his so-called “terminal crew of dudes,” who have been his steadfast source of joy and resilience through life’s tempests. In this way, Terminal Crew of Dudes offers a refreshing antidote to the pervasive discussions on male loneliness saturating the pop culture landscape of 2026.

This week, Whitmer Thomas graced the studios of DECIDER to share insights into the making of Terminal Crew of Dudes. He delved into how executive producer Tim Robinson played a pivotal role in amplifying the rawness of the special, and revealed a cheeky piece of advice—one should perhaps resist the urge to do certain things solely because they elicit laughter from friends…

**Spoilers for some jokes/punchlines in Whitmer Thomas: Terminal Crew of Dudes ahead**

DECIDER: Whitmer, thank you for coming here. I watched your special last night and I found it to be so strangely moving and creative in ways I had not considered a comedy special could be. I think I mentioned to you, I used to do stand-up briefly when I was younger. I never knew you could have other people on stage with you, like your friends behind you hanging out with you during a stand- up set. How did you conceive of bringing the band on with you and them being so interactive with the entire special? 

WHITMER THOMAS: I took a minute. I was doing that sort of a version of that show for a couple years just on tour all over the place. I play with the band mostly live while I’m doing stand up. And then one tour in 2023, I realized that a bunch of the material — I was doing stories and stuff — involved the band members when we were kids. And I realized it was way more fun to talk to them and sort of let the audience in on that. And that’s where it kind of clicked, like “Oh, maybe if I get to do another comedy special that would be the move.

Another unique thing to me, at least, is oftentimes with comedy specials, they start up top like “Live from this theater, it’s…” There wasn’t any of that. There are a lot of interstitial sketches that come up and we cut to videos. Why did you kind of want it to have more of almost a theatrical feel as opposed to a live performance? 

I just think it looks cool. I mean, that’s really all it is. I just love, like, Stop Making Sense, The Talking Heads live movie, and The Last Waltz. They take a lot of creative liberties. A lot of that, it appears to be live, but it’s not. They put the camera on the stage without the audience there and cover certain angles and things. So when I was kind of prepping to do this, the goal was to do the full show with no audience at all with the camera on stage, but we didn’t have time to do that, so we just picked a few little moments. 

As far as just the whole, “Welcome to Los Angeles, California, at the so-and-so theater, it’s Whitmer Thomas!” Just to get right into it, I’m already wasting people’s time with all these four-minute long songs, little videos of us as kids. So I thought let’s just get right into a joke. 

I love all the videos of you guys when you were kids and it just adds such, I don’t know, a dimension and humanity to what you’re saying because we can now see you guys as yourselves and now. Was it hard to source that or were you just sitting on all these tapes? 

It was hard. It was really hard to find. It took a while to edit because we had to go back home and ask a couple friends if they had any old videos and then that would send them — they were almost like also employed. Like they had a new job which is to look through old tapes and they have actual jobs. So we went back to Alabama and really our friend Sam Sumlin had so many old tapes and we sort of hit the jackpot. We were like, “Oh, it’d be so cool if we had a video of our band in middle school playing live,” and then he just had one. It was like hours of us just looking through stuff. Yeah, it was pretty hard to source and we got really lucky with a lot of stuff. 

Yeah, it seems like so many stand up specials are individuals writing for themselves with one person on stage doing the whole thing. The credits have all these people getting shout outs for everything they contributed. What was it like to kind of create this village, this community behind this special? 

I just feel very lucky to have friends who — and I’m all about notes and collaborating. And I screened it a bunch and there were multiple different edits and different jokes and so I thought it would be fun to credit people in different ways. There were a lot of credits that we had that weren’t allowed. There was, I don’t know, there’s just a bunch of credits that were like made up credits. And HBO was like, “You can’t actually do that. That’s against a union rule.” And so then we just made up names. Or we made up “lighting rig operator.” Like jobs that don’t actually exist, just so I could credit a friend. And I don’t know, that’s what gets me. It makes me feel maybe the most grateful watching is whenever I look at the credits at the end and I see all my dumb ass friends, you know? [laughing] They weren’t even there whenever we made it. 

I think one of my favorite parts of the special as a whole is that you start off from expressing your insecurities about wanting to be cool and wanting to be liked and you share all of these very vulnerable stories about your childhood and things that you went through. And at the end, I love the turn around that you are okay because you have your “terminal crew of dudes” and it becomes a love letter to male friendship. I’m just so curious because I’m tired of hearing about the male loneliness epidemic, but this feels like an antidote to that in some capacity. Did you feel that at all? It’s a love letter to how men can grow and bond over hobbies and things that they share. 

That’s what I’m hoping. I want people to watch it with their friends or to think of their friends, send it to their friends. I know that I’m lucky to have the same friends that I grew up with. The reality of all that is like me and my pals are going on dates all the time and we’re telling each other everything. We all check a certain box. You know, we all have our character that we play in like the movie of our friendship. I may be a little bit guilty of loverdramatizing it or mythologizing our friendship, but I like to hang on to my friends. If anything, I hope it inspires people to try to do that.

Yeah, as far as male loneliness goes, I mean it is a problem. I think guys have a hard time opening up and really what it is like — and there’s a million memes about it — but just like take your pal on a date. Take some guy you kind of relate to out on a little date, go get sushi and see a movie. Go see The Odyssey with some new cool looking guy. 

That’s how you make a friend. You just go on a date and go see The Odyssey. 

I skateboard and [that’s] the whole thing that me and my pals started doing that made us friends. I think skaters are really good at making friends because we’re all like maybe a little bit vain or thinking about clothes and shoes and style all the time. So it’s normal to go up to a guy at a skate spot and be like, “Hey man, where’d you get those pants?” The most embarrassing thing you could ever ask another guy is like, “Right, fine.” And skaters watch each other fall and cry. So it really opens the floodgates for a good friendship. 

I think one of my favorite anecdotes that you share is about your brother when he barked. I think the whole audience was laughing and I, at home, was like, “Awww.” I mean, first of all, what was it like to have him on stage? Does he remember doing that? Just help me through that story and what it means to you that your brother would bark just to make you laugh.

A lot of those stories are stories that I was worried I was making up in my head. You know, like how you as a kid make up that there was a ghost in your house or something. But with my brother and my dad, who also I would bounce those things off of, like, “Did you really not know Toy Story was a cartoon?” You know, which is a bit in the thing. And my dad would be like, “Yep, I never saw anything like that before.” Or with my brother, I’d say like, “There was a time when you barked, right?” And he was like, “Yeah, I thought it was really funny. It made you laugh.” So It’s so fun. You know, I just want to give him his flowers and I don’t think that my brother’s ever done a wrong thing in his whole life. He’s the best guy that I know. So having him on stage is like, I think I’ll do that for the rest of my life, if I can. He’s like got a job and a family and stuff, so I can’t bring him on tour or nothing. But if I get to make more things like this, I always want him next to me. I could care less about the other guys. 

I also really enjoyed the Spice Channel story because it could be creepy, but I thought as a child you had such empathy for your mother in a way that I wouldn’t normally think a little boy would have for his mother’s situation. Is that what you wanted to sort of cast out there? It’s funny and it’s real, but it could make people uncomfortable if it was delivered in the wrong way. 

I mean, it’s just going to make people uncomfortable no matter what. That story, you know, I think if I ever have a family, the goal is for them not to know every single thing that’s happening in my life. Which wasn’t the case for me as a kid. Because of that, I related to my family, maybe a little too young. And the point of this whole special is to show that no matter what was going on in my childhood, I was laughing and having a blast because of my pals. But the truth is everything that I do, no matter what, creatively, I’m always thinking of my mom. It’s maybe not a creative thing that we’re doing in there, but I did have a lot of empathy for her and it was very hard to be mad at her, no matter what decision she was making because I was aware of her situation, even as a little kid. So yeah, I wouldn’t have known — I didn’t even know what empathy was until a few months ago, but, I guess I kind of did, yeah. 

I was reading in the LA Times that Tim Robinson gave you a note to keep something in that you were kind of leery of. I think it’s the wings joke? 

Yeah. 

Which is so funny because it feels like a bit you have with your friends and not a polished standup bit. How did Tim sort of help you hone in on that “group hang” kind of comedy versus that really polished standup stuff? 

Well, that joke was sort of pitched to me by my friend CJ Toledano. He was like, “Oh, I have this idea for a joke.” And I helped him kind of finish. And he was saying, you should do this because buffalo wings is my favorite food. And so he threw that to me. And it was not in my comedy special. There was no plan for me to do that. Really what I had planned to do this joke about boy bands and their friendship and I did do that and if you watch it you can see there’s kind of a hard cut like as if I cut three minutes out of it. My friends all dared me to do the buffalo wings joke because that is a joke that me and my pals would just — I would say it to them and they thought it was funny. But I had no intention of ever doing that joke live and they were like, “You gotta do that.” So I did it just for fun and I was planning to cut it out. And if you watch it, you can see I’m overcommitting as hard as I can, and I’m yelling, and I start sweating. So the first cut, we had both the Backstreet Boys joke and the buffalo wings joke, and a bunch of other stuff. And really where Tim came into play, he was like, “You gotta stick to what this is about. It’s fun to watch you and your pals do stuff and you do jokes that maybe are a little bit inside jokes with your friends and stuff.” And that Buffalo Wings joke is definitely one of them, so every time I’d try to cut it out, he’d be like, “You gotta keep that in. Lose the Backstreet Boys. Lose the five minute joke about The Dark Knight. Instead, stick to what this is really about.” 

Speaking of which, you mentioned how some of the jokes feel like inside jokes in the first watch. It occurred to me that this means that this could be one of those specials that you could repeat-watch and then find it funnier the more you watch it. Is that something that you’re hoping for, that people can re-watch it and feel more clued into the fun group? 

Yeah. I really want everybody to walk away feeling they know the guys, and I would love it if they kind of watched it again and looked at where Budd was laughing compared to Clay, because there’s a lot of it where Clay’s not laughing at all, because he’s seen me do this 8,000 times. Where, you know, Budd is just like a gracious laugher. If you look at Jeramy, Jeramy’s never seen most of it. He only played the show with me twice. You know, he’s living in Alabama along with my brother. So they hadn’t seen most of it. So they’re kind of like, Jeramy didn’t know that I was going to tell the story about him living in my car, or the “dewanul” thing, or anything like that. So he’s kind of laughing the hardest. 

And before I let you go, I am curious, did you actually swallow a cigarette or was that kind of a prop? 

I swallowed a cigarette. 

Okay. Definitely? 

I’ll just say that in the lead up to doing that show and that bit, I threw up a lot after the shows and I felt really sick and don’t do that even if it makes your friends laugh. 

Okay, all right. Words of wisdom. 

Whitmer Thomas: Terminal Crew of Dudes will premiere tonight at 9 PM ET on HBO and HBO Max.

This interview has been edited and formatted for clarity.

In Germany, a groundbreaking initiative aimed at highlighting inclusivity sparked lively debate when a public swimming pool promoted an event dedicated solely to Black communities.

Nestled in front of Berlin’s iconic Volksbuhne theatre, this temporary open-air pool made its debut just last week and will be a summer staple for the next eight weeks.

With a hefty investment of €300,000 (£256,289), this pop-up pool was intended to be a vibrant meeting place for locals. However, a significant wave of scrutiny hit when it announced plans to restrict access to most of the public for a single day.

Scheduled for Friday, August 14, the Volksbuhne’s official website—aptly named ‘People’s Theatre’—noted, “During this period, the public bath will be open exclusively to Black communities.”

From 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. on that day, the 25-meter pool will not be accessible to the general public, with organizers calling for respect towards this “collective self-designation” and the exclusive space it creates.

Volksbuhne has since cancelled the event, which was in partnership with the anti-discrimination community project Each One Teach One (EOTO).

The theatre cited ‘security concerns’ for its decision, which followed ‘the fact that swimming for Black children and teenagers has become the target of right-wing and racist harassment’.

It comes after a German beach faced heavy criticism last week after bathers were told by a lifeguard that they must speak the language – or they would be banned from the lake. 

The swimming pool in Volksbuhne was originally announced as a symbol against exclusion and commercialisation, with it being marketed as a ‘summer invitation’. 

The event was held in collaboration with the public-funded EOTO, which offers social and cultural programmes for Black people. 

The move sparked anger from excluded Berliners after the project’s six-figure sum was funded by Volksbuhne, which receives more than €20million (£17million) annually from public funding. 

The number of swimmers allowed to use the pool at one time is limited to 46, with the theatre estimating costs of around €300,000 for an expected 20,000 visitors. 

It is, notably, free to use for visitors.  

Volksbuhne’s new director Matthias Lilienthal described the move as wishing to provide people a place to swim in a city where options are limited. 

He told German news outlet ZDF: ‘Half of the indoor and outdoor pools are closed, so we thought we’d help out Governing Mayor Kai Wegner. 

‘The Volksbuhne considers even something as simple as two people splashing each other to be a theatrical event’, he added.

The Volksbuhne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz theatre dates back to 1914, and is widely viewed as one of Berlin’s most historic theatres. It welcomes around 130,000 visitors with its, on average, 20 events per week. 

Meanwhile, a racism row erupted at the Heidebad lakeside beach in Halle, eastern Germany, when a lifeguard banned those who could not speak German from the lake this summer. 

Mathias Nobel decided bathers should be able to understand safety rules after saving a toddler who almost drowned after swimming into a 138ft-deep section of the lake in June.

Described as the ‘German-only’ policy, Mr Nobel was accused of discrimination and racism.

Authorities in Halle told him to row back on the language rules and warned moves which ‘might be perceived as xenophobic’ could damage the city’s reputation.

The far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) seized on the row and said German swimming pools were becoming ‘danger zones’.

It added: ‘When private operators are forced to implement their own language controls to ensure the safety of swimmers, the state’s loss of control has definitively reached the heart of our society.’

But Mr Nobel was criticised by the German life-saving association and the country’s anti-discrimination agency pointed out there were no equivalent rules for German tourists bathing abroad.

He told The Telegraph: ‘I had large families coming by and when I tried to explain the safety rules to the parents, it was clear they could not understand me.

‘It was the same if I asked them how old their children were, because under-fives swim for free here. And if I saw a child swimming without armbands, and tried to speak with them, the response was simply “ja, ja” [yes, yes], and I did not feel they knew what I meant.’

He said he was worried the language barrier could cause serious harm and added he denies any allegations of racism.

For him, the issue was about ‘listening to lifeguards’ and ‘respect’.

Halle lies in the former East German state of Saxony-Anhalt, which is set for elections next month in which immigration remains a primary issue.

Currently the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is the largest party in the state parliament but the AfD finished second in the last poll and will look to add to its 23 seats in the 83-strong legislature.

Nationally, CDU Chancellor Friedrich Merz has taken a hardline on immigration in response to the AfD threat.

This month, Mr Merz’s government continued a spat with Italy over migrant transfers under the EU’s Dublin system, which gives responsibility for asylum-seekers to the first bloc country the individual entered.

The Volksbuhne has been contacted for comment.