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The Celtics are brought home a win from Washington, D.C. this weekend, and Kristaps Porzingis says that ankle injury isn’t “major.”
Now, let’s get to the news:
‘Tis the season for holiday traffic: AAA is expecting yet another domestic travel record this season. But you don’t need a sleigh to avoid the crush of cars on the interstate. Since the holiday falls in the middle of the week, AAA expects vehicle travel will be a bit more spread out than other years. Those driving to their holiday destination have “a lot of opportunity for folks to avoid the worst of the travel volumes,” Mark Schieldrop, a spokesperson for AAA Northeast, told WBUR’s John Bender. “That said, there’s gonna be a lot of people traveling over the holiday period,” Schieldrop said.
- The times to avoid: Click here for AAA’s best and worst times to drive for each day, from this Thursday, Dec. 21, through Jan. 2. Schieldrop says the general rule of thumb is to avoid typical rush hours, especially during the afternoon. ”Just visualize holiday travelers mixing along with those commuters,” he said.
- The roads to avoid: Expect heavy traffic on the highways out of the Boston area, like I-93 and the Mass. Pike westbound, as well as I-95 heading north to New Hampshire and Maine. Schieldrop says there’ll be “decent volumes” on Route 24 and Route 3, too.
What’s the buzz about? Reports of mysterious drone sightings have made their way to Massachusetts. Gov. Maura Healey said on social media Saturday that her administration is closely “monitoring the situation,” after residents took videos of drones everywhere from western Massachusetts to the Cape. Boston Police also arrested two men operating a drone “dangerously close” to Logan Airport from a harbor island Saturday night, though no flights were affected.
After 139 years printing its newspaper, the Everett Leader Herald will shut down publication this week, as part of a settlement in a defamation lawsuit against the paper by Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria. The newspaper was also ordered to pay $1.1 million to DeMaria in the settlement, which avoids a potential trial next month.
No more minimums: Somerville’s City Council passed an ordinance last Thursday to end mandatory parking minimums in the city. The move — intended to spur the construction of more affordable housing and disincentivize driving — means developers won’t be required to include a set amount of parking spaces in new developments, no matter the size. “It hugely burdens developers, particularly affordable housing developers,” Somerville City Councilor Willie Burnley Jr. told WBUR’s Sydney Ko. “The creation of even a single parking spot can cost tens of thousands of dollars.”
So much for that strike: TD Garden concession workers with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1445 voted Sunday to ratify a new three-year contract, avoiding a strike at the arena that would have disturbed the Celtics and Bruins regular seasons.
- UFCW 1445 announced in a post on its Facebook page that Delaware North, which owns TD Garden, moved to meet a number of the union’s demands, including an increase in commission rates for the first time in 20 years and improved protections for workers with seniority.
P.S.— After a 17-year run, this will be the final week of Radio Boston. The move will allow WBUR to invest more resources in our local morning and late-afternoon news programs, including an extra hour of Morning Edition (now helmed by former Radio Boston host Tiziana Dearing). Read more here about the midday programming changes.