Chesapeake Community Development welcomes Ross Benincasa as Senior Vice President of Community Development
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Nonpartisan and Education-based News for Centreville
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The Bay Bridge Run will take place on Sunday, November 10. The participants will run or walk the 6.2 miles from Northrop Grumman on the western shore, across the eastbound span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, along Pier One Road and up Route 8 to the finish line in Chesapeake Bay Business Park.
The eastbound span of the Bay Bridge will be closed at 12:00 am Sunday morning to prepare for the runners and is expected to reopen by 2:00 pm Sunday afternoon. During this time frame, the westbound span will be in two-way traffic operations, carrying both east and westbound traffic.
The southbound lane of Route 8 will be open this year from Main Street to Thompson Creek Road, but the exit to westbound Route 50/Bay Bridge located on the Route 8 overpass will remain closed.
For residents that typically access Route 50 WB/Bay Bridge from the exits on the Route 8 overpass, you will be able to access Route 50 WB/Bay Bridge by turning on Main Street and accessing Route 50 from Duke Street.
The business park in Stevensville will once again host the post-race festivities, which are open to the public, race participants and spectators. Law enforcement will have a temporary cross walk set up for pedestrians needing to cross Route 8. Last call for the festivities is set for 1:30 pm, and the event area will close at 2:00 pm.
Plan for delays and a heavy police presence in the area. The race is dependent on weather. If there is weather that prevents Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) from conducting two-way traffic, the event will be cancelled.
For more information go to www.thebaybridgerun.com or https://www.qac.org/1580/Bay-Bridge-Run
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This Halloween, immerse yourself in a haunting, unforgettable journey as Stage Fright: Curtain Call returns to the Avalon Theatre from Wednesday, October 23 to Sunday, October 27. With shows at 6:30 PM each night and additional 9:30 PM performances on Thursday through Sunday, this locally-written and directed show promises a macabre experience that blurs the lines between reality and delusion.
Set in 1997, Stage Fright: Curtain Call invites audiences into the dark, twisted world of Lou Baker, a 95-year-old former showman tormented by a violent past and spectral figures. Facing release from a psychiatric institution after over three decades, Lou’s story unfolds through a captivating, immersive theater experience filled with unresolved mysteries, dark humor, and a chilling confrontation between past and present. Inspired by real ghost stories, the experience features sound and lighting effects, unique smells, special themed drinks and specially crafted Lyon Rum cocktails, making it an evening attendees won’t soon forget. Mature themes and extensive walking are part of this production.
Stage Fright: Curtain Call is the thrilling final act of a trilogy, with each installment having been set in a different era—1927, 1964, and now, at the turn of the century in 1997. The production explores the final days of Lou Baker, who’s “95 and can barely get out of bed on his own.” When presented with one last chance to release the spirit of Marguerite, his long, lost love and the ghost of the Avalon Theatre, he is met with a harrowing twist in his spiraling and tortured tale.
Attendees are encouraged to dress up in their favorite 90s attire or Halloween costume. The play draws heavy inspiration from 90’s MTV, and The Factory invites guests to arrive as their best Britney Spears, Madonna, Notorious B.I.G., Spice Girls, and other 90’s celebrities.
Cecile Strom directs the production, with Talley Wilford as Assistant Director and Casey Rauch as writer and co-collaborator.
“A key element of The Factory’s immersive productions is the integration of film,” said Director Cecile Storm. “It adds depth, context, and atmosphere to the live experience. This production takes this idea to new heights. I don’t want to give too much away, but expect the boundary between stage and screen to blur in exciting and unexpected ways.”
Katie Cox stars in the leading role, supported by the Beauty Shop Quartet: Jennifer Madino as Marguerite Gardot, Grace Vorosmarti as Shirley Boudreaux, Maddie Megahan as Vivian Baker, and Jeri Alexander as Minnie Valentine. Art and production are managed by Maggii Sarfaty, and Ray Nissen leads the music direction.
“The acting is captivating and intense. The music is well done and is such a nice touch to this already so creatively awesome haunted house-like experience,” shared an audience member from a past production. Another remarked, “It was great to see how the connection is made and everything is so eerily familiar, seeing as it’s about the ghost that has haunted the Avalon for many years right here in Easton…”
Stage Fright: Curtain Call runs from October 23 to October 27 at the Avalon Theatre in Easton, MD. Showtimes are at 6:30 PM nightly, with additional 9:30 PM performances on Thursday through Sunday. The production is recommended for ages 16 and up; guests under 16 must be accompanied by a responsible guardian. Tickets are available through the Avalon Foundation website at avalonfoundation.org/event/
About The Factory
The Factory is a community arts project working to create a safe and creative space for individuals to explore their passion for the performing arts by offering professional expertise and resources. For more information, visit thefactoryartsproject.org.
The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.
The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.
Let’s learn some new outdoor skills at Bolingbroke Park in Trappe on Saturday, November 2nd from 9:00 to 3:00 and enjoy a bowl of chili and some Birthday Cake. Four different Outdoor Skills programs are scheduled.
ARCHERY – Learn to use compound bows and practice target shooting in a well-managed environment. Our equipment is authorized for use in the National Association of Schools Training (NAST) and our two instructors are certified by the Maryland Association of Archers and they occasionally shoot competitively. Sam Durner frequently teaches at Tuckahoe Park and Rick Morton is qualified on multiple types of bows. There will be Morning and Afternoon sessions. Enrollment limited to 10 participants at each. Attendees must be at least 14 years old.
KAYAKING — Learn about a variety of kayaking equipment and safety, and spend some time paddling on Bolingbroke Creek. All safety equipment will be provided and the kayaks used will be single sit-ins. Time on the water may be influenced by weather conditions and temperatures. This session is being taught by Carol McCollough. Carol received her kayak instructor training from the American Canoe Association (ACA). There will be Morning and Afternoon sessions. Enrollment limited to 15 persons at each. Attendees must be at least 14 years old and must sign a liability waiver.
FOREST BATHING – Learn a Japanese methodology, Shinrin-yoku – literally Forest Bathing, for therapeutic relaxation and mindfulness in nature. The session will be led by Shawn McLaughlin, a naturalist and researcher at the NOAA Oxford Lab. There will be one Morning session with attendance limited to 15 persons.
ORIENTEERING –Learn how to find your way in the woods. Develop your map reading and compass skills so you may remain “oriented”. This session will be conducted much like a scavenger hunt with a map and compass and a challenge to navigate through the park, identifying specific stops. This session will be taught by Jon Hammond, recently retired Coast Guard helicopter pilot. Jon is an expert in search and rescue and he enjoys setting-up and executing exercises to enhance your skills. There will be one Afternoon with attendance limited to 15 persons.
Plan for a fun day developing your outdoor skills, sing happy birthday, eat cake, etc. Here is a summary of the offerings, schedule and other particulars. Pick one for the Morning and a second for the Afternoon.
Morning Sessions 9:30 – Noon
Max. Attendees & Min. Age |
ARCHERY
10 & 14 |
KAYAKING
15 & 14 |
FOREST BATHING
15 & 14 |
Chili & Cake Noon – 12:30 | |||
Afternoon Sessions 12:30 – 3:00
Max. Attendees & Min. Age |
ARCHERY
10 & 14 |
KAYAKING
15 & 14 |
ORIENTEERING
15 & 14 |
Sessions are designed for adults of all ages and mature self-assured youth, physically capable of participating in the activity.
This day outdoors occurs in early November. Dress warmly in layers and maybe consider a change of clothes if kayaking.
Each attendee must register separately as a chapter member or as a non-member. To help us defray expenses, we ask each chapter member to pay $5 and each non-member to pay $10.
You must register online in advance. Click on OUTDOOR SKILLS or scan the QR code to pay the fee and to identify the Morning and Afternoon sessions you wish to attend.
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Learn about ecological friendly gardening at the Oct. 10 meeting of the Chesapeake Bay Herb Society. Taylor Applegarth and Ted Martini will cover such topics as soil health, native plants, water conservation, pest management, wildlife habitat, biodiversity, and reducing waste. They will explain gardening techniques in each area that help improve the environment—as well as your garden.
Taylor Applegarth has a nursery at 1709 Taylor Island Road, Woolford, Maryland. He has a Dorchester native edible permaculture farm and nursery. Taylor and his family are very active with the Cambridge farmer’s market on the Choptank and the Easton farmer’s market. He lives his philosophy of ecological friendly gardening.
Ted Martini’s horticultural career began with a lifelong passion for garden spaces and a degree in Landscape Gardening. His professional achievements include a variety of public and private landscape designs, the position of Garden Manager of an historic Public Garden, and his most recent work in the restoration of historic private gardens. Ted recently received his Masters of Science in Ecological Landscape Design.
The society will meet at 6 p.m. at Christ Church Parish Hall, 111 S. Harrison Street, Easton. Meetings include a social period, an herbal potluck dinner, a short business meeting, and a presentation on an herb-related topic. The theme for October is fall herbs and spices (cardamom, coriander, and saffron).
CBHS was formed in 2002 to share knowledge of herbs with the local community. The group maintains the herb garden at Pickering Creek Audubon Center.
For more information, call (410) 763-8843 or visit the Society’s Facebook page.
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Easton, Md. Qlarant Capital announced today that it has finalized an investment agreement with AgileDD, an enterprise AI company based in Houston, Texas.
AgileDD offers an AI platform to capture information from domain-specific and technical documents with scale, precision, and security that markets need. This product solves a common problem surrounding the inordinate amount of time it takes to research and review hundreds of pages of technical content. The AgileDD human-in-the-loop AI platform enables end-users to automatically capture pertinent information accurately from unstructured documents and allows them to arrive at answers or reach conclusions much faster and with more reliability.
Qlarant and AgileDD will collaboratively build a healthcare program integrity and compliance review application using Large Language Models (LLMs) and user-supervised AI models on the AgileDD platform aiming to automate some of the manual investigative and review processes required in the field. The program enables better productivity and a discriminating advantage to its users.
“Our investment in AgileDD is a perfect fit for both organizations. Qlarant has over 50 years of experience in the healthcare space plus expertise in predictive modeling.” said Qlarant CEO Dr. Ron Forsythe, Jr. “AgileDD is uniquely poised in the AI market and has developed a powerful AI platform. This phase of fundraising will enable AgileDD to fast-pace onboarding new customers who are either already in pilot phase with AgileDD or on a waitlist eager to use AgileDD’s platform.”
“The addition of these new customers will increase AgileDD’s revenue to approximately $3 million by 2025 and maintain 3x year over year growth rate that will put them in an ideal position for upcoming priced rounds,” noted Dr. Forsythe.
The human-centric platform uses generative and supervised AI to transform technical documents into precise, trusted insights while boosting productivity, informed decision-making, and strategic innovation.
The immediate market potential for AgileDD’s platform include: Department of Defense, Health Insurance, Health Plans, Hospitals, Medicare Administration, Recovery Audit Contracting, State Medicaid Administration, Social Security Administration, Utilization Management, and Veterans Health Administration Marketplaces.
“From the initial proof-of-concept to the actual implementation with clients, this platform continues to impress,” observed Holly Pu, Vice President of Qlarant Capital. “In one single use case, we identified over $3 million in cost savings. This is a game-changer in terms of time, money, and most importantly, solutions.”
AgileDD was co-founded by Dr. Amit Juneja, CEO. With a PhD in Machine Learning from the University of Maryland, College Park, Juneja has spent over 15 years spearheading AI and full-stack projects across diverse sectors.
Dr. Juneja’s career highlights include: enabling US manufacturing plants with deep learning-based visual quality inspection at IBM; leading $5 million in US Defense contracts for speech recognition, document information capture, and natural language processing; and spearheading the development of a major Internet of Things (IoT) application at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.
“AgileDD is very excited to partner with Qlarant to make a huge impact in the healthcare industry with the scale and precision that our platform brings to the enterprise.”, said Dr. Juneja. “Qlarant brings to this partnership their leading position and top notch domain expertise in the medical review, program integrity, and fraud investigation, and more. The human-centric nature of our AI platform will benefit immensely from Qlarant’s expertise to revolutionize the healthcare compliance workflows with AI”.
About Qlarant Capital
Qlarant Capital generates world-class innovation by backing daring health care industry entrepreneurs that can build the future through technology, while creating synergy among their portfolio companies.
Using a unique blend of “people + technology” has driven the growth and success of Qlarant as a health and technology company since 1973. Qlarant Capital offers support for early stage programs and organizations in line with its strategic mission. Qlarant Capital provides funding, along with over 50 years of experience and expertise, to promising programs with a solid pre-existing framework. Qlarant Capital also provides input for product development, machine-learning engineering, executive recruiting, sales, marketing, and regulatory compliance guidance. For more information visit Qlarant.com or contact [email protected]
About Agile Data Decisions, Inc. (AgileDD)
AgileDD is a deep-tech startup that has developed and commercialized a human-in-the-loop AI platform to enable enterprises to capture immense value from their highly technical and domain specific documents with scale and precision. AgileDD has active customers in production in energy and mining domains and the platform development has been funded additionally by US Air Force and angel investors. AgileDD is currently investing the proceeds from the recently completed fundraise in sales and marketing efforts to scale the utilization of the AI platform by enterprise customers. Visit https://www.agiledd.com to request a demo or contact AgileDD at [email protected].
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Studio B Art Gallery is excited to announce a special exhibition opening in October 2024, featuring artwork created during the gallery’s Plein Air Workshop with Master Jove Wang. In addition to the workshop pieces, the exhibition will highlight new works by the internationally acclaimed artist. The show will kick-off with an opening reception on Friday, October 4th, from 5-7 PM, as part of Easton’s First Friday Gallery Walk.
The workshop, held from September 26th through September 30th, brought together artists of all skill levels for an immersive plein air painting experience around Easton and Talbot County. Led by Master Jove Wang, the workshop focused on plein air techniques, composition, and capturing the local landscape’s natural beauty. The October exhibition will feature the inspiring results of this workshop, giving visitors a chance to view and purchase original works created by the participants.
The exhibition will include new paintings by Jove Wang, reflecting his mastery of landscape art and dynamic use of color. Visitors and collectors are invited to see this impressive collection and take home a piece of art from one of the world’s foremost artists.
“This exhibition is a unique opportunity to experience the incredible talent of both Jove as artist and teacher,” said Betty Huang, Owner of Studio B Art Gallery. “We cannot wait to unveil the artistry he will bring to the studio for the fall showcase.”
Studio B Art Gallery is pleased to announce that Master Jove Wang will return for another workshop hosted by Studio B Art Gallery in Talbot County in 2026, providing future opportunities for artists to learn from his expertise.
Studio B Art Gallery is located at 7 B Goldsborough Street in historic downtown Easton, Maryland. The gallery represents nationally and internationally known painters Lani Browning, Hiu Lai Chong, Bernard Dellario, Ken DeWaard, Betty Huang, Qiang Huang, Charles Newman, Daniel Robbins, Master Jove Wang, and sculptor Rick Casali.
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The Maryland Department of Juvenile Services today announced the launch of the Commission on Juvenile Justice Reform and Emerging Best Practices, a statewide commission to review and report on juvenile services, facilities, and programs in Maryland. In parallel, the department also announced reforms to its detention policies and launched new supportive programming for justice-involved youth.
“The Maryland Department of Juvenile Services is focused on promoting accountability, rehabilitation, and preventing justice-involved young people from reoffending,” said Maryland Department of Juvenile Services Secretary Vincent Schiraldi. “Using a data-informed approach and in partnership with our legislative leaders, law enforcement, community leaders, and other system stakeholders, we are committed to working with the Commission on Juvenile Justice Reform to build safer and stronger communities.”
Authorized by the passage of House Bill 814 and signed into law by Governor Moore in May 2024, the commission reflects the Moore-Miller Administration’s commitment to making Maryland safer by holding accountable and providing comprehensive rehabilitative support for youth who are justice-involved. The commission will be housed within the Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy and will hold its first meeting in October.
In addition to reviewing and reporting on juvenile services and facilities, the 26-member commission is charged with reviewing programs to divert children from the juvenile justice system. The commission will also review and report on a number of high-priority juvenile justice policies, including support and programming for girls in the juvenile justice system; the use of child-in-need-of-supervision petitions; the number of petitions authorized or denied by jurisdiction; and wait times for placement of children in facilities.
In parallel with the launch of the commission’s work, the department also announced the following reforms to its detention policies and launch of supportive programming for justice-involved youth:
All youth who are referred to the department after being accused of a violent felony and who are not detained will be placed on electronic monitoring prior to their initial court appearance.
All youth who are already on electronic monitoring and are charged with a violent felony will be detained.
“CARE”—or Community Assistance for the Release Eligible—is a new program that will work with system-involved youth who are neither detained nor placed on community detention to support them and their families and provide service referrals.
The Detention Diversion Advocacy Program will support youth who are placed by the courts in the community while their cases are pending with intensive supervision support from credible messengers .
The new supportive programming initiatives build upon the department’s ongoing reforms, including:
Establishment of the Thrive Academy, which is focused on justice-involved youth who are at the highest risk of gun violence. Thrive provides heightened supervision by specialized case managers and life coaches, many of whom have been formerly incarcerated themselves, in addition to a robust range of services, supports, and opportunities to create pathways for success. Maryland is the first juvenile system in the country to launch such a gun violence prevention initiative. Thrive was recognized in August with the prestigious Inspiration Innovation Award from the Council of Juvenile Justice Administrators.
$17 million investment in a continuum of community programs for youth. Authorized by the General Assembly for Fiscal Year 2025, the department is investing in a robust array of services, supports and opportunities for youth across the state to assist with rehabilitation and ensure public safety. The new investment marks an increase over the previous administration’s approach, which depleted community programming and under-spent its budget by an average of $13 million dollars per year.
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The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.