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The car-sharing company Zipcar will close its Boston headquarters, ending local operations in the place where it was founded.
Its owner, the car rental company Avis Budget Group, said it is “consolidating Zipcar’s headquarters” into its global home base in Northern New Jersey “as part of a broader effort to enhance Zipcar’s long-term operational effectiveness.”
“As a result, Zipcar will no longer maintain a separate corporate office in Boston,” a spokesperson for Avis Budget Group said Monday.
The company plans to lay off 65 employees in Boston by April, according to a notice it filed with Massachusetts state officials last week.
Zipcar was founded in Cambridge in 1999 and debuted there and in Boston the next year. The company expanded in the years that followed and by 2009 was the world’s largest car-sharing service, according to NBC News. Avis bought Zipcar in 2013.
“Zipcar was founded in Boston and the city has been an important part of its history since then,” the company spokesperson said. “This consolidation reinforces Zipcar’s foundation and positions the business to continue serving members reliably well into the future.”
The move will not affect service for Zipcar’s members, the spokesperson added.
In addition to the 65 Boston-based employees, the company will lay off approximately 61 remote workers elsewhere in the country, the Boston Business Journal reported.
Zipcar’s regional field and fleet operations teams will remain in Boston and other cities after the headquarters closes “to support members and day-to-day service without interruption,” the Avis spokesperson said.
Brian Shortsleeve, a Republican candidate for governor, said Zipcar’s move was the result of Massachusetts’ taxes and regulations on business.
“Massachusetts is becoming a place where even homegrown success stories can’t afford to stay,” he wrote in a post on X.
The announcement came the same week that Panera Bread said it would lay off 92 employees at its bakery in Franklin and that life sciences company Thermo Fisher Scientific said it would lay off 103 employees and close a facility, also in Franklin.
The Campbell’s Company also said Thursday it would close the Hyannis manufacturing plant of the beloved Cape Cod potato chip brand. The company will lay off 49 people, it said.
“These are not isolated decisions. They are rational business responses to a state that has become increasingly expensive, unpredictable, and hostile to employers,” said Paul Diego Craney, executive director of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, a conservative business organization. “High taxes, crushing energy costs, and rigid Net Zero climate mandates are making it harder every day for companies to justify staying in Massachusetts.”
Local News
A 13-year-old boy was flown to a Boston hospital after he was found unresponsive in a swimming pool at a home in Beverly on Wednesday afternoon, police said.
Police and firefighters were called to a home on Parramatta Road after bystanders pulled the boy from the pool, the Beverly Police Department wrote in a press release.
Bystanders administered CPR until first responders arrived, according to police. First responders continued CPR and other “life saving measures,” police said.
An ambulance took the boy to Beverly Hospital where he was stabilized. He was then taken by medical helicopter to a Boston hospital, police said.
The incident is currently being investigated by Beverly police, the department said.
Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
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A federal judge on Wednesday permanently barred President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing most of his first executive order on elections, part of which sought to require people to show documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper in Boston effectively converts a preliminary injunction she issued a year ago, in which she temporarily blocked many of Trump’s efforts to overhaul elections, into a permanent ban.
Casper rejected the administration’s argument that the lawsuit to block the changes brought by Democratic state attorneys general was premature because the rules had yet to be implemented. Instead, she agreed that the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to regulate elections, and that Trump’s requirements violated the separation of powers.
The Constitution “does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” she wrote.
Among other proposed changes, Trump’s order would have required people to provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote, prevented mail ballots from being counted if they arrive after Election Day, even if they were postmarked by then, and punished states that failed to comply by withholding certain federal money.
It was the latest in a string of rulings against the elections executive order Trump signed just months after taking office for his second term. He has since signed another executive order on elections, seeking to create a national voter list and limit mail balloting. That directive also faces multiple legal challenges.
Last fall, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., overseeing a separate challenge to the first election executive order by civil rights and Democratic Party-aligned groups blocked the government from taking steps to include the proof-of-citizenship requirement on the federal voter registration form. That judge later barred the Secretary of Defense from requiring documentary proof of citizenship when military personnel register to vote or request ballots.
In an apparent nod to the difficulty of implementing a proof-of-citizen requirement by executive order, Trump is pushing legislation in the Republican-controlled Congress to create such a mandate. The SAVE America Act has passed the House but has stalled in the Senate, leading Trump to advocate for eliminating the filibuster that is blocking the legislation.
On Wednesday, he abruptly cancelled the expected signing of a bipartisan housing bill, saying he won’t sign legislation until Congress passes his proof of citizenship requirement for voting.
Three days after an alleged carjacker hit and killed a woman in Boston’s Mattapan neighborhood, members of the community came together to honor her life.
A candlelight vigil was held Tuesday evening for 32-year-old Mabinty Janneh of Dorchester. She died after being hit Saturday afternoon on Blue Hill Avenue.
Ibraim Matos, 37, of Hyde Park, is charged with murder in the crash. He allegedly stole a vehicle and drove it onto the sidewalk, fatally hitting Janneh.
Ibraim Matos of Hyde Park has been charged with murder in the deadly crash.
Heartbroken family, friends and community members gathered near the site of the crash to remember Janneh Tuesday.
“We need justice for Mabinty,” said her aunt, Mbalu Tarawally.
“I just felt like I needed to be present,” said Rev. Dr. Barbara Simmons. “If the family lost a person, the least I can do is come here and show my face.”
“She was young, vibrant. Hard worker. Wants to do everything,” said Ahmad Thorley, a family member of Janneh.
The suspect in a deadly carjacking and crash in Boston’s Mattapan neighborhood appeared in court to face charges including murder.
Witnesses said Matos dragged Janneh several hundred feet after hitting her.
The stolen Toyota RAV4 crashed into an MBTA bus, and people at the pulled Matos out of the car and holding him there until police arrived.
Matos pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of leaving the scene of personal injury and death and motor vehicle homicide by reckless operation, along with murder and carjacking. His defense attorney spoke briefly on Monday, saying they will evaluate “where we stand” in a few weeks after the mental health evaluation.
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