Free Republic

Nearly fifty years after it was written, “Free Bird” is still the signature concert closer for the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, whose final farewell tour wraps up in October in Manchester, Tennessee. Founding members Ronnie Van Zant and Allen Collins wrote the song in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1970, and it wasn’t long before “Free Bird” and its extended guitar solo near the end became one of the band’s most well-known tunes and a live-show favorite.

NEW YORK - Between the Sex Pistols and Ozzy Osbourne, there's an air of malice associated with this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class. Blondie is doing its part, too. The band being inducted Monday includes two members, Nigel Harrison and Frank Infante, who unsuccessfully sued their former colleagues for being left out when Blondie reformed in 1999. Deborah Harry's voice turns hard when she's asked if the two men will be invited to perform again with Blondie for old time's sake at the Waldorf-Astoria ceremony. Even the Police and Talking Heads managed to set aside bad feelings...

NORWALK, Conn. -- An employee of the town clerk's office has filed suit saying she has severe allergies to perfumes and other chemicals and city officials have done little to limit her exposure. Linda Gorman, who joined the staff in October 1995, began having problems in March 2002, when Town Clerk Andrew Garfunkel hired a temporary staffer whose perfume made Gorman ill. Garfunkel circulated a memo asking workers not to wear perfumes or colognes. He later amended the policy to state that scented materials, such as body lotions and detergents, could be used in moderation as long as they could...

PARIS (AFP) - Uranus has puzzled scientists ever since the probe Voyager 2 did a flyby in 1986 and found that its magnetic field appeared to break the planetary rulebook. The evidence from Earth, Jupiter and Saturn determined that a planet's magnetic field should be like that of a bar magnet, with a north and south pole that runs roughly along the sphere's rotational axis. But Uranus -- and Neptune, too, Voyager found -- are radically different. Their magnetic fields are tipped over (the north-to-south line lies midway to the equator or even closer) and there are two north and...