The front page explodes with Prohibition-era drama as Coast Guard officers engage in a thrilling chase off Long Island, capturing the British schooner Helen B. McLean loaded with illegal liquor. Boatswain V.A. Woods and his crew arrested ten men after the smugglers abandoned their ship and fled to shore in a speedboat, escaping in a waiting automobile — but not before the Coast Guard seized both the rum-runner and an oyster boat packed with booze. The captain of a second vessel was set to earn $5,000 for his role in the operation. Meanwhile, in New York courts, theatrical producer Earl Carroll was found guilty of perjury related to his infamous bathtub party where nude showgirl Joyce Hawley served drinks. Judge Goddard doubled his bail to $5,000 and deferred sentencing for a week. The verdict came just over an hour after the jury received the case, finding Carroll guilty on two of four counts.

These stories capture the wild contradictions of 1926 America — a nation publicly committed to Prohibition while privately awash in illegal alcohol. The Coast Guard seizure shows how rum-running had become a sophisticated criminal enterprise, with British ships, speed boats, and getaway cars working in coordination. Carroll's conviction reflects the era's moral tensions, where Broadway producers threw lavish parties with nude performers and bootleg liquor, then faced prosecution in an increasingly sensationalized court system. This was the height of the Roaring Twenties, when traditional values collided head-on with new urban freedoms, creating the dramatic tensions that defined the decade.

• The New Britain Herald boasted an average daily circulation of exactly 13,299 readers for the week ending May 22nd — impressive for a Connecticut city paper in 1926
• Crown Prince Gustaus Adolphus of Sweden admitted he didn't know how to dance the Charleston but was 'willing to learn' during his first-ever newspaper interview
• The Swedish prince declared himself 'a total abstainer, partly from principle and partly because I have no desire to drink' — quite a statement during Prohibition
• Earl Carroll's bail was doubled to $5,000 (about $75,000 today) and he faced up to five years in prison plus a $2,000 fine on each count
• Eighty miners were trapped 250 feet underground in a Pennsylvania coal mine fire, with rescue workers, priests, and anxious families gathering at the surface

• The captured rum-runner Helen B. McLean hailed from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia — part of a massive Canadian smuggling network that supplied an estimated 75% of America's illegal booze during Prohibition
• Earl Carroll's bathtub parties became legendary Broadway scandals, but his conviction here was just the beginning — he'd later serve time in federal prison and his theater would become famous for its risqué revues
• Crown Prince Gustaus Adolphus expressed eagerness to meet Babe Ruth, who in 1926 was having one of his greatest seasons, hitting .372 with 47 home runs for the Yankees
• Bobby Jones dominated the British Amateur golf championship mentioned here — he would complete the first-ever Grand Slam in golf just four years later in 1930
• That $3 million stock fraud scheme (about $45 million today) involved fake banks and targeted everyone from farmers to major New York bankers, showing how sophisticated financial scams had become in the booming 1920s economy