SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " H.S " 100 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
Sign in to save shuffle history.
Meet the Graduates: School of Health Sciences Majors Are Going Places
College of Charleston School of Health Sciences graduates are turning passion into purpose. Here are a few who graduated this spring.
Sen. Tim Scott introduces Catherine Dority at Small Business Committee hearing on 250 years of American entrepreneurship — U.S. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) yesterday delivered an introduction for South Carolina’s Catherine Dority at the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship hearing. Sen. Scott’s remarks, as delivered: It is my pleasure to introduce my dear friend, Cat Dority, who is with us today as we celebrate 250 years of American entrepreneurship. There […]
DeSantis signs Florida bill on H.S. sports transfers, coaches' pay
The bill is meant to curb frequent high school athlete transfers and boost pay for coaches.
Bill to protect health care workers from workplace violence set for Senate vote next week
Massachusetts Senate President Karen Spilka unveiled a bill Thursday mandating employers to offer paid leave to healthcare workers assaulted on the job.
Local thrift, pawn shops say rising costs are driving more business
Boston area thrift stores and pawn shops see an uptick in customers looking for quick cash or inexpensive items as they struggle with high inflation and rising costs.
H.S. sports for Saturday, April 11
Scores and highlights from across the state
INSIDE H.S. SPORTS: Hornell wins Class C1 flag football title in first season
INSIDE H.S. SPORTS: In the program's first season, Hornell won the Section V Class C1 flag football title on Saturday, defeating Aquinas 26-6. Hear from head coach Mike Wilkinson, Parker
GBH Daily: When everyone agreed on healthcare
New from the Big Dig team.
Live updates on the Massachusetts 2026 primary election
Follow along for our coverage of Massachusetts’ Markey-Moulton Senate matchup, the challengers to longtime House representatives and the Suffolk district attorney showdown.
What a long, strange weekend it’s been for Boston sports fans
Alex Cora was fired as manager of the Red Sox on Saturday, the same day as Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel was absent from NFL draft following a scandal.
Section 4 H.S. sports' postseason results, top athletes through May 26
See which Section 4 teams are advancing in the spring postseason.
New Teen Social Media Safeguards: What Parents Need to Know
Learn what new social media safeguards mean for teen screen time and how parents can support healthy digital habits.
MassHealth to end homeless health care program that serves thousands statewide
Employees worry patients will suffer and health care costs will ultimately rise under what’s supposed to be a cost-saving measure.
At least 5 other states join Mass. in covering transgender kids’ health care under Medicaid
The states, including half of New England, vow to cover the care after a new rule from the Trump administration will cut off federal funding for many treatments starting in October.
Oh, Hello: Utah DT Aniti Paiva Commits To Penn State
THE SKINNY Height/Weight: 6-foot-3, 300 poundsHometown/High School: Draper, Utah (Skyline H.S.)Ranking: ★★★ (87 Rivals — No. 94 DT)Notable Offers: Arizona, Boise State, Colorado, Oregon State, Washington State HIGHLIGHTS OUTLOOK Kalani Sitake might have turned down the Penn State job, but the Nittany Lions are still in the Utah business thanks to defensive tackles coach Ikaika […]
D.H.S. Will Run Out of Money for Paychecks in May, Secretary Says
The issue threatens to renew chaos at airports as lawmakers remain divided over a deal to end the two-month shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.
Silent detention: Mental health impact of ICE arrests on families reaches crisis point
Immigrant families are facing an unprecedented mental health crisis due to detention, and the barriers to getting help are both structural and cultural.
Saber's newest game trailer takes a shot at Gearbox's CEO, if you look closely
The first hint that something might be up with the recent debut trailer for Saber Interactive’s Rideshare Stimulator is an unusual choice of words—aside from that second one in the game’s title. “Don’t take your passengers too seriously,” the trailer’s narrator says, as he describes this upcoming game. It a car game about the gig work of driving eccentric people to their destinations, a riff on Crazy Taxi. And then, he says: “When I think I’ve met the randiest of passengers, someone even stranger gets in.” “Randiest”? That suggests “randy,” which usually means having strong sexual desire. Yet none of the oddball backseat occupants featured in the trailer seem particularly lustful. One is an old man who considers his grandson a failure, another shares the theory that birds might control traffic lights, another says he’s banned from an aquarium. A little later, there’s a license plate, shown 63 seconds into the trailer, on the front of an SUV: USB DRV It’s a Texas plate. The symbol between those letters is a cog wheel. If you know, you know. That’s a reference to Texas-based Borderlands game development studio Gearbox Software (their logo features a cog wheel). More specifically, it’s a reference to Gearbox’s CEO Randy Pitchford, who in 2018 found himself explaining the nature of video he’d saved on a USB drive that was found at a Medieval Times restaurant before being returned to the studio: “It was ‘barely legal’ porn. This girl’s handle was ‘Only 18.’” The “girl” in the video had committed a solo sex act that Pitchford, an avid practitioner of magic, found remarkable. “I realized, this is not a sex worker…This is a fucking magician.” Back then, the USB drive was central to competing lawsuits against Gearbox by the studio’s former lawyer and by Gearbox against him. A settlement in late 2019 “exonerated” Pitchford, per the Hollywood Reporter. The USB story has resurfaced at times, now in a trailer from a company that not long ago was corporate brethren with Gearbox. Saber vs. Gearbox The head of Saber told Game File that the reference is payback. “The dig is because Randy took shots at Embracer in Borderlands 4,” Saber CEO Matt Karch told me when I asked him about the license plate. “Without Embracer, Randy is performing magic tricks at birthday parties for a living.” Having interviewed Karch during a cross-country flight in late 2024, I can confirm that Karch was unimpressed with Pitchford during their time both working in the Embracer group. I’d approached him not out of surprise that there was animosity but that it was manifesting publicly now. Gearbox was founded in 1999, worked on a port of Halo early on, and developed hit series such as the loot-based sci-fi shooter Borderlands before it was purchased by The Embracer Group in early 2021 for $363 million (with a possible earn-out of over $1 billion, if certain targets were hit by 2027). Saber was founded in 2001, worked on a remaster of Halo early on, had a big hit with zombie shooter World War Z and was purchased by Embracer in early 2020 for $150 million, with a potential earn-out of up to $375 million. For a few years, the Embracer group was a voracious acquirer of game studios. Then, as investment dried up, it choked. In March 2024, Embracer sold Saber to an investment company controlled by Saber CEO Matt Karch, and it sold Gearbox in an all-stock deal to long-time Borderlands publisher Take Two Interactive. Other studios were shut down. Hundreds of developers were laid off. Gearbox didn’t say much about their Embracer experience, nothing too direct, at least. In the summer 2024, Pitchford told reporter and occasional Game File contributor Nicole Carpenter that Borderlands 4’s story was in some way thematically connected to Gearbox’s experience at Embracer: “There’s this cultural and emotional shift in me, personally, and at the studio. What does it mean to trade some autonomy for organization?” When Borderlands 4 came out, there was something stranger: the matter of “Embracer’s Bluff,” a location in the game featuring an AI-powered toilet and a large trash dump, according to a detailed Kotaku account of the place. Gearbox never commented on it; Take Two never got back to me about it when I asked them last year. By contrast, since Saber exited Embracer, Karch has been one of Embracer’s biggest defenders, casting their management as well-meaning and supportive despite the layoffs and studio closures that resulted from their excessive expansion. Like others, Saber’s Karch saw Embracer’s as a shot. With Rideshare Stimulator’s trailer, he’s returned fire. “It’s amazing to me how fast people forget those who went above and beyond for them,” Karch told Game File. A rep for Gearbox did not comment by press time. Game File is a reader-supported publication. Your backing makes my reporting—including any coverage of trailer-based beefs—possible. Good news! I’m currently running Game File’s first big sale of 2026. You can get a one-year subscription for 23% off. Click here to take advantage of the limited-time offer. And thank you for your support! Item 2: In brief… 🚫 Wal-Mart has laid off the staff of Restart, a games media outlet launched in 2024, Aftermath reports. 🟥 A GTA VI preview is on the way, at last, via an “extended look” that will premiere, unusually, on Netflix at 3pm ET on August 27, then officially go live elsewhere six hours later. Last week, Game File noted that Take Two label Rockstar Games is overdue for showing off GTA VI, based on the timing of the initial hands-off previews of GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2. During a call with investors, Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said pre-orders for GTA VI were “unprecedented and astonishing,” but added the company can’t predict how many of those pre-orders represent bonus sales vs. sales that otherwise would have been made at launch. During the same call, Zelnick was noticeably bullish on the future of playing games over streaming cloud connections (predicting wider adoption in three or so years). He sounded unbothered by Sony’s plans to stop making discs for new games (he said the business is 90% digital already and predicted that there could still be limited edition physical editions of games “in the same way there’s still vinyl in the recorded music business.”) 👀 Take Two wrote off $43 million in their spring quarter after deciding “not to proceed with further development of an unannounced title in its pipeline from a third-party developer.” 🤔 Some rare age-demographics from a big publisher: Capcom recently told investors that “users in their 20s account for approximately half of the users of both Pragamata and Resident Evil Requiem.” Item 3: The week ahead Tuesday, August 11 Game releases: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (Switch 2; already out for PC, PS5, Xbox) continues the Bethesda strategy of putting Elder Scrolls games on everything; Royalty Free-For-All is a Smash Bros.-style fighting game featuring public domain characters such as Mother Goose brawling with Oliver Twist in a stage based on the original Little Shop of Horrors movie. Wednesday, August 12 Game release: Pro Jank Footy (PC, console) is an arcade-style Australian Rules Football game with increasingly ridiculous rules, the more you play (I enjoyed the Steam demo) Thursday, August 13 Game release: Super Mario Sunshine (Switch 2, originally released in 2002 on the GameCube) is released for Switch 2’s Nintendo Switch Online service. This game is the black sheep of 3D Mario games. It’s the successor to the breakthrough Super Mario 64 and the rare Mario game built around a single (vacation resort) theme. Mario’s got a water-spraying backpack, a Yoshi pal and a lot of blue coins to collect.
Mass. hopes to create an umbrella agency to regulate youth sports
Massachusetts lawmakers are aiming to be the first to create a statewide agency that would regulate sports for elementary and middle school-aged athletes.
H.H.S. Takes a First Step Toward Restoring Vaccine Advisory Committee
A federal judge last month questioned the legitimacy of the panel and overturned its recent work. A notice suggests that it may be revived on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s terms.
HEALTH Yeah! Episode 32: Heavy Bleeding and Pelvic Pain
Learn what’s normal — and not — with menstrual cycles, heavy bleeding, pelvic pain and women’s health care at Stony Brook Medicine.
Healey announces push to expand maternal mental healthcare, screening
In the wake of the Lindsay Clancy trial, Healey on Tuesday unveiled measures aimed at improving postpartum mental health screening and support.
Mercer Health Urgent Care Now Open Daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Mercer Health has expanded access to convenient, non‑emergency care with the launch of new daily hours at Mercer Health Urgent Care. The clinic, located within the Community Medical Center at 950 S. Main Street in Celina, is now open every day from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., offering patients more flexibility for minor illnesses, injuries, […]
Engrams Embedding Entendre: Codesign for Efficient DRAM/SSD Offloading
Engram extends standard token embeddings with learned multi-token lookups. Recurring local patterns retrieve vectors directly, reducing the need to reconstruct them through attention and feed-forward layers. With Engram model architecture optimization, it allows for lower HBM capacity to be needed for models at the same quality. This does not mean there won’t be an insane demand for HBM but it just means that model architecture will continue to innovate around constraints. This model architecture design is naturally codesigned for parameter offloading: each token accesses a few embedding rows whose addresses depend on token IDs, not hidden states. The runtime can prefetch those rows from host DRAM while earlier layers compute, keeping the table outside HBM without transferring entire weight matrices. Our Memory model contains our latest estimates of quarter by quarter HBM, DRAM, & NAND supply and demand. Offloading frees HBM for model weights and KV cache, potentially supporting larger batches or more concurrent sessions. When DRAM becomes the next constraint, NVMe offers another tier. Recommendation systems already cache frequently or recently accessed embedding rows in faster memory while backing colder rows with SSDs. After NVIDIA roadmap had to change due to massively despec’ing Rubin Ultra from 1024GB to now ~200GB of HBM per chip, model architecture optimizations like emgram maybe helpful. Our DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash configuration uses roughly 189 GiB of memory for Engram. We replace it with a memory-mapped (mmap) file and measure serving performance with offload to SSD. Later on in our report, we will show our Engram offloading experiments along with the official InferenceX agentic inference serving results on Engram models like DeepSeekv4.1 Flash across all 6 NVIDIA GPU SKUs along with MI355X. Unsurprisingly, the CUDA Moat is still mogging MI355X on the ultra popular DeepSeekV4.1 Flash model. We also show how even on high capacity HBM SKUs, offloading emgrams to DRAM could result in even better performance for most of the pareto than keeping the emgram in HBM. Our benchmark has been widely reproduced, validated and/or supported by almost every major buyer of compute from Google Cloud to Microsoft Azure to Oracle, to Meta and many more. Furthermore, it has the support of the ML community including from vLLM, LMCache, SGLang, PyTorch, Huggingface and the support of major labs like OpenAI, MiniMax, ZAI, Qwen, Moonshot Kimi, etc. Star the InferenceX GitHub repository if you find the open-source benchmark and data useful!. InferenceX is the only inference benchmark in the world to have TPUv7, Jalapeño, Nvidia Rubin NVL72, AMD, and soon, SambaNova and Trainium. Due to how realistic AgentX scenario is to real world agentic inference workloads, AMD has committed to collaborating on MI455X UALoE72 too. DeepSeek did not release the original paper’s two trained Engram models. We replicated its setup on fineweb-edu using the released code and training hyperparameters, at an estimated 6E18 FLOPs per run. We observed the same U-shape scaling: Engram improved performance over pure MoE baselines. We also reproduced DeepSeek’s results, where earlier-layer representations with Engram resembled those of later layers. Like the original Engram paper, it is possible to probe Engram’s gate scores to see what n-grams DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash makes the most use of. Our gate scan finds names, code fragments, relational phrasing, and boilerplate. These examples prioritize interesting-ness over gate strength. One unexpected result was Wright : Ace Attorney. These examples suggest learned memory optimizes the training objective, not a judgment of which facts deserve storage. Licenses, bibliography fragments, API scaffolding, and website furniture can provide prediction shortcuts, so the value of additional Engram capacity may depend on what survives data preparation. This does not show that table capacity is “wasted”: the evaluation-corpus scan establishes neither training exposure nor the capacity occupied by each category. For offloading, strong gates do not identify cache-hot rows. Low gates do not automatically save reads either: computing the gate requires the retrieved key and undoes the performance gain of a fused kernel. Skipping reads would require a separate usefulness predictor before retrieval. In the original paper’s inference-time ablation, factual-knowledge benchmarks retained just 29–44% of their original performance, while reading comprehension retained 81–93%. This is due to the training–inference mismatch. The resulting degradation therefore measures this trained model’s dependence on Engram, not the performance difference between models trained with and without it. In our ablations, suppressing Engram worsens token likelihood across all evaluated domains, especially encyclopedia text and several code corpora. Surprisingly, GSM8K accuracy stays within measured run-to-run variation and removing Engram has no effect. Engram is not a detachable dictionary beside an unchanged MoE. Removing it changes downstream features and expert selection. We tested whether rerouting hurts or compensates by holding tokens fixed in a teacher-forced experiment on CRUXEval, a code-reasoning benchmark of small Python functions where the model predicts a function’s output from its code and an input, and scoring the reference answer. Removing Engram raised answer loss from 0.2848 to 0.3093 bits/token. Forcing the ablated model to use the original Engram-on expert choices made it worse still, at 0.3375 bits/token. Rerouting partially compensates for the missing memory. Memory features and expert selection work together, rather than following a clean “memory stores facts; experts reason” division. On the same CRUXeval, removing Engram during either phase reduced accuracy and increased generated tokens; removing it throughout produced the largest changes. Keeping Engram for prefill leads to more correct answers than keeping for decode likely due to semantically richer KV cache transferred to decode workers, allowing it to mitigate some of the performance loss. Engram’s table is large, but each lookup is small. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash requests 24 rows at each of two Engram layers, about 12.4 KiB per processed token position across the model, or 3.1 KiB per GPU when split across four GPUs. Currently as of Day 7 since Model Release, MI355X is still 2-4x worse performance per dollar compared to B200 even when normalized by Mi355X’s lower TCO. Our full total cost of ownership breakdown comes from our AI Cloud TCO Model along with monthly market surveys of over 100+ gpu clouds & gpu cloud customers. On the Day 0 release of DeepSeekv4.1 Flash, NVIDIA vLLM works out of the box with zero issues across all 6 SKUs: H100, H200, B200, B300, GB200, GB300! This was thanks to the amazing work by the NVIDIA & Interact teams! In comparison, AMD vLLM did not work on day 0 for DeepSeekv4.1 Flash.Source: SemiAnalysis InferenceX AMD’s vLLM documentation points to using vllm/vllm-openai-rocm:deepseekv41-flash-0909, but from hour 0 of the model release to hour 23, AMD has not publicly released the image. AMD claims, “SPEED IS THE MOAT,” yet it has still not released it by the 23rd hour. We wish that, going forward, the AMD team has a better process for hour 0 model releases. Eventually when they did publicly release for “day 0” image support, performance-wise, it is currently up to 14.8x worse perf per dollar than H200 and up to 42x worse perf per dollar than B200/B300. The power of the CUDA MOAT is NVIDIA’s collaboration with its massive 6 million-developer community ecosystem including most of the vLLM & SGLang & Tokenspeed maintainers which means that CUDA is optimized on day 0. Overall, AMD did make significant improvements but the performance per dollar is still currently 2-4x worse than B200. AgentX Engram DRAM Offloading Improving Performance The HBM and DRAM offload use the same GPU kernel to select and dequantize rows. With HBM, it reads GPU memory; with Unified Virtual Addressing (UVA), it reads pinned host memory directly. Both support full decode graphs. Moving the table into HBM accelerates only the sparse lookup, leaving decoder computation and communication unchanged, resulting in little overall benefit while consuming memory otherwise available to KV cache. Another benefit of Engram offloaded to DRAM which means you can reduce the communication overhead by using less HBM GPUs per replica. For example, when enabling Engram offloading on B300, we are able to switch from TP4 to now TP2 which improves the pareto curve by up to 1.6x. When iso-model quality, less HBM is required as the engrams could be offloaded to host DRAM. Thus HBM bandwidth matters way more than HBM capacity. For inference workloads where memory bandwidth matters the most, 4-hi HBM provides the best $/bandwidth and therefore lowest cost per token. If China continues to make more and more revolutionary model architecture innovations, soon it could potentially 0Hi HBM stacks. [ ](https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/long-live-the-short-king-why-4-hi) [ Long Live the Short King: Why 4-hi HBM Wins ](https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/long-live-the-short-king-why-4-hi) Myron Xie, Bryan Shan, and 3 others · Sep 13 [ Read full story ](https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/long-live-the-short-king-why-4-hi) Moreover, on B300 and week-0 stack, moving the Engram table back to HBM did not improve results and stay within run-to-run variance. This is a result of the work optimizing DRAM offload, such as async, and overlap. SSD Offloading On B200, we created a unoptimized vLLM fork and stored the Engram tables in memory-mapped files on local SSDs. File backing lets the OS reclaim table pages when other applications need RAM. Pages already cached in memory can be served without reading the SSD again. Furthermore, note that we were unable to turn on GDS The unoptimized SSD implementation changes how rows reach the GPU. It copies row IDs to the CPU, deduplicates them, gathers the requested rows into pinned buffers, copies those rows back to the GPU and dequantizes them. This work runs between segments of the GPU execution graph. Native UVA performs row selection and dequantization directly on the GPU, avoiding the CPU round trip. A warm filesystem cache removes physical SSD reads, but leaves the coordination, row gathering and transfers. This is why a file already cached in RAM can still perform worse than a pinned DRAM table. The comparison measures the whole serving path; it does not separate the time spent on each of these operations. B200 DRAM dominates both measured SSD serving curves in total tokens per dollar and P90 interactivity. Near 125 tokens/s/user, DRAM delivers 121 million total tokens per dollar versus 52 million for SSD. For production serving, SSD offloading is likely not worth the tradeoff. On the B200 configurations we measured, SSD offloading loses on both measures: every observed SSD point has a DRAM alternative that delivers higher P90 interactivity and more total tokens per dollar. The only points where Cheaper storage does not automatically produce a cheaper inference service. Moving Engram to SSD leaves the same four expensive GPUs and the rest of the server in place. Reclaiming RAM only creates an economic benefit if it enables a cheaper server configuration or additional useful capacity. The current unoptimized path provides neither benefit, and the filesystem cache still consumes RAM when table pages are resident. Next we will look at the mechanisms and specific implementation of ngrams from DeepSeekv4.1 Flash, LongCat, Qwen3.8 Flash Next.
Romney commends bipartisan work behind Massachusetts’ landmark 2006 health care law
Four former governors and current Gov. Maura Healey came together to celebrate the law known as Romneycare, which required all state residents to have health insurance.
Succession does not mean you leave the business - Chicago Agent Magazine Top Coach
For many founders, owners and high-performing leaders, the word “succession” carries an uncomfortable weight.
Images: Science Square's latest jobs hub arrives on Westside
One of the world’s leading battery makers officially cut the ribbon this week on a $56-million, jobs-producing investment into research and development at the cusp of Georgia Tech.Spread across four stories where English Avenue meets Midtown, Duracell’s Global Innovation Center for Research and Development marks a key addition for Science Square, an 18-acre, mixed-use district expected to produce 500 homes, retail, and nearly 2 million square feet of lab and office space across multiple phases.
Why didn’t the age argument work for Seth Moulton?
Incumbents swept across Massachusetts. On GBH’s Morning Edition, politics reporter Adam Reilly breaks down a decisive victory for Sen. Ed Markey.
Barney Frank, liberal icon and gay-rights pioneer, dies at 86
The former congressman was politically engaged until the end.
🗞️ Today’s front pages: a never-ending derby, Mourinho’s theatre
A football- and news-packed Tuesday, September 22 gets underway, with the derby fallout still fresh.So let’s take a look at how the front pages of the main sports newspapers shape up this Tuesday......
Will federal changes to research funding promote ‘accountability’ or politicize science?
A retired Brown University professor says the Trump administration is weakening a system that relies on subject-matter experts to judge scientific merit.
HEALTH Yeah! Episode 30: Protecting Your Skin: Melanoma and Other Skin Cancers Explained
The discussion covers common skin cancers, as well as one of the most dangerous types of skin cancer, melanoma.
H.S. sports for Thursday, May 28
Scores and highlights from across the state
HEALTH Yeah! Episode 31: Patient Experience
In this podcast episode, we explore how patient and family voices help shape better care at Stony Brook Medicine.
McMullen County H.S. earns runner-up honors in UIL 1-A Science Competition
McMullen County High School students earned top honors at the University Interscholastic League State Academic Meet held May 18-19 in Austin, finishing as the state runner-up team in the Class
Actually, Most Immigrants Won’t Need to Leave U.S. to Get Green Cards, D.H.S. Says
But details remained scant after officials said last week that, with “extraordinary” exceptions, people seeking permanent residency must first leave the country.
H.S. sports for Saturday, May 23
Scores and highlights from across the state
Global business leaders share ideas on AI-driven growth in Shanghai
/PRNewswire/ -- A news report from english.shanghai.gov.cn Shanghai should better leverage artificial intelligence to integrate services with manufacturing and...
Mass. health officials see uptick in cyclospora cases
The number of cyclospora cases in the state so far this year has increased to 147, the highest level of reports of the parasitic infection since 2019.
Mercer Health Announces 2026 Sports Physicals for Student Athletes
Mercer Health is now scheduling 2026 sports physicals for area student athletes, offering families convenient access to required pre‑participation exams ahead of the upcoming school year. As part of this year’s program, students who complete their sports physical at a Mercer Health Medical Group location will receive a complimentary t‑shirt, while supplies last. Sports physicals […]
GOP frontrunner Minogue: Governors should put people above party politics
Mike Minogue, a Republican candidate for governor, says that he wants to make Massachusetts a place people can stay and raise families like his.
Mercer Health’s Play Hospital Continues Tradition of Hands‑On Learning for Kindergarteners
Mercer Health’s annual Play Hospital, held April 24-30, hosted nearly 800 kindergarteners who stepped into the world of healthcare through hands‑on exploration and imaginative learning. For over 30 years, this beloved program has welcomed students from Mercer County elementary schools—including St. Henry, Celina, Marion Local, Coldwater, Parkway, Fort Recovery, and Immaculate Conception—along with Versailles Elementary […]
Does Massachusetts have a ‘real race’ for governor?
The answer may hinge on Republican Mike Minogue’s ability and willingness to pivot to the political center.
HEALTH Yeah! Episode 29: When Kids Don’t Sleep: What Parents Should Know
In this podcast episode, you'll learn about sleep studies, treatment options and how poor sleep can affect behavior, weight and more.
Risch Leads Request for Idaho-Based Veteran Business Outreach Center
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho) sent a letter to Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Kelly Loeffler requesting a Veteran Business Outreach Center (VBOC) be established in Idaho to provide entrepreneurial support to veterans, service members, and military spouses. “Idaho is home to more than 120,000 veterans and 12,000 veteran-owned businesses. [. . .] These […]
Politics and celebration converge at Boston's Pride parade
Thousands of people celebrated Pride at the annual parade in Downtown Boston on June 6.
H.S. Baseball: Favorites and dark horses in each division
We’ve reached the halfway point in the NHIAA baseball regular season. Although we know much more now than we did when the season began, there’s still plenty to be determined.
Nintendo says it has no legal duty to pass its U.S. tariff refunds on to consumers
Nintendo is asking a court to dismiss a proposed class action suit that was filed this past spring by gamers who say the Mario maker is breaking the law if it doesn’t pass on its U.S. tariff refunds to consumers. Those consumers “received exactly what they bargained and paid for” when buying price-hiked Nintendo goods last year, the company said in a filing on Monday in the case of Hoffert et al v. Nintendo. “Plaintiffs are not entitled to a rebate simply because of intervening legal developments related to tariffs.” Nintendo increased the price of Switch 2 controllers and the original Switch last year, following the imposition of globe-spanning U.S. tariffs (tariffs described by Nintendo’s lawyers on Monday as “sweeping” and “constantly changing”). This past February, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the tariffs were illegal. A month later, Nintendo sued the U.S. government to get a refund. And in April, gamers filed the class action claim against Nintendo in Washington, saying it would be illegally double-dipping if it made money from tariff-hiked sales and then from a refund. The gamers sought relief for anyone in the U.S. who bought price-hiked Nintendo items between February 2025 and February 2026. “The common thread among Plaintiffs’ claims is that it is somehow ‘unfair; that Nintendo has not retroactively adjusted its prices for completed sales in response to the outcome of the tariff litigation,” the company’s lawyers wrote in today’s motion to dismiss. “But that is now how commercial transactions work.
HEALTH Yeah! Episode 36: Think Midwives Are Just for Birth? Think Again!
Learn what midwives really do as Stony Brook Midwives clear up common misconceptions and explain the benefits of midwife-led care.
Section 4 H.S. sports' postseason results, top athletes through June 1
See which Section 4 teams are inching closer to the NYSPHSAA state championships.
Plainfield North H.S. teams compete at state science olympiad
Plainfield North students competed against 54 schools at the Science Olympiad Team State Tournament at the University of Illinois.
StarCraft-Inspired RTS From Former Blizzard Devs Losing Online Multiplayer Because Server Partner Was Bought By AI Company
AI taketh, and it taketh some more
Debt Digest | Federal Debt is a Health Care Problem
Welcome David Ditch to the Debt Dispatch! We are pleased to announce a new regular contributor: David Ditch will be joining the Cato Institute as a Policy Analyst for Budget and Entitlement Policy later this week. David has more than a decade of experience in fiscal policy issues, with a particular focus on federal spending. He previously worked at the Senate Budget Committee, the Heritage Foundation, and the Economic Policy Innovation Center. David’s areas of expertise include appropriations, transportation, agriculture, federalism, grantmaking, and policy options for deficit reduction. Originally from the Rochester, N.Y. area, David has a BA in Economics and Political Science from the University of Rochester and a MA in Political Management from George Washington University. David currently lives in Arlington, VA. You may have enjoyed his earlier guest posts: CBO: New Highway Bill Has More Spending, Taxes, and Deficits Trump Administration’s Proposed Changes to Federal Grants Highlight Problems of Big Government Here are this week’s reading links and fiscal facts: The federal debt is largely a health care problem. In a new report, the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation find that “In 2026, federal subsidies for health insurance, net of related payments to the government, are projected to equal $2.4 trillion, or 7.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). In CBO and JCT’s projections, those subsidies grow by 65 percent, reaching $3.9 trillion, or 8.4 percent of GDP, in 2036. Subsidies for Medicare contribute most to that overall growth, increasing by $900 billion. Over the entire 2026–2036 period, federal subsidies for health insurance total $33.6 trillion.” Cato’s Michael Cannon emphasizes, “The long-term federal debt problem is a health care problem. […] Only two categories of federal outlays will grow faster than gross domestic product (GDP): health care subsidies and interest payments on the debt. The former is, therefore, the primary driver of the latter.” The bond market fears deficits, not the loss of tariff revenue. Responding to a New York Times essay claiming tariff revenue has grown too important for a future administration to unwind, Cato’s Kyle Handley argues: “Bond investors are not attached to customs duties as a line item revenue source. They care about the government’s overall fiscal position.” He continues, “tariff revenue is a side hustle. And the Trump administration has already promised to dole out the funds through schemes like tariff dividend rebates, farm subsidies, and pay-fors on tax cuts or other spending.” Furthermore, “tariff revenue is simply not large enough to transform the government’s fiscal trajectory.” Take net interest for example: it “reached $970 billion in fiscal year 2025, absorbing 18.5 percent of federal receipts. Customs duties accounted for only 3.7 percent of receipts—and that was before refunds (see Figure 2).” Handley concludes, “The real bond-market concern is a large and growing interest bill, persistent budget deficits, and a political system unwilling to bring spending and revenue into alignment.” Medicare’s spending growth is driven by more volume and utilization. A Congressional Research Service report finds that Medicare spending “grew at an average annual rate of 7.3%” from 1985 through 2025, and the trustees project health care expenditures will keep rising “faster than gross domestic product (GDP) in most future years.” Citing CBO, the report attributes Medicare’s projected 2026–2036 spending growth to “23% from higher enrollment, 31% from inflation, and 47% from the growth of inflation-adjusted spending per beneficiary. In other words**, the largest single driver of Medicare spending growth during the next decade is expected to be higher volume and intensity of health care services.”** Boccia and Thakur explain: “as the economy grows, Medicare spending tends to grow at least as fast—and often faster—because the program automatically pays the bill for more and more healthcare consumption by seniors, even as prices rise.” The Fed has little control over market interest rates. Cato’s Jai Kedia documents that the Fed has held its rate target steady since December, yet “nearly every rate Americans actually borrow at has climbed over the same stretch.” Kedia continues, “The Fed did nothing, and the cost of credit went up anyway. […] Markets spent these months repricing macroeconomic events such as sticky core inflation, a volatile energy market driven by the conflict in the Middle East, and global trade disrupted by tariffs, among others. None of that required a policy change to show up in borrowing costs because markets, not the FOMC, set prices.” He concludes, “Accurately priced borrowing rates will come from credible disinflation and disciplined budgets and from a Fed content to follow the economy rather than pretend it leads it.” Nearly half of US farm income comes from taxpayers. Former Reagan OMB director David Stockman notes that “in the most recently completed full year (FY 2025) farmer incomes in the US totaled $97.8 billion, but fully 42.7% or $41.8 billion of that amount came from taxpayers, not the marketplace. Nor is this some kind of one-year aberration. If we look at the most recent decade as a whole, total farm income posted at nearly $708 billion, but, as indicated, fully $322 billion or 45% of this came compliments of US taxpayers.” Cato’s Chris Edwards explains why so little of that income is market-earned: “Farmers are businesspeople, but the government shields them from just about every type of weather and market risk. Furthermore, just about every part of the agricultural industry is subsidized, including insurance, loans, marketing, research, export sales, and land improvements.” The Debt Dispatch is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
Mercer Health earns Numerous National Awards for Excellence in Care
Mercer Health continues to earn national recognition for delivering exceptional healthcare. Multiple prestigious organizations have honored Mercer Health for its outstanding patient experience, clinical excellence, and commitment to quality care. Newsweek Best-In-State Mercer Health has been named one of Newsweek’s Best‑In‑State Hospitals for 2026, a distinction awarded to hospitals that demonstrate superior performance across patient […]
How outlawing flavored tobacco saved Massachusetts $70 million in health care costs
GBH's Morning Edition spoke with the state's top public health official about new research on banning flavored tobacco, maternal health, measles and more.
Mercer Health awarded Acute Stroke Ready Certification from The Joint Commission
Mercer Health has earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval® and the American Stroke Association’s Heart-Check mark for Acute Stroke Ready Certification. Mercer Health underwent a rigorous onsite review on February 6, 2026. During the visit, a team of Joint Commission reviewers evaluated compliance with related certification standards including program management and supporting self-management. […]
The percentage that builds a real business - Chicago Agent Magazine Top Coach
The best predictor of who’s going to make it is what percentage of GCI an agent puts back into the business.
Healey emphasizes efforts to drive down state's energy costs to business group
The governor’s comments come after signing a recent executive order calling on state agencies to increase power.
Senate Votes to Fund Most of D.H.S. in Bid to End Partial Shutdown
The bill excludes funding for federal immigration enforcement and deportation operations. The House could consider the package on Friday morning.
Top Mass. health official: Gender-affirming care for minors remains ‘legal’ and ‘available’
Massachusetts Commissioner for the Department of Public Health Dr. Robbie Goldstein addresses the state's protections for gender affirming care and weigh's in on the Trump Administration's latest vaccine order.
Logan Airport workers push Massport to set a standard for their health care
A recent report finds that 30% of surveyed unionized airport employees are uninsured.
Downtown Boston business owners seek more police presence after survey finds people feel unsafe
The survey by the Downtown Boston Neighborhood Alliance finds that 56% of locals feel less safe in downtown than they did at the start of the year, marking a considerable increase from last year.
Worcester strikes back against racist bullying in school sports
Six months after a girls’ high school basketball team in Worcester faced a wave of online racist attacks, schools are collaborating with the Worcester NAACP and YWCA of Central Massachusetts in a Stand Against Racism campaign.
Latino, Black students more likely to face bullying, mental health issues, says MassInc poll
The new statewide poll points to a consistent pattern of inequity around school safety, bullying, mental health, discrimination and regular attendance.
Love, science and resurrection collide in Christina Lauren’s ‘The Romance Revival’
Under the Radar speak with New York Times best-selling authors Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings about their latest novel
Science news: Return of the river-herring run, Musk vs. Altman and new pancreatic cancer drugs
Under the Radar breaks down the latest science and technology headlines, including communities fighting back against data centers, overheated sharks and more
H.S. sports for Wednesday, May 6
Highlights and scores from across the state
Mercer Health Recognizes Volunteers at Annual Appreciation Banquet
The Volunteer Association of Mercer Health held its annual Volunteer Appreciation Banquet to celebrate the dedication and impact of its members on April 13, 2026, at Romer’s Catering in St. Henry. The evening opened with an invocation from Volunteer Chaplain Steve Broering, followed by a year‑in‑review from Volunteer Association Vice‑Chairperson Terry Liette. Mercer Health CEO […]
‘Good riddance’: Mass. politicians react to Pam Bondi’s removal as attorney general
The move ends the contentious tenure of a loyalist who upended the Justice Department’s culture of independence from the White House.
D.H.S. Funding Lapse Leads to Longest Partial Shutdown in History
If the shutdown continues after this weekend, it will be longer than any previous shutdown, partial or full.
H3D Foundation, IFPMA and Leith Host Webinar on How Storytelling Helps Science Travel Further
Little Black Book, This session formed part of the H3D Foundation’s webinar series focused on strengthening African scientific leadership and visibility
What a long, strange weekend it's been for Boston sports fans
Alex Cora was fired as manager of the Red Sox on Saturday, the same day as Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel was absent from NFL draft following a scandal.
Trans kids in limbo as Trump takes ‘unprecedented’ actions to limit health care
The Trump administration is trying to strongarm hospitals into shutting down their gender-affirming care programs for minors.
Bridgewater Little League balances fun with big business at Little League World Series
After a 2-1 loss Wednesday, Bridgewater will live to see at least one more game this Saturday.
Mercer Health Announces 2026 Sports Physicals for Student Athletes
Mercer Health is now scheduling 2026 sports physicals for area student athletes, offering families convenient access to required pre‑participation exams ahead of the upcoming school year. As part of this year’s program, students who complete their sports physical at a Mercer Health Medical Group location will receive a complimentary t‑shirt, while supplies last. Sports physicals […]
Gamers sue Nintendo over tariff refunds, saying consumers should get the money back
Two gamers have filed a class action lawsuit against Nintendo, alleging that the company will be unjustly enriching itself with any refund it secures from the U.S. government over widespread tariffs last year that, among other things, hiked the prices of Nintendo hardware and accessories. “Unless restrained by this Court, Nintendo stands to recover the same tariff payments twice—once from consumers through higher prices and again from the federal government through tariff refunds, including interest paid by the government on those funds,” the suit states. Nintendo sued the U.S. government to secure a tariff refund in March, after the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs a month prior, saying they were illegally implemented by President Donald Trump.. The gamers who have sued, California-based Gregory Hoffert and Washington-based Prashant Sharan, both say they purchased Nintendo goods that had increased in price due to tariffs, according to the complaint. They filed their suit in the Western District court of Nintendo of America’s home state of Washington and are seeking class action status to represent all people in the U.S. who purchased price-hiked Nintendo goods between February 1, 2025 and February 24, 2026. They allege that Nintendo’s recovery of any tariff refunds would constitute unjust enrichment and violate Washington state consumer protection law. Similar class action lawsuits pressing companies to pass on tariff refunds have been previously filed against FedEx, UPS and eyeglass importer EssilorLuxottica. The tariffs were announced in early April, and by mid-month, Nintendo had announced $5 price increases for controllers for the then-forthcoming Switch 2. In August, it raised the price of the original Switch. In their suit, the gamers cite comments from Nintendo executives connecting the tariffs to price increases. In May 2025, a month after the tariffs were imposed, Nintendo CEO Shuntaro Furukawa told investors “Our basic policy is that for any country or region, if tariffs are imposed, we recognize them as a part of the cost and incorporate them into the price.” Nintendo’s March lawsuit, along with tariff-recovery suits from hundreds of other companies was immediately put on hold pending the implementation of a refund system. The U.S. government announced the beginning of the refund process earlier this week. Companies could receive as much as $160 billion, per CNBC. In March 2026, after Nintendo filed its lawsuit to recover the cost of the tariffs, I asked the company if they planned to pass their refund on to customers who’d paid increased prices. The company’s response acknowledged the existence of the lawsuit but avoided answering that question: “We can confirm that we filed a request. We have nothing else to share on this topic.” Even a promise to consumers may not have spared Nintendo this week’s lawsuit. FedEx previously promised to pass its tariff refunds on to consumers. They’ve been sued over them anyway.
Massachusetts House primary spotlights Lowell's growing Cambodian political influence
State Rep. Tara Hong is challenged by former Lowell Mayor and current Lowell City Councilor Sokhary Chau for the 18th Middlesex District seat.
H.S. sports for Tuesday, May 12
Scores and highlights from across the state
Young adults mostly shrug at sports betting risks, study finds
Young adults are largely ambivalent toward sports betting, with many viewing it as an acceptable activity that also carries possible risks, according to a new study.
Minogue wins GOP governor’s primary, AP projects
The Army veteran turned CEO will be the Massachusetts Republican Party’s nominee for governor.
As colleges struggle, Baker says sports can be part of the solution
Former governor and NCAA president says UMass hockey title boosted student applications.
Now in hospice care, Barney Frank urges political left to avoid ‘litmus tests’ in new interview
The last act of the legendary congressman from Massachusetts is to push a pragmatic theory of political change.
Mass. launched a program to stop school sports bullying. Why are so few schools using it?
A state government initiative started four years ago specifically to prevent hate and bias in athletics, called Addressing Hate in School Sports. Yet reports of such incidents remain common across the booming school sports landscape.
Health advocates warn of MassHealth changes for immigrants coming Oct. 1
About 7,300 immigrants will be impacted, according to Health Law Advocates
Mike Minogue wins Mass. GOP endorsement for governor in a landslide
Former Baker Administration official Mike Kennealy fell just short of making the primary ballot.
Meet the Graduates: School of Health Sciences Majors Are Going Places
College of Charleston School of Health Sciences graduates are turning passion into purpose. Here are a few who graduated this spring.
H.S. sports for Saturday, August 29
Scores and highlights from across the state
The MED Foundation of Mercer Health Awards $22,500 to Local Students Pursuing Careers in Healthcare
The Medical, Educational and Development (MED) Foundation of Mercer Health recently awarded a total of $22,500 to local high school seniors furthering their education in the medical field after graduation. Scholarships were awarded to students from each of the six high schools in Mercer County. All applicants were interviewed by a scholarship selection panel, and […]