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Elsewhere
A U.S. appeals court has revived the child pornography lawsuit over a rock album cover. The cover in question is for the album "Nevermind" released by Nirvana in 1991. It depicts a baby swimming naked toward a dollar bill. Spencer Elden, who was that baby, initially sued the band and its label Universal Music Group in 2021, claiming the cover sexually exploited him and continues to cause personal harm. A Los Angeles judge dismissed the case last year due to Elden not suing within a ten-year limitations period after discovering the cover. But on Thursday, a U.S. appeals court reversed the decision, saying Elden could still sue based on Nirvana recently republishing the cover.
U2 is in the Christmas spirit. During a recent show at the Las Vegas Sphere, the band performed a cover of Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." Making the performance notable is that U2 had not played the song live in more than three decades. The last time U2 played the song in concert was on December 20th, 1987 in their final show of "The Joshua Tree" tour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI8zkWVuGWw
Taters the cat is the star of a livestream video that's way out of this world. NASA featured the orange tabby in its first-ever video streamed from deep space by way of a laser. The 15-second video, in which Taters is seen jumping around on cushions, was beamed from 19-million miles away on December 11th. It took just 101 seconds to reach the Earth. That's faster than most broadband internet connections on Earth. Taters, who is three years old, belongs to an employee of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cat-video-space-taters-nasa-laser/
Blink and you'll miss it, but a track on Metallica's latest album pays homage to the 1960s TV series "Batman". In an interview with Total Guitar, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett confirmed that the song "Shadows Follow" from this year's "72 Seasons" album includes part of the "Batman" opening theme. It first appears about four-and-a-half minutes into the song and repeats several times before the next vocals. Hammett said they called it "The Batman Riff" while they were in production.
It looks like New York City's Great White Way is finally rebounding from the COVID pandemic. The Broadway League reports attendance has risen to 83-percent of pre-COVID numbers with more than 12-million people seeing a Broadway show during the 2022-2023 season. Diversity numbers have hit a new high with 29-percent of attendees identifying as Black, indigenous or people of color. Only a third of theatergoers are from the New York City metro area with 17-percent from countries outside the U.S. The average age of Broadway attendees is forty, the youngest demographic in twenty years.
A rare mushroom has been spotted at a state park in Texas. Texas Parks and Wildlife shared photos of the fungus, which is known as the Texas star mushroom, growing at Inks Lake State Park in Burnet County. The mushroom usually appears in late fall as a fuzzy brown capsule and after rain, it unfurls into a star that makes a hissing noise while puffing smoke. This has earned it the nickname "devil's cigar." A research scientist at the Botanical Research Institute of Texas says only a few hundred people are likely to have ever seen the mushroom.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ultra-rare-hissing-mushroom-returns-to-texas