Kacey Musgraves is facing backlash from some fans after she showed support for immigrant families during a birthday performance.

The Grammy-winning country singer celebrated her 38th birthday on Friday by marking the opening night of her Middle of Nowhere tour in Chicago. At one point during the performance, she paused the show and urged the audience to donate to the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights as her “birthday wish.”

“It’s a wonderful organization, and they help give aid — legal aid — and money to children whose parents have been deported unfairly,” Musgraves said on stage. “It’s not a political thing. It’s just, these kids need help.”

She continued: “They have no guidance and no way to get through this thing without their home base or their parents. So anyway, 50 cents, whatever the hell, I don't know, whatever you want to do, but that would mean a lot to me. If you don't want to, that's totally fine too.”

The plea was met with applause and cheers from her crowd at the United Center. However, once videos of the moment started circulating online, conservative political commentators were quick to unleash their wrath on the “Follow Your Arrow” singer.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/51582749

The families of US soldiers who have died in the US-Israeli war against Iran are battling to ensure they receive appropriate pay and benefits for their loved ones.

Libby Klinner, a widow, wrote on social media that the US air force had deemed her ineligible for additional benefits following the death of Major Alex Klinner, her 33-year-old husband, because Congress had not officially declared war.

He was one of six crew members of a KC-135 refuelling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq in March while supporting US strikes against Iran.

Sump pumps are one of the most boring parts of home ownership. Until that one storm comes and suddenly they're interesting.

After losing power one time this summer, I got paranoid and decided to build a battery backup. Home Depot had the basement watchdog systems, but they seemed high maintenance and I wanted something that would let me be lazier. I went with a LifePo4 battery system, that will (hopefully) get me 10 to 15 years. The battery charger has a float/storage mode so it can stay on 24/7. Doing some test runs, I think I can get about 400 cycles out of the battery before it hits 0%. I added some additional safety features (DC circuit breaker, GFCI with auto-on, Lithium fire extinguiser, etc), and added some battery powered lights and a basket of hand tools, so in the event the power goes out in the dead of night, something goes wrong, and I have to get my feet wet, everything is there ready to go.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/shit/p/1382656/economy-so-bad-movies-can-t-afford-colors-anymore

Isar Aerospace's Spectrum rocket made history today (Sept. 5), becoming the first vehicle ever to reach orbit from European soil.

Trump wants to relabel New Mexico as New America days after changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake Ameria

Donald Trump has already changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario, and now he’s targeting a US state for a rebrand.

Trump is spending the holiday weekend dreaming up his next demand to relabel America’s geography. He posted a map on Truth Social Sunday afternoon of New Mexico, but the word Mexico was crossed out and replaced with America.

Relabeling the southwestern state on the U.S.-Mexico border as New America is reminiscent of an executive order he signed early in his second term, in which he changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

A Trump-appointed judge also said Americans have no “constitutional right to truthful information” during a public health crisis.

On Friday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit against the city of Jackson, Mississippi, which alleged the city knowingly let residents drink lead-contaminated water.

The lawsuit, first filed in 2022, says the contamination violated Jacksonians’ constitutional right to bodily integrity. Donald Trump-appointed judge Kurt Engelhardt disagreed. “The Constitution does not provide redress for every governmental wrongdoing,” Engelhardt said.

“Defendants’ actions allegedly deprived Plaintiffs of clean water and guileless information. These deprivations, while grievous, do not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/51580591

An investigation by Gamers Nexus found LG smart TVs sweep local networks to map phones and nearby devices. Tests also showed the sets can capture microphone audio with the screen off — they then upload data once reconnected to the internet.

cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/historyphotos/p/1150640/1989-actor-and-martial-arts-star-jackie-chan-at-the-benefit-concert-in-hong-kong-in-support

Sadly Jackie has betrayed the people of Hong Kong. In 2009 he stated "I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not.". He also said he was "beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled."