Country music singer Luke Combs apologized for appearing publicly with Confederate flags several years ago. From the story: >>Country star Luke Combs has apologized for appearing with Confederate flags, saying he is now aware of how painful that flag is. Combs addressed the images during a conversation with singer Maren Morris on Wednesday during a panel for radio broadcasters about accountability in country music. It came weeks after another top country star Morgan Wallen was removed from radio stations and suspended by his label after being caught on video using a racial slur. >>Panel moderator and NPR music critic Ann Powers asked Combs about those images during a Q&A for the Country Radio Seminar, an annual country radio broadcasters conference, that was held online this year. >>“There's no excuse for those images,” said Combs, a 30-year-old North Carolina singer-songwriter who has had two multiplatinum albums and several hit country songs. >>Combs said the images were from seven or eight years ago and as a younger man, he did not understand what that flag meant. >>"And as I have grown in my time as an artist and as the world has changed drastically in the last five to seven years, I am now aware of how painful that image can be to someone else," Combs said. “I would never want to be associated with something that brings so much hurt to someone else.”