Melbourne singer-songwriter Jael has released her debut EP Mama Says on July 31, 2026, via Capitol Records. The five-track project pairs R&B balladry with personal songwriting and understated production, keeping the focus on Jael’s voice. Across the record, she writes about romantic attachment, unresolved loss, letting someone back in, and advice handed down within a family.
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The opening track, “Prisoner of Love,” sets out the tension between devotion and pain through a classic R&B ballad. “DUI,” written with producer and songwriter Eg White, examines the cycle of returning to someone despite knowing the relationship should end. White, whose credits include Adele, Sam Smith, and Florence + The Machine, also co-wrote “Hallowed Ground.” Drawn from a personal experience, the song addresses grief that has not been resolved and the effort required to keep living with an absence.
“Don’t Make Me Like You Again” turns to the conflict between guarding against further hurt and allowing someone back into your life. The closing title track shifts toward guidance shared across generations about choosing a partner, bringing the project back to family. Jael wrote “Mama Says” with Kurisu and said she felt attached to the song from the moment they completed it. “The first time I played it to my mum she burst into tears,” she said. Jael called the EP “the start of my life adventure” and thanked the relatives and creative team who supported her through a year that included moving to the other side of the world.
Jael represented Australia with “Champion” at the 2018 Junior Eurovision Song Contest, finishing third overall. In 2025, she returned to Carols in the Domain after earlier performances at Centre Court during the Australian Open and the Opening Ceremony of the Australian Grand Prix. Jael released “Prisoner of Love” on February 27, 2026, following stripped-back online previews of a song she first wrote in 2022. This was followed by “DUI” on May 8, 2026, when Capitol Records announced Mama Says.
Jae Stephens has announced her debut studio album, AUDACITY, which will arrive September 25 through Def Jam Recordings and RAEDIO. The 11-track release will be available across digital platforms, with one additional song reserved for the vinyl edition. Stephens describes the project as a coming-of-power story that examines several sides of modern femininity, including softness and strength, vulnerability and command, and intimacy and independence.
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Dallas Caton produced the album, while MNEK, whose credits include Zara Larsson, Beyoncé and Dua Lipa, contributed writing support. Creative director Cass Meyers, known for work with SZA and Megan Thee Stallion, helped shape Auda City, an imagined setting that links the record’s music and visuals. “AUDACITY is me daring to take up as much space as I want in a world that has tried to box me in both personally and professionally,” Stephens said. She said the songs also expose her ambitious, aggressive and avoidant tendencies, even when they cast her as the villain in her own account.
The album’s first single, “Attaboy!,” finds Stephens answering a self-described bad boy by setting the terms for how he should behave as her partner. She followed it with “Sugar Trap,” which uses candy imagery and double meanings to describe a woman who knows what she wants and will not lower her standards. The two tracks approach desire, control and self-definition from different angles.
Before AUDACITY, Stephens released the EPs SELLOUT, SELLOUT II and TOTAL SELLOUT THE DELUXE, then opened the U.S. leg of FLO‘s AAA Tour. Her own SELLOUT tour began in October 2025, and its first dates in Los Angeles, New York and London sold out within 24 hours. The itinerary later expanded to sold-out shows in Houston, Atlanta, Washington, Toronto, Santa Ana and Boston. SPIN included SELLOUT II on its Best EPs of 2025 list, while Reddit’s Popheads community named Stephens its 2025 Best New Artist. She is scheduled to perform at Lollapalooza in Chicago on August 1 before joining Khalid’s European It’s Always Summer Somewhere tour in October. Stephens made her festival debut at the WeHo Pride Festival in Los Angeles earlier this year.
McDondald’s exists across the globe, in so many different countries, and that includes Japan. Not only can you get a Big Mac there, you can get a special type.
A sample ballot seen at the headquarters of the Alaska Division of Elections on Thursday, July 9, 2026, shows the language for the campaign finance ballot measure. (James Brooks photo/Alaska Beacon)
On Aug. 18, Alaskans will be asked if they want to change the way the state’s elections operate, but not in the way that most voters are thinking.
The sole ballot measure before voters in the primary election would reimpose limits on the amount of money that individuals and groups can donate to political candidates in state elections.
A well-funded campaign to repeal the state’s system of open primaries and a ranked choice general election — known as Ballot Measure 2 — won’t be voted on until November.
The measure on the ballot in August would prohibit political donors from giving a candidate more than $2,000 per election. Groups would be allowed to give no more than $4,000 per candidate per election.
Both limits would be adjusted for inflation every 10 years, and they would only apply to state-level elections — for governor, state House and state Senate.
In the state’s official election pamphlet, the chairs of the group — former state attorney general Bruce Botelho; Rep. Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage; dog musher David Monson — state their case, explaining that they view campaign donation limits as “guardrails” on democracy.
“Without these guardrails, wealthy individuals and special interests can have an oversized impact and shift a candidate’s focus away from the constituents they are supposed to serve,” they wrote.
Speaking in a public hearing on Monday, Schrage said, “When a single donor can spend hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on a single candidate, it creates a dangerous environment. It not only grants undue influence to the ultra-wealthy, but it also exposes our elected officials to the risk and perception of quid pro quo corruption.”
In the pamphlet, three Republicans, all former legislators, argue against the initiative.
“Campaign contributions are a form of political speech. To limit someone’s ability to support a candidate is to limit their voice in the democratic process,” said former Rep. Ben Carpenter, R-Nikiski; former Sen. David Wilson, R-Wasilla; and former Rep. Liz Vazquez, R-Anchorage.
In addition, imposing limits on outside donations gives an advantage to candidates who are wealthy enough to pay for their own campaigns, they said.
In Monday’s hearing, another Republican, Amy Demboski, spoke in support of their position.
“Reintroducing new caps creates a pay-to-play barrier where only those who already possess significant name recognition can thrive, effectively silencing the grassroots support necessary for insurgent or unconventional candidates,” she said.
The U.S. Supreme Court has previously ruled that it is unconstitutional to limit the amount of money that a candidate may spend on their own campaign.
Ballot Measure 1 also does not limit the amount of money that a third-party group can independently spend to support or oppose a candidate. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision, known as Citizens United, allows unlimited amounts of spending by groups that don’t coordinate directly with candidates.
Also this year, the Supreme Court ruled that political parties may spend unlimited amounts of money in coordination with federal candidates. That decision may affect state races in the future.
Ballot Measure 1 is the consequence of a lengthy and successful legal challenge by a group of Republicans inside and outside the state.
Until 2021, Alaska had some of America’s lowest limits on financial donations to candidates — $500 per candidate, per year. Those were installed by a 2006 ballot measure that passed with the support of 73% of participating voters.
But a group of Republicans challenged the legality of those limits in 2015, arguing that they unduly restricted free speech. The case was appealed and remanded multiple times before a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the limits in July 2021.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy declined to appeal the issue further, and the limits were removed ahead of Dunleavy’s successful re-election campaign the following year.
In 2022 and 2024, state lawmakers attempted but failed to pass a bill reimposing limits. Legislators this year passed a bill identical to Ballot Measure 1, but Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed that bill.
In his veto statement, the governor said the new limits “would radically tilt in the favor of the wealthy when it comes to elected office.”
The lack of limits has had its biggest effect on Alaska’s races for governor. In 2022, all three leading candidates — Dunleavy, independent Bill Walker and Democratic candidate Les Gara — recorded large contributions from individual donors.
Most of the other 15 candidates in the governor race, including most of the Republicans, have taken similarly large donations, but not to the extent that the leading Democrats have.
The Republican candidate who has raised the most money, podiatrist Matt Heilala, has spent more than $1.25 million on his own campaign. Click Bishop, a Republican who has raised a middling amount of money, is also being boosted by a large union-funded third-party group. Those latter types of spending would not be affected by Ballot Measure 1.
You’ll love this like a love song.
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This week, members of the Senate staged a would-be show trial of Dr. Anthony Fauci, putting on a performance for the cameras of asking him “tough” questions.
Dr. Fauci’s name in the news apparently had Nicki Minaj thinking back to her own famously unhinged vaccine skepticism in 2021.
At the time. the head of the US COVID-19 pandemic response had gently cautioned her against promoting vaccine hesitancy.
Five years later, the Trump collaborator is openly posting a fantasy about him suffering, while blaming him for … what, exactly? Let’s take a look.
Nicki Minaj attends the Treasury Department’s Trump Accounts Summit on January 28, 2026. (Photo Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)
‘The collective pain & long term ramifications …’
In a tweet on Thursday, July 30, Minaj took aim at Dr. Fauci alongside a hideous slop portrayal of him as a ’90s teen.
“Feeding tubes will be his portion,” she fantasized. “He will lose the ability to speak.”
Minaj continued: “& then & only then will he feel the collective pain & long term ramifications he caused to [newborns], young children who are still trying to become acclimated into society & schools.”
Her list went on: “Traumatized pregnant women who couldn’t even have family in the delivery rooms & visits, the elderly who died alone & afraid, young ppl still struggling w/mental health, suicide, people turned away from hospitals at their most vulnerable moments.”
Shifting into rambling mode, Minaj wrote: “the trust that is now gone from innocent people toward their governments forever.”
On July 30, 2026, Nicki Minaj seemed to blame Dr. Anthony Fauci for a lot of things that seem like they were beyond his, perhaps anyone’s, control in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Image Credit: twitter)
She complained about “billions of stolen money from hard working tax payers via con artists.”
Minaj alleged: “I’ve been struggling to find the humor in any of this.”
Her tweet concluded: “God bless everyone who made it to the other side. You’re stronger than you thought. God is in control.”
Some of Minaj’s tweet is a little difficult to parse.
However, it appears that she is saying that COVID restrictions during the final year of Trump’s first term were more destructive than the deadly virus that, even with restrictions, killed over 9 million people and disabled countless more.
Attempting to refer to constructing an Ark, as if to escape a mythical flood, Nicki Minaj suggests vaccine hesitancy regarding booster shots. Great. (Image Credit: twitter)
She meant to write ‘Nicki’s Ark’
In a follow-up tweet, Minaj once again expressed her vaccine hesitancy, this time by misspelling the work “ark” repeatedly.
“Once they started telling yall to get a new booster shot every 5 to 10 business days like it was the new Jordans droppin?!?!!!!!!! That’s when I knew,” she wrote.
“I went in my backyard & started building the Arc. Nicki’s Arc,” Minaj wrote. “I know the Lord won’t send another flood but still.”
Most people are aware a virus that is allowed to mutate uncontrollably will require additional vaccines to help the immune system recognize and target the virus more quickly. Old antibodies might not immediately target a new version of the virus.
Minaj, who once claimed that the COVID-19 vaccine had caused a man’s testicles to swell to extreme size and thus canceled his wedding (an investigation by the government found that no such event took place), does not seem to understand the concept.
So, what’s going on with her?
Some people believe that Minaj has cynically sold her soul to the Trump regime, endorsing fascism and coddling white supremacy in exchange for various political favors.
Others believe that she simply feels entitled to government responsiveness, blaming California Governor Gavin Newsom for not doing enough to halt harassment, including SWATting, that targeted her home, setting her down a weird downward spiral into conservatism.
There is also the theory that it simply began with her weird reaction to COVID. There are definitely some people who disconnected from reality over pandemic fears and had kneejerk contrarian reactions to the idea that they should bear any inconvenience for the safety and protection of others.
But, as Matt Bernstein and his guests suggest in the video above, perhaps the most likely explanation is that Minaj was, deep down, always like this. That she spent years semi-pretending to be halfway decent on the surface, and has dropped the facade.
Before joining dynasties, Sadie Robertson and Christian Huff established some ground rules.
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Kim Kardashian knows middle daughters have to stick together.
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During a recent appearance on The Jamie Kern Lima Show, Meghan Markle made a passing remark about Prince Harry’s military service.
And because everything she does is subject to intense scrutiny and criticism, the Duchess of Sussex might be regretting those remarks today.
The topic came up when Meghan reflected on getting through life’s difficult moments by recalling advice her husband once shared with her.
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, during a forum about digital responsibility at EAN University during a visit around Colombia on August 15, 2024 in Bogota, Colombia. (Photo by Diego Cuevas/Getty Images)
“But you know, he was a helicopter pilot in the British Army for 10 years,” Meghan said (via Radar Online).
“And sometimes, on really hard days, he said, ‘Hey, but my love, you know, even if there’s a storm happening, above the storm the sun’s always shining.’”
The remark quickly caught the attention of royal watchers, who argued that Meghan’s description blurred the line between Harry’s overall military service and the years he actually spent flying helicopters.
To be clear, there is no dispute that Harry served in the British Army for roughly a decade.
He entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 2005 and remained in military service until 2015, eventually leaving with the rank of Captain.
However, his aviation career began several years after he enlisted.
Harry started formal helicopter flight training in 2009, earned his wings in 2010, qualified as an Apache co-pilot gunner in 2012, and later became an Apache Aircraft Commander in 2013.
He flew operational missions during his second deployment to Afghanistan before transitioning to a desk assignment in 2014.
Critics therefore argued that describing him as a helicopter pilot for the entirety of his 10-year military career was inaccurate.
The interview sparked debate online, with several commenters insisting Meghan had exaggerated Harry’s credentials.
One Reddit user wrote, “He did not serve as a pilot for 10 years because in his earlier years of service he hadn’t done that training.”
Another added that Harry “served for 10 years in the Army, not as a helicopter pilot.”
One commenter even went so far as to accuse Meghan of “stolen valor.”
Another person claimed, “Suspicious. I don’t think he was allowed to fly on his own, only as a co-pilot. And he doesn’t seem to have a license now. We never heard of him flying after the military like William,”
Others suggested the statement was likely a simple mix-up between the length of Harry’s military service and the years he spent flying military helicopters.
Harry has long described his decade in the Army as one of the most meaningful periods of his life.
The Duke of Sussex completed two deployments to Afghanistan, although only the second came after he had qualified to fly Apache helicopters. His military experience has remained central to much of his charitable work since leaving royal duties, including his continued involvement with the Invictus Games.
Neither Meghan nor Harry has publicly addressed the criticism surrounding her remarks.
American faith in news is at an all-time low, aided by a president hostile to the press. But presidents have long attacked journalists as biased. What does objectivity really mean?
You’ll love this like a love song.
Before joining dynasties, Sadie Robertson and Christian Huff established some ground rules. 
Kim Kardashian knows middle daughters have to stick together. 
