Anne Heche‘s new memoir, Call Me Anne, will be released in January, about five months after she died following a fiery car accident in Los Angeles.
Publisher’s Weekly reports Heche had presented a manuscript to Start Publishing in May, and the book will be released by its Viva Editions imprint.
Start President Jarred Weisfeld explained the company is working with Heche’s estate to finish the book, saying, “Anne was an inspiration to the LGBTQ+ community and beyond. This book deserves to be read by all of her fans.”
He added, “We are grateful to have the opportunity to share her message with the world. While we are very sad that Anne isn’t here to see the book be published we know it’s what she would have wanted.”
Heche’s previous memoir, Call Me Crazy, was a 2001 bestseller in which she detailed her struggles with mental health and overcoming sexual abuse in her family. The book has been out of print, but interest in it grew after her death at 53.
Call Me Anne is being billed as a sequel to the former book, containing “personal anecdotes of her rise to fame: how Harrison Ford became her on-set mentor, her relationship with Ellen Degeneres, her encounter with Harvey Weinstein, her history of childhood sexual abuse, her relationship with God [and] her journey to love herself.”
Heche’s partner on the Better Together with Ann and Heather podcast, Heather Duffy, reportedly wrote an epilogue to the new book, explaining, “[Heche’s] wish was that this book could help others get to the other side of pain and learn about her philosophy, which allowed her to remain in a life where she woke up each day looking for opportunities to find joy and spread kindness.”
Shawn Mendes launched his new initiative, Wonder of Music, a music therapy program designed for sick children. The program is underway at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in his native Toronto.
The singer’s charitable arm, The Shawn Mendes Foundation, committed a million dollars to this new effort.
“SickKids is a very special place to me and my hometown of Toronto, and I’m so honored to support such an important program,” Shawn said in a press release. “Music has made such a profound impact in my life and is no doubt a form of therapy to me. I can only hope the Wonder of Music Program will help SickKids patients, families, and staff benefit from its power as well.”
The singer’s new initiative acts as a comprehensive music therapy program that enhances and expands the programs SickKids already has in place. Music therapists will be able to help infants, children and young adults with custom-made therapy sessions — which are also meant to help children and their families bond and find comfort and joy in what could be a very scary time.
Carolyn Marshall, Certified Music Therapist, The Hospital for Sick Children, explained how important Shawn’s new directive is.
“For many children and families in the hospital, music therapy is an opportunity to express and process a complex range of emotions – such as anger, hurt, happiness, fear or hope – in a creative way,” she said.
Children can now take advantage of a multitude of activities, including learning how to write music, creating custom lullabies and even composing original songs set to their own heartbeat to help them cope with being hospitalized. In addition, kids can also access music education through the program.
The concert is one of eight dates the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers are playing at the Sin City venue in September and early October; the band has another eight-show engagement scheduled there in late November and early December.
Aerosmith originally was supposed play its first 2022 Las Vegas stand in June and July, but those concerts were canceled in May when it was announced that frontman Steven Tyler had entered a treatment facility after relapsing while recovering from foot surgery.
According to People, Tyler was in fine form at Wednesday’s show. The magazine notes he seemingly eluded to his substance abuse issues when he commented to the audience, “It’s either too much or too little all the time. I’m a big fan of too much.”
According to Setlists.fm, the band played a hit-packed, 17-song set that included such classics as “Back in the Saddle,” “Love in an Elevator,” “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” “Sweet Emotion,” “Dude (Looks Like a Lady),” “Dream On” and “Walk This Way.”
Aerosmith also included covers of The Shangri‐Las‘ “Remember (Walking in the Sand)” and Fleetwood Mac‘s “Stop Messin’ Around” in the show, which featured immersive Dolby Atmos audio technology and 12-inch screens displaying never-before-seen visuals.
Leading up to the launch of the residency, the band played concert on September 4 in Bangor, Maine and September 8 at Boston’s Fenway Park. Their next Vegas concert takes place this Saturday, September 17.
Little Big Town’s 10th studio album, Mr. Sun, arrives on Friday, and the track contains a song that’s more than a decade old and that the band has actually tried to record at least once before.
That’s “Rich Man,” a solo write by bandmate Jimi Westbrook that represents the first time LBT has ever recorded a song written by a solo member of the band.
“I’d been hearing it in the dressing room for years,” the group’s Phillip Sweet tells Billboard. They’d even tried to cut it for a project in 2010, but for some reason, the song never quite clicked — until the Mr. Sun album cycle came along.
“I feel like last year I had finally gotten it to where I wanted it to be,” says Jimi, who never stopped polishing the song despite the fact that he wasn’t sure it would ever see the light of day on an album track list.
“I still didn’t think anybody would hear it. It was only for myself,” the singer continues. “It connects so deeply to my heart and my growing up with my family and my dad, who passed away in 2002.”
Jimi never expected the song would fit so well on Mr. Sun. “That it made its way onto this record, it’s kind of wild,” he added.
The first trailer for the long-awaited Whitney Houston biopic, I Wanna Dance with Somebody, is finally here.
The teaser arrived Thursday and shows how British actress Naomi Ackie channels the late powerhouse singer. The trailer begins with how Whitney got her start, when Arista Records’ Clive Davis discovered her singing at a nightclub at the tender age of 19.
“My dream? Sing what I wanna sing. Be how I wanna be,” Ackie narrates as scenes of Whitney’s rising star status flash across the screen.
The trailer includes one of the most defining moments of Whitney’s career — the 1991 Super Bowl where the Grammy winner belted out the “Star Spangled Banner.”
The sneak peek also shows the dark undercurrents Whitney faced throughout her career, such as facing criticism that her music wasn’t “Black enough.”
“Look, I don’t know how to sing Black and I don’t know how to sing white, either,” Ackie’s voice continues to narrate as the camera pans to a sold-out stadium of fans excited to see Whitney perform. “I know how to sing.”
I Wanna Dance with Somebody is directed by Stella Meghie and written by Anthony McCarten, who penned the Oscar-winning Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. The movie arrives in theaters on December 21.
“The greatest voice of our time has an even greater story,” the movie’s official synopsis reads. “Discover the Whitney Houston you never knew.”
Whitney accidentally drowned in a hotel bathtub in 2012; drugs were found in her system. She was 48.
ABC Audio has confirmed that Ridley Scott, Oscar-winning filmmaker and the director of 1982’s Blade Runner, is bringing a sequel series to Amazon Prime.
Blade Runner 2099 will be a follow-up to Denis Villenueve‘s acclaimed 2017 film Blade Runner 2049, which Scott produced and which featured Ryan Gosling and Jared Leto, as well as Harrison Ford reprising his role as Rick Deckard from Scott’s groundbreaking 1982 original film.
Based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, 1982’s Blade Runner was set in the dystopian future of 2019 Los Angeles, with Ford’s character, an investigator known as Blade Runner, tasked with hunting down a rogue band of artificial humans known as replicants.
In a statement, Vernon Sanders, head of global television, Amazon Studios, noted, “The original Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott, is considered one of the greatest and most influential science-fiction movies of all time, and we’re…honored to be able to present this continuation of the…franchise.”
Sanders said he’s “confident…Blade Runner 2099 will uphold the intellect, themes, and spirit of its film predecessors.”
An anime series set in the same universe, Blade Runner: Black Lotus debuted last year on Adult Swim and the animation hub Crunchyroll, featuring the voice of The Gray Man‘s Jessica Henwick.
(NEW YORK) — New York City is “reassessing” longstanding procedures that stem from a law requiring the city to shelter undomiciled people.
It follows an influx of more than 11,000 asylum seekers who have been bussed from Texas, the mayor’s chief counsel said Thursday after touring the city’s first Asylum Seeker Resource Navigation Center.
“We are reassessing the city’s practices with respect to the right to shelter,” Brendan McGuire, the chief counsel, said. “It is important — because we don’t exist in a vacuum — to reconsider the practices that the city developed that flow from the right to shelter.”
McGuire declined to elaborate what, specifically, might need to change but the city’s prior practices involving mainly people experiencing homelessness “never contemplated the bussing of thousands of people into New York,” Mayor Adams said earlier this week. “We expect thousands more to arrive every week going forward. The city’s system is nearing its breaking point.”
The comments followed the failure of the city’s shelter system to offer beds to 60 men who arrived Monday at the men’s intake shelter on E 30 St.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, since early May, has been sending busloads of migrants out of Texas to cities with Democrat leaders, including New York City and Washington, D.C. The Republican governor says he started the busing programs in response to the Biden administration’s immigration policies which he claims inadequately secure the border, forcing states like his to bear the brunt of migrant waves.
Officials said Texas authorities have not coordinated with New York officials, meaning that officials are unaware of when buses will arrive or how many individuals will be on the buses.
“They’re not letting us know what are the needs of the people on the bus. They’re not giving us any information, so we’re unable to really provide service to the people en route,” Adams told ABC affiliate WABC earlier this summer.
The mayor and his chief counsel have each stressed the city is not reneging on the obligation to shelter itself, which the courts have guaranteed for three dozen years.
“There’s no ambiguity there, so it’s an important distinction. We are not reassessing the right to shelter. We are reassessing [the] practices around the right to shelter,” McGuire said.
Homeless advocates aren’t so sure and warned the mayor not to end any practice that would force people onto the streets.
“@NYCMayor challenging the right to shelter is dangerous. Without this right tens of thousands of people will be on the street,” the Safety Net Project of the Urban Justice Center wrote on Twitter.
Adams announced the opening of New York City’s first Asylum Seeker Resource Navigation Center on Thursday.
The center, according to the city, “will support individuals and families who have arrived in New York City on or after January 1, 2022. The center will serve as a central place where newly arrived asylum seekers will receive free and confidential help accessing a variety of important services and resources that will help them integrate and thrive in New York City.”
“Our city continues to welcome the thousands of families who have arrived in New York City in the last few months, but, today, we are announcing a one-stop-shop for those seeking asylum to receive free and confidential help accessing the important services and resources that will help them integrate and thrive in New York City,” Adams said Thursday.
“We are always willing to work with the City on ways to improve services for anyone in need of shelter, including asylum seekers, so long as any proposal complies with well-established court orders and New York State’s Constitution, which require the City to provide homeless individuals and families placement in a safe and accessible shelter,” The Legal Aid Society and Coalition for the Homeless said in a statement Thursday. “We were glad to hear City officials affirming their commitment to those obligations this morning.”
ABC News’ William Mansell, Briana Alvarado and Kyla Guilfoil contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Thursday took a political victory lap after railway companies and unions reached a tentative labor agreement overnight — averting a strike that threatened to paralyze the nation’s supply chain and transportation rail service.
Speaking from the White House Rose Garden, Biden called the agreement a “big win for America” as the White House highlighted how he used his influence to avoid a crisis less than two months before the midterm elections.
“To the American people, this agreement can avert a significant damage that any shutdown would have brought,” Biden said. “Our nation’s rail system is the backbone of our supply chain.”
Biden said “every good you need” from clean water to food to liquefied natural gas gets delivered via rail.
“This agreement allows us to continue to rebuild a better America with an economy that truly works for working people and their families,” he said.
Before delivering remarks, Biden met with the negotiators who brokered the railway labor agreement in the Oval Office.
Administration officials hosted contract talks all day Wednesday hoping to broker a deal, negotiating for more than 20 consecutive hours, Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh said on Thursday. He described the deal as “hard-fought” and “mutually-beneficial.”
A White House official told reporters on Thursday that Biden called into Labor Department-led talks around 9 p.m. on Thursday to say a shutdown of railways was unacceptable and underscored the far-reaching economic consequences a strike would have. At 2 a.m., the official said, Walsh called the White House and said things were coming together. One union had to wake up their board to get sign off, the official added.
Biden thanked both sides for working in “good faith” to reach an agreement.
“In fact, the negotiators here today, I don’t think they’ve been to bed yet,” Biden said.
Unions will now vote on the agreement.
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Trainmen (BLET) and the SMART Transportation Division (SMART-TD) — the two largest rail unions and the final remaining union holdouts — confirmed the tentative agreement in a statement on Thursday.
The agreement includes one key sticking point throughout the negotiations: policies that allow workers to take a sick day or attend to a doctor’s appointment without being penalized.
“We listened when our members told us that a final agreement would require improvements to their quality of life as well as economic gains,” BELT and SMART-TD said in their joint statement.
Biden said on Thursday the workers “earned and deserved these benefits.”
“This agreement is validation of what I’ve always believed: unions and management can work together, can work together for the benefit of everyone,” he said.
Congress debated stepping into the fray to avoid the strike this week. Republican Sens. Wicker and Burr on Thursday attempted to push through a resolution that would have forced unions to accept the deal. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., blocked the measure, arguing workers have the right to strike over working conditions.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi applauded the tentative agreement on Thursday morning, stating Congress was ready to step in but “thankfully this action may not be necessary.”
“We congratulate the unions and railroads for coming to an agreement, because it is in the national interest that essential transportation services be maintained,” she said.
The 2022 Farm Aid Festival will once again broadcast live on the Circle Network. Featuring sets from Chris Stapleton, Willie Nelson & Family, Dave Matthews and Sheryl Crow, the event will air from Raleigh, North Carolina.
Hosted by Runaway June bandmate Natalie Stovall, the annual music, food and farm festival will air in live and pre-recorded segments. The Circle Network’s social channels will also livestream Farm Aid throughout the day.
It’s the second consecutive year that the network will bring Farm Aid to fans in real time. Other performers on the bill include Margo Price, Charley Crockett, Lukas Nelson, Brittney Spencer and many more.
Farm Aid is an annual benefit show that raises money for family farmers in the United States. Founders Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Neil Young debuted the event in 1985 and, like Matthews and Price, are still board members.
Dua Lipa will launch the second season of her podcast, Dua Lipa: At Your Service, with guest Monica Lewinsky.
The new season of the podcast — a companion to Dua’s Service95 newsletter — begins September 23. On that day, Dua will host a Twitter Spaces chat on the Service95s account to answer fans’ questions and talk about the new season.
In a statement, Dua says, “Recording At Your Service’s first season and getting to share those conversations with so many was one of the most rewarding experiences. I’m thrilled to be bringing that same curiosity and insight to Season Two, where we have a new crop of cultural icons and thought leaders to bring to you all.”
“I’m honored to have the resilient Monica Lewinsky as my first guest,” she adds. Guests on season one included Elton John, Megan Thee Stallion, activist Amal Clooney, actor Riz Ahmed and Russell Brand.
As for Dua’s Service95 newsletter, which you can subscribe to for free, it features writings on style, the arts, culture and society, as well as a peek into Dua’s life and some of her favorite things.
