CBJ- Capital City Fire Rescue and the Juneau Police Department are launching a new app designed to connect CPR-trained residents with people experiencing cardiac arrest.
The Capital City Fire Rescue and Juneau Police Department Communications Center is launching PulsePoint Respond in Juneau on Tuesday, September 1.
PulsePoint is a free mobile application designed to connect CPR-trained community members with people experiencing cardiac arrest before professional responders arrive on the scene.
“Our firefighters and paramedics are trained and equipped to provide advanced care, but there is an unavoidable period between the 9-1-1 call and our arrival,” said Andrew Pantiskas, Division Chief of Emergency Medical Services for Capital City Fire Rescue. “While our crews are responding, a nearby citizen can make a tremendous difference.”
Media and members of the public are invited to learn more about PulsePoint Respond at the launch event on Tuesday, September 1 at 9 a.m. in the Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall.
PulsePoint Respond alerts registered CPR-trained users when a cardiac arrest is reported near the user’s location. Users who receive an alert can:
Recognize that a cardiac arrest is occurring nearby.
Respond to the location when it is safe to do so.
Begin CPR until professional responders arrive.
Locate and retrieve a nearby automated external defibrillator (AED).
Provide potentially lifesaving assistance during the critical first minutes of a cardiac arrest.
PulsePoint does not replace calling 9-1-1 or professional emergency medical services. Members of the public should still call 9-1-1 and follow the instructions of the public safety dispatcher.
Why Bystander CPR Matters
Nationally, hundreds of thousands of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur each year. While less than 50% of cardiac arrest victims get help before emergency responders arrive, immediate bystander CPR can significantly improve a person’s chance of survival.
Pantiskas advises that the most important thing that can be done during a cardiac arrest is to start CPR and get a defibrillator to the patient as quickly as possible.
For Juneau, PulsePoint is another tool to help close the gap between the moment a cardiac arrest occurs and the arrival of professional responders.
How to Participate
Residents who are CPR-trained and willing to assist can download PulsePoint Respond through the Apple App Store or Google Play, follow their local emergency response agency (“Capital City FR” in Juneau), and indicate that they are CPR-trained and willing to respond to nearby cardiac arrest alerts.
Voters at Anchorage City Hall wait in line to cast their ballots on Nov. 4, 2024, the day before Election Day. City hall, in downtown Anchorage, was one of the designated early voting sites in the state’s largest city. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The Alaska Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday on legal challenges brought by two groups on opposing sides of the state’s current ranked choice voting election system. The two groups of plaintiffs brought lawsuits against the Alaska Division of Elections challenging the language of a ballot measure, set to go before voters in November, abolishing the voting method along with other changes.
Ballot Measure 2, which will appear on the ballot as 24ESEG, would overhaul the state’s elections system via three major components: repeal ranked choice voting; rescind the nonpartisan, open primary system; and repeal campaign disclosure rules enacted by voters in 2020.
A Superior Court ruled in June that the state’s ballot summary was “true and impartial,” siding with the Alaska Division of Elections, overseen by Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom.
Plaintiffs have appealed that decision to the Alaska Supreme Court, which is expected to issue a fast-tracked ruling before a division deadline of Sept. 2 to print general election ballots.
The Alaska Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging the Alaska Division of Elections’ language of a ballot measure that would overhaul state elections on Aug. 25, 2026. (Screenshot of hearing via Gavel Alaska)
One group of plaintiffs are represented by attorney Scott Kendall, an author of the 2020 ballot measure implementing Alaska’s ranked choice voting and open primary system. They argued that the current ballot measure language is unclear, partisan and omits serious implications of the repeal effort.
The other group of plaintiffs, drafters of the measure, is called the “Repeal Now” campaign. The measure’s primary sponsors are Republican gubernatorial candidate Bernadette Wilson, along with former Anchorage library director Judy Eledge and former Alaska House Rep. Ken McCarty of Eagle River.
In court, attorneys representing Repeal Now argued against the lawsuits being combined and for a series of language changes, including changing of the term “repeal,” which they say is not easily understood by voters, and the term “true source” of campaign disclosures as “inflammatory partisan suasion.”
Under Alaska law, the division is required to prepare a ballot measure with a “true and impartial” summary of the proposed law. It must be “free from misleading tendency, whether the amplification, of omission, or of fallacy, and … must contain no partisan coloring.”
In the June ruling, a Superior Court judge found the division fulfilled its legal obligation and “if ballot summary language is true and impartial, the Court will not invalidate the language just because better language could be written.”
On Tuesday, the division, represented by attorney Laura Fox with the Alaska Department of Law, argued that the ballot language could be edited thousands of ways, but the division fulfilled its legal duty and prepared the ballot with a “true and impartial” summary and title.
“This case is not an editing exercise,” Fox argued. “We’re not assembled here as a big team of editors trying to polish a piece of writing by committee, as fun as that might be. Instead, the question here is just whether the summary clears the basic hurdle of being true and impartial. Because it does, the court should affirm.”
The Alaska Supreme Court justices will either uphold the lower court’s decision or order the division to revise the language. They’re expected to issue a ruling before Sept. 2 and then follow sometime later with an extended legal opinion.
Timeline of ballot measure and legal challenges
Alaska voters narrowly rejected a similar initiative to repeal ranked choice voting in 2024. Proponents quickly restarted the campaign in 2025, collecting more than 34,000 signatures to again place the question on the ballot in 2026. The division first published the ballot language last December.
A group of plaintiffs represented by Kendall filed a lawsuit challenging the ballot language in January. Plaintiffs include Anchorage Republican Sen. Cathy Giessel, AFL-CIO union president Joelle Hall, and former member of the Juneau Borough Assembly and vice president of Ocean Conservancy ‘Wáahlaal Gidaak Barbara Blake. They argued the ballot language was biased and inaccurate.
The division subsequently revised the ballot language in February with significant changes to the title and summary. The plaintiffs dropped the lawsuit without prejudice, according to court documents.
In mid-February, the Repeal Now group filed a lawsuit challenging the new language, arguing “opponents got their preferred language” adding the term “repeal” three times, and the summary was not “true and impartial.”
Giessel and fellow plaintiffs filed a new lawsuit, and the two suits were consolidated by the Superior Court judge in April.
Both groups of plaintiffs filed suggested ballot language with the court, and the state filed a motion defending their ballot language.
Court arguments
On Tuesday, Kendall argued before the Supreme Court that the ballot language should be a clear map for voters to understand what the measure does.
“But the state’s language here isn’t a map. It’s effectively an obstacle course where a voter can only understand Ballot Measure 2 by doing independent research outside the four corners of the ballot language. The state’s language is unclear, contains partisan suasion, and omits details that would give voters significant pause,” he said.
In particular, Kendall raised concerns the ballot measure does not clarify that if passed, nonpartisan or Independent voters would be excluded from voting in party primaries, unless registered with that party.
“It fails to make clear that Ballot Measure 2 specifically empowers political parties at the stroke of a pen to make it illegal for undeclared and nonpartisans to vote in the primary election,” he said. “I think voters need to be put on notice, especially the two-thirds of voters that don’t belong to either party, that you may not be able to vote in the primary election at all.”
Kendall also argued the language related to campaign finance disclosure rules was inadequate, and fails to give details of the implications.
If passed, the measure would repeal campaign disclosure rules and limits enacted by the ballot measure passed in 2020, including rules that individuals and entities who contribute more than $2,000 to candidates or campaigns must disclose the true source, as defined by law.
Attorney Julie Pack, representing the group of plaintiffs with the Repeal Now campaign and supporting the ballot measure, argued against the use of the term “repeal” because she said campaigners collecting signatures for the ballot measure found voters were not familiar with the term.
“Many people do not use that word on a daily basis. It’s not common parlance. It is for lawyers. It’s not for people who are not lawyers, and it’s not a term that is readily understood,” she said.
Justices pushed back, pointing out the term is in the name of their organization.
“My organization named itself before they canvassed, got all the signatures, talked to over 31,000 Alaskans, and understood that repeal is not a word that lots of people understand,” she replied. “So my client named itself before it learned that repeal is a term that’s mildly to moderately sophisticated.”
“There is no need to use words that are sophisticated,” she added. “When ‘redo,’ ‘remove,’ ‘undo,’ ‘get rid of’ are perfectly fine, and they would protect Alaskan voters’ right to know what they’re voting on.”
Pack also raised concerns with the term “true source” related to campaign finance disclosures, and argued the measure would maintain “open primaries.”
Arguing on behalf of the Division of Elections, Fox urged the justices to reject the plaintiffs arguments and affirm the lower court’s decision that the division met its legal obligations and should print the ballot measure as is.
Ballot Measure 2 as currently proposed by the Alaska Division of Elections:
An Act Restoring Political Party Primaries, Ending Ranked Choice-General Elections, and Repealing Recent Campaign Finance Laws
This Act would get rid of open primary elections, where all candidates appear on one ballot. It would also get rid of ranked-choice general elections. It would bring back political party primaries and single-choice general elections. It would also repeal certain campaign finance rules that were added by a 2020 ballot measure.
Elections would occur as they did before open primaries and ranked choice elections. In the primary election, voters would choose a party’s ballot, unless prohibited by the party’s bylaws. They would only vote for candidates on that ballot. The winning candidates from each primary would be the party’s nominee. In the general election, voters would vote for only one candidate in each race. Party petitions, special runoff elections, and other processes would return.
This act would repeal campaign finance rules that were passed in 2020. It would remove the limits on donations to joint campaigns for governor and lieutenant governor. It would remove limits and disclosure rules under current law, including for digital ads, out-of-state donations, undisclosed donations and the true source of donations. It would change the meaning of a campaign expenditure and remove some fines.
Meta, which owns social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, has agreed to a $17 billion multistate settlement announced on Aug. 26, 2026. Alaska is set to receive up to $23 million over the next ten years. (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Alaska is set to receive up to $23 million from Meta Platforms Inc. under a landmark $17 billion settlement agreement that would also require the company to implement a sweeping set of safety features for its social media platforms, aimed at protecting children from addictive features and harmful content.
The multistate settlement agreement was announced Wednesday that state officials are lauding as one of the biggest consumer protection settlements in history outside the Big Tobacco settlements of the 1990s.
New protections for teens, controls for parents included in Meta settlement
Time Limit: A default two-hour daily time limit that can only be turned off with a parent’s permission. Time spent scrolling on Facebook and Instagram counts toward the total.
Night mode: A default block from Meta apps between midnight and 6 a.m.
School Mode: Notifications will be muted by default between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. During those hours, young people will no longer receive push notifications, except for direct messages and alerts about their account security or safety.
Regular Prompts: Young users will receive prompts after every 15 minutes of continuous screen time on Facebook and Instagram.
Algorithmic Feed Control:Young users will be able to choose a non-algorithmic feed — one that isn’t personalized by Meta’s recommendation system.
Autoplay Control: Young users will be able to turn off autoplay, so that content no longer automatically plays.
Hidden Likes: Young people won’t see the number of likes and reactions on posts — both their own and those from others — by default.
Disablingcosmetic surgery and extreme makeup filters: Young users will not be able to use extreme makeup filters.
Direct messaging features will be excluded from Night Mode, Time Limit and School Mode restrictions.
Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, would be ordered to pay the up to a $17.1 billion penalty to 47 states, the District of Columbia and several U.S. territories. The final settlement remains subject to approval by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where the case was filed.
Alaska leaders praised the announcement in a statement on Wednesday.
“As a mom of two, I can’t tell you what a relief this settlement brings to me knowing there will be better safeguards on Meta’s platform to keep teens healthy and positively engaged,” said Acting Attorney General Cori Mills.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy called the settlement a “necessary and imperative step” to protecting children.
“Social media promised us connection and the ability to productively engage with each other in life’s joyful and mundane moments. What social media gave us was a generation of children scarred by bullying, harassment, doom-scrolling and predation,” Dunleavy wrote. “This is a good first step towards protecting our children from online dangers, and I hope we see more actions like this in the future.”
Mills also praised the work of attorneys general across the country “regardless of political party” and their consumer protection teams for pursuing the case. “It is only through that collaboration that settlements like this are possible,” she said. “This truly is a historic moment, and I am hopeful it sets the precedent for social media platforms going forward.”
The settlement ends a high-stakes lawsuit first filed in federal court in California in 2023, where states argued that Meta purposefully designed addictive social media features in order to maximize profits, illegally collected data on children and teens, and repeatedly misled the public about the harms of social media use.
Meta denies wrongdoing, and that it has any liability to the plaintiffs.
The company agreed to the settlement, which also requires major changes to Facebook and Instagram features for young users. That includes a daily two-hour time limit and frequent prompts to restrict endless scrolling; night time blocks from midnight to 6 a.m.; muted notifications during school hours; a choice of a non-algorithmic feed that is not personally tailored by Meta; hidden social comparison features, like beauty filters and “like” features, and others.
Under the settlement agreement, Meta sought similar restrictions on its competitors, TikTok and Youtube. Meta agreed to pay out 70% of the settlement, $12.7 billion, to states initially. The company agreed to pay the remaining 30%, or $17.1 billion total, only if TikTok and Youtube agree to implement a one-hour daily limit, night mode and age assurance measures. TikTok and Youtube must also agree to pay roughly $5.3 billion in penalties to states.
Alaska is expected to receive $16 million over the next 10 years, and up to $23 million if the other social media platforms agree to the terms, according to a spokesperson with the Alaska Department of Law.
Meta reports 3.9 billion active users on its social media apps each month, worldwide.
The company still faces thousands of lawsuits across the country from individuals and school districts accusing them of fueling harmful content and addiction in children, and inadequate safety features.
Build a Udemy-style course marketplace on WordPress: instructor registration, revenue sharing, and payouts with Masteriyo, plus the honest workload involved.
We’re proud to announce that WordPress has signed Open Weights and American AI Leadership, an open letter asking US policymakers to not place early restrictions on open weight AI models. These are artificial intelligence models that anyone can download, inspect, modify, and run on their own infrastructure. The letter was published on July 24, 2026, and more than 270 companies and organizations have added their names. Its argument will be familiar to anyone who works in open source: technology gets better and safer when more people can study it and build on it.
That belief is the foundation WordPress is built on. Anyone can run the software, look at how it works, change it to suit their needs, and share what they make. Those freedoms are why WordPress has become a foundational part of the open web and why people trust it with their work. Open weight models bring that same kind of access to AI. A model that anyone can download and adapt becomes something people can shape around their own work and improve for everyone who comes after them.
The next generation of innovation won’t come from models alone. It will come from millions of people building with them. Open weights help make that possible. WordPress is proud to support the Open Weights and American AI Leadership letter.
– WordPress Executive Director, Mary Hubbard
Requests to US Policymakers
The requests in the letter are practical ones. As signatories, we ask policymakers to expand access to computing power for startups and researchers, to invest in shared resources like public datasets and evaluation tools, and to keep more than one kind of model available rather than narrowing the field to a handful of closed systems. We also ask that common development practices, such as using one model’s output to improve another, not be treated as theft by default. Each of these requests follows the pattern that has made open source software dependable for decades, where many people test, improve, and secure the same technology in public view.
For more than 20 years, WordPress has run on the idea that the people using a technology should be free to shape it. AI is becoming part of how people publish, and open weight models are one way that freedom carries forward. Keeping them available gives the next generation of builders, the people now learning WordPress, the same starting point that open source gave everyone before them.
On the heels of viral trends like looksmaxxing (maximizing one’s attractiveness) and healthmaxxing (optimizing physical and mental wellness), moneymaxxing describes the pursuit of better finances. But what does it mean, exactly? Well, it starts with a concept that’s been around…
One of the best parts of visiting Aldi is the new products that come out every month. Here are our favorite new items hitting shelves in September 2026.
In one of the most remote towns in America, a group of teenagers is fighting to put an initiative on the November ballot that would raise the minimum wage for the largely Native population of Nome, Alaska.
The idea took hold earlier this year when the six young women were invited to a conference in California as part of a Native youth leadership group they’d joined at their high school. There, they listened to Saru Jayaraman, who heads a national effort to raise the minimum wage, speak about the work being done city by city to secure higher pay. They kept looking at each other as she spoke. We should do this in Nome, they thought.
“We were just talking amongst ourselves, and we were like, ‘There’s people in Alaska who work for their whole lives, and their minimum wage doesn’t change at all to support their children and their elders, and their whole family,’” said Alora Stasenko, one of the women leading the effort who graduated this spring. Another student leader, Renee Brown, was working part-time at the local preschool and saw how many of her coworkers lived out of renovated shipping containers and walked to work in harsh conditions. The low in Nome reached -26 degrees Fahrenheit last year.
“We decided that money was a problem, and that we wanted to help get, not just a few people, but everybody, what they need,” Stasenko said.
Nome, a town of about 3,700 on Alaska’s Seward Peninsula, just 150 miles off the coast of Russia, is perhaps best known for its history as a gold rush town and as the ending point of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. The next nearest town is 70 miles away, and supplies need to be shipped or flown in. That makes living expensive. The minimum wage is $14 an hour, but the cost of living is about 69 percent higher than the national average. Gas often tops $6 a gallon. Milk is $10 a gallon. Grocery stores are rarely full and so expensive that many people hunt for their food.
“It takes a while to go out on boats or snow machines or trucks or four-wheelers, and you have to buy your ammo and your guns and all your equipment to go out. Everything gets expensive,” Stasenko said. “I grew up living a very subsistence lifestyle.”
In her freezer: caribou, fish and walrus that she helped hunt herself.
Stasenko and the other students were gripped by the idea that raising the minimum wage in Nome could help give people there a better quality of life. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Living Wage Calculator sets the living wage there — how much one person working full-time needs to support themselves — at nearly $24 an hour. A family of four would need two working adults earning about $28 an hour each to stay afloat.
Jayaraman was impressed when the students followed up with her after the conference. It was the first time in her decades of activism that she had been approached by high schoolers to start a campaign.
With her guidance, the students formed the Nome Living Wage For All Alliance and convened a call with some of the town’s largest employers to discuss interest in a ballot initiative. They settled on a goal of raising the minimum wage to $25 an hour. They’re proposing a phase-in period, giving large corporations until 2029 to raise wages and small businesses until 2032. Already, the town’s top employer, Norton Sound Health Corporation, sets its minimum wage at $25 an hour, so raising the floor would only apply to about 15 percent of workers in the city.
They submitted a ballot petition to the city in May, which was approved, and now need to collect 108 signatures — representing a quarter of ballots cast in the 2025 local election — to get their proposal on the ballot in November. They have until the end of the month to collect enough signatures.
“They’ve initiated this conversation in Nome,” said Jayaraman, who added that the story of the group’s work has also inspired other organizers around the country. “Whether they make it on the ballot this November or not, they’ve already had such profound impact on the national movement, on young people all over the country, on workers in other states.”
Because Nome is also a larger regional hub, part of the hope is that improving wages there could also help raise them in neighboring towns where conditions are even harsher — where stores often lack meat or fresh produce and there is no running water.
Over the summer, Brown, one of the student organizers, spoke at a national mobilization event in Washington, D.C. about the hope she had that Nome’s movement “will not only improve the lives of our community members, but will inspire our fellow classmates and peers across Alaska to believe in the power of effort, advocacy and determination.”
“Our efforts will help Nome pioneer a new kind of American dream — one where dignity is the baseline and every resident can afford to stay on our golden beaches,” Brown said.
Most of the organizers spent much of the end of their senior year at Nome-Beltz Middle High School strategizing. Kaya Kent, another organizer, said she remembers talking excitedly about it with Stasenko during classes.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was checking my email constantly, and I was waking up thinking about the campaign,” Kent said.
A $500 million-plus project to turn Nome’s dock into the nation’s first deepwater Arctic port just kicked off, and though it will likely bring in money for all the businesses that traverse through there, the organizers want to make sure the people of Nome can benefit, too.
Even those already earning more than $25 an hour — like Kent’s mother, who works in an administrative position at the local hospital — are still struggling to live comfortably in Nome, Kent said.
“If it’s like that for my mom, who’s able to make $40 an hour, I can’t imagine what it’s like for the people that are making way, way less than that,” she said.
It’s an effort that is about fundamental survival, and it mirrors a lot of what’s driving Gen Z students to get engaged politically, Jayaraman said. Some tell her that they support raising the minimum wage because it’s fundamental to them being able to take on any other causes.
“They tell me, ‘This is the thing that’s giving me hope because I can’t envision a future unless I can have one job and earn enough to maybe one day have my own place, maybe think about having a family. I can’t imagine working on any of these other issues I care about, whether it’s climate or immigration or anything else, unless I can survive and my family can survive.’”
Still, getting a tight-knit town that has subsisted on its own to embrace a lofty idea made popular in cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago has not been easy. There’s concern over how businesses will be able to absorb the increased personnel costs. There’s dismissiveness because the effort is being led by young women — people say they’re just high schoolers who need to take an economics class, Kent said.
Plus, she added, “with a lot of Nome, change is scary for them.”
But the arguments against a minimum wage hike in Nome are similar to those heard across the country, Jayaraman said. Primarily, it’s the worry that it will lead to rising costs. Minimum wage increases have led to some modest employment loss and some added costs to businesses — but these are often offset by rising revenues. Extensive research that’s been done on minimum wage initiatives over the years has also found significant positive benefits for workers, and particularly low-wage ones.
“What the girls are saying is, ‘We need money to survive costs going up,’” Jayaraman said. For many people in America now, “that argument that it’s going to make costs go up and therefore we can’t do it, they’re like: ‘Costs have already gone up. What are you talking about? The only thing that hasn’t gone up is my paycheck.’”
Kent starts every conversation when she goes out to collect signatures with the same question: “How much money do you make?”
She and the other students are rushing to collect signatures before their deadline is up. Admittedly, it’s been tough to do with most of them out of town or preparing for college this summer. Stasenko already moved to Washington state to attend Shoreline Community College, where she’s studying accounting and playing college volleyball.
Kent will soon move to Colorado to attend Fort Lewis College. As she’s made her final push for signatures, she’s been thinking about how this effort might ensure that if she ever comes back home to make a life, she can.
Before all of this started, she and the other students had never done any activism like this. For Kent, taking it on has helped solidify what she wants to do with her life. When she gets to Colorado this fall, she’ll major in political science.
Speaking with longtime friend Stas Karanikolaou and former employee Vic Villarroel, she responded to the latest pregnancy rumor.
“I think that I’m so used to people creating their own narrative,” Kylie admitted, “that I actually have to just laugh about it.”
She added: “And I really don’t care.”
Kylie shared: “I just assume people will figure it out eventually, which is what they always do.”
“Like, people think I’m pregnant right now,” Kylie then acknowledged.
“At least,” she then added, “I saw some things.”
Just because she does not always respond to rumors and speculation does not mean that she does not necessarily see these comments, especially when her superfans are doing the posting.
Unlike her older sisters, Kylie has basically never known a time when she was not in the spotlight.
She has developed a somewhat pragmatic attitude towards dispelling rumors. Mostly, that means letting them dispel themselves.
Kylie Jenner explained exactly why rumors about her, be they absurd or merely untrue, don’t keep her awake at night.
And, more to the point, why she doesn’t feel the need to confirm or deny things.
“I’m not going to address everything ‘cause it’s, like, I’m going to be in a bikini somewhere or I’m going to be out,” Kylie reasoned.
“And,” she predicted, “the rumors will be squashed.”
At the risk of sounding pedantic, quashed is when something is invalid. Squashed is when something is compressed or destroyed. We’d argue that, in this case, both meanings apply.
Kylie Jenner wspomniała o „hate that i made you love me” Ariany podczas nowego wywiadu/podcastu, wymieniając ten utwór jako swoją aktualnie ulubioną piosenkę🫶 pic.twitter.com/9NscYR0hkI
— Ariana Grande Polska ꕤ Arizone (@grandepolska) August 27, 2026
“I, kind of, just don’t feel the need to say anything ever,” Kylie characterized.
(Some of us are dedicated yappers, but it seems that she is not.)
“I can’t, like, talk [or] comment on everything,” she explained.
“So,” Kylie added, “I just laugh about it and join in on the party.”
That sounds like a healthy attitude. But it’s also not one that’s likely to dispel these rumors.
When you’ve kept pregnancies secret in the past, don’t be surprised when people are on the lookout for another.
A word of warning before you scroll down: You’re going to disagree with some of the opinions you’re about to read. I know I’ve never come across an NFL quarterback ranking I’ve agreed with 100%, and the same is almost certainly true for you, whether you lean heavily on analytics, film, or team results. We all have different ideas of what makes one quarterback better than another. How you stack them is determined by what you value most in a quarterback. I prefer to focus on a quarterback’s skill set and how it helps their team’s offense function. The quarterbacks who can do everything for their team go to the top of the list, and they’re closely followed by those who can still carry an offense despite one or two small weaknesses in their game. From there, you have your quarterbacks who can put up big numbers in the right environment and then those who are just trying to hang onto a starting job. And if your team’s quarterback doesn’t fall into one of those four categories, it’s time to start looking for a new one. For this exercise, I’ve placed all 32 of the league’s starting quarterbacks (plus the eventual loser of the uninspiring battle going on in Atlanta) into one of seven tiers, ranging from “Elite” to “A Backup on Any Other Team.” One last thing before we get started: These selections are based on what these quarterbacks have done in the past; they are not a projection of what’s to come in 2026. Click on a tier below to go directly to it. Elite | Franchise Carrier | On The Doorstep | Supporting-Cast Dependent | Good Enough To Start | Erratic But Talented Sophomores | Backups On Any Other Team Tier 1: Elite The best of the very best. These quarterbacks are one-man starter packs for a top-10 offense. They have no limitations on what they can do on the field. They can burn a defense with their arms, legs, or even their minds. No matter what’s going on around them, their teams will be in contention for a title—provided they’re healthy, of course. We can all agree Josh Allen belongs in this tier after putting up another MVP-caliber season in 2025, but Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson are probably undervalued, with both missing the playoffs and posting pedestrian numbers by their lofty standards. Let’s start with Mahomes, who’s still the league’s best quarterback, no matter what the league standings or analytical charts from last year say. The Chiefs had no receivers who could separate from man coverage, and Mahomes’ only reliable pass catcher, Travis Kelce, was running like a beer league first baseman. The offensive line was full of holes, the running backs produced just two runs that went for more than 20 yards last season, and Andy Reid’s offense was about four years past its expiration date. Still, this was an above-average offense by any objective measure. Kansas City’s season from hell wasn’t proof that Mahomes has lost a step; it proved that a quarterback can only do so much to prop up a poorly built roster. It’s more difficult to make an argument in favor of Jackson’s 2025 campaign. The two-time MVP did not play well at times and contributed to some of the issues in Baltimore’s passing game by holding onto the ball for far too long and taking avoidable sacks. But I’m willing to give Jackson a one-year pass for two reasons: 1. He was banged up throughout the season, which explains his reluctance to scramble.2. That whole two-time MVP thing. Jackson’s track record of elevating mediocre supporting talent is long enough to warrant inclusion in this tier. If we get a repeat of last year in 2026, we can revisit this discussion. Tier 2: Franchise Carriers These quarterbacks are good enough to match the elite guys throw-for-throw, but there’s at least one weakness in their game that keeps them out of the top tier. While it’s not a guarantee that their teams will contend for a title, they will be in the playoff hunt as long as they’re on the field. There’s only one quarterback in this group without a playoff win in his résumé. That’s Justin Herbert, of course. Quarterbacks are ultimately judged by what they do in the postseason, but we’re talking about a sample size of three games here. Herbert has played 98 regular-season games and has been damn good in them. He also checks every box laid out in the description of this tier. Herbert just dragged a below-average receiving corps and a historically inept offensive line to an 11-win season. As long as Herbert is out there, the Chargers have a chance to win. It’s only a matter of time before that translates to postseason success. Dak Prescott is the other postseason faller in the group, but the perception that the Cowboys quarterback is bad in the playoffs largely stems from two bad games against superior 49ers teams. Fun fact: Prescott and noted playoff riser Jalen Hurts both average 0.07 expected points added per dropback in the postseason, but Prescott’s success rate is nearly 8 percentage points higher, per Next Gen Stats. He also clears Joe Burrow, another supposed postseason riser, in both stats. If we just focus on Prescott’s game, which is built on a mastery of the Cowboys offense and top-end timing, precision, and pocket presence – you know, all the hallmarks of great quarterbacking – his inclusion in this tier is a no-brainer. Tier 3: On The Doorstep These quarterbacks have a few more kinks they need to work out before they can make the leap into the tier above it. Give them a good support system, though, and they’ll perform like a tier-two quarterback. As you can probably surmise by now, I don’t put too much stock in small postseason sample sizes. That’s why C.J. Stroud (just barely) makes it into this tier. Stroud was downright awful in Houston’s playoff run last season, but that shouldn’t overshadow the good work he did in the regular season, with a receiving corps decimated by injuries, an offensive line short on talent, and a first-year play-caller who enters 2026 on the hot seat. Stroud’s season was also disrupted by a concussion that took him out for a month. Statistically speaking, Stroud was a top-10 quarterback after his return, and his tape was just as impressive as the numbers imply. He found more consistency with his accuracy, played more decisively, and showed more command of the offense before the snap. Houston’s offensive setup should improve in 2026, which should coincide with a bounce-back season for the 2023 Offensive Rookie of the Year. Out of the four passers in this group, Jordan Love is the closest to making the jump into the next tier. Look at his efficiency numbers, and you’d think he already belongs in that group, but I’d like to see Love maintain that efficiency in a pass-first offense. Given the state of the Packers defense heading into the season, he’ll get his chance to do it in 2026. And then there are the two generational prospects who haven’t quite lived up to the hype. Caleb Williams has had his elite moments, but unreliable downfield accuracy and some overly ambitious decision-making are holding him back from the top tiers. The same goes for Lawrence, who fixed some of his accuracy issues last season but is still good for one or two bozo moments per game. Still, when these two are at their best, there are only a handful of quarterbacks who can match them. Tier 4: Supporting-Cast Dependent This group can produce like top-10 quarterbacks provided the conditions around them are just right. Some in this group require pristine pass protection. Others need an innovative play-caller or a stacked receiving corps. But when those needs aren’t met, they play more like bottom-10 quarterbacks. This is the middle class of NFL passers. The fanbases for these quarterbacks are all thinking the same thing: Why is my guy lumped in with these scrubs? I’d guess that Lions fans are most offended, and they could make a decent argument that Jared Goff belongs in a higher tier based on production alone. Even last season, when Detroit missed the playoffs, Goff remained productive without Ben Johnson calling plays. That ignores the fact that Detroit’s offense was mostly powered by Jahmyr Gibbs’ explosive runs and a receiving corps that could turn a short pass into a monster gain. Goff’s inability to play under pressure is the main reason he’s stuck in this group. He was, once again, one of the worst quarterbacks in the league when pressured, and his lack of mobility, which won’t miraculously improve now that he’s in his 30s, is the root cause. Put Goff in, say, the Chiefs offense, and he’d crumble. If you need proof, just revisit his first season in Detroit when the Lions were still in rebuilding mode. Or just watch any game where he’s under siege. Kyler Murray and Jayden Daniels are the two quarterbacks who could make the jump into the next tier this season. Both will have to stay healthy – a tall order given their respective injury histories. Murray has higher upside in 2026, mostly because of a better supporting cast. He also has the stronger arm and has shown more as a pocket passer. Daniels has to regain his short-area accuracy to rediscover the form we saw in his rookie season. Given the state of Washington’s offensive line, even that may not be enough for Daniels to bounce back statistically. This tier also includes three quarterbacks who have played in a Super Bowl, and two of them have won it. Sam Darnold is the defending Super Bowl champ, and he’s coming off a clean postseason run, but he also led the NFL in turnovers last season. Jalen Hurts has led mediocre passing games in three consecutive seasons despite a wealth of surrounding talent. And Brock Purdy has battled injuries and inconsistency since breaking out in 2022 with a superstar supporting cast and Kyle Shanahan calling the plays. Tier 5: Good Enough To Start On their best day, these guys can trick their fan bases into thinking they have a franchise quarterback … but a sobering reminder that they don’t is always right around the corner. I want it on record that I believe Geno Smith and Tyler Shough could force their way into the tier above this one by the end of 2026. Smith was dealt an impossible hand in Las Vegas last season. His offensive coordinator was calling plays that weren’t in the game plan, the unqualified offensive line coach was way over his head, and wide receiver Tre Tucker led the team in targets. Even considering all that, Smith didn’t play well, but there are only a handful of quarterbacks who would have in that environment. I expect the veteran to bounce back behind a solid Jets offensive line and talented skill group. I was pleasantly surprised by Shough’s rookie season but still have plenty of concerns. Deep accuracy and a concerningly high pressure-to-sack ratio are at the top of that list. The second-year pro has the arm talent and mobility to improve in those areas, but he’s already entering his age-27 season, which gives him less room for improvement compared to the rest of his draft class. Despite the large gap in age and accolades, Bryce Young and Aaron Rodgers are largely the same players at this point in their respective careers. Neither is comfortable throwing to the middle of the field, which can hamstring their offenses, but both make up for it with impressive touch on vertical, perimeter throws. Both look physically overwhelmed at times. Tier 6: Erratic But Talented Sophomores Well, this one’s self-explanatory. I’m not ready to give up on either of these guys, but the holes in their games prevent me from fully buying in. If I had to choose one of these quarterbacks for the upcoming season, Jaxson Dart would be my pick. If I were picking for the next five years, I’d go with Cam Ward. Thanks to his scrambling and run-game contributions, Dart is the more useful player. But he’s seemingly incapable of playing in structure and consistently misses even the most basic reads. When reviewing the tape of his rookie season, I lost count of the times he’d be staring directly at an open receiver underneath and not throw the football. It was mildly infuriating, but Dart showed an uncanny ability to salvage those missed opportunities with his legs. On the flip side, his refusal to slide led to countless trips to the blue medical tent. He’s more comfortable in there than the pocket, it seems. Ward’s pocket presence also needs improvement, but he’s shown more as a processor early in his career. The 2025 first-overall pick has no problems reading a defense and making anticipatory throws, but getting the ball to his intended target has been an issue for him. If he doesn’t shore up his accuracy in 2026, the Titans could be back in the quarterback market next offseason. Tier 7: Backups On Any Other Team The teams these quarterbacks play for are already looking forward to their next quarterback. In one case, he’s already on the roster. Kirk Cousins is the inclusion here that might get some pushback, but just ask Falcons fans how excited they are by the prospect of Michael Penix Jr. starting in Week 1 and then remind yourself that Cousins couldn’t beat him out a year ago. While I’ve always liked Malik Willis’ upside, he doesn’t stand a chance in the Dolphins offense. Jacoby Brissett is a career backup, and the Browns naming Deshaun Watson their QB1 has the sport’s most loyal fanbase ready to revolt.Latest Sports News from FOX Sports
