♪ this is "nightline." >> tonight, silent killer. vacations ending in tragedy. >> she said, i was vomiting and dizzy and my legs are wobbly. >> four american tourists die from carbon monoxide poisoning within a day of each other in mexico city. >> we will fight to make sure that mandates are implemented so no other family has to deal with this type of brokenness and heartache. >> the latest victims of an avoidable tragedy. plus vanishing polar bears. >> oh, there he is right there. how amazing is that? >> climate change threatening the survival of these majestic

animals. >> they are big, beautiful, kind of like me. >> we journey to subarctic canada, the polar bear capital of the world, for closeup efforts to save them. and weird. >> you're all just a bunch of norms, i'm the weird one! >> the man who parodies some of the world's biggest hits, songs like "eat it." joining forces with harry potter, daniel radcliffe, for a bio-pic. >> the things that are true, many of them of just as ridiculous as things we mate up. >> satirizing the genre. >> the most accurate that's been made, we can see that. >> and the romance with madonna that has everyone asking, is it real? >> so weird!

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♪ good evening. thank you for joining us. it's the last thing you'd expect while on vacation, dying from carbon monoxide poisoning. while such deaths are preventible, they are not uncommon. why many experts are now suggesting you travel with a carbon monoxide detector to keep your family safe. here's abc's matt gutman. >> reporter: it's a horrifying end to what should have been a fun adventure. four american tourists dying tragically in mexico city vacation homes within a day of each other.

>> this can't happen anymore. >> reporter: candace, flores, jordan, marshall, and cortez hall in town to celebrate the day of the dead at the end of october. >> she loved being in the presence of other people and feeling how they lived. >> reporter: at one point, 28-year-old candace speaking to her boyfriend on the phone, telling him she wasn't feeling well. >> she said, i was vomiting and dizzy, my legs are wobbly. >> reporter: authorities say they arrived at the airbnb rental on october 30th and found the bodies of the three friends, all of them dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. that same weekend, just a few miles away, 29-year-old anjelica arsay was saying at a non-airbnb vacation rental with her siblings, andrea and marco, when they started to feel sick. >> one minute i felt really

busiy. >> reporter: telling our san diego affiliate ktvg anjelica went to the hospital for heat exhaustion, then went back to the rental to sleep. a few hours later, marco found her lifeless. >> i lift her hair, she was all purple. i was very scared. >> reporter: these deaths come after three other american tourists were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning at a sandals resort. >> carbon monoxide is called the invisible killer because you can't see it, you can't smell it, you can't taste it. >> reporter: despite being largely preventible with the use of carbon monoxide detectors, poisonings are not uncommon, especially on vacations. in fact, over 1,000 people have been poisoned by carbon monoxide leaks at u.s. hotels over the past two decades. 32 of them have died, including 7 children. >> the window of time to escape is going to depend on how bad the leak of carbon monoxide is and what the source is. but those alarms are made to alarm at very low levels. >> reporter: jeannie williams knows too well how lethal carbon

monoxide can be. >> you can't assume that the place that you're staying in has been protected with a carbon monoxide alarm. >> reporter: back in 2013, she and her 11-year-old son jeffrey checked into room 225 at the best western in boone, north carolina. >> my last vision i have of him is just sitting on the edge of the bed. >> reporter: sometime in the night, jeannie woke up. feeling sick. >> i remember trying to get to the door. and i couldn't. and that's the last thing i remember. >> reporter: the next morning, a hotel employee discovers the mother and son. >> next thing i remember is waking up in the hospital room. >> reporter: her husband has devastating news. their beloved son, jeffrey, has died. unbelievably, jeffrey wasn't the first victim of room 225 at that very best western. darrell and shirley jenkins, a retired couple from washington

state, had died from carbon monoxide poisoning in the same hotel room. days later, the salinsky family checked into the room above when their room got sick. they told the front desk. >> my name was written on a sticky note, and i was told the general manager would be told. >> reporter: damon mmaltier, whose family manages the hotel, swears the clerk never told him. you were not informed that people had gotten sick in the room right above 225? >> i was not. >> reporter: first responders finally discovered the hoxic source. the exhaust pipe designed to conduct the carbon monoxide safely outside, but hidden under a drop ceiling directly under room 225. state investigators find the pipe is busted, full of holes, propped up by a vhs cassette tape and a hotel ice bucket, spewing poison gas into the rooms above.

maltier says the authorities never mentioned carbon monoxide. in 2016 the hotel management company pled guilty to three counts of involuntary manslaughter in exchange for dropping the charges against the company president. the hotel in boone, north carolina, is under new ownership. >> you don't want anybody to go through that when it's something that's so prevent ible. >> reporter: only 14 states have laws or regulations requiring carbon monoxide detectors in hotels. not all rental companies mandate their properties have functioning carbon monoxide detectors. airbnb has suspended that mexico city listing and canceled upcoming reservations, telling abc news, "our priority now is to provide support for those affect the while the authorities investigate what happened, and we are available to cooperate with the investigation in any way we can." the victims' families calling for more regulation. >> we will fight to make sure that mandates are implemented so

no other family has to deal with this type of brokenness and heartache. >> our thanks to matt. turning to churchill, a small town in central canada known as the polar bear capital of the world. the climate crisis is devastating the population. abc's michael strahan gets up close and personal with the animals and talks with the scientists trying desperately to save them from extinction. >> reporter: our adventure begins aboard this tundra buggy. >> this is awesome! love this. >> reporter: we set out on ice safari, searching for great white bears. >> there's nowhere else like this anywhere in the world, where you can go and just see, you know, polar bears up close from this kind of distance. >> reporter: and then -- >> oh, there he is right there. how amazing is that? like they're putting on a show. >> this time of year, they're just waiting for the ice. they're just hanging out, laying around.

>> reporter: the sea ice that formed in fall is essential to polar bear survival. it allows the bears to go far enough out to prey on seals in store of fat to get them through spring and summer. because of global warming, there are shorter sea ice seasons, which give the bears less time to hunt for food, resulting in less healthy bears. if female bears don't get enough food, they can't maintain their weight to carry a pregnancy, resulting in fewer polar bears worldwide. how do they know, okay, this is the time to go? >> they'll start testing it, spreading their paws out. as soon as there's enough ice for them to hunt seals, they're gone. >> reporter: we meet up with buggy one, polar bear international's tundra office on wheels. we arrive to a bounty of bears. we got another polar bear over there. a little more active. not just laying down like the other two. they are big, beautiful. kind of like me.

inside this buggy, the team is presenting research via livestream to the united nations climate change conference in sharm el-sheikh, egypt. >> we can make a difference, truly. >> reporter: scientists alyssa mccall and dr. steven amstra report on the increasing thread of climate change to polar bears. what is the message that you wanted to convey there? >> we're here talking about polar bears and melting sea ice and connecting that to societies around the world. >> reporter: now more and more polar bears are venturing into towns, hungry. >> there can be a bear anywhere, at any time of year. >> reporter: making a plan for coexistence necessary. the polar bear alert program offers a 24-hour hotline to help. >> we keep people safe, we keep bears safe, we stop negative bear behavior such as food conditioning and habituation.

we keep property safe from bears and keep our staff safe in churchill. >> reporter: sometimes they need to be relocated. >> put it in a big cargo net, strap it onto the bottom of a helicopter, and fly that bear out in the direction it's trying to go. >> reporter: back out in the tundra, i see one up close. >> wow. beautiful. we've been talking about polar bears and the climate for quite a few years. what have you seen change within the last few years? >> one of the things that really brings urgency to the situation now is we realize that we've warmed the world enough that we are passing the warmest temperature that it's ever been in the polar bear's evolutionary history. so the future is kind of unknown in terms of how polar bears will respond. >> reporter: but for now, the polar bears sit and wait. as much as we're curious about him, it's curious about us. >> our thanks to michael. coming up, "weird."

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daniel radcliffe stars in the new movie about weird al, the man who became a household name lampooning pop hits. the musician depicted in the movie is a far cry from the warm and goofy personality we've come to know. why he says radcliffe was the perfect choice for the role. here's abc's stephanie ramos. >> what about you, al? what's something you always wanted to do but were never allowed to? >> you should be as weird as you want to be, and you can never be truly happy unless you can accept who you really are. >> make up new words to a song

that already exists. >> that's the message of the movie and the message of my life and my career, i suppose. >> you should do that, then. >> reporter: and with that, a star was born. that's daniel radcliffe playing the king of song parodies. ♪ my bologna ♪ >> reporter: weird al yankovic in "weird," a satirical bio-pic streaming on the roku channel. the man behind the movie, weird al yankovic. ♪ like a surgeon ♪ >> reporter: who rose to cult fame with songs like "like a surgeon" spoofing "like a virgin." and "eat it" parodying michael jackson's "beat it." >> the first video that we had even a modest budget was the "eat it" video. i remember distinctly it was overnight fame. >> reporter: with his hawaiian shirts and iconic curly hairdo, al's sweet and silly brand

resonated. >> you can call me jungle beast. >> reporter: he's since sold more than 12 million albums and earned five grammy awards for perfecting the art of parody. >> i get an idea, and i would get the blessing of the original artist. for "eat it," we approached michael jackson. and michael jackson responded and said, yeah, okay, go for it. and there's literally a contract with my signature next to michael jackson's signature saying that we are the cowriters of "eat it." ♪ another one rides the bus ♪ >> reporter: daniel radcliffe, harry potter, was the only man considered for bringing al to life. >> daniel famously has taken on a lot of interesting roles post-harry potter. you know, he's been a flatulent corpse. he's been a guy with horns. a guy with guns affixed to his hands. maybe he'll like something this weird, i think he's up for it.

>> you're all just a bunch of norms, i am the weird one! >> daniel, who is al the character? >> the film version of al is -- well, shares much in common with the real al. he is a young boy who falls in love with the accordion. and very, very quickly rises to unprecedented heights of global megastar come. and along with that comes a lot of hard situations involving torrid affairs with other celebrities, alcohol abuse, and violence. ultimately, a boy looking to be loved. >> how does that mirror your life and your career? >> um -- it's exactly that. i think it nailed it. i mean, trying to separate me from the movie? >> right, it's the most accurate bio-pic that's been made. >> reporter: the film's plot, mostly fake. >> the things that are true, many of them are just as ridiculous as the things we made up.

like, i really was approached by a door-to-door accordion salesman and my parents decided i should take lessons based on this door-to-door salesman. that's actually true. >> weird al yankovic. >> um -- do i know you? >> madonna. >> reporter: this movie takes place in a universe where weird al is essentially elvis. or, you know -- not only the most popular musician of all-time but the greatest sex symbol that ever lived. did. >> reporter: costar evan rachel wood playing a fictionalized version of madonna. >> have you heard my new single? "like a virgin"? >> oh, i've heard it. i'm curious, is that song autobiographical? >> yes. >> reporter: who falls hard for al. it's a heightened version of madonna, i would say. probably starts out more rooted in reality, and as the film progresses, slowly becomes more

and more unhinged and off the rails until we're just in a completely different dimension with another madonna that doesn't exist. >> she doesn't have to do very much. she just kind of looks into people's souls. >> the moment she walked onto set you did go, oh my god. like, you are madonna. >> reporter: but "weird" is more than a satire. it's a film based on the idea of not taking yourself too seriously. >> this movie operates in the exact space that i love to be in, which is somewhere between deranged psychosis and very earnest kindness. >> reporter: al's final message, stay weird. >> i do not take it for granted, every single day i wake up and i go, oh, i still get to do this. i still get to be weird al for a living. i still get to do exactly the very specific thing i love to do. and i just -- you know, that still blows my mind, i get to do

that. >> live the life you want to live. be as weird as you want to be. thank you. >> our thanks to stephanie. up next, ye, the fallout. our preview of "impact" by "nightline." "ye: it all falls down." skin wi. it disrupts my skin with rash. but now, i can disrupt eczema with rinvoq. rinvoq is not a steroid, topical, or injection. it's one pill, once a day, that's effective without topical steroids. many taking rinvoq saw clear or almost-clear skin while some saw up to 100% clear skin. plus, they felt fast itch relief some as early as 2 days. that's rinvoq relief. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal, cancers including lymphoma and skin cancer, death, heart attack, stroke, and tears in the stomach

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♪ finally tonight, just about everyone has had a reaction to ye's formerly known as kanye west's anti-semitic comments. reppa kosha dills is one of the few who made a music video about the controversy. he explains his response to our ashan singh. >> what up? >> yeah, what up? >> i mean, in response to what kanye said, everybody had their own reaction. but you're one of the few who actually decided to make a music video. why was it important for you to write a song and make a music video about his statements at all? ♪ you're a blind billionaire and i see the [ bleep ] in you ♪ >> no one was going to do it and i knew it. i knew it was the biggest time

to make an impact to keep the conversation going. i have a leg in it, i really do this. >> how about kanye's music? >> i heard and it it was just awkward, know what i mean? sort of like -- something else that you used to have a relationship with, now you just don't. >> the complete episode of "ye: it all falls down" now streaming on hulu. new episodes of "impact" by "nightline" drop every thursday. that's neat line for this evening. see you right back here same time tomorrow. thanks for the company, america. good night. well, we fell in love through gaming. but now the internet lags and it throws the whole thing off.