The Human League is releasing a new limited-edition colored-vinyl box set featuring four LPs and an EP issued on the Virgin Records label from 1981 through 1990 on November 11.
The Human League: The Virgin Years is a five disc collection that features 1981’s Dare pressed on blue vinyl, the 1983 Fascination EP on green vinyl, 1984’s Hysteria on yellow vinyl, 1986’s Crash on red vinyl and 1990’s Romantic? on clear vinyl.
Dare was The Human League’s third studio album and marked the start of the group’s second, more pop-oriented incarnation, which was led by singer/keyboardist Philip Oakey and showcased female vocalists Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley.
The record, which peaked at #3 on the Billboard 200, featured the chart-topping “Don’t You Want Me Baby” as well as the top-10 U.K. hits “Love Action (I Believe in Love)” and “Open Your Heart.”
The Fascination EP included the hit singles “(Keep Feeling) Fascination” and “Mirror Man.”
Hysteria featured three tunes that reached the top-20 of the U.K. singles tally: “The Lebanon,” “Life on Your Own” and “Louise.”
Crash, a collaboration with the hit-making production duo of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, featured the group’s second Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper, “Human.”
Finally, Romantic? — which brought the band’s stint on Virgin to a close — featured the top-40 single “Heart Like a Wheel.”
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Deep Purple has welcomed guitarist Simon McBride as an official member of the band.
McBride began serving as Deep Purple’s touring guitarist earlier this year after longtime guitarist Steve Morseannounced in March that he was taking a hiatus from the group to care for and spend time with his wife, Janine, as she battles cancer. In July, Morse, who joined Deep Purple in 1994, announced that he was officially leaving the group.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers said in a joint statement, “We are thrilled that Simon has agreed to join. Simon’s playing is up there with the greats. Of course, Steve can’t be replaced, the same as Ritchie [Blackmore], and Steve has a long legacy with Deep Purple. In Simon we have not found a replacement, but an extraordinarily talented and exciting guitarist in his own right.”
The group adds, “The reception from audiences over the Summer has already been great and we are looking forward to the forthcoming dates in the UK and Europe across the rest of the year. It is clear that Simon also holds great respect for those before him. We are all excited for what the years to come hold for the band.”
McBride, meanwhile, says in his own statement, “I’m very happy to be asked to join the band, at the start of the pandemic if someone would have said to me that I was going to be the new guitarist in Deep Purple I would have just laughed, but here we are and it’s happening. Deep Purple has a history of great guitarists so I’m very honoured to be asked to be part of that.”
McBride previously toured with Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan and keyboardist Don Airey, among many others.
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(NEW YORK) — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released its 2022 Summer Climate Report, which outlines the extreme weather events from June to August in the U.S.
The report also describes where this year ranked compared to previous summers, using data from dozens of weather stations in each state.
US record temperatures
The summer of 2022 ranks third-warmest on record, with an average temperature across the contiguous United States at 73.9 degrees, according to the report. That’s 2.5 degrees above average, coming in only 0.01 degrees behind 1936 (when the dust bowl was in full swing) for the No. 2 spot. The hottest summer on record was in 2021.
It wasn’t just the highs that were sweltering, it was often the lows. The average minimum temperature across the country hit a record of 62.3 degrees this August, meaning there wasn’t much relief during the overnight hours. Houston broke several records for warmest low temperature, only bottoming out at 86 degrees after reaching highs above 100 degrees on multiple occasions. Without any cooler temperatures at night, the cumulative heat can be dangerous.
Heat is the No. 1 weather-related cause of death each year, and communities have recently taken it more seriously by opening cooling shelters to those most at-risk during heat waves.
Rainfall
While some parts of the country suffered from serious to exceptional drought, others dealt with major flooding. Taking the whole country into account, the precipitation turned out average, but how much rain you saw heavily depended on which region you were in. For example, Arizona had its seventh wettest summer, while Nebraska came in at third driest, according to NOAA.
Monsoon season in the Southwest is a typical occurrence during the summer months, but it started earlier than normal this year and brought flash floods to highly populated areas at times. Las Vegas experienced major flooding across the city in late July and again in early August, flooding casinos and leaving two dead.
August also brought a relentless surge of rainfall to northern Louisiana and Mississippi.
The several-day deluge caused major flash flooding in Jackson, Mississippi, where cars were submerged and people were left standing on their roofs waiting for rescue. More than 153,000 residents didn’t have clean drinking water for weeks after the water treatment facility went offline in the flood.
1,000-year floods
A 1,000-year rainfall event means that there is a 1 in 1,000 chance that a flood of that magnitude will occur in any given year. Three such events happened in August.
On Aug. 2, southern Illinois picked up a foot of rain in only 12 hours. Near Newtown, Illinois, an incredible 14 inches fell in those 12 hours, according to the National Weather Service.
Death Valley isn’t known for its rainfall, but on Aug. 5, the National Park was drenched with 1.70 inches of rain, leading to damaging flooding and trapped visitors. That rainfall broke a record that had stood for more than 34 years.
Then, on the morning of Aug. 22, the rain began in Dallas and didn’t stop. Hefty downpours led to catastrophic flooding across the city, with many nearby towns recording more than a foot of rainfall.
The governor declared a disaster for 23 counties in Texas due to the rainfall. Although it was destructive for many, it was bittersweet because it helped alleviate the exceptional drought that plagued that area for months. Water reservoirs rose significantly after being at record low levels just a week before, and the U.S. Drought Monitor noted major improvement in its update following the flood event.
Drought
Even though there were several drought-busting rain events across the country, the U.S. finished up the summer with 45.5% of its land mass in drought conditions, the NOAA report said.
The northeast was one region that saw the drought ramp up during the summer months. Lawns that were a healthy shade of green in May were crunchy and yellow by August, as the rain stayed away for weeks. As a result, Massachusetts saw extreme drought spread across the eastern half of the state, and severe drought expanded to Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Meanwhile, the intense drought set the stage for a supercharged wildfire season in the west. Gusty winds helped easily spread these fires that had no resistance from the weather.
Tropics
In the tropical Atlantic, there was only one word to describe the situation: quiet. From July 3 to Sept. 1, there were no named storms in the Atlantic basin. That stretch of 60 days was the longest stormless stretch since 1941, according to the National Hurricane Center.
In September, the tropics began to heat up. Several named storms formed right around the historical peak of hurricane season in the Atlantic. The strongest of which was Hurricane Fiona, which peaked as a Category 4 storm after dropping catastrophic rainfall on Puerto Rico.
Roasting in Europe
Across the pond, records were just as prevalent as they were in America this summer. Europe experienced its hottest summer on record, with several countries roasting in a mid-summer heat wave that shattered long-standing records. It peaked on July 19, when dozens of weather stations across the U.K. topped 100 degrees. London soared to an incredible 104 degrees that day, according to the U.K. Met Office.
Around the world
Globally, the June-August period tied for the fifth warmest in the 143 years of records.
“The five warmest June-August periods on record have occurred since 2015,” according to NOAA,
Both hemispheres came in above average, and while June-August is winter in the Southern Hemisphere, temperatures were not nearly as cold as they typically are. Antarctic sea ice during that time frame ended up at record low levels, according to climate scientists at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab.
In terms of rain, Pakistan dealt with some of the worst floods in recent history. Extreme monsoon rainfall in August is estimated to have killed more than 1,500 people and destroyed more than 1.7 million homes.
Connection to climate change
While not every weather event can be attributed to climate change, some are undoubtedly enhanced by our warming world, as explained in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2022 Assessment.
An example of this is the extreme flooding rain events. With ocean temperatures significantly higher than average, there is more moisture in the air due to evaporation. Also, higher temperatures can hold more water content, so the likelihood of heavy rain events rises with the temperature.
(UKRAINE) — Woman and girls in Ukraine and around the world have suffered disproportionately as the men of the country fight against the invasion by Russia, a new report by the United Nations has found.
The policy paper, published as the U.N. Security Council meets to discuss the war in Ukraine, reveals how the war and its global impacts on food, energy and finance have caused women in Ukraine and globally to suffer numerous hardships.
The report states that 265,000 Ukrainian women who were pregnant when the war broke out in February either had to flee or give birth in a time of conflict.
It also highlights how the crisis in Europe is exacerbating existing inequalities around the world, especially surrounding the scarcity of food.
The war-induced food price hikes and shortages have widened the global gender gap in food insecurity, the report shows. Many women have even reduced their own food intake to provide for other household members.
The report states that spiraling energy prices have caused families to return to using less clean fuels and technologies, exposing women and girls to household air pollution, which already kills 3.2 million people per year — the majority of whom are women and children.
Women-headed households in Ukraine were already more food insecure prior to the war, with 37.5% experiencing moderate or severe levels of food insecurity, compared to 20.5% of male-headed households, according to the report.
The fate of women in rural territories occupied by the Russian military remains dire. The women are increasingly unable to perform agricultural work due to high insecurity and lack of resources, but they continue to rise to the challenge of accommodating and feeding internally displaced people, which then multiples their unpaid care and domestic work responsibilities, according to the report.
In addition, school-aged girls are even more at risk of being obliged to drop out of school to get married for dowry or bride-price income for desperate families, officials stated. The report shows that there are alarming increases in gender-based violence, transactional sex for food and survival, sexual exploitation and trafficking, and early child marriage and forced marriage as a result of these worsened living conditions in conflict, crisis and humanitarian contexts worldwide.
“Systemic, gendered crises require systemic, gendered solutions,” Sima Sami Bahous, the executive director of U.N.-Women, said in a statement. “That means ensuring that women and girls, including from marginalized groups, are part of all the decision-making processes. That is simply the only way to be certain that their rights and needs are fully taken into account as we respond to the clear facts before us.”
The policy brief calls for solutions from the international community to prioritize women’s and girls’ voice agency, participation and leadership in conflict response, recovery and peacebuilding as well as to enhance gender statistics and sex-disaggregated data to build the evidence base for gender-responsive policy.
The U.N. also recommended that international communities promote and protect the right to food by targeting the specific nutrition needs of women and girls and accelerate the transformation towards more equitable, gender-responsive and sustainable food systems, equitable access to access to inputs, technologies and markets by women.
Maddie & Tae are more than just bandmates — they’re also best friends. So when Maddie Font first met Taylor Dye’s baby girl Leighton, she immediately slipped into aunt mode.
“I’m such a baby hog,” Maddie admits in an interview the duo recently gave to ET Online.
“The first time she met Leighton … [she] held her for eight hours straight,” Taylor adds. “Eight hours!” Maddie agrees.
Eventually, the bandmates hope they’ll be raising families side by side. “When my husband and I have kids, our kids are gonna grow up like siblings almost,” Maddie continues. “Because we’re almost like siblings. And they’re always gonna have another family. Such a gift.”
As a confirmed “baby hog,” Maddie says she would love to have “a hundred babies, like, yesterday,” but the logistics are tough — especially as they are busily expanding their musical careers.
“You gotta plan it, you know, a little more, because you’re having babies on a tour bus,” Maddie says.
Right now, the tour bus in question is for Maddie & Tae’s CMT Next Women of Country Presents: All Song No Static Tour, a trek that will continue throughout this month. It’s also a busy time for the pair in terms of new music releases, as their Through the Madness: Vol. 2 project drops Friday.
(WASHINGTON) — During an August campaign event in Durham, North Carolina, former state Chief Justice Cheri Beasley, the Democratic candidate for Senate, proudly proclaimed that she does not support defunding the police.
“It’s important that they have the resources to make sure that law enforcement officers stay safe,” she said.
As Republicans have hammered President Joe Biden and his party as, in their words, soft on crime and insufficiently supportive of law enforcement, Beasley and other Democrats in swing-state races have been pushing back, running advertisements touting their support for police and appearing with local law enforcement officials on the trail.
For Beasley and Florida’s Democratic Senate hopeful Val Demings, a state lawmaker and former Orlando police chief running against Sen. Marco Rubio, that also means touting their credentials.
“I’ve been a judge for over two decades,” Beasley said at that Durham event. “I served as a judge and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina. And as a judge, I have always worked hard to uphold the rule of law as well as upholding the Constitution.”
“As chief of police [in Orlando], I had to manage people, resources, and balance a $130 million budget during good times and bad times,” Demings told ABC News in a statement
“The buck stopped with me,” she added. “I always chose tough jobs and I know I made a difference in my community. I am proud to tell that story.”
Both Beasley and Demings have either proposed changes to policing or, in Demings case, co-sponsored a major bill that Democrats said would overhaul the system in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. But Demings has also stressed her support for increasing law enforcement funding — with her website describing her as “tough-on-crime.”
During the Durham campaign event, Beasley detailed how as a senator she would lobby for protecting due process rights for officers, increasing funding for training, addressing staff shortages and providing mental health services for law enforcement officers
Beasley and Demings’ Republican opponents have also branded themselves as law enforcement supporters. Rep. Ted Budd, running in the North Carolina Senate race, has touted his endorsement from the state’s trooper association. Meanwhile, Rubio has run ads featuring some law enforcement officers attacking Demings for her record on policing while in Congress.
Why Democrats are cautious about ‘defund the police’
Broadly speaking, the “defund the police” movement is skeptical of law enforcement’s accountability and effectiveness. It encourages divesting funds from police departments and allocating the money to non-policing forms of public safety and community support, such as expanding mental health and social services for people in crisis rather than tasking officers with responding.
The movement reached new heights following Floyd’s murder by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020.
While “defund the police” quickly became prominent among activists and many parts of the Democratic base — and was embraced by some progressive lawmakers — leaders in the party have long cautioned against the slogan, saying it’s not their view or that it’s reductive. On CNN in December of 2020, when asked if Democrats being tied to “defund” contributed to their losing House seats in the 2020 election, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn said that he had come out before the election against “sloganeering.”
“John [Lewis] and I sat on the House floor and talked about that ‘defund the police’ slogan, and both of us concluded that it had the possibilities of doing to the Black Lives Matter movement and current movements across the country what ‘Burn, baby, burn’ did to us back in 1960,” Clyburn said.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., likewise said in May 2021, during a caucus call, that Republicans’ attacks on the defund the police movement proved to be more damaging in the 2020 election than anticipated.
In his first State of the Union address, earlier this year, President Joe Biden made clear his stance on law enforcement, saying they need to be funded.
“The answer is not to defund the police,” he said.
Some progressives disagree: “All our country has done is given more funding to police. The result? 2021 set a record for fatal police shootings,” Missouri Rep. Cori Bush wrote on Twitter in March, rebutting Biden.
During an interview on “This Week” earlier this year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked about the rise in certain kinds of crime and Democrats’ division on the issue. Pelosi said defunding police is “not the position of the Democratic Party.”
The Pew Research Center released a poll in October 2021 which showed that 47% of adults said that spending on policing in their area should be increased.
Beasley and Demings’ messaging on law enforcement reflects both their values, they say, and what strategists call a campaign season calculation to appeal to voters. The two are major Senate candidates in battleground states, in a cycle in which Democrats need almost every victory in order to retain their majority in Congress from a resurgent GOP.
“There were allegations made that Democrats support defunding the police and it took a bit of time for Democrats to finally respond,” said Xochitl Hinojosa, a Democratic strategist unaffiliated with either race. “And they responded forcefully because it is not true and Democrats do not support defunding the police. So now you’re seeing Democrats tackle that issue head-on, which I think is smart to do.”
Hinojosa told ABC News that Beasley and Demings are in a “unique situation” to discuss supporting police while still voicing support for some changes.
“I think that because of their backgrounds in law enforcement, they’re able to not only talk about what they would do if they were to be elected, but they’re talking about what they have done and their experience that puts them in a unique situation to tackle the issue head-on,” Hinojosa said.
The issue of crime could be impactful in battleground races across the country. A Marquette University Law School Poll released earlier this month analyzing Wisconsin’s Senate and governor race showed that 61% of registered voters were concerned about crime. The issue ranked among the top five issues for voters in the state.
When broken down by political affiliation, 71% of state Republicans were concerned compared with 47% of Democrats and 61% of independents.
Charles Franklin, the director of the Marquette University Law School Poll, told ABC News that the GOP had seized on crime as an issue to use against Democrats in the midterm elections.
“In the [Wisconsin’s] Senate race, early negative ads and now current negative ads try to link [Lt. Gov.] Mandela Barnes to crime,” Franklin said, referring to the Democratic challenger to incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson. (A Barnes aide told ABC News in response to the ads, “He [Johnson] loves to point fingers about crime, but then voted against police funding while Lt. Governor Barnes and Governor Evers actually invested in public safety and law enforcement.)
Hinojosa, the outside strategist, said that Democrats need to make clear their messaging on law enforcement, given voters’ feelings. House Democrats — mindful of the midterm elections and at the request of moderates sensitive to GOP attacks — on Thursday worked to pass a package of police funding bills.
“They are talking more about tackling crime and community policing and ensuring that our law enforcement is trained and has the resources to be trained,” Hinojosa said.
Demings, too, is keeping her credentials in focus on the trail. Her campaign emails still refer to her as “chief.”
(CARACAS, VENEZUELA) — The military contractor known as ‘Fat Leonard’ – real name Leonard Francis — has been caught, the U.S. Marshals Service told ABC News late Wednesday night.
He was found after an Interpol notice went out and was found in Caracas, Venezuela, while trying to board a flight.
The arrest was made by Venezuelan authorities based on a “Red Notice” from Interpol. The arrest was made on Tuesday but is just now becoming known.
“A Red Notice is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action,” according to the Interpol website.
Leonard was set to be sentenced on Sept. 22 after being found guilty in 2015 for bribing Navy officials with lavish gifts, prostitutes and cash. Authorities say he cut off his ankle monitor last week and had not been seen since.
In one instance, according to the Justice Department, Francis was able to have a ship moved to a port he owned in Malaysia.
To date it remains one of the biggest naval scandals in United States history.
On Sept. 6, U.S. Marshals showed up at Francis’ home after being alerted that his GPS ankle monitor was being tampered with, according to a press release from the agency.
Since 2013, there have been more than 30 U.S. Navy officers charged in connection with his case. A judge ruled that Francis had to forfeit the $35 million he was convicted of defrauding the U.S. government by when he over-billed government contracts and bribed naval officials.
The Marshals were offering a $40,000 reward for any information leading to Leonard’s arrest.
John Mayer paid tribute to his late friend, comedian Bob Saget, at the Scleroderma Research Foundation on Wednesday. Saget tirelessly supported the organization after his sister, Gay, lost her battle with the disease in 1994.
The Hollywood Reporter says John teamed with the Full House star’s other pals Jimmy Kimmel, Jeff Ross and Dave Chappelle for the “Cool Comedy, Hot Cuisine” fundraiser. Saget had been a part of the annual event since 1991 and in recent years, helped produce and organize the event.
Kimmel took Saget’s place to introduce the event and joked “these bookings have really improved vastly since Bob passed away.” He then brought on Mayer, who also paid tribute to the late actor.
“This is the first time I’ve come to a Scleroderma benefit where Bob hasn’t — as Jimmy said — asked me to do this event but then profusely apologized while asking me to do this event,” Mayer remarked.
The “Daughters” singer continued, “What’s so fun about tonight, the only thing that’s fun about it, is we get to show Bob we wanted to do this, we always wanted to do this.”
Mayer closed out the fundraiser by playing “Bob’s favorite songs.” He explained that he’s struggling to say goodbye to his friend, even though Saget passed nine months ago, because he doesn’t want to believe he’s gone.
He also revealed the guitar he was playing was the same one Saget used on stage before his untimely death.
According to Mayo Clinic, scleroderma, otherwise known as systemic sclerosis, causes the skin to tighten and harden. It also can affect one’s internal organs, blood vessels and ability to digest. There is no cure for the ailment.
Many of the late Bob Saget‘s comedian friends were on hand in Los Angeles Wednesday night to salute him at the annual Scleroderma Research Foundation benefit he’d been involved with for more than 30 years.
Saget, who died in January, lost his sister Gay to the life-threatening autoimmune disease in 1994.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Saget’s longtime friend and Full House co-star John Stamos introduced a video tribute to Saget. “I’ve spoken so much about him, written so much about him, and I just love him so dearly I would give anything to have him back,” an emotional Stamos expressed.
Dave Chappelle, Kevin Nealon, Bill Burr, Kathy Griffin, Joel McHale, Rosie O’Donnell, Jeff Ross and Jimmy Kimmel also took the stage at various points.
Jeff Ross noted, “Tonight’s a tribute but it’s also a celebration that we all got to know that guy, that he got to have this influence on our lives.”
He added, “You didn’t really know Bob until you saw him host a Scleroderma Research dinner — that was the true Bob Saget. He was emotional, he was the most sincere I’ve ever seen him onstage other than when he was acting on Broadway or something.”
Chappelle introduced a tribute to his friend, telling the crowd, “Tonight I got drunk because I love Bob so much. Bob, I can feel you in this room tonight.”
He also said of Saget, “What a fantastic human being.”
Bob Saget’s widow, Kelly Rizzo, was a co-chair of the event, which also featured music and tributes from another one of Saget’s close friends, musician John Mayer.
Demi Lovato recently celebrated turning 30, and the Grammy nominee says the milestone was special in more ways than one.
The singer, who nearly died of an overdose in 2018, admits they once thought they wouldn’t live long enough to see themselves turn 30.
“That’s something I thought was impossible to do,” the singer told SPIN. “Even in bouts of sobriety, my depression was so strong that I didn’t think I’d get here today. But here I am. I’m in a new chapter in my life, and I don’t know what my 30s have in store for me, but hopefully a family one day.”
Demi reflected on their previous album, Dancing with the Devil… the Art of Starting Over, which chronicled their near-fatal overdose. “I felt like I was trying to explain myself so much,” the “29” singer said of the work. “It became more about telling the story of myself rather than just creating art that I’m proud of.”
When discussing the new album Holy Fvck, Demi said, “It was so cathartic for me to get all of these songs out.”
“It was me experiencing anger and honoring my anger, not ignoring it anymore because that’s what I think is healthy to do,” they added.
Demi also opened up about the pronouns they go by, saying, “I still feel very comfortable with they/them.”
“I’ve made a few headlines by saying I’m accepting of the pronouns she/her. It’s not that I’m changing anything about myself. I’m just accepting my femininity back,” Demi continued. “I felt like I had to reject it for a minute because that’s how I was feeling at the time, and because I wanted to escape that feminine popstar role that I was playing. I had to get away from that.”
