Metro is on Metrobus, changing the experience for riders as the transit agency launches a broad push to catch fare evaders.

As May ends and June begins, riders can expect to see uniformed Metro Transit Police officers and other Metro employees on and around buses.

“We are kind of blitzing the system over the following weeks,” Metro General Manager Randy Clarke said Thursday.

Clarke also said bus drivers now make announcements reminding riders to pay the $2.25 fare as they board.

Metro Transit Police, not drivers, will take action if riders do not pay, he said.

“People will pay the fare, or they will be taken off the bus. If they refuse to comply with the officer, they will be arrested. They’re not going to be arrested for fare evasion. They’re going to be arrested for failure to comply or other things,” Clarke said.

Metrobus has about 8,000 stops, and Metro does not have enough transit police officers to cover them all, so they are targeting stops where fare evasion is most common.

“Silver Spring is a good example,” Clarke said. “We were heavy in Minnesota Avenue, Anacostia, New Carrollton, Fort Totten, Pentagon City and Friendship Heights the other day.”

He said officers will also monitor live video feeds to catch fare evaders.

“An officer might be in a patrol car watching cameras on the bus in real time, and then there’s an officer at a stop further up. They will then radio to that officer and say, ‘These four people didn’t pay.’ That (officer) hits that bus stop. They’ll remove them,” Clarke said, adding that he believes the method is a nationwide first.

Since the stepped-up enforcement started Sunday, Clarke said nearly 400 citations have been issued and five people have been arrested on outstanding warrants.

Without the campaign to prevent fare evasion, Metro would lose out on an estimated $50 million in revenue this year, he said.

“Metro wants to run more bus service for the people in this community. We need the revenue to pay for that,” Clarke said.

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“ retrofits existing street lights and utility poles into Level 2 electric vehicle chargers,” the company’s co-founder and CEO Jeff Prosserman told ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵapp.

“By leveraging the existing infrastructure we’re able to install a charger in a few hours, saving tens of thousands of dollars by not having the construction and trenching process,” he added.

Voltpost plans to bring as many as 16 of its chargers to D.C., although it’s not yet clear exactly when drivers will be able to use them.

Prosserman said the company will be working with D.C.’s Department of Energy and the Environment and Pepco over the next few months to determine exactly where to put the chargers.

In the meantime, if you have locations you’d like to suggest, through the company’s website.

Prosserman also told ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵapp the company is working on bringing its chargers to Maryland.

Voltpost is one of three EV charging companies sharing a total of $609,000 in grants awarded earlier this year by D.C.’s Department of Energy and the Environment.

The money is part of what the city got from Volkswagen in a 2016 .

The other companies awarded money from the grant will use theirs to expand operations in D.C.

creates EV charging stations that look a lot like gas stations. There’s already one next to a gas station on Benning Road NE.

The third company awarded grant money, , partners with property owners to provide curbside charging stations. According to its website, it already has at least one charging station in D.C.

DOEE Director Richard Jackson told ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵapp there’s demand for more EV chargers in the city, and this new grant will help provide them. “Having the money to actually install the hardware and equipment was always the challenge,” Jackson said.

“This just increases the whole electrical infrastructure that’s going to be made available to residents across the city,” he said.

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released this week, estimates the total number of crabs in the bay is up 46% this year compared to last, and the number of juvenile crabs is up a mighty 121%.

“We saw a lot of good positive numbers this year, which we’re always happy about,” said Zach Widgeon with the

Not all of the numbers were on the plus side.

The study also estimated the number of adult female crabs is down 25% this year compared to 2025.

“We have a little concern about the females, and we need to certainly stay vigilant and pay attention,” Carrie Kennedy, tidal and coastal monitoring and assessment division director in fishing and boating services at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, told ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵapp.

Both agencies work together to produce the annual survey, and the results can vary widely from year to year.

A wide-ranging report due out in June looks into what factors may be influencing crab population changes in the bay. It’s called a benchmark stock assessment, and there hasn’t been one since 2011.

A was released for peer review in March, and the Chesapeake Bay Commission heard a earlier this month. While the latest peer review developed new methods of determining the population of blue crabs and their mortality rates, the researchers were unable to identify a likely cause for the population decline for female crabs this year.

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They’ve also found 1.3 million genetic relatives of Maryland’s first colonists who are alive today.

“Then we have 9,000 people who are close enough that they’re very likely direct descendants or very close relatives,” Éadaoin Harney, a senior scientist at 23andMe Research Institute, told ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵapp.

She is the lead author of a study .

In addition to the genetic testing company 23andMe, the study involved scientists from the Smithsonian, Harvard University and St. Mary’s City, Maryland.

Their work was built on previous studies and the discovery over decades of dozens of bodies in a graveyard in St. Mary’s City. Established in 1634 in what is now known as St. Mary’s County, it’s recognized as .

In 2016, through genetic testing, it was revealed that remains found in three lead coffins in the city’s Chapel Field cemetery belonged to the colony’s fifth governor Philip Calvert, his first wife and a son he had with his second wife.

The latest study was aimed at identifying the remains of 49 other people buried in the graveyard.

“Our goal was really to learn about the ancestry of these individuals, to learn about their genetic legacy. So, who in the United States are they related to today? And our big goal was really to see if we could use DNA to help re-identify these historical individuals,” Harney said.

Researchers compared DNA from those bodies with those of more than 11.5 million people in 23andMe’s genetic database.

When they found two living people with strong DNA connections to one grave, they asked for and received permission to study their family trees.

They discovered their family trees overlapped in three places, and after an incredible amount of additional digging made a blockbuster discovery.

They determined the likely identities of three previously unknown people laid to rest in the cemetery, including Maryland’s second governor, Thomas Greene, who lived from 1609 to 1651.

It’s the first time ancient DNA has been used in this way to identify people in a situation where researchers had no idea who they might be.

“There have been ancient DNA studies where they will say ancient DNA has helped to identify some historical figure or some historical person, but those have always been based on the archeology, based on the history, researchers have had a very strong prior hypothesis about the identity of that person. In this case, we had no idea who these individuals might have been. We had no hypothesis. We just let the DNA guide us,” Harney said.

The colonists who arrived in St. Mary’s City sailed there from England aboard the Ark and the Dove, but another thing this study determined was that most of them likely originally lived in western England, Wales and Ireland.

The study also found genetic evidence backing up historical accounts that many Maryland Catholics moved to Kentucky between the late 1700s and early 1800s for reasons which included escaping religious bias.

Harney is excited about what this new method could lead to in the future.

“Potentially we can apply this to lots of other sites, to lots of other historical people to try to figure out and re-identify people from the past,” she said.

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When you buy a plant, read the label on it or talk to someone at a nursery or greenhouse to make sure you know what it needs to flourish.

For instance, if it needs full shade, keep it out of the sun because the drought is going to present an added challenge.

“Make sure that you are picking the right plant and planting it in the right place to help alleviate some of those site-specific stresses on plants,” said Ed Olsen, a consumer horticulture specialist at Virginia Tech.

Even a drought-resistant plant needs extra water on its roots in the first year after it’s planted.

“Water directly to the plant, whether you’re doing it with a hose or maybe a soaker hose, rather than a broad sprinkler,” Olsen said.

that if you use a sprinkler, as much as 30% of the water coming out of it simply evaporates and never makes it to your thirsty plant.

Olsen said it’s best to water plants in the morning, when they’re under less stress and more likely to suck up the liquid. The same advice applies to your lawn.

“We really don’t recommend that you water lawns late in the afternoon or in the evening because then, that moisture stays on the grass plant and you can actually develop diseases,” he said.

He suggested putting down 3 to 4 inches of mulch, which helps keep sunlight out and moisture in the soil around your new plant.

“You want to make sure that it’s not touching the trunk or the stem of the plant,” he added.

Olsen also suggested ways to conserve water use while still keeping your watering can full.

“Some folks might already have rain barrels connected to their gutters and down spouts. That’s a great way to collect water, but you can easily take empty buckets and put them around outside where you know that you’re going to get some good rain,” he said.

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The Ward 8 council member was arrested in August 2024 and is accused of accepting $35,000 in cash bribes to influence city contracts. Prosecutors say he agreed to accept $156,000 from a business owner in exchange for pressuring D.C. government employees at two different agencies to extend those contracts.

White was expelled from the council in late 2024 but was reelected months later.

He has pleaded not guilty.

In a decision issued last week, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras said White’s jury trial is set to begin in September.

White had requested the bribery charge be dismissed, stating that each of the four alleged payments should be tried as separate offenses, according to court documents. The court denied this motion and said “the four payments CHS-1 made to Mr. White between June and August 2024 were part of a single, continuing scheme.”

White also asked the court to preclude, or rule out, any evidence relating to his gambling, arguing it “plays prejudicially on class stereotypes and other prejudicial preconceptions.” The prosecution disputed that, saying the evidence is necessary and that it can show White “spending substantial amounts of money on chips at a casino shortly after receiving the envelops of cash from CHS-1.”

The judge denied that request abut noted in court documents that “the stigma may be higher when the gambling conduct involves a public official.”

Also denied were two requests by the prosecution, including one seeking to prevent White from arguing he was entrapped by law enforcement.

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As many as 1,500 additional National Guard members are expected to be deployed into the nation’s capital this summer. With a total of 5,000 Guardsmen roaming the streets, they far surpass the 3,200 active D.C. police officers also making rounds in the region.

“This summer, starting now, the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force is going even deeper, even further to surge even more federal law enforcement resources to this District to drive down crime,” Assistant Attorney General for the National Fraud Enforcement Division Colin McDonald said at a Friday news conference.

The new surge means residents and visitors can expect to see more members of the National Guard patrolling the streets of the nation’s capital.

Gadyaces Serralta, director of the U.S. Marshals Service and head of the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, said another law enforcement agency will play a “vital role,” securing America 250 events, national parklands and monuments.

“You will see more U.S. Park Police on foot, in vehicles, and on horseback through D.C. to support the summer surge,” he said.

Serralta said the task force will use every asset available to law enforcement to “turn up the heat” on criminals in D.C., including drones, helicopters and tactical canines.

“The celebration events for America 250 will be safe for everyone to enjoy,” Serralta said. “D.C. will be the safest city in America for those who live, for those who work and for those who visit.”

Since the task force was launched last August, Serralta said overall D.C. crime is down 25% and murders are down more than 35%.

Assistant Attorney General McDonald said more than 13,000 arrests have been made in the city since that time.

Of those arrests, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said her office has made over 7,000 convictions since she took the job in May of last year. “It’s not just about arrests. We are convicting these people,” she said.

McDonald said D.C. has become a law enforcement model for the whole nation.

“Our efforts will serve as an example to the entire country of what it looks like when leaders step up and say enough is enough, when it comes to criminals and lawlessness,” he said.

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The word came Friday as President Donald Trump’s administration announced its biggest summer crime crackdown ever in the nation’s capital.

“Starting today, my office will aggressively prosecute parents under D.C.’s curfew law,” said U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro.

The city’s top prosecutor explained that the under existing law, it’s illegal for an adult to allow a minor to take part in delinquent acts.

“If the evidence shows the parent knew, or should have known or permitted, or failed to prevent participation, we’re going to charge them,” Pirro said.

If an adult is found guilty, Pirro said they could face a fine, court-ordered classes or up to six months in jail. She said a parent can also be punished even if their child isn’t prosecuted.

“Parents, do your jobs or we will do ours,” she warned.

The announcement follows a series of moves by city leaders to try to control large, social media-driven teen gatherings in various parts of the city, including the Navy Yard and U Street.

In April, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser used an emergency order to set a citywide, nightly 11 p.m. curfew for everyone under age 18.

It also allowed D.C. police to declare preventing minors from gathering in groups of nine or more starting at 8 p.m.

That emergency order expired May 1.

On May 5, instead of approving a new emergency curfew law, the D.C. Council signed off on a permanent youth curfew law that’s not expected to take effect until late summer.

The city’s for everyone under age 17 runs from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Sundays through Thursdays, and 12:01 a.m. to 6 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

As it stands now, during July and August, the curfew will be in effect from 12:01 a.m. to 6 a.m. daily.

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On Thursday, a ribbon cutting was held to open a nearly one-acre park at in Southeast.

It includes a playground, trellises, seating and a multiuse plaza.

“This park will be a green haven for our residents, a place to relax in the fresh air, a place to gather for community events (and) a place for children to play,” said Rahsaan Bernard, chief operating officer for WC Smith, which is part of the development team.

Development at Skyland Town Center was stalled for more than a decade.

We just cut the ribbon at the new Skyland Town Center Community Park—part of the final phase of the three-phase development.

Today, we’re celebrating the community and people who stuck with tough projects.

— Mayor Muriel Bowser (@MayorBowser)

The District first awarded the overall town center project but it was met with years of setbacks. One of them was in 2016, when the project lost Walmart as an anchor tenant.

“We are just grateful to everybody involved for keeping their promises, to not giving up when the going got tough, and at the end, delivering a beautiful project for Ward 7,” said Mayor Muriel Bowser.

Now, the development along Marion Barry Avenue SE has housing for renters and buyers, the city’s first LIDL grocery store, multiple restaurants and more.

“When you look at the work of this magnificent development, coupled with this new community park, I’m excited. Neighbors should be excited,” said Ward 7 Council member Wendell Felder. “If you’re tuning in and you’re new to the District and you’re looking for a place to move, you should come to Ward 7.”

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Many of the workers who departed government jobs in 2025 quit, retired or took part in a reduction in force (RIF) program as the Trump administration tasked the Department of Government Efficiency with shrinking the federal government.

Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor in an interview marking .

“I think this is an amazing time to be in public service,” Kupor told Federal News Network’s Terry Gerton.

Kupor said the first person hired under the , announced late last year, started work this week.

“The goal is to get about 1,000 engineers to come and do two-year stints into federal government. After that, if they love it and they want to stay, that’s great. If they decide they want to go back to the private sector, we’re also interested in helping them with that,” he said.

Another big goal, Kupor said, is to attract young people either from high school or college.

He said just 7% of the federal workforce is made up of people with five to seven years of work experience, while in the rest of the American workforce, that figure is 22%. On top of that, he said, is the fact that many current federal workers will become eligible for retirement in the next five to 15 years.

“Come to a place where you can work on, by far, the most exciting and complex problems in the world,” Kupor said of his advice to young, would-be federal employees.

Meanwhile, efforts are underway to better reward great workers, and more easily let underperforming ones go.

“I don’t think it’s an issue of being callous,” Kupor said. “I think it’s an issue of … ensuring that everybody in the organization who does show up and come to work every day can do the things knowing that all the team members are carrying their appropriate weight.”

Kupor said rules allowing only longtime employees to advance are being changed.

“If somebody does a fantastic job, even if they’ve only been doing that job for six months, we shouldn’t have a time-based restriction to our ability to promote and recognize that individual,” he said.

Amid ongoing efforts to do more with less, Kupor is looking to technology, but said artificial intelligence won’t completely replace federal workers.

“In OPM, we’re encouraging people to look at processes that they’ve been doing. What can they do to actually just help technology make them more efficient?” Kupor said.

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If you’re not familiar with pedicabs, they are big tricycles with a driver in front who pedals, and a carriage in the back that can seat two to three people.

The Ocean City Town Council voted April 28 to award a franchise contract to Atlantic Pedicabs, LLC.

, the New Jersey-based company already operates pedicabs on the Jersey Shore and in Brooklyn, New York.

The company’s proposal says customers in Ocean City will pay a minimum of $12 per ride or $14 per mile.

The service will be cashless, and the company has agreed to absorb the 3.5% processing fee for credit and debit cards.

The first chance you’ll get to hop aboard will be this Memorial Day weekend, although service will be initially limited.

Deputy City Manager JR Harmon told the council that the company will have at least 10% of its fleet ready to go by then.

“This particular company is intending to have 25 pedicabs by July 1,” Harmon added.

Twenty will be in regular operation, with the other five ready to go as replacements.

He said Atlantic Pedicabs’ proposal really impressed him, because of its commitment to transparency.

“Because it’s app driven, they openly and without prompting have offered to share all of their data. So, we will know what they’re making, how many trips per day they’re making (and) any complaints,” Harmon said.

Under the deal, Atlantic Pedicabs will pay for its own fleet, and will pay the town a franchise fee of $25,000 in the first year. The annual fee will rise to $50,000 starting in the second year.

The town has been looking for alternatives to its boardwalk tram, which was in operation since the 1960s but was .

The decision came after a child was hit and killed by the tram in 2024.

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On May 5, a plan to create a permanent youth curfew in the nation’s capital is scheduled for a second and final vote by the D.C. Council.

Ahead of that vote, young people in the city are speaking out.

At held by the council’s Committee on Youth Affairs, young people discussed possible alternatives to youth curfews.

“In this city, instead of investing in us, you criminalize us, you see groups of young people and assume the worst. You treat us like the problem to be managed, instead of people to be supported,” Naveah Williams, an Anacostia High School student, testified.

Onesti Hill, a gun violence prevention specialist with said a problem she’s seen arise often is adults allowing two bad apples to spoil the bunch.

“There’s been countless times where I’ve been to an event, and just because two people were fighting, now the whole event is shut down and everyone is just roaming the streets, lurking, doing nothing, because y’all shut down the hangout,” Hill said.

Darion Carter, with the Trigger Project, spoke of a lack of places to go.

“There’s not enough safe spaces in the city for youth to have fun,” he said.

Others, like, the senior class president at Thurgood Marshall Academy, agreed. He said a good model is the in Southeast: “We get fed, we can relax, we can play. … And we receive Uber vouchers to get there and back home safely.”

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It’s your skin — your body’s largest organ.

Melanoma Monday, which this year falls on May 4, is an annual day aimed at spreading that was launched in 1995 by the American Academy of Dermatology.

Melanoma is one of the most common cancers in young people under age 30.

It’s nearly 100% curable if caught in its early stages, but a recent survey by MedStar Health finds nearly half of U.S. adults (47%) have never had their skin checked for cancer by a doctor.

“It’s a really good idea for all adults to get a baseline skin screening at some point to assess risk,” Dr. Allison Larson, physician executive director of dermatology for MedStar Health, told ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵapp.

The study also found 58% of adults don’t know that melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer, and 83% are unaware that melanoma can become life threatening in just six weeks.

“So if you have a spot on your skin, a dark spot, a mole that is irregular, is changing, it really needs to be checked,” Larson said. “It’s not something that can wait six months or a year.”

To remember the five things to look for when monitoring your skin for cancer, .

A is for asymmetry. A mole with a shape that’s different on one side compared with the other could be cancer.

B is for borders.

“Is it smooth and even, or is it scalloped and notched? Scalloped and notched would be more worrisome,” Larson said.

C is for color. More than one shade of color or a mix of different colors could be a sign of trouble.

D is for diameter. Anything bigger than a pencil eraser, or a spot or mole that’s growing larger should be checked out.

E is for evolving. Changes of any kind over time could be a warning sign.

The importance of wearing sunscreen to prevent skin cancer is well known, but Larson said many people seem to miss a key point.

“One of the most common pitfalls that I see in my patients is this idea is that if I put on a coating of sunscreen in the morning, I’m good for the whole day. The answer is, not even close. We really need to reapply every two hours, and sometimes even more often if you’re doing water sports, or sweating, or in some sort of environment where you’ll be rubbing off your sunscreen.”

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Power was reconnected to residential customers that year more than 11 million times, according to the report.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration is the result of a law passed in 2023, aimed at collecting disconnection and reconnection data from every state and D.C.

“Three years later, we just got the first set of results, which is a 2024 picture. A horrific picture,” Jean Su, energy justice director for the Center for Biological Diversity, told ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵapp. “It’s not hyperbole in my mind to understand electricity as being a basic human right in this country.”

The environmental nonprofit pushed for the law after seeing people struggle to pay their bills during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We started investigating in 2020 the extent of disconnections, and we saw that only half of states actually require their utilities to report shutoffs at all, and that was just giving us a really distorted picture of how bad the crisis actually was,” Su said.

The findings, she said, reflect the nation’s energy affordability crisis.

“If a family gets an electricity disconnection, it means they are really making super tough household decisions.”

Su said the nation’s capital and the surrounding region stood out in a good way, because D.C., Maryland and Virginia all ban residential power customer disconnections when temperatures are extremely cold or hot.

In response to the report, Pepco and Dominion Energy provided statements to ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵapp, and both described shutoffs as a “last resort.”

Pepco provided details about disconnections in 2024 for all reasons, ranging from nonpayment to customers moving away to safety reasons.

In 2024, Pepco says 11,880 customers in the District were disconnected and 6,900 were reconnected.

In Maryland that year, 15,100 Pepco customers were disconnected and 12,520 were reconnected.

Pepco said it “always makes multiple attempts to reach customers and offer extended payment timelines, flexible payment options as well as energy assistance programs.”

In 2024, it provided about $39 million in energy assistance to its customers.

Dominion Energy told ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵapp: “When a customer falls behind on their bills, we reach out numerous times over several months to make sure they’re aware of their status and have access to all available resources to avoid disconnection. We work with each customer to find the best assistance programs and payment options that meet their individual needs, including Energy Share bill payment assistance, flexible payment plans, and Budget Billing.

Dominion said in 2024, 368,471 of its customers in Virginia were disconnected for nonpayment, and: “The vast majority were reconnected the same day, many within minutes.”

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“A few years ago, we decided to look into what research was available on how to support young men in the prevention of campus sexual violence. And when we started to look at the field of research, we actually found a pretty large gap in what was available,” Tracey Vitchers, the program’s executive director, told ÃÛÌÒÊÓƵapp.

“The majority of research related to campus sexual violence and men pretty much focuses on their role as perpetrators of sexual violence, rather than what are those factors that would contribute to them helping to create a culture of consent,” she added.

As a result, It’s On Us launched a series of studies by surveying young men.

The , which is informed by earlier ones, found Black men in college were more likely than those of other races to be educated about sex and positive intimate relationships because of talks they have with family and friends in their community.

“Because they had these really helpful conversations about the importance of consent from a very young age, they were just more aware of the topic of consent, how to have healthy relationships, how to have healthy communication in relationships, how to fight fair, and things of that nature that are really important, compared to other men in the sample,” Vitchers said.

The survey also found men in the LGBTQ+ community in college tend to go to medically accurate online sources for information about sex, relationships and consent such as the Cleveland Clinic and Planned Parenthood, while straight men are more likely to turn to social media sites like TikTok and Reddit.

The report recommends that all boys receive age-appropriate sex education earlier in life, and that education should be more comprehensive than what most received in the past.

“That content really needs to be expanded to include topics related to consent, communication, healthy conflict and gender norms,” Vitchers said.

The report also calls for enhanced media literacy education for boys and young men because so many are turning to the media — especially social media — for guidance.

“It’s really important to teach young men literacy skills to help critically analyze content and how it can impact their own perspectives,” Vitchers said.

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