13 siblings held captive were likely coerced to remain quiet
LOS ANGELES — When a 17-year-old girl jumped out a window from the house where her parents allegedly starved and tortured their 13 children, she broke a silence that had likely lasted years.
It’s not clear why the teenager waited so long to act, but psychiatrists say such behavior is not uncommon even in cases of extreme deprivation.
Most people would recognize milder forms of the same inaction that is a coping mechanism, whether it’s failing to speak out against off-color jokes, enduring sexual harassment or staying in an awful marriage, said Dr. Bruce Perry.
“This happens all the time. The number of individuals who would immediately respond to an opportunity where they could get away is very small compared to the number of people who would have that paralysis and insecurity and confusion about what to do,” said Perry, a psychiatrist who is a senior fellow at the ChildTrauma Academy in Houston.
The vulnerable girl might have been shamed, beaten or threatened with violence and only after many missed opportunities did she probably work up the courage to act, Perry said.
Pope has tough words for indigenous, Chile during Mass
TEMUCO, Chile — Pope Francis took the Chilean state and the country’s largest indigenous group to task Wednesday over their failure to forge a truly unified nation, saying the government must do more than just negotiate “elegant” agreements and radical Mapuche factions must stop violence.
Francis’ pointed homily in the heart of Chile’s restive Araucania region came hours after two more churches and three helicopters were torched — attacks blamed on Mapuche radical groups demanding the return of ancestral lands and the release of Mapuche prisoners. No arrests have been made.
The outdoor Mass at the Maquehue Air Base was steeped in symbolism because of its own history: The land was taken from the Mapuche in the early 20th century and the location was also used as a detention and torture facility in the early years of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship.
Leading some 150,000 people in a moment of silent prayer, Francis said the fertile green fields and snow-capped mountains of the Mapuche heartland in Chile’s southern Araucania region were both blessed by God and cursed by man, the site of “grave human rights violations” during the 1973-1990 dictatorship.
“We offer this Mass for all those who suffered and died, and for those who daily bear the burden of those many injustices,” he said.
At least 10 deaths from snow, ice and record cold in South
ATLANTA — Snow, ice and a record-breaking blast of cold closed runways, highways, schools and government offices across the South and sent cars sliding off roads Wednesday in a corner of the country ill-equipped to deal with wintry weather. At least 10 people died, including a baby in a car that plunged off a slippery overpass into a Louisiana canal.
Icicles hung from a statue of jazz musicians in normally balmy New Orleans, and drivers unaccustomed to ice spun their wheels across Atlanta, which was brought to a near-standstill by little more than an inch of snow. The beach in Biloxi, Mississippi, got a light coating. And the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill canceled classes as the storm unloaded at least 8 inches of snow in Durham and Greensboro.
Even the best drivers had trouble: Retired NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt Jr. tweeted that he had just used his winch to help pull a car out of a ditch when he drove off the road and into a tree in North Carolina.
“NC stay off the roads today/tonight. 5 minutes after helping these folks I center punched a pine tree,” he reported.
A spokesman said Earnhardt was not hurt and his pickup had only minor damage.
Though skies were sunny and bright in many places, temperatures remained below freezing throughout the day in much of the South.
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Science panel backs lower drunken driving threshold
WASHINGTON — Most women would need to draw the line at two drinks, and men at two or three if states follow a blueprint by a prestigious scientific panel for eliminating the “entirely preventable” 10,000 alcohol-impaired driving deaths in the United States each year.
The U.S. government-commissioned report by a panel of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine made multiple recommendations, including significantly lowering drunken driving thresholds. It calls for lowering the blood-alcohol concentration threshold from 0.08 to 0.05. All states have 0.08 thresholds. A Utah law passed last year that lowers the state’s threshold to 0.05 doesn’t go into effect until Dec. 30.
The amount of alcohol required to reach 0.05 would depend on several factors, including the person’s size and whether the person has recently eaten. The report cites studies indicating most women over 120 pounds would reach 0.05 after two drinks. Men weighing up to about 160 pounds would likely reach the lower threshold at two, and those over 180 pounds at three.
The panel, in its 489-page report, also recommended that states significantly increase alcohol taxes and make alcohol less conveniently available, including reducing the hours and days alcohol is sold in stores, bars and restaurants. Research suggests a doubling of alcohol taxes could lead to an 11 percent reduction in traffic crash deaths, the report said.
It also calls for cracking down on sales to people under 21 or who are already intoxicated to discourage binge drinking, and putting limits on alcohol marketing while funding anti-alcohol campaigns similar to those against smoking.
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Apple banks on tax break to build 2nd campus, hire 20,000
SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is planning to build a new corporate campus and hire 20,000 U.S. workers in an expansion driven in part by a tax cut that will enable the iPhone maker to bring an estimated $245 billion back to its home country.
The pledge announced Wednesday comes less than a month after Congress approved a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. tax code championed by President Donald Trump that will increase corporate profits.
Besides dramatically lowering the standard corporate tax rate, the reforms offer a one-time break on cash held overseas.
Apple plans to take advantage of that provision to bring back most of its roughly $252 billion in offshore cash, generating a tax bill of about $38 billion. That anticipated tax bill implies Apple intends to bring back about $245 billion of its overseas cash, based on the temporary tax rate of 15.5 percent on foreign profits.
Apple has earmarked about $75 billion of the money currently overseas to finance $350 billion in spending during the next five years. The spree will include the new campus, new data centers and other investments.