Axl: New GN'R album due this fall

NEW YORK (AP) - Rock recluse Axl Rose made a surprise radio appearance to proclaim that Guns N Roses 10-years-in-the-making Chinese Democracy album will finally hit store shelves this fall.

The comments Saturday on Eddie Trunk's syndicated radio show marked the first interview the painfully private Rose has given since his failed 2002 comeback tour, which was abruptly scrapped midway amid riots and cancelled shows.

Roses impromptu appearance came when former Skid Row front man Sebastian Bach, who was co-hosting the show, called Rose's cellphone and patched the call through the studio.

Quizzed on when the near-mythical album would come out, Rose said, "Sometime this fall or late fall." His band could be heard rehearsing in the background. "It will be out this year."

Trunk invited Rose to drop by the studio, and about an hour later he did.

Asked about the aborted 2002 comeback tour, which ended when Rose failed to appear for a gig in Philadelphia, Rose told Trunk he felt pressured into doing it before he was ready. But he insisted he has no regrets, since the short-lived tour helped the new band members to gel. (The 2002 lineup included keyboard player Dizzy Reed from the original GNR, former Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck, bassist Tommy Stinson from the Replacements, guitar shredder Buckethead, drummer Brian (Brain) Mantia formerly of Primus, guitarist Richard Fortus from the former Psychedelic Furs and Love Spit Love, and keyboard player Chris Pittman.)

"Can you tell people why the tour ended at that point?" asked Trunk.

"Umm, no, not exactly," said Rose, declining to discuss it.

Plans are currently in the works for Rose to relaunch his comeback by playing four shows at New Yorks Hammerstein Ballroom over the next 10 days, then head to Europe to play several music festivals.

Rose said the band at the Hammerstein shows will be similar to the one that played the 2002 tour, except for a new lead guitarist, whom he declined to identify except to say it's not an old GNR member. Buckethead left the band in 2004.

However, later in the broadcast, Rose seemed to contradict himself when he said hes been hobnobbing with former GNR guitarist and songwriter Izzy Stradlin, and strongly hinted that Stradlin may show up for the Hammerstein shows.

Former GNR guitar maestro Slash may end up back in the band as well, but probably not before the Hammerstein shows.

PlayStation 3: Home for Christmas

LOS ANGELES — Sony said Monday that it will roll out the PlayStation 3, the long-awaited successor to the world's most popular video-game system, in time for the holidays.

In a presentation in advance of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Sony announced it will ship the powerful new system to North America on Nov. 17.

The price will be $499 for a system with a detachable 20GB hard drive, and $599 for one with a 60GB hard drive. Sony plans to have 4 million available by year's end worldwide. "PlayStation 3 is the most ambitious project we've ever undertaken," says Kaz Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment.

The PS3 will play PS2 games, as well as titles from the original PlayStation, CDs, DVDs and new high-definition movie discs. The PS3 also will connect to Sony's handheld PlayStation Portable (PSP) and will include a wireless, motion-sensing controller.

The wireless controller was demonstrated with a launch game called Warhawk, an aerial combat game with futuristic planes zipping through clouds and over water. Other games include Tekken 6, Stranglehold (a game by film director John Woo), Ridge Racer 7, Final Fantasy XIII, Virtua Fighter 5 and Call of Duty 3.

One racing game shown used the PSP as an "interactive wing mirror."

"You can position this next to your TV screen and see what's coming up behind you," said Sony's Phil Harrison.

An online game network also will allow voice and text messaging. "The goal is to create a virtual society or community," says Hirai.

PlayStation 3 was originally due in stores in spring, but development delays forced Sony to push back the introduction. The delay gives a yearlong head start to Microsoft's $300-and-up Xbox 360, which was introduced in November and is still in short supply. Microsoft has sold 3.2 million units worldwide, 1.8 million in the USA.

Nintendo's Wii (pronounced "we") system, which is expected to be less expensive than either the 360 or the PS3, and which comes with an innovative controller, is to be unveiled at a news conference today.

Complicating this next generation of consoles is an underlying battle over high-definition video-disc formats. PS3 games will be on the new Blu-ray Disc format, and the system will play Blu-ray high-definition movies. Microsoft plans to market an add-on drive that will play movies in the competing HD DVD format championed by Toshiba with supporting studios Warner, Universal and Paramount.

Nicole Kidman: Still Loves Tom Cruise

NEW YORK - Nicole Kidman says her divorce from Tom Cruise was a "major shock" — and, she still loves him.

"That was a major shock," the 38-year-old actress says in an interview in the June issue of Ladies' Home Journal, on newsstands Tuesday.

"He was huge; still is. To me, he was just Tom, but to everybody else, he is huge. But he was lovely to me. And I loved him. I still love him," she tells the magazine.

Cruise filed for divorce in February 2001 after 10 years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences. The divorce was finalized later that year.

"I always knew the rug was going to be taken out from underneath me at some stage," Kidman says. "I didn't think it was going to happen in the way it happened. I had seen my mother battle breast cancer, so I had a fear of my health being jeopardized — that was really where I was thinking mine would come.

"I knew I was going to get hit with something. But I think a divorce, and the demise of what your family is, is a little death in itself."

Cruise and Kidman adopted two children, Isabella, now 13, and Connor, now 11.

"I feel enormous love for whoever my children's birth parents are," Kidman says. "And if my children choose to go find them at some stage, I can't wait. Because — it's the weirdest thing — I actually feel (they're) very connected to us as a big, strange family, and whether they choose to search for them or not, who knows."

The 43-year-old actor's latest movie, "Mission: Impossible III," debuted with $48.025 million this weekend, a solid opening yet well below industry expectations and almost $10 million lower than the franchise's previous installment, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Katie Holmes, Cruise's 27-year-old fiancee, gave birth to the couple's first child, a daughter, Suri, last month.

Kidman, who stars in the upcoming "Fur," about photographer Diane Arbus, is reportedly dating country singer Keith Urban, 38.

"I'm pretty careful about who I share my life with," she says. "I surround myself with truthful, kind people, most of whom are not in the business. It's the life I want to have when I'm an old woman with long, gray hair."

Veteran CBC anchor dead at 48

TORONTO (CP) - Veteran CBC news anchor Lorne Saxberg died Saturday in a snorkelling accident while on vacation in Phuket, Thailand, CBC News reported on its website.

"We're shocked and very, very sad that this has happened," CBC spokeswoman Ruth-Ellen Soles said Sunday.

"He was part of our family of journalists and reporters and newsreaders."

Saxberg had a 27-year career with the country's public broadcaster and was a widely recognized news anchor on both television and radio.

The 48-year-old broadcaster was one of the original anchors when CBC's all-news channel Newsworld was launched in 1989, CBC News reported.

He was recently awarded an Edward R. Murrow Award for a documentary he wrote and hosted on the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb, CBC reported.

Saxberg grew up in Thunder Bay, Ont., and graduated from Confederation College's broadcasting program before joining CBC Radio as an announcer in his hometown.

He later moved to Toronto where he joined the roster of anchors at Newsworld.

Saxberg took a leave from CBC two years ago to work as an announcer and trainer with NHK Japan in Tokyo.

"He was the consummate pro and an exceptional journalist," said Ken Becker, a Newsworld producer who worked with Saxberg for many years.

"When he was in the anchor chair, you knew you could throw Lorne any story - from the outbreak of war to the birth of a panda at the zoo - and he'd deliver it to the viewer with exactly the right tone."

"He brought to every story a vast knowledge on nearly every subject, a reporter's curiosity and an appreciation of fine writing."

Despite Saxberg's international success as a broadcast-journalist, he never strayed far from his northwestern Ontario roots.

Along with his family, Saxberg bought and restored a dormant 130-year-old mining shop near his hometown to create the Silver Islet General Store and Tea Room, where he served as harbourmaster and returned every summer to work at the store.

"I know he was looking forward to coming home this summer," said Shane Judge, a radio reporter with CBC Thunder Bay who worked with Saxberg years ago. "He just loved it on the North Shore. He made sure he came here every year."

'LOST' FINALE SHOCKS CREATOR

J.J. Abrams, co-creator of the re vitalized "Lost," is telling fans the season finale in two weeks is a killer.

"The ending of this year in 'Lost' blows the ending of last season out of the water," he told scifi.com over the weekend. "It's an incredible finale.

"You'll see what happens, but I can tell you that a lot of it has been there and been building from the beginning of this season. It's not out of the blue, but what happens at the very end of this year, for me, it's the greatest finale I have ever heard."

Abrams took himself off the show earlier this year to direct "Mission Impossible III" with Tom Cruise, but says the people who have been running the series in his absence came up with a year-ender that surprised even him.

The episode, titled "Live Together, Die Alone," airs May 24. An ABC press release describes it:

"After discovering something odd just offshore, Jack and Sayid come up with a plan to confront the Others and get Walt back.

"Meanwhile, Eko and Locke come to blows as Locke makes a cataclysmic decision regarding the button."

ARG! POOCHES PICK UP SCENT OF DVD PIRATES

Two black Labradors in Britain have been trained as the world's first dogs to sniff out counterfeit DVDs, according to reports.

The dogs, Lucky and Flo, are being used by FedEx and British Customs to crack down on DVD piracy.

A spokesman said the dogs had been taught to identify DVDs located in boxes, envelopes or other packaging which would then be sold illegally in the U.K.

Sutherland reveals 24 movie plans

Kiefer Sutherland has revealed that a movie version of his hit US TV show 24 is to film in London.

The actor, who plays hero Jack Bauer in the thriller series, told chat show host Jonathan Ross about his plans on Ross's BBC One show.

"We're working on that," he said. "We'll shoot the film here. We're really excited about it.

"In the US, 24 was slow to catch on but in the UK it was big so Fox stuck with it, so thank you Britain."

Sutherland has starred in the Fox TV show for five series and is reported to have signed up for three more.

The show was considered groundbreaking when it first aired in 2001 because it was screened in "real time" with one day spread over 24 episodes.

Sutherland's performance in 24 won him a Golden Globe award in 2002 and he has also been nominated for four Emmys.

The actor rose to fame in films such as the 1987 teenage vampire film The Lost Boys and the movie Flatliners with his former fiancee Julia Roberts.

His next big screen outing will be in crime thriller The Sentinel, opposite Michael Douglas and Kim Basinger.

He is also voicing a character in Disney's latest cartoon feature, The Wild, in which he plays a lion called Samson.

Doctor Who Triumphs at 2006 BAFTA Awards

Doctor Who was the main winner at this weekend's prestigious industry awards, the BAFTA Awards (or British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards), taking all three of the awards for which it was nominated. Billie Piper and a Dalek accepted the award for Best Drama Series, as well as the Pioneer Audience Award for best television programme of 2005. Russell T Davies won the Dennis Potter Award for outstanding writing for television, which was presented to him by a kilted David Tennant. Davies is reported as saying, "We were told that bringing it back would be impossible, that we would never capture this generation of children. But we did it."

The show's success, alongside a number of other BBC successes, dominates much of the early coverage of the awards ceremony, with a two-minute report appearing on BBC News 24 and BBC One's evening news (also available online at BBC News); this report includes a brief clip of the Dalek arriving for the ceremony and David Tennant speaking to reporters on the programme's "cross-nation appeal". The Guardian appears to be making Doctor Who's awards front-page news, with "Doctor Who finally materialises on red carpet as TV series scoops drama prize" concentrating on the supposed previous lack of industry awards for the series, discussed by Russell T Davies in a recent Guardian podcast.

Apple Computer wins trademark dispute vs Beatles

LONDON (Reuters) - Apple Computer has won its trademark dispute with the Beatles, part of a long and winding road of legal battles which may lead the band's famous songs to the door of Apple's market-leading iTunes Music Store.

In the case decided on Monday, Apple Corps -- which represents the band's interests and has a green Granny Smith trademark -- had argued that the Apple Computer had violated the companies' former trademark settlement by using its logo to sell music.

Apple Computer, which has sold millions of iPods and more than a billion song downloads, held that iTunes was primarily a data transmission service and was permitted by the agreement.

"I find no breach of the trademark agreement has been demonstrated," Justice Edward Mann said in his judgment, issued in London's High Court. "The action therefore fails."

Apple Corps had battled Apple Computer over its own stylized fruit logo twice before and the latest case related to an out-of-court settlement in 1991.

The ruling, which Apple Corps said it will appeal, means that Apple Computer will be able to continue using its fruit logo on the iTunes Music Store and in ads for the service.

Apple shares climbed about 1 percent to $72.59 on the Nasdaq exchange by 1354 GMT (9:54 EDT).

CAN'T BUY ME BEATLES...ONLINE

The Beatles are high-profile holdouts from Internet music services such as iTunes, but it emerged during the trial that Apple Corps is preparing the band's catalog to be sold online for the first time, according to a submission by Neil Aspinall, managing director of Apple Corps and a former Beatles road manager.

"We are glad to put this disagreement behind us," Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said. "We have always loved the Beatles, and hopefully we can now work together to get them on the iTunes Music Store."

A spokeswoman for Apple Corps said that no decision had been made on when the Beatles' songs would be available to purchase online.

Apple Corps -- owned by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono and the estate of George Harrison -- agreed to a 1991 out-of-court settlement, which included a $26 million payment by Apple Computer and set out areas in which each party would have exclusive use of their respective logos.

The Beatles' company argued that Apple Computer's move into the music business violated that deal, but Justice Mann ruled that no breaches had occurred.

"I think the use of the apple logo is a fair and reasonable use of the mark in connection with the service," Mann said, referring to the Apple Computer logo within the iTunes Music Store.

The trial in the High Court's usually staid courtrooms was marked by the incongruous playing of the disco hit "Le Freak" by the Apple Corps legal team, who were demonstrating the iTunes software for the judge.