Boston, MA
Americans face ‘full-on’ attack on freedoms, liberties, VP Harris says in Boston
The United States is facing a “full-on attempt to attack” freedoms and liberties for Black Americans and other groups, Vice President Kamala Harris said Saturday as she addressed hundreds of people in Boston.
From recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings to state laws curbing voting or transgender rights, Harris and other speakers at the opening session of the NAACP’s 114th National Convention painted a grim picture of the country ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“We are in a moment where there is a full-on attempt to attack hard-fought and hard-won rights and freedoms and liberty,” Harris said. “We know every day we must be vigilant in protecting that which we have achieved and keeping our eyes on our vision, our collective vision of how we continue to strengthen our nation.”
Harris spoke at the convention in a moderated discussion with Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell. The vice president was in the middle of a “whirlwind” tour across the country with stops in Chicago, Indianapolis, and Orlando, according to the White House.
Harris commended NAACP leaders for helping people vote in the 2020 election, where citizens took to the polls as a virus rapidly spread. She said the NAACP helped mobilize “hundreds of thousands” of voters through organizing and activism.
The mobilization “scared” some people, Harris said.
“It is by no coincidence that immediately thereafter you started seeing the extremist so-called leaders passing laws restricting voting days and making it more difficult to vote, banning drop boxes, shortening the amount of time people could vote ahead of the election,” she said.
Harris also called for a renewal of an assault weapons ban, saying there is “no place” for those types of firearms in the U.S.
“We need to have universal background checks,” Harris said as she called for “reasonable” gun safety laws. “It’s reasonable to say that we might want to know if somebody is, been found by a court to be a danger to themselves or others before they buy a lethal weapon. It’s just reasonable.”
NAACP officials, local Boston leaders, and federal politicians who spoke before Harris described a country grappling with radical groups looking to strike down diversity and restrict freedoms.
“Make no mistake, we are in danger of a new Jim Crow era in some parts of this country,” U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said. “Now, to the greatest extent since the last century, we’re seeing racist attitudes and policies being embedded in our laws and institutions, often with a thin veil of so-called race blindness.”
It was the sixth time the NAACP Convention took place in Boston, and organization officials used this year to criticize the U.S. Supreme Court for overturning Roe v. Wade and striking down affirmative action, casting the latter opinion as a direct attack on diversity in higher education.
Tanisha Sullivan, the president of the NAACP Boston Branch, said the national convention coming to town is an opportunity for the city to “reintroduce ourselves” to Black America, to the nation’s history, and understand the challenges residents still face.
And threats to progress in the city and country are both “internal and external,” the former candidates for Massachusetts secretary of state said.
“This is not a time for complacency or fear. These times continue to require bold vision and action to fight back,” Sullivan said.
Harris also piled onto the Supreme Court, chastising justice for taking away the federal right to an abortion.
“The highest court in our land, the court of Thurgood, just took a Constitutional right from the women of America,” she said. “A right that had been recognized. And on this point, I think it’s so important to acknowledge and agree, one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply-held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do with her body.”
In the 41 years since the NAACP national convention was last in Boston, a lot has changed in the city, Mayor Michelle Wu said. City leaders are addressing the disparate impacts of climate change, have launched a reparations task force, and are focusing on community safety.
“At a time when increasingly radical people and elements in our country, that include some legislators and even justices, attempt to divide and destroy our democracy by rolling back the clock, stripping away our rights to vote, love freely, and learn from the truths of our country’s history, in Boston, we refuse to be distracted” Wu said.
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley said people in 2023 are looking to weaponize what it means to be “woke” and took a moment to recall Dr. Martin Luther King’s final Sunday sermon in 1968 when he told people to “remain awake through a great revolution.”
“They want to lull us into a permanent sleep state with their draconian policies, violence, and their scarcity budgets,” she said. “NAACP, stay Black, stay woke, and remain vigilant.”
Boston, MA
Boston Celtics vs. Toronto Raptors: Where to watch free NBA live stream
A pair of division foes in the Eastern Conference meet up on Wednesday, Jan. 15 when the Boston Celtics travel to take on the Toronto Raptors at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.
The game is scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. EST and will be broadcast on NBC Sports Boston. Fans looking to watch this NBA game can do so for free by using DirecTV Stream, which offers a free trial. You can also watch on FuboTV, which also offers a free trial and $30 off your first month, or SlingTV, which doesn’t offer a free trial but has promotional offers available.
The Celtics are looking for their first winning streak since they beat the Raptors, Timberwolves and Rockets consecutively to end December and start January. Boston enters this matchup at 28-11 while Toronto is 9-31 and winless in two previous matchups with the defending champions.
- WATCH THE GAME FOR FREE HERE
Who: Boston Celtics vs. Toronto Raptors
When: Wednesday, Jan. 15 at 7:30 p.m. EST
Where: Scotiabank Arena in Toronto
Stream: FuboTV; Sling; DirecTV Stream (free trial)
Betting: Check out our MA sports betting guide, where you can learn basic terminology, definitions and how to read odds for those interested in learning how to bet in Massachusetts.
What is FuboTV?
FuboTV is an internet television service that offers more than 200 channels across sports and entertainment including Paramount+ with SHOWTIME. From the UEFA Champions League to the WNBA to international tournaments ranging across sports, there’s plenty of options available on FuboTV, which offers a free trial and $30 off the first month for new customers.
What is DirecTV Stream?
DirecTV Stream offers practically everything DirecTV provides, except for a remote and a streaming device to connect to your television. Sign up now and get three free months of premium channels including MAX, Paramount+ with SHOWTIME and Starz.
What is SlingTV?
SlingTV offers a variety of live programing ranging from news and sports and starting as low as $20 a month for your first month. Subscribers also get a month of DVR Plus free if they sign up now. Choose from a variety of sports packages without long-term contracts and with easy cancelation.
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Court papers say ex-NBA player Jontay Porter laid out betting scheme in a text; 6th person arrested
By JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — A sixth person was charged Monday in the federal sports betting case involving ex-NBA player Jontay Porter, and authorities disclosed a text message Porter allegedly sent explaining how to cash in on his plans to bench himself in a January 2024 game.
The former Toronto Raptors center already has pleaded guilty in the criminal case and was banned from the NBA for life. He admitted that he agreed to withdraw early from games, claiming illness or injury, so that those in the know could win big by betting on him to underperform expectations.
Although the new developments don’t affect the legal case against Porter, they put the scheme in what a court document says were his own words.
“Hit unders for the big numbers,” Porter wrote to an alleged conspirator on Jan. 26, 2024, according to a court complaint against yet another alleged schemer, Shane Hennen. He was arrested Sunday at the Las Vegas airport while boarding a flight to Panama.
“No blocks no steals. I’m going to play first 2-3 minute stint off the bench then when I get subbed out tell them my eye killing me again,” Porter wrote, according to the complaint. It identifies him only as “NBA Player 1” but makes clear through references — such as the details of his guilty plea last year — that it’s Porter.
He had scratched an eye during a game on Jan. 22, 2024, keeping conspirators in the loop by text even from the arena, according to the complaint. But he wasn’t on the injured list when the Raptors faced the LA Clippers four days later.
Porter ultimately played about 4 1/2 minutes in that game before saying he had aggravated the eye problem. Then he pulled out of a March 20 game against the Sacramento Kings after less than three minutes, saying he felt ill. His performance in both games fell well below what sportsbooks had anticipated.
Porter told a court in July that he got involved in the plot to try to clear his own gambling debts. He’s set to be sentenced in May. He could face anything from no jail time to 20 years behind bars; prosecutors have estimated his sentence at about 3 1/2 to four years in prison.
A message was sent to his lawyer Monday to seek comment on the developments.
Hennen was released without bail after his arraignment Monday in Las Vegas on charges including wire fraud conspiracy. The court complaint alleges that he placed bets through proxies after co-conspirators alerted him to Porter’s plans for the Jan. 26 game, and that he also got a heads-up about the March 20 game and likely told other gamblers about it.
A message seeking comment was sent to his attorney.
Besides Hennen and Porter, four other people also have been charged to date. Two have pleaded guilty, a third has pleaded not guilty, and the fourth hasn’t entered a plea.
The complaint against Hennen alleges there were still more conspirators involved. It’s unclear whether more people may yet be arrested.
The Associated Press contributed to this article
Boston, MA
Constantine Manos, photographer for landmark ‘Where’s Boston?’ exhibit, dies at 90 – The Boston Globe
Among Mr. Manos’s books were “A Greek Portfolio” (1972; updated 1999), “Bostonians” (1975), “American Color” 1995) and ”American Color 2″ (2010). Mr. Manos’s work with color was notably expressive and influential.
“Color was a four-letter word in art photography,” the photographer Lou Jones, who worked with Mr. Manos on “Where’s Boston?,” said in a telephone interview. “But he was making wonderful, complex photographs with color, and that meant so much.”
Yet for all his formal skill, Mr. Manos always emphasized the human element in his work. “I am a people photographer and have always been interested in people,” he once said.
That interest extended beyond the photographs he took. He was a celebrated teacher. Among the students he taught in his photo workshops was Stella Johnson.
“He’d go through a hundred of my photographs,” she said in a telephone interview, “and maybe he’d like two. ‘No, no, no, no, yes, no.’ Costa really taught me how to see. I remember him looking at one picture and saying, “You were standing in the wrong spot.’ Something like that was invaluable to me as a young photographer.
“He was a very, very kind man, very generous. But he was very strict. ‘How could you do that?’ He was adored by his students and by his friends, absolutely. We were all lucky to have been in his orbit.”
Mr. Manos, who moved to Provincetown in 2008, lived in the South End for four decades. The South Carolina native’s association with the Boston area began when the Boston Symphony Orchestra hired him as a photographer at Tanglewood. He was 19. This led to Mr. Manos’s first book, “Portrait of a Symphony” (1961; updated 2000).
Constantine Manos was born in Columbia, S.C., on Oct. 12, 1934. His parents, Dimitri and Aphrodite (Vaporiotou) Manos, were Greek immigrants. They ran a café in the city’s Black section. That experience gave Mr. Manos a sympathy for marginalized people that would stay with him throughout his life. As a student at the University of South Carolina, he wrote editorials in the school paper opposing segregation. Later, he would do extensive work chronicling the LGBTQ+ community with his camera.
Mr. Manos became interested in photography at 13, joining the school camera club and building a darkroom in his parents’ basement. After graduating from college, Mr. Manos did two years of Army service in Germany, working as a photographer for Stars and Stripes. He joined Magnum in 1963. This had special meaning for him. Mr. Manos’s chief inspiration as a young photographer had been Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of Magnum’s founders. He was such an admirer he made a point of using the same equipment that Cartier-Bresson did.
That same year, Mr. Manos entered a seafood restaurant in Rome that was around the corner from the Pantheon. Prodanou, his future husband, was dining with friends. Noticing Mr. Manos, he gestured to him. “Would you join us for coffee?” The couple spent the next 61 years together, marrying in 2011.
Mr. Manos lived in Greece for three years, which led to “A Greek Portfolio.” He undertook a very different project in the Athens of America. Part of the city’s Bicentennial tribute, “Where’s Boston?” was a slice-of-many-lives view of contemporary Boston.
Located in a red-white-and-blue striped pavilion at the Prudential Center, it became a local sensation. The installation involved 42 computerized projectors and 3,097 color slides (most of them taken by Mr. Manos), shown on eight 10 feet by 10 feet screens. Outside the pavilion was a set of murals, consisting of 152 black-and-white photographs of Boston scenes, all shot by Mr. Manos.
“The most important thing I had to do was to keep my picture ideas simple,” he said in a 1975 Globe interview. “Viewers are treated to a veritable avalanche of color slides in exactly one hour’s time.”
In that same interview, he made an observation about his work generally. “I prefer to stay in close to my subjects. I let them see me and my camera and when they become bored they forget about me and then I get my best pictures.”
Among institutions that own Mr. Manos’s photographs are the Museum of Fine Arts; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Library of Congress; and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
In addition to his husband, Mr. Manos leaves a sister, Irene Constantinides, of Atlanta, and a brother, Theofanis Manos, of Greenville, S.C.
A memorial service will be held later this year.
Mark Feeney can be reached at mark.feeney@globe.com.
Boston, MA
Below freezing temperatures again today
The winds are still going Wednesday, but the air temperatures remain at respectable levels. Highs will manage to weasel up to 30 in most spots. It’s too bad we’re not going to feel them at face value. Instead, we’re dressing for temps in the teens all day today.
Thursday and Friday are the picks of the week.
There will be a lot less wind, reasonable winter temperatures in the 30s and a decent amount of sun. We’ll be quiet into the weekend, as our next weather system approaches.
With mild air expected to come north on southerly winds, highs will bounce back to the low and mid-40s both days of the weekend.
Showers will be delayed until late day/evening on Saturday and into the night. There may be a few early on Sunday too, but the focus on that day will be to bring in the cold.
Highs will briefly sneak into the 40s, then fall late day.
We’ll also watch a batch of snow late Sunday night as it moves up the Eastern Seaboard.
Right now, there is a potential for some accumulation as it moves overhead Sunday night and early Monday morning.
It appears to be a weak, speedy system, so we’re not expecting it to pull any punches.
Enjoy the quieter spell of weather!
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