Hi All, On behalf of the NumPy team, I'm pleased to announce the release of NumPy 2.2.0rc1. The NumPy 2.2.0 release is a short release that brings us back into sync with the usual twice yearly release cycle. There have been a number of small cleanups, as well as work bringing the new StringDType to completion and improving support for free threaded Python. Highlights are: - New functions `matvec` and `vecmat`, see below. - Many improved annotations. - Improved support for the new StringDType. - Improved support for free threaded Python - Fixes for f2py This release supports Python 3.10-3.13. Wheels can be downloaded from PyPI <https://pypi.org/project/numpy/2.2.0rc1>; source archives, release notes, and wheel hashes are available on Github <https://github.com/numpy/numpy/releases/tag/v2.2.0rc1>. Cheers, Charles Harris