Feb. 6 (ZFJ) — Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music corporation, has pulled all of its music from TikTok following the expiration of its previous licensing agreement on Jan. 31 after renewal talks collapsed. That means that any TikToks containing music from Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, The Weeknd, Drake, Harry Styles, and many, many more artists have had their audio muted. Until a new licensing agreement is finalized, TikTok users won’t be able to add any music from Universal’s catalog to their videos.

EDISON, N.J., Feb. 1 (ZFJ) — A suspected gas leak resulted in the evacuation of J.P. Stevens High School students and staff on Thursday, Feb. 1, according to the school district. An odor of gas near the art and music wing and in the back of the building caused the evacuation, which, according to a ZFJ reporter, began around the start of third period. The Edison Fire Department and Elizabethtown Gas Company concluded that a construction crew hit an inactive gas line that still had residual gas remaining in it, resulting in the odor, according to a statement by Edison Township Public Schools.

METUCHEN, N.J., Jan. 30 (ZFJ) — YESTERcades of Metuchen will have its ribbon cutting and opening on Friday, Feb. 2, at 4:00 p.m., according to its announcement on social media. Patrons are asked not to line up outside the building at 442 Main Street, Metuchen, before 3:30 p.m. YESTERcades is a retro video game venue known for its focus on “golden age” arcade classics. The arcade has at least 82 games moved into the Metuchen building, according to a social media post.

EDISON, N.J., Jan. 21 (ZFJ) — Sgt. Joseph Vincent Luistro, 55, Edison Township’s first Asian American and Filipino American police officer, died on Thursday, Jan. 18, after battling ALS. “Sergeant Luistro touched the lives of many with his selfless spirit,” said the Edison Police Department, calling him a “trailblazer” for his role in “actively fostering inclusivity in law enforcement careers.” Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a neurological disorder in which motor neurons progressively die, causing loss of control of muscle movement.

Jan. 16 (ZFJ) — “It’s not clickbait,” MatPat begins, in a video uploaded on Tuesday, Jan. 9. The title: “Goodbye Internet.” The video announces that MatPat’s last video on The Game Theorists, a channel centered around detangling the storylines of countless games, will be uploaded on March 9. Since its first theory, posted on April 18, 2011, Matthew “MatPat” Patrick has been the lead face of the channel, recounting theories around popular game franchises such as Five Nights at Freddy’s and Pokémon and ending each episode with his iconic, “But that’s just a theory—a Game Theory!

Jan. 14 (ZFJ) — Sixteen hours into 2024, informational YouTuber Tom Scott uploaded the final video of his Things You Might Not Know series, which spanned exactly ten years with weekly uploads after its start in 2014. From his first video—“Breakfast: Fortified With Iron,” posted on June 6, 2006—to his first (and likely last) video of the new year, Tom Scott has taken his place in YouTube as an educational entertainer, introducing new facts and experiences to an audience now consisting of more than six million subscribers.

EDISON, N.J., Jan. 13 (ZFJ) — Winnie Raini, 53, of Edison, has been charged with leaving an adult female with a developmental disability in a van overnight while employed as a private transportation driver, announced Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone and Chief Thomas Bryan of the Edison Police Department. Authorities began investigating allegations of neglect on Jan. 3, according to the criminal complaint against Raini. According to the aide for the developmentally delayed female, the woman is transported by van back to her residence twice a week.

EDISON, N.J., Jan. 11 (ZFJ) — Senior Ghelsey Go has become the seventh girl and ninth player overall to score 1,000 points in basketball at Edison High School. She scored 29 points in the varsity game against JFK on Saturday, Jan. 6, achieving the milestone after four years in high school basketball. “I can’t even lie, when I scored the last points, my mind just went blank. I was like, what happens next, what’s going to happen next, and we still had a game to play, so I don’t think I really celebrated right away,” Go said.

Jan. 9 (ZFJ) — Scientists have confirmed 2023, which saw multiple record-breaking conditions, as the hottest year on record. The year was characterized by many extreme weather events occurring globally, including heat waves, floods, droughts, and wildfires. The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), part of the European Union’s space program, reported the data in its Global Climate Highlights 2023 report, which is based mainly on its ERA5 reanalysis dataset, which goes back to 1940.

EDISON, N.J., Jan. 6 (ZFJ) — The Edison Board of Education held its reorganization meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 2, while the Edison Township Council held it on Thursday, Jan. 4. The candidates who won the general election on Nov. 7, 2023, were sworn in as elected officials at these meetings. EDISON BOARD OF EDUCATION REORGANIZATION MEETING Virginia White, first elected in 2020, and newcomers Christopher Lugo and Anjana R. Patel were sworn in as board of education members.