In this episode of Weekly Laravel Updates (Episode 4), I did what I always do: I spent the week digging through blog posts, Laravel News, and GitHub PRs to pull out the stuff that actually matters—so you don’t have to. On the core framework side, I covered three changes I’m genuinely excited about: the new fluent validation Rule::contains() for validating arrays contain *all* required values, the new Arr::hasAll() helper for checking multiple keys (including dot notation), and a new Stringable::toUri() method that turns a string into a proper URI object so you can stop doing gross URL string manipulation. Then I zoomed out to the broader ecosystem: a reminder that Rule::email() is way more powerful than most people use (strict, DNS/MX checks, spoof checks, macros), plus two security-focused topics you should take seriously—why you should stop using phpinfo() (even “behind admin middleware”), and how to encrypt queued jobs/notifications/mailables by implementing ShouldBeEncrypted so sensitive payloads don’t sit in plain text in your DB/Redis. I wrapped up with a quick look at PHP 8.4 performance/ops improvements, the ongoing “where do I put business logic?” debate, and two brand-new Spatie packages for passkeys and one-time passwords that make modern auth way more approachable.