The food critic and writer Florence Fabricant will serve as a judge of clam chowder entries at the East Hampton Town Trustees’ Largest Clam Contest, which happens on Oct. 9 at noon on the grounds of the Lamb Building on Bluff Road in Amagansett. Those residents entering clams or chowders have been asked to arrive a little before noon.

America’s 9-year-olds “are performing at a level last seen two decades ago,” said Daniel McGrath, the acting associate commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, a branch of the United States Education Department. His announcement addressed a recent federal study that exposed the devastating effects of Covid-19 on the nation’s schoolchildren.

The basketball court at the Bridgehampton Child Care and Recreational Center was redone Sunday — the first step in a much larger plan that’s to include a new gymnasium, an indoor swimming pool, a regulation-size tennis court, and soccer, baseball, and kickball fields on the five-acre Sag Harbor Turnpike property.