On Monday (Aug. 3), a man wearing a Doobie Brothers t-shirt walked up to the mural and threw black paint at it. Continue reading…Country Music News – Taste of Country
Author: alaskaadmin
The first Release Candidate (“RC1”) for WordPress 7.1 is ready for download and testing!
This version of the WordPress software is still under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended to evaluate RC1 on a test server and site.
WordPress 7.1 RC1 can be tested using any of the following methods:
| Plugin | Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.) |
| Direct Download | Download the RC1 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website. |
| Command Line | Use this WP-CLI command: wp core update --version=7.1-RC1 |
| WordPress Playground | Use the WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser. No setup required – just click and go! |
The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.1 is August 19, 2026. The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who contributes by testing!
Please continue checking the Make WordPress Core blog for 7.1-related posts in the coming weeks for more information.
What’s in WordPress 7.1 RC1?
WordPress 7.1 RC1 contains more than 145 updates and fixes since the Beta 4 release, including 57 in the Editor and 88 in Core.
For an overview of what’s new in WordPress 7.1, read the Beta 1 announcement and the WordPress 7.1 Dev Notes. For a comprehensive summary, see the WordPress 7.1 Field Guide.
You can also explore the technical details of all issues addressed since Beta 4 using the links below:
- GitHub commits for 7.1 since July 29, 2026
- Closed Trac tickets for 7.1 since July 29, 2026
New Features since Beta 1
- Icons API: New APIs for registering icons and icon collections in Core, ready for plugins to extend.
- Speculative loading configuration: Speculative loading defaults can now be configured via environment variables and constants.
- Email notifications for @mentions: Email notifications have been introduced when mentioned in a Note.
- Shareable Revisions: Share links to specific revisions for faster collaboration.
Want to look deeper into the details and technical notes for this release? These tickets and pull requests are just some of the latest updates:
- #GB-79839: Apply globally: choose which modified block styles to apply
- #GB-80814: New responsiveEditingEnabled editor setting to hide responsive styles
- #GB-80107: Tabs: toolbar buttons to reorder tabs
- #GB-80046: DataViews: shift-click range selection
- #65636: Preload REST API requests fetched on editor load
- #65613: Notes are excluded from comment feed queries
- #65491: KSES allows the autofocus attribute on dialog elements
- #65517: Multisite upload limits are enforced when sideloading media from a URL
- #62757: Update the jQuery UI library to version 1.14.2
How you can contribute
WordPress is open source software made possible by a passionate community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline various ways you can help the world’s most popular open source web platform, regardless of your technical expertise.
Get involved in testing
Testing for issues is crucial to the development of any software. It’s also a meaningful way for anyone to contribute.
Your help testing the WordPress 7.1 RC1 version is key to ensuring that the final release is the best it can be. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is equally important. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 7.1.
Update your theme or plugin
For plugin and theme authors, your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for all users.
Thanks for continuing to test your themes and plugins with the WordPress 7.1 beta releases. With RC1, you’ll want to conclude your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 7.1.
If you find compatibility issues, please post detailed information to the support forum.
Test on your hosting platforms
Web hosts provide vital infrastructure for supporting WordPress and its users. Testing on hosting systems helps inform the development process while ensuring that WordPress and hosting platforms are fully compatible, free of errors, optimized for the best possible user experience, and that updates roll out to customer sites without issue.
Want to test WordPress on your hosting system? Get started with configuring distributed hosting tests here. Thank you to all web hosts who help test WordPress!
Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.
An RC1 haiku
A candidate stands
the desert sun tests its strength
Arizona waits
Props to @krupajnanda, @annezazu,
@amykamala, @wildworks and @masteradhoc for collaboration and review
WordPress Planet
Reading Time: 3 minutes
When Ariana Grande announced plans to withdraw from the spotlight, many breathed a sigh of relief.
It was hoped that she was getting the help that she clearly needs.
Now, Ariana has released a new statement that dashed the hopes of fans.
She’s apparently stepping back to set “boundaries” and planned this long ago. That doesn’t sound like she had a wake-up call about her health.
She wants to ‘clear the air’
Ariana is not on hiatus just yet.
The announcement about her upcoming break, which came over the weekend, said that she would be avoiding the spotlight for a bit after her Eternal Sunshine Tour concludes.
On Monday, August 3, Ariana performed in Chicago.
Standing on the stage, she told the crowd that she “wanted to speak to my fans directly.”
Her goal? To “clear the air” about her upcoming break.
♡ ♾️！ pic.twitter.com/7GQJJ13D5d
— Team Ariana (@TeamAriana) August 4, 2026
“Sometimes when a story comes out that’s not directly from me, things can be a little blown out of proportion,” Ariana shared. (Is she throwing her publicist under the bus?)
Reading from her phone, she continued: “It means a lot to me to let you know how I’m feeling and not let the world project.”
Ariana shared: “The announcement that was made yesterday was not a reactive or impulsive thing.” In other words, not a reaction to the horror that people expressed over how gaunt she appears in her “petal” music video.
“It is something that I have decided, a plan that I had quietly made a long time ago,” Ariana claimed. “And it’s a decision that was made from a thoughtful and empowered place.”
This doesn’t really sound like someone finally got through to her and that she’s opted to go to rehab for what many people believe to be a life-threatening eating disorder. It could be! But she’s not saying that.
‘Boundaries can need to be set’
“Multiple things can be true at the same time,” Ariana said vaguely. “Boundaries can need to be set. Human beings can need a break sometimes.”
She continued: “And also, this can be, and will continue to be, the greatest experience of my professional and creative life.”
Ariana addressed the concern of some fans that what some consider to be “negativity” is “ruining” the release of petal, her album.
“I just have to say that could not be more the f–k opposite,” she decreed.
Ariana added a non-specific: “I love you, and this is what I will always take with me and carry with me because the rest of that s–t is not mine to carry, so I don’t carry it.”
Ariana then went on to praise the crowd and to affirm how much she has enjoyed her Eternal Sunshine Tour.
It really sounds like she may be trying to debunk claims that she’s getting help.
That said, it is possible that Ariana has simply lumped all of the conversation that does not come from stans as “haters.” If so, perhaps she is quashing claims that she’s running and hiding from her detractors.
No one is seriously saying that she’s hiding from criticism. And the people begging Ariana to get help are not haters. Most of them (most of us, really) are longtime, diehard Ariana fans.
At present, Ariana looks more gaunt than Karen Carpenter did shortly before her death. We do not want to lose yet another multitalented legend as she appears to shrink and wither before us.
Ariana Grande Alarms Fans Amid Weight Loss Controversy: ‘I Made a Plan a Long Time … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.
The Hollywood Gossip
President Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate lost a top battleground Republican primary in Michigan — to a candidate who suspended his campaign last month.
Amir Hassan, a Navy veteran and former law enforcement officer from Flint backed by Trump, finished significantly behind Tom Smith on Wednesday. Hassan rallied with Trump in Milford, Michigan, just last week.
Smith, a retired engineer, had dropped out in mid-July and endorsed another candidate who ended up in third in the primary. Smith told POLITICO that he would now return to challenge first-term Democratic Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet for the purple 8th District.
“I look forward to working with Speaker [Mike] Johnson and the entire Republican team to expand our House majority and advance President Trump’s America First agenda to lower costs for working families and make America affordable again,” Smith said in a statement.
McDonald Rivet is among the more than a dozen Democratic incumbents seeking reelection in a district Trump won in 2024. But a GOP strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly, characterized her as a “powerhouse.” The strategist added that Hassan had “clear flaws as a candidate” and the “GOP base was reluctant to support a dude named Amir Hassan.”
A handful of Trump-endorsed candidates have lost state-level races this year — including the governor’s races in Iowa and Georgia — but Hassan is the first congressional candidate to lose despite the president’s support this cycle.
Politics
There are plenty of delicious regional hot dog styles, like those from Chicago and Seattle. While both variations are iconic, they couldn’t be more different.
Food Republic – Restaurants, Reviews, Recipes, Cooking Tips
Michigan Rep. Shri Thanedar lost his primary to democratic socialist Donavan McKinney on Wednesday — the latest victory for progressives who’ve been on a hot streak of ousting incumbents in safe-blue districts.
Thanedar’s 13th District was a top priority for groups like Justice Democrats that are committed to primarying incumbent members that they believe aren’t in line with the areas they represent. Justice Democrats helped recruit McKinney into the race and spent nearly $1 million on his behalf, making his campaign one of its biggest targets this cycle.
McKinney, a state representative, had secured the backing of a number of progressive House Democrats, including some members of the Congressional Black Caucus who bucked party leadership, which was standing behind Thanedar in the heavily Black Detroit-based district.
Some of Thanedar’s colleagues were also frustrated by his efforts to force a vote on impeaching President Donald Trump last year, an effort he ultimately backed away from.
The district is a safe seat for Democrats, and McKinney is expected to win easily in November.
Politics
Abdul El-Sayed is Democrats’ Senate nominee in Michigan, a seismic victory for progressives that carries massive implications for both the Senate battlemap and the Democratic Party’s future.
The progressive former public health official on Wednesday narrowly defeated establishment-backed Rep. Haley Stevens, who was boosted by a record-breaking $32 million in spending from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
His margin was far slimmer than progressives had anticipated based on polling that had shown him with a double-digit lead ahead of the election, blunting what they hoped would be an emphatic capstone to a series of high-profile wins that had tilted the party’s ideological civil war in their favor.
El-Sayed will have to work overtime to convince skeptical centrists that a progressive can win in purple territory against former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers in a critical battleground that will decide Senate control.
His victory comes after a contentious primary that was defined by clashes over everything from Israel to immigration to health care. Stevens and her allies lobbied accusations ofsexism and antisemitism against El-Sayed, whose supporters in turn accused the moderate Democrat of Islamophobia.
Wednesday’s result is a setback for the pro-Israel lobby as well as for leaders within the Democratic establishment — most notably Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — who had thrown their weight behind Stevens.
El-Sayed’s win has the potential to scramble Schumer’s gameplan for November; Democrats need to keep retiring Sen. Gary Peters’ seat if they have any hope of retaking the chamber.
And it’s emboldening Republicans who hold a cash advantage heading into November and are growing bullish about their chances for a flip against a progressive who was their preferred nominee. State Republican Party Chair Jim Runestad said the GOP plans to paint him as a “far-left democratic socialist.”
Jason Roe, a longtime Republican operative in Michigan, previously told POLITICO that “El-Sayed is not doing very well outstate and I think that’s what a lot of Republicans are banking on. It will be very difficult for him to beat Rogers with those rural counties.”
Still, El-Sayed’s emergence from the bruising primary that became ground zero for Democrats’ ideological war stands as progressives’ biggest win yet in a year when the left has harnessed a wave of anti-establishment angst to deliver a series of stunning upsets. And it carries significant implications for how Democrats will approach a state that will have an outsized role in picking the party’s next presidential nominee in 2028.
El-Sayed has sought to position his win as a springboard for growing progressives’ influence ahead of 2028.
Politics
Reading Time: 2 minutes
It looks like Sean “Diddy” Combs will be cooling his heels behind bars for longer than he thought.
Yes, the disgraced music mogul’s projected federal prison release date has been changed yet again, according to updated records from the Federal Bureau of Prisons (via Page Six).
Just days after it appeared Diddy could be released on January 24, 2028, the agency’s inmate database now lists his expected release date as February 20, 2028.
The Bureau of Prisons has not publicly explained the latest adjustment, and representatives for both the agency and Combs have not commented on the change.
The new date marks the latest twist in what has become a confusing series of revisions to Combs’ sentence timeline.
His projected release was originally expected sometime in the summer of 2028 before shifting several times over the past year. It later moved to April 2028, then February, then January, and now back to February once again.
The most recent update comes only weeks after reports surfaced that Diddy got into a fight with another inmate at FCI Fort Dix in New Jersey.
According to Page Six, the confrontation began after another inmate insulted Combs, prompting him to respond physically.
Prison staff reportedly broke up the fight, and Combs was placed in solitary confinement.
An unnamed source claimed Diddy “held his own” in the altercation, though prison officials have not publicly confirmed those details.
Combs is serving a four-year federal prison sentence after being convicted in 2025 on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. He was acquitted of the more serious racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges that could have resulted in a life sentence.
When handing down the sentence in October 2025, Judge Arun Subramanian acknowledged Combs’ accomplishments as an artist and entrepreneur but said they could not outweigh the harm caused by his criminal conduct.
“You abused them, physically, emotionally, and psychologically,” the judge said while addressing victims connected to the case.
In addition to his prison sentence, Combs was ordered to pay a $500,000 fine and complete mental health and substance abuse treatment programs while incarcerated.
For now, assuming there are no further changes, Combs is expected to remain at FCI Fort Dix until February 20, 2028.
Given how many times his projected release date has already been revised, of course, it’s impossible to say whether that date will ultimately be the final one.
Diddy’s Release Date Pushed Back Following Prison Fight, Solitary Confinement was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.
The Hollywood Gossip
The Eagles will continue their touring career at least into early 2027. The group just announced a new batch of dates on their long-running The Sphere residency. Continue reading…Country Music News – Taste of Country
The Eagles will continue their touring career at least into early 2027. The group just announced a new batch of dates on their long-running The Sphere residency. Continue reading…The Boot – Country Music News, Music Videos and Songs