Guns N’ Roses‘ classic 1991 albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II will be reissued on November 11 in multiple configurations and formats, including expansive CD and vinyl box sets featuring remastered versions of both records plus a treasure trove of bonus content.
The super deluxe Guns N’ Roses – Use Your Illusion I & II box sets will feature either seven CDs or 12 LPs. Both versions will include a Blu-ray featuring a previously unreleased video of the band’s May 1991 performance at The Ritz Theatre in New York City, as well as a new live music video for “You Could Be Mine.”
In addition, the box sets will feature the full audio of the New York City show and of a complete and previously unreleased concert that Guns N’ Roses played in January 1992 in Las Vegas.
The super deluxe box sets also feature a 100-page hardcover book that boasts rare photos, memorabilia and archival documents, as well as such collectible items as a replica fan club materials and backstage pass, uniquely designed lithographs, seven band photo prints, a poster and more.
The reissues also will be available together as a four-LP colored-vinyl collection, and separately as deluxe two-CD sets, single CDs and two-LP black-vinyl sets. Digital versions of all the version also will be available.
Released simultaneously in September 1991, Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II debuted at #2 and #1, respectively, on the Billboard 200 chart. Use Your Illusion I features the top-10 hits “Don’t Cry” and “November Rain,” while Use Your Illusion II includes the top-30 single “You Could Be Mine.”
Both albums have gone on to be certified seven-times Platinum by the RIAA.
This Saturday, Elton John is set to perform at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., but on Friday, while he’s in the neighborhood, he’ll be stopping by to visit the Bidens.
President Joe Biden and the first lady will host a performance by Elton on the South Lawn of the White House as part of an event called “A Night When Hope and History Rhyme.” Organized in collaboration with A+E Networks and The History Channel, the event will honor teachers, nurses, frontline workers, mental health advocates, students LGBTQ+ advocates and more.
It will also “celebrate the unifying and healing power of music” and pay tribute to Elton’s “life and work.”
The Bidens will deliver remarks at the event. The fact that A+E and The History Channel are involved seems to indicate that the whole thing will be televised at some point, but there are no details on that as of yet.
This week, Elton is also performing in Atlanta as part of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour.
A streaming service decides to bring back a once popular sitcom. Sound familiar? It’s happening over and over again in real life, and it’s the premise of Reboot, a new Hulu comedy out Tuesday from Modern Family co-creator Steve Levitan.
Keegan-Michael Key, who plays one of the stars of the original series, tells ABC Audio now is the perfect time for a show like this.
“There’s a plethora of reboots in our world, the fact that nostalgia is something that we’re all kind of connecting to in some way,” he says. “I think part of it has to do with the world that we’re living in right now and the pandemic, we need some comfort food, we need some visual comfort food.”
Paul Reiser, co-creator and star of the hit 1990s sitcom Mad About You, plays the creator of the original show who’s part of the reboot’s writing team, so a lot of his character’s time is spent in the writers room. The calls it a place where he has “learned so much about human nature…because it’s about collaboration, it’s about ego, it’s about tempering egos, supporting egos, filtering out negativity, bringing out the best of people.”
“It’s trying to tamper down the worst in people,” Reiser continues. “So it really is this petri dish of human instincts and emotions.”
As for where the idea for Reboot came from, Levitan shares that it was largely due to the revival of Roseanne and it “kind of blew up because Roseanne got in trouble.”
“I just remember thinking to myself, well that’s the show I want to see,” he said, adding that he thought someone else would have the same idea before he got a chance to: “But much to my surprise, no one ever did.”
The Smashing Pumpkins are coming back in a big way.
The alt-rock vets — now consisting of original members Billy Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin, plus longtime guitarist Jeff Schroeder — have announced a new album called Atum, a 33-track, three-act “rock opera” described as the sequel to the Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and Machina/Machine of God albums.
Your first preview of Atum is the song “Beguiled,” which is available now via digital outlets. The “Beguiled” video premieres Tuesday at 12:33 p.m. ET on YouTube, and you can catch the Pumpkins perform the track on NBC’s The Tonight Show this Friday.
Atum, the follow-up to 2020’s Cyr, will be released in three parts, with Act 1 dropping November 15. Acts 2 and 3 will follow in 2023 on January 31 and April 21, respectively.
Along the way, Corgan will be breaking down each song off of Atum on his new podcast,Thirty-Three with William Patrick Corgan. The first two episodes are out now.
If that’s not enough Smashing Pumpkins for you, a vinyl box set edition of Atum will be available on April 21 with 10 more bonus tracks.
Meanwhile, you can also catch The Smashing Pumpkins on the road on their Spirits on Fire tour alongside Jane’s Addiction. The outing launches October 2 in Dallas, Texas.
Taylor Swift has been honored with her own “Written by Taylor Swift” Songwriter page on Spotify, but some of her most popular songs are missing.
As Billboard notes, the albums that Taylor hasn’t re-recorded yet aren’t included on the playlist. So while you’ll get the “Taylor’s Version” of songs from Red and Fearless, plus all the songs from Lover, evermore and folklore, there aren’t any songs on there — yet — from albums like Speak Now, 1989 or Reputation.
On the other hand, the playlist gathers some of the songs that Taylor wrote for other artists and for movie soundtracks in one place. Those include “Babe,”recorded by the country duo Sugarland; “Renegade,” recorded by the duo Big Red Machine; “Crazier” and “You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home” from Hannah Montana: The Movie; “Sweeter than Fiction” from One Chance; “Eyes Open” from The Hunger Games; “Carolina” from Where the Crawdads Sing and “Only the Young” from her documentary Miss Americana.
However, the playlist doesn’t feature Taylor’s other Hunger Games song “Safe & Sound” nor does it include “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever” from 50 Shades Darker or “Beautiful Ghosts” from CATS.
Taylor’s one of several stars who have their own “Written By” pages on Spotify. Others include Mariah Carey, Elton John, Sia, Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, Meghan Trainor, Joni Mitchell and Pharrell Wiliams.
Tuesday, Taylor will be honored as Songwriter/Artist of the Decade by the Nashville Songwriters Association International in Nashville, TN.
The teen singer has canceled her Avoiding College fall tour, which was to have kicked off October 8. On her Instagram Story, she wrote, “Hey everyone, I am cancelling my tour that starts next month. Thank you to everyone that bought tickets. It really does mean the world to me. You’ll get a refund and I hope to see you at these shows next year.”
As for why she’s calling off the tour, the “abcdefu” singer wrote, “I’m learning how to be an adult and how best to do this new life. I love it so much and I’m trying to do it the best way I can.”
GAYLE notes that she’ll still play the festivals for which she’s already booked, which include Austin City Limits on October 7 and the Breakaway Festival in North Carolina on October 1. She also and teases that she’s “working on new music.”
She ends her message by saying, “I’m still definitely not going to college :).”
The singer’s new EP, A Study of the Human Experience Volume Two, is due out October 7.
(BAIDOA, Somalia) — At an encampment in Baidoa, Somalia, Garan Hassan tugged at a reporter’s sleeve. Her 18-month-old daughter Malaika was too sick to eat, too weak to cry.
Staff at a Save the Children pediatric nutrition center quickly determined that this toddler had severe acute malnutrition, like more than 500,000 other children in Somalia, according to the U.N. This diagnosis means they could die without immediate treatment.
Malaika’s arm was as thick as a man’s thumb, and she weighed little more than an infant. Her body was shutting down and if left untreated she would likely die.
Somalia, like Ethiopia and Kenya, is suffering a record drought which, coupled with soaring food prices and plummeting donor funding to humanitarian groups, has left more than 22 million people starving, according to the U.N.’s World Food Programme.
A 2011 famine in Somalia killed nearly 260,000 people, half of them children.
More than half of the country’s children face acute malnutrition, Save the Children revealed in a report released on Monday.
The hunger has dislocated over a million Somalis, like Garan Hassan and her family, many of them seeking food and support in the once-small town of Baidoa. It is now a massive sprawl of thousands of tattered tents and home to 600,000 internally displaced people.
Many of them, like Hassan, had to travel through territory controlled by the Islamic fundamentalist group al-Shabab to get there.
Hassan told ABC News her husband died from starvation “at the beginning of the famine.” He was just 32. She is now the sole provider for little Malaika and her six siblings, which is why she told Save the Children staff she could not take Malaika to the hospital — she had to ensure that her other children were cared for.
“For me the declaration of famine is irrelevant. Look around you,” Ebrima Saidy, chief impact officer at Save the Children, told ABC News at the nutrition center where over 200 women with acutely malnourished children hoped to get support, “what is this if this is not famine?”
A famine has not been officially declared in Somalia since 2011.
Aid groups say that after the 2011 famine they had built up the infrastructure to help, but now with donor attention on the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic, they lacked the funds.
Famine prevention efforts by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization go to a million Somalis, but the agency tells ABC News its projects here are only 24% funded.
The next day Save the Children staff visited Garan Hassan and Malaika. They found that another of her siblings had severe acute malnutrition and both children, Malaika and her 3-year-old brother Nadifa, had multiple complications. They had suffered fevers, but were now disturbingly cold to the touch.
The staff warned Hassan they could die if they didn’t get treatment. After a terrifying night, Hassan quickly agreed to go to the hospital.
The children were whisked through the camp to a van that took them along streets broken by neglect and war to the Save the Children stabilization center — basically a hospital for the acutely malnourished.
Hospital staff determined the children suffered from malaria, whooping cough and measles — a result of their immune systems cratering from malnutrition.
During the admission process, as the two children were weighed, and measured and prodded with needles, Nadifa whimpered that he was thirsty. A few minutes later he was propped up on a nurse’s knee and given nutritional formula.
Nadifa drank one cup, then two. A milk mustache formed on his face, and on his mother’s face, for the first time in a long time, a smile.
Love Is Blind star Kyle Abrams has a new love after splitting from co-star Deepti Vemapti.
After appearing on season two of the Netflix show, Kyle and Deepti confirmed their off-screen romance during After The Altar, which dropped on September 16. However, just a few days after the show’s release, Kyle gave fans an honest update on their current relationship status.
“I understand many of you are curious as to where Deepti and I stand today,” he wrote on Instagram Monday. “Since After the Alter [sic] was filmed, we had decided to go our separate ways in early summer. Thank you to everyone who has followed our journey through arduous vulnerability and has supported us along the way.”
Abrams then went on to reveal that he has moved on and “embarked on a new relationship,” one that he intends to “keep private for a bit.”
“As for what the future holds, I have not a clue,” he continued. “Going forward I plan to live each day in the present without any regret.”
During Love Is Blind season two, Kyle hit it off with Shaina Hurley before the two split over religious differences. Meanwhile, Deepti and Abhishek ‘Shake’ Chatterjee were an item before she broke things off prior to their on-screen wedding.
(NEW YORK) — Hurricane Fiona strengthened to a Category 3 storm Tuesday after leaving the entire island of Puerto Rico without power.
The storm system is currently carrying sustained winds of 115 mph as it moves northwest near Turks and Caicos. It could become a Category 4 storm as it closes in on Bermuda later in the week.
Fiona made a second landfall Monday in the Dominican Republic near Boca de Yuma on the eastern side of the island with sustained winds of 90 mph and even higher gusts.
On Monday, the hurricane moved over the Dominican Republic with damaging winds and rain, causing more flash flooding and hurricane warnings in the region.
At least one person was killed in Puerto Rico as the then-Category 1 storm slammed the island, officials announced Monday.
The Arecibo resident was attempting to fill his generator with gasoline while it was on, causing an ignition, officials said.
Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi warned residents that more rain is expected on the island through Tuesday evening.
“We are going through a difficult moment but our people are strong and very generous,” he said during a press conference.
At least two more people died in a shelter due to natural causes, but those have not been labeled as storm-related deaths, Pierluisi said.
Restoring power in Puerto Rico
LUMA Energy said that only 100,000 out of 1.5 million clients have power on the island.
The governor said Monday the goal is for “a large number of LUMA customers” to have power “in a matter of days.” However, LUMA said in a statement Sunday that “full power restoration could take several days.”
Hospitals on the island are currently operating on generators, according to the governor.
Only 34% of households on the island have potable water after rivers grew and heavy rainfall impacted the system — meaning more than 834,000 people are without drinking water, the governor said Monday.
More than 1,000 people have been rescued by authorities, including a woman rescued Sunday who was stuck in a tree for seven hours after trying to look at the damage, officials said.
Heavy rainfall causes flooding across the island
Fiona strengthened to a hurricane from a tropical storm Sunday morning. The National Hurricane Center said Fiona made landfall in southwestern Puerto Rico on Sunday at 3:20 p.m. ET, dumping torrential rain on much of the island.
Some regions measured up to 25 inches of rain by 8 a.m. Monday, and flash flood warnings remain in effect for much of the island, according to the National Hurricane Center.
A flash flood emergency was issued overnight due to many rivers rising very quickly out of their banks. The Rio Grande de Arecido river rose 13 feet in one hour.
A bridge near Utuado, a town in the central mountainous region of the island, has collapsed, cutting off the communities of Salto Arriba and Guaonico, local newspaper El Vocero de Puerto Rico reported.
The portion of the bridge that collapsed is on Highway 123, a branch of Highway 10, which serves as a link between both roads and is one of the accesses to the University of Puerto Rico at Utuado campus, according to El Vocero.
The bridge, installed by the National Guard following Hurricane Maria, cost about $3 million to construct, the newspaper reported.
The rain saturated areas in the southeastern part of Puerto Rico, along with the mountainous areas, where potential mudslides and winds could cause the most damage.
Prior to landfall, Pierluisi said Puerto Rico was prepared as it could be, with enough resources and manpower in place to respond — adding that the island learned its lessons from the devastating effects of Hurricane Maria in September 2017.
“We’re much in a much better position than we were five years ago,” he said.
Where Fiona heads next
After passing through the Caribbean, the storm system will head northward, passing just east of Turks and Caicos before tracking near Bermuda, forecasts show. The storm system will continue to gradually strengthen in the coming days as it moves north and then northeast this week.
Forecasts place Fiona near Turks and Caicos Monday night into Tuesday morning as a strong Category 2 hurricane with winds near 100 mph.
Tremendous rainfall is forecast, with much of the Dominican Republic expected to receive up to 10 inches and some regions in Turks and Caicos expected to see 8 inches of rain.
On Tuesday morning, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic will continue to see gradually improving conditions, however, lingering showers and thunderstorms will still be likely, potentially impacting initial cleanup and recovery efforts.
By mid-week, Fiona is forecast to become the first major hurricane of 2022 Atlantic season, with winds of up to 125 mph.
Winds could be as high as 125 mph as the storm passes near Bermuda, bringing strong winds, heavy rain and storm surge. Some models show the storm hitting Bermuda directly on Friday.
While it won’t make landfall in the U.S., the hurricane will affect the entire East Coast with huge waves, rip currents and coastal flooding from Florida to Maine as it moves northward.
President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Puerto Rico on Sunday, which allows federal agencies to coordinate all relief efforts.
Biden’s decision has the “purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in all 78 municipalities in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,” the White House said in a statement.
Chris Redd has joined the parade of Saturday Night Live cast members have who left the late-night sketch comedy show ahead of its 48th season, according to Deadline. He joins Aidy Bryant, Pete Davidson, Kate McKinnon and Kyle Mooney, who left at the end of last season, and Alex Moffat, Melissa Villaseñor and featured player Aristotle Athari, who departed over the summer. Redd, who joined SNL for its 43rd season, is currently developing the feature film Cyber Monday for Universal and has a stand-up special on HBO Max. SNL returns October 1 with three consecutive shows and four new featured players: Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker…
Variety reports Sara Paulson, who won an Emmy award for her portrayal of Marcia Clark in 2016’s The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story, is attached to star in and executive-produce a scripted TV adaptation of The Way Down God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin, which HBO Max is developing from its own five-part docuseries. The streamer in September 2021 dropped the first three episodes of Marina Zenovich’s investigative docuseries The Way Down, which chronicled Gwen Shamblin Lara’s rise from being a diet guru with her Weigh Down Workshop, launched in 1986, to the founding of her Tennessee church, Remnant Fellowship, in 1999. However, due to Lara’s death in a plane crash in May of 2021, the final two episodes were re-edited and released this past April. According to HBO Max, The Way Down was its “most-watched docuseries debut”…
The Kominsky Method‘s Alan Arkin, Misery star Kathy Bates and singer-turned-actress Teyana Taylor have joined Casey Affleck and Marisa Tomei in the indie heist thriller The Smack, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Smack follows “a con man — played by Affleck — who has hit rock bottom when he meets an upstart hustler — portrayed by Taylor.” Following a tip from a wise con, played by Arkin, the two head to LA to pull off the biggest scam of their lives, only to learn a list of schemers, including Arkin’s ambitious ex, played by Tomei are also after the money. He’s left to figure out if he and the woman are actually falling in love or is being set up for the ultimate grift…
