U2 is set to release a new album of old material. The Irish rockers just announced they’re dropping Songs Of Surrender, featuring “40 Songs. Reimagined and rerecorded,” on March 17, just in time for St. Patrick’s Day.
The album appears to be inspired by Bono’s recently released biography, Surrender: 40 Songs; One Story. Based on the clip of “Beautiful Day” they shared with the announcement, it will feature reworked versions of U2 classics.
U2 fans began getting hints of the new project earlier this week, with folks on Twitter sharing pictures of a handwritten note from Edge they received in the mail.
“So what happens when a voice develops and experience and maturity give it additional resonance?” he writes. “U2 have been around long enough to know what that is like. It’s true for us all, but it’s particularly true for Bono,” adding that since the band wrote many of the songs as “very young men,” they “mean something quite different to us now.”
He shares, “Music allows you to time travel and so we started to imagine what it would be like to bring these songs back with us to the present day and give them the benefit or otherwise, of a 21st century re-imagining. What started as an experiment quickly became a personal obsession as so many early U2 songs yielded to a new interpretation.”
Finally, he writes, “Once we surrendered our reverence for the original version each song started to open up to a new authentic voice of this time, of the people we are, and particularly the singer Bono has become.”
All of Neutral Milk Hotel‘s music will soon be available as a vinyl box set.
The Collected Works of Neutral Milk Hotel is due out February 24. It includes the indie outfit’s two full-length albums — 1996’s On Avery Island and 1998’s seminal In the Aeroplane Over the Sea — as well as the Everything Is and Ferris Wheel on Fire EPs, plus various singles and live recordings.
Also featured is the first-ever official release of the live rarity “Little Birds,” which you can listen to now via digital outlets.
Neutral Milk Hotel first went on hiatus shortly after the release of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea before eventually reuniting in 2013. They continued to play shows throughout 2014 and 2015 before going on hiatus once more.
Britney Spears is setting the record straight about a report claiming she attended talent agent Cade Hudson‘s birthday. She claims she was never there.
It should be noted Hudson is Britney’s agent and is credited with helping her end her conservatorship.
Reports surfaced of Britney’s rumored attendance after Paris Hilton, a longtime friend of hers, shared a series of Instagram photos celebrating Hudson. One snap featured Britney posing with Paris and Hudson, but fans felt something was off about the photo and began spreading a photoshop conspiracy theory. In turn, Paris shut down the claims and called them “absolutely ridiculous.”
TMZ also reported Britney was at the star-studded birthday bash and was seen palling around with Paris all night.
But that appeared to be news to Britney, who posted on Instagram that she didn’t go to the party. Sharing a video of her dancing in a red, Coca Cola-themed outfit, the singer wrote in part, “Also have no idea about these pics of me from a birthday party … I haven’t been to a bday party in forever !!!”
She also may have referenced Paris’ photo kerfuffle, writing, “And as for the pics, those have to be from years ago !!!”
The caption originally said she found it “kind of creepy and weird that no one is talking about that … makes no sense whatsoever,” but she has since edited that out.
Paris has disabled comments on the controversial Instagram post.
(NEW YORK) — The nurses strike in New York City has extended into its second day with more than 7,000 walking out of two major hospitals.
Nurses at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and Mount Sinai Hospital in Harlem say that low pay, lack of staffing and unsafe working conditions are burning out hospital employees and putting patients at risk.
“Can’t stop, won’t stop until we get a fair contract!” the New York State Nurses Association tweeted Monday night, announcing that the picket line would continue into Tuesday.
The hospitals have been forced to divert ambulances to other medical centers, postpone non-elective surgeries and call in temporary staffers, but the nurses say they’ve been pushed to the brink.
“There’s multiple reasons for why we all need to be paying attention,” Gretchen Purser, an associate professor of sociology and a labor expert at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, told ABC News. “Nurses are really bargaining for the collective good. They are putting, first and foremost, patients’ safety above all else and that was the breaking point — they’ve been working under less-than-ideal conditions that jeopardized the safety of patients.”
One of the nurses’ biggest grievances is the nurse-to-patient ratio, which measures how many patients a nurse is responsible for, at a hospital.
Research has shown that when staffing levels are high and nurses are only taking care of a few patients, there is a lower risk of patients dying as well as a lower risk of infections, medication errors, ulcers and hospital-acquired pneumonia.
What’s more, patients are more likely to have shorter stays when there are more nurses, officials said.
One New York State analysis, conducted in 2021, estimated adequate nursing staff levels could save 4,370 lives and $720 million over a two-year period due to shorter hospital stays and fewer readmissions.
The nurses say the hospitals are supposed to have low nurse-to-patient ratios, but they often end up being much higher.
Marcelo Cantu, a nurse at Montefiore for 19 years, who works in the cardiothoracic unit, told ABC News every nurse is supposed to have three patients, but can often end up with four or five due to staffing shortages. He said even one extra patient can affect the level of care.
“Our patients require a lot of time — we’re not only monitoring their recovery but teaching them how to physically recover from what they’ve been through, teaching them about their new medications, teaching them about lifestyle changes,” he said. “We’ve had to learn how to prioritize and because we’re working short, sometimes the quality suffers and that’s very difficult to deal with.”
Montefiore said it is offering a 19.1% compounded wage increase over the next three years with pay increases for each level of experience.
What’s more, the hospital has also offered to add 115 registered nursing positions to the emergency department, 11 registered nursing to the labor and delivery department and 23 nurse practitioner positions.
Mount Sinai told ABC News in a statement it also offered a 19.1% increased wage proposal, but those nurses rejected the offer.
The nurses argue that the pay increase is not the main reason for the strike but rather the current contract does not address nurse-to-patient ratios.
“I’ll be the first to say a nurse deserves a fair compensation,” Cantu said. “But it’s not about money, it’s about the allocation of that money in order to provide better care.”
He continued, “It’s frustrating and heartbreaking when we fall short in areas not critical to their life but critical to the patients’ experience. These are human beings, not just a list of symptoms in front of us.”
Labor and economic experts say that when nurses go on strike, the stakes are not just high for them but also for the community at large as well.
“All of us are either going to need care in a hospital or have loved ones who need care in a hospital and its nurses who are the frontlines of that,” Purser said.
“We need nurses to be able to do their jobs properly because if we get sick or we’re older, and we’re at our most vulnerable or disabled, that’s when we need a nurse,” Joelle Leclaire, an associate professor of economics and finance at SUNY Buffalo State, told ABC News. “If we can’t have proper nursing ratios, fewer of us are actually going to be able to overcome conditions that affect our well-being in our health.”
She added that’s an economic impact as well because nurses are not getting paid their full wages when they’re on strike.
“If they’re not being paid now that they’re striking, and the longer that they strike, that money doesn’t go back into the economy,” Leclaire said. “So that’s another piece of it, too, which granted is smaller, but it’s still a piece.”
Montefiore said it has since introduced several new offers, including establishing average patient ratio, to end the strike.
“Montefiore remains at the bargaining table, committed to an equitable agreement that reflects the priorities of our dedicated nurses. Contingency plans remain in place to ensure our hospitals remain open, because Montefiore is, and always will be, here for The Bronx,” a statement released Tuesday read.
ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik, Nicole Wetsman and Youri Benadjaoud contributed to this report.
Pippo Zeffirelli, son of the late legendary Italian filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli, has fired back against Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, the stars of his heralded 1968 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.
As reported, the pair, now in their 70s, were 15 and 16 when they appeared in the movie. They recently sued Paramount Pictures, claiming they were tricked into appearing nude during a love scene in the film while underage.
According to The Guardian, Pippo Zeffirelli said the scene was “far from pornographic” and his father “was accused of being reactionary precisely because, over and over again, he spoke out against pornography.” “The nude images in the film express the beauty, the transfer, I would even say the candour of mutual giving.”
In their lawsuit, the pair claimed they suffered “mental anguish and emotional distress” since appearing in the film, for which they won Golden Globes. A representative noted the suit is asking for damages “in excess of $500 million.”
The younger Zeffirelli continued, “It is embarrassing to hear that today, 55 years after filming, two elderly actors who owe their notoriety essentially to this film wake up to declare that they have suffered an abuse that has caused them years of anxiety and emotional discomfort.”
He also contended that the pair “always maintained a relationship of deep gratitude and friendship towards Zeffirelli,” with Hussey working on Franco’s Jesus of Nazareth miniseries. Whiting attended the director’s funeral in 2019.
So far, there are only a handful of chances to see Tim McGraw in concert this year, and the first one will be Super Bowl weekend in Arizona.
Tim’s set to headline BetMGM West Fest Saturday, February 11, at Westgate Entertainment District in Glendale. Newcomer Bailey Zimmerman will open the outdoor show, which takes place in close proximity to State Farm Stadium, where the game will be played the next day.
The first tickets go on sale Wednesday for BetMGM customers in Arizona via the company’s app, before becoming available to the general public on Thursday. You can find more info here.
Poison’s Rikki Rockett is sharing some great health news with fans. The drummer revealed on social media that he’s celebrating his seventh year of being cancer-free.
“Almost 7 years cancer free thanks to the best Dr. in the world, Ezra Cohen,” he shared on social media with a photo of him and his doctor. “Today is a good day!!! Thanks to God and modern medicine!”
Rikki first revealed that he was battling throat cancer in 2015. In July 2016 he shared the news that he was cancer-free.
Meek Mill, Kevin Hart and Michael Rubin are blessing low-income students in Philadelphia with a generous donation to kick off the year. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the trio donated $7 million in scholarships to 60 private schools in the city.
The money will specifically benefit 60 “private and parochial schools in need” and fund laptops, tablets, Wi-Fi connections and other classroom resources.
Students applying for the scholarships must provide their family’s proof of income and demographics to determine their eligibility to receive funding through the Educational Improvement Tax Credit program.
In other Meek-related news, the rapper was recently criticized for filming a video outside the Jubilee House aka Ghana’s official residence and office for the president.
“All those responsible for this despicable desecration of the Jubilee House by Meek Mill must be fired immediately,” wroteSam Okudzeto Ablakwa, Ghana’s former deputy education minister. “How do those explicit lyrics from the president’s lectern project Ghana positively? Is Ghana’s seat of government no longer a high security installation?”
Meek issued an apology shortly after. “My apologies to the people if any disrespect!” he tweeted. “We still gonna push to make the connection between black people in America and Africa…what I’m trying to do is more than a video and you should see coming soon! My apologies to the the office also!”
Cardi B and Offset will be gracing our television screens during the Super Bowl. According to TMZ, the couple is featured in a McDonald’s commercial that will air during the football game.
The rap stars reportedly shot the ad with a small crew during the Christmas holiday. They specifically chose a time when they knew many often rest and they’d have the least distractions.
Sources tell TMZ the ad is going to be Valentine’s Day-themed. It airs February 12, two days before the annual love day celebration and nearly six years since they first went public at the Super Bowl in Houston.
The upcoming McDonald’s commercial will be Cardi’s second Super Bowl ad and Offset’s first.
(NEW YORK) — Millions of Americans have had to struggle to find a new jobs due to a measure in their contracts that prevents them from working for a direct competitor following a set period of time.
These non-compete agreements have been controversial for years, as some economic experts contend they hurt competition within the labor market. Lina Khan, the chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, openly called for ending those clauses in a New York Times op-ed published on Monday.
ABC News’ “Start Here” podcast spoke with Sarah Miller, the executive director of the American Economics Liberties Project, a non-profit that advocates for antitrust regulations, about this proposal.
START HERE: Sarah, you’ve applauded this move. Why?
SARAH MILLER: Absolutely so. Last week, the FTC proposed a new rule that would ban full stop non-compete agreements in employment contracts. So non-compete agreements apply to roughly 30 million Americans. That’s one in five workers. And originally, they were conceived to apply to a kind of very senior level executives who might have access to proprietary or sensitive information. But today, they really proliferated and become an incredibly common part of an employment contract. So they tend to bind workers to jobs and prohibit them from really selling their labor into a competitive labor market. And so that sort of kind of anti-competitive impact in the labor market is part of what FTC Chair Lina Khan is taking aim at.
START HERE: That’s interesting, this idea that it’s not just people that have like big-time company secrets. I mean, how far down the food chain are we talking here? Who has non-compete?
MILLER: So that’s something that we’re going to, I think, [get] at a much fuller picture of during the kind of 60 day comment period that the FTC has just opened.
But we know from anecdotal experience and from kind of talking to working people all around the country that non-compete have applied to everyone from employees at fast food chains like Jimmy Johns, who makes sandwiches to janitors, to engineers, to journalists, to fitness instructors. It really is an incredibly pervasive part of employment causes. Now, like I said…that has a real cost, because what happens when you are essentially bound to a job is you aren’t able to compete with your labor. So you can’t say, move to a job that pays better. You can’t leverage another offer at another firm to increase your salary at know your existing firm.
So the FTC estimates that eliminating [a] non-compete would add about $300 billion cumulatively to workers’ wages. That’s an increase of three or 4%. So we are talking about a significant kind of drain on the pocketbooks of millions and millions of working people from these non-compete agreements.
START HERE: So, I mean, that’s what the FTC says, is that you’d see all the sort of economic growth. You’ve also seen the U.S. Chamber of Commerce immediately came and said this is terrible. In fact, it gives less security to everyone. It means that companies won’t feel as confident when they’re offering contracts in the first place. They’ll actually make less hiring. It’ll hamstring the entire not just they say, not just the entire business community, but also workers themselves. Since companies won’t be as likely to offer that job in the first place. I mean, what’s your response to that?
MILLER: I couldn’t disagree more with that assessment. I think from the Chamber of Commerce— I mean, what we are arguing here is that workers deserve a free market for labor. Workers should be able to start new firms if they have a good idea, and there really shouldn’t be these kind of artificial constraints put on the labor market through the use of non-compete agreements. There’s simply, and kind of on their face, very unfair. And we think that this will create a much more dynamic environment in general when it comes to economic growth by freeing up working people to take the job that’s right. For them to start a new business and serve consumers in a new or different way and to kind of increase economic and business dynamism in the U.S., which has really been on a pretty significant decline over the past 30 or 40 years.
START HERE: Well, can I ask you about the other big criticism of this? I mean, can the FTC even do this? I mean, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also said this is just blatantly unlawful. The Wall Street Journal had an editorial calling this an air kiss to unions because. Mainly you’d have to tear up if you were getting rid of this right now, you’d have to tear up millions and millions of people’s contracts. Is that possible? Is that feasible and is that legal?
MILLER: I think the FTC has clear authority to make this move. I mean, most of the workers that are subject to non-compete are not unionized. So I would take issue with the categorization of this as an air kiss in general. But what we have seen and what research bears out is that the use of non-compete actually lowers wages for everybody because they are so pervasive, because they put such a chill on the labor market that even if you are not subject to a non-compete yourself, there are jobs that should be available to you that you could compete for that are not available because they are so pervasive across the economy.
START HERE: And like, if you don’t put in a non-compete. Great. Well, will this pay you $10,000 like that, seen as a favor to the employee all of a sudden?
MILLER: Yes, exactly. And so I think that the FTC has authority granted to it from Congress to prohibit unfair methods of competition. That authority, I think, applies in this case. You know, the name of these agreements are non-compete, right? So if the FTC’s mission, if part of its mission is to address kind of anti-competitive practices, I think this falls clearly in the in the purview of that authority.
