A 62-year-old man was sentenced Monday to eight months in the Washington County Jail after authorities found child sexual abuse material on his laptop while investigating a report that he molested a teen boy at his Newport apartment in 2021.

Davyd M. Bryan Delving-Thompson, now of St. Paul, reached a plea agreement with prosecutors in October that included the dismissal of a second-degree criminal sexual conduct charge in exchange for admitting to four counts of possession of child pornography.

Davyd M. Bryan Delving-Thompson (Courtesy of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office)

Washington County District Judge Siv Mjanger accepted the agreement, but gave Delving-Thompson five more months in jail after he violated terms of his conditional release from jail after his plea. A two-and-a-half year prison term was stayed in favor of five years of supervised probation. He was given credit for just over three months in custody already served after his arrest.

According to the criminal complaint, a man reported in August 2021 that his two sons responded to an ad on Craigslist for a photo shoot and one of them — a 13-year-old — became a victim of sexual abuse.

The boy’s adult brother said he had exchanged emails with a man, whom authorities later identified as Delving-Thompson, about the online ad. The brother said he and his brother met the man, who went by “Michael,” at his apartment building in the 2300 block of Hastings Avenue in Newport.

Once in his living room, Delving-Thompson used his cellphone to take pictures of the brothers, who had their shirts off and were wearing swim trunks and underwear. Delving-Thompson “wanted them to pretend they were at the beach,” the complaint said.

They then went to his bedroom, where the brothers laid down with their backs to each other. Delving-Thompson closed the blinds for privacy. He rubbed the boy’s arm “to calm him down” and then his back, chest and legs, the complaint said. He then allegedly touched the boy’s penis.

The boy told Delving-Thompson that he wanted to go back to the living room and put on his shirt, but he asked the boy not to. In a hallway, Delving-Thompson asked the boy if he could touch his penis again, but the boy refused and Delving-Thompson “did it anyway,” the complaint said.

Delving-Thompson gave $300 to the brothers, who then left.

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Investigators searched Delving-Thompson’s apartment and seized a cell phone, tablet computer and laptop computer. Digital forensic analysis revealed the laptop had four photos and two videos of prepubescent boys and girls doing sexual acts. The photos were determined to be child sexual abuse material, identified by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

In December, two months after Delving-Thompson entered his guilty plea, he violated terms of the judge’s conditional release order by using the internet and a chat group, according to prosecutors. An arrest warrant was issued and he was taken into custody on Aug. 13.

Conditions of his probation include following recommendations of a psychosexual evaluation, no pornography and no contact with minors. After probation, he must register as a predatory offender for five years.

By MELINA WALLING and SETH BORENSTEIN

NEW YORK (AP) — Some countries’ leaders are watching rising seas threaten to swallow their homes. Others are watching their citizens die in floods, hurricanes and heat waves, all exacerbated by climate change.

But the world U.S. President Donald Trump described in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday didn’t match the one many world leaders in the audience are contending with. Nor did it align with what scientists have long been observing.

“This ‘climate change,’ it’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion,” Trump said. “All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong. They were made by stupid people that have cost their countries’ fortunes and given those same countries no chance for success. If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.”

Trump has long been a critic of climate science and polices aimed at helping the world transition to green energies like wind and solar. His speech Tuesday, however, was one of his most expansive to date. It included false statements and making connections between things that are not connected.

Ilana Seid, an ambassador from the island nation of Palau and head of the organization of small island states, was in the audience. She said it’s what they’ve come to expect from Trump and the United States. She added that not acting on climate change will “be a betrayal of the most vulnerable,” a sentiment echoed by Evans Davie Njewa of Malawi, who said that “we are endangering the lives of innocent people in the world.”

For Adelle Thomas, a climate scientist who has published more than 40 studies and has a doctorate, climate change disasters are personal, too. A vice chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s top body on climate science, Thomas is from the Bahamas and said she experienced firsthand “the devastation of the climate disaster” when Hurricane Sandy hit the Caribbean and New York City, the city Trump was speaking from, in 2012.

“Millions of people around the world can already testify to the devastation that climate change has brought to their lives,” she said. ‘The evidence is not abstract. It is lived, it is deadly, and it demands urgent action.”

People set up a “Climate Polluters Bill” the length of an Olympic swimming pool (50 meters long) through Manhattan at the “Make Billionaires Pay” climate protest, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025, in New York. The bill was created by Greenpeace and lists the costs of hundreds of climate-related natural disasters. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

A look at some of Trump’s statements Tuesday, the science behind them and the reaction.

On renewable energy

WHAT HE SAID: Trump called renewable sources of energy like wind power a “joke” and “pathetic,” falsely claiming they don’t work, are too expensive and too weak.

THE BACKSTORY: Solar and wind are now “almost always” the least expensive and the fastest options for new electricity generation, according to a July report from the United Nations. That report also said the world has passed a “positive tipping point” where those energy sources will only continue to become more widespread.

The three cheapest electricity sources globally last year were onshore wind, solar panels and new hydropower, according to an energy cost report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

Subsidies endorsed by Trump and the Republican party are artificially keeping fossil fuels viable, said University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann. “If one were truly in favor of the ‘free market’ to determine this, then fossil fuels would be disappearing even faster,” he wrote in an email.

Relatedly, Trump falsely claimed European electricity bills are now “two to three times higher than the United States, and our bills are coming way down.” But in fact retail electricity prices in the United States have increased faster than the rate of inflation since 2022, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The agency expects prices to continue increasing through 2026.

On the international politics of climate, the UN and the Paris Accord

WHAT HE SAID: Trump blasted the U.N.’s climate efforts, saying he withdrew America from the “fake” Paris climate accord because “America was paying so much more than every country, others weren’t paying.”

THE BACKSTORY: The Paris Agreement, decided by international consensus in 2015, is a voluntary but binding document in which each country is asked to set its own national goal to curb planet-warming emissions and decide how much money it will contribute to the countries that will be hit hardest by climate change.

Because carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for more than a century, the United States has put out more of the heat trapping gas than any other nation, even though China now is the No. 1 carbon polluter. Since 1850, the U.S. has contributed 24% of the human-caused carbon dioxide that’s in the air, according to Global Carbon Project data. The entire continent of Africa, with four times the population of the U.S., is responsible for about 3%.

Art pieces of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk with bloody hands carrying globes are marched through Manhattan at the “Make Billionaires Pay” climate protest, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

On coal being referred to as clean

WHAT HE SAID: “I have a little standing order in the White House. Never use the word ‘coal.’ Only use the words ‘clean, beautiful coal.’ Sounds much better, doesn’t it?”

THE BACKSTORY: Coal kills millions of people a year. “The president can pretend coal is clean, but real people — mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters— will die for this lie,’’ said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson..

Trump also called the carbon footprint “a hoax made up by people with evil intentions,” a contention that Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler agreed with. Dessler said the term was coined by oiil companies and may have been designed to shift the responsibility for combatting climate change away from corporations to individuals.

The science of climate change started 169 years ago when Eunice Foote did simple experiments with flasks and sunlight showing that carbon dioxide trapped more heat than the regular atmosphere. It’s an experiment that can be repeated at home and has been done in labs hundreds of times and in greenhouses around the world every day. It is basic physics and chemistry with a long history.

“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land,” reported the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is hundreds of scientists, with doctorates in the field.

In 2018, Trump’s own government said: “The impacts of global climate change are already being felt in the United States and are projected to intensify in the future.”

On cows and methane

WHAT HE SAID: In “the United States, we have still radicalized environmentalists and they want the factories to stop. Everything should stop. No more cows. We don’t want cows anymore.”

THE BACKSTORY: Cows belch methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Around the world, cattle are often raised on lands where forests have cut down. Since forests capture carbon dioxide, cutting them to raise cattle results in a doublt whammy. Still, no one is suggesting that cows be gotten rid of, said Nusa Urbancic, CEO of the Changing Markets Foundation.

“This polarizing and divisive language misrepresents the environmental message,” Urbancic wrote. “What is true, however, is that cutting methane emissions is a quick win to slow global heating and meet climate targets.”

Trump also blamed dirty air blowing in from afar, floating garbage in the ocean coming from other countries and “radicalized environmentalists.”

Although the United States does indeed now have cleaner air than it has in decades, the pollution seeping into communities is primarily caused by local dirty energy and industry projects, not by other countries. And many experts have said the biggest blow to local air and water quality is the Trump administration’s own wide-ranging rollbacks to the power of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other bedrock environmental laws.

“It is sad to see marine debris, a globally important issue, being misrepresented so completely,” said Lucy Woodall, an associate professor of marine conservation and policy at the University of Exeter.

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Associated Press reporters Matthew Daly, Jennifer McDermott and Annika Hammerschlag contributed to this report.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By LAURA UNGAR

Faith Ayer had no qualms about taking Tylenol for chronic migraines and COVID-19 during her pregnancy, and grew disappointed and angry as she watched President Donald Trump rail against the pain medicine.

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“A lot of the claims that were shared have just not been backed by evidence,” said Ayer, a nurse practitioner in Jacksonville, Florida, who is about 17 weeks pregnant with her first child. She said Trump’s words have implications “for patients across the country and even across the world.”

During a White House news conference on Monday, Trump repeatedly warned pregnant women not to take Tylenol because of the risk of autism in their children. He also fueled debunked claims that ingredients in vaccines or timing shots close together could contribute to rising rates of autism. Trump’s comments left some pregnant women angry and others with questions.

Dr. R. Todd Ivey, an OB-GYN in Houston, said he’s already heard from a few patients and expects to get a lot more questions in the coming weeks.

“People are concerned,” he said. “But what I’m doing is reassuring patients that there is no causation that has ever been proven.”

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As a nurse, Ayer knew she didn’t have a lot of options for treating her migraines and a fever she spiked during a bout of COVID-19.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has long considered Tylenol, also known by the generic name acetaminophen, one of the only safe pain relievers during pregnancy. Five years ago, the Food and Drug Administration warned that the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin or ibuprofen might cause rare but serious kidney problems in a fetus.

“Weighing benefits and risks, I had no reservations when taking Tylenol,” the 30-year-old Ayer said, especially since she knew that untreated fevers in pregnancy, particularly in the first trimester, increase the risk for miscarriages, preterm birth and other problems.

Despite her medical knowledge, she had a conversation with her doctor about taking Tylenol “and kind of got the all clear on their end, too.”

When she gives birth, she plans to give her baby all the vaccines that medical experts recommend.

But other pregnant women are not so sure about things.

Dr. Stella Dantas, an OB-GYN in Portland, Oregon, said she was starting to get questions through her patient email system.

“I anticipate we’re going to have a lot of anxiety about using acetaminophen, which we counsel them is OK to use if they have a headache, if they have a fever,” she said. “There are a number of reasons patients will need to take it, and patients already feel anxious about taking any medication in pregnancy.”

Doctors reassure patients that Tylenol and vaccines are safe

Dr. Clayton Alfonso, an OB-GYN at Duke University in North Carolina, is drafting up standard responses for the nursing team to give out to Tylenol inquiries.

The main message: Tylenol has been around for decades, is safe, and has not been shown to cause autism.

Acetaminophen use during pregnancy hadn’t increased in recent decades like autism rates have, according to the Coalition of Autism Scientists.

Some studies have raised the possibility that taking acetaminophen in pregnancy might be associated with a risk of autism — but many others haven’t found a connection. One challenge is that it’s hard to disentangle the effects of Tylenol use from the effects of high fevers during pregnancy.

Science has shown autism is mostly rooted in genetics. Experts say different combinations of genes and other factors — such as age of the child’s father and whether the mother had health problems during the pregnancy — can all affect how a fetal brain develops.

Besides letting patients know “there has been no causal link established or proven” between Tylenol use in pregnancy and autism, Dantas said she’s also advising patients against “toughing it out” if they have fever or pain.

“A healthy pregnancy starts with a healthy mom,” Dantas said. “So I would ask patients if they are concerned to consult their physicians. And trust in the medical advice given to them.”

Doctors said much the same about advising patients to get their newborns vaccinated. Ivey said doctors are seeing more people decline vaccinations lately, which “speaks to the distrust for the medical community in general.”

“We know that these vaccines save lives,” and don’t cause autism, he said.

Doctors also said they don’t want women to doubt what they did during pregnancy if their child does develop autism.

“We need to take a deep breath,” Ivey said. “We need to trust the people that are doing the work – the scientists, the physicians, the other health care providers.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

“There’s something admirable about trying to restore life in the places that need it most. But without pairing those efforts with real investment in pollution control, especially wastewater infrastructure, we’re asking oysters to succeed in conditions that science says they can’t withstand long-term.”

An evening view of the northern tip of City Island, one of several local waterways where oyster reefs are being used to help filter out pollution. (Adi Talwar)

When I first learned about oyster restoration in New York Harbor, I was amazed. These small, craggy creatures could filter water, support biodiversity, and even help stabilize shorelines. With over 150 million oysters already introduced by initiatives like the Billion Oyster Project, it felt like a rare climate success story.

I volunteered with the organization, helping monitor oyster research stations, collecting data on biodiversity and growth, prepping shell piles on Governors Island, and tying knots for cages. I spent time watching the mud crabs and (perhaps a little too enthusiastically) squeezing sea squirts like glorified ocean stress balls. It was hard not to be inspired. These reefs weren’t just theoretical solutions. They were alive, and they were bringing the harbor back with them. But what I’ve come to realize is that they’re also incredibly vulnerable, and we rarely talk about that. 

New York City’s sewer system is over a century old. In much of the city, stormwater and sewage still flow through the same pipes. When it rains, even just a 10th of an inch in an hour, the system overflows. These combined sewer overflows (CSOs) happen around 90 to 100 days a year, releasing an estimated 27 billion gallons of untreated waste directly into local waterways. That’s the water oysters are expected to filter.

In theory, that’s part of their job. Oysters are filter feeders, capable of processing up to 50 gallons of water per day, removing particulates, bacteria, and excess nutrients. That’s why oyster restoration is framed as a nature-based solution to urban water pollution. But in reality, these systems can be overwhelmed, and increasingly are, as climate change makes heavy rainfall and flooding more frequent.

CSOs flood estuaries like New York Harbor with a slurry of freshwater, debris, heavy metals, bacteria, and nutrients. They lower salinity, increase turbidity, deplete oxygen, and introduce a mix of pathogens and pollutants. For oysters, this isn’t just unpleasant, it’s dangerous. Research shows that exposure to CSO-related stressors can impair oyster shell growth, weaken their immune systems, and disrupt the microbial communities that help them process pollutants. In some cases, they may even stop filtering altogether, temporarily closing their shells in response to poor water quality.

And yet, despite these limitations, oyster restoration is often presented as a silver bullet, “living infrastructure” that will clean our waters and buffer our coasts. It’s a compelling idea and I understand the appeal. But we have to ask: what do we owe to the systems we’re asking to protect us? 

Because the truth is, many restored reefs are being placed into waters that are still fundamentally polluted. High-profile restoration zones like Jamaica Bay, Newtown Creek, and the Gowanus Canal are also among the most heavily affected by CSOs. Newtown Creek alone sees an estimated 1.2 billion gallons of sewage overflow annually. 

There’s something admirable about trying to restore life in the places that need it most. But without pairing those efforts with real investment in pollution control, especially wastewater infrastructure, we’re asking oysters to succeed in conditions that science says they can’t withstand long-term.

That’s not to say the people running these projects don’t understand the risks. They do. Establishing a reef takes years of planning, monitoring, and permitting before a single oyster is deployed. At the City Island Oyster Reef, for example, teams spent years conducting fish surveys, measuring biodiversity, and assessing habitat conditions, and only now are they nearing the point of installing their first actual reef. Even after installation, these reefs require continued maintenance and oversight. They are not self-sustaining, not yet. 

But public narratives often simplify this. Reef openings get press coverage. Infographics tout the filtration power of a single oyster. But what doesn’t always get communicated is that oysters don’t scale overnight. They don’t filter through floods. They don’t fix what we refuse to.

And that’s where the real tension lies. When restoration is presented as a climate solution without the necessary structural reforms, we risk falling into what economists call a moral hazard: the assumption that something (or someone) else will absorb the consequences of inaction. In this case, the oysters become the stand-ins. We ask them to filter the byproducts of climate change, outdated infrastructure, and political delay. Not because it’s the best strategy, but because it’s more visible, more fundable, and more palatable than systemic reform.

This isn’t an argument against oyster restoration. I believe deeply in its value. The ecological and educational returns are real. The harbor is healthier today than it was decades ago, and these reefs are part of that progress. But we need to be honest about what oysters can (and can’t) do. They can’t prevent raw sewage from flooding their beds 100 times a year. They can’t keep filtering through hypoxic dead zones. And they can’t build resilience on their own. 

If we want to treat restored reefs as infrastructure, we have to treat them like infrastructure, not symbols. That means investing in both gray infrastructure (traditional systems like upgraded sewer lines and stormwater tunnels) and green infrastructure (natural solutions like rain gardens and permeable pavement that help reduce runoff at the source). It means ensuring that restoration is not a substitute for reform, but a partner to it.

Why does this matter beyond oysters? Because clean water isn’t just an ecological goal, it’s a public health necessity. Contaminated waterways can harm vulnerable communities, spread disease, and degrade the urban environment for everyone who lives near it. We can’t build climate resilience on symbolism alone.

There’s nothing wrong with celebrating progress. But we can’t mistake visibility for resilience, or inspiration for immunity. Oyster reefs show us what recovery might look like, but only if we stop asking them to filter out everything we haven’t yet faced.

Audrey Li is a Scarsdale High School student who volunteers with oyster restoration projects in New York Harbor and Long Island Sound. 

The post Opinion: When It Comes to NYC’s Waterways, Don’t Let Oysters Do All the Dirty Work appeared first on City Limits.