Prep for 2.18.6 release

Author: cowtowncoder

pom.xml

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
   <parent>
     <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson</groupId>
     <artifactId>jackson-base</artifactId>
-    <version>2.18.6-SNAPSHOT</version>
+    <version>2.18.6</version>
   </parent>
   <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
   <artifactId>jackson-core</artifactId>

release-notes/VERSION-2.x

@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ a pure JSON library.
 === Releases ===
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
-2.18.6 (not yet released)
+2.18.6 (22-Feb-2026)
 
 #1512: Number-parsing fix for `UTF8DataInputJsonParser`
  (reported by @ventusfortis)