>Project Bread – an anti-hunger nonprofit organization – says that over the past 12 months, nearly 140,000 people, including 48,000 children, have lost SNAP benefits in Massachusetts. The organization attributes this largely to the inability of recipients to reach the DTA as well as changing eligibility requirements.

>“I was up for a normal recertification, which is part of a standard process about every six months. The first problem I had was that my caseworker was not there for my phone interview, so a supervisor had to conduct it,” she said.

>After no success over the phone, Lively went directly into the regional DTA office, where she was forced to wait for hours while a single employee – the only one on staff that day, she says – managed her case and several others in a frenzy.

>As part of her FY2027 supplemental budget, Gov. Maura Healey included $41.7 million for 120 new DTA employees, including 80 caseworkers. The supplemental budget was engrossed into law on March 18.

>But a DTA whistleblower, who detailed “rampant” fraud within the state’s SNAP program along with lackluster efforts by the DTA to stop it, says the additional workers may be too little too late, adding that department leadership indicated in recent meetings that the total number of new caseworkers has been reduced.

>“I wasn’t expecting 25 students to eat up the entirety of their Saturday,” Aiden Kennedy, who performs under the stage name MUERTE, said in an interview with MassLive.

>On Feb. 21, the popular dubstep artist went to Berklee to record new, original music with a student orchestra. This was the first time Kennedy had ever recorded with a live orchestra.

>From that moment, Musa contemplated ways to get Kennedy on campus. He eventually decided to cold email him and his manager at the end of 2025 to see if they’d be willing to come to Berklee to record with a live orchestra. Once Kennedy obliged, Musa knew he could make the session happen.

>Kennedy’s plan is to swap out the sample libraries and digital recreations he used on the tracks with the live recordings. Afterward, the musician potentially sees himself releasing the songs as part of a three-track EP

>“I am pretty vocal about having a focus on songwriting in this heavy EDM genre because the focus a lot of times is put on the sound design, and that’s great. But if it’s just a really cool little bit of sound design and there’s no actual music writing or songwriting, then it’s not a good song. It’s just a cool sound showcase,” Kennedy said. “That’s something that I love focusing on. It’s something that I’m definitely passionate about and I would love to see more of this being done.”

>In an interview with PC Gamer, Ryan said he ended up loving the experience of acting for a game—even though when he auditioned for the role, it was actually masquerading as a show to keep the Assassin's Creed sequel a secret.

>"It was pitched to me via my agent as a pirate TV show," he remembered. "Amy Hubbard, a great casting director in the UK, got me into the room, and then they liked me. They asked me for a callback, and then they leveled with me. They were like, listen: this is a videogame. They said it was an Assassin's Creed, and I'd played the first one, so I was like 'great, that's a cool game.' But I didn't think it was mocap—so when it was mocap, I was over the moon. I get to be the character, in the body, you know?"

Twitter/X video: HERE

>From time to time, Call of Duty's anti-cheat likes to troll unsavory players who aren't playing by the rules. A recent stream of Black Ops 7 revealed a cheater lost their weapons mid-match after being detected by Ricochet, as seen in the clip below.

>Activision has struggled to keep hackers completely out of Black Ops 7 and Warzone, but Ricochet anti-cheat is still working to ban them mid-match. Former pro player and Call of Duty personality, Christopher "Parasite" Duarte, recently livestreamed a playback of a match in Black Ops 7's theater mode, showing the moment a cheater's guns disappeared in multiplayer.

>Last month, an American jury rendered a verdict on Ticketmaster and LiveNation. It said to those companies: you are a monopoly. You have been exploiting consumers, leveraging your monopolistic power to raise prices and engage in unfair and abusive practices.” And what I’m proposing today are some remedies consumers and fans, artists, venues — they all suffer from Ticketmaster, LiveNation

The Ordinance [Methuen.gov]

>METHUEN, Mass. —

>A city councilor in Methuen, Massachusetts, wants to ban dirt bikes from being able to buy gas at stations throughout the city in an effort to promote public safety.

>City Councilor Ryan DiZoglio and Methuen Police Chief Scott McNamara are pushing to add an ordinance to the city's municipal code that would bar owners and employees of retail stations from serving gas to anyone using an off-highway vehicle or recreational vehicle, including dirt bikes, ATVs, or mini-bikes

>Any gas station that violates the ordinance would be subject to a $100 fine per recreational vehicle served.

Youtube Highlights of the Game (ESPN)

>On Saturday, the Texas Tech Red Raiders mounted a stunning comeback in a 10-9, extra-inning win over the Ole Miss Rebels, improving to 2-0 in the Lubbock Regional after previously winning Friday's opener over Marist. The Red Raiders were down to their final out and trailing 8-0 before reeling off eight runs to send the game to extras, where it won in the eighth inning.

>Per ESPN, Texas Tech became the first softball team this century to win after trailing by eight or more runs in an NCAA tournament game. Since 2000, teams were previously 0-640 when facing a deficit of at least eight runs.

>According to Jeremy Fowler of ESPN, 34 coaches and executives are scheduled to participate. They include Chargers offensive coordinator (and former Dolphins head coach) Mike McDaniel and current (and former) Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy.

>When Krafton acquired Unknown Worlds Entertainment back in 2021, part of the agreement indicated that a major bonus would be offered if certain revenue targets were achieved. According to the stipulation, if developer Unknown Worlds Entertainmentearned more than $69.8 million in revenue, its new parent company would have to pay $3.12 for each additional dollar of sales, with a cap of $250 million. Given the game has already reached a million players and many more will likely pick it up over the weekend when there's more free time, things are looking good for the developers who were promised bonuses.

Youtube video of Article

>A Waltham, Massachusetts, company began to develop a trauma foam to stop internal bleeding; years later, it saved an Alabama man's life. 

>UAB is the site of an FDA-approved clinical trial for ResQFoam, developed by Waltham biotechnology company Arsenal Medical. It is administered by cutting a small incision below the patient's belly button and inserting what looks like a calking gun into the abdomen, then shooting foam, which expands inside the body cavity.

>"It wraps around injured tissues and injured organs and puts pressure on them, which temporarily slows or stops hemorrhage," said Dr. David King, a trauma surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital.

>But Xavier, who is deafblind and uses a white cane, says navigating crosswalks can be dangerous for her.

>In 2024, Xavier was in the middle of a crosswalk on Causeway Street near North Station when a truck making a right turn came around the corner and nearly hit her. Both she and the truck could legally cross, though Xavier had the right of way. Now, she avoids certain intersections she fears can put her at risk.

>Most Boston intersections are designed so that pedestrians are the only group that can legally be in the crosswalk. But the city also uses what’s known as “concurrent signaling” at a third of intersections, meaning that vehicle traffic runs parallel to pedestrians — and cars can legally turn into the crosswalk while people are crossing and have a walk signal.

>SUFFIELD, Conn — This week has been huge for both the state and the Town of Suffield. 

>Suffield is the state's first municipality to deliver drug deactivation devices to every single household in town.

>Starting this week, people in Suffield can start to see Deterra drug deactivation pouches in their mailboxes. 

>They hope to expand to more towns soon. 

>Through the state's 'Prevention Starts with You' campaign, almost 60,000 of the pouches have been handed out, which can deactivate more than 2.5 million pills.

>You can also go online to request your own pouch, at this link.

>The federal government says Connecticut’s new law prohibiting federal officials from wearing face coverings while interacting with the public is unconstitutional, according to a lawsuit filed Friday.

>The US District Court for the District of Connecticut should enjoin Senate Bill 397because it violates the supremacy clause, the complaint says.

>“The state’s actions are both fully lawful and necessary to protect public safety and we will vigorously defend the law,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong (D) told Bloomberg Law.

>Intelligent connected new energy vehicles, the specific category at the heart of this project, are vehicles that integrate new energy technologies with advanced connectivity, autonomous driving, and smart systems, effectively transforming traditional cars into mobile intelligent terminals. Their complexity makes rigorous, repeatable validation under controlled extreme conditions not just useful, but necessary.

>What makes the project genuinely unprecedented is its indoor snow-making capability. The facility will enable precise control of snowfall volume, ice friction coefficients, and other environmental variables, something no existing cold-weather proving ground in the world currently offers. That level of control, the report notes, is designed to overcome the limitations imposed by unpredictable real-world weather, which has historically made consistent and repeatable winter testing difficult for manufacturers.

>SALT LAKE CITY — Fewer Utah drivers are wearing seat belts, and Utah officials have a new campaign to turn those numbers around.

>That means that, statewide, police are cracking down on drivers who don’t buckle up. Drivers will notice new billboards, a TV commercial, and police actively watching for drivers not wearing their seat belts.

>Here’s why — the number of Utah drivers wearing seatbelts keeps dropping. According to the Utah Department of Public Safety, Utah’s seatbelt use in 2025 was down to 89.6%. That’s a decline from 2024 and 2023, when, at 92.4%, seat belt use hit an all-time high.

>To encourage more drivers to buckle up, 37 police agencies across the state are working 335 extra shifts, from May 18 through May 31, to ticket drivers not wearing a seat belt.