Free Republic

[…]Singing gay love songs once killed the careers of artists like Patrick Haggerty, whose band Lavender Country in 1973 released what's widely considered the first country album recorded by an out gay performer. Even artists who came out decades later, like k.d. lang and Chely Wright, said their careers stalled after they made their sexuality public.Now, out queer people are some of the most celebrated country stars. Brandi Carlile and Lil Nas X are Grammy winners. T.J. Osborne, one half of the Brothers Osbourne, came out last year, the first out gay artist signed to a major country label. Trixie...

Neil Young, an outspoken advocate for Covid-19 safety and prevention, doesn't want his music to share a home with vaccine misinformation. In a now-deleted post on his website, Young asked his managers and record label to remove his music from Spotify because he said the music and podcast platform is "spreading fake information about vaccines -- potentially causing death to those who believe this disinformation spread by them." (Rolling Stone originally reported the text of the deleted post.) "I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform," the 76-year-old said in...

The Boknis Eck Observatory might've been "forcibly removed" from a bay in Germany, the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel said. Data transmission from the underwater sensors suddenly cut out one night in August, GEOMAR said. When divers went to investigate at the observatory site, they found nothing but a shredded cable that once anchored it. The observatory, planted in Kiel's Eckernförde Bay in 2016, consists of two "desk-sized" racks: One acts as a power source, tethered to the coast by a cable, and the other contains the sensors that transmit data back to shore. Both were missing...