One year ago — April 8, 2022 — Lizzy McAlpine released her second album, five seconds flat. But it’s only in the past few months that one track on the album, “Ceilings,” has become a hit after blowing up on TikTok.
“Pretty much everything has changed,” she tells ABC Audio. “It’s just kind of been going up at a steady increase.” She laughs, “Every time I leave my house, I usually get recognized, and I got to be on Fallonand I’m about to go on my headline tour. It’s just all very exciting.”
“Ceilings” wasn’t a single — it’s barely included in the short film Lizzy made to go with the album. But she thinks she knows why fans gravitate toward the song, which describes daydreaming about a relationship that’s ended.
“I try to write about the feelings that maybe are a little harder to put into words,” she explains. “And I think this song is an example of that. It’s, like, a very specific feeling that’s pretty universal, and I think people just haven’t had the words to express it, or they … see themselves in the song.”
But Lizzy still doesn’t know who started the “Ceilings” TikTok trend, in which people lip-synch to a sped-up version, sometimes while running dramatically, often while wearing long, flowing gowns.
“I just remember scrolling on my ‘For You’ page and just seeing the sound pop up a bunch,” she recalls. “Whoever created the sped-up sound, shout out to you. Because I think that really kick-started it.”
And one particular video made her realize just how big the song has gotten.
“Victoria Justicedid the trend on TikTok,” Lizzy laughs. “And that’s crazy, because she was the first concert that I ever went to. So it was pretty full circle!”
It’s no secret that Carly Pearce shares a close relationship with her mom, Jackie. That’s why the floodgates opened when Carly’s mom first saw the emotional music video for her daughter’s single “What He Didn’t Do.”
“I played it for her, and I thought that she would really love it just because it’s so beautiful,” Carly recalls. “And she started crying when it was over, and she told me that she didn’t like it. And I asked her why, and she said because it’s too real of what happened. And I was kind of like, ‘That’s great, Mom. That’s exactly what I was lookin’ for. Thank you.'”
“But as a mother,” Carly adds, “I think she knew what I was trying to convey throughout the video, and I think it took her to a real emotional place of knowing that I really did feel like I was drowning.”
“What He Didn’t Do” served as the final single from Carly’s latest album, 29: Written In Stone. The song reached the top of the country charts last month and earned Carly her fourth number one hit.
The members of Crazy Horse — Ralph Molina, Billy Talbot and NilsLofgren —recently released the new album All Roads Lead Home. Itfeatures each band member contributing three original songs, which they recorded separately during the pandemic. But just because they weren’t physically together doesn’t mean they weren’t working together on the final product.
“It was kind of a long-distance collaboration, but a collaboration nonetheless,” Lofgren tells ABC Audio. “We listened to a lot of songs. I’d give them advice … and vice versa.”
He noted they “stayed in it with each other, but we worked in our own home environment and kind of carried it to an ending where we all picked our favorite three and came up with this great compilation.”
In addition to the three songs from each band member, Neil Young contributes the live bonus track “Song of the Seasons,” which originally appeared on the album Barn, also featuring Crazy Horse. Young also played a big role in the trio’s decision to change up their plans to make All Roads Lead Home a double album.
“Ralphie asked Neil to give us a bonus track and Neil said, ‘Yeah, I can do that. But instead of a double album, why don’t you pick your best songs, take my bonus track and do a great 10-song vinyl, just keep it lean and mean,’” Lofgren explains. “And that’s what we wound up doing.”
Considering the album came out during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lofgren thinks the title, which Talbot came up with, is beautiful. He adds of the record, “This was another labor of love, and music that allowed us to do something to actually share.”
Randy Holmes/ABC via Getty Images, Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures
Reese Witherspoon and Tom Brady are not dating, say reps for the Morning Show actress and legendary quarterback.
Witherspoon’s rep tells Entertainment Tonight, the rumors are “completely false,” while Brady’s rep said the same to multiple outlets.
Reese, 47, took to Instagram on March 24, to share a joint statement from herself and ex-husband Jim Toth announcing their split, which came days before their 12th anniversary on March 26.
“We have some personal news to share,” the statement began. “It is with a great deal of care and consideration that we have made the difficult decision to divorce. We have enjoyed so many wonderful years together and are moving forward with deep love, kindness, and mutual respect for everything we have created together.”
“Our biggest priority is our son and our entire family as we navigate this next chapter,” the statement continued. “These matters are never easy and are extremely personal. We truly appreciate everyone’s respect for our family’s privacy at this time.”
Witherspoon and Toth married in 2011 and share 10-year-old son Tennessee.
Prior to Toth, Witherspoon was married to her Cruel Intentions co-star Ryan Phillippe from 1999 to 2008. She and Phillippe share two children, daughter Ava, 23, and son Deacon, 19.
Brady, meanwhile is focusing on his children — daughter, Vivian, 9, and son, Benjamin, 13 — who he shares ex-wife Gisele Bündchen. The couple finalized their divorce in 2022. Brady also shares 15-year-old son John with ex Bridget Moynahan.
(RALEIGH, N.C.) — North Carolina state Rep.Tricia Cotham announced Wednesday she is switching parties, giving Republicans the supermajority needed to override vetoes from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
The freshman state representative, who said she was “welcomed with open arms by my [new Republican] colleagues,” attributed the switch to Democrats’ restrictions on the votes she cast.
“It became very clear to me early on in January that you better vote in line with everything Governor Cooper tells you to do,” Cotham said. “From signing on to bills, to he wanted to pick your seat on the House floor, to your committee requests … I will not be controlled by anyone.”
Former Democratic consultant and current Duke University Prof. Pope “Mac” McCorkle says Cotham’s switch is poised to give Republicans the power they need to implement many aspects of their agenda.
“Her becoming a Republican means by literally a party-line vote, all the commissions can be changed, all of that,” McCorkle said. “So that’s where I think it’s real power.”
One of the largest issues impacting North Carolina state politics this year is state legislature redistricting — a process that started more than 18 months ago. Republicans are expected to present a new legislature map in the coming months.
McCorkle says Cotham’s flip will not impact the redistricting debates because the maps only need the approval of the legislature.
“The governor does not a have a veto, so [Republicans] will already be able to pass the maps they want,” McCorkle said.
Cotham’s unexpected move comes during a time of political tension in the hotly contested swing state, where both chambers of the General Assembly are Republican-controlled even as a Democrat holds the governorship.
“Things are so tight, even when the Republicans have a super majority they’re afraid of losing it,” McCorkle said. He went on later to say “Everything is just frought with this incredible tension. But this just goes beyond the pale that a liberal legislator has flipped.”
North Carolina Democratic Party Chairwoman Anderson Clayton called on Cotham to resign, according to ABC’s Raleigh affiliate.
Her seat in the 112th district covers the eastern Charlotte suburbs, an area that voted heavily for President Joe Biden in 2020.
Cotham has a liberal record on some major issues, including abortion rights and state assistance programs. But one issue where she may stray from her former Democratic colleagues is school choice. Recent social media posts show her support for parents opting to use vouchers and send their children to schools outside their public school district — a stance normally held by Republicans.
North Carolina House members serve two-year terms, meaning Cotham’s district will have its next election in November of 2024. There is no process for recalling lawmakers under North Carolina state law.
(RICHMOND, Texas) — A homeowner in Texas has threatened to sue Apple after he says a glitch in the “Find My iPhone” app made people think he’s stolen their iPhone and other products.
Scott Schuster took to Instagram on Sunday and claimed that people kept showing up to his Richmond, Texas, home, alleging that the app is pinging his home as the location of their devices.
“I have multiple videos of people very upset and accusing me of stealing their expensive devices,” he wrote.
He told ABC News Houston affiliate KTRK that people have shown up to his home, which he’s lived in since 2018, every few months for the last few years.
Schuster did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Schuster shared videos from his doorbell to KTRK of angry people showing up to his home accusing him of having their items, with one threatening to call the police on him.
“I tried to reach out to tech support already and they just closed my ticket,” he wrote on Instagram. Schuster also reached out to Steve Wozniak, a co-founder of Apple, asking for help in resolving the issue.
The “Find My” application is a program that allows Apple users to find their iPhones, AirPods, Apple Watches, MacBooks and other products using a geolocation feature.
Schuster claims that the feature is “clearly” broken in his area, resulting in multiple people showing up at his home in recent years.
In his Instagram post, he tagged Apple and said the company should “expect to receive a lawsuit” from him.
He provided proof to KTRK that he’s reached out to Apple Support many times since the beginning of 2022 and even filed a formal report, but he said nothing has been done to fix the issue.
“I don’t trust humans not to show up drunk and outraged in the middle of the night looking for their phone or AirPods (it has happened before),” he wrote on Instagram. “This creates dangerous scenarios and my house is in the crosshairs.”
Apple did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(UVALDE, Texas) — Students of the Uvalde Independent Consolidated School District staged a walkout on Wednesday to protest gun violence, acknowledging the 19 elementary school children and two teachers who were killed after the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, last May.
Uvalde students said they took inspiration from students in Nashville, Tennessee, who conducted a massive walkout on Monday related to The Covenant School shooting, which left three children and three faculty members dead. That walkout has led to days of peaceful protesting at the Tennessee state house.
Students gathered on the lawn inside the fences of the school, which were put up after the shooting and soon started making their way toward the perimeter.
Junior high students crawled underneath the locked gates to walk off school grounds and joined a march led by the high school students, who are taught on the same campus, to the Uvalde town square, the site of the memorial for the 21 victims of last year’s shooting.
“I’m very proud of my high school peers and everybody here. We saw junior high kids running down main street and that was the coolest thing ever to see the younger kids here helping us out with what we’re trying to protest,” Jackson Rhys Evans, a junior at Uvalde High School, told ABC News.
“I hope what we’re doing inspires other students to walk out of their schools to demand change as well,” Evans added.
Uvalde:365 is a continuing ABC News series focused on the Uvalde community and how it forges on in the shadow of tragedy.
Jazmin Cazares, sister to 9-year-old Jacklyn Cazares who was killed last May, said it’s bittersweet to see so many students come together to protest gun violence.
“I mean look at the crowd. How many kids have been affected by gun violence and this is just the tip of the iceberg,” Cazares told ABC News.
“These are the people most affected by gun violence. They’re getting killed in their schools, they’re bleeding to death on the floor of their classrooms,” she said. “This is bittersweet because none of these kids should be here, they should be in school but instead they have to be here protesting.”
“We’re tired,” a group of students said. “If we don’t talk, who else will?”
“I’m scared of dying every day. I’m scared,” yelled one student.
“We are afraid to go out anywhere. This is everything we think about,” said another, speaking through tears.
Ana Rodriguez, whose 10-year-old daughter Maite Rodriguez was killed in the Robb shooting, was there in support of students.
“It means a lot. Look at them–look at how many kids are out here,” Rodriguez told ABC News. “They’re scared for their lives, and they care about what happened here. That means a lot to me that we have so much support from our students.”
Adam Martinez, parent of a Robb Elementary survivor and a UCISD junior high student, and founder of Uvalde-based community improvement group KARAMA, told ABC News that he has no faith in the district’s ability to make decisions in the best interest of their students.
“I’m disgusted by it,” Martinez said. “I’ve never been impressed by their decisions. They’re reactionary, not proactive. I don’t have confidence in what they do at all. They’re incompetent.”
Democratic Texas State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde, has put forth several bills this session to enact gun reform, ranging from banning “kid killer” hollow bullets that expand on contact to establishing a permanent compensation fund for victims of school shootings, with little success among the super-majority Republican legislature.
“Children shouldn’t have to walk out of class so that adults can find the political will to do something to keep them safe,” Gutierrez told ABC News in a written statement. “Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in America. Our young kids are dying in schools nationwide because politicians refuse to change gun laws.”
An email from UCISD that went out on Tuesday read, “The administration has been made aware of a social media call for a walkout on Wednesday, April 5th at noon to draw attention to gun control safety. We intend to be sensitive to this issue and allow students to participate in a controlled walkout… Safety continues to be our top priority, and ensuring our students’ safety outside of our secured fenced area is challenging.”
The district did not respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
Linkin Park has announced an online Q&A session celebrating the upcoming 20th anniversary reissue of the band’s hit 2003 album, Meteora.
The livestream will premiere Monday, April 10, at 11 a.m. PT. You can tune in via the Linkin Park YouTube channel and Facebook page, and Mike Shinoda‘s Twitch channel.
The Meteora reissue will be released Friday, April 7. It includes a variety of previously unreleased material from the era, including the single “Lost,” featuring lead vocals by the late Chester Bennington.
“Lost” is currently the #1 single on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay and Alternative Airplay charts.
(BOSTON) — A Defense Department training exercise in Boston went wrong when federal personnel incorrectly detained a person in a hotel who was not a part of the exercise, according to an FBI spokesperson.
Around 10 p.m. Tuesday, FBI agents helped Department of Defense officials with a training exercise “to simulate a situation their personnel might encounter in a deployed environment,” the FBI said in a statement.
“Based on inaccurate information, they were mistakenly sent to the wrong room and detained an individual, not the intended role player,” the FBI said.
Nobody was injured, the FBI said.
The person who was incorrectly detained has not been identified.
“Safety is always a priority of the FBI, and our law enforcement partners, and we take these incidents very seriously,” the FBI added. “The Boston Division is reviewing the incident with DOD for further action as deemed appropriate.”
A Defense Department spokesman referred ABC News to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command public affairs office for information on the incident.
A spokesperson for U.S. Army Special Operations Command said members of the command were conducting “essential military training” with assistance from the FBI-Boston Division at the time.
“The training was meant to enhance soldiers’ skills to operate in realistic and unfamiliar environments. The training team, unfortunately, entered the wrong room and detained an individual unaffiliated with the exercise,” the spokesperson, Lt. Col. Mike Burns, said in a statement. “The Boston Police Department responded to the scene and confirmed that this was indeed a training exercise.”
Burns said they are reviewing this “serious incident” with their partners.
“First and foremost, we’d like to extend our deepest apologies to the individual who was affected by the training exercise,” Burns said. “The safety of civilians in vicinity of our training is always our number one concern.”
ABC News Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Around 40% of patients with long COVID have moderate to severe sleep issues, according to new analysis of patients treated at Cleveland Clinic’s ReCOver Clinic.
The report, published Tuesday in the journal of Internal Medicine, looked at the sleep patterns of 962 patients who had long COVID between February 2021 and April 2022.
More than half of the patients, 58%, reported normal to mild disturbances, while 41.3% indicated moderate to severe sleep disturbances.
Black patients were significantly more likely to have these disturbances, up to three times more than other races.
“Our findings not only emphasize the importance of identification of sleep disturbance in long COVID considering its impact on patients’ quality of life, daytime functioning and medical health status but they also draw the attention to the persistent inequities seen throughout the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Dr. Pena Orbea in a statement.
Additionally, more than two-thirds of patients, 67.2%, reported moderate to severe fatigue, while 21.8% reported severe fatigue.
“There is an unmet need to understand the neurobiological mechanisms or pathways behind the association of sleep disturbances with long COVID and, per our findings, investigate the reasons for the increased vulnerability of PASC-related sleep disturbance in the Black population so that we can develop race-specific interventions to overcome disparities,” Dr. Reena Mehra, M.D., director of Sleep Disorders Research at Cleveland Clinic and senior author of the report, said in a statement.
The authors also highlighted that people who had greater anxiety severity were at higher risk of having sleep disturbances.
“In our practice, there has been kind of an unequal access to long COVID care, where individuals with inadequate insurance don’t tend to get referred to us as often… a lot of that falls under the lines of minority races…we need to be prepared to make sure that all patients, especially the most vulnerable, due to minority status, and socioeconomic status, they have access to the right physicians to provide the best clinical care for their post COVID complications” said Panagis Galiatsatos, M.D., an assistant professor and physician in pulmonary and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
“Any patients seeking good care for their long COVID needs to go to a multidisciplinary clinical setting,” he added.
Alaa Diab, MD, an internal medicine resident at Greater Baltimore Medical Center and MPH candidate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.
