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Month: August 2026
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On Aug. 27, 2026, President Donald Trump issued an executive order renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America,” claiming his administration had already “notified all of the various people you have to notify.”
The name change, which Ontario Premier Doug Ford had dismissed as rhetoric when it was first suggested, comes amid an escalating trade war with Canada.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Trump has renamed a location. In 2025 he issued an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and return Alaska’s Denali, the tallest peak in the country, to being called Mount McKinley.
While for some such renaming might seem less important than the big problems the country faces, there is a formal process in the United States for renaming places, and that process is taken seriously.
Usually, so people don’t get confused, the government uses official, agreed-upon names. In the U.S., place names are standardized by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which is part of the U.S. Geological Survey, the agency in charge of making maps.
In his previous executive order, Trump asked the Board on Geographic Names “to honor the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans” and change its policies and procedures to reflect that.
Usually, renaming a place starts locally. The people in the state or county propose a name change and gather support. The process in each state is different.
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How to change a place name
In 2018, Minnesota changed the name of a large lake in Minneapolis to Bde Maka Ska, which the Minneapolis Park Board described as “a Dakota name for the lake that has been passed down in oral history for many years.”
The board voted to change the name and took its request to the county commissioners. When the county agreed, the request was then sent to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, which made it official for Minnesota. Then, the state of Minnesota sent the request to the Board on Geographic Names, which made it official for the entire U.S.
It’s a lot of paperwork for something so seemingly minor, but people get passionate about place names. It took 40 years to rename Denali from the name established in the late 19th century, Mount McKinley.
The state of Alaska requested the name change in 1975, but the Board on Geographic Names didn’t take action. Members of the Ohio congressional delegation – President William McKinley was from Ohio – objected over many years to requests to rename the mountain, and the board did not act on those requests.
The president appoints the secretary of the Interior Department. The secretary works with the heads of related agencies to appoint the Board on Geographic Names. Committee policy states, “Input from State geographic names authorities, land management agencies, local governments, and Tribal Governments are actively pursued.”
In 2015, President Barack Obama named a new leader for the Department of the Interior, Sally Jewell. Just as Obama made a trip to Alaska in late August 2015, Jewell declared the name change official under a law that allows the secretary of the Interior to change a name if the board doesn’t act on the proposal in a “reasonable” amount of time.
“This name change recognizes the sacred status of Denali to many Alaska Natives,” Jewell said. “The name Denali has been official for use by the State of Alaska since 1975, but even more importantly, the mountain has been known as Denali for generations. With our own sense of reverence for this place, we are officially renaming the mountain Denali in recognition of the traditions of Alaska Natives and the strong support of the people of Alaska.”
If someone objects to a name change, they could ask the courts to rule on whether the name change was made legally. Going back to Bde Maka Ska, some people objected to changing the name from Lake Calhoun, so they took the state natural resources agency to court. Eventually, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that the name change was done correctly.
How not to change a place name
Renaming the Gulf of Mexico is a different kind of case, however, from renaming a geographic place within U.S. borders.
The gulf is not within the territorial United States. On the coast, the first 12 miles from shore are considered part of that country, but outside of that is international waters.
Though the Board on Geographic Names has changed the name to Gulf of America on official U.S. maps, and even if it approves the name change of Lake Ontario, there is no international board in charge of place names. Each country decides what to call places. And there is no official way for the U.S. to make other countries change the names on their maps. It’s possible, however, that the U.S. could formally ask other countries to change a name or even impose sanctions against countries that don’t comply.
Now that the names have been changed in the U.S., the government uses them in official documents, signage and maps. As for all the people and companies in the world that make maps, they usually use the official names.
Today, widely used online maps, including Google Maps, vary the display of place names based on the location from which you are viewing the map. If you view Google Maps from the U.S., you will see the name Gulf of America displayed; from Mexico, you will see the more traditional Gulf of Mexico.
Google and other mapping companies also do this with disputed borders. In fact, you can manually adjust your settings to show the map as if you were viewing it from another country.
This is an updated version of a story that was first published on Jan. 24, 2025.
Innisfree McKinnon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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![<a href="https://countrynow.com/zach-john-king-gets-personal-on-debut-album-i-hope-people-take-it-and-run-with-it-exclusive/" target="_blank">Zach John King Gets Personal on Debut Album: ‘I Hope People Take It and Run With It’ [Exclusive]</a>](https://countrynow.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Untitled-design-46-683x1024.jpg)
Zach John King didn’t set out to make his debut album all at once. Instead, I’m What You Get gradually took shape as he continued to write songs along the way. After narrowing down his countless writes to just 20 tracks, the rising country star was left with a body of work that serves as an honest introduction to the person behind the music as he draws from personal stories about family, sacrifice and everything in between.
His first full-length project is available today, August 28 and he tells Country Now he is “pumped” to finally see his hard work out in the world.
“I hope people take it and run with it. I mean, it’s theirs. Once it’s out, it’s theirs. It’s not mine anymore,” he admitted.
For King, the album only truly started to feel real toward the end of the recording process. He knew there was no guarantee he would love the finished product, which made the moment he and his team finally listened back and realized they were proud of what they had created feel especially rewarding.
“By the end of the process, there was this really cool moment where we started to see it coming into the picture and see it building. And then to actually, at the end of that process, be proud of it was a whole other thing because there’s not a guarantee that you like it once you finish it. So for us to get it done and then look back and go, ‘Man, I’m really stoked on this,’ was awesome. I’m very, very thankful for that.”
The Georgia native co-produced the album alongside Ryan Wilson. Together, they shaped a collection that taps into his upbringing, his experiences navigating love and heartbreak, lessons learned along the way and his desire to stay connected to his roots as his career continues to grow. Across the 20 tracks, he blends classic country influences with touches of indie rock to create a sound all his own.
King knows that fans have been anticipating his debut album for a long time so he wanted to make sure that when the moment came, he gave them something that was well worth the wait. His main goal was to paint a very intentional picture about who he was without having any tracks that he considered to be “skips or filler” on the record.
“We wanted it to be a lot of songs for people to dig into, but then picking them was fairly easy for me because I think not only did we not have a ton to choose from in the sense of it’s so many songs, and we really picked a lot from the bundle or pile that I’d written, but then as we sorted through, we found ourselves seeing that it was a perfect fit from the jump,” he explained. “So there were songs on there that we kind of all knew, as a team, were the ones. There were songs that we were waiting on the album to get closer to being done before we decided, and then it just fell into place.”
The title of the entire project also came to him naturally while tracking the song “I’m What You Get,” which he had penned about two years prior. King quickly felt that this was going to be one of his favorites off the record and when he got into the studio and heard the fiddle and banjo added to the end of the recording, he was instantly drawn back to his bluegrass roots. In that moment, something told him that was the right choice for the title.
“Halfway through finishing the song in studio, I turned to my producer, Ryan, and I was like, ‘This is the title track.’ And I just knew it was. And so I think that was the moment for me that it just felt exactly the song that was going to put a face to this album and make people look into it and go, ‘Okay, I know what this is about from the very beginning.’ And that’s why we put it song one as well.”
While every track on the album can easily be considered a standout, there are a few that really raise their hand. Of course, there’s King’s current radio single, “Get To Drinkin’,” which is in the Top 15 and rising, but there are also a few collaborations that deserve to be mentioned. He came together with Bayker Blankenship on “Life Behind Bars,” Brent Cobb on “Choppin’ Wood” and Brooks & Dunn on “Way To Go,” an especially impressive addition to a debut album.
When asked how he feels about having such an iconic duo on his project, King simply said “Insane. Absolutely insane.” Much like the rest of the project, the collaboration with Brooks & Dunn also came together organically. After getting to know the duo through time spent together offstage and on the road, he eventually felt comfortable asking them to join him on the song.
“We had coffee here at the office in December and just hung out for an hour. And I asked them a bunch of questions and got a bunch of great advice and we became buddies at that point. Then we went out on the road together on the Morgan [Wallen] tour and developed a relationship there. I opened a show for them in Nevada. And then by that point, we felt comfortable enough to at least bring the song to them and it not feel like a reach, even though they could say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ It’s up to them entirely.”
He continued, “We didn’t even write it as a duet. And I think that’s kind of what’s special about this feature is it wasn’t a song that we wrote to get the feature to get the numbers type thing. It was a song that I love…I grew up listening to them, and so I pulled a lot of their influences.”
Beyond simply introducing himself to listeners throughout these songs, King hopes I’m What You Get gives fans the opportunity to find pieces of themselves within his stories. He believes that the more personal and specific he gets in his songwriting, the more room there is for listeners to connect with the songs on their own level.
“I would love for people, if they listen top down to this album, to really understand who I am in a different way than they have. And then in doing that, start to put themselves in these songs just like me…I think a lot of my fans will, if not most of them, will see themselves in so many of these stories. I think it’s going to be a really cool shared experience,” he explained.
Sitting near the top is previous release, “How To Not” which offers another deeply personal glimpse into King’s life, particularly his relationship with his late father. The song was written and recorded before his father’s passing, and he was able to hear it while he was still alive. Following his recent death, King and his team decided to release “How To Not” instead of the relationship-focused song they had originally planned, feeling it was a more genuine reflection of what he was experiencing.
King recalled his dad’s reaction to the lyric “I’ll always be my father’s son,” saying he could see how much the line meant to him. Since its release, “How To Not” has gone on to become King’s biggest first-week streaming debut and one of his favorite songs to perform live.
“It’s just unashamedly telling people, as hard as I even try to be somebody different, I can’t be anybody but me. And I got so much of that from him…he passed and we had another song slated for a release. And I got with the team and we just all kind of collectively felt like it was just a weird pivot,” King admitted. “I just felt like that was not a very genuine thing for me to my fans. I shared that he passed and I let them into that process and I felt a little bit, I don’t know, a little bit weird about pivoting and promoting a breakup song right after. So It felt a lot better about this.”
That same vulnerability is especially evident on the album’s closing track, “What I’m Giving Up,” which finds King reflecting on the sacrifices that come with pursuing a career in music and the question he continues to ask himself as his career grows: “I wonder if what I’m chasing now is worth what I’m giving up?”
“I love the idea of ending a project on a question. I feel like it’s a really cool way to let people chew on something longer than just the duration of the album. And for me, that’s just as honest as it gets. I’ve been asking that question, is all this worth what I’m sacrificing for a long time and even more now. I think it’s like as you get farther into this job, you realize how great it is, but you also realize just how much you’re missing. I just felt like it was a perfect way to end it because if you’re going to get to know me at the very end of this, I hope that you understand the weight behind all of it.”
Along with his upcoming appearance at Country Splash and tour dates with Riley Green, Luke Bryan and more in 2026, Zach John King is also preparing to launch his own “Get To Drinkin’ Tour” on October 1 in Indianapolis. These shows will give him the opportunity to connect with fans in a way he hasn’t been able to while opening for other artists.
“I’m so excited. I think me and my band and my team, we’re just so stoked to actually start to play these shows for my people. And I think I would tell anybody that’s coming, just I hope you walk in feeling like you’re a part of the family, and I hope that’s just encouraged by the show. I just want this to feel like a day one start to a really cool long relationship with my fans…I’m so excited and I’m really thankful that the tickets are being sold.”
The post Zach John King Gets Personal on Debut Album: ‘I Hope People Take It and Run With It’ [Exclusive] appeared first on Country Now.
Country Now
Tim McGraw suffered a fall during his concert at Cincinnati’s Riverbend Music Center on August 27, but he didn’t let it slow him down.
The country superstar was in the middle of performing his signature hit “I Like It, I Love It” when he stepped onto a small platform at the front of the stage to get a little closer to the crowd. He made it through the first chorus with fans singing along before moving over to another, slightly elevated portion of the stage. As McGraw stepped backwards, the heel of his boot appeared to catch on a hole in the stage, sending him falling backward onto the ground.
But being the professional artist that he is, Tim McGraw quickly bounced back to his feet with a smile on his face. He walked back over to the flaw in the stage and joked with the crowd, “There’s a hole there.” He appeared unfazed by the fall and immediately continued singing as if nothing had happened.
McGraw eventually made his way back toward another platform, this time carefully checking the area first to make sure there were no more “holes” waiting for him. He then finished out the performance without missing a beat while the audience sang every word along with him.
It’s not the first time McGraw has taken a tumble on stage, and it likely won’t be the last. As any seasoned performer knows, unfortunate moments like this are bound to happen from time to time, but McGraw handled it like a pro. He quickly dusted himself off, laughed it off, and kept the show moving because as they say, “the show must go on.”
Videos capturing the mishap have already circulated the internet, with many praising his ability to get right back up while others expressed concern and hoped that he wasn’t injured as a result of the fall.
McGraw has yet to comment on the on-stage incident.
Last night’s performance in Cincinnati marked another stop on the Louisiana native’s 2026 Pawn Shop Guitar Tour. The trek launched in July and is set to continue this weekend with a show at the Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan tonight (Aug. 28), followed by a trip to Grand Rapids, MI on August 29.
He is joined by special guests The Chicks, Lady A, 49 Winchester and Timothy Wayne on select dates.
The tour will run through September 26, and once it’s officially wrapped, McGraw will bring his show to Las Vegas for a residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, taking place from October 23 through November 7, 2026.
The post WATCH: Tim McGraw Suffers Onstage Fall During ‘I Like It, I Love It’ Performance in Cincinnati appeared first on Country Now.
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Britney Spears knows how much she lost during the unjust conservatorship that controlled her life.
But she’s not sure if fans are fully aware.
In a new post, Britney reflected upon the “real damage that was done to my heart and soul.”
As she heals and plans for the future, she cannot forget her past.
‘The real damage that was done to my heart and soul in the conservatorship’
On Thursday, August 27, Britney Spears took to her Instagram page to share a video of herself modeling a flashy, skimpy bikini outfit.
In her caption, she shared an emotional deep dive.
“I actually miss the way I respected people so much,” Britney began.
She recalled feeling “that there was a genuine mystery of acute oneness when we were together, which was sacred.”
Britney wrote: “I feel like, still to this day, people don’t realize the real damage that was done to my heart and soul in the conservatorship.”
She reflected: “But it’s bizarre. I was painfully shy, but I got to be someone different on stage.”
(This is not uncommon among performers. The act of performance can be therapeutic.)
“After having kids, though, I think that game was beyond overdone,” Britney expressed.
“I felt so silly and embarrassed,” she admitted. “I think it’s easier when you’re younger to go there.”
Growing older, having a changing body, and having new priorities can make performing, stripping down, and more become challenging tasks on a mental and emotional level.
‘I’ve been single for so long’
“Anyways, this video is actually crazy ’cause it’s identical to the ‘Gimme More’ video,” Britney Spears wrote.
“But,” she explained, “done with a version of me with 6-year-old legs and looking way younger. Crazy.”
Britney spent years performing or rehearsing almost daily. It is normal and natural for her to have lower muscle tone now, and we think that she is being uncharitable towards herself.
“I’ve been single for so long,” she reflected. “And I haven’t really shown my body except one time in my green bathing suit.”
Britney stated bluntly: “You can see here I’m actually extremely short. For some reason in paparazzi pics and in my living room, I seem to have very long legs. Maybe an illusion…”
“The front of my house is the show stage!!!!!” Britney said, perhaps jokingly. “Yet backstage I look quite a bit different.”
She recalled: “I remember when I first came to LA, I always felt like the youngest and shortest person in the room.”
Britney wrote about meeting Shakira, and feeling like they were similar. This would have been around 2001.
“I finally felt normal,” she wrote.
What was done to Britney during her conservatorship is probably not something that she can ever fully recover from. She cannot get those years back. She cannot undo institutionalization or involuntarily going on lithium.
All that she can do is continue to heal as she moves forward.
Britney Spears Shares the ‘Real Damage’ to Her ‘Heart and Soul’ … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.
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Including photos with Mick Jagger, Carol Burnett, John Belushi and more. Continue reading…Country Music News – Taste of Country
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The ongoing legal war between Brittany Cartwright and Jax Taylor took a stunning new turn today.
In court documents obtained by TMZ, Brittany requests a temporary restraining order, alleging that Jax threatened to “gut” her “like a f—en fish” and physically attacked her.
The request was granted, and Jax has been ordered to stay 100 yards away from Brittany at all times.
Brittany also requested sole custody of the exes’ 5-year-old son, Cruz, but that petition was denied pending a hearing.
Brittany alleges that Jax engaged in “coercive control, financial abuse, emotional and psychological abuse, gaslighting, and even physical violence perpetrated upon me.”
She also accuses him of physically attacking her and throwing furniture at her, which resulted in injuries.
She goes on to claim that Jax — with whom she co-starred on Bravo’s Vanderpump Rules — intentionally damaged multiple iPhones and one iPad during one of his alleged rages.
TMZ has also obtained what they say are photos showing the aftermath of one of Jax’s alleged violent outbursts.
The photos seem to show a large bruise on Brittany’s knee, a badly damaged iPad, and other signs of
Brittany alleges that the damage took place during a July 2024 incident at their home.
She claims that Jax became angry after going through private messages on her iPad.
She alleges that the bruise is a result of Jax throwing a coffee table, which struck her on the knee.
Needless to say, these are very serious allegations, and the legal war between these exes is likely to intensify even further from here.
Jax previously accused Brittany of trying to sabotage his career by making damaging public statements.
These days, Jax is dating Lori Krebs, a friend of Brittany’s who previously worked as her publicist.
Brittany condemned the relationship, as well as Jax’s infidelities and other transgressions during their relationship, but this is the first time that she has accused him of physical abuse.
Taylor has yet to publicly respond to the allegations.
We will have further updates on this developing story as new information becomes available.
Brittany Cartwright Says Jax Taylor Assaulted Her, Threatened to ‘Gut’ Her … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.
The Hollywood Gossip