From the Wires

Bonnie Raitt Preps 1st Album In 7 Years For April

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Bonnie Raitt is releasing a new album in 2012, her first in seven years.

“Slipstream,” out April 10, follows a long break from studio work for the Grammy-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member. She lost her parents, her brother and her best friend.

“I hadn’t stopped moving in a very long time so I really wanted to take a total break and not concentrate on making a new record or what I was going to do next,” Raitt said. “So that was really valuable because I waited until I was really ready to come back.”

“Slipstream” is the 62-year-old slide guitarist’s first album since 2005′s “Souls Alike” and will be the first release on her own record label, Redwing Records. The 12-track album will feature four songs recorded with producer Joe Henry and his musicians, which she describes as experimental. The remainder of the album is self-produced with her touring band.

She says she’s thrilled with the resulting eclectic mix of blues, rock and soul that even includes a dash of reggae and Celtic sounds. She covers Bob Dylan’s “Million Miles” and “Standing in the Doorway,” and Loudon Wainwright III’s “You Can’t Fail Me Now” as well.

“It’s just a new batch of great songs,” Raitt said.

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Chris Talbott at www.twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.

Singer Juanes: ‘Unplugged’ helped change sound

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NEW YORK (AP) — Colombian superstar Juanes said singer-songwriter-producer Juan Luis Guerra got him out of his comfort zone when the musician started rearranging his songs for his “MTV Unplugged” taping.

And Juanes was happy to take on the challenge.

“He put me in another place, but for me as a musician, as an artist, I was like: ‘Wow. This is a new world. I feel like I can do this,’” Juanes said in a recent interview. “We tried different styles … (and) I was not used to that kind of arrangement.”

Guerra, the Dominican Grammy-winning producer, is known for his bachata and merengue sound. He’s won the Latin Grammy for album of the year three times. Juanes, also a Grammy winner, has a sound that is built from rock and metal genres.

The singer said the 14 songs on “Juanes: MTV Unplugged,” released this week, are a blend of Latin, jazz, blues, rock, folk and classic sounds. He says the process felt new.

“You know, it’s scary, but it’s kind of what I’m looking for now,” he said. “Just to take the risk and go to different places and try different things. So it’s not about fear, it’s more about risk.”

The first single, “Le Senal (The Sign),” has peaked at No. 1 on Billboard’s U.S. Latin Songs chart. The special, which aired Monday, was taped at the New World Symphony Center in Miami Beach, Fla., in February.

Juanes says a new sound will be all over his upcoming studio album, due out next year.

“The ‘Unplugged’ right now is like a transition album. It’s going to give (me) some more time to keep writing my songs and go the studio,” he said. “It’s going to be completely different, wild and loud, and happy.”

The 39-year old is married to model-actress Karen Martinez. He says he’s noticed his musical abilities spillover onto his daughters, ages 7 and 8, who are now taking piano lessons. He also has a 2-year-old son, who he says is “crazy with cars and superheroes.”

“Unplugged” is the singer’s first release since splitting with his longtime manager, Fernan Martinez.

“It’s all about cycles, things stop and sometimes things end,” he said of the split. “And now I just feel like writing new pages of my life, new chapters. So I feel really positive, and at the same time, really thankful of the past.”

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Mesfin Fekadu covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://www.twitter.com/musicmesfin

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Alaska residents warned about aggressive cow moose

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Alaska wildlife biologists are warning about the dangers of moose calving season after several people were injured in the past week by protective cows, including a 6-year-old girl who was stomped by one in her backyard until her father scared it off with a log and a baseball bat.

Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Jessy Coltrane said cow moose are giving birth now, and people need to be extra careful in and near the woods.

“Cows are dropping calves all over town right now,” Coltrane said. “Those cows are so defensive of their little babies. They will literally stand there on the edge of the woods watching you, and if you take one step into their personal bubble, they’ll come out hooves flying.”

The warning comes after 6-year-old Chloe Metzger was stomped by a moose Monday in her Eagle River backyard. She suffered a broken clavicle and injuries to her back, according to Wednesday’s Anchorage Daily News (http://is.gd/B94Tfm).

The same day, a moose struck a man outside an Anchorage elementary school, but he was uninjured, police said. Over the weekend, a moose charged and injured at least two mountain bikers on trails at a south Anchorage park.

Chloe Metzger’s mother, Julie, said her daughter and an 11-year-old friend were jumping on a trampoline when they decided to venture toward the woods into some nearby bushes.

They encountered the moose, which chased them back into the yard. The older girl ran and hid in a playhouse with an attached swing set, Julie Metzger said.

“My daughter didn’t make it. I looked out, and she was curled in a ball protecting her head,” she said. “Everybody was screaming.”

The moose stomped on Chloe’s back with its two front hooves until Julie’s husband, Wade, threw a log at it, she said. It stunned the moose long enough that Chloe was also able to run to the playhouse, and Wade Metzger threw a baseball bat at it, Julie Metzger said.

Unfortunately for the girls, the moose ran into the swing set, became tangled and injured the older girl as well, Julie Metzger said. Eventually they were able to scare away the animal and rush Chloe to a hospital, where she had surgery.

The moose was calm when Coltrane and another biologist went to see it Monday after the attack.

Coltrane said moose can be unpredictable this time of year.

Several groups of mountain bikers learned that over the weekend on the trails at Kincaid Park. A couple of them were injured when a moose either attacked or drove the bikers off the trail, she said.

“It was all fast-moving, blind corners and basically running smack into the moose,” Coltrane said. “I would definitely recommend to people to get a new hobby for the next couple weeks.”

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Information from: Anchorage Daily News, http://www.adn.com

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Truck hits students at Calif. high school; 9 hurt

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HEMET, Calif. (AP) — A high school student in a pickup truck ran into a group of teenagers who were crossing a street outside a California high school Wednesday, leaving nine people injured, and backpacks and clothing strewn across an intersection, officials said.

The accident occurred shortly after school ended for the day at Hemet High School, Riverside County fire officials said in a statement.

Three people were in critical condition, five more were taken to hospitals with minor injuries, and one refused treatment, they said.

The driver, a student at the school, ran into a group of eight people who were in an intersection headed toward the student parking lot and the school’s football stadium, principal Emily Shaw said.

“The kids were in the crosswalk doing everything right,” Shaw said.

Seven of the people struck were students, and the eighth person was a 60-year-old woman, Shaw said. Her relationship to the school was not clear.

Witnesses told the Riverside Press-Enterprise that a white Ford Ranger went straight through a right-turn-only lane and ran a red light before hitting the pedestrians.

The newspaper said the driver was detained by the California Highway Patrol, the agency investigating the crash.

No names or ages of anyone involved were immediately released.

Backpacks and clothing were strewn near the school following the crash, NBC4-TV reported.

School activities director Al Fernandes said his 17-year-old daughter was among those hit. He told the Press-Enterprise the girl was conscious and talking but extremely sore at Moreno Valley Regional Medical Center.

Hemet is a desert community about 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

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NY Sikh, Muslim workers allowed religious headwear

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NEW YORK (AP) — New York<s Sikh and Muslim transit workers will be allowed to wear religious head coverings without a government agency logo after years of bitter legal battles that started after the 9/11 terror attacks.

A settlement between workers and New York City Transit run by the state Metropolitan Transportation Authority was announced Wednesday.

“This was the back-of-the-bus solution,” said Amardeep Singh, a Sikh-American community spokesman who compared the agency<s dealings with the employees to the pre-civil rights practice of seating black Americans at the back of public buses.

The agency issued a policy before 9/11 forcing employees wearing the traditional Sikh turbans and Muslim khimars, or headscarves, to work out of public view. Some were reassigned from bus routes to nonpublic jobs in depots.

The agency later changed the policy so that workers were allowed to wear the head coverings in public — but only with the MTA logo attached.

Singh’s nonprofit Sikh Coalition represents five subway station agents and a train operator who joined four Muslim bus drivers to fight what was dubbed the “brand or segregate” policy.

Shayana Kadidal, an attorney at Manhattan’s Center for Constitutional Rights, said it was “a calculated attempt” to hide certain workers “on the grounds that they ‘look Muslim’ and might alarm the public for that reason.”

Among them was a subway train operator who became a 9/11 hero, for evacuating more than 800 people from the subway near the World Trade Center by maneuvering his train to safety after power was knocked out. Above, the towers were collapsing and dust filled the station.

“The MTA honored me for driving my train in reverse away from the towers on 9/11 and leading passengers to safety,” said motorman Kevin Harrington. “I didn’t have a corporate logo on my turban on 9/11.”

The U.S. Justice Department brought its case under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, saying New York’s transit officials had discriminated against workers.

The city agency faced separate lawsuits filed in federal court.

Harrington, who was brought up Catholic and converted to the Sikh religion, said the policy “was driven by fear. I am relieved that the policy of branding or segregating Sikh or Muslim workers is coming to an end.”

In a statement released Wednesday, the MTA New York City Transit said the settlement “contains no finding of fault or liability.”

The transit agency said it agrees “to modify the headwear portion of the NYCT uniform policy to permit employees in those titles to wear turbans, headscarves, and certain other forms of headwear that do not contain the standard NYCT-issued logo.”

But any head coverings must be blue — the color of standard transit employee uniforms.

Under this week<s settlement, transit authorities are to pay the six Sikhs a total of $87,500.

Attorney Lonnie Hart Jr., who represents three of the four Muslim workers, said they also received an undisclosed amount of money.

The problem started when his client, Malikah Alkebulan, a Muslim bus driver, was hired several months after Sept. 11, 2001. While in training, he said, “she was told she would have to take ‘that thing’ off her head.”

At first, she refused but then relented because she was still on probation for her job, according to Hart.

He said transit officials then sought out other Muslim drivers wearing head coverings and they were taken off buses.

“We<re gratified the case has finally been settled,” he said. “It<s been a long, hard struggle.”

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Stevens: Exception needed to Citizens United case

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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens says he expects the court has had second thoughts about parts of its controversial Citizens United ruling that eased restrictions on corporate spending in political campaigns.

Stevens, who dissented from that 2010 decision, made the comments Wednesday evening during a speech in Little Rock.

In the case, the divided court ruled that independent spending by corporations does “not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” Stevens says it’ll be necessary for the high court to create exceptions.

Stevens served on the Supreme Court from 1975 until his retirement in 2010. Nominated by President Gerald Ford, Stevens recently published a memoir.

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