Sarah McLachlan talks Lilith Fair, her first new album in 11 years and yes, that ASPCA commercial

NEW YORK (AP) — Sarah McLachlan's first album in over a decade was supposed to be her last.

At least, it felt that way to her for a short while. Out Friday, the release, titled “Better Broken,” has been many years in the making. “It had been so long since I’d made a record,” she told The Associated Press. “I kind of thought, maybe this is my last one.” But working with a new team of collaborators reignited her enthusiasm for music discovery in the studio. These 11 tracks are the result — but they're not a swan song.

“Some of these songs are 14 years old. Some of them were written last year,” she said. “I was a dance mom for a bunch of years, and I was also the principal fundraiser for my music schools ... Music took a backseat. So that’s why it took 11 years.”

Now, music has clutched the steering wheel. In November, she'll tour “Better Broken” across nine U.S. cities, beginning in Washington on Nov. 16 at The Anthem and ending Nov. 29 at Los Angeles' The Orpheum Theatre. She'll hit Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle and San Francisco as well. General ticket sales begin Sept. 26 at 10 a.m. local time.

“Music is very healing, and it has healed me over and over and over again,” she said. With the “Better Broken” album and tour, she hopes her music can heal listeners, too, “in some small way. I hope it can lift them and connect them to their emotional worlds.”

In an interview with the AP, McLachlan discussed her new album, a forthcoming Lilith Fair documentary and yes, that ASPCA commercial.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

MCLACHLAN: ‘Better Broken’ is the oldest song. And it actually became the title track for the record as well, just because of that sentiment of resiliency, and reclamation of self, and picking up the pieces after things fall apart and rebuilding yourself. You know, figuring out a new way forward, which seemed like a great, sort of recurring theme on the record.

MCLACHLAN: I’m glad to hear you say that because I don’t have a lot of objectivity about it. I mean, I feel hopeful after hearing it, even though there’s some more heavy and intense subject matter. For me, music has always been this beautiful outlet, this therapy. It’s so cathartic to write and be able to find a place to put it. I feel so much better after it. It’s like medicine. So, I hope there’s some hope in it.

MCLACHLAN: I’m very optimistic. That optimism has been challenged a lot lately. But I believe in humanity. I believe in the good in people. And I believe in continuing to seek out the good in people. And I think if you stay open and curious in that manner, I think there’s a lot of positive shifts that can continue to happen.

MCLACHLAN: We changed attitudes within the music business. We dispelled any myth that you can’t put two women back-to-back on the radio or on stage. Clearly, we got rid of that idea. I think we created an amazing community for us, as women in the music business. I think we helped to create a safe space for fans.

And to show that when you lift each other up instead of tear each other down, you can create something beautiful. I think that’s a really lasting legacy. And I think a really important message, perhaps even more important today.

And now I look at, you know, artists like Brandi Carlile, who are constantly championing women. Or Taylor Swift having women open up for her — Phoebe Bridgers and Boygenius and there are all these bands that, you know, are working together and supporting other women. I love that, and I feel like maybe we had a small hand in that.

MCLACHLAN: I think it could. I think it’d be very dangerous. I think we’d have a target on our backs. And I think it would need to look different.

It would need to be championed by someone who was coming up today. .... It needs some youthful energy.

MCLACHLAN: I’m grateful I did it. ... But that’s my song. I retain ownership of that song. But yeah, I’m definitely aware that it brought me to a whole new fan base and changed the face of fundraising.

MCLACHLAN: I try and dispel any weirdness about that stuff. I’m just a normal person with a crazy job who has opportunities like that come across her desk. And, you know, I like feeling purposeful. I like being of service. It makes me feel good to think that I’m using my platform to do something good.

MCLACHLAN: I think because of the many associations, not just the ASPCA, but I’ve had so many people over the years tell me really intense stories about that song helping them through the loss of a parent, the loss of a child, contemplating suicide, pulling them back from the edge. And it is really intense periods in people’s lives where my music has been a part of it. And it’s helped them in some small way. So, for me, again, that’s the best validation in the world as an artist.

Sarah McLachlan poses for a portrait on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP)

Sarah McLachlan poses for a portrait on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP)

Sarah McLachlan poses for a portrait on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP)

Sarah McLachlan poses for a portrait on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP)

Sarah McLachlan poses for a portrait on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Matt Licari/Invision/AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. service member who has been missing since Iran shot down a fighter jet has been rescued, President Donald Trump wrote in a social media post early Sunday.

A frantic U.S. search-and-rescue operation unfolded after the crash of the F-15E Strike Eagle on Friday, as Iran also promised a reward for anyone who turned in the “enemy pilot.”

A second crew member was rescued earlier.

“This brave Warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour,” Trump wrote.

Trump said that the aviator is injured but “will be just fine,” adding that the rescue involved “dozens of aircraft” and that the U.S. had been monitoring his location “24 hours a day, and diligently planning for his rescue.”

The fighter jet was the first U.S. aircraft to have crashed in Iranian territory since the conflict in late February.

Trump said last week that the U.S. had “decimated” Iran and would finish the war “very fast.” Two days later, Iran shot down two U.S. military planes, showing the ongoing perils of the bombing campaign and the ability of a degraded Iranian military to continue to hit back.

In Kuwait, an Iranian drone attack caused significant damage to two power plants and put a water desalination station out of service, according to the Ministry of Electricity. No injuries were reported from the attack, the ministry said.

In Bahrain, the national oil company said that a drone attack caused a fire at one of its storage facilities, which was extinguished. It said the damage was still being assessed and no injuries had been reported.

In the United Arab Emirates, authorities responded to multiple fires at the Borouge petrochemicals plant, a joint venture of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. and Borealis of Austria. They say the fires were caused by falling debris following successful interceptions by air defense systems, but production at the plant in Ruwais, near the UAE’s western border with Saudi Arabia, has halted.

The strike came a day after Israel struck a petrochemical plant in Iran that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said generated revenue that it had used to fund the war.

The war began with joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Feb. 28 and has killed thousands, shaken global markets, cut off key shipping routes and spiked fuel prices. Both sides have threatened and hit civilian targets, bringing warnings of possible war crimes.

The other jet to go down was a U.S. A-10 attack aircraft. Neither the status of the crew nor exactly where it crashed was immediately known.

Trump renewed his threats for Iran to open up the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for global energy shipments that has been choked off by Tehran, by Monday or face devastating consequences, writing Saturday in a social media post: “Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out — 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them.”

“The doors of hell will be opened to you” if Iran’s infrastructure is attacked, Gen. Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi with the country’s joint military command said late Saturday in response to Trump’s renewed threat, state media reported. In turn, the general threatened all infrastructure used by the U.S. military in the region.

But Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Tahir Andrabi, told The Associated Press that his government’s efforts to broker a ceasefire are “right on track” after Islamabad last week said that it would soon host talks between the U.S. and Iran.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said that Iranian officials “have never refused to go to Islamabad.”

Mediators from Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt were working to bring the U.S. and Iran to the negotiating table, according to two regional officials.

The proposed compromise includes a cessation of hostilities to allow a diplomatic settlement, according to a regional official involved in the efforts and a Gulf diplomat briefed on the matter. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door diplomacy.

Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, issued a veiled threat late Friday to disrupt traffic through a second strategic waterway in the region, the Bab el-Mandeb.

The strait, 32 kilometers (20 miles) wide, links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. More than a tenth of seaborne global oil and a quarter of container ships pass through it.

“Which countries and companies account for the highest transit volumes through the strait?” Qalibaf wrote.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed. In Lebanon, more than 1,400 people have been killed and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Ten Israeli soldiers have died there.

This report has been corrected to show that Borealis is an Austrian company and not Australian.

Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Samy Magdy in Cairo; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia; and Seung Min Kim, Will Weissert, Michelle L. Price, Lisa Mascaro and Ben Finley in Washington, contributed to this report.

Followers of Iraq's Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr chant slogans as they wave national Iraqi flag during a protest against U.S. and Israeli attacks on multiple cities across Iran, in Tahrir Square, Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

A bedroom is damaged in a building struck in an Israeli airstrike in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Pedetrians walk by a destroyed building within the Grand Hosseiniyeh, with the mosque visible in the background, which officials at the site say was hit by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes Tuesday, in Zanjan, Iran, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Police officers and their horses take cover in an underground parking garage as sirens warn of an incoming missile fired from Yemen in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Maya Levin)

A man looks at a destroyed building within the Grand Hosseiniyeh complex that officials say was hit by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes Tuesday in Zanjan, Iran, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)