Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s classic 1971 hit “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” is spending its second week at #1 on Billboard‘s Rock Digital Song Sales chart.
Amazingly, CCR had never had a song reach #1 on any Billboard chart before.
Founding Creedence frontman and main songwriter John Fogerty tells ABC Audio that he’s very pleased, and a bit baffled, by his old tune’s sudden chart resurgence.
“[I’m] not really sure how to react,” Fogerty admits. “I mean, a 50-year-old song becoming #1 is kind of astounding. You know, there’s no movie release or…no cataclysmic event to pin this to.”
He adds, “I guess people all at the same time started liking this song, and I’m really happy about it…I’m very happy that there is attention being given to the song. I’ve always thought it was certainly one of my best songs.”
“Have You Ever Seen the Rain” was featured on CCR’s next-to-last studio album, 1970’s Pendulum, and was released as a two-sided single with “Hey Tonight,” which peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Fogerty recalls that when he wrote the song, tension between him and his band mates was leading CCR toward breaking up, even though the group was at the height of its success.
“The picture that I got in my head was…there can be a sunny day and yet rain is falling,” he explains to ABC Audio. “It’s a weird atmospheric event…caused by a cloud far away from your view, but yet the wind is carrying the rain from that cloud…over to where you’re standing…And that seemed to be kind of what was happening [figuratively with CCR].”
While the world seemingly slowed to a halt during the COVID-19 pandemic, Irish comedian Aisling Bea spent lockdown hard at work writing the next season of This Way Up.
Bea, 37, spoke with ABC Audio about her critically acclaimed comedy series that she wrote and stars in, which airs its second season tonight on Hulu. The stand-up comedian said writing the next installmentduring the early days of lockdown allowed her to explore more than just her emotions, but understand what the world was experiencing.
“If the theme of the first series is loneliness, the second one is words and communication, and how we miss each other,” said Bea. “And what we don’t know that one person might say and how you read it and how that affects relationships.”
Beyond writing the second season during a global pandemic, the actress confessed it wasn’t easy to shoot, either. She said a good chunk of their budget and time was eaten up by necessary COVID protocols, which meant the crew had less to spend on filming.
“Sometimes in a day I would do scenes where there might be a suicide scene, Aine being the funniest in the world, and a sex scene… All in one day,” she recalled. “There’s no processing time… And from a creative point of view, I got through it. But it wasn’t pleasant.”
While unable to tease too much about This Way Up‘s second season, Bea revealed what she focused on when writing the series.
“Don’t make it a TED talk. I love TED talks, but there’s moments I realize ‘Ooh… I’ve accidentally made this a TED talk,'” she remarked, adding that, despite the upcoming serious moments, season two will be “entertaining.”
(SURFSIDE, Fla.) — Surfside building survivor Zulia Taub had called Apartment 506 in the Champlain Towers South home for more than two decades. On June 24, she watched her life crumble to the ground.
The 82-year-old said she was at her apartment when she thought she’d heard thunder.
“I heard a terrible noise and the building shook. … I grabbed a flashlight and I grabbed my purse,” said Taub. “I went to the staircase and to my surprise that part of the building was not there anymore and I saw rubble and I saw people crying.”
Taub said a group of neighbors crowded onto another person’s apartment balcony where they were eventually rescued by the fire department.
She said the surrounding disaster reminded her of another American tragedy.
“The only thing I could think of was 9/11,” said Taub. “All I could think of was my neighbors, my friends, the families, the children and the kids that we have [in the building].”
Almost three weeks after the collapse, the official death toll on Thursday had jumped to at least 64. The search effort has since turned into a recovery mission as teams continue to comb through the rubble for the more than 80 people who are still unaccounted for.
Taub said she’s not only grappling with the loss of her friends and neighbors but also all of her belongings. She said the only thing she saved from the collapse were the pajamas on her back, her housecoat and a purse.
“This is my home. I volunteer and I love Florida and I would love to stay,” she said,
Still, she said that she’s been grateful for the support of the Jewish community in Surfside.
“The Jewish community is extremely giving with love,” said Taub. “It’s not what you give, it’s the way you give.”
For now, Taub is staying at a friend’s apartment nearby and working with the nonprofit Global Empowerment Mission to help her get back on her feet. Michael Capponi, the president of Global Empowerment Mission, went out of his way to comfort Taub.
“He gave me a hug, gave me a box [with] a charger, toothbrush, little things and a gift card,” said Taub. “It’s not only what they gave me, it’s the way they gave [those things to] me.”
Despite it all, she said she’s determined to rebuild her life in Surfside.
“Sometimes I feel at peace and sometimes I feel sadness very deep, and I have to get strength to start again,” she said. “[But] I will do it because I’m here.”
Eva Marie Uzcategui Trinkl/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(SURFSIDE, Fla.) — At least 64 people have now been confirmed dead and 76 others remain potentially unaccounted for since a 12-story residential building partially collapsed in South Florida’s Miami-Dade County last month.
The disaster occurred on June 24 around 1:15 a.m. local time at the Champlain Towers South condominium in the small, beachside town of Surfside, about 6 miles north of Miami Beach. Approximately 55 of the oceanfront complex’s 136 units were destroyed, according to officials. The rest of the building was demolished on Sunday night, due to concerns about its structural integrity and an incoming tropical storm.
For two weeks, hundreds of first responders carefully combed through the pancaked piles of debris in hopes of finding survivors. But no one has been found alive in the wreckage of the building since the morning it partially collapsed, and officials announced Wednesday evening that the search and rescue operation, in its 14th day, would shift to a recovery mission.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told reporters that the decision was “a result of a consensus by those closest to the rescue efforts that the possibility of someone still alive is near zero.”
“And while there seems to be no chance of finding life in the rubble, a miracle is still possible,” Burkett said during a press conference Wednesday evening.
To mark the somber move, a moment of silence was held in honor of all the victims, of whom 40 have been identified thus far. A candlelight vigil was held later that night at the memorial site for the victims.
Reflecting on the transition the next day, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., told reporters: “When that happened, it took a little piece of the hearts of this community.”
Crews paused their work atop the piles early Thursday “for a brief moment of silence to honor the two-week mark since the collapse,” according to Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. Several families who lost loved ones were also brought to the site to pay their respects Thursday, she said.
“We have now officially transitioned from search and rescue to search and recovery,” Levine Cava said during a press conference Thursday morning. “The work continues with all speed and urgency. We are working around the clock to recover victims and bring closure to the families as fast as we possibly can.”
“We are taking as much care as ever to proceed to find victims in the rubble,” she added.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters that crews “will identify every single person” who is found. Officials will also continue to help the survivors and the families of the victims get back “on their feet as best as we possibly can,” even after the media attention wanes, DeSantis said.
Meanwhile, 200 people who were living or staying in the condominium at the time of the disaster have been accounted for and are safe, according to Levine Cava, who has repeatedly stressed that the figures are “very fluid” and “continue to change.”
Crews have hauled away more than 7 million pounds of debris from the vast scene, but large piles of rubble still remain. Officials said it could take several weeks to get to the bottom of the wreckage. Crews have been working virtually nonstop, with help from teams who came from across Florida and elsewhere in the United States as well as from abroad. However, their efforts were halted for almost an entire day last week due to safety concerns regarding the still-standing structure, prior to the demolition. Poor weather conditions have also forced them to temporarily pause working.
The cause of the partial collapse to a building that has withstood decades of hurricanes remains unknown and is under investigation. Built in the 1980s, the Champlain Towers South was up for its 40-year recertification and had been undergoing roof work — with more renovations planned — when it partially collapsed, according to officials.
Levine Cava asked members of the public to submit any photos or videos they have related to the collapse to the National Institute of Standards and Technology here.
“This tragedy shook our community and the world,” Levine Cava told reporters Thursday.
(TOKYO) — In the latest blow to a delayed and beleaguered Tokyo Olympics, officials on Thursday said a state of emergency had been declared due to COVID-19 and spectators would not be allowed in venues to watch the games in the city’s new stadiums.
While international spectators had already been barred, the latest announcement bans locals hosting the games from attending the events in their city. The decision also means that organizers will likely lose much of the $800 million collected through ticket sales. Local opposition to holding the games was already high.
Many of Japan’s peers across the globe are easing coronavirus restrictions at a time when it is reinstating them. While data on cases and deaths indicate the world’s third-largest economy by gross domestic product has managed comparatively well over the course of the pandemic, Japan’s present vaccination rates lag far behind other developed nations as increased threats lurk from new variants.
With the opening ceremony now just two weeks away, here is how Japan and its capital city are faring with the coronavirus.
Tokyo
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government on Thursday reported 896 new cases, and on Wednesday reported 920 new cases — a major jump from Tuesday’s tally of 593 new cases and Monday’s 342 new cases.
The cumulative number of COVID-19 cases in Tokyo — which has a population of 13.96 million — since the start of the pandemic is 179,252 and the number of deaths from the virus is 2,246. The data indicates Tokyo has fared relatively well so far compared to the devastation the virus wrought on major cities elsewhere. New York City, with a population of 8.33 million, has reported 957,148 cumulative cases and 33,444 deaths. London, with a population just shy of 9 million, has suffered 783,437 cumulative cases and 14,966 deaths.
Meanwhile, London on Wednesday reported 3,314 new positive cases, according to its most-recent data. New York City on Wednesday had 452 new cases.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga attributed the recent uptick in infections in Tokyo in part to the highly transmissible delta variant.
Japan
National data similarly shows Japan’s case count has comparatively remained low, but its lagging vaccination rates are hampering its pandemic recovery.
Japan has reported a total of 2,180 new cases over the past day, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. Its record high was 7,914 new cases in a single day on April 29. Some 15.16% of the population of Japan has been fully vaccinated.
The U.S., which has three times the population of Japan, reported 22,931 new cases over the past day, Johns Hopkins data indicates. The U.S. saw a record high of 300,462 new cases in a single day on Jan. 2. Meanwhile, 48.11% of the population has been fully vaccinated.
The U.K., which has a little over half the population of Japan, had 32,061 new cases over the past day. Its record high was 68,192 new cases in a single day on Jan. 8. Some 50.91% of the population is fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins.
Meanwhile, data compiled by The New York Times indicates that the U.S. had an average of five cases per 100,000 residents in the last seven days. The U.K.’s average is 41 per 100,000 people. Japan’s average is one case per 100,000 residents, according to the same data set.
Today is Beck‘s 51st birthday, and to celebrate the occasion, the “Loser” artist has premiered a new video.
The clip accompanies Beck’s song “Chemical,” specifically the remix by DJ and producer Chloé Caillet. It stars model Stella Maxwell as we’re led through a hazy, neon-lit nighttime journey.
Queen fans can now take a crack at becoming a champion at a new interactive trivia game that focuses on the band’s music and history.
The Queen Trivia Challenge was created by Amazon in partnership with the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers as the latest interactive skill experience for the Alexa voice-activated search program.
While taking the challenge, fans will be able to discover some some surprising facts and insights into the legendary U.K. group. The game features more than 400 questions, and includes audio clips of some of Queen’s biggest hits, as well as footage from documentaries and concerts. The video footage will be viewable on Alexa-enabled devices with screens.
To access the Queen Trivia Challenge on your device, visit Amazon.com.
According to Variety, Rhimes, who initially signed a multimillion-dollar TV deal with the streamer in 2017, has now extended her partnership to include feature films, gaming and virtual reality content. As part of the deal, Netflix will support and invest in Shondaland’s mission to “create DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility) programs that can increase industry workplace representation for underrepresented groups both domestically and in the UK.”
The robust deal comes after the global success of Rhimes’ Regency-era romance Bridgerton. The Regé-Jean Page-led show became one of the most viewed series on the streamer, with 82 million households watching during its first 28 days on the service. Not surprisingly, Bridgerton, which currently is in production for season two, has already been renewed for seasons three and four.
In a statement, Rhimes says moving Shondaland to Netflix was “taking a leap into the unknown” that paid off.
“Today, Shondaland at Netflix is creatively thriving, profitable as an asset and engaging audiences around the world with stories that fearlessly challenge viewers and keep them highly entertained all at once,” she adds. “The entire team at Netflix have been tremendous partners during every step of the process, supporting my creative vision and showing a continued dedication to the innovation that has made Netflix such a powerhouse. The Shondaland team and I are thrilled and excited to be expanding our relationship with our content partners at Netflix.”
(WASHINGTON) — When Senate lawmakers return next week from recess, the 7-foot-tall, black, metal fencing that served as one reminder of the horrors that took place there on Jan. 6 is slated to be gone.
The Capitol Police Board, the oversight body supervising security on Capitol Hill, has approved plans to begin removing the remaining temporary fencing around the Capitol on Friday, according to a memo sent to House offices and obtained by ABC News.
Removal is expected to take up to three days, good weather permitting.
“Based on USCP’s assessment of the current threat environment and USCP’s enhanced coordination with District of Columbia, neighboring state and federal law enforcement partners, the Board supports USCP’s recommendation to remove the temporary fencing around Capitol Square,” said a memo from House Sergeant at Arms William Walker sent to Congressional offices and obtained by ABC News.
“USCP will continue to monitor intelligence information and the associated threat environment. The Architect of the Capitol has the ability to and will expeditiously reinstall the temporary fencing should conditions warrant,” the memo continued.
The House Sergeant at Arms also noted that despite the metal fencing coming down there are still limits on public access to the building due to restrictions put in place when the coronavirus pandemic took hold.
“Although the temporary fencing will be removed, current building access restrictions will remain in place,” the memo said.
The fencing has been around the Capitol since after the Jan. 6 attack when security measures were sharply stepped up in the aftermath of the violent assault by a mob of supporters of former President Donald Trump.
An earlier rally turned deadly after Trump encouraged his supporters to march to Capitol Hill, where Congress was meeting to certify Joe Biden’s election win.
Rioters then breached barricades and security checkpoints, forcing then-Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers to evacuate or shelter in place, temporarily disrupting the certification. Five people died during or after the riot, 140 police officers were injured and the Capitol building suffered approximately $1.5 million in damage.
Democratic D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton celebrated the announcement of the fencing coming down on Thursday, though with a hint of caution about how free the complex will be.
“While I am seeking further information about the bike racks that will apparently be used to block access to parts of the Lower West Terrace and East Front of the Capitol, overall, the announcement is a victory for D.C. residents, local businesses and the American people,” she said.
Back in February, Norton introduced a bill in Congress, which has not passed, called “No Fencing at the United States Capitol Complex Act” to block the use of federal funds for any fencing at the Capitol.
“This announcement finally vindicates my campaign against fencing off the Capitol,” she said Thursday. “We will never again allow our Capitol Hill neighborhood to be turned into a military zone any more than the Capitol itself.”
An even larger, outer permitter of the non-scalable fencing was reduced by late March to contain just the Capitol grounds — a move approved by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has also rejected calls for permanent fencing in the nation’s capital.
“When the time is right, the fencing around the White House and U.S. Capitol, just like the plywood we’ve seen on our businesses for far too long, will be taken down,” Bowser tweeted back in January when the fencing went up.
In May, the House passed a $1.9 billion spending bill that Democrats argued would bolster the Capitol’s police force and improve the complex’s security without the need for permanent fencing around the People’s House. That legislation is currently stuck in the Senate
ABC News’ Libby Cathey, Beatrice Peterson, Luke Barr and Alexander Mallin contributed reporting.
(DETROIT) — A Michigan mother and her teen daughter, who spent 78 days in juvenile detention after a judge ruled that she’d violated probation by not completing her homework, are speaking out about their experience, which they say was an injustice in the criminal justice system.
Wishing to be identified only as Grace — her middle name — the now 16-year-old, who is Black and has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, had struggled to keep up with the transition to remote learning during the coronavirus pandemic last year. She was placed on “intensive probation” in April 2020 after being charged with assault for fighting with her mother and larceny for stealing a schoolmate’s cellphone after her mother took hers away.
Grace, who lives in suburbs outside of Detroit, said that she knew there would be consequences for those actions, but she didn’t realize they would rise to such a level, and that she thinks they did because she’s Black.
“If a white girl were to steal the phone and she has the same history as me, same background, same everything … they would probably look at her and say, ‘Hey, you know, you’re not brought up like this,’” Grace told ABC News’ Linsey Davis. “But for me, I feel like it was more of an ‘OK, this is what we expect from Black people.’”
Charisse, Grace’s mother who also asked to use her middle name, called her daughter’s incarceration an “injustice” that should “not be forgotten … that should never occur again.”
“My daughter was penalized because of having a learning disability, which is her chronic ADHD,” Charisse told ABC News.
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Among the terms of her probation was a requirement that Grace complete all of her schoolwork on time. But she said the transition to virtual learning made her feel overwhelmed and anxious. She was matched with a caseworker who Charisse said she thought would help Grace get the support services she needed.
“When we first met, she had shared with us that one of her roles would be to help us through any issues, to keep my daughter on the straight and narrow,” Charisse said. Instead “I got a violation,” she said.
Within days of hearing Grace might have been behind on her schoolwork, the caseworker referred her to the court, recommending that she be placed in juvenile detention, according to ProPublica, which first reported the case. The Oakland County Family Court Division did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
On May 14, Grace was subsequently brought before Oakland County family court Judge Mary Ellen Brennan, who at one point during the hearing said Grace was “a threat to the community.” She ordered Grace to be taken into custody and sent to a county detention center named Children’s Village. Her decision came after Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s coronavirus-related order to keep juveniles out of detention unless they posed “a substantial and immediate safety risk to others.”
“If we called every person who’s taken something or a person who’s [gotten into] an argument with their mom … I’m pretty sure everybody would be … a threat to the community,” Grace said.
Jonathan Biernat, one of Grace’s lawyers, said that in the handling of her case, the court never got “any testimony from the school or the teacher — anybody involved with her education. They got testimony from the probation officer, the prosecutor. And the judge made her decision based on that testimony.”
Reporter Jodi Cohen, who investigated Grace’s case for ProPublica, told ABC News that 42% of Black youth in the county where Grace lives are referred to the court system despite Black youth making up only 15% of its population.
“Cases like Grace’s, and others where you see young people of color … disproportionately represented at various contact points, to me, that points out systemic failures long before the court involvement started,” said Jason Smith, executive director of the Michigan Center for Youth Justice. “We wouldn’t be talking about disparity rates at the confinement level if there was more support in the community. … we wouldn’t rely on the justice system to address a lot of these issues that shouldn’t be criminalized in the first place.”
Charisse said she’s still haunted by the memories of her daughter being handcuffed and taken into custody.
“I was devastated. It just didn’t make any sense and I became very angry. I was furious,” she said.
Grace still holds on to all the letters of support that she received during her time in juvenile detention, but she said one still stands out for her: The first one she sent to her mother from inside.
“Dear mommy, I miss you a lot, and being here is hard. I haven’t really wrote you because I had to ask God to give me strength to do so. I couldn’t write without crying or feeling bad for the rest of the day. … Please continue to send me pictures of me and you or just with anyone. I love you, mommy, and I miss you,” the letter reads in part.
Cohen said that she received a call from Charisse in May 2020. After Charisse told her about Grace’s situation, “it didn’t sound right,” Cohen said.
“Most lawyers who looked at the case didn’t think it was possible to get her out of the detention center,” Biernat said. “It would be too difficult to convince the judge to change your mind.”
Salma Khalil, another of Grace’s lawyers, added that “these cases are long, they’re drawn out, they’re complicated [and] they require a lot of resources.”
ProPublica published Grace’s story in mid-July 2020 and it quickly sparked widespread outcry — far more attention than Charisse had expected, she said.
“We immediately started to receive phone calls from all over the country. We got calls from senators, we got calls from legislators in [Washington], D.C. It was amazing,” Biernat said.
Cohen said she didn’t expect her article to trigger a social media movement calling to free Grace. High school students slept outside, near the facility in protest of Grace’s incarceration. A petition for her release garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures. And a grassroots organization led a 100-car caravan from Grace’s school to the detention center.
Less than a week after the ProPublica article, as pressure to revisit Grace’s case mounted, Brennan agreed to a hearing on a motion to release her from detention. During the hearing, Brennan recounted Grace’s history of encounters with law enforcement, which go back to when she was a preteen, Cohen said, adding that Brennan used the hearing to make her point of view on the case public.
Meanwhile, Grace pleaded with the judge for her release, saying, “Each day, I try to be a better person than I was the last, and I’ve been doing that even before I was in this situation. I’m getting behind in my actual school while here [at the detention center]. The schooling here is beneath my level of education.”
Brennan ultimately decided that Grace belonged in juvenile detention and denied her release. Khalil said that, at the hearing, Grace and Charisse hugged in what she described as a “heartbreaking moment.”
“I think people need to remember that Grace and her mom have a very close bond,” Khalil said. “Charisse raised Grace with her own hands. She’s an involved mom, so the trauma that they are both experiencing and being separated from one another … it just breaks your heart that our system did that to them.”
Biernat, however, said they “weren’t going to sleep” until she’d been let go, and filed a petition with the Michigan Court of Appeals. It worked. Eleven days after the hearing, the appeals court ordered Grace to be released immediately.
Now, nearly a year after her experience, Grace is an honors student who enjoys taking pictures during her free time. She’s also started to speak out about her experience, which has begun to catalyze change in the state. In June, Whitmer signed an executive order to create a task force on juvenile justice reform.
One of the goals of Whitmer’s task force is to collect statewide data on the juvenile justice system’s influence on youth who enter it, including how many youth within the justice system — regardless of their race — are there due to school discipline or academic issues. Smith said these numbers are currently “unknown.”
“There are thousands of other Graces out there and we need to pay attention to those children,” Charisse said. “Our Black girls are being criminalized. My child was criminalized because of her behavior and her ADHD, but Black girls are being criminalized just because of who they are.”
Attorney Allison Folmar, a longtime family friend who is now representing them, told ABC News they are now planning to file a due process complaint against the school district where Children’s Village is located, alleging that Grace was denied her right to adjust to remote learning as a student with ADHD.
“The Individuals with Disabilities [in Education] Act exists because you have to prohibit the very injustice that occurred in this case,” Folmar said. “This federal act empowers students who are differently abled to learn in accordance with his or her individual ability and progress. Students cannot be forced into mainstream academic practice that leaves them at an educational disadvantage.”
She went on, “So, this is about making sure that the educational system does not leave another child behind and … say we’re speaking of this case, to criminalize the inability to learn in this type of situation.”
While she noted that Grace is “still trying to recover academically” after her time in juvenile detention, Folmar also said that Grace “excels” when given “all of the necessary tools to thrive” and pointed to her becoming an honors student.
“We are simply trying to make her whole,” Folmar said.
Since her learning plan had been disrupted by her incarceration, Folmar said they’re now seeking compensation in the civil case to pay for the new school she’s attending as well as the services she needs to succeed academically.
Grace said that her future plans include going to college and starting a computer information or cybersecurity business. She also said she wants to continue to advocate for others.
When asked if there was anything she would say to Brennan, Grace said she would tell her, “I’m not just what was on the papers. I’m not just what you saw from those reports or what you saw in those files. I have so many different attributes and I’m so different than just that, and I hope that she doesn’t judge everyone based on just that.”
ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim contributed to this report.
