While Sammy Davis Jr. loved Suntory, and Peter Lawford adored a gin martini, every member of the Rat Pack seemed to come together for their favorite cocktail.
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Day: May 11, 2026
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JYT has released the new single “No Pressure,” following a fan vote that helped select the track. The song was released May 8, 2026, alongside an in-studio performance video featuring the five members, Caden, Tyler, Bryan, Recker, and Toby. The boyband, whose name stands for Just Your Type, is releasing the track five months after launching publicly.
“No Pressure” was produced by Oak Felder, whose credits include Usher and Kehlani, and Freddy Wexler, who has worked with Justin Bieber and BLACKPINK. In a statement, JYT said the song “feels like the first song where we really tapped into exactly who we are,” adding that the group had fun making the track, particularly with its choreography and performance elements.
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The performance video places the group in a studio setting and centers the choreography built around the single. Nick DeMoura, who worked with Julian Chinchilla on the performance, said “No Pressure” felt like “a real arrival moment for JYT,” adding that the choreography needed to match the record’s confidence. Wexler, who also manages and produces the band, said each new JYT release has shown the group’s development.
In December 2025, JYT signed with Republic Records and Wexler before releasing its debut single, “What U Want.” The December 2025 track received attention from Billboard, Entertainment Tonight, and Music Business Worldwide, and it was added to Sirius Hitbound. Since launching, JYT has built a combined online following of more than 750,000 followers.
Listen to JYT’s “No Pressure” here.
Discover more about the world’s greatest R&B artists | uDiscover Music
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Tank and the Bangas have shared a new song, “Nighttime,” from their upcoming album The Last Balloon. The album is set for release May 15 via Verve Forecast, with “Nighttime” featuring David Shaw and Austin Brown.
Tarriona “Tank” Ball described “Nighttime” as “my spacey, reflective record” made with Brown and Shaw. She said the song is about the thoughts and feelings that surface after dark, and noted that the track includes a Kindred the Family Soul sample. Ball also said the appearance from her younger brother makes the song “even more personal.” “Nighttime” follows the previously released The Last Balloon songs “No Invite” and “Move,” the latter of which features Lucky Daye.
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The Last Balloon closes the album trilogy that began with Green Balloon in 2019 and continued with Red Balloon in 2022. Ball said the new title was chosen because she did not want listeners asking when a “Purple Balloon” project would arrive. “It’s the end of the balloons; we’re moving into a new space now,” she said. The album was executive produced by Austin Brown and recorded primarily at The Complex Studios in Los Angeles. Its collaborators include Iman Omari, Tane Runo, Ledisi, and Jelly Joseph.
In 2017, the New Orleans-based band rose to prominence after winning the NPR Music Tiny Desk Contest. Just a few years later, Green Balloon earned the group a Best New Artist nomination at the Grammy Awards. In 2023, Red Balloon received a Grammy nomination for Best Progressive R&B Album. Later this year, Tank and the Bangas have tour dates scheduled in New York City, Boston, Detroit, Washington, D.C., and other cities, with additional performances planned through November.
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Mary Peltola speaks to a crowd of supporters for her candidacy for U.S. Senate at a campaign kick off event in Juneau on Jan. 23, 2026 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
The leading challenger to Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan is proposing to eliminate income taxes for Alaskans earning less than $92,000 per year, the state’s median household income.
Democratic candidate Mary Peltola introduced the idea Monday as part of a newly expanded platform of campaign ideas.
Among some of the other ideas: a federally subsidized “Essential Freight Service” for air cargo to small communities, a renewal of the federal Expanded Child Tax Credit, tax credits for renters and child care facilities, and price controls and limits on corporate mergers.
There are relatively few seats in the U.S. Senate that could be won by either a Republican or a Democrat this year. In a recent analysis, NPR dubbed Alaska’s seat the “majority maker.” National Democrats are hoping that Peltola can beat Sullivan and help them take control of the Senate, which currently has a 54-46 Republican edge.
To that end, they’ve donated millions of dollars to her campaign.
Meanwhile, Sullivan has continued to strengthen a network of connections within the state. He’s already received endorsements from the United Fishermen of Alaska — the state’s largest commercial fishing organization — and last week was endorsed by the ANCSA Regional Association, a group representing the state’s largest Alaska Native corporations.
Both groups represent constituencies that have previously favored Peltola.
Statewide opinion polls have found economic issues are at the top of Alaskans’ minds, and many Alaskans have an extraordinarily pessimistic view of the state’s financial health and their own financial situation.
Many residents believe that any economic improvements won’t trickle down to them, said Matt Larkin, a leading pollster, in a recent interview.
That’s the environment in which Peltola is launching her new economic campaign.
“Affordability — it’s on everyone’s mind,” she said in an interview ahead of the launch.
Peltola, who lives part of the year in rural Alaska, said she believes the high cost of heating fuel and stove fuel has created a crisis.
“I feel like we’re in a dire situation that I have never experienced,” she said, explaining that her monthly fuel bill now exceeds her mortgage.
During a recent visit to St. Mary’s, on the Yukon River in southwest Alaska, she talked to people who are currently paying $10 per gallon for fuel. They’re expecting prices to go up by 40-50%, she said.
If they can’t afford fuel, “that means there’s no electricity, there’s no heat, there’s no gas for hunting and fishing. This is dire. And I, you know, I just think we’ve got to get really serious about how to bring down prices for everyday Alaskans, for everyday households.”
Peltola drew a direct line between the American war on Iran and those high prices. Sullivan has been a staunch supporter of the war. Peltola believes Congress needs to intervene, though she stopped short of outright opposing it.
“There is a need for the War Powers Act. I do not believe that any President should be making these kinds of substantive decisions unilaterally,” she said.
Peltola’s call for an “Essential Freight Service” mirrors her support for Bypass Mail and the Essential Air Service, two existing subsidy programs that support flights to rural Alaska and other parts of rural America.
She said the exact scope of the freight program still needs to be worked out. Alaska is essentially “six states within a state,” and “and every single region is so unique, and I think it would have to be unique approaches in every region and every community.”
Monday’s announcement is the second significant policy launch by Peltola since she announced in January that she would challenge Sullivan for Senate.
In late March, she announced her support for Congressional term limits, a ban on stock trading by members of Congress and her support for a Constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court case known as Citizens United.
That case allows third-party groups to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns as long as they do not coordinate with candidates.
Speaking Friday, Peltola said anti-corruption and affordability are complementary issues.
“I think we’re all going to be looking at where the price gouging is and where we can halt corporate greed and inflation,” she said.
The United States is spending billions of dollars to secure access to critical minerals – minerals and metals that are essential to modern technology, from electric vehicles to smartphones and military systems.
But amid the push to dig more, one question gets far too little attention: Who will actually process what comes out of the ground?
Between mining and the finished product lies a complex chain of separation, refining and advanced manufacturing. Since the 1990s, however, the United States has lost much of its critical mineral processing capacity.
Rebuilding domestic mineral supply chains will depend not only on resource availability and funding, but also on whether the U.S. can rebuild the technical expertise and industrial systems required to process those materials on a large scale.
How America lost its lead
The United States was a global leader in rare earth minerals from 1965 through the mid-1980s. It produced about 15,000 metric tons a year, about three times the amount produced by the rest of the world.
The Mountain Pass mine in California supplied the majority of the world’s rare earth elements used in electronics and the defense industry. American metallurgists, chemical engineers and processing facilities had significant expertise in its production and processing.
However, environmental damage, including wastewater pipeline leaks that released radioactive wastewater into the Mojave Desert during the 1980s and 1990s, and tightening regulations increased operating costs in the United States. During that period, much of the world’s manufacturing base for rare earth elements shifted to China, where labor costs were lower and environmental regulations were less stringent.
As production grew abroad, U.S. production of rare earth elements fell sharply – to near zero by the early 2000s, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
In recent years, as much as 90% of the rare earth minerals extracted in the United States and allied countries have been shipped to China for processing. In 2024, the U.S. relied on imports for about 80% of its rare earth compounds and metals.
Why bringing processing back is not simple
The U.S. government is now pushing to increase domestic critical minerals production, citing national security. But building a processing facility is not like opening a warehouse.
These facilities require years of permitting, highly specialized equipment and a workforce trained in metallurgy, chemical engineering and industrial systems operation. The time from investment decision to production can stretch across a decade.
The U.S. currently has two domestic rare earth mining locations. One is in southeast Georgia, which extracts rare earth elements as a byproduct of heavy mineral sand mining. The other is Mountain Pass, which produces bastnaesite, a rare earth carbonate mineral. The mines produced about 51,000 metric tons of rare earth mineral concentrates in 2025, while the U.S. imported about 21,000 metric tons of rare earth compounds, most of them from China, according to 2025 U.S. Geological Survey data.
The U.S. has also lost expertise. Mining and mineral engineering education programs now produce only a few hundred graduates per year, well below the levels of past decades. The number of accredited programs has declined since the 1980s. Many faculty members are nearing retirement.
Industry projections estimate that the mining workforce will need to grow significantly in the coming years to meet rising demand. Specialized skills in areas such as rare earth separation, metallurgical testing and environmental systems design require years of training and practical experience. And while mining can produce high-paying jobs, the industry also has a reputation for environmental damage and hazardous conditions.
Environmental compliance is part of the skill set
Processing critical minerals is a dirty industry. That fact has made it more difficult for processing and refining companies to operate in the U.S.
For example, separating rare earth elements typically involves chemical processing with acids and solvents. When waste streams are poorly managed, these processes can produce toxic wastewater and air pollution and contribute to soil erosion. In parts of China where rare earth production expanded rapidly in the 1990s and 2000s, contamination from mining and processing has polluted rivers and damaged nearby farmland, and the wastewater can seep into soil and groundwater.
In the U.S., modern facilities must meet strict federal and state standards for air quality, water discharge and waste management that raise the cost of processing. These regulations were developed in response to environmental disasters, like the Cuyahoga River fire of 1969, when industrial oil and waste on the river burned, and hazardous waste crises like the Love Canal disaster that led to landmark environmental laws.
Operating a refinery or separation facility in compliance with regulatory standards today requires expertise in pollution control, waste treatment and sustainable process design. That requires a workforce skilled in materials science and engineering and with knowledge of environmental systems. Without environmental expertise, operational risks, regulatory challenges and project delays can increase, affecting long-term viability.
How to build a US supply chain
Rebuilding U.S. supply chains will require more than expanding extraction.
Canada’s critical minerals strategy offers an example. It connects mining projects to battery and electric vehicle manufacturing by funding processing facilities, developing regional supply chain hubs and investing in workforce training programs tied to those industries.
Australia has combined critical minerals policies with incentives and public financing to encourage domestic mineral processing, while also expanding university and vocational training in mining, metallurgy and mineral processing.
The United States has many of the key ingredients needed to rebuild its processing capacity, including research universities and workers with transferable industrial skills. Land-grant and technical universities could expand programs that integrate mining, materials science, environmental restoration and recycling. In regions such as Appalachia, where coal’s decline has left workers with skills but few job opportunities, retraining programs for new mineral recovery jobs could help people transition to a new industry.
A few federal programs support parts of this transition, including research hubs that develop new extraction and processing technologies, apprenticeship initiatives and university-industry partnerships. However, these efforts are spread across multiple agencies, with limited coordination to align priorities and investment.
The real bottleneck
America’s critical minerals strategy is often discussed in terms of geology and geopolitics – where resources are located and who has access to them.
But supply chains depend on people and systems. That’s America’s real bottleneck in creating a domestic supply chain.
A successful domestic supply chain will require workers who know how to separate neodymium from praseodymium, operate solvent extraction circuits and maintain hydrometallurgical plants within regulatory standards. These are highly specialized skills that take years to develop.
The United States has significant mineral resources and growing policy support. Now, it needs to pay attention to the workforce and industrial capacity needed to transform those resources into usable materials.
This gap developed over decades. Addressing it will likely require sustained investment alongside broader mineral policy changes such as permitting reforms and investment in domestic processing facilities.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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