Early Saturday morning, three canoes, all built with guidance from master carver Wayne Price Ká jeis yutsi.aak, began their journey to Juneau. With rough seas predicted until Berners Bay, Price anticipates the crews will have to ride aboard the three support boats until the handmade vessels find calmer seas.
Price said this will be his seventh time making the journey to Juneau for the biennial Celebration since 2014 via canoe. This year, Price says that the crew contains a mix of new and experienced pullers.
Wayne Price stands holding Jibba the dugout canoe that he made, before putting it in the ocean with his crew on May 29, 2026. Price, Jibba, two other canoes and crews will make the journey to Juneau from Haines via canoe on May 30, 2026. (Lizzy Hahn/ Chilkat Valley News)
“We’ve got three different size canoes. We’ve got three different size crews,” said 23-year-old Brandon Kaayúkw Gomez. Gomez lives in Juneau, where he interns for Price and has been learning how to carve dugouts.
Each canoe, or dugout, starts as an old-growth tree that is usually 475 years old and weighs 15,000 pounds, according to Price. It takes roughly six months to carve a dugout, which weighs 700 pounds. Each tree is different, “so every time you do one, you run into different things.”
“Back when I first started out, there wasn’t nothing going on,” Price said about the consistent canoe trips from around Southeast to Juneau for Celebration. “With the help of a few others now we’ve got all this going on.”
Jibba, the dugout that Price completed before the canoe trip to Juneau in 2014 for Celebration, has roughly 1,500 nautical miles on it. This trip will be some of the first times on the water for the canoe Wavedancer, according to Price. He developed a new formula to make a dugout using strips of wood instead of carving a dugout out of one tree for the Wavedancer.
“In our future, when it’s getting harder to find the trees, they’ll be able to use my formula and make a strip canoe and still have that experience being in a dugout,” Price said.
During their journey, Price said the crew will be drug and alcohol free.
“We support healthy lifestyles and healthy living and helping bring the side of the culture that was this close to being decimated because of colonization,” Price said. Price started his first dugout in early June 1982. He said his mentor, Archie Klaney from Klukwan, walked into the forest two weeks after Price started work on the dugout. Price has since built 18 canoes. He’s currently working on one of those.
“The transfer of knowledge is occurring and it’s going really well. I’m having a lot of fun,” Price said. Some of the paddlers on this journey helped Price build the dugouts they are using.
The third boat and crew came from Haines Junction. Their boat’s name, dan kinghar nàkudle, means “bringing people’s spirit back,” according to captain Khásha from Haines Junction. Khásha has made this journey two times and will be the captain on the boat for his third trip. This is the second journey that the canoe dan kinghar nàkudle will make down to Juneau after being finished in 2024 before the last Celebration. Ten crew members hail from Haines Junction and their support boat captain is from Whitehorse.
The Haines Junction dugout and crew take off from the Haines boat launch on Friday, May 29, 2026 to boat around before their multi-day journey to Juneau. (Lizzy Hahn/Chilkat Valley News)
“I tell them the real work will come, but right now it’s everyone’s excited and just lovestruck with everything,” said Khásha, who has made this journey three times.
The three support boats will carry the crew’s camping supplies. Each member has a smaller day dry bag with any essentials they need while paddling.
“Besides my battery chargers that I brought, this isn’t too atypical from what they [ancestors] would have been doing,” Gomez said. He then pointed toward his paddle, “Oh, I’ve got my paddle,” that he had just finished up on the ferry from Juneau.
If crews get a northeast wind, they will be able to put their sail up and “just sail all the way,” Price said Friday. “That’s really living.”
“It’s like you’re in a solarium ride without the heat, but it’s really cozy … they don’t have prettier views than this,” Gomez said.
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Karleigh McClain of Hendersonville, Tennessee, signed up for a membership with a telehealth company in January so that she could start taking a GLP-1 drug for weight loss. Within 24 hours of injecting her first dose, she was admitted to the hospital. (Arielle Weenonia Gray for KFF Health News)
Within 24 hours of injecting the first dose of a weight loss medication she received following a visit with a telehealth doctor, Karleigh McClain was admitted to the hospital, she said.
The 31-year-old compliance consultant from Hendersonville, Tennessee, said she couldn’t stop vomiting.
“Sunday morning, it all hits,” McClain recalled, as she described what happened that weekend in January. “I can’t keep anything down.”
McClain said she thought the dosage the telehealth company had prescribed seemed too high. She tried to contact her doctor, but when she didn’t get an immediate response, she said she called the company and a “care team” representative confirmed the instructions — which said to inject 2.21 milligrams of the semaglutide medication once a week — were correct.
It turned out, however, that was nearly nine times the amount patients are typically told to take for their first dose.
Nearly a month after she was diagnosed with an overdose, McClain said she was “still dealing with the residual side effects,” including an elevated heart rate and vision problems she felt were tied to the medication.
Most patients who have taken a GLP-1 received their prescription through a primary care doctor or a specialist, KFF polling data shows. But as the uptake of telehealth has grown substantially since the start of the covid pandemic, McClain is one of millions of Americans who have used online companies to meet a variety of their medical needs.
Many of the companies have started offering GLP-1 medications for weight loss as demand for these drugs has exploded. But certain medication errors tied to GLP-1s have exploded too, according to a KFF Health News review of Food and Drug Administration data, and physicians and telemedicine researchers worry that adverse experiences tied to telehealth companies are becoming more common.
Bad outcomes aren’t unique to telehealth providers or to the compounded weight loss drugs many of them offer. In fact, product liability lawsuits alleging patient injuries have been filed overwhelmingly against pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, which manufacture name-brand weight loss drugs, court data shows. The drugmakers have defended their products.
However, some critics are also concerned that getting a weight loss prescription online is usually much easier than getting one through an in-person appointment. Not only do many telehealth companies write quick prescriptions for GLP-1s, but they often sell the medications, too, allowing patients to bypass in-person pharmacy visits. This one-stop shopping isn’t necessarily a good thing, according to critics who say some telehealth providers are writing prescriptions for people who should not be taking GLP-1s and then providing little or no follow-up care.
“It gives a black eye to telemedicine,” said Elizabeth Krupinski, an experimental psychologist at Emory University who has conducted research on the effectiveness of telehealth.
Telemedicine stands to benefit “so many people,” Krupinski said, particularly when the technology is integrated within a larger healthcare system. That way, patients benefit from the convenience of telehealth while maintaining a connection with their in-person providers.
But some telehealth companies are marketing GLP-1s as an easy way to lose weight — sometimes with the help of paid celebrity endorsements — without emphasizing the importance of healthy eating and exercise, she said.
They may be following the letter of the law, Krupinski said. But writing prescriptions while skimping on care “is not in the Hippocratic oath.”
McClain says she overdosed on an injectable weight loss medication in January after following dosing instructions from a telehealth provider. (Arielle Weenonia Gray for KFF Health News)
The Perfect Storm
Starting around 2020, many states loosened restrictions on telehealth, which allowed online companies to proliferate. This helped accommodate patients who could not, or chose not to, be seen in person at the height of covid transmission.
Expanded telehealth access was also intended to lower barriers in rural communities, as well as mitigate doctor and nurse shortages. In many places, telehealth doctors and nurses are legally allowed to treat patients across state lines. But the way telemedicine is practiced varies widely, and state laws largely dictate rules that telehealth providers must follow.
Some companies, such as Mochi Health, require patients to meet virtually with a provider, such as a doctor, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant, before they can get a GLP-1 prescription.
But others, including Ro, sometimes require nothing more of patients than an “asynchronous” evaluation, which does not include a live conversation with a healthcare provider. During this type of evaluation, customers are typically asked to fill out an intake form and answer a medical history questionnaire before they are evaluated for a prescription. Ro requires a conversation in real time when required by state law, or when requested by a patient or clinician, said Nicholas Samonas, a spokesperson for the company.
“Every patient is counseled by their provider on the potential benefits and risks of treatment based on their individual medical history,” Samonas said. Ro’s clinicians can order lab work when necessary and, when appropriate, may recommend patients seek in-person care, he said.
But some medical experts are concerned that virtual care may be insufficient for prescribing weight loss drugs.
Patients with a history of pancreatitis, for example, should be counseled about potential complications, medical studies show. The same goes for people with a condition called gastroparesis, which affects stomach nerves and muscles, and those susceptible to medullary thyroid cancer.
Some patients may also benefit from blood work or muscle mass screening before starting a GLP-1.
But not all telehealth companies are adequately evaluating patients before writing prescriptions, said Marc-Andre Cornier, an endocrinologist at the Medical University of South Carolina and the immediate past president of The Obesity Society.
When it comes to parsing the good from the bad, “whose job is it to police that?” he asked. The problem, he said, is there aren’t criteria written by a government agency or a medical society to determine which providers are treating patients appropriately and which aren’t.
While the first GLP-1 was approved by the FDA more than 20 years ago, to treat Type 2 diabetes, the use of these drugs took off in 2021 when Novo Nordisk received approval for a semaglutide drug to treat obesity, with the brand name Wegovy. In a 2025 KFF poll, nearly 1 in 5 adults said they had taken a GLP-1.
In a recent paper in The New England Journal of Medicine, physician Amanda Banks noted that the proportion of GLP-1 prescriptions written for people who were not diabetic, obese, or overweight increased from 4.5% in 2018 to 17% in 2023.
In the paper, Banks called it “troubling” how easy it is to obtain a prescription for weight loss drugs and worried they might exacerbate existing eating disorders or cause new cases, including of anorexia.
Cornier, who has received compensation from Novo Nordisk for serving as a consultant, echoed some of Banks’ concerns. “It’s not just filling out a form online and then having some random healthcare provider sign off on it,” he said. “There are concerns with some of these online programs that there’s not a proper evaluation, there’s not a baseline, and there’s not proper supervision.”
The American Telemedicine Association, which advocates for the expansion of “digitally enabled care,” has not addressed how telehealth providers prescribe GLP-1s, spokesperson Gina Cella said.
“This is a bit out of our scope,” Cella said, when asked if the association had addressed the topic of telehealth providers and GLP-1 prescriptions.
The lack of clarity makes choosing a company potentially confusing for patients, and the medical profession is partly to blame, said Jamy Ard, an obesity doctor and researcher at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Doctors have historically done a bad job counseling patients about weight loss, and many people aren’t comfortable talking to their primary care doctor about it, Ard said. Patients think, “Why would I go to my doctor and have them say, ‘Eat less and move more,’ when I have heard that a million times and I don’t want to have that lecture again?” Ard said.
This problem, combined with past shortages of name-brand versions of GLP-1s, such as Ozempic, Mounjaro, and Trulicity, has created a “perfect storm” for telehealth companies to flourish, said Ard, who has received support from pharmaceutical and telehealth companies.
While some telehealth companies prescribe only name-brand weight loss drugs, many also offer cheaper, compounded versions. They act as intermediaries between customers and mail-order compounding pharmacies, which create GLP-1s by mixing active ingredients, such as semaglutide, with additives. The ingredients for compounded drugs are commonly sourced from overseas suppliers, and the formulations are not reviewed by the FDA for safety.
The environment is “very much uncontrolled and poorly, if at all, regulated,” Ard said. “There is just no standard of care.”
Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, told KFF Health News that compounded drugs “should only be used in patients whose medical needs cannot be met by an FDA-approved drug.”
Hilliard said the agency urges “consumers to be vigilant and know the source of their medicine.”
Understanding the Risks
While weight loss drugs have helped millions of people lose weight, they’re not without risk, the data shows.
A KFF Health News data analysis of the FDA’s Adverse Event Monitoring System found that medication errors made by providers or patients with popular weight loss drugs exploded from just over 2,000 reports in 2020 to over 25,000 in 2025. Those self-reported events involved semaglutide, tirzepatide, dulaglutide, and liraglutide, the generic names for leading GLP-1s.
Among frequent issues cited in the adverse event reports were administration of an extra or incorrect dose, issues with communication about a product, and prescribing errors.
Since 2019, the National Poison Data System has fielded a nearly 1,500% increase in calls related to overdoses or side effects from injectable weight loss drugs. The data does not distinguish between overdoses tied to a telehealth prescription and those stemming from an in-person medical appointment, but it is a reflection of how prevalent these drugs have become.
Yet data on potential medication errors and adverse reactions to GLP-1 medications is incomplete, because many issues are never reported to federal officials.
For example, in a March 5 warning letter, the FDA accused drugmaker Novo Nordisk, the maker of Wegovy and Ozempic, of failing to report some adverse events to the federal government, including suicidal ideation and death.
Nobody knows how often adverse events occur, said Kristen Nixon, a Johns Hopkins University researcher who has studied posts about weight loss drugs on Reddit, a popular online forum.
Her team analyzed hundreds of Reddit posts from 2020 through last August and identified frequent mentions of drug reactions and user errors, such as patients’ not knowing how to correctly dose and inject the medication.
But another finding also stood out to her.
“Wow, there are a lot of people talking about telehealth,” Nixon recalled thinking. Reddit commenters said they got GLP-1 prescriptions from scores of telehealth platforms, Nixon found. Commenters also mentioned several dozen compounding pharmacies — often in the same posts about telehealth.
Pharmacies are typically required to counsel patients on medications they receive. But Nixon’s research found that telehealth companies often mail the medications directly, meaning patients do not need to go to a pharmacy.
“Anecdotally, it seems like the telehealth companies are really facilitating access to compounded medications,” Nixon said.
Leslie Gammon, 54, an office manager from Wendell, North Carolina, said she turned to a telehealth company called Amble Health for a weight loss drug prescription. She was given a GLP-1 after filling out an online form, she said.
Like McClain, when she received her mail-order compounded medication in late October, she thought the dosage that accompanied it seemed too high. She’d received a box of semaglutide earlier in the month with a much lower dose. But the refill she received was a stronger formulation, and the instructions told Gammon to inject three times the volume she had been taking in previous weeks.
Even though she injected slightly less than that recommended amount before bed on a Sunday evening, she woke up in the middle of the night “throwing up every 20 to 25 minutes,” she said. And it didn’t stop until Tuesday. She was eventually admitted to a hospital in Raleigh and now owes the hospital over $9,000, a medical bill shows.
Amble Health did not respond to questions for this article.
The delivery system for injectable versions of weight loss drugs is more complicated than for a pill. In its National Poison Data System alert, America’s Poison Centers noted that some people reported “accidentally taking 10-times the recommended dose due to confusing measurement units while using a syringe.”
And people who are eager to lose extra weight — before a wedding or a vacation, for example — may choose to self-administer a higher-than-recommended dose, said Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine.
Some telehealth companies aren’t doing enough, he said, to make sure patients understand the risks or the complex delivery system associated with the injectable drugs.
“The consent is not adequate,” Caplan said. “There’s no probing to see if you understood anything.”
Cella, with the American Telemedicine Association, said the group has not addressed the difficulty of educating patients about the risks of injecting weight loss drugs. But she pointed to the association’s “Principles of Practice,” which states that telehealth business models “must put the patient first.”
Proceed With Caution
Pharmaceutical companies must list potentially harmful side effects when they advertise the name-brand versions of their FDA-approved medications. Potential side effects of GLP-1s include nausea, vomiting, changes in vision, low blood sugar, and, in rare cases, thyroid cancer. Meanwhile, telehealth companies have not historically followed the same rules that drugmakers have in disclosing medication risks in advertisements. But the FDA has started cracking down on misleading drug ads.
A national shortage of weight loss medications in 2022 opened the door for compounding pharmacies to manufacture these drugs. But since the FDA declared the shortage over last year, companies that offer compounded drugs are increasingly facing legal and regulatory challenges related to their marketing tactics.
Mounjaro manufacturer Eli Lilly and other drugmakers are suing multiple telehealth companies for promoting compounded versions of their drugs. In one legal complaint, Eli Lilly alleged Mochi Health had engaged in “deceptive” business tactics. In a motion to dismiss the lawsuit last year, lawyers for Mochi Health called the complaint part of a “nationwide campaign to bolster Lilly’s profits by dictating patient care through the elimination of compounded drugs as a treatment option for weight management.” The lawsuit is ongoing.
Eli Lilly spokesperson Michael Jamison said in a written comment that telehealth companies sued by the drug manufacturer threaten “patient safety by falsely promoting supposedly ‘personalized’ compounded tirzepatide” and mislead “consumers about the safety, clinical testing, and effectiveness of their compounded knockoffs.”
Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk has filed 130 lawsuits against “entities engaged in unlawful marketing and sale of knockoff semaglutide drugs,” said Liz Skrbkova, a spokesperson for the drugmaker.
She said the company is committed to “protecting patients from unapproved knockoff drugs made with foreign, inauthentic active pharmaceutical ingredients that pose significant safety and efficacy risks.”
“Your claims imply that your products are the same as an FDA-approved product when they are not,” the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research wrote to Hims & Hers on Sept. 9. HHS later referred the company to the Department of Justice after it announced the launch of a $49 version of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy pill.
When asked about the FDA warning, Abby Reisinger-Moley, a spokesperson for Hims & Hers, pointed to a March statement from the company announcing a shift away from compounded weight loss drugs. The company said in the press release that it had entered into an agreement with Novo Nordisk to sell name-brand versions.
Alex Smith, CEO of Join Josie, an online platform that helps women in menopause lose weight by prescribing GLP-1s, said his company also made changes in response to an FDA letter, to include removing Join Josie’s name from medication vials. “Which I agree with,” Smith said, “because you don’t want patients thinking you’re the compounding pharmacy.”
SkinnyRx and Genesis Health International did not respond to requests for comment.
But these warnings aren’t the first time the federal government has stepped in to ensure that telemedicine is being used appropriately, said Mei Wa Kwong, executive director of the Center for Connected Health Policy.
Prior cases involved attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder medications and other controlled substances prescribed by telehealth providers, she said. While those drugs pose more risk to patients than GLP-1s, the companies were also accused of improperly screening potential customers.
The onus still falls on consumers to research companies before signing up for their services, Kwong said.
“Always approach anything on the internet with a hint of skepticism,” Kwong said.
McClain was admitted to the hospital after injecting nearly nine times the amount of semaglutide that patients typically take as a first dose of the popular weight loss drug. That’s what her prescription from a telehealth provider had dictated. (Arielle Weenonia Gray for KFF Health News)
‘Keeps Getting Worse’
McClain, the Tennessee woman hospitalized this year after a GLP-1 overdose, said she lost 50 pounds a few years ago by taking a name-brand GLP-1 prescribed by her doctor.
At the time, the medication was covered by her health insurance. This year, when she was ready to take a GLP-1 again following a pregnancy, the drug was no longer covered for weight loss.
To save money by obtaining a cheaper, compounded GLP-1, McClain signed up for Mochi Health after doing her own research. “That was just the most affordable option,” she said.
But within hours of her first dose, she said, she found herself on the phone with poison control.
After her overdose, McClain said, she spoke to a clinical director at Mochi Health, once by phone but mostly via email, about her lingering symptoms before communication paused.
David Pilip, a spokesperson for Mochi Health, said in a statement that the company would not discuss individual patients due to privacy obligations. But he said adverse events are “immediately flagged” and “investigated with extreme precision.”
“Mochi Health takes patient safety extremely seriously,” Pilip wrote in an email. “We promptly initiated a review and have been in direct and ongoing communication with the patient to reach a resolution. We remain committed to doing so.”
McClain anticipates her healthcare bills related to the hospital stay will total at least $900. She said that to get the $159 refund for her three-month membership and reimbursement for the hospital expenses, she has been asked to sign a document saying she won’t take legal action against the company. Her experience, she said, “just keeps getting worse.”
NBC News producer Jessica Herzberg and KFF Health News senior correspondent Fred Schulte contributed to this report.
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The bid period for the Tustumena Replacement Vessel construction project has been extended to June 25 “at the request of the bidders,” according to the Alaska Marine Highway System.
The state originally intended to open bids this past Thursday.
No further detail about the bid period extension was provided by an AMHS spokesperson in a Thursday response to a Ketchikan Daily News inquiry.
On Friday, the agency announced the bidding-period extension via a social media account.
“The extension was granted in response to requests from prospective bidders to allow for additional time to finalize comprehensive proposals,” states the announcemnet. “AMHS remains committed to ensuring a competitive and robust bidding process for this critical infrastructure project, which will provide a modern, reliable, and efficient vessel to serve the communities of Southcentral, Kodiak Island, and Southwest Alaska for decades to come.”
The project aims to replace the aging Tustumena, which was built in 1964 and continues to provide service between Southcentral and Southwest Alaska.
The current Tustumena is 296 feet in length and has capacity for 160 passengers and approximately 34 20-foot vehicles, according to AMHS information.
The TRV will have a length of 330 feet and capacity for 250 passengers and 58 cars, according to AMHS.
The replacement project design was modified in mid 2023 from diesel-only propulsion system to a diesel electric hybrid.
The change is intended to “provide additional generator capacity for operational redundancy in the power system to safely operating in the remote areas of the Alaska Peninsula,” according to information provided to the Daily News early this year by Alaska Department of Transportation spokesperson Shannon McCarthy. “There was never a redesign of the hull, when we modified the diesel electric generator power system to provide redundancy, the generators fit within the current designed generator compartments.”
The state has not publicly released an engineer’s estimate for the cost of the project, although a fiscal year 2022 state request for a federal grant cited a project cost of about $325 million.
The Alaska Statewide Transportation Improvement Program shows funding of $333 million for the TRV project.
Most of that project funding is from federal sources, with the state using “toll credits” for part of the state’s required 20% match.
“Toll credits are earned when we reinvest AMHS revenues back into the system through the overhauls,” McCarthy wrote in a February email response to a Daily News inquiry. “This reduces the amount of UGF match, and allows us to apply additional federal dollars toward the project.”
Using toll credits brings the state’s match requirement down to 4% or $13.3 million, according to McCarthy.
She verified that there are no shipyards in Alaska that are capable of building a ship of the TRV’s size.
“The project is open to any capable shipyard which meets the minimum
qualifications,” McCarthy wrote. “The potential interested shipyards are in Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oregon, and Washington (state).”
The recently completed AMHS Long Range Plan envisioned that the Tustumena Replacement Vessel would be in service in the first quarter of 2029.
The Alaska State Capitol in downtown Juneau.
(Photo by Greg Knight/News of the North)
The Alaska State Capitol in downtown Juneau. (Photo by Greg Knight/News of the North)
NOTN- Alaska lawmakers are in a 30-day special session to weigh a sweeping tax break for the proposed North Slope natural gas pipeline.
Juneau Sen. Jesse Kiehl, said the governor’s bill would shift the project away from the current 20-mill petroleum property tax structure and toward a volume-based tax on gas flowing through the line. He said the proposal amounts to roughly a 90% tax cut that would last as long as the pipeline operates.
“That’s one of the things we’re working on.” He said, “The governor’s proposal is about a 90% tax cut, and the governor’s proposal lasts as long as the pipeline lasts. They will not need that, right? They will not need that, past, heaven knows, past year 20 when you got almost all your debt paid off.”
Kiehl said some early tax relief is reasonable for a multibillion-dollar project that will not generate revenue immediately, but he questioned the size and duration of the proposed break.
“During the regular session, we couldn’t seem to get as many numbers, real numbers, as we needed, so we’re working on that.” He said, “A big gas line could be a huge project for the state, big for the state’s economy, a lot of jobs when it gets built. The other thing we have to make sure of is that we also protect the treasury, because the risk with these things is cost overruns, right? The oil pipeline cost could be more than double what they planned on.”
Lawmakers are seeking more complete data from project backers to determine how large a tax incentive is necessary and how long it should last.
While the gas line would not deliver gas to Southeast Alaska, Kiehl said the region’s benefit would come from new state revenues that fund public services, including schools and state troopers.
“The benefit we get from Alaska gas going to market is some money in the treasury to pay for public services, all the things we need. So, we’ve got to make sure that we watch those risks.” He said.
Kiehl also added that if the state grants a substantial property tax break, it will also need to ensure money flows to local governments along the route, such as Anchorage, Kenai and Fairbanks. Those communities would face increased demand for schools, law enforcement, road work and other services during construction.
The governor’s bill was introduced midway through the regular session and has already been vetted by House and Senate resources committees. The measure is now before the finance committees, which Kiehl said will use the full 30 day special session to scrutinize the fiscal impacts and negotiate possible changes.
If project backers do not provide the information lawmakers are seeking, he said, the Legislature could choose to “cut our losses and expenses and gavel out,” ending the special session without approving the package.
The Los Angeles Rams’ blockbuster trade will allow the football world to see the NFL’s best pass-rusher on the league’s biggest and brightest stage. By luring Cleveland Browns superstar Myles Garrett to Hollywood to help the reigning MVP make a final run at the Lombardi Trophy, the Rams are giving the seven-time Pro Bowler and two-time Defensive Player of the Year a stage that will not only cement his credentials as a future gold jacket wearer, but he could attain “G.O.A.T” status as the most talented pass-rusher to ever don the pads. As a former NFL player who played with Hall of Famers Bruce Smith, Reggie White and Derrick Thomas, and worked with the Carolina Panthers when a young Julius Peppers embarked on his Hall of Fame career, I am uniquely qualified to make that assessment based on watching and benefiting from their dominance and destruction at the point of attack. Considering three members of the aforementioned quartet rank among the top four in sacks all time (No. 1: Smith, 200.0; No. 2: White, 198.0; No. 4: Peppers, 159.5), the comparisons for Garrett are warranted based on his performance and production through his first nine seasons. Garrett, the NFL’s single-season record holder (23), has totaled 125.5 career sacks in 134 games. He has been the model of consistency, with eight seasons with at least 10 sacks and 149 tackles for loss, including a whopping 55 since 2024 alone. There’s only one real blemish on his playing résumé, and it’s beyond his control: He’s appeared in just three playoff games. As the featured playmaker for former Browns defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, the 6-foot-4, 272-pounder attacked offensive guards and tackles like an NBA small forward running an isolation play on the wing. Garrett’s first-step quickness and wide array of hesitation fakes and spin moves make him impossible to block without using a double team or a “chip” block from a running back or tight end. Additionally, the freakishly athletic sack artist can win with power, utilizing a bull rush or two-hand swipe to slip past blockers at the point of attack. Garrett’s clever use of finesse moves and old-school power maneuvers are complemented by his relentless motor. He is the rare superstar who plays with the energy and enthusiasm of a practice squad member trying to earn a permanent roster spot. Garrett’s competitiveness, stamina and effort jump off the tape, and it is one of his superpowers when evaluating his game. Reflecting back on my time with Smith and White, the Hall of Fame inductees also took tremendous pride in their conditioning. They were able to combine their skill with a nonstop motor that enabled them to outwork and outlast opponents on the edges. With Smith and White also capable of knocking blockers around with arm-overs and “hump” maneuvers, their ability to win with either finesse or force set them apart from others at the position. The two-time Defensive Player of the Year not only shares the explosive strength and power traits of the NFL’s all-time sack leader and the runner-up, but he also flashes the electric athleticism that helped Peppers terrorize opponents off the edge. The explosive first-step quickness and slippery maneuvers (dip-and-rip and stutter swim moves) are straight from the former two-sport athlete’s playbook. With Garrett capable of single-handedly destroying game plans like the three-time All-Pro and 2000s and 2010s NFL All-Decade Teams member, the Rams are adding a generational talent to the defense who will tilt the field in their favor whenever he steps between the lines. Considering the Super Bowl LVI blueprint that produced Sean McVay’s first Super Bowl win, the Rams have recreated a defensive lineup with similar star power. Garrett steps into the role previously occupied by three-time Defensive Player of the Year Aaron Donald, as the disruptive force at the line of scrimmage. Although No. 99 did his damage on the interior, the attention he commanded created big-play opportunities for others on the frontline. Kobie Turner and Byron Young will undoubtedly benefit from Garrett’s presence, as they will see their one-on-one opportunities increase with teams sending two and three blockers in the sack leader’s direction. Given Young’s win rate (14%), per ESPN Analytics, which ranked fifth among defensive tackles in 2025 without the All-Pro in the lineup, the fourth-year pro could see his sack numbers explode this season after tallying 24 in 51 career games. Young quietly recorded 12 sacks a season ago, with a 16.8% Pass-Rush Win Rate that ranked among the top 20 edge defenders in the league, per PFF. As teams are forced to make tough decisions in pass protection with three credible pass-rushers on the field, Garrett’s arrival could transform a good pass rush into a great one by season’s end. General manager Les Snead and McVay have found a way to operate in “Super Bowl-or-bust” mode, while planning for a future with a young franchise quarterback in the bullpen. While the Rams’ acquisitions have cost them multiple first-round picks, the opportunity to add Garrett to a lineup that features an All-Pro defensive back (Trent McDuffie) and another playmaking cover corner (Jaylen Watkins) should create a dèjá vu moment that brings back memories of Super Bowl LVI when another G.O.A.T led a title run with defensive backs Jalen Ramsey and Eric Weddle cast in supporting roles. With all eyes on the Rams, Stafford and Garrett attempting to create a storybook ending in Hollywood, the football world might finally see the game’s preeminent pass-rusher on the super stage.Latest Sports News from FOX Sports
One of Juneau’s two state House races this year is set to be competitive as four-term Democratic incumbent Andi Story is being challenged for the District 3 seat by Annette Kreitzer, a state administration commissioner under two Republican governors who more recently served as the borough manager in Haines.
Kreitzer’s filing as a Republican for the District 3 seat — which represents the northern part of Juneau as well as surrounding communities including Haines, Skagway and Gustavus — came shortly before the deadline and is listed by the state as pending as of 6:20 p.m. Monday.
Attempts by the Juneau Independent to contact Kreitzer and Story after Monday’s filing deadline were not immediately successful.
Kreitzer has a long career in state government in Juneau, including as a staff member beginning in 1992 for Republican Loren Leman when he was in the Legislature and then lieutenant governor, and then being named administration commissioner under Govs. Sarah Palin and Sean Parnell, according to a Chilkat Valley News profile. She retired from state government in 2012, but was then named Haines’ borough manager in 2021.
She told the newspaper in an October 2021 interview that as commissioner “you’re doing retirement and benefits and all of the inward-looking things, labor relations, personnel issues, those kinds of things, the backbone for the state” — and she hoped to bring that experience to her job as the Haines borough manager.
“When you hear a new idea that will bring change, a lot of times the first reaction is no, because of concerns that you might have about the idea,” Kreitzer said. “I would always tell the folks on my team, don’t say no, just say, how will you handle this challenge? Because a lot of times people can figure out good solutions for the concerns that you have.”
Kreitzer departed the job in August of 2024. She told the Chilkat Valley News in June of that year she was disappointed that she and the Haines Borough Assembly “have not been able to forge a better working relationship.” The newspaper reported her departure came at a time of high turnover among administrative staff in Haines and that the Assembly gave her an evaluation with low marks for communication in January of that year.
Rep. Andi Story, D-Juneau, listens to a closing floor speech shortly before the adjournment of this year’s regular legislative session on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, (Ellie Ruel / Juneau Independent)
Story, who served five terms on the Juneau Board of Education and was president of the Alaska Association of School Boards, was first elected to the House in 2019. Education has been a dominant issue in her campaigns and while in the Legislature, including serving as co-chair of the House Education Committee the past two years.
She announced May 21 she is seeking a fifth term, following speculation she would step down.
“I had heard a couple of people were interested that I thought would do a good job and so I was seriously considering if maybe I should give somebody else the opportunity,” Story told the Juneau Independent at the time. “But anyway, I decided there’s still work I want to do.”
