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Editorial: South End can’t keep bearing Mass and Cass burden

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:09 GMT

It should go without saying that the solution to a problem shouldn’t entail making the problem worse.For Boston, finding a solution to the humanitarian crisis playing out daily at Mass and Cass has been an endless loop of one step forward, two steps back.Now the city is taking three steps back.On Tuesday, Hub officials announced a plan to clear the encampments on Atkinson Street in the South End, as Boston 25 reported.  This sounds like a good idea, especially as violence has been on the rise in the area.But there’s more.The city is looking to open up a new “safe sleeping area” and clinical services site at 725-727 Mass. Ave. near Albany Street, said Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, Executive Director of the Boston Public Health Commission.Welcome to Mass and Alb.“All we’re trying to do is find a safe place for a small group of people to exist and sleep temporarily while we bring some order to that street,” said Dr. Ojikutu.City leaders have been trying to bring order to that street ...

Dear Abby: Wife worried as hubby ignores his health

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:09 GMT

Dear Abby: My husband and I are in our 30s. I love him, and I’m worried because he has a “laissez-faire” attitude about everything — especially his health. He has had high cholesterol for five years and has done little to nothing about it. He found out only because I kept hounding him for a year to get a physical.To say I’m “concerned” is an understatement. When I asked him how he can be so complacent about something so dangerous, I got this blank stare and “I don’t know what you want me to say.” Or he says I’m being rude. I can’t understand why this doesn’t scare him. Should I try to force him to go back to the doctor and deal with this, or must I sit and wait for the consequences of him ignoring his health to happen? — Wife Who Cares in IowaDear Wife: Try this: “I love you. But I’m worried sick about the state of your health. I need US to start being more health conscious because WE are...

Former residents of a New Hampshire youth center demand federal investigation into abuse claims

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:09 GMT

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Frustrated former residents of New Hampshire’s only youth detention center are pushing for a federal investigation into allegations of decades of abuse.The Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester, previously called the Youth Development Center, has been under criminal investigation by the state since 2019. Ten former workers and an 11th who worked at a pretrial facility in Concord were arrested in 2021.Close to 1,000 men and woman have sued the state alleging physical, sexual or emotional abuse. But the slow pace of the criminal and civil proceedings has some calling for the federal Department of Justice to step in.“Get the state out of it, because they’re not looking to give us real justice,” said Charles Glenn, who spent several years at the facility in the mid-1990s. “They’re complicit to sexual physical violence in this institution for over 40 years because for over 40 years, they’ve done nothing.”Glenn, 42, helped organize a rally planned for Friday afte...

What is Stockholm syndrome? It all started with a bank robbery 50 years ago

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:09 GMT

STOCKHOLM (AP) — It’s a common term these days, deployed to describe the bond that victims of kidnappings or hostage situations sometimes develop with their captors: “Stockholm syndrome.” And it got its name 50 years ago this week, during a failed bank robbery in Sweden’s capital. Stockholm syndrome — dubbed by its founder “Norrmalmstorg syndrome,” after the square where the bank heist took place — has since been used in connection with hostage-takings around the world, including the kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst in the 1970s.Here’s a look at Stockholm syndrome and how it got its name.WHAT IS STOCKHOLM SYNDROME?It refers to the bond that can develop between hostages and their captors in hostage-taking and kidnapping situations. In some cases, hostages may develop sympathies for their captors and their cause — and even turn against the police. Rather than a diagnosis of a disorder, experts describe it as a psychological coping mechanism used by some hostage...

Civil case over Cardinal Pell abuse allegations allowed to proceed against church in Australia

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:09 GMT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — An Australian court on Friday allowed a civil case to proceed against a Catholic archdiocese involving child sex abuse allegations against late Cardinal George Pell.The Victoria state Court of Appeal in Melbourne refused to hear the church’s challenge to a judge’s ruling that a father, identified in court documents as RWQ, was entitled to sue for damages for the nervous shock he suffered when he learned of allegations his son had been abused.Pell was the third highest-ranking cleric in the Vatican when he was convicted in 2018 of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in a Melbourne cathedral in 1996 when Pell was an archbishop.Pell spent 13 months in prison before the convictions were overturned on appeal. He maintained his innocence until his death in Rome in January.Victoria law prohibits media from identifying alleged victims of sexual offenses or any reporting that could identify such a person. The prohibition prevents the father being named.The f...

GOP support for gun restrictions slips a year after Congress passed firearms law

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:09 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican support for gun restrictions is slipping a year after Congress passed the most comprehensive firearms control legislation in decades with bipartisan support, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s led to a gap between Democrats and the GOP on the issue of guns that has widened in the last year. Democrats have consistently outpaced Republicans and independents in their belief that gun laws in the U.S. should be strengthened, but GOP support has dropped even further behind, the poll found. Most Democrats, 92%, want gun laws made stronger, in line with their views in a UChicago Harris/AP-NORC poll conducted in July 2022. But Republican desire for more expansive legislation has dropped to 32% from 49% last summer and independents’ support also declined slightly to 61% from 72%. “We’ve tried to legislate things for years without a lot of success, and I don’t really think law and regulation are the a...

Visitors to Lincoln Memorial say America has its flaws but see gains made since March on Washington

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:09 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fencing and construction workers greet visitors to the Lincoln Memorial, signaling that — for the moment — the monument to the nation’s 16th president is a work in progress. And so is the nation Abraham Lincoln saved and the dream that Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned at its steps nearly 60 years ago at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.The spectrum of visitors to the Lincoln and MLK memorials and the African American Museum of History and Culture ranges from a 10-year-old elementary school student born in Colombia to a 70-something college advisor and retired military veteran. At least one visitor was at the original march as a child. They agree that portions of King’s speech have become a reality while some remain unrealized. Several note as well that the gains took a multiracial coalition to achieve. Washington Resident and 1963 March ParticipantDiane Miller was 12 years old when her mother gathered up Miller and her siblings “and had us march from 3...

South Carolina abortion ban with unclear ‘fetal heartbeat’ definition creates confusion, doctors say

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:09 GMT

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — When the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld a ban on most abortions this week, the majority wrote that they were leaving “for another day” a decision on when, exactly, the “fetal heartbeat” limit begins during pregnancy. Doctors practicing under the strict law cannot similarly punt on that question.Physicians say the statute’s unclear guidance is already chilling medical practice at the few abortion clinics that operate in the conservative state. With potential criminal charges hanging in the balance, most abortions are being halted as doctors wrestle with the murky legal definitions.“These medical definitions they tried to put forward are legislative and put forward by people who don’t practice medicine,” said Dr. Dawn Bingham, chair of the South Carolina section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, or AGOC. “This language creates uncertainty among medical providers who may be unsure they’re legally allowed to terminate a pregnanc...

Stock market today: Asian shares mostly decline ahead of Federal Reserve’s Powell speech

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:09 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares mostly fell Friday, discouraged by a Wall Street slump that followed a blowout profit report from Nvidia and mixed reports on the U.S. economy.Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 dropped 1.8% to 31,713.24 in morning trading. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dipped nearly 1.0% to 7,111.60. South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.6% to 2,522.09. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 1.0% to 18,035.97, while the Shanghai Composite shed 0.3% to 3,073.25. Tokyo inflation eased to 2.9% in August from the previous year, largely because of lower energy prices, according to government data. The consumer price index, excluding fresh food prices, rose 2.8% from the previous year, the gains easing for the first time in two months. Although inflationary pressures appear to be gradually fading in Japan, amid stabilizing energy prices, the indicator for prices is still above the Bank of Japan’s target of 2%. High on regional investors’ minds is the speech by U.S. Feder...

Fed Chair Powell could signal the likelihood of high rates for longer in closely watched speech

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:25:09 GMT

JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming (AP) — When Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell delivers a high-profile speech Friday in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, many analysts think he could make one thing clear: That the Fed plans to keep its benchmark interest rate at a peak level for longer than had been expected.Powell isn’t likely to say whether the Fed will continue raising rates. But he may signal that any rate cuts are unlikely until well into next year. The central bank has already helped drive inflation down from painfully high levels. But Fed officials have said they need to keep rates high to further slow borrowing and spending and reduce inflation to their 2% target.The Fed chair’s speech — at an annual conference of central bankers — comes at a time of heightened uncertainty about the economy and interest-rate policies. Businesses are still hiring, and consumer spending has remained resilient even while inflation has eased from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022 to 3.2%. At the same time, “c...