WASHINGTON —

Donald Trump on Tuesday notched a significant victory in South Carolina, where his preferred candidate easily ousted five-term Rep. Tom Rice, the first Republican to be booted from office after voting to impeach the former president last year. But another high-profile GOP target of Trump in the state, Rep. Nancy Mace, managed to hold back a challenger.

Meanwhile, in Nevada, Trump's pick, Adam Laxalt, won his U.S. Senate primary, defeating a populist candidate who is arguably more representative of the Trump base.

Takeaways from the latest round of primary elections:

SPLIT DECISION IN SOUTH CAROLINA

Rice and Mace have been objects of Trump's anger ever since a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to stop the certification of President Joe Biden's win.

Their transgressions? Mace stated on national TV that Trump's "entire legacy was wiped out" by the attack, while Rice became an apostate for joining a small group of Republicans who voted with Democrats in favor of Trump's second impeachment.

"He threw a temper tantrum that culminated with the sacking of the United States Capitol," Rice told NBC News on Monday. "It's a direct attack on the Constitution, and he should be held accountable."

Voters ultimately rendered different judgments on the duo, reflecting a split within the GOP about how to move forward from the Trump era. Rice's largely rural district is representative of Trump's America, where crossing the former president carries a steep cost. Even as Trump railed against both lawmakers, he chose to hold a rally in Rice's district earlier this year.

That's because Mace's district, which centers on Charleston, is full of the type of moderate suburban voters who fled the GOP under Trump. It is one of the few districts in an overall red state where Democrats have been even moderately competitive in congressional races.

The results demonstrate that the Trump factor can't be underestimated in solidly Republican territory, a potential warning sign for other Republicans, including Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who also voted to impeach Trump and has helped lead the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack. She's facing a competitive primary in August from a Trump-backed challenger.

Another notable factor in the Mace contest: It amounted to a proxy battle between Trump, who is contemplating a 2024 White House campaign, and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is also considering a run.

Trump backed former state Rep. Katie Arrington in the race, while Haley, a former South Carolina governor, effectively challenged Trump by campaigning with Mace.

Video below: Katie Arrington concedes in South Carolina congressional race

TRUMP, MCCONNELL ALIGN ON LAXALT IN NEVADA

Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell don't agree on much. One rare exception is Laxalt, who won Nevada's Republican Senate primary.

The two Republican leaders haven't been on speaking terms since December 2020, when McConnell acknowledged that Biden defeated Trump. But they both endorsed Laxalt, who defeated retired Army Capt. Sam Brown, a West Point graduate and Purple Heart recipient who ran an unexpectedly strong campaign as a conservative outsider.

The mutual support, which brought together the Trump and establishment wings of the party, demonstrates the intense focus Republican have placed on flipping the seat held by first-term Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who is considered among the most vulnerable senators.

TEXAS HOUSE SEAT FLIPS

A once solidly Democratic district in South Texas will now be represented by a Republican after Mayra Flores won a special primary election to finish the term of former Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela, who resigned this year to become a lobbyist.

Flores, a GOP organizer who is the daughter of migrant workers, will only hold the seat for several months before the district is redrawn to be more favorable to Democrats. But her victory in the heavily Hispanic Rio Grande Valley is an ominous sign for Democrats.

They are not only losing ground in a region they long dominated, but Flores' success as a candidate also demonstrates that Republicans are making inroads with Hispanic voters.

Her win also has implications for Democrats' ambitions in Congress, denying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi an opportunity to add to her slim two-vote margin to pass legislation.

FROM SOUTH CAROLINA TO THE WHITE HOUSE?

Also in South Carolina, Republican Tim Scott coasted to an easy and unopposed primary win Tuesday for what he says will be his last term in the Senate. But another state is also on his mind — the presidential proving ground of Iowa.

It's become an article of faith that there are no "accidental" trips to Iowa by ambitious politicians. And Scott, the Senate's sole Black Republican, has made several visits, including one last week.

He certainly has the money to contend. As he campaigned for reelection to the Senate, Scott amassed a jaw-dropping $42 million. That's more than double the $15.7 million average cost of a winning Senate campaign in the 2018 midterms. It's also more than enough to launch a Republican presidential campaign in 2024.

Even before his recent appearance at an Iowa Republican Party event, Scott has been raising his profile. He spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention and delivered the Republican response to President Joe Biden's first joint congressional address. He's also visited New Hampshire, another early-voting presidential state, and delivered a speech at the Reagan Presidential Library, another frequent stop for Republicans eyeing the White House.

A LEPAGE COMEBACK?

Governor's races are often overlooked. But the general election contest in Maine is among a handful of governor's races that are likely to be competitive this year, along with Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona.

Tuesday's gubernatorial primaries were a mere formality, since the races were uncontested. But they locked in what promises to be a doozy of a general election between two longtime foes.

Democratic incumbent Janet Mills is seeking a second term. She's a former district attorney, state lawmaker and Maine attorney general who frequently clashed with Republican Paul LePage when he was governor. Now LePage, who has described himself as "Trump before there was Trump," is challenging her.

The contest will test the appeal of Trumpian candidates in New England. The Democratic Governors Association has already booked $5 million in TV ad time.

That Mills and LePage are even competing against each other is somewhat of a surprise.

LePage moved to Florida and swore off politics when he left office in 2019 following two raucous terms that often drew national attention for his indecorous remarks.

But the draw of elected office was apparently too great. By 2020, he was back in Maine pledging to challenge his old nemesis.

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Standing in the middle of a barren farm field in northern Maine, Greg Porter walks the rows of dirt here with brown paper bags in one hand and white wooden stakes wrapped around his other.

Meticulously, he paces across this farm field, opening each numbered bag as he goes, marking down its location on a spreadsheet so that come harvest time in the fall, he knows exactly what he’s looking at.

Porter is part farmer and part researcher. He studies agriculture at the University of Maine in Presque Isle, a small rural community home to about 8,000 people that once was one of the nation’s largest producers of potatoes. They still produce plenty of spuds here, but Greg Porter isn’t farming potatoes for the money. He’s farming them for the future.

“We’re planting 45,000 different individual varieties of potatoes in this field. 45,000!” he remarked as he pulled out another handful of brown bags from his old GMC pickup truck.

Each brown bag Porter opens is filled with about 50 tubers; they’re essentially tiny potatoes. He and his research team have spent two years raising them in a greenhouse, combining thousands of different variations of potato parents to make potato offspring. Essentially, they’re trying to create the most efficient, most delicious potato out there.

These days though, the work in these fields is taking on new importance. With farmers across the country increasingly facing tougher growing conditions because of climate change, the hope is that somewhere in this field they harvest a new kind of potato that’s more resistant to climate change. Some may be able to tolerate higher temperatures and others may be able to handle more moisture.

“We’re developing DNA-based tools to stack the deck in our favor as we select them,” Porter added.

Last year, the potatoes industry in the United States was worth about $4 billion. All the more reason people like Don Flannery with the Maine Potato Board are paying close attention to the work Greg Porter and his team are doing.

“Potatoes are a high-input crop. It takes a lot of money to raise an acre of potatoes,” Flannery said sitting in his office surrounded by various pieces of potato memorabilia.

Aside from more extreme droughts and rain events, many of the varieties of potatoes being cultivated here need less fertilizer. With inflation and rising fertilizer prices, reducing any kind of costs for farmers could mean the difference between losing money and breaking even.

“If you’re not looking ahead and being proactive you’re usually behind in being reactive. Those that are gonna be successful in our business are the ones looking ahead,” Flannery added.

Back in the field, Porter and his team have started sending their potatoes to farms across the country to see how they hold up to growing conditions in states like Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. The hope is to help potato farmers across this country produce the best tasting, most lucrative crops possible.

“The hope is we produce a few out of our 45,000 that have enough good characteristics that they’re worthy of commercial investment.”

When 1-year-old Ashes the cat escaped from Denise Cilley's home in 2015, her family feared the worst. They didn't believe that the domesticated indoor cat could survive in the western Maine wilderness.

So when Cilley got a call late last month from a Florida animal shelter about her missing cat, she was understandably confused.

While it's not clear how Ashes made the 1,400 mile trip to Florida, the female gray tabby cat will soon return to its home in Maine, thanks to an airline employee and an internet fundraiser.

According to Patch.com, Cilley adopted Ashes, then a kitten, in October 2014. The family took care to keep the cat inside, even though they owned other cats that would occasionally venture outdoors.

However, Ashes escaped the home in August 2015 — likely making its way out of the house with the other cats.

After several weeks of searching for the cat, the family finally gave up hope. According to UPI, the family believed the cat might have been taken by a fox or another predator native to the region.

But on Jan. 22, Cilley says she got a call from an animal shelter in Longwood, Florida, a suburb of Orlando.

While Cilley was initially confused when the shelter reported that they had found a microchipped cat registered to her, she eventually put the pieces together.

"I'm like, 'Well how old is this cat?' 'Pretty old,.' I'm like, 'I've been missing a cat for six and a half years,'" Cilley told WGME-TV in Portland, Maine. "Then my daughter heard me talking on the phone and was like, 'Is it Ashes, is she alive?' and yes, she is."

Patch.com reports the Ashes had a few medical problems, including a respiratory issue and missing teeth. However, veterinarians say the cat is recovering well.

However, the question of how to get Ashes back to Maine was still up in the air. Luckily, Cilley was able to connect with an animal advocate named Janet Williams, through a mutual friend.

Thanks to connection in the airline industry, Williams found a Southwest employee who offered to take Ashes back to Maine on a day off. In addition, a GoFundMe campaign raised more than $1,800 for the cat's medical expenses.

Cilley and her family are looking forward to having Ashes home soon. She encourages everyone to microchip their pets.

"They're not that expensive and can save so much heartache if your cat ever gets out," Cilley told Patch.

WINTHROP, Maine — Spend a little time on Craig Hickman’s farm in central Maine and it’s clear he has a passion for growing his own food, something that for him that started early.

"My dad who was a Tuskegee airman on the ground, who probably would have been a farmer in another life, decided to turn our backyard in the inner city, the segregated inner city of Milwaukee into food," said Hickman, who is a Maine state senator.

"If you were dirt poor, but you could grow your food for yourself, then nobody could push you around and tell you what," he said.

Growing up how he did, his farm is not just a means for food, it’s his equal parts church and political ideology

"I feel like food is a ministry. Feeding oneself is a spiritual activity. It's a political activity. It's resistance, it's power," said Hickman.

It’s his strong, almost poetic views of food that are the fuel behind the state of Maine’s newest addition to its constitution: the right to food.

"If you have a right to life and liberty, if you have a right to obtain safety and happiness, which our Constitution says, then how can you not have a right to food?" he asked.

With 61% of the vote, Mainers passed the first in the nation right to food, which states that the people of Maine have the right to save and exchange seeds and the right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing for their own nourishment.

"More and more, we see if we don't write our rights down and explicitly protect them in constitutions, they can be infringed upon it anytime," said Hickman.

When you first hear of the concept it may sound like a no-brainer. However, according to research done by the University of Southern Maine, the state imports about 90% of the food Mainers consume, making it the state most dependent on outside sourcing of food.

With the pandemic tying up supply chains and stores baring empty shelves when demand shifted, Hickman sees the new amendment as giving people the power to opt-out of the commercial food chain.

"We take our food system for granted. We take our food supply for granted, but the pandemic proved to us we can't do that."

There is some opposition to the idea, including The Humane Society, which has expressed concerns about the legislation opening the door to animal welfare abuses. Hickman believes the existing language prevents that.

"We regulate, how you treat your cats and dogs, where we regulate humane and inhumane slaughter. Those things will not go away because of rights to food. There's language in the amendment that explicitly doesn't allow for the abuse of anything in the production of food, which would include animals," he explained.

The idea is picking up in other states with Washington and West Virginia working on right to food amendments of their own.

While the idea may catch on in other parts of the country, Hickman hopes more of his neighbors take steps to reclaim their power through food.

"Structures change. They don't change overnight. We have definitely thought put a different foundation under our food system. So, now, we'll see what we can build from it," he said.

MAINE, Maine —

The rising cost of goods and global supply chain issues are trickling down to community food pantries.

Surging food prices across the country have created a growing need for assistance at neighborhood food shelves, but have also stretched available supplies thin.

Jim Welch, operations manager at the South Portland Food Cupboard in Maine, said they have run into challenges finding some common items, crediting the program's network of volunteers for keeping their regular food pickup programs running smoothly.

"The people who give here and help us out make it a whole lot easier," Welch said.

Further up the food assistance supply chain, the Good Shepherd Food Bank is also navigating pandemic-related challenges.

Dawn DiFiore, the food bank's director of community partnerships, said supply chain issues have been a constant struggle since the start of the pandemic nearly two years ago.

Getting regular shipments of goods has been a constant adjustment, with the food bank often lining up multiple potential suppliers to ensure they can keep their warehouse stocked.

With the cost of things like gas and groceries getting more expensive and the holidays fast approaching, DiFiore said some the squeeze on struggling families is getting tighter.

"People start to make these trade-offs. Am I going to buy heating fuel or am I going to get this bag of groceries?" DiFiore said.

Thanks to their network of suppliers, Good Shepherd is able to stretch money father than the average consumer. According to DiFiore, a $1 donation translates to three full meals provided by the food bank.

BIDDEFORD, Maine — Students are returning to campuses as colleges reopen their doors. About one in four U.S. schools require those students to get vaccinated for COVID-19, following guidelines from the American College Health Association.

"American College Health Association believes that the best protection, the best way to bring our faculty, staff and students back safely, is to have a fully vaccinated campus," said Dr. Sarah Van Orman.

She helped create the COVID-19 protocols in use around the country.

"I think for most of us, it's about balancing a return to normal, and how do we do those safely? What mitigation systems do we need to have in place?" said Van Orman.

Vaccine mandates are working at the University of New England (UNE). The picturesque campus is home to nearly 4,000 students and 1,100 staff members.

For the university's president, James Herbert, it’s several thousand people he’s responsible for keeping safe from COVID-19.

“It’s been quite the roller coaster the past 18 months, a lot of ups and downs. But we’ve actually weathered the pandemic quite well overall,” said Herbert

He’s hoping the roller coaster ride, at least on campus, may be slowing down.

“Now, we’ve gotten to the point where we’re over 98% of our community is vaccinated and with just a handful of exemptions,” said Herbert.

It’s not just UNE. About 94% of students living on campus in the University of Maine system are vaccinated. Multiple other colleges in Maine are reporting near 100% vaccination rates as well.

The number is substantially higher than the overall rate for 18 to 24-year-olds in the U.S. Only 43.5% have received the vaccine.

Herbert says vaccine requirements are a driving force. A total of 34 of Maine’s 37 universities require students to get the shot.

“The majority of the students responded very well. They understood why we needed to have the vaccine,” said Herbert.

For medical school students Julia Marcus and Molly Cherny, it made the decision to come to school that much easier.

“I thought it was awesome that UNECOM or UNE, in general, was mandating vaccines just for the safety of all the students and all the faculty,” said Marcus

“I’m sure there was an exemption or two but for the most part, we never even questioned it in the past to have a hepatitis or a menegitis or measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, so it kind of was like I said, just another box for me to check off,” said Cherney.

But while schools with mandates have generally reported high vaccination rates, it's a mixed bag for the 3,000-plus schools that do not have a mandate in place. Many do not publicly report their vaccination rates.

"When we think about the vaccine rates at an institution, we have to understand where does that institution sit. What are the overall vaccine rates in the community," said Van Orman.

The University of Alabama system, with no vaccine requirement, is reporting a vaccination rate of around 58%.

But the University of Wisconsin, which also decided against a mandate, has vaccinated more than 90% of students.

"I think it's a good example of what you see when you have that strong vaccine infrastructure, and a community acceptance and awareness of the vaccine, versus a state where we have a longer way to go," said Van Orman.

Herbert has faced doubters on his campus. He says his team has responded with compassion.

“What we tried to do is meet people where they were at rather than hit them over the head with a bunch of facts and figures to listen to what their concerns were and to try and meet them where they were at,” said Herbert. “This is, right now, one of the safest places on planet earth that you could be in is our campus when we have almost 99% of the community vaccinated.”

KENNEBUNK, Maine —

With working from home and the stress of the pandemic, it seems like the lines between work life and home life are more blurred these days. A Maine counselor is offering some help.

Anush Hansen has been dealing with a situation familiar to many parents.

"He's a very resourceful kiddo, but, 'Where's my paper?' 'I lost the signal' 'I need a snack,'" said Hansen.

But finding a work-life balance is her specialty. She is a career and wellness counselor based in Kennebunk.

"When clients say, 'I dread going to work' or 'I’m just trying to survive through the end of the day or through the end of the week,' that's not really how our lives are supposed to be," she said.

With this pandemic, her clients needed her more during a time when they couldn't meet. So she designed a tool anyone can use at home.

"During the day, I would sit at my table, my perch, and focus on the card sort," she said.

A card sort assessment is often used by counseling professionals to help you organize your thoughts. The deck of cards lists career and personal priorities that you sort into what's most important to you.

"A lot of times clients will do a card sort and they'll be like, 'Oh my gosh, no wonder I’m so emotionally exhausted,'" Hansen said.

She says it’s an interactive and tactile way to take a step back and make goals.

"It’s more of a lifelong practice where you assess day to day, week to week, year to year," she said.

You can buy a physical deck of cards or use them online through her website here.

A Maine lobsterman caught a rare blue lobster in one of his traps on Wednesday.Karen Stover, a viewer of Maine sister station WMTW, shared the photo of the lobster that her husband, George Stover, caught in Casco Bay in Portland, Maine.The odds of catching a blue lobster are about one in two million.Stover said the lobster was female, so her husband notched it and put it back in the water.

PORTLAND, Maine —

A group of Maine high schoolers had the Zoom of a lifetime recently.

Teens who are a part of the Portland-based Young Writers and Leaders (YWL) program got to talk with a best-selling author, President Barack Obama.

Back in December President Obama sent a copy of his new memoir, A Promised Land, to the 26 Maine high schoolers who make up the YWL program, and later followed up with a letter, asking they could spare some time from their busy lives and join him on a Zoom call to talk about their lives as writers and leaders.

“The whole thing was like so unreal. But it actually happened, and we have, like, we have video proof that it happened,” said Noor Sager, a 15-year-old sophomore at Gorham High School.

During Obama’s presidency, the White House actually named the YWL program as one of the top 12 arts and humanities programs for youth in the nation.

“We started by asking him questions,” said Alia Usanase, a 19-year-old junior at Deering High School.

In a video of the interaction, Usanase asked President Obama if he always likes everything he writes.

“No! Sometimes I write, most of the time I write something, I say ‘this is stupid,'” Obama told her.

For an hour, the former president gave them advice on writing, life and how to be leaders.

“You need to like change your community first in order to change the world,” said Youmna Mohamed, a 17-year-old senior at Portland High School, expressing one of her key takeaways from the conversation.

“My whole life, I hadn’t imagined myself talking to a president. President Obama in front of me, like I am literally talking to him,” Usanase said, still in disbelief.

“Honestly at the end of that call I couldn't help but feel like, a really lasting impression that, like, maybe like the really impossible stuff that everyone thinks about isn’t that impossible,” Sager said.

To learn more about Young Writers and Leaders, a program put on by The Telling Room, head to tellingroom.org.

A husband and wife from Maine with almost no farming experience are now growing enough organic produce to help feed hundreds of people.

"My goal is to grow super healthy beautiful organic produce to give people," said Erica Berman, co-founder Veggies to Table co-founder in Newcastle.

She admits, she is still learning the ropes as a farmer, but knows that there are a lot of Mainers struggling to get enough food, especially in her home area of Lincoln County.

"I just find it heartbreaking the idea not to have enough food to eat daily. I don't know how anyone can lead a productive life without having healthy food," Berman said.

Berman and husband Alain Ollier founded Veggies to Table in 2019, turning nearly one acre of their property into an organic farm where they grow a variety of vegetables of flowers. They donate all of the produce to about 30 different local organizations.

"We're just participating at our small, very small level," said Ollier. It's like we have this land and we just wanted to be able to give back."

The couple moved to Maine from Paris in 2012. At the time, neither had any experience working a farm. Erica was a business owner and Alain worked as a massage therapist and teacher. They now get help from dozens of community volunteers each day to make sure their farm thrives.

"We learn as we go and its just a process," Ollier said. "Up to now we were just focusing on what we can do and this is manageable."

"It's a very busy, beautiful happy lifestyle," Berman added. "I'm currently working between 70 and 80 hours a week. I'm passionate about it so..."

In just 2020, Veggies to Table donated more than 11,000 pounds of organic produce along with 450 bouquets of flowers.

Some of that food went to the nearby Jefferson Area Community Food Pantry.

"Probably in the next few weeks she's going to give me 50 bouquets and I'll hand everyone in my pantry a bouquet as they leave," said Allison Brooks of the Jefferson Area Community Food Pantry.

Berman says the need helps feed her and her husband's desire to help.

"When I'm hungry I can't do anything, even if it's 15 minutes, if I'm hungry so imagine being hungry every day," Berman said.

Berman says she hopes to add an educational aspect to the farm within the next few years to teach people how to grow their own organic vegetables.

Every day at Becky's Diner in Portland, Maine, is a race against the clock. Food is constantly coming in and out of the kitchen there. But the family-owned business recently got involved in a much different race, the race to vaccinate America.

With vaccination rates slowing, Becky's Diner decided to expand its menu and started offering COVID-19 vaccines to patrons.

"It offered it to people who worked down here, who maybe didn’t want to make an appointment at a local pharmacy," said Zack Rand whose mom opened the diner more than 30 years ago.

Vaccination clinics are nothing new for Becky's Diner. During the H1N1 outbreak, they also helped to facilitate vaccination clinics. It's an idea that could become a critical model for communities nationwide.

Dr. Dora Anne Mills is with MaineHealth. She pushed hard for the idea because it gave health officials a chance to reach working-class Americans where they are.

"We were there at 4:30 a.m. We ran into a lot of fishermen getting coffee and they thought ‘I’ll get a vaccine, it’s easy, it’s convenient,'" Dr. Mills said.

More than 200 people got their vaccine at this diner recently. While that number may seem small, it comes at a critical point in the pandemic. Daily vaccination rates have plummeted in recent weeks. At the country's peak vaccination point in April, about 3.4 million people were getting shots daily. The U.S. is now averaging fewer than 1 million shots per day, a nearly 70% drop.

"People under 50 are busy. They’re working. They have kids. They’re not going to take time off to go to a doctor’s office or clinic, so we need to go to where they’re at," Dr. Mills added.

It’s young adults who public health officials are really trying to get to right now. What public health officials like Dr. Mills are realizing is that answering some questions for folks in person, often overwhelmingly helps to combat vaccine hesitancy.

"I’ve found the people who are vaccine-hesitant, just have a few questions. They just need some concerns addressed. They need to have a conversation, that’s all it is," she added.

With those dropping numbers, it makes clinics like the one at Becky's Diner even more important. Like much of the country, Maine is incredibly rural. At some clinics there, maybe 10 or 15 people come in to get a shot during a week and Dr. Mills is OK with that.

"This is what we have to be doing across the country," she noted.

In the coming weeks, vaccine clinics will start popping up at local breweries, music venues, churches, and mosques across the state because at this point, every shot matters.

This group of students at Farwell Elementary School in Lewiston, Maine, have been working on publishing their own books. The books are an adaptation of their mentor, Gary Savage's novels, altered to include their experiences of life during the pandemic. The Author Studies program has been around for years. However, during the pandemic students had to get creative and find virtual ways to work together. Some students were worried the program would not be able to continue this year. Many students were relieved and excited the program was still taking place.Hear about their story in the video above.

An invasive species of caterpillars are causing people to break out in painful rashes in Maine and Massachusetts.

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which has declared a public health nuisance, said the browntail moth caterpillar is found only on the coast of Maine and Cape Cod.

The creepy crawlers are easy to identify: They're brown, about 1.5 inches long, white stripes along each side, and two red/orange spots on their back.

The agency said the poisonous hairs of the caterpillar could cause dermatitis, which is similar to poison ivy.

The rash can occur upon contact with the skin or if the caterpillar's hairs become airborne if dislodged from a living or dead caterpillar.

"Most people affected by the hairs develop a localized rash that will last for a few hours up to several days, but on some sensitive individuals, the rash can be severe and last for several weeks," the agency said. "The rash results from both a chemical reaction to a toxin in the hairs and a physical irritation as the barbed hairs become embedded in the skin."

If you inhale the hairs, it can cause respiratory distress, the agency said.

Some people are leaving with an unwanted souvenir after visiting some beaches in southern Maine: a black substance stained on the bottom of their feet.The substance, which has been seen at beaches in York County, was initially thought to be algae, but once a retired oceanographer looked at a sample through a microscope, they discovered it was something much different."Much to our surprise, it wasn't some kind of algae or an oil spill like you would expect, it was just a whole bunch of dead bugs in the water," said John Lillibridge, who recently retired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.The bugs have wings that are smaller than a pinpoint, but when a lot of them are stepped on, they leave a dark stain that is hard to remove. "I tried Tide To-Go, I figured it would be bleach but nothing worked," said beachgoer Anne King, who also tried using oils and soap scrubs to no avail. Lillibridge said the bugs are not harmful and eventually wear off, although it is unclear what type of bugs they are. He also believes they will eventually disappear."The wind is turning from the south more to the west today and I suspect between now and natural tide cycle it's just going to carry this stuff away," Lillibridge said.