Published May 6, 2011

Sal DiMasi, former speaker of the Massachusetts House, and two co-defendants went on trial in federal court in Boston yesterday. As WBUR’s David Boeri reports, DiMasi’s “My Pal Sal” image is about to clash with the prosecution’s portrayal of “Sal the Thief.” The big recent news is that Gov. Deval Patrick is expected to testify in the trial.

Nurses and administrators at Tufts Medical Center reached a contract agreement early Friday, just hours before a planned strike was to begin.

The controversy over a Cambridge-based consulting firm’s work with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi continues to broil, after the company admitted it should have registered as a lobbying group. The Monitor Group enlisted several prominent Harvard professors for its work with the Libyan government.

More than a year after Phoebe Prince committed suicide, five former classmates received sentences of community service and probation as punishment for bullying the 15-year-old girl. The criminal prosecution that prompted a national debate about how the law should deal with bullying is now over.

Some members of Congress from New England are pushing the military to extend its stipulation that all military gear be made in the U.S. to sneakers. The only company that still manufactures sneakers stateside is Brighton-based New Balance, so they’d stand to pick up a lot of business if the mandate is put into practice.

A Boston-area woman is suing Sony over the theft of personal information from the company’s PlayStation Network. Dawn Thompson is seeking in excess of $5 million for herself and other gamers. The PlayStation Network was discovered to have been compromised by hackers on April 19.

What we’re following: We’ll continue to report on the shakeup at the auditor’s office, the 9/11 widow who met the president at Ground Zero and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement at Harvard this afternoon.