These days, millions of Americans ask chatbots about everything under the sun — and politics is no different. Candidates are starting to realize they need to position themselves in ways that make sure they’re included in those answers.

A research project done by a progressive political group called Run For Something has created an AI tool called  — short for campaign insight — that works to help campaigns understand what is and isn’t being said about them in chats.

“We were trying to figure out just what ChatGPT is saying about our 400-odd endorsed candidates last year,” said Jordan Haines, the chief technology officer for Run For Something.

“When folks ask who’s the most progressive candidate running for school board, or they ask about a particular race, are they getting back information from ChatGPT? It turned into a whole thing as we realized the scope of the answers and how much volatility and noise in that there is.”

Different AI chatbots will provide different answers and utilize different sources. What they found was, in some cases, legitimate candidates in big, statewide races weren’t even registering.

“Chatbots are often doing real-time web search,” Haines said. “When you ask a question, they’re going and searching the web and then putting together an answer for you. And so your race needs to show up as an actual race, and then you need to show up as a candidate.”

That’s important because chatbots can be really opinionated.

“Chatbots are surprisingly willing to make recommendations to folks on who to vote for, to rank candidates, to differentiate candidates in a race based on issues,” said Haines, making it important to understand how the AI tools gathered the information behind those answers.

“The optimizing for AI answers is a superset of the things that you need to do to optimize for traditional search,” he explained.

“These chatbots are doing traditional search. You have to show up in the traditional search results. But then the content you have in those places really matters because these chatbots are trying to put together a cohesive narrative around your campaign or what’s happening in the race.”

That means campaigns are starting to realize they need to tailor some of the information they post on their websites in better ways.

One example of that, he said, is FAQ type content and policy positions that used to be brief blurbs are now getting far more detailed.

That language then finds its way into the answers being provided by chatbots, which is important to know since news articles behind a paywall might show up high in a traditional Google web search, but are rarely included in answers from chatbots. Local news articles are also more likely to be referenced than a national news source is.

Haines also found you can ask the same questions in different languages and get different answers.

“There is a big difference,” he said. “The sources are different. The answers are different when we translate them and translate them back.

Figuring out why is something he’s still working on. But the importance of this work has been made clear by the different campaigns utilizing this particular tool.

“When they go and knock doors,” Haines explained, “it used to be that voters were asking about something they saw go viral on social recently. Like, ‘Did you see this? Is it true?’ Now they’re saying ‘ChatGPT said this about our community or said this about your candidacy. Is that true?’

“So these campaigns are looking for a way to get ahead of those questions by using Campsight to monitor what ChatGPT and Google AI are saying,” he added.

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A pair of studies is shining more light on how kids are using AI, what they’re finding with it and how much their parents might be in the dark on it all.

“Using AI is nearly universal among tweens and teens in America,” said Geoffrey Fowler, the head of public engagement for the Youth AI Safety Institute at Common Sense Media. “It’s hard to overstate how much AI has become a part of their lives. They’re using it for school. They’re using it for fun. They’re using it to communicate, and they’re using it to talk about things that, frankly, we would rather have them talking to adults and trusted humans about.”

He said that includes topics like their bodies, their relationships and other problems they might be facing on a day-to-day basis.

“We know that is a dangerous path for kids to go down with AI systems, with chatbots, because they’re not human and they are not, frankly, designed well enough at this point to really be able to answer some of those questions appropriately,” Fowler said.

One of his group’s finds growing dependency on AI among teens, with those who might be struggling in school turning to AI for help. He also said kids who report feeling lonelier tend to use AI more frequently for social and emotional support.

“We can’t necessarily say that AI is making kids feel lonelier, but we can say that the lonelier kids are turning to AI,” Fowler said. “That’s disturbing because we know that those kids might need more human support, and they’re much better served by friends and parents and counselors and teachers than by a bot.”

A found that AI is lowering the barrier to sexually explicit material among teens and tweens.

In fact, it found almost half teens said they’ve seen sexually explicit material they believed was AI-generated. In most cases, that exposure was not something they were seeking either. Within that group coming across the explicit material, a quarter of them said it involved either themselves or someone they knew.

“This is just a new super powerful form of it that we have to be extra aware of because it can have real lasting damage on communities and on kids’ relationships,” Fowler said.

“Many adults, myself included, assume that when you hear the term deepfakes, that’s a problem for celebrities and politicians,” he added. “But the real takeaway here is that this is also a part of the lives of teenagers. So much so that many of them say they’re fearful it’s going to happen to them, and they’re even changing some of their behavior online to try to keep it from happening to them.”

But a common theme in both reports is that parents aren’t talking about AI with their kids. The July report found only 20% of teens have talked about AI-generated sexual content with a trusted adult. The other report, released in June, found more than 40% of kids aren’t having conversations about AI safety with either parents or teachers.

“It’s hard to blame parents for this,” Fowler said. “They feel that their kids are way ahead on this technology. They may well be, but the reality is, you don’t have to be an expert to have a conversation with your kid and to have an open door to talk about what you’re using.”

“I think adults have to catch up with kids in a big way about all the different things that AI can do, and all the different ways it’s becoming part of their lives,” he added.

But he also said Big Tech can be doing more too. Fowler said Apple and Google could do more to get certain apps that help create deepfake, pornographic content, off their app stores. He also faulted social media companies for not doing enough to keep certain content from spreading within their platforms too.

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This case involves 22-year-old Antoine Coupland, a Canadian citizen who enrolled as a freshman at the school in January. But in denying his case, the NCAA cited his experience with a team in Croatia, as well as the Vancouver Whitecaps FC 2 in the MLS Next Pro developmental league, where he was loaned out to Vancouver’s first team in Major League Soccer.

He played a total of 14 minutes and scored a goal in two games for Vancouver’s first team.

“They’re trying to say he went pro, which he didn’t,” said Tim Maloney, Coupland’s attorney in the matter, in an interview with �Ӱ�ԭ��.

He’s asking for a temporary and permanent injunction that would allow Coupland to play. A hearing on the matter is set for next week in Upper Marlboro.

“This is a young man who did what thousands of young soccer players do, which is he had youth training experience in the minor leagues, but never went pro,” Maloney said.

Neither the NCAA nor the university would comment, though documents filed with the courts show Maryland officials arguing strenuously on Coupland’s behalf.

“The NCAA’s decision to deny Mr. Coupland’s reinstatement of eligibility is comprised of opinion-based characterizations that are contradicted by factual statements,” university President Darryll Pines wrote in a five-page letter appealing the decision.

It’s part of the court record submitted by Maloney.

“Mr. Coupland’s case sits at the intersection of multiple evolving, and, at times, inconsistent areas of NCAA pre-enrollment legislation and eligibility certification practice,” Pines added.

The MLS Player’s Association also wrote the NCAA, saying it wanted to help the organization in “accurately assessing” Coupland’s eligibility status as it pertains to the contract he signed. It specifically pointed out Coupland did not receive the benefits or pay MLS first-team players get.

In the complaint, Coupland argues the NCAA was wrong to say he was given compensation beyond actual and necessary expenses, and that some of the numbers offered up by the NCAA as compensation he received, or expenses he incurred, were arbitrary and done in bad faith.

“NCAA uses opaque average expenditure data and frequently changing criteria to make its ‘actual and necessary’ expenses,” the lawsuit argues. “This data and criteria are not transparent. They are published nowhere.”

However, the lawsuit says the NCAA’s decision about Coupland is focused on the MLS games he played, and is a result of ongoing debates in the media and on Capitol Hill about professionalism in college sports.

Coupland’s lawyer says in the complaint the NCAA was looking to make “a result-oriented decision,” and that NCAA staff “confirmed that NCAA senior leaders were focused on controlling the amateur narrative of intercollegiate athletics and permitting Antoine to compete might undermine that narrative.”

“Student-athletes routinely sign short-term professional agreements without forfeiting eligibility,” said the complaint. “But the NCAA mistakenly believed Antoine signed the standard professional (MLS) agreement, not the short-term agreement.”

It also points to other soccer players with appearances in England’s Premier League, as well as the growing list of basketball players who played professionally in Europe before going to college, and says if injunctive relief isn’t granted, it jeopardizes Coupland’s academic career.

“Yet the NCAA portrays Antoine’s signing of these agreements themselves as violations, or an intent to professionalize, when they are not,” it argues.

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Six people are in custody and five more could soon be charged too, in connection with a series of retail robberies going back at least a year and a half in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

Prince George’s County police said that since February of 2025, the six are responsible for over $500,000 worth of stolen merchandise, much of which was later resold online or privately.

The six are identified as 30-year-old Daryl Michael Jackson of D.C., 25-year-old Cyan Rocke of Capitol Heights, Maryland, 37-year-old Marco Morgan of D.C., 31-year-old Tia Courtney of Capitol Heights, Maryland, 26-year-old Chyna Parker of Suitland, Maryland, and 22-year-old Quasaan Parker of Suitland, Maryland.

Rocke, Morgan and Jackson are facing federal charges for their crimes.

“This was their profession. This is what they do,” said Prince George’s County Police Chief George Nader Tuesday. “They go out all day, every day, and steal from different merchants throughout the region, different states and they resell these items. Sometimes they take orders for these items.”

He said the stores that were hit were located in Maryland, D.C., Virginia, Delaware and Pennsylvania, and the items stolen were wide-ranging.

“Clothing stores, electronics, hardware stores,” Nader said. “It wasn’t limited to one retailer or another.”

Earlier this year, the department created a special task force focused on retail theft. This isn’t the first arrest from that task force, but the chief said it ranks among the most significant.

“One point I want to make clear, none of the individuals facing these charges are strangers to law enforcement. They have all had encounters with law enforcement in the past,” Nader said. “These are individuals who have previously come to the attention of law enforcement, and their continued involvement in criminal activity demonstrates why investigations like this are so important.”

The arrests were made at three different locations around the region, and Nader said police also recovered a handgun and a large amount of illegal drugs to include crack cocaine, PCP and fentanyl.

About $20,000 worth of stolen merchandise was also recovered.

Describing this as an organized enterprise is significant under a change in state law. It means police can also charge the suspects with crimes that happened in other jurisdictions, if they can prove the illegal activities were planned in Prince George’s County.

“I’m hoping that this is taken very seriously,” Nader said. “We’re not going to tolerate it in the state, and we’re not going to tolerate it in Prince George’s County. We are watching, and we’re going to continue to investigate and hold people accountable that are involved in these organized retail thefts.”

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The law, passed in the spring, assesses a $5,000 annual fee on the owners of liquor stores, tobacco stores, gun stores and consolidated storage businesses. In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs say the council dubbed it as a “use and occupancy” fee, but that it’s actually a tax, and that under state law, the county can’t assess that without state permission.

Other businesses can continue to pay the one-time fee of $370.

“It’s an illegal tax,” said Tim Maloney, the lawyer representing the 50-plus businesses that are part of the lawsuit. “The county has no authority to impose a special tax on liquor stores, or storage facilities, or gun ranges, or vape shops, any of those things.”

A spokesperson for County Executive Aisha Braveboy declined to comment. The law was never signed by her, but she told �Ӱ�ԭ�� shortly after the legislation passed that she wouldn’t veto it because of the supermajority that passed it.

“We always have to balance what we want and desire as a county with the practical realities of business,” Braveboy said after the legislation passed but before it became law.

At the time, she said she wasn’t going to veto the bill, and knew that meant the county would have to defend it in court.

“The reality is it passed with a super majority of the council’s support,” she said.

“I think it’s profoundly unfair, and they’ve been singled out,” Maloney said. “There’s no question they’ve been denied equal protection because everybody else is going to pay a use and occupancy permit … on a one-time basis, and they’re being asked to pay an annual $5,000 fee. So that’s discrimination on its face.”

The lawsuit argues that under state law, fees can only be used to defray regulatory costs, but that this annual fee, which will go up in coming years, will be used to fund a quality of life improvement fund in the county, putting it in violation of state taxing authority.

“The State has not authorized Prince George’s County to impose a tax or an impact fee upon alcoholic beverage stores, tobacco and electronic cigarette stores, stores that sell firearms, and self-storage facilities,” the lawsuit said.

The argument for the bill was led by Council Chair Krystal Oriadha, who said that those businesses “have a particularly detrimental impact upon Prince George’s County’s quality of life.”

The public hearing before the law was passed on a 9-2 vote got heated, as Oriadha and other members of the council pressed business owners on where they lived and how strong their ties to the community were.

The two votes against the measure came from at-large council member Jolene Ivey and Sydney Harrison, who represents the county’s 9th District but won the primary for the other at-large seat next year. Both cited concerns about the legislation’s legality as the reason they voted against it.

“I don’t think this one’s a particularly close call,” Maloney said. “Even the county council staff, when they were passing it, pointed out that there were significant legal problems, and this had never been attempted anywhere else.”

While it’s the county being sued, Braveboy’s office initially deferred comment to the council.

Council Chair Oriadha did not respond to a message from �Ӱ�ԭ��.

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Initially, the lake was closed for swimming after someone was attacked by a beaver that later tested positive for rabies. A second similar attack prompted the area around the lake to be closed off.

“We feel reasonably confident that the lake is safe. However, I think in this instance we need to corroborate that,” said Joshua Tabora, a furbearer biologist with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “We don’t have a prospective date for reopening, and we are beginning to talk about what benchmarks we need to hit in order to guarantee the safety of the public.”

Tabora said the department is in its “fact-finding phase” and they don’t have all the information needed to guarantee that there is no risk to public health and safety.

He said beavers are rarely, if ever, associated with the rabies virus, though their behaviors make it likely that one of the beavers involved in a recent attack gave the virus to the other.

“Beavers aren’t what you’d think of as like your typical vector species, which would be something like a raccoon, a striped skunk, or a red fox,” Tabora said.

“Presumably, how this spillover case happened is that…one of these infected beavers previously would have had an encounter with one of those primary vector species, like perhaps a raccoon because they share similar habitats.”

He said animals can spread the virus through salivary contact, so the nearly constant grooming that behaviors conduct on themselves and each other is the likely mode of transmission of the disease.

The nature of the Frederick County park, with a creek that’s not very rapid and a lake that’s pretty isolate, along with the way beavers tend to live, lead Tabora to believe it’s likely those are the only two beavers to contract rabies.

“It’s entirely plausible that the two animals involved in the attacks are the only animals in the area,” Tabora said. “We’re doing a lot of follow-up surveys and on-the-ground work to confirm that is the case, and we’re trying to be as thorough as possible.”

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In Prince George’s County, Maryland, AI is being used to help students improve their storytelling skills. In Virginia’s Fairfax and Prince William counties, the technology is helping teachers with tasks ranging from lesson planning to other classroom duties.

But is it working?

Even as schools race to implement more AI tools, effective of their effectiveness remains limited. Researches said there is still relatively little high-quality research examining AI’s impact on K-12 education.

“There are a lot of tools being used in schools right now, and there’s just not a lot of evidence on how these tools are affecting students and teachers,” said Lily Fesler, a senior researcher at the AI Hub for Education at Stanford University.

But some trends are beginning to emerge.

In some cases, AI appears to have a positive effect on K-12 student learning. Sometimes, it isn’t. Fesler said outcomes often depend on how students are using the technology.

“Several studies have shown that giving students general purpose AI chatbots to study for an exam isn’t likely going to increase student exam scores and can actually decrease performance,” Fesler said.

“Students often do better on tasks when they have access to those AI chatbots but then have trouble retaining that knowledge when those chatbots are taken away,” adding “What’s likely happening there is that students can be offloading some of the cognitive burden of the task onto the AI assistant, which can make studying feel easier, but also means that students aren’t retaining that knowledge.”

Education-focused AI tools have shown more promising results, she said.

“Students who use tutoring-specific AI assistants don’t show that same decline in test performance as students who use general-purpose AI chatbots,” said Fesler. “And AI tools can help students with things like more individualized feedback, feedback on writing assignments, which can also improve the quality of future essays that students write.”

She said only about 20 high-quality research studies have examined these issues so far, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions. The rapid growth in AI programs and tools also creates challenges for school systems trying to determine which tools are most effective.

“I think the main thing for schools to be thinking about with student use is really how students are engaging with the tools and whether it’s encouraging students to be engaging more thoughtfully and deeply, and whether it’s giving more actionable feedback for students,” Fesler said.

“Or whether it’s really a tool for students to be offloading some of their thinking onto the AI chatbot.”

When that happens, she said, students generally less likely to retain information.

AI’s impact on teachers

Like workers in many professions, teachers increasingly turning to AI to help with lesson planning and other job-related tasks.

Research suggests some tolls can improve classroom instruction, through findings remains limited and some concerns have emerged.

Fesler said some promising studies have examined AI assistants designed for online tutoring. Other tools can help teachers better understand student performance and allow educators to tailor instruction.

“What a lot of teachers are doing with these tools is lesson planning, and there are studies showing that these AI tools can save teachers a lot of time in lesson planning,” said Fesler.

Once they get the hang of it, teachers can upload instructional materials and ask AI tools to adapt lessons for specific classrooms. But the effectiveness of those plans can vary based on the subject matter, students and the teacher’s approach.

In some cases, researchers have found potential downsides.

“We also need to be a little cautious about this because another study found that teacher use of AI can also decrease student motivation in the classroom,” warned Fesler.

More research will be needed to determine the most effective uses of AI in schools, she said.

“Again, this is conducted on very few studies, and … we’re still learning about this,” Fesler added.

“But I think there is kind of consistent findings that AI tools can save teachers a lot of time and can provide teachers with useful information about students in their classrooms.”

Early research suggests the biggest lesson may not be whether AI is used, but how it is used. While many questions remain unanswered, studies indicate AI can provide meaningful support for students and teachers, even as educators continue to evaluate where the technology is most effective and where it may create new challenges.

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After the Commanders training camp wrapped up for the day Friday, about 100 active-duty members of all branches of the military gathered inside the bubble at Commanders Park for NFL Combine-style drills.

This was part of USAA’s Salute to Service campaign, and while not everyone knew it at the beginning, the winning team was getting two free tickets to a Commanders game later in the season.

After they finished stretching and warming up, the participants broke up into smaller groups and rotated around the field. Some ran the infamous 40-yard dash while another group ran the three-cone drill, which is all about switching direction in quick succession.

Another group did the broad jump, while the other two groups tried to see how far they could throw a ball after also running a gauntlet and catching a series of passes in quick succession.

“This is honestly very amazing,” team leader and Air Force member Anthony Orezzoli said. “A lot of these kids look like they could play on a college team.”

Leading the drills was Armani Reeves, a former Ohio State football player who works as a trainer and leads these USAA sessions in every NFL city.

“We try to make it as real as possible,” said Reeves. “We want to make sure that they’re getting the full experience.”

“Anytime that you get to do you know things that you see guys on TV do, it’s always really cool just to kind of put yourself in the shoes,” he added.

He acknowledged that at the end of the day, everyone was still competing with each other, and some of them were pretty athletic.

The winning team was a group of Marines that included Sgt. Jerard Walters, who is stationed at Quantico. His group won in part because of his 4.5 second 40-yard dash and his winning leap in the broad jump.

“I thought it was gonna be like 7-on-7,” said Walters. “But obviously, I like these drills. They’re like the NFL Combine, so I love it.”

“This was actually really fun,” said Danielle Medrano, who was also part of the winning team. “I’m not a football person, actually, but this was a really fun thing, especially to do with my fellow Marines.”

While the rivalries were friendly, it was also made clear that the goal was to just finish better than the Marines. That didn’t happen.

“The Marine Corps obviously is a tough branch, but all the other branches put in their own work,” she said with a smile. “So do we. But you know, Marine Corps on top.”

“Sick, sick experience,” said Nicholas Carchietta, whose 46-yard toss was one of the longer ones in that competition. “We’re all humbled that we won, and then you know, get to go to a Salute to Service game.”

Medrano was surprised to win the tickets. Growing up in Texas, she said she was a Houston Texans fan by proximity, but could see herself becoming a Commanders fan.

“I’m really grateful for the opportunity and the experience that I had today,” she said.

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For nearly a decade, Soul Mega brewing has basically been a side project for Elliott Johnson, a Howard University graduate who lives in D.C.’s NoMa neighborhood. But after coming out on top in a nationwide contest with other brewers like him, he’s confident his passion is going to pay off.

Johnson is this year’s winner of the Samuel Adams Brewing and Business Experienceship, giving him the chance to meet one-on-one with Boston Beer Company co-founder Jim Koch. The goal isn’t to learn how to brew beer — Johnson’s Metropolis IPA helped him win the competition — this is about turning his brew into a better business.

“It provides coaching and mentorship in various aspects of the business through procurement, supply chain, finance, marketing,” Johnson said. “We get to go out to Boston for a week and spend time with the business advisors and the CEO, and we also get to do a collab beer with them as well.”

Johnson’s degree from Howard University is in finance, so he was ready for some of the business aspects of the beer industry.

“Honestly, like the thing I found was the hardest so far is understanding the supply chain economics … and kind of how to push and grow the brand throughout your immediate territory,” he said.

Johnson said he hopes Samuel Adams can teach him about how to turn a small concept into a brand with fanfare and room for future growth.

“I mean, they’re pretty much the pioneers of craft beer,” he said.

Earlier this year Johnson quit his full-time job to go all in on making Soul Mega happen, so the timing of all of this, he said, is perfect.

“There’s a point in every small business or a budding brand’s trajectory where they hit a place where they’re experiencing things they hadn’t experienced before,” Johnson said. “So, the coaching piece is really crucial for us because although yes, I think we make great beer, as far as learning how to scale the business and operate some of the corporate functions, that’d be really valuable for us for sure.”

Right now, you can find Soul Mega in various stores around D.C., Maryland and Delaware. Getting into Virginia is next on his list.

Long term, he’ll continue to contract brew out of D.C. Brau’s facility in Northeast D.C., where he makes about 300 cases a month, calling them “great production partners.”

Johnson is still putting together the plans to make his trip to Boston, but he said the collaboration beer with Sam Adams should be out in the first part of 2027. Eventually he’d like to be able to have his own facility and live up to the mantra that is Soul Mega.

“Soul Mega really means really passion magnified,” Johnson said. “So, it is a reminder and a statement to all others to pursue their passion and just follow their dreams.”

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PerVista AI, based in Prince George’s County, is providing enhanced security at Northwest Stadium in Landover and at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, home of the Falcons.

The focus is less on what’s happening inside the stadium — that’s what metal detectors and magnetometers are for. PerVista is focused on potential threats outside the stadium.

“The goal there is to make sure we’re protecting tailgating experiences, making sure that the parking lots are clear and making sure that fan experiences are safe against the threat of firearms,” PerVista AI CEO Vennard Wright said.

“If someone pulls out a gun, we do have a data set of firearms and we’re making a match frame by frame against that data set,” he said.

“But we don’t rely on artificial intelligence alone. We have a 24/7 operations center where, whenever a threat is detected, it goes into our operations center and a human actually verifies whether it is a firearm or not.”

Wright said the goal is to enhance safety where thousands of fans might be gathered and their guard might be down, whether it’s because they’re socializing and tailgating with friends or because they’re walking to the stadium gates. Similar technology is used at Bowie State University, and in smaller venues, such as churches and local governments.

As threats evolve, PerVista’s goal is to be on the lookout, without it feeling like you’re being closely watched.

“The goal really is to make sure that we are protecting people without them feeling like their information is being at risk of privacy violations,” Wright said. “Something to emphasize is that we’re not looking for people; we’re looking for weapons. So we’re not retaining any of the images unless there is an actual incident.”

Which means, if everyone is having fun and there’s no problem, there’s also no recording.

“The only time those are activated is when there is the assumption that there is a crime underway,” Wright said. “Same thing with our technology. If nothing is happening, our technology does nothing. The only time it kicks into play is when a gun is detected, and that’s when the workflow kicks off.”

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Alongside the pier of Libbey’s Coastal Kitchen and Cocktails, right next to where the Bay Bridge makes landfall on Maryland’s Kent Island, stood six guys in a boat weighed down by more than 30 bags full of oyster shells. Next to them on the boat’s bottom was a bunch of concrete and fabric mixed together into a half-cylindrical object.

The day before National Oyster Day, seven more guys wearing wetsuits climbed into that water to help their favorite bivalve.

The goal was to build new oyster beds around the pilings left over from an old pier near Libbey’s. It’s not because the restaurant is looking to source new appetizers — it’s just to help clean the bay.

“We were worried when people would bring the boat here and tie up, and then you know a freighter goes by and the boat starts doing this,” said Walt Petrie, one of the owners of Libbey’s, as he moved his hands up and down. “We tore it out.”

The leftover pilings still stand tough and now, there’s a special tool that can work to restore oyster habitats around those pilings. It’s called an oyster cuff and it was invented by Niels Lindquist, CEO of North Carolina-based Sandbar Oyster Company.

“That was a combination of cloth, plant fiber cloths and then cement to harden it up,” Lindquist said. “So it’s proving to be very effective in attracting oyster larvae and then protecting them for the early stages of their growth and then just being basically a catalyst for oyster reef creation.”

The cuffs installed at Libbey’s were taken to a hatchery in Cambridge first, where a million oyster larvae were planted on them, as well as on the 36 bags of shells also set up around the pilings.

Together, a team led by John Consoli of Kent Island wrapped six bags of shells around each piling, and then two of those cuffs were strapped around a piling.

“If you looked at cement pilings, concrete pilings, they have beautiful oyster communities growing on them. Then you can see a wood piling right next to it, and you won’t see many oysters at all,” Lindquist said.

“The reason for that is those pilings are treated to be toxic to a large suite of marine organisms that basically degrade wood,” Lindquist added. “You don’t often see many oysters growing on them. We thought that we could basically put a cement-type material on that cuff on the piling and develop a nice community on that where the wood itself would not support a good community of oysters.”

“In about a year or two or three, they’ll have a little mini oyster reef at six of these pilings,” Consoli said.

�Ӱ�ԭ��/John Domen

�Ӱ�ԭ��/John Domen

�Ӱ�ԭ��/John Domen

�Ӱ�ԭ��/John Domen

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The team set out at low tide Tuesday, but even then, the jellyfish-infested water was a good 7-8 feet deep and the current running through there was still really strong. Those who were in the water used ropes, life preservers and a ladder to help stay anchored where they needed to be.

Then the six guys in the boat would hand the material to those who were in the water, working like a delicate assembly line to get them all in the water. In all, it took about 90 minutes. Not bad for a first-time installation of this material on Kent Island.

“The way I look at it is, there’s at least one new oyster in the water here,” Consoli said. “And I’m hoping there’s 300,000 or 500,000.”

“One adult oyster filters 50 gallons of water a day,” he added. “I can’t imagine 500,000 or a million, what they can do.”

Consoli has also grown his own oyster habitat in the water by his house, and most of the guys who were there with him were also doing the same. The hope is that the ease and effectiveness of this project will inspire others along the water to do the same thing.

“Hopefully … you’ll see a nice oyster community growing on the cuff,” Lindquist said. “In this part of the bay, there aren’t a lot of larvae in the water to recruit to any of the hard structures here. Hopefully, in the future, with more restoration efforts, there will be many more.”

With the number of private piers and pylons all around the Chesapeake Bay, never mind the different waterfront restaurants and homes there, the volunteers who came together for this installation see this as a simple but potentially powerful way to help restore the bay.

“I’m just thrilled because I just think it’ll set us up for success,” Consoli said. “I have like 80 people on Kent Island now who are growing oysters who weren’t growing oysters a year or two ago. Now they can even do this if they have the deep enough water. They can do piling cuffs, too. So I’m excited. I think it can only lead to positive things for the bay.”

Consoli said the project at Libbey’s cost a few thousand dollars, and that included two four-foot-long cuffs around a total of six pilings, plus the bags of oysters. The oyster larvae was the most expensive part. The jellyfish swimming around were just a painful hassle.

“I got stung all over. My hands have been stung. They got into my gloves,” Consoli said afterward. He wasn’t the only one.

“Everybody got stung. It’s a badge of honor.”

But it was clear that he, and everyone else who were in and on the water, believed it was worth it.

“One thing we need to do is get the bay cleaned up,” Petrie said. “This would be a great if this works here and they can do it in other places. Just imagine how it helps to clean the bay.”

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In a , researchers noticed differing patterns in brain activity as children were listening to words and trying to process what they were hearing.

“Individuals with autism who have the most difficulty communicating and understanding speech, they have a higher level of neural noise,” said Kevin Pelphrey, a University of Virginia School of Medicine professor and one of the study’s authors.

He compared neural noise to the static in a radio signal.

“If you’re trying to tune in and get a good sound coming through the speakers, if it’s kind of mistuned, then you have more noise,” Pelphrey said.

Individuals with autism have higher levels of that kind of background noise, Pelphrey said.

The new discovery will help researchers figure out better ways to treat the symptoms some children with autism experience.

“That’s exciting to us because for the first time, it’s kind of moving beyond simply describing autism, which you know is important, but really trying to understand what are the brain mechanisms involved in autism,” he said.

“That will lead to us being able to actually do something about the symptoms, in this case the difficulties in processing speech.”

Pelphrey said being able to measure the amount of neural noise inside someone’s brain provides more insight into how they process speech and allows for more personalized care and instruction.

“That would allow learning to happen much faster, much better, more extensive, so much better outcome for the child,” he said.

There’s an additional benefit.

“We suspect that this inability to process speech also leads to a great deal of anxiety,” Pelphrey said.

“You know, imagine kind of like being in a crowded room and you’re really trying to understand what somebody’s speaking — it increases your anxiety in general and decreases your understanding of what’s going on in the world, which then leads to a lot of anxiety.”

This isn’t likely to lead to a cure, but hopefully it improves the social communication abilities of some people with autism. This study is ongoing, and he said one of the sites where the research is still happening is Children’s National Hospital. They’re also looking for more participants.

“Anybody interested in participating, they should just feel free to reach out to us,” he said. “We’ve expanded both to younger children than we studied in this particular paper, but also to young adults.”

“We’re even getting very interested in aging and autism and trying to understand healthy brain aging using these same methods. So pretty much study anyone that’s interested across all age ranges.”

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The owner of a popular bagel shop on Maryland’s Kent Island isn’t minding the store right now. That’s because of his other job — with the Minnesota Vikings.

Andrew DePaola founded DePaola’s Bagel and Brunch about three and a half years ago in Stevensville.

DePaola is from northern Baltimore County, but said his time at Rutgers University taught him about good bagels.

“Just as a kid growing up, I loved bagels. I loved eating them right out of the bag,” he said. “And then going up to New Jersey, spending years up there, I think kind of refined my palate a little bit with sandwiches and cream cheeses and spreads and things of that such.”

His experiences visiting family on Kent Island, which he now calls home, also taught him that good bagels and cream cheese were missing there.

“My wife and I would come back to Maryland in the offseason, visit her sister and her husband in Kent Island, and we’d go out, have a good time, wake up the next morning, and just be like, ‘I always wish there was a place to grab like a bagel sandwich,’” DePaola said.

So he opened one.

When DePaola is not in town, his parents, who used to run a restaurant in Baltimore County, supervise the business.

“Honestly, I saw an opportunity, and I was hoping it would do well,” he said.

Occasionally, he’ll bring samples to his teammates and coaches in Minnesota. Their feedback is helpful, he said, and sometimes it shows up on the menu.

“Couple ideas that actually come from some of the guys on the team, some players, some coaches, just throwing in their input, like, ‘Hey, you should really try this in one of your cream cheese spreads. Or I wonder if this would go good as a bagel,’” DePaola said.

DePaola can also boast of being the only long snapper in NFL history to be picked for the Pro Bowl four seasons straight, according to the Vikings.

At this point, DePaola is less the baker and more the quality control guy. He credits an expert he hired as the one who really gets her hands in the dough. But business is going well enough that a second store is at least something he and his family are willing to think about.

“I don’t know if we’ll open up another one,” he said. “That would be great if we could figure that out. But if not, I’m having a great time with the one location.”

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Advocates for the Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse say if they can’t find a new place to put it, it’s a matter of when and not if it will fall into the ocean.

The lighthouse sits right on the line where the Delaware Bay feeds into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cape Henlopen in Lewes. Giant rocks were used to help form an underwater wall of sorts in the late 1800s and early 1900s to provide extra support for the 76-foot-tall structure.

“The breakwater upon which it sits is gradually sliding into a large scour hole about 140 feet deep, right at the end of the wall itself,” said Ron Parks, the president of the Delaware River and Bay Lighthouse Foundation. “Over time, obviously, we don’t know how quickly, but depending on how storms, hurricanes come up the coast, it could very easily jeopardize the structure.”

The lighthouse is situated on a 40-foot-wide caisson that sits atop the wall of rocks. But the more those rocks keep moving underwater, the more likely that lighthouse is to eventually tip over.

“There are actually places where the rocks have fallen off the wall and down into the hole,” Parks said.

It’s dangerous enough that members of the public can no longer tour the lighthouse anymore.

“There’s nothing we can do to prevent it because the (Army) Corps of Engineers maintains and is responsible for that rock wall,” Parks said. “All we can do is maintain the lighthouse structure itself.”

That maintenance costs thousands of dollars a year. Repairing the rock wall, Parks said, comes with an estimated cost of $90 million to $120 million. But for $4 million to $7 million, the lighthouse could be dismantled and transported onto land. He said boaters have made clear they don’t want to see it moved to land.

The problem is, after the city of Lewes recently said no to relocating the structure there, no one else seems willing to take it either.

“If there’s a threat to its existence, then the only way that we can guarantee its future is to put into place a plan and then execute it to guarantee that it will still stand,” Parks said.

“We’re really at the mercy of the community to, in effect, help us come up with a place to so that it can have a permanent location,” Parks said.

“But if you’re going to restore it, you certainly want to be able to let the public have access to it as almost a museum for that kind of maritime heritage and history,” he continued. “So it would require parking or some kind of egress to it, and just like many of the other lighthouses that have been restored, there’s usually some sort of a keeper’s cottage where administration would happen or there’d be some sort of a gift shop.”

“It’s not just the lighthouse itself,” he admitted.

As if the situation isn’t complex enough, the lighthouse is also still in operation. It’s a navigational beacon in the Delaware Bay waters, so the Coast Guard also has some say over its future.

“They operate the light and the foghorn and the solar panels and the batteries that make it go,” Parks said. “We own the building, the structure itself. So we would have to come to some kind of a compromise whereby we would move it after they had erected some sort of a tower or replacement for the light itself.”

“It’s kind of a complicated situation and we knew that it was going to involve many players, many separate conversations going on simultaneously,” he added. “But we have to start with just the vision, just the idea, and why it matters, in order to bring the community up to speed. Then we can hopefully draw together a coalition of individuals, organizations, administrations, perhaps within the city or the county government, and also the Delaware Historical Society.”

Finding a way to preserve the Harbor of Refuge lighthouse, as difficult as that is, isn’t an insurmountable problem to solve, Parks said. But he knows there’s only so much time to come up with the right solution.

“The next big storm could certainly damage the wall even further,” he explained. “I’m hesitant to suggest that kind of an immediate threat. But on the other hand, it’s irrefutable that the wave action from storms and the ongoing tidal motion has had the effect on the wall that the Corps of Engineers is reporting.”

“It’s not a matter of if, it’s just a matter of when,” he said.

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More than 400 kids participating in summer camps put on by nonprofits throughout Maryland and the District met in Anacostia Park on Friday for a full day of field day fun.

There were about 100 volunteers spread across a giant field, overseeing campers from around a dozen different locations as they played soccer, inflatable sumo, football and tug of war. They also played with slime, did art projects and learned a few things about healthy living.

The “summer Olympics” style of fun was a collaboration between So What Else and Mentoring Through Athletics. They do it every summer.

“We’re bringing kids back to the fun of outside. You won’t see any devices out here,” said Ashley Montgomery, of Mentoring Through Athletics. “You’re going to see good old-fashioned fun. We have limbo. We have tug of war. We have slime making. We’re doing things that we did once as kids, and that our kids can actually experience it as well.”

“Our camps are very — in some ways they’re basic,” said Dave Silbert, of So What Else. “But in some ways they’re very holistic and well-rounded. All of our camps are free, so we have to meet kids where they are, and we have to build teamwork and build safety, fun.”

“Then you kind of get up that pyramid into learning and education and skill building,” he added.

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As the day goes on and the air gets hotter, collaboration and sportsmanship also become lessons that the leaders here hope to impart.

“The larger lesson that I would love for kids to see is one: you can make relationships with people that you never met,” said Montgomery. “There’s nothing wrong with being social again. I think it’s also great to be able to connect with people from other camps, compete and still have fun.”

Some of the kids who were participating all made clear that the fun and activities were the best part of the day. There was as much laughter during inflatable sumo wrestling as there was in tug of war. The social aspects was also something cited by the kids.

The afternoon is spent with a big kickball tournament, and that’s where the competition can get fierce, and Silbert said the staff can sometimes play a part in that.

“So you’re able to take those examples and take those lessons each and every day with these kids because every day there’s a there’s a crying child or an upset,” said Silbert. “It’s an opportunity to teach them some adversity and teach them how to handle adversity.”

“Whether it’s as an athlete, whether it’s as a student, whether as a parent, whether as a child, you have to be able to overcome adversity,” agreed Montgomery.

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