There’s a special little place hidden on the internet where shoppers can score real and new-season lululemon pieces at rare prices, it’s called the We Made Too Much section. It’s the perfect place…
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Day: May 22, 2026
The Alaska State Capitol is seen in partial morning sun on May 10, 2024. (Photo by Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon)
Alaska’s governor enacted two bills this week, giving final approval to a bill that sets a uniform disaster evacuation scale for the state and another that raises the amount of annual funding for the Alaska Legal Services Corp.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed Senate Bill 192, the evacuation system bill, on Wednesday, and he allowed House Bill 48, the civil legal services fund bill, to become law without his signature on Thursday.
SB 192, from Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, R-Nikiski, mandates that officials use a standardized three-level designation when communicating when Alaskans should leave the area of a disaster. Previously, that system was only optional, and the lack of a standard has occasionally caused miscommunications around wildfires.
“I am thankful that Alaskans will get clear and easy to understand instructions about when to prepare to leave and then when to evacuate in an emergency,” Bjorkman said.
HB 48 affects the organization that provides free legal help to Alaskans in civil cases. The Alaska Constitution mandates that the state provide free legal defenses in criminal cases, but Alaskans in civil lawsuits are not mandated to receive help.
In Alaska, domestic violence victims are frequently involved in civil lawsuits as they seek to separate from abusive partners and establish new lives.
HB 48 requires that 25% of all state court filing fees go to ALSC, up from 10% in current law. That higher percentage is worth an extra $400,000 to the corporation and is expected to help an additional 800-850 people annually.
Rep. Sara Hannan, D-Juneau, sponsored HB 48 and said on Friday that she appreciates the administration allowing it to become law.
“More Alaskans may be able to access civil justice,” she said by text message.
Lawmakers have proposed the 25% figure since 2011.
Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, has been seeking it for the past four years. A prior bill fell just short of passage in 2024 after then-House Rules Chair Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage, blocked it from coming to a final vote in the House, Dunbar said.
Dunbar said he was “very glad to see” the bill become law.
“ALSC provides critical services to some of Alaska’s most vulnerable populations,” he said, crediting ALSC’s current director and her predecessor for their work on the bill.
“Maggie Humm and Nikole Nelson deserve a ton of credit for educating legislators on both sides of the aisle and turning support for Civil Legal Services into a bipartisan goal,” he said.
Lunden Stallings and Olivia Bennett Stallings are entering motherhood hand-in-hand.
Nearly three years after the couple tied the knot in what was dubbed the “royal wedding of lesbian TikTok,” the…
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Sandal season is here—and so is Dr. Martens’ insane Memorial Day sale. With up to 50% off (yes, you read that right), you can save big and step out in summer’s hottest sandal styles.
Best On-Sale…
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White jeans are one of our no-fail summer style staples, and we spotted pairs from all of our favorite brands on sale for Memorial Day Weekend.
While you can’t go wrong with a great pair of…
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Infamous Teen Mom star Jenelle Evans is back in the news, and once again, it’s for a very weird reason.
In her latest social media posts, Jenelle can be seen using a wheelchair.
Jenelle has complained about various health issues in recent months, including back pain and a torn meniscus.
But judging by the comments on her latest posts, Jenelle’s followers aren’t buying any of her explanations.
The consensus seems to be that Evans is simply seeking attention or sympathy.
It might be unfair to jump to that conclusion, but Jenelle lies about everything, all the time, so she must have expected this.
“I am howling at that wheelchair,” commented one user on Jenelle’s latest post.
“I am too high for this sh-t right now Jenelle. The wheelchair has me rolling,” another added.
“Ok Gypsy Rose,” a third fan wrote, referencing the famous case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, whose mother forced her to use a wheelchair despite the fact that she was fully ambulatory.
Other commenters speculated about the cause of Jenelle’s new disability, and they made it clear that they do not believe the explanations she has already offered:
“The wheelchair is just a way to excuse the fact that the BBL went out the window before even taking full effect,” wrote one user.
Earlier this year, Jenelle revealed that she had undergone numerous cosmetic procedures.
“Still have some nighttime swelling but dropping pounds and need new clothes,” she wrote in March, explaining that it had been over three months since her operations, which included a “tummy tuck/ab repair.”
But if Jenelle underwent surgery last year, it’s unlikely that the procedures would still require her to use a wheelchair in late May.
So maybe she really did tear her meniscus — but as many commenters have pointed out, crutches are usually sufficient for such injuries.
But hey, if this is really just a ploy for attention, it’s downright wholesome compared to other recent Jenelle controversies.
Not a month has gone by in 2026 without Jenelle making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Currently, it looks as though Evans isn’t even allowed to talk to her eldest son, Jace, who recently returned to North Carolina from Las Vegas in order to live with his mother.
Insiders say Jace was upset that Jenelle got back together with her second husband, David Eason.
We don’t usually side with the teenager in disputes of this nature, but given that Jenelle has publicly accused David of abusing her and her children, Jace might have had a valid point!
See what we mean? The wheelchair scandal seems like small potatoes compared to the rest of Jenelle’s life!
Jenelle Evans Uses a Wheelchair Now and Fans Are Completely Baffled was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.
The Hollywood Gossip
Indianapolis Motor Speedway (Speedway, Ind.) — Kyle Kirkwood remembers first meeting Kyle Busch. It was just the second professional motorsports race he had ever attended. He believes it was at the age of 7. And he wanted to get the hat signed. That hat remains part of his racing trophy and memorabilia collection. The Andretti INDYCAR driver calls it a pivotal moment in his racing career. “That was like one of the first moments that I got around professional cars,” Kirkwood said at a post-Indianapolis 500 practice news conference Friday. “In a way, he turned me on to motor racing and wanting to move forward from karting.” Busch died suddenly Thursday at age 41, a day after being taken to the hospital for having trouble breathing and coughing up blood following a session in the Chevrolet racing simulator. The motorsports world is mourning the loss of the two-time Cup champion. Kirkwood said he met Busch at Texas Motor Speedway. “That was the first professional racer that I think I met from all forms of motorsports,” Kirkwood said. “I remember I got that signature, and for many years — still to this day, I still have that hat. I still have it with my trophies at my house. “But I remember that moment kind of really turned me on to racing. It was one of those moments where I’m never going to wash my hand again, you know? I think I was probably 7 years old or something like that. I fell in love with motorsports kind of after that and then meeting a few other guys and falling in love with INDYCAR.” Seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, also a former Indy 500 driver, was in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway garage taking in practice. He was also watching some of his Legacy Motor Club pit crew members who are on the pit crew of the Arrow McLaren car of Ryan Hunter-Reay. He said he recently talked to Busch. Busch, like Johnson experienced late in his Cup career, was mired in a long winless streak. They talked about feeling they could still win amid the slump. Johnson told me and another reporter that he will remember Busch for his bravery, among other things. “The bravery, just natural skill, and then being able to tie that all back to the engineering process and communicating what he’s feeling, and expanding on that, and understanding cars, and the build [of the cars],” Johnson said. “Technically, in [knowing] the build of a car, he’s one of the best. He had that old school know-how and understanding, but could relate to the engineers — which is very special on its own. “And then he had all this bravery and skill to match it up.” NASCAR Cup Series driver Carson Hocevar and Busch didn’t have a strong relationship but were teammates when they both raced trucks for Spire Motorsports, which bought the Kyle Busch Motorsports trucks program a few years ago. “Whether he disliked me or not on Sundays, when it came to … at Spire, we were teammates,” Hocevar said on the FOX telecast of INDYCAR’s Carb Day practice Friday. “That said a lot about him.” Katherine Legge, who is attempting to do both the Indy 500 and the NASCAR Coke 600 on Sunday, said Busch and his wife, Samantha, welcomed her into the NASCAR garage. “A lot of the drivers don’t even say hi, but they took the time to get to know me and give me some help and advice, and I would class them as friends,” Legge said at Friday’s post-practice news conference. “So it’s desperately sad. … Racing has lost one of the greatest drivers, in my opinion, of all time.” Busch won more NASCAR national series races (234) than any other driver in series history and ranked ninth all-time in Cup wins with 63. Josef Newgarden, a two-time INDYCAR series champion, went to one of Busch’s two Cup championship parties. He considered them acquaintances and reacted to Busch’s death in the view of them both being parents. Newgarden has two young sons; Busch was the father of two children — an 11-year-old son (Brexton) and a 4-year-old daughter (Lennix). “He was an extreme racer, one of the best you’d ever see on track, and I’m just speaking about his skill set,” Newgarden said at his post-practice news conference. “I’m sure that the toughest part about it is just what he leaves behind with his kids and what they have to go through. “Incredibly sad for everybody. I didn’t even know Kyle very well. Just when I look at from afar, how can it not break your heart when you think about his kids?”Latest Sports News from FOX Sports
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The Zelig-like DNC autopsy author
Programming note: We’ll be off this Monday but will be back in your inboxes on Tuesday.
DAYS THE BUDGET IS LATE: 52
ALBANY AUTOPSY ANGST: National Democrats entrusted their 2024 autopsy to a strategist entwined with another long-ago party calamity: the Obama-era implosion of the New York Senate.
Paul Rivera previously served as a key adviser to state Senate Democratic leader John Sampson, a Brooklyn lawmaker who led an infamously dysfunctional majority for part of 2009 and into 2010 — and was later convicted of federal fraud charges.
Rivera arrived in the Senate with a strong resume after working on gubernatorial and presidential campaigns, including Al Gore and John Kerry. Staffers and lawmakers alike found him to be an inscrutable, enigmatic aide who murmured advice in the background. It was the kind of shapeless profile many advisers hone in power centers across the globe, but seemed especially befitting a state Capitol known for its bewildering opacity.
“The man lurked in the shadows. No one knew where he came from,” former Democratic Senate press aide Travis Proulx said. “It was like a ship in the night working with him. Of everyone I’ve ever worked with he stands out as the man behind the curtain. No one knew how he got there.”
Rivera did not return five phone calls and text messages seeking comment on Thursday and Friday. Sampson also did not return messages seeking comment.
The strategist has little national profile, but his involvement in crafting the widely panned autopsy report was befuddling to Albany Democrats who recall with unease a deeply broken era of New York politics. They still shudder when thinking about their unhappy two-year state Senate majority during the Obama years.
Rivera’s Zelig-like reputation was fostered during that benighted era and even lawmakers struggled to figure out where his power flowed from in the building.
“You never know who he was really loyal to, on whose behalf he was acting,” said former Democratic state Sen. Diane Savino.
Rivera’s name does not appear on the Democratic National Committee’s 192-page report on the 2024 election, formally released Thursday after it was published online by CNN. The autopsy was widely criticized by party officials, ex-Harris campaign aides and former Biden staffers.
The report did not include any references to the party’s challenges over Israel and Gaza, while only making passing references to President Joe Biden’s decision to step aside — widely considered two crucial reasons for the party’s failure two years ago.
DNC Chair Ken Martin apologized for the document in a long statement. But that hasn’t stemmed widespread calls for him to resign the leadership post he’s held for less than 18 months.
Democratic alumni of the fractious state Senate Democratic conference in Albany were flabbergasted that the national party would hand such an important job — analyzing why droves of Americans backed President Donald Trump’s unlikely White House return — to a strategist associated with a disastrous era for Empire State Democrats.
“He sold himself as a guy who knew everything and that he was a master of politics,” Savino said of the former Senate aide’s Albany tenure. “He didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.”
Read more from POLITICO’s Nick Reisman.
From the Capitol
MICAH’S SUPERNATURAL VOTE: Assemblymember and former teen magician Micah Lasher seemingly made a miraculous journey to New York City from Albany on Thursday.
And Lasher — who is running for the congressional seat held by retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler — is refusing to answer questions about how it happened.
The assemblymember apparently was able to cast his vote from Albany at around 4:50 p.m. and make it to Manhattan’s Upper West Side in time for a 7 p.m. candidate forum.
Anyone who’s ever driven the roughly 150 miles from Albany to New York City knows that timetable stretches the limits of reality — unless you’re driving well over the speed limit and get a lucky streak of zero traffic congestion.
Lasher’s campaign refused to say where he physically was at the time he voted, and then ignored multiple follow-up calls from Playbook.
The vote was on a budget bill that included a slate of measures designed to protect immigrants from the Trump administration’s aggressive enforcement tactics. Lasher has called for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the campaign trail, and even traveled to Minnesota in January to join protests against the federal agency.
Earlier today, Lasher touted passage of the bill, saying “I am incredibly proud to have authored this legislation to protect the dignity and safety of all.”
Assembly rules state members need to be in the “bar of the House” in order to be considered present. The “bar” is defined as “the entire Assembly Chamber and lobbies contiguous thereto as designated by the Speaker.”
As our Playbook colleague Bill Mahoney reported last month, members have taken advantage of the policy by routinely being absent from the chambers during votes and debates. Instead, many clock in during the morning and then spend session elsewhere in the Capitol or the adjacent Legislative Office Building. Because they’re technically checked-in and considered present, the members are automatically counted as a “yes” vote on legislation — even if they’re holed up somewhere else in the Capitol complex.
But there’s no indication the “bar” of the House extends to the Catskill exit of the New York State Thruway — a reasonable, but still tight, starting point for someone hoping to make it all the way to West 97th St. in 130 minutes.
And if members do need to leave town early, they’re instructed to tell Assembly leadership so they don’t get mistakenly counted in the vote tally when they’re in another zip code.
Assemblymember Alex Bores, who is also running for the congressional seat — along with Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg and former Republican Trump antagonist George Conway — made it to the forum late because he voted for the bill and also took time to explain his vote on the floor.
After Bores apologized for his tardiness at the forum, which was hosted by a group of tenant associations, he expressed befuddlement at how Lasher was seemingly able to beam across the Hudson Valley and also cast his vote.
“You got to tell me the route that gets me here in two hours. That’s remarkable,” Bores said, in a video reviewed by Playbook. “You voted on it?”
“I did,” Lasher said, giving a nod. — Jason Beeferman
BURSTING INTO TIERS: A package of changes to the Tier 6 pension plan have been finalized as state budget talks come to an end, two people familiar with the conversations said.
“Tier 6 is done,” said one of the people, who was granted anonymity to relay the closed-door negotiations.
The changes will allow teachers to retire at age 58 after 30 years of service. Employee contribution rates for many public workers will fall to 3 percent of their pay checks. The total cost stands at more than $550 million a year spread out between the state government, municipalities and school districts.
The provision is expected to be tucked inside the transportation and economic development budget bill.
The overhaul represents a major victory for labor, which has detested the less-generous pension tier since its 2012 inception.
Read more from POLITICO Pro’s Nick Reisman.
FROM CITY HALL
SIGNS OF LIFE: The zombie charter revision commission created by former Mayor Eric Adams will release a report next week listing proposed changes to the City Charter the body may pursue — even as state legislation seeks to kill the outfit altogether and ensure it stays dead.
The report, which was obtained by Playbook, is set to appear in the City Record Tuesday. In addition to the prospect of open primaries, it suggests more reforms to the city’s land use process, prohibiting elected officials from giving themselves pay raises and making it harder to change term limit laws. The report also muses about making permanent several mayoral offices relating to combating hate crimes and antisemitism and forcing City Hall to fund future charter revision commissions. That last one is key.
This particular commission was created on the last day of Adams’ tenure and is being spearheaded by his first deputy mayor, Randy Mastro.
The rogue body is advancing proposals that would make life difficult for Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Open primaries, for example, would empower more moderate candidates and complicate the mayor’s reelection prospects. The report also recommended putting to voters several executive orders related to combating antisemitism that were signed by Adams — also in the waning days of his term — and left to lapse by the current mayor. The expiration of the executive orders predictably sparked consternation with many Jewish residents.
The commission has been criticized as an abuse of the process by city and state government ethics organizations — even by those who support the concept of open primaries. And while Mamdani has starved the commission of funds, Albany went a step further by passing legislation Thursday that effectively dissolves the body.
The mayor has been playing coy about what he will do (despite being the person who asked for the state provision in the first place). He said at a press conference Thursday he is still considering his options.
The commission remains undeterred, however. It plans to sue over the state legislation while plowing ahead with its work. A public hearing remains on the schedule for next week.
Kayla Mamelak Altus, a commission member, said state lawmakers are attempting to silence the will of the people, who would otherwise be able to help shape the commission’s eventual ballot questions.
“That should send chills down the spines of all New Yorkers who care about having a voice in our local democracy,” she said in a statement. “This attempt to retroactively dismantle a legally constituted Charter Revision Commission in the middle of its work flies in the face of municipal home rule.” — Joe Anuta
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
BREWING SUPPORT: City Council member and Upper West Side fixture Gale Brewer has endorsed Stephanie Ruskay in the race for an open state Assembly seat covering the vote-rich enclave.
“We need leaders who are smart, compassionate, and deeply rooted in the communities they serve,” Brewer said in a statement shared exclusively with Playbook. “That’s why I’m proud to support Stephanie Ruskay for State Assembly.”
Ruskay, who would be the first female rabbi elected to the state Legislature, is running for the seat being vacated by Assemblymember Micah Lasher, who himself is vying for an open congressional seat.
In addition to Brewer, who has represented the area over two stints in the Council, Ruskay is being backed by a number of sitting officials including City Comptroller Mark Levine, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal and City Council member Shaun Abreu.
She’s locked in a battle with Eli Northrup, a public defender who has received endorsements from local Democratic clubs and organizations farther to the left in a proxy war between different wings of the Democratic Party. — Joe Anuta
IN OTHER NEWS
— PRESSURE FROM WITHIN: Hundreds of immigrants detained at a Newark immigration detention center went on a hunger and labor strike, demanding the facility’s closure, their release and visits from elected officials. (Gothamist)
— PLAY NICE!: Kathy Wylde, former head of the Partnership for New York City and a key business broker, is again playing go-between for Mamdani and corporate leaders. (New York Post)
— FARE FIGHT: World Cup fans are opting for $20 buses over $98 train rides to MetLife Stadium, amid backlash over steep transit prices. (The New York Times)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
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