Wednesday Aug 19, 2020

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

San Juan The

50¢

DAILY

Star

Federal Study of COVID-19 Treatments Enters New Phase

Clash Over Closures

P7

Alexandra Lúgaro: Citizen Victory Movement Will Challenge Oversight Board’s Legitimacy

P3

Fiscal board: PREPA Green Energy Agreements Will Lead to Higher Electricity Bills

Governor Expected to Announce a New, Longer and More Restrictive Executive Order, But Not a Full Lockdown Churches, Malls Could Close Again

P5

NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 19

P4

2

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

$

Ford 2200 Watts .00

PREDATOR 4000 w .00

$749

$589

Super Sonic 32”

0 PRONTO Y SIN INTERESES

Predator 2000 Watts

Predator 3500 Watts

$20

.00 Mens.

$29.00 Mens.

$189.00

Smart-tv-kit

$99.00

Sansui 43”

QFX Remote Controlled Motorized 360 Rotating Outdoor Antenna

$449.00

$29

.00

Sony. CDF-S70

TV Mount desde

Samsung A10s

$149

.00

$79

.00

$29

.00

TOPE de Gas .00

$489

Horno Convencional Pizza .00

Estufa de gas .00

$189 Horno de Microondas Blanco,Negro o Stainless .00 Steal

$89

$189

$299.00

$25

$89.00

$169.00

Samsung Galaxy Tab A .00

Estufa de gas 2 hornillas .00

JBL Flip5

LG CM4360

Nintendo Switch lite

$15

Face Mask 50

$18

$49.00 Abanico recargable

Water Dispenser .00

Licuadora OSTER

$69.00

$169.00

Nevera Haier

$899.00

Desde

Industrial Stand Fan

$589.00 ¡Disfruta el mejor Perfortmance!

$39.00

DEALER AUTORIZADO EN PIEZAS Y SERVICIO

GOOD MORNING

3

August 19, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star, the only paper with News Service in English in Puerto Rico, publishes 7 days a week, with a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday edition, along with a Weekend Edition to cover Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Lúgaro: Puerto Rico will have ‘a complete team to lead the country’

Today’s

Weather

By PEDRO CORREA HENRY Twitter: @PCorreaHenry Special To The Star This is the second in a series of interviews with candidates running in the 2020 general elections

Day

Night

High

Low

91ºF

79ºF

Precip 10%

Precip 10%

Partly Cloudy

Partly Cloudy

Wind: Humidity: UV Index: Sunrise: Sunset:

C

From E 15 mph 65% 8 of 10 6:06 AM Local Time 6:47 PM Local Time

INDEX Local 3 Mainland 7 Business 11 International 14 Viewpoint 18 Noticias en Español 19 Entertainment 20

Fashion Health Legals Sports Games Horoscope Cartoons

22 23 24 26 29 30 31

itizen Victory Movement (CVM) gubernatorial candidate Alexandra Lúgaro told the Star on Tuesday that the party, which was founded in 2019, will have “the most competent cabinet” to govern Puerto Rico.

In order to find the candidates for CVM’s constitutional cabinet, the movement devised a project to develop job descriptions with professional associations and affected communities that correspond to roles that are commonly appointed by a governor, and has put out a call on its social media platforms for citizens to submit their resumes as the party searches for potential cabinet appointees. Lúgaro said the project grew out of a determination to address people’s concerns as most don’t trust the work of government entities and feel that they “pay for the incompetence from these agencies.”

“I must say that it’s one of the [crucial] areas of our campaign, because we are seeing all the resumes that we have received, all the people who have been willing to serve the country, and people who have agreed to begin a screening process,” Lúgaro said. “What we have seen with the secretary positions we have posted, it gives us an image of an all-star team; it’s one of the most important things that CVM will do for Puerto Rico -- not only present our candidates in November, but also present a complete team to lead the country.”

Meanwhile, Lúgaro said the party has not forgotten about the public debt, and wants to stimulate vital areas in Puerto Rico, such as education, health, security and access to justice; however, the gubernatorial candidate said, it will all depend on doing the work that will stimulate the island’s economy.

“We haven’t forgotten about the public debt because we recognize that the public policies that we want to implement in the country in every vital area -- education, health, security, access to justice -- depend on auditing the debt, and invalidating the illegal portion of it so that we can renegotiate the part of the debt that is legitimate while protecting people’s essential services,” she said.

As for the Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB), she said the movement will work to repeal the board as it questions the legitimacy of the federal Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act, generally known as PROMESA, enacted in 2016.

“CVM is going to face the FOMB,” Lúgaro said. “We believe the board is antidemocratic, it’s unworthy, and their interests are clearly not in looking out for what is best for Puerto Ricans and economic growth for the country, but rather in exploiting what is left of our capital to pay bondholders a debt that is clearly illegal.”

Meanwhile, Lúgaro said that in order to address the island’s discrimination issues, the education system must introduce a gender perspective and human rights-focused syllabus to form, from an early-childhood stage, citizens who respect all of their fellow citizens and reject any act of discrimination. She added that gender perspective should also be applied to public policies, government work and legislation.

“Part of it is recognizing that discrimination is a crossover situation in different areas, it’s not a matter that’s located in a mere compartment,” Lúgaro said. “Meaning that being a crossover issue, it must be addressed in a crossover manner.”

When it comes to the coronavirus pandemic, Lugaro said that when she becomes the governor of Puerto Rico, she will address it in diverse phases, such as building a sustainable education system that is built to keep running amid national emergencies, and a ministry of science that is capable of addressing public health emergencies; educating people on safety measures and developing an effective contract tracing system; and generating enough resources

4

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Health chief: Next executive order is more restrictive, but not a return to full lockdown

By PEDRO CORREA HENRY Twitter: @PCorreaHenry Special to The Star

I

sland Health Secretary Lorenzo González Feliciano said on Tuesday that the next executive order, expected to be announced today by Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced, is going to be more restrictive than Executive Order 2020-041, which authorized a limited reopening -- up to 50 percent capacity -- of malls, automobile dealerships, churches, beauty salons and restaurants in Puerto Rico during the coronavirus pandemic.

González Feliciano said the medical and economic task forces reached a consensus at a meeting at La Fortaleza with Vázquez and himself. He said that as a follow-up to the most recent order, the Economic Task Force submitted an inspection plan while the Health Department is in charge of designing educational campaigns to use with all sectors on complying with safety measures in the fight against the coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19.

When asked by a member of the press if a lockdown is to be issued for any specific sector, the Health chief said the new order was not going to be as restrictive as the May 1 order.

“It’s more restrictive than [Executive] Order [20200]41, but the next order is unlike Executive Order 038. It’s not a full lockdown, it’s not a complete shutdown -- it is not,” he said. “We have to wait for the governor as there are some elements and details that are being looked over

at this moment along with other petitions that are being made that she must study as the first executive.”

Meanwhile, González Feliciano said he has been “very clear” when it comes to citizens being undisciplined as they have lowered their guard and, for this reason, the department had to rely on developing educational campaigns to persuade all sectors to comply with social distancing and the use of face masks.

“Another thing that is important is the oversight, the enforcement, complying with the order and the educational part, where there are some proposals to tackle and try to approach all populations, recognizing their variations and delivering educational campaigns,” he said.

The island’s top physician said the department is setting up a meeting with both the Puerto Rico Mayors Federation and Puerto Rico Mayors Association to advise members on what to do at electoral events after what happened Sunday night with the celebrations that followed the conclusion of the primary elections might have an impact on positive COVID-19 cases.

“There might be an impact, but, as always, we have to wait from 14 to 21 days from that time,” González Feliciano said. “So, as the numbers take their course, they should reflect if there was an impact due to these events in terms of positive cases, hospitalizations and, potentially, deaths.”

Regarding a shortage of reagents for molecular tests to detect COVID-19, González Feliciano said the pharmaceutical company Roche met with both the governor and himself and agreed to distribute 44,000 tests a month.

Likewise, he said that the shortage is not due to a lack of funds, as they are using funds provided by the Coronavirus Relief, Aid and Economic Security (CARES) Act, but rather is more of an availability issue with other American pharmaceutical companies.

“This is not a question of economic capability,” the Health secretary said. “I want you to understand that the reagents [issue] is not due to a lack of money as we are using funds from the CARES Act. Anyone who says that does not know what we are doing. It has nothing to do with [lacking] economic capability for an acquisition.”

On Tuesday the Health Department reported record numbers as 633 COVID-19 cases were confirmed with sample dates from Aug. 3 to Aug. 14, along with 394 probable cases, with screening done from Aug. 5 to Aug. 15, and 11 deaths.

The new executive order could be in effect for 21 days starting Saturday.

What you should know (if you live in a condo) about the new Condominiums Law

By THE STAR STAFF

G

ov. Wanda Vázquez Garced enacted Act 129-2020 earlier this week, a new law for condominiums in Puerto Rico, which for the first time since 1958 would regulate the lives of individuals living in high-rise buildings.

The last major overhaul of the Condominium Act was done in 2003, but numerous amendments have been made to the law since then, noted Israel Alicea, president of condominios.com, and Ignacio Veloz, president of the Condominium Federation.

Generally speaking, the owner of an apartment subject to the Horizontal Property Regime has the right to full enjoyment of his or her apartment and common areas, provided that this does not undermine the right of the others to enjoy their respective properties.

How is the new law different?

“We wanted to have a law that was easy to follow and easy to understand. This law contains definitions,” Alicea said.

Veloz praised the law because it introduces technological advances allowing online meetings for decisionmaking processes.

The council of property owners at a given condominium will be able to convene meetings through electronic means and hold meetings online as well.

The new law enacted Monday also allows apartment owners or owners of properties subject to the Horizontal Property Regime to have one meeting instead of two for the required decision making. Decisions will be made after achieving the required quorum of those present.

“Because there is only one required meeting, it must be held in non-working hours,” Alicea said.

Another element is that the law requires all condominium administrators to have the required skills and preparation to manage the property. Neither the administrator nor the members of the condominium’s council of property owners can be delinquent in the payment of fees required to keep up common areas, Veloz said.

The new law specifies that the modifications to the parent deed to vary the use of an apartment from residential

to non-residential or vice versa, will require the unanimous consent of all the holders.

No owner, without the consent of 2/3 of all the holders, who in turn, collect 2/3 of the shares in the common areas, and without the corresponding permits from the relevant agencies, may build new floors, construct basements or conduct excavations, or change the basic architecture or the facade, or affect the conservation or structural soundness of the building. In addition, when a horizontal property regime is submitted to a property that contains or is to contain apartments intended for housing together with apartments for non-residential uses, the regulation of the regime will provide what is necessary so that the legitimate right of the holders in the use and enjoyment of the common elements is preserved, and so that an undue financial burden is not imposed on them by common expenses.

Veloz noted that under the law a council of property owners can set aside as a reserve 10 percent of what is deposited as it will no longer be 10 percent of the condominium’s budget. Alicea said another important change is that the council of property owners as well as the administrator must have established a transition process before leaving their positions.

Short-term rentals are not prohibited under the new law. Condominium regulation may stipulate the manner in which these types of leases will be carried out. The condominium may impose a monthly fee on owners of apartments used for short-term rentals.

Regarding fees, the council of property owners will be able to shut off the water or the power services of delinquent property owners who will be able to set up a payment plan to become current on the fee.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

5

Oversight board: PREPA agreements would result in higher electricity bills

By THE STAR STAFF

T

he Financial Oversight and Management Board says that some 16 Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) renewable energy agreements that were renegotiated recently would result in electricity rates higher than projected in the 2020 certified fiscal plan.

In a statement issued Monday, the oversight board said that while it believes the energy system needs to be changed, the July 1 submission of 16 renegotiated nonoperational renewable energy power purchase and operating agreements (PPOAs) would result in higher rates.

“Despite achieving improved prices (when compared to original prices) and more favorable contract terms to PREPA, the approval and development of all 16 Proposed Contracts (representing a total renewable energy capacity of 593 [megawatts] MW), would result in overall retail energy rates that are higher than the average retail energy rates projected in the 2020 Certified Fiscal Plan,” the oversight board said.

Specifically, the 2020 certified fiscal plan assumes new utility scale solar generation prices of 8 cents per kilowatt-hour (c/kWh) in fiscal year (FY) 2023, increasing to 9.7 c/kWh in FY 2049, while the proposed contracts, on average, start at

9.9 c/kWh, increasing to 14.1 c/kWh by FY 2042. Consequently, if PREPA were to integrate all of the proposed 593 MW solar capacity at the renegotiated price, projected energy rates in FY 2035 would be 33.6 c/kWh, 0.5 c/kWh higher than the energy price forecasts in the 2020 certified fiscal plan.

On the other hand, integrating half of the proposed contracts’ capacity (some 300 MW) reduces this difference by 0.3 c/kWh by FY 2035, while integrating a quarter (about 150 MW) of the proposed contracts’ capacity reduces the difference by 0.4 c/kWh by FY 2035, providing some $20-30 million in annual fuel and purchased power savings over the next 25 years.

“Puerto Rico’s energy system needs to change. The people and businesses of Puerto Rico need more reliable, more

affordable, and cleaner electricity and the oversight board will continue to work with PREPA and the Puerto Rico Government on this wholesale transformation,” the oversight board said. “Increasing renewable energy generation is an important part of that transformation, as well as a requirement under Puerto Rico Act 17-2918.”

“PREPA must also ensure that renewable energy is delivered at a reasonable and affordable price. However, the sheer scope proposed by PREPA – delivering 593 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy at once through the 16 proposed contracts – would result in electricity rates higher than projected in the 2020 certified fiscal plan for PREPA,” the board said.

“Therefore, to ensure consistency with the electricity rate projections included in the 2020 certified fiscal plan, the total renewable energy capacity developed through the proposed contracts should be initially only 150 MW. PREPA should pursue an objective assessment of each proponents’ technical and financial qualifications, alongside any additional qualifications PREPA deems relevant, to qualify those proponents with the highest degree of technical and financial capabilities,” the oversight board said. “It is important for Puerto Rico to

start increasing the share of renewable energy as soon as possible, and the shovel-ready PPOAs provide a unique opportunity. PREPA should then gradually expand renewable energy to take advantage of technological improvements that increase efficiency even further, a more competitive bidding process, and improved contract pricing once Puerto Rico emerges from bankruptcy.”

“The oversight board believes renewable energy and more affordable electricity prices should not be a tradeoff,” the board added. “The people and businesses of Puerto Rico deserve both.”

Another area of concern to the oversight board relates to the possibility that the completion of the proposed contracts may be delayed or impeded by the contractual ability of the proponents to, in certain circumstances, sell the facility and/or transfer a majority of their equity interest in the project to a third party.

“As is customary in competitive procurement processes, the Oversight Board believes PREPA should aim to ensure that the party with which PREPA enters into a Proposed Contract has an interest in (i) fulfilling its obligations under the agreement and (ii) remaining a party to the agreement for a sufficient amount of time to fulfill such obligations,” the board said, while proposing other changes.

UPR begins another atypical academic semester

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

U

niversity of Puerto Rico (UPR) is beginning the 20202021 academic year with 12,724 new students admitted to undergraduate and graduate programs on its 11 campuses and units.

According to statistics from the island’s main public university, 56 percent of undergraduate students this fall are female and 44 percent are male. Fifty-one percent are graduates of public schools and 18 percent have an academic grade point average of 4.0.

As UPR President Jorge Haddock had anticipated, classes at all campuses are mainly being offered remotely.

The university has more than 11,500 courses adapted to online technologies. In the case of administrative tasks, the campuses and units have communicated the activities that they will carry out in person, following the established health and safety protocols.

“As the main educational and research center on the island, we began a new semester focused on promoting research and creative work, and expanding academic opportunities in partnership with other institutions inside and outside of Puerto Rico,” Haddock said in a letter to the university community. “We are focused on continuing

to develop new alternatives and expanding our academic offerings to attract the local and international community, fulfilling our main mission of educating.”

Director of Admissions Ivonne Calderón said those interested in studying at UPR can visit the website upr. edu/admisiones to learn about the academic offerings and request admission to the programs that are available.

“A very special welcome for the students who accepted the challenge of starting studies in August 2020. Fight for your goals and trust that we will be your allies to achieve them,” Calderón said “Success to you in your university life. The University of Puerto Rico has the best offering for those who want to achieve academic excellence and stand out locally and globally.”

As part of the efforts to continue supporting students at the beginning of the new academic year and in the face of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Haddock announced that he has made the processes for granting tuition payment plans more flexible and has canceled the collection of surcharges for late payment at all campuses and units.

“Given that we are still facing the effects of the pandemic, we have implemented this measure again to alleviate the economic burden on our university community,” he said. “Our interest is that they can concentrate on their

academic goals, complete their studies and live the great experience that the institution offers.”

That relief is coupled with the technological support that each campus and unit will offer to students and teachers, through the distribution of the second installment of funds allocated under the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act legislation, as well as other student support services that are already available, as announced by UPR’s vice president of student affairs, José Perdomo.

“Each campus and unit reviewed the protocols for services to our students. In these unusual times, we will provide additional resources to improve the service and experience for students,” Perdomo said. “We have created immediate response centers through the units to attend to situations that may arise.”

The UPR began the new academic semester on Aug. 5 at the Medical Sciences Campus, while the Aguadilla, Ponce, and Utuado units began classes on Aug. 10. At the UPR campuses in Arecibo and Cayey, classes began on Aug. 11. The UPR campuses in Río Piedras and Mayagüez began classes Monday, and classes begin at UPR-Carolina on Sept. 1.

The Humacao and Bayamón campuses have not announced dates for the opening of classes.

6

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Resident commissioner and White House delegation continue visits to pharmaceutical and aerospace industry sites

By THE STAR STAFF

D

uring a tour showing the diversity of companies established in Puerto Rico’s northern region, Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón on Tuesday emphasized to a visiting White House delegation the island’s infrastructure and capacity for hosting multinational manufacturing operations.

The resident commissioner toured manufacturing plants accompanied by Rear Adm. Peter Brown, the assistant to the president for Puerto Rico disaster recovery affairs; Juan Caro, a White House public policy adviser; island Economic Development and Trade Secretary Manuel Laboy; Puerto Rico Industrial Association President Carlos Rodríguez; and staff from the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Manatí Mayor José Sánchez accompanied the delegation on their visit to GK Pharmaceutical.

“It fills me with pride to be able to present to the White House the only pharmaceutical company in the world owned by women who are Puerto Rican, and established in Manatí, GK Pharmaceutical,” the resident commissioner said. “This company is an example of our ingenuity and capacity.”

GK Pharmaceutical, a biopharmaceutical manufacturer, developed a package of molecular tests to detect COVID-19 that already have a PRE-USA (PreEmergency Use Authorization) pre-approval, with final approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration expected by the end of this week. These would be the only polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests developed and manufactured on the island.

The delegation also visited Honeywell and Lufthansa to demonstrate the island’s aerospace industry.

Honeywell’s Research and Technology Center in Moca, built five years ago, is a young company

Emergency response company formed

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

W

ith an investment of $200,000 and the creation of 15 new jobs, Prime Restoration Services (PRS) is the first company in Puerto Rico to provide specialized services in response and immediate restoration to natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, fires and pandemics.

The company, located in Ponce, also offers the industrial sector consulting on risk prevention and mitigation, and training focused on health and safety, said Roberto Duque, director of operations at PRS. “In 2017, Puerto Rico experienced great devastation and losses due to the impact of Hurricane Maria and since December 2019

the earth has not stopped shaking, causing chaos and devastation in the southwest region,” said Duque, a specialist with more than 25 years’ experience in rapid response, rescue and security.

“Given the continuous seismic activity that we are experiencing, the emergency we are facing with the COVID-19 pandemic and in the face of the hurricane season, Prime Restoration Services comes to provide 24/7 services for the recovery, restoration and cleaning of infrastructures or the environment due to natural disasters.”

With certified and experienced emergency response personnel, sophisticated equipment, a stocked warehouse, and a mobile unit equipped to handle emergencies, PRS offers business and residential rehabilitation services.

The company’s emergency hotline, 787-232-6135, is available 24 hours to respond to unforeseen situations or disasters. “Upon receiving a call, trained personnel will record the information and notify the operations director of the situation,” Duque said.

“Once the data is confirmed, the response team will be activated to attend to the emergency.”

Disaster recovery services include cleanup, damage repair and water restoration; repair and restoration of fire damage; remediation of mold and restoration; cleaning and restoration of damage caused by storms and hurricanes; and commercial and industrial services.

RMS also provides cleaning and pollution mitigation services due to spills of hazardous materials, such as dangerous chemi-

focused on innovation. The center works with universities on the island to prepare the workforce, sponsor programs and competitions, promote aerospace education, and offer internees, who are maintained at a rate of 70 percent.

Honeywell has 870 employees between its facilities in Moca and Aguadilla. From these facilities, applications are developed that NASA uses in its satellite missions.

Lufthansa Technik in Aguadilla, the company’s only U.S. facility, focuses on aircraft maintenance.

Since its opening in 2015 the facility so far has worked on 530 aircraft for nine airlines.

One of the reasons why the company with a German parent chose Puerto Rico was because of its privileged geographical location. The establishment of the company contributes to González Colón’s initiative to turn the island into an air cargo center by providing maintenance services. Lufthansa Technik has 330 employees, 95 percent of whom are from the island.

In 2017 the company established the first mechanics’ apprenticeship program with the Puerto Rico Aeronautical and Aerospace Institute. It is the first federally approved program of its kind in the entire nation. cal substances, biological agents and liquid fuels, as well as the emanations or losses of dangerous gases into the environment.

Specialized services provided by RMS in the industrial sector also include risk mitigation and prevention, as well as preventive surveillance services for rescuers.

“We not only have as our goal the restoration of infrastructure and properties, but we also want to restore pride and hope to our communities in the face of the continuous onslaught of natural or environmental emergencies,” Duque said.

PRS is supported by its parent company, Prime Janitorial, a company specialized in disinfection and sanitation services for hospitals, industries and businesses.

WE BUY OR RENT IN 24HRS

787-349-1000

SALES • RENTALS • VACATIONS RESIDENTIAL • COMMERCIAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (SOME RESTRICTIONS MAY APPLY).

FREE CONSULTS REALTOR

Ray A. Ruiz Licensed Real Estate Broker • Lic.19004 rruizrealestate1@gmail.com

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

7

Federal study of COVID treatments enters a new phase

By GINA KOLATA

A

large federal study that found an antiviral drug, remdesivir, can hasten the recovery in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, has begun a new phase of investigation.

Now it will examine whether adding another drug, beta interferon — which mainly kills viruses but can also tame inflammation — would improve remdesivir’s effects and speed recovery even more.

So far, remdesivir, an experimental drug, has received emergency use approval from the Food and Drug Administration to treat hospitalized COVID patients. In a large clinical trial, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, remdesivir was shown to modestly shorten recovery time, by four days, on average, but it did not reduce deaths.

The additional drug, beta interferon, has already been approved for treatment of multiple sclerosis, which takes advantage of its anti-inflammatory effect.

The U.S. trial, known as ACCT, is designed to move quickly. Known as an adaptive trial, it is a race between treatments. It tests one treatment against another and when results are in, the drug that won that phase becomes the control drug for the next phase, in which it is tested against a different drug.

The new phase is the study’s third. A total of 1,000 patients will receive either remdesivir and a placebo or remdesivir and beta interferon.

Interferon is given as an injection. Remdesivir, made

by Gilead Sciences, is given as an intravenous infusion.

A team of researchers held multiple group conference calls trying to select the new test drug for Phase 3, Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at the University of California in San Francisco, said.

Their first suggestion was to try adding an experimental drug made by Merck known as EIDD-2801, which, like remdesivir, is an antiviral but is a pill. But they wanted something that had already been approved and available for other diseases. They hoped that by showing that the new drug was effective, and had already been approved for other illnesses, that doctors could immediately give it to COVID patients.

The group also considered dexamethasone, a common steroid that seems to be effective in reducing the death rate in severely ill patients. The drug, which suppresses inflammation, might be even better when added to remdesivir, the researchers reasoned.

But they worried. Dexamethasone is inexpensive and easily available. With widespread publicity over its apparent effectiveness, many patients would balk at joining a study in which they might get a placebo.

Then the group weighed using beta interferon, which had several things going for it. It is on the market as a treatment for multiple sclerosis, because of its weak antiinflammatory properties. It kills the new coronavirus in laboratory studies and it wipes out severe acute respiratory

A total of 1,000 patients will receive either remdesivir and a placebo or remdesivir and beta interferon, a drug that kills viruses and stifles inflammation. syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome, which also are coronaviruses.

And, most impressive, Chin-Hong said, the drug was tested twice in COVID patients, with promising results. One test was in England, where beta interferon or a placebo was provided to 101 hospitalized patients. They inhaled it in a nebulizer, a device like the ones used to deliver asthma medications.

The study, although small, found that those who had received the drug recovered better than those who had received a placebo.

The other study, in Hong Kong, involved 127 patients who received beta interferon along with two antiviral drugs.

The patients were hospitalized but many were not severely ill.

The drug cocktail was superior to placebo in speeding recovery.

But the U.S. trial will be the only large rigorous trial to test beta interferon in COVID patients.

The first phase involving remdesivir began Feb. 21, testing the experimental drug against a placebo. That phase closed April 19 after 1,000 patients had been enrolled. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is sponsoring the study, announced preliminary results April 27.

The next phase began May 8, testing remdesivir and a placebo against remdesivir and baricitinib, an arthritis drug that quells inflammation. Researchers hoped that

the addition of the arthritis drug would improve patients’ outcomes by stemming an overreaction of the immune system to the virus, a so-called cytokine storm, which can occur in severely ill patients and can be lethal. After 1,000 patients were enrolled and followed, that part of the study was closed.

Results of Phase 2 are still being evaluated. Chin-Hong said that he and others were fairly certain that if adding the arthritis drug, baricitinib, were found to have helped at all, the effect would not have been huge. If the drug had demonstrated an impressive effect, the study’s data safety and monitoring board, which oversees the trial, would have halted it and given every patient remdesivir and baricitinib.

That combination would then have been the control drugs for Phase 3 of the study.

That did not happen.

Rather than wait while the data with baricitinib could be fully evaluated, the study has moved on to its next phase, testing remdesivir and placebo against remdesivir and beta interferon.

Enrollment began this month.

At the University of California in San Francisco and San Francisco General, nine patients have joined so far.

“We are approaching another today,” Chin-Hong said Monday.

8

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Will Coronavirus join the rush at fraternities and sororities?

By AMY HARMON, FRANCES ROBLES, ALAN BLINDER and THOMAS FULLER

T

he big bouquets of roses. The towering signs spelling out the letters of each house in Greek. And the hundreds of rushees clutching their acceptance envelopes as they run through campus together.

Bid day at the University of Alabama, when sororities decide which pledges will join their sisterhoods, is cause for celebration.

But this past weekend, women at the school, which has one of the biggest Greek systems in the country with 11,000 members, were warned not to party following their invitations to join any of two dozen sororities because of the potential spread of the coronavirus.

That did not stop all of them.

The bars and sidewalks along the Strip were crowded on Sunday as sorority members and other students reveled in their return-to-school rituals, sparking criticism from public officials, the fury of university officials and worries from other Tuscaloosans.

The concerns over Greek life come amid reports of virus outbreaks at fraternities and sororities across the country. Universities are struggling with how to prevent tightly packed sorority and fraternity houses from turning into coronavirus clusters.

At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, officials abruptly called off in-person classes on Monday after identifying four clusters in student housing facilities, including one at the Sigma Nu fraternity.

“The frats are being frats: They are having their parties,” Lamar Richards, a UNC sophomore, said.

The New York Times has identified at least 251 cases of the virus tied to fraternities and sororities. At the University of California, Berkeley, 47 cases were identified in a single week in early July, most of which were connected to the Greek system. In Mississippi, a significant outbreak in Oxford, home to the state’s flagship university, was partially blamed on fraternity parties. At the University of Washington’s Seattle campus, at least 165 of the 290 cases identified by the school have been associated with its Greek Row. As students return to campus, there have been virus outbreaks at residence halls and other university housing as well. More than 13,000 students, faculty and staff members at colleges have been infected with the coronavirus, according to a Times database of cases confirmed by schools and government agencies.

But fraternities and sororities have been

At least 165 of the 290 coronavirus cases at the University of Washington’s Seattle campus have been associated with its Greek Row. especially challenging for universities to regulate. Though they dominate social life on many campuses, their houses are often not owned or governed by the universities, and have frequently been the site of excessive drinking, sexual assault and hazing. That same lack of oversight, some experts say, extends to controlling the virus. Even on campuses that are offering online instruction only, people are still living in some sorority and fraternity houses.

“Fraternity and sorority homes have long functioned as a kind of ‘no-fly zone’ for university administrations,” said Matthew W. Hughey, a professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut who has studied Greek life and social inequality on campuses. “The structure that’s already been set up makes them harder to control when it comes to the transmission of disease.”

Among the 25 fraternity houses hosting students over the summer at the University of Washington, 15 of them suffered a coronavirus outbreak in the last week of July. At least 165 students of the 1,000 living there tested positive for the virus. Students quarantined within their fraternity houses, sometimes designating an entire floor for infected students. Across two of the facilities, 45 out of 65 students tested positive.

And at the University of Southern California, where classes — all held remotely — started on Monday, administrators have traced two outbreaks to fraternity houses over the past month, according to Dr. Sarah Van Orman, the university’s chief student health officer. In mid-July around 45 people tested positive for the virus, most of them mem-

bers of fraternities or sororities. And last week 15 people were found to be infected, some of them fraternity members and others who lived nearby.

“It’s very challenging for everyone during this time, but we know particularly for young adults who crave connection, who crave being together,” Van Orman said.

Some members say they are making the appropriate sacrifices, like not holding the social events that many look forward to as a way to relax, form friendships and recruit new members.

“We have a lot of rules in place. We can’t do a lot,” said Tyler Blaylock, a 21-year-old senior at Florida Gulf Coast University. “We can’t do functions, and if we got caught, we would get kicked off, so we are not messing around.”

Blaylock tested positive for COVID-19 in March, along with at least 10 other members of his Sigma Chi fraternity.

“My biggest thing is, I want to shake someone’s hand and get to know a guy,” Blaylock said.

“You can’t do that through Zoom.”

Fraternities and sororities say they have recommended significant departures from the familiar rhythms of Greek life to avoid spreading the virus.

The North American Interfraternity Conference, a trade association of 58 fraternities — about 85% of the total — said its members were following local public health guidelines regarding the size of group gatherings. And in some cases, their own social distancing rules are even more strict.

Fraternities at the University of Missouri, for instance, have suspended all gatherings on chapter property starting next week, despite guidelines

from the university that allow for gatherings of up to 20 people. A council made up of the fraternity chapters on campus recommended that each chapter allow members living in fraternity houses one guest at a time, and only in individual rooms, not in common spaces.

“Chapters will be met with strict consequences for violating the new rules,” the group’s board wrote in a memo last week.

On Monday, the National Panhellenic Conference, an umbrella organization covering 26 sororities with 400,000 undergraduate members, recommended that all sororities move to a fully virtual rush this fall.

Prospective members will be vetted on Zoom or other internet platforms, said Dani Weatherford, the organization’s chief executive.

Sorority houses are privately owned — usually by the local or national chapters of the organizations. But they often have agreements with universities that require them to adhere to campus rules on health and safety, Weatherford said. Most sororities are requiring members to sign “wellness pledges” in which they vow to check their temperature daily and be aware of symptoms — and take appropriate action if they have any.

At the University of Alabama, administrators recently visited sorority houses and issued new occupancy limits.

“They came into each one of the houses and said, ‘This is how many people can fit into this room socially distanced. This is how many people can sit in the dining room at any particular time,’” Weatherford said.

Some sororities hired a moving company to haul students’ belongings into their rooms, rather than having a parade of family members carrying things in.

Discipline for those who violate the rules is handled by each sorority, Weatherford said.

Robert Beyer, a senior at the University of Southern California, said he had observed good social distancing practices in neighborhoods around campus — except fraternity row, where he said he routinely saw large groups of students standing close together.

“Their attitudes are so selfish,” Beyer said.

“They don’t care about spreading it to other people.

I’ve heard people say, ‘It’s worth it to socialize and be with my friends even if it means getting COVID.’” Some students and faculty said university administrators, not Greek-system students, were to blame for bringing students back to campus and not reining in bad behavior: “I feel like the school should have more strictly enforced the parameters they set in the first place,” said Kesan Ucheya, 17, a freshman at the University of North Carolina.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

9

Bernie Sanders goes on attack against Trump and urges support for Biden

By MATT STEVENS

S

en. Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Monday assailed President Donald Trump, warning that he is leading America “down the path of authoritarianism,” while throwing the full weight of his support behind the candidate who bested him in the Democratic primary, Joe Biden.

In a prime-time speech at the Democratic National Convention, Sanders — an independent who is now a two-time runner-up for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president — argued that the progressive movement he has led for the past several years was “getting stronger every day.”

At the same time, although he sparred with Biden for months on the campaign trail, Sanders sought again Monday to rally his followers behind the more moderate former vice president, warning that “if Donald Trump is reelected, all the progress we have made will be in jeopardy.”

“My friends, I say to you, to everyone who supported other candidates in this primary, and to those who may have voted for Donald Trump in the last election: The future of our democracy is at stake. The future of our economy is at stake. The future of our planet is at stake,” Sanders, 78, said from Burlington, Vermont.

“We must come together, defeat Donald Trump and elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as our next president and vice president,” he added.

“My friends, the price of failure is just too great to imagine.”

The roughly eight-minute speech by Sanders was significantly shorter than the one he offered at the Democratic National Convention four years ago. And the atmosphere surrounding his speech this year was filled with far less tension and acrimony than in 2016.

Four years ago, Sanders had nominally lent his support to Hillary Clinton, but continued to assert that he had been mistreated during a

On the opening night of the Democratic National Convention, Senator Bernie Sanders encouraged his supporters to back Joseph R. Biden Jr. for president. contentious primary by biased party officials, pointing to hacked emails that showed some of them had preferred Clinton. That led to an air of grievance that persisted all the way to the convention.

But this time around, both Sanders and his backers have, for the most part, been willing to accept, if not embrace, the Democratic nominee and band together to oust Trump, who has become the primary target of much of their ire.

Speaking Monday, Sanders pledged to “work with progressives, with moderates and yes, with conservatives” to preserve American democracy.

And he said that while he and Biden “disagree on the best path to get universal coverage, he has a plan that will greatly expand health care and cut the cost of prescription drugs.”

Deploying a rhetorical strategy he leveraged often during his own campaign, Sanders listed the details

of Biden’s policy platform, including raising the minimum wage, paid family leave, lowering the eligibility age for Medicare and several criminal justice changes.

“Together we must build a nation that is more equitable, more compassionate and more inclusive,” Sanders said. “I know that Joe Biden will begin that fight on Day 1.”

Unlike in 2016, when he stayed in the Democratic primary race with Clinton for months and did not endorse her until days before the convention, Sanders dropped out of the 2020 primary in April and quickly gave his formal support to Biden. His relatively quick exit in the spring came just a few months after he performed well in Iowa, won New Hampshire and ran away with Nevada.

But the primary race turned in South Carolina, where Biden won a commanding victory. Sanders then suffered a string of losses on Super Tuesday, and with the pandemic

looming, he eventually conceded defeat to Biden.

Since exiting the primary, Sanders has focused on the coronavirus pandemic, which has revitalized support for Sanders’ signature policy proposal, “Medicare for All.” He has also sought to remain visible via livestream events, and has endorsed several progressives in primary contests.

In his speech Monday, Sanders called the November general election “the most important in the modern history of this country,” and implicitly cited the pandemic as one reason the progressive, youth-driven movement he has spearheaded for years must continue.

“In response to the unprecedented crises we face, we need an unprecedented response — a movement, like never before, of people who are prepared to stand up and fight for democracy and decency — and against greed, oligarchy and bigotry,” he said.

10

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Judge blocks Trump officials’ attempt to end transgender health protections

By MARGOT SANGER-KATZ and NOAH WEILAND

A

federal judge on Monday blocked an effort by the Trump administration to erase protections for transgender patients against discrimination by doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies, dealing a blow to the broader legal reasoning it has used to try to roll back transgender rights across the government.

Judge Frederic Block of the U.S.

District Court in Brooklyn found that the administration’s new rule, which was finalized in mid-June by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights, appeared to be incompatible with a Supreme Court case, decided days later, establishing that employers cannot discriminate against transgender people in the workplace.

His ruling temporarily blocks enforcement of the new rule, which was due to take effect Tuesday, while a lawsuit moved forward.

“When the Supreme Court announces

A pedestrian holds up a Pride flag in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, June 15, 2020.

a major decision, it seems a sensible thing to pause and reflect on the decision’s impact,” Block wrote. “Since HHS has been unwilling to take that path voluntarily, the court now imposes it.”

The legal issues in the two cases are closely related: Both hinge on what it means to discriminate on the basis of sex.

The administration’s position was that discrimination against transgender people was not discrimination because of sex, a view that has informed policies not only in health care but in employment, education and housing policy.

“HHS took a position on that issue, as it was entitled to do,” Block wrote. “But that position was effectively rejected by the Supreme Court.”

A spokeswoman for the Office for Civil Rights said the office was disappointed by the ruling. The Justice Department, which is arguing the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The rule at issue sought to reinterpret a civil rights provision of the Affordable Care Act that barred discrimination in health care settings on the basis of race, national origin, sex, age or disability.

The meaning of those words for transgender patients has been subject to legal disputes for years. An earlier rule from the Obama administration would have required insurance companies to cover and health care providers to offer medical care for transgender patients.

Critics challenged that rule in court, to mixed

results. Several district courts upheld the policy, but a judge in Fort Worth, Texas, said the rule had been legally invalid and issued a nationwide injunction to block its enforcement.

Trump administration officials quickly scuttled the original rule after taking office, citing the Texas ruling as requiring a different approach.

But the legal landscape has changed since the Supreme Court’s employment case, known as Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia. Several legal experts predicted that the case would most likely change the courts’ approach to the health care rule, because the language in the Affordable Care Act was so similar to that of the employment discrimination statute at issue in Bostock.

The ruling Monday came from the Eastern District of New York, in a case brought

by Tanya Asapansa-Johnson Walker and Cecilia Gentili, two transgender women. Litigants have brought similar suits in several other jurisdictions.

It was cheered by human rights organizations and Democratic lawmakers, who had joined the case as friend-of-the-court litigants.

In a statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called it “a victory for the LGBTQ community and the rule of law.”

But the order is not final. Block will still read briefs and hear arguments from both sides of the case before issuing a final opinion.

And any decision will still be subject to appeal.

On centennial of 19th Amendment, Trump pardons Susan B. Anthony

By MAGGIE HABBERMAN

P

resident Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would pardon Susan B. Anthony, the women’s suffragist who was arrested after voting illegally in 1872 and charged a $100 fine, as he tried to appeal to female voters on the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment giving them the right to vote.

The pardon appeared to be an effort to distract from the Democratic National Convention and narrow the historically large gender gap that has him trailing Joe Biden in the White House race.

“She was never pardoned. Did you know that? She was never pardoned,” Trump said. “What took so long?”

Trump teased the pardon as he traveled

on Air Force One on Monday, telling reporters he was going to erase the conviction of someone “very, very important.”

Anthony was tried for illegally voting, and protested the fine that she was charged.

“She was guilty for voting,” Trump said, “and we’re going to be signing a full and complete pardon.”

Unlike other pardons that the president has given, Anthony is not someone whose work Trump has spoken of either in his campaign or during his presidency.

She is also an increasingly divisive figure, adopted by anti-abortion forces and criticized for relegating Black suffragists to the sidelines.

On Tuesday, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion political group, and Cleta Mitchell, an attorney

who represents conservative groups, were in attendance as Trump made his announcement.

He has pardoned or granted clemency to a number of people he personally knows, such as the former governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, who was serving a prison sentence related to conviction on corruption charges. Trump recently granted clemency to his longtime political adviser, Roger Stone, who was convicted on several charges stemming from the investigation into possible conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

Trump, who has repeatedly been accused of sexual harassment or assault and who has often made degrading comments about women, is facing a deep gender gap in his campaign against Biden. On Tuesday, surroun-

ded by several female supporters, Trump declared that “women dominate the United States” and complained that the coronavirus had darkened the economic picture for women.

People close to the president said that Trump was seeking to create a news story during the Democrats’ convention, where Biden will be nominated.

Advisers believe that unlike some of Trump’s other pardons or grants of clemency, it will be harder to criticize an action benefiting a woman whose actions helped lead to women’s right to vote.

Whether that is the case remains to be seen. Trump has seen an erosion of support with suburban women during his presidency, and his response to the coronavirus pandemic has not helped him.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

11

Trump’s attacks on TikTok and WeChat could further fracture the Internet

By ANA SWANSON, PAUL MOZUR and RAYMOND ZHONG

C

hina and the United States once acted like opposites when it came to governing the internet.

Beijing imposed a heavy state hand. It blocked major foreign websites, sheltered Chinese tech firms as they developed alternatives to Western rivals and kept a tight grip on what people said online. The United States stood for a global openness that helped a generation of internet Goliaths dominate worldwide.

But when President Donald Trump issued executive orders that could lead to a U.S. ban next month on two of the world’s most popular Chinese-made apps, TikTok and WeChat, the White House signaled a new willingness to adopt Beijing’s exclusionary tactics. Trump went further Friday, ordering ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, to give up its U.S. assets and any data that TikTok had gathered in the United States.

On Monday, the administration also clamped down further on Huawei by restricting the Chinese tech giant’s ability to buy computer chips produced abroad using American technology.

That followed a White House initiative this month to begin purging Chinese apps and telecom companies from U.S. networks, saying they posed a security threat.

Together, the moves herald a new, more invasive U.S. philosophy of tech regulation, one that hews closer to China’s protectionist one, though without the aims of censoring content and controlling the populace. The shift could hurt American internet giants like Facebook and Google, which have greatly benefited from the borderless digital terroir outside China, as well as Chinese internet giants like Tencent and Alibaba, which have tried to expand into the West.

If more countries follow Trump by basing digital controls on diplomatic allegiances, protectionist aims or new concerns about the security of their citizens, the internet could become more of a patchwork of fiefs as varied as the visa policies that fragment world travel.

“A wholesale ban will undoubtedly trigger retaliation and may contribute to the type of fracturing of the internet that we have witnessed in recent years, and which authoritarian governments favor,” said Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab research group at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

China and the United States have different starting points when it comes to governing hightech industries. The Communist Party has no tolerance for its citizens speaking out against it online

or organizing outside its sphere of control. It has also made no secret of its ambitions to cultivate Chinese companies’ expertise in advanced technologies, which foreign competitors say sometimes leads authorities to give local firms unfair advantages.

The White House orders on TikTok and WeChat, expected to take effect Sept. 20, were framed as measures to defend American citizens against the threat of data gathering by Beijing.

They also appear to stem from the idea that China should be punished in kind for violating democratic norms. This principle of reciprocity has guided the Trump administration’s recent confrontations with Beijing over trade, industrial policy and the news media.

Yet when applied to internet governance, reciprocity could carry a heavy price for the United States. While few countries have fully embraced China’s walled-garden approach to cyberspace, many governments are uneasy with the dominance of American giants like Facebook, Google and Amazon within their borders, and are considering new taxes and restrictions on their operations.

As the Trump administration cracks down on TikTok and WeChat, other nations may start to see their dependence on U.S. technology providers in a different light.

Already, Vietnam and Turkey have tightened control over American social media. Across much of the developing world, Chinese software and social media companies have a good shot at beating out Western ones, Deibert said. China has worked for years to expand its influence in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, and Chinese smartphone and telecom equipment makers have already won footholds there by focusing on providing the lowest-cost gear.

A White House spokesman, Judd Deere, said in a statement that the administration was “committed to protecting the American people from all cyber-related threats to critical infrastructure, public health and safety, and our economic and national security.”

A spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, Wang Wenbin, this month called Trump’s executive orders “nothing short of bullying.”

Wang did not address China’s own restrictions on American websites, saying only that other countries might begin using national security as an excuse to act against U.S. companies. “The United States must not open Pandora’s box, or it will suffer the consequences,” he said.

China’s digital cleaving dates to the late 1990s, when it began constructing the Great Firewall, a sophisticated set of internet controls.

Viewing the internet inside China as an issue of

The president’s restrictions on Chinese tech may be part of an eye-for-an-eye logic called reciprocity. national sovereignty, Beijing heavily censored online content and over time blocked Google searches, social media like Facebook and Twitter, and news sites including The New York Times.

Behind that wall, Chinese internet companies like Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent, the maker of WeChat, thrived on a huge captive market.

But China also tried to play it both ways as these companies began expanding into regions such as Southeast Asia and Europe.

In a May 29 speech in the Rose Garden, Trump criticized China for stealing American intellectual property, violating its commitments to the World Trade Organization and raiding U.S. factories. But he said he “never solely blamed China” for those actions.

“They were able to get away with a theft like no one was able to get away with before because of past politicians and, frankly, past presidents,” he said. “But unlike those who came before, my administration negotiated and fought for what was right. It’s called fair and reciprocal treatment.”

Trump has seen the appeal of Chinese-style policies in other areas as well. He praised China’s leader, Xi Jinping, for extending his own term limits. He curtailed access for Chinese journalists and researchers in the United States, mirroring Beijing’s media restrictions. Trump’s advisers and others in Congress have also pointed to Chinese industrial policies as evidence that the United States should put more funding toward its high-tech sectors.

Elsewhere, the Trump administration is still pushing for a more open internet and fighting for the interests of its tech giants by opposing other countries’ efforts to regulate their digital econo-

mies.

This includes an offensive against new or proposed digital services taxes in countries including France, Britain, Italy and India, which would fall heavily on Google and Amazon. The administration has also objected to European efforts to address privacy concerns by blocking the flow of consumer data to the United States.

In its executive orders restricting WeChat and TikTok, the White House pointed to a recent move by India to ban the two apps. To some in Washington, that seemed like a bizarre rationale, given how vociferously the United States has criticized India’s use of protectionist policies in other areas.

Clete Willems, a partner at Akin Gump and a former trade official in the Trump administration, said the executive orders were motivated by national security concerns, not by reciprocity.

“A lot of people have asked: ‘Should China be angry? Twitter is already banned. Google is already banned. How angry can China be?’ But we’re not just copying their playbook,” Willems said. “The administration is trying to respond to what it sees as a legitimate national security threat.”

Others said out-and-out bans, if not coupled with more meaningful regulation, might prove self-defeating.

“There’s a strong argument to be made that the Great Firewall of China was the first salvo in this battle,” said Samm Sacks, a fellow at the New America think tank. “My response to that is: Is mirroring the Chinese government’s approach the right way? Is that even going to make us more secure?”

12

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

The recession is about to slam cities. Not just the blue-state ones.

By EMILY BADGER and QUOCTRUNG BUI

T

he coronavirus recession will erode city budgets in many insidious ways. It will slash the casino revenues that Detroit relies on. It will squeeze the state aid that is a lifeblood to Rochester and Buffalo in upstate New York. It will cut the sales tax revenue in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where a healthy government depends on people buying things.

The crisis has arrived faster than the damage from the Great Recession ever did. And it will cut deep in the fiscal year ahead, with many communities likely to lose 10% or more of the revenue they would have seen without the pandemic, according to a new analysis. That’s enough for residents to experience short-staffed libraries, strained parks departments and fewer road projects. The hardest-hit cities like Rochester and Buffalo could face 20% losses.

“The Great Recession was a story of long, drawn-out fiscal pain — this is sharper,” said Howard Chernick, a professor emeritus of economics at Hunter College and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, who worked on the new analysis estimating revenue shortfalls for 150 major cities across the nation.

These numbers give a sense of the possible economic pain for cities if Congress and the White House fail to agree on a new relief package that includes aid to state and local governments. It also rebuts some of the prevailing, largely Republican arguments that have stalled those negotiations: that federal help will bail out only blue cities and those that have mismanaged their finances.

Many cities facing steep losses are in states represented by Republican senators, like Florida or Louisiana. And the analysis found little relationship between whether a place was fiscally healthy before the pandemic and the most dire projections of revenue shortfalls.

What matters more in this pandemic moment is how a city generates money: Those highly dependent on tourism, on direct state aid or on volatile sales taxes will hurt the most. Cities like Boston, which rely heavily on property taxes that offer the most stable revenue, are in the strongest position — for now.

The estimates, to be published in the National Tax Journal by Chernick, David Copeland at Georgia State University and Andrew Reschovsky at the University of Wisconsin, are based on the mix of local revenue sources, the importance of state aid and the composition of jobs and wages in each city. The researchers predict average revenue shortfalls in the 2021 fiscal year of about 5.5% in a less severe scenario, or 9% in a more severe one.

These projections cover not just municipal

Rochester, N.Y., May 11, 2020, which relies heavily on state aid, already has deferred millions of dollars of nonessential expenses. budgets but also every local government entity that spends money on services to residents in a given city, including counties and sewer or school districts (those budgets are adjusted for the share of residents who live within city borders). As the pandemic has worsened in many parts of the country this summer, the researchers now believe their severe forecasts are more likely.

Some of the most vulnerable cities are those like Rochester that rely heavily on state aid, which is also likely to shrink, as it did in the Great Recession.

Rochester already has deferred millions of dollars of nonessential expenses like new uniforms or firetrucks. It furloughed or reduced the hours of about 1 in 10 city workers, many of whom will return as the city reopens further. Officials delayed an incoming class of new police recruits and canceled the next class of firefighters.

“We can’t produce money, we can’t borrow our way out of this, we can’t tax our way out of this,” Mayor Lovely Warren said. “But our residents expect that the trash will be picked up on trash day. They expect that the snow will be plowed when it snows. They expect that when they call 911 that a police officer will show up.

“For Washington to ignore that reality — it hurts.”

“It’s wrong to punish the victim,” she added.

“The city here is the victim.”

Other cities heavily dependent on sales taxes felt the implosion of the economy more immediately than cities that count on income or property taxes. Revenue from income taxes will lag behind unemployment; property taxes are set a year or two in advance. Consumer spending, particularly by the biggest spenders, dropped sharply early in the pandemic. And it is expected to fall now for millions of workers whose added $600 federal

unemployment benefits expired at the end of July.

Broad shifts in how Americans eat during the pandemic have affected tax receipts as well: Restaurant meals are taxed, but in most states the groceries people cook at home are not.

In Colorado Springs, which relies heavily on sales taxes, those revenues plummeted in late

March and April. But they crept back in May and, to everyone’s surprise, the city saw slightly more in sales tax revenues in June than it did in June of last year. Mayor John Suthers attributes that to the resilience of the local military and defense sectors — and to all the online shopping residents have been doing.

Thanks to a 2018 court ruling, states can now collect sales taxes on purchases through Amazon or other online retailers, regardless of whether those retailers have a physical presence locally. That’s a silver lining.

“Without the Supreme Court’s intervention, in the last three years this would have been a whole different ballgame for us,” Suthers said.

At risk is not just services for local residents in any given city, but the possibility that disparities will widen between cities that can weather this crisis and those that can’t, if they are largely left on their own.

“One legacy of the Great Recession was exposing and increasing inequities between communities,” said Amanda Kass, associate director of the Government Finance Research Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Now those disparities could grow even wider.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

13 Stocks

Big Tech drives S&P 500 to record high in coronavirus rally

T

he S&P 500 hit a record high on Tuesday, thanks largely to months of outperformance from Amazon (AMZN.O) and other heavyweight technology companies viewed by investors as likely to emerge from the coronavirus crisis stronger than smaller rivals.

The widely followed index’s most valuable companies have surged this year, with Apple (AAPL.O), Microsoft and Amazon each up between 33% and 72% year to date.

ABIOMED (ABMD.O), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN.O) and West Pharmaceutical Services (WST.N), all involved in developing and selling therapies for the coronavirus, have risen over 50% since the S&P 500’s previous record high in February.

Trillions of dollars of monetary and economic stimulus aimed at reducing the economic fallout for tens of millions of Americans out of work because of the coronavirus have driven the S&P 500 up more than 50% from its March 23 low, with the benchmark now up nearly 5% for 2020.

While the pandemic has forced many restaurants and shops out of business, large supermarkets and retailers with strong online sales have grown. Thanks mostly to Amazon, the S&P 500 consumer discretionary index .SPLRCD has gained 23% in 2020, making it the second-strongest performer among 11 sector indexes, below technology.

The information technology index .SPLRCT has jumped 25% year to date, lifted by Microsoft, Apple, Mastercard (MA.N) and other companies seeing stronger demand for their products and services as people staying at home do more shopping online.

While some investors worry that the rally since March has been concentrated largely among tech companies, others have confidence that these stocks’ gains are justified as the pandemic leads to a sharp increase in online shopping, cloud computing and other uses of technology.

“These are firms that have solid fundamentals that are superior to the broader market and will benefit from recent trends. We do not find that this high concentration is a source of systemic risk,” said Benjamin Jones, senior multiasset strategist at State Street Global Markets.

With the U.S. corporate earnings season mostly completed, a record number of companies have beaten dramatically lowered estimates. But the second quarter is still set to be the low point for earnings this year.

Even after a recent modest improvement in profit estimates, the S&P 500 is trading at about 22 times expected earnings, its highest multiple since the dot com era two decades ago.

MOST ASSERTIVE STOCKS

PUERTO RICO STOCKS

COMMODITIES

CURRENCY

LOCAL PERSONAL LOAN RATES Bank

LOCAL MORTGAGE RATES Bank

FHA 30-YR POINTS CONV 30-YR POINTS

BPPR Scotia CooPACA Money House First Mort Oriental

3.00% 0.00 3.50% 0.00 3.50% 2.00 3.75% 2.00 3.50% 0.00 3.50% 0.00

3.50% 000 4.00% 0.00 3.75% 2.00 3.75% 2.00 5.50% 0.00 3.75% 5.50

PERS.

CREDIT CARD

AUTO

BPPR --.-- 17.95 4.95 Scotia 4.99 14.99 4.99 CooPACA

6.95 9.95

2.95

Reliable

--.-- --.--

4.40

First Mort 7.99 --.-- --.-Oriental 4.99 11.95 4.99

14

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Struggling under lockdown, schools worldwide relearn the value of TV

Delia Huamani, 10, watches a broadcasting of remote school lessons at her home in Pedregal, Peru, Aug. 13, 2020.

By BENJAMIN MUELLER and MITRA TAJ

I

n a hillside shantytown of Lima, Peru, Delia Huamani’s school day starts not with the bustle of classmates, but with the flicker of a television. With physical schools closed indefinitely, she gets her lessons at home, from the country’s brand-new library of slickly made educational broadcasts.

As a substitute, it’s far from perfect. Delia, 10, says her parents cannot afford books — she misses reading about animals in the school library — and she has no one to check her work.

She leans on her friend Katy Bautista, 12, who wishes she could ask the television presenters to slow down during difficult lessons.

“When we go to pick up food from the soup kitchen, we talk to each other and explain things to one another,” Delia said of Katy recently. “Or sometimes she explains things to me; I don’t explain anything. But she does, and that’s why she’s a good friend.”

Yet for all its limitations, televised schooling has one enormous advantage for Delia, Katy and many more of the 1 billion children worldwide who are shut out of schools by the coronavirus pandemic: It can reach them.

In wealthy countries, the debates over how to deliver education remotely have focused on how to make online classes engaging and interactive. But such talk is sheer fantasy for many of the world’s students, including millions in affluent nations, who do not have broadband con-

nections or computers.

After decades of declining relevance in the face of heavy investment in internet learning, educational television is again having its moment. Educators and governments scattered around the world, desperate to avoid a longterm setback for an entire generation of children, are turning to the older technology.

And they are calling on the charm and glamour of locally known actors and news hosts,

as well as teachers, to try to hold the attention of students from preschool to high school. They say they are heeding the cardinal lesson of the YouTube era — the shorter and snazzier, the better.

“Ideally, one would have, like, laptops and all these super fancy things at home,” said Raissa Fabregas, a professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, who has studied educational television in Mexico.

“But if you don’t have them, this is better than nothing.”

While television lessons are not as valuable as online interactions with teachers and other students, experts say, educational broadcasts do pay dividends for children’s academic progress, their success in the job market and even their social development.

To make lessons less passive and more effective, many of the lessons being broadcast now use all the tools of professional studios, like eye-pleasing sets, script writers, 3D animation, multicamera shoots, graphics and even related smartphone apps.

In the United States, where education varies widely because it is handled at the local level, some places have paid little attention to developing remote learning, focused instead on an ill-fated effort to reopen schools. Others have worked hard to develop robust online programs.

But that is of no use to the 4 million schoolchildren who do not have internet access at home, a difficulty especially prevalent among Black, Latino and Indigenous students.

Women in Pedregal, Peru serve hot meals to fellow residents at a community soup kitchen, Aug. 13, 2020.

Television holds promise as a low-cost complement to online schooling and a lifeline for students with few other resources. A vast catalog of educational programming exists, but analysts say policymakers have mostly missed an opportunity to make use of it.

“How many parents right now are just trying to figure out how to get through the day while their kids are just watching TV or on the iPad?” said Melissa S. Kearney, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland, who has published research about “Sesame Street.”

“We could do a lot of good if people who are in a position of trust with those families could point them to some of that positive content.”

Since March, many parts of the world have resorted to televised schooling, with an array of strategies. The programs range from recordings of classroom lessons to educational cartoons, and from local efforts to national ones.

Some focus on one age group, while others, like Peru, have adapted the national curriculum for all grades.

Many parts of China offered a blend of online and televised classes, but Sichuan province chose to broadcast all of its lessons on television because the government said it worried about students spending too long on their computers.

In Tanzania, Ubongo, an organization that makes popular educational cartoons aimed at younger children as well as parents, decided to offer its programs for free to television stations across Africa.

“Outside of Africa, there’s been a push for internet-based learning,” said Cliodhna Ryan, head of education at Ubongo. “But in most African countries, the majority of children just do not have that access. At the end of the day, the best educational tool someone has is the one they already have in their possession.”

New Jersey’s public television station, NJTV, began working with the state’s teachers’ union to produce school programs after learning that 300,000 of the state’s children had no internet access, said John Servidio, the station’s general manager.

In Indonesia, too, the pandemic has helped revive a state-owned television network, TVRI. In a country where nearly a third of people are not connected to the internet, TVRI began broadcasting ‘Belajar Dari Rumah’ — Studying from Home — in April to children of all ages.

Parents have not been entirely receptive.

Many Indonesians, for example, say they do not have enough education themselves — or enough time — to take on teaching responsibili-

The San Juan Daily Star ties at home. Many are demanding that more schools reopen, despite only a portion of the country having been deemed safe for in-person classes.

Analysts say it is too early to know how effective televised schooling has been during lockdown, but there is scattered evidence that past efforts have been effective.

In Mexico, a long-running program of broadcasting lessons to students in rural areas led children to stay in school for longer and earn more as adults. Kearney and a colleague found that children in the United States with access to “Sesame Street” programming were more likely to be at an age-appropriate grade level.

To solve the biggest drawback of televised learning — the lack of interaction and feedback from teachers — some places have designed ways for teachers to monitor students’ progress.

Many of them rely on cellphones, which are far more common in poor regions of the world than broadband hookups, though even access to a phone can be a barrier.

The state of Amazonas, in Brazil, offers a smartphone app to supplement televised schooling, allowing students to ask their teachers questions in real time.

“The students watch the TV, and we have one teacher on-screen and another one off to the side mediating the comments that come in through the chat room,” said Sabrina Emanuela de Melo Araujo, a high school biology teacher.

Ubongo, the Tanzania-based cartoon maker, has paired its programs with a smartphone app offering support to parents and students. And teachers and students around the world use messaging services like WhatsApp to stay in contact.

Peru, a poor nation of 32 million people, has suffered one of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks, with an official count of more

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

than 500,000 cases and 25,000 deaths — figures that experts say do not capture the true toll.

In a country where only 15% of public school students have access to a computer at home, broadcast lessons have become the dominant mode of learning during the pandemic.

In a government survey in June, three-quarters of parents said their children used the televised programs, compared to a quarter who used the government’s educational website. Nearly all sent homework to teachers through WhatsApp. Early broadcasts addressed virus-related topics like good hygiene and avoiding disinformation. More recent ones have combined traditional lessons with made-for-television twists: For a high school math class, a real teacher calls in to correct a presenter’s faulty grasp of statistics.

“It’s advantageous for students who know how to learn on their own,” said Heli Estela, a high school teacher in the Andean region of Cajamarca in northern Peru. “And we have students like that, with initiative, who figure it out on their own. But there aren’t many of them.”

He has seen the effort stumble, repeatedly. Early in the pandemic, he said, he paid his internet provider more than $100 to install an antenna because his own connection was so slow. Estela messages students over WhatsApp to supplement television and radio lessons, but trying to explain concepts individually has been difficult.

In a district where many parents are subsistence farmers, some of his 47 students have lost access to televisions when their families had to move around the countryside for work. A dozen have failed to report back at all. Others seem to be cheating on their homework.

“To really start remote education, first you have to make sure everyone has internet,” he said, “but this disease didn’t give us any warning.”

Miriam Flores homeschools Yois Vasquez as a free daycare service she offers to single mothers in Lima, Peru, Aug. 13, 2020.

15

16

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

She was a Communist Party insider in China. Then she denounced Xi.

By CHRIS BUCKLEY

D

uring her career teaching at the Communist Party’s top academy, Cai Xia cheered on signs that China’s leaders might ease their political grip, making her an uncommonly prominent voice for democratic change near the heart of the party.

Now Cai has turned her back on such hopes, and the party has turned against her.

She has become the latest intellectual punished for challenging the hard-line policies of the current leader, Xi Jinping.

The Central Party School in Beijing, where Cai taught for 15 years until 2012, announced Monday that she had been expelled from the Communist Party after she denounced both the party and Xi in recent speeches and essays.

“This party has become a political zombie,” she had said in a talk that circulated online last month, apparently spurring the party school to take action. “This system, fundamentally speaking, has to be jettisoned.”

In an interview from the United States, where she has lived since last year, Cai quoted from a copy of the party school’s internal decision that said she had “maliciously smeared the image of the party and the country, and rabidly insulted the party and state leader.”

“Cai Xia’s attitude has been vile,” the party school said, “and she showed not the slightest contrition for her erroneous statements.”

Cai returned fire, accusing Xi of undermining China’s prospects for peaceful democratization and recklessly alienating the United States and other powers.

Xi “bears a great deal of culpability,” Cai said during the long, sometimes tearful interview Tuesday about her evolution from party insider to apostate. “But for one person to do ill over a long time, and for the whole party to not utter a word, that clearly shows that the party’s system and bodies have big

In an undated photo, Cai Xia, a former professor at the Central Party School, who had called the Chinese Communist Party a “political zombie.” problems.”

Cai, 67, is among a cluster of Chinese dissenters who have recently decried Xi’s policies, including his handling of the coronavirus outbreak and imposition of a national security law on Hong Kong.

Two of those critics, Xu Zhangrun and Ren Zhiqiang, already faced retribution last month. Xu, a law professor, was detained for a few days and dismissed from his post at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Ren, a once wellconnected property developer, was expelled from the party, accused of corruption and put under criminal investigation after he derided Xi’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.

Incensed by the treatment of Xu and Ren, Cai has spoken out in their defense.

“They have persecuted Xu Zhangrun by ruining his reputation, humiliating his dignity, stripping him of his right to work and

cutting off his livelihood,” she wrote in an essay published by Radio Free Asia last month.

“This is openly intimidating all in the Chinese scholarly community, inside and outside the system.”

Such vocal critics are few in China, where censorship and political pressure have intensified under Xi. But bigger numbers of disgruntled liberals are quietly waiting for a crisis that could shake Xi’s power, said Deng Yuwen, a former editor at Study Times, a newspaper issued by the Central Party School. The academy trains rising officials in political doctrine, party history and other subjects.

“Based on my observations, a considerable number of reformists inside the party are despairing, like Cai Xia,” Deng said in a telephone interview from the United States, where he now lives. “But for the most part they put the blame on Xi Jinping and are waiting for some kind of error by Xi to reinvigorate reformist forces within the party.”

In the interview, Cai argued that in the longer term, Xi’s policies would push China toward a political crisis by isolating the country and extinguishing domestic hopes for orderly economic and political relaxation.

She said that she supported the tough line that the Trump administration has taken against the Chinese government on trade and other issues, even if she had qualms about some of its tactics. And she maintained that China’s harsh measures to suppress the spread of the coronavirus had become a drive to spread surveillance into every corner of society.

After Xi abolished a term limit on the Chinese presidency in 2018, in effect opening the way for an extended stay in power, Cai told a party school official that such a move would hurt China’s international image, she said.

“I said, ‘You are forcing Western countries into a showdown with us,’” she recalled.

Cai was raised in a family steeped in Communist values in eastern China. For a decade, she was one of the most well-known scholars at the Central Party School.

Under Jiang Zemin, the leader who brought China into the World Trade Organization in 2001, Cai promoted Jiang’s opening of the party to more businesspeople and professionals. Then and later, she often appeared in the Chinese news media, arguing that the party could be a vehicle for steady political and economic liberalization.

In private, Cai said, she became increasingly frustrated with party leaders’ unwillingness to match economic changes with political ones. She was disheartened by the dour authoritarian ways of Jiang’s successor, Hu Jintao, then even more alarmed by the draconian turn of Xi, who took power in 2012, after Hu. Cai said that the incident that broke her waning faith in the party was not a great crisis, but the government’s handling of the death of Lei Yang, a Chinese environmentalist who died in police custody in 2016. The police accused him of hiring prostitutes, a claim that Cai and other supporters said was slander aimed at diluting public anger over his death.

“That incident left me totally disillusioned,” she said, pausing to choke back tears. “Their methods were despicable to an extreme that surpassed anything we could imagine.”

Cai faces daunting uncertainties in her new home in the United States. The party school cut off her pension and other retirement benefits, and she said she would probably be detained if she returned to China. But she said she felt relieved that now she could fully speak her mind.

“In my own mind, I’ve long wanted to resign from the party,” she said. “Now that they’ve expelled me, I’m really happy, because at last I’ve regained my freedom.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

17

Boris Johnson retreats in a U.K. exam debacle

By STEPHEN CASTLE

B

arraged by protests from angry teachers, parents and students, the British government has abandoned the improvised college-entrance exam system it cobbled together for schools in England after the pandemic made traditional testing impossible.

Critics said the government’s approach discriminated against economically disadvantaged students — and pointed to the results as proof. When they were released, tens of thousands of students learned that their preliminary grades had been lowered.

On Monday, after insisting it would not make changes to the complex grading system, the government scrapped it completely.

“I am sorry for the distress this has caused young people and their parents but hope this announcement will now provide the certainty and reassurance they deserve,” the British education secretary, Gavin Williamson, said in a statement. He said it had been “an extraordinarily difficult year for young people.”

It was the latest policy reversal from a government already much criticized for its handling of the coronavirus. It was also a fresh setback for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who bowed to overwhelming political pressure to retreat, agreeing to the shift during talks by phone from a vacation in Scotland and then leaving it to his education secretary to make the apologies.

The problem began after Britain went into lockdown and schools were closed to most pupils. That made it impossible to hold the standardized examinations, known as A-levels, that are the main factor in determining college entrance.

Instead, teachers provided predicted scores based on students’ previous work and practice A-levels. These estimates were then reviewed by an education regulator, Ofqual, which used an algorithm that took into account each school’s past exam performance.

The architects of this system regarded teachers as generally too optimistic about the prospects of their students. Accepting teachers’ predictions at face value, regulators worried, could lead to “grade inflation.”

When the review was over, around 40% of the predicted grades — around 280,000 in all — were downgraded. Only about 2% of marks increased.

The main victims, said critics, were bright pupils from less affluent backgrounds whose schools had not previously performed well.

On Monday, Williamson agreed to accept teachers’ predictions, acknowledging that “the process of allocating grades has resulted in more significant inconsistencies than can be resolved through an appeals process.”

The same approach will also be adopted for another exam, the GCSE, which is taken by students around age 16. Those results are scheduled to be announced this week.

The decision is likely to be greeted with relief by

Students protesting outside the Department for Education in London on Sunday. those who argued that any other course of action would be a betrayal of the prime minister’s promise to “level up” opportunities across Britain.

But the debacle cast a harsh light on the competence of a government widely criticized for its slowness to order a coronavirus lockdown, for delays in setting up its track-and-trace system, and for an erratic approach to quarantine rules for those arriving in the country.

Under Johnson’s leadership, Britain has suffered one of the sharpest economic contractions in Europe, as well as one of its highest death tolls from the pandemic.

A previous plan to get most younger children back to school in England before the summer break was abandoned, and the furor over examinations bears many of the hallmarks of a government slow to identify looming problems or even to recognize the warning signs of a political crisis.

In this case, Johnson initially defended the algorithmic review system as “robust” and “dependable,” despite the immediate outcry, and even when Scotland reversed course after similar protests last week.

Over the weekend, Williamson insisted that there would be “no U-turn, no change.”

Guidance on how to appeal the downgraded examination results was withdrawn only hours after it was issued, compounding the confusion.

“Incompetence has become this government’s watchword,” said Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party, in a Twitter post.

Yet the pressure also came from Conservative lawmakers who believe that young people have suffered significantly from the lockdown and that downgrading so many results was simply unfair.

“This group of young people have lost out on so much already, we must ensure that bright, capable students can progress on their next step,” wrote one government minister, Penny Mordaunt, on Twitter.

The conservative-leaning Daily Telegraph newspaper was scathing in an editorial, declaring that “the exams fiasco in England beggars belief, given the time authorities have had to prepare.”

“Even if they had failed to do so until recently, they were given a clear warning signal from Scotland that a storm was looming,” the editorial said. “Yet, rather than change tack, they sailed straight into it with calamitous consequences.”

Before the government backed down on the exams Monday, one veteran Conservative politician and former education secretary, Kenneth Baker, warned that the crisis risked alienating not just those young people deprived of college places but also their parents, grandparents, friends and relatives.

“The damage is absolutely enormous,” Baker, now a member of the House of Lords, told Times Radio.

18

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

Michelle Obama showed us why these Democrats are our last best hope

By FRANK BRUNI

I

think I’m supposed to question whether the Democratic Party can really stretch far enough in opposite directions to accommodate a democratic socialist like Bernie Sanders and an estranged Republican like John Kasich, transcendently strange bedfellows who spoke and served as ideological poles on the opening night of whatever we’re calling this shrunken, not-in-Milwaukee, pandemic-warped political jubilee.

I should probably describe that warping, review the attendant adjustments and find fault here, there and everywhere, because that’s what we pundits do. We quibble. We naysay. We’re insufferable that way.

But this isn’t a time for business as usual. It isn’t a usual time. I’m not referring to the coronavirus per se, to the history-making selection of a Black woman as the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential nominee or to any one facet, any one dynamic of the days before us. I’m referring to the stakes of the days ahead. They’re immeasurable.

Never in my 55 years has the Democrats’ success mattered more for the welfare, the sanity — the future — of these United States than now, because never has the other fork in the road been a Republican president as profoundly amoral, fundamentally corrupt and flatly incompetent as the one seeking four more years.

Donald Trump has made clear that he’s willing to

PO BOX 6537 Caguas PR 00726 Telephones: (787) 743-3346 • (787) 743-6537 (787) 743-5606 • Fax (787) 743-5100

Dr. Ricardo Angulo Publisher Manuel Sierra

Ray Ruiz

General Manager

Legal Notice Director

María de L. Márquez

Sharon Ramírez

Business Director

Legal Notices Graphics Manager

R. Mariani

Elsa Velázquez

Circulation Director

Reporter

Lisette Martínez

María Rivera

Advertising Agency Director

Graphic Artist Manager

In this image from video, the former first lady Michelle Obama speaks during the first night of the Democratic National Convention on Monday. steal this election from Joe Biden if that’s the only way to “win.” He has in fact commenced that heist. He’s ready to smash all faith in our institutions and all pride in our democratic system and fashion a throne amid the wreckage. And he has a shockingly large number of accomplices — including, to date, most of the Republicans in Congress — who are cheering him on or biting their tongues to the point of hemorrhage.

In the context of that, what I saw on Monday night wasn’t something to be parsed or graded. It was something to rush toward and relish: a buffet for the starving. It was salvation. I have zero interest in decreeing whether the mashed potatoes were suitably fluffy or the asparagus overcooked.

Instead I want to note that nowhere in Trump’s inner circle is there anyone with the gravitas and grace of Michelle Obama, because someone like her wouldn’t last a nanosecond there. Trump would find the example of her too threatening, the yardstick of her too diminishing. She’d find his ethical ecosystem uninhabitable: the cold, dark surface of the moon without a spacesuit.

I want to savor her every word on Monday night, when she so beautifully distilled what’s wrong with Trump — “He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us,” she said — and so hauntingly defined what it feels like to live in Trump’s America.

“Kids in this country are seeing what happens when we stop requiring empathy of one another,” she said.

“They’re looking around wondering if we’ve been lying to them this whole time about who we really are and what we truly value.”

“What’s going on this country is just not right,” she added. “This is not who we want to be.” It was an exce-

llent speech, gorgeously delivered, and that’s in large part because she recognized and maximized the fact that many Americans see her as someone less partisan and more practical than the conventional convention orator.

“You know I hate politics,” she said, making no apologies for that. “But you also know that I care about this nation. You know how much I care about all of our children.”

From that perspective came this plea: “We have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.”

That was the message of many of the speakers. Their words varied; their urgency didn’t. Usually when politicians adopt such epic, dire tones, I want to reach for some bleach to wash the purple from their prose. On Monday night I just nodded (and, in Obama’s case, got a little teary, too).

There was much talk beforehand about the Democrats’ ardent desire and assiduous efforts to project unity.

To my eyes and ears they took things to a higher level than that, not because they have such a talent for diplomacy or such a gift for television choreography but because they obviously and genuinely and passionately share the conviction that if Biden fails, America falls — at least the America that we’re all still trying to hold on to, the America that we sing about in songs and speak of when we put our hands over our hearts and turn toward the flag.

“During this president’s term, the unthinkable has become normal,” Sanders said during his remarks. “The future of our democracy is at stake. The future of our economy is as stake. The future of our planet is as stake.”

He specifically and pointedly instructed his frustrated supporters to get with the program and vote for Biden.

“We must come together,” he said. “My friends, the price of failure is just too great to imagine.” He didn’t sound quite like this in 2016. Back then the damage from a Trump presidency was merely predicted, theoretical. Now it’s on the unemployment lines and in the morgue.

This convention isn’t without its ideological tussles, bruised egos and other offscreen drama. But anyone who’s focused on that has lost the big picture. Anyone who’s focused on that can’t recognize how many of the compliments bestowed on Biden on Monday night could never be given to Trump.

I’m talking about simple compliments, like when Kasich praised Biden as “a man of faith, a unifier.” Or when Rep. James Clyburn deemed him “as good a man as he is a leader.” Not even the practiced liars who prop up Trump try to get away with calling him “good.” They’re reprobates, not comedians.

Biden doesn’t have everything I wish for in a president, but he has goodness, and for a country that needs to reclaim its decency, re-establish its dignity and right its course, that’s not a bad place to start.

The Democrats’ show will go on for three more nights, but I don’t need to watch another second to know what’s what.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

19

Contraloría revela pérdida de más de medio millón en boletos no cobrados en CESCO de Manatí Por THE STAR

L

a Contraloría de Puerto Rico emitió el martes, una opinión cualificada de las operaciones fiscales del Centro de Servicios al Conductor de Manatí (CESCO) de la Directoría de Servicios al Conductor (DISCO) del Departamento de Transportación y Obras Pública (DTOP).

Una opinión cualificada se emite cuando los incumplimientos individuales o en conjunto son significativos, pero no generalizados.

El Informe revela pérdidas ascendentes a 582,597 dólares por 8,800 boletos caducados, no cobrados al 30 de octubre de 2018, debido a que no habían sido enviados a la DISCO para ser registrados en el Sistema del DTOP. Los auditores también encontraron 2,601 boletos expedidos que no habían sido enviados a la DISCO, pero que no habían caducado.

La auditoría de tres hallazgos señala múltiples deficiencias en los almacenes de documentos relacionados con las transacciones diarias de vehículos de motor y los conductores, tales como: cancelación de multas y gravámenes, re-

novaciones de licencias y traspasos, entre otros.

Por ejemplo, el almacén del CESCO carece de empleado para el control de documentos, no existen normas escritas para el recibo y despacho de documentos, y no cuenta con detectores de humo. En el espacio de almacén prestado por el arrendador, se encontró sucio, sin aire, la puerta no cierra y el director no tienen las llaves ni controla el acceso, sino el arrendador. (ver fotos en el Anejo 1 del Informe). En el almacén rodante, no hay inventario de las cajas y los documentos se mojaron y están ilegibles.

Estas situaciones no permiten mantener un control adecuado y efectivo de los documentos,

propician la desaparición de expedientes y no permite fijar responsabilidades en caso de pérdida.

Contrario a la Ley 230, de Contabilidad de Puerto Rico, la oficinista I realizaba funciones conflictivas ya que además de custodiar los valores, los recibía, los almacenaba, los despachaba y realizaba los inventarios físicos. Entre los valores custodiados se cuentan, 20,000 certificados de inspección, 5,700 marbetes y 3,204 tablillas, entre otros.

Además, en los despachos de valores identificamos ausencia de datos de las cantidades, falta de firmas de los empleados o funcionarios que recibieron los valores, y la falta de la Solicitud.

Atribuimos estas situaciones a que los funcionarios que actuaron como directores del CESCO, se apartaron de las disposiciones reglamentarias y no promulgaron normas internas necesarias para mantener la custodia y control de los valores en el CESCO. Este Informe cubre el periodo del 1 de enero de 2015 al 31 de mayo de 2019, y está disponible en www.ocpr.gov.pr.

Méndez y Aponte catalogan como paso importante la revisión del Tribunal Supremo a ley de consulta estadidad Por THE STAR

E

l presidente de la Cámara de Representantes, Carlos ‘Johnny’ Méndez Núñez, junto con el representante, José Aponte Hernández, catalogaron el martes, como una victoria para el movimiento estadista la decisión del Tribunal Supremo de Puerto Rico de evaluar la ley que viabiliza el plebiscito de estadidad ‘sí o no’, cuya conclusión pudiere ser, también, el permitir que los puertorriqueños pudieran votar por el presidente y vicepresidente de los Estados Unidos.

“Este es otro triunfo para el movimiento estadista en Puerto Rico. El hecho que el Tribunal Supremo revise la ley 51-2020 permite que también se pueda evaluar y hasta revocar el caso de Báez Galíb y otros, vs. Comisión Estatal de Elecciones (DPR 383-2000) el cual impidió en ese momento que los ciudadanos americanos de la Isla votaran en las elecciones generales por el Presidente y Vicepresidente. El tiempo ha llegado para cambiar ese precedente jurídico con uno que se ajuste a nuestros tiempos. Siempre he impulsado la admisión de Puerto Rico y el ejercer este voto enviará un poderoso mensaje a la Casa Blanca y el Congreso sobre el deseo de nuestra gente de ser parte de la unión americana con todos los

derechos que eso contiene”, señaló Méndez Núñez en comunicación escrita.

“Concurro con nuestro presidente. El hecho de que el Tribunal Supremo tenga en su mira esta disposición es ya una victoria para nuestro movimiento estadista, el más grande y robusto de Puerto Rico. Nuestra gente quiere y desea la estadidad y el voto por el presidente es un gran paso. Estamos confiados que se pueda materializar para este ciclo electoral de noviembre”, sostuvo, por su parte, Aponte Hernández.

“Luego de 100 años de admitir a los habitantes de Puerto Rico como ciudadanos en 1917, los Estados Unidos carga hoy todavía la deshonrosa realidad de mantenerlos en estatus de inferioridad, subyugación y desigualdad colonial. Eso se tiene que terminar ya. El pueblo de Puerto Rico ha derramado sangre en todas las guerras y conflictos bélicos en que se ha involucrado Estados Unidos por determinación de un presidente – ‘Commander in Chief’ – que no elegimos. Eso se tiene que rectificar y este voto, de convertirse en realidad, es un paso hacia esa dirección”, añadió el Presidente Cameral.

El Proyecto de la Cámara 851, de la autoría del Presidente de la Cámara, y que se convirtió en la Ley 122018 permite que en el día de las elecciones generales,

el 3 de noviembre, se entregue a los electores una papeleta adicional para emitir su voto por el presidente y el vicepresidente de los Estados Unidos.

Según la intención legislativa, se busca crear conciencia y presionar a los políticos y ciudadanos americanos que viven en los 50 estados sobre la condición colonial de Puerto Rico que usurpa poderes políticos a los ciudadanos americanos (estadounidenses) residentes en la isla.

20

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Guggenheim approves diversity plan after staff complaints of racism

The exterior of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, July 15, 2019. On Monday, Aug. 17, 2020, the museum announced to its staff a two-year initiative to create policies for reporting discrimination and developing diversity programs, according to Richard Armstrong, the museum’s director.

By ZACHARY SMALL

T

he Guggenheim Museum has approved a plan to address complaints of entrenched racism within its walls. It is one of the first major cultural organizations to provide details of an expanded diversity effort.

On Monday, the museum announced to its staff a two-year initiative to create policies for reporting discrimination and developing diversity programs. New measures include paid internships for students from underrepresented backgrounds, a partnership with historically Black colleges and universities to promote job openings, and the creation of an industrywide professional network for people of color working at arts organizations. The road map also calls for a top management-level position to oversee diversity initiatives and the establishment of a committee to examine the institution’s exhibitions and acquisitions through the lens of equity and diversity.

“This plan shows a greater sensitivity toward respect,” Richard Armstrong, the museum’s director, said in an interview. “It means there will be a bigger front door, providing more opportunities for a variety of people to imagine working in museums as a sustainable career path.”

The diversity plan comes more than a month after the Guggenheim hired a lawyer to independently investigate the circumstances surrounding its 2019 exhibition of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. In June, nearly 100 current and 100 former employees, under the name “A Better Guggenheim,” sent trustees a letter claiming that executives had created a “culture of institutional racism” at the museum and mistreated Chaédria LaBouvier, a guest curator of the Basquiat show. The investigation is expected to conclude in the fall.

Along with their recommendations, the writers of the finalized initiative, who include eight employees and an outside consultant, also discussed the Guggenheim’s recent failures to diversify itself. The authors, at least four of whom identify as Black, claim that the demographic makeup of visitors to the museum does not reflect the racial diversity of New York City, citing a 2018 study conducted by marketing firm Morey Group. It found that nearly 73% of museum visitors identified as white; by comparison, the city’s population is about 43% white. To better reflect the city’s population, they recommend, for instance, expanding pay-what-you-wish hours beyond Saturday evenings.

And despite a range of initiatives since 2010 that have helped the museum acquire works by nonwhite artists, the authors of the new road map urge that exhibitions include more representation from historically marginalized groups. “Within the iconic space the Rotunda, the museum has never held a solo exhibition of a Black artist, a woman artist of color, an Indigenous artist, or a trans-identified artist,” they wrote in the diversity plan.

They added, “The current moment demands that we reconsider the fundamental role that art museums play within society at large: whom are these institutions for, what are they responsible for, and to whom should they be accountable?”

In June, LaBouvier tweeted that working with Nancy Spector, the museum’s artistic director and chief curator, “was the most racist professional experience of my life.”

Specter is on sabbatical from the museum and has declined to comment on the matter.

“What happened six weeks ago brought things to a boiling point,” Armstrong said about the inclusion plan.

“We looked at each other collectively to say, ‘We will accomplish this.’ ” But during a tense all-staff meeting last month, employees expressed doubt that the plan would be enough to create lasting change without more input from employees of color, many of whom were furloughed in April.

“Furloughed staff make up the majority of the museum’s BIPOC employees” — Black, Indigenous and people of color — “yet they were excluded from the development of this diversity plan,” said Cassandra Dagostino, a furloughed member of the communications staff and of A Better Guggenheim.

In a joint statement to The New York Times about the plan, nearly 30 part-time Guggenheim educators said they were not consulted and they were concerned that 60% of the next steps to expand programming and outreach would fall on their shoulders.

The Guggenheim’s reckoning comes at a time of financial difficulties because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The museum currently projects it will have a $15 million deficit this year and has relied on contributions from trustees and reallocated money from its current budget to fund its diversity initiatives. Administrators said the museum will not reopen until at least October.

“We look with empathy and some trepidation at what’s going on inside the museum industry,” Armstrong told employees in a meeting last month, describing the projected financial losses at the Guggenheim as “quite crippling.”

When the museum does welcome back visitors, attendance will likely be capped at 800 daily, Armstrong told staff. It’s a number the director said would allow the institution to “begin to break even.” He also cautioned staff that there was “a strong possibility” of future layoffs.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

21

From a wrestling ring to tiny boxes: How ‘Chad Deity’ went Zoom

By MAYA PHILLIPS and ELISABETH VICENTELLI

I

f you had to select the least likely play to translate to Zoom, it might well be Kristoffer Diaz’s “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity.” A 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist, the play uses the outlandish world of professional wrestling, with its larger-thanlife heroes and villains and reliance on ethnic stereotypes, to consider the power of storytelling itself.

The Second Stage Theater production, which The New York Times praised for delivering the “delicious crackle and pop of a galloping, honest-to-God, all-American satire,” also handed out body slams and “powerbombs,” carefully rehearsed with a fight director. So when Play-PerView announced a live reading of the play (streamable until Aug. 20), directed by Diaz and starring most of the original cast, the question was: How would such a physical show, which encouraged vociferous audience reaction, feel in little online boxes, with actors physically distanced?

To answer that, critics Elisabeth Vincentelli, who saw the original production (and praised it as one of the 25 Best American Plays since “Angels in America”) and Maya Phillips, who had never seen it onstage, watched last weekend, and talked. These are edited excerpts from their conversation.

ELISABETH VINCENTELLI: When Play-PerView announced this reading, my first reaction was incredulity: How could a play so physical that the stage directions come with safety warnings possibly translate online? Did it work for you?

MAYA PHILLIPS: Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought the ways the production translated the action via Zoom was great.

The choreography between the wrestlers — the stances, the reciprocal actions, how we see one attack and the other fall backward to the “mat” — really gave us a great sense of the interplay we would be seeing if this had been live. I was missing, however, a sense of place in the scenes, when we’re transitioning from the ring to the office, etc. How did the production meet your expectations (or not)?

VINCENTELLI: Honestly, I’m not sure I would have been as impressed if this had been my introduction to the play. “Chad Deity” is a textbook example of theater in which form is completely wedded to function. When I saw it, there was a ring onstage and frequent interaction between the actors and the audience. The whole thing was an assault on the senses, in the best possible way: The music was really loud, the lights were really bright. The star wrestler Chad Deity (Terence Archie, back in the role and still able to wriggle his pecs) distributed dollar bills with his face on them to the audience. It was just nuts and breathtaking because it connected so well with the play’s subject.

PHILLIPS: The stage production sounds like an amazing spectacle, and I do wish I could have seen it, but I was still able to appreciate Diaz’s great writing and the actors’ performances.

And to play devil’s advocate, I wonder if we couldn’t just consider how the circumstances, even though unavoidable, may inform the content in a totally new way? Part of what Diaz is writing about are the places where this fictional sport — or art form, really, the way the protagonist, a wrestler named Mace (Desmin Borges), describes it — rubs up against reality. They are performers, and part of that is a performance of racial conflict. I wonder if that tension between the real and false parts of these matches could have been represented and highlighted by this Zoom for-

Terence Archie as the villainous Chad Deity (with an airborne Christian Litke) in “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity,” at Second Stage Theater in New York, April 26, 2010. mat, in which we’re so much more aware of the artifice of it all?

VINCENTELLI: Before I elaborate, I want to clarify that I don’t think the play is gimmicky at all: There is a point to the staging. It all comes together because, as you said, the writing is so sharp. The constant tension between reality and artifice is the essence of wrestling, but Diaz’s point applies to American pop culture in general: It is fueled by the need to create make-believe and fantasy.

The reading did make me more aware of how the play takes down capitalism. Mace is a fall guy: the wrestler who is paid to

make the star look good. And the idea that someone has to lose, and lose badly, for someone else to succeed is a key component of capitalism.

The fact that Chad Deity is meant to be a bad wrestler just adds to the cruelty of the system: This is no meritocracy.

PHILLIPS: Absolutely. But I didn’t take capitalism as the central target. What interested me was how the characters chose to play into, or rail against, racist stereotypes. I was so ready for Chad Deity to be white, but I think the fact that he’s Black makes it so much more interesting, because the question then becomes one of how complicit these wrestlers of color are, and of course part of that is a question of survival, of “playing the game” and acting the part just so you’re able to get on with your day to day in America.

And I keep thinking back to the last line, when a character looks at Deity and the cheering spectators and asks why they’re rooting for the bad guy. Deity is this stencil of a character, seemingly unaware of the choice he’s making — at least to me, though maybe he’s more aware than I’m giving him credit for? — and how damaging it is to allow these mostly white audiences and a white institution to manipulate the stereotype of the scary Black man into entertainment.

VINCENTELLI: Oh, I think Deity is aware of what’s going on and how he is used — but unlike Mace and Mace’s South Asian friend Vigneshwar Paduar (Usman Ally), he just doesn’t care. That’s one of the many ways Diaz is a good writer — he’s giving his character the agency to be a selfish jerk who’s in it for the money.

PHILLIPS: As a writer, I’m in love with the dramatic text. So though I miss being able to see stagings right now, I think these virtual readings have afforded me the opportunity to really delve into a text and pick apart the intricacies.

Terence Archie stands tall over Desmin Borges in “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity,” at Second Stage Theater in New York, April 26, 2010.

FASHION The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, March 4, 202019, 2020 Wednesday, August 20 22

The TheSan SanJuan JuanDaily DailyStar Star

Smart or slothful choice? Either way, bike shorts work

By ELIZA BROOKE

B

ike shorts were making their comeback as a fashion item well before “social distancing” entered our everyday vocabulary.

In recent years, skintight, stretchy shorts have appeared in collections by designer brands including Off-White, Yeezy, Maryam Nassir Zadeh and Jacquemus. Celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Bella Hadid and Hailey Bieber have also helped propel the trend into the contemporary mainstream by wearing them — though Princess Diana’s gym outfits have remained a continuous source of bike shorts styling inspiration since the 1990s.

So maybe bike shorts were always destined to have a moment in the summer of 2020. But as with 1,000-piece puzzles and sourdough bread, quarantine has given them new appeal: Bike shorts are a comfortable, practical item of clothing that can seamlessly transition through the vague shifts between work, exercise, worry and rest that characterize a life spent mostly at home.

Writers at Vox, BuzzFeed and InStyle have declared their love for bike shorts as quarantine fashion. In somewhat self-dragging tweets, other devotees have confessed their allegiance to the lifestyle. Depending on whom you ask, bike shorts are an enlightened choice for the times or a tumble into a life of permanent sartorial laziness. Either way, they work.

Nikki Ogunnaike, the deputy fashion director of GQ and an avid runner, got into bike shorts three years ago after discovering that they didn’t ride up when she was moving around and working out. In quarantine they’ve become a daily staple, thanks to their breathability in her hot New York City apartment. “It’s pretty much all I wear,” she said.

For working from home, Ogunnaike, 34, prefers bike shorts with an inseam of 7 to 9 inches, which strikes her as more deliberate looking than a shorter cut. She also takes a considered approach to what she wears on top: usually a tank top and a collared camp shirt, which she previously would have worn to the office. “It looks like I put together an outfit, rather than the shorts I rolled out of bed in,” Ogunnaike said.

Tess Gattuso, a 27-year-old writer and comedian in Los Angeles, took it a step further. “I think they’re super sexy,” she said. “I need that excitement in quarantine.”

While bike shorts have in many ways been popularized by thin celebrities and influencers, enthusiasts dismiss the idea that they can or should only be worn by people with a certain body type.

“I think when they first came out, you were used to seeing them in vintage Princess Diana photos, or you saw them on Hailey Bieber or Kendall Jenner,” Ogunnaike said.

“But with brands like Girlfriend Collective, they’re cutting them for all body types, so many people can get in on the trend.”

The princess of Wales regularly wore bike shorts with graphic sweatshirts, tube socks and sneakers when going to the gym at the Chelsea Harbour Club in the mid-1990s — a

Bike shorts, but make them fashion. Seen in Paris in May 2020. period of time when she was shedding some of the rules of royal fashion, said Elizabeth Holmes, the author of the forthcoming book “HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style.”

“Given the fact that bike shorts have now come back around, this is the look of Diana’s that feels, in some way, the most timeless,” Holmes said. “She looks like she could be walking to the gym today.”

Which is to say, bike shorts have long been a practical and functional option for daily life. Melanie Pochat, a

35-year-old stay-at-home mother in San Francisco, started wearing them in 2019 after giving birth to her first child.

They ticked a lot of boxes: They didn’t cause thigh chafe, they didn’t budge when she bent over to pick up her kid, and they were perfect for 30-second bathroom breaks. Pochat was also having trouble coming to terms with how her body had changed after her unplanned cesarean section, and bike shorts, tight as they are, served as “a gateway to body acceptance.”

“They sort of show off my stomach. But also I want them to in a way, because it’s like, all right, this is me, this is what it is,” Pochat said. “My main goals are to be comfortable and to keep up with my child and be happy. This is it.”

Pochat got so hooked on bike shorts that she created an Excel spreadsheet ranking different models according to metrics such as “thigh squish,” “stays up,” “pocket size” and “camel toe.” Pochat posted it on Twitter and distributed it to a Facebook group for moms that she’s in, and said she has seen friends and acquaintances take the plunge and buy them — especially during quarantine. She said she thinks the intimidating nature of ultratight shorts (or other fashion risks, for that matter) has diminished compared with people’s fears of getting sick.

“I think it’s this shedding of the idea of what other people think of us. It’s no longer as much of a priority as it was,” Pochat said. “There is no ‘dressed appropriately’ anymore.

The only ‘dressed appropriately’ is wearing a mask.”

From left: Yeezy, season 4; Off-White, spring 2018; Maryam Nassir Zadeh, spring 2019; Jacquemus, spring 2019

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

23

When things aren’t ok with a child’s mental health

By PERRI KLASS, M.D.

T

his month, to write about the risks of summer — the recurring safety issues of children being out in the sun, or near the water, I talked to safety-minded pediatric emergency room doctors about what was worrying them, as they thought about the children they might be seeing during their shifts over the coming weeks, and I specified that I wasn’t asking about COVID-19 infection — I was asking about other dangers to children, in this summer shadowed by that virus.

But among their concerns about drownings and fractures, the emergency room doctors kept bringing up mental health as a worry. At a time when we are all definitely not safe and not OK, we have to find and help the children who are hurting most.

Dr. Maneesha Agarwal, a pediatric emergency physician and assistant professor at Emory in Atlanta, said that although the lockdown and social distancing had been hard on children, “we initially saw a lull in children coming in with mental health problems.” There was less bullying, because school and social interactions had stopped.

But she was concerned that returning to school could bring a new wave of bullying, particularly around pandemicrelated issues, like weight gain from lockdown, or changes in family circumstances, with parents losing jobs and families more stressed.

Dr. Maya Haasz, an attending physician in the pediatric emergency room at Children’s Hospital Colorado and an assistant professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, brought up the vulnerability of children who already had mental health concerns, especially depression and anxiety, and emphasized the need for parents to ask children about their moods, mental health and low moments.

“Our whole society is stressed,” said Dr. Sarah Vinson, an associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Morehouse School of Medicine. She said that for some children, “school was their refuge,” and being home was a deprivation, while, “for other kids, school was where all their stress was held; they’re much happier to

be at home.” Now, those children may be headed back to school, facing old anxieties and the new stresses of school during the pandemic.

Dr. Adiaha Spinks-Franklin, a developmental behavioral pediatrician at Texas Children’s Hospital and an associate professor at Baylor, said, “Parents are reporting an increase in anxiety levels for children who were already kind of anxious in their temperament, and kids who previously had not had anxiety have developed anxious behaviors,” like fears of germs or other people or obsessions with following the pandemic news. She’s seeing more issues with sleep, she said, and more symptoms of depression, usually connected to social isolation.

Nadine Kaslow, a professor of psychiatry at Emory School of Medicine, said, “I’m concerned we’re going to have a generation of compulsive hand-washers, scared of people, anxious and depressed.”

There’s a lot more tension in many homes, she said, with parents trying to juggle multiple responsibilities, and children may be witnessing conflict between their parents.

Parents need to help children talk about their feelings, Kaslow said. Some parents of younger children find it helpful to use feelings charts, available online. If kids consistently can’t point to things they enjoy, think about looking for additional help.

Spinks-Franklin suggested a free ebook about coronavirus for children, put out in collaboration with the American Psychological Association. “I actually read that with one of my patients through our online call,” she said. “She was just so anxious about coronavirus and we read the book together.” Afterward, she said, “she was able to articulate how much she learned from the book and what she can do and what her family can do to keep them safe.”

If you’re worried about your child, you may need some guidance in finding help in this changing landscape of remote therapy. “Often I’ll tell people to start with their pediatrician, they often have a sense of what’s available, and recommendations around mental health providers,” Vinson said. “Insurance companies have really lowered barriers around providing telemental health services.”

Talk to your child’s primary care provider, talk to the school, consider reconnecting with a counselor or therapist who has seen your child before. If your child is already taking a medication — for anxiety, for attentional issues, for depression — talk to the doctor who prescribed it to see if an adjustment is indicated.

Remote mental health may be harder with young children, Kaslow said, though many therapists are finding ways to be really creative, asking children to show their favorite toys and how they play with them, and to talk about their home environments and how they’re feeling.

Vinson said that for many children with mental health problems, symptoms had gotten more severe. “If they were anxious, they’re more anxious, if they were depressed, it’s harder, if it’s schizophrenia, the voices went up.” Her own work as a child and adolescent psychiatrist has increased, she said, with children needing more help during the pandemic.

“Parents need to take their children seriously,” Spinks-Franklin said. “This is a very stressful time for adults and children, and we don’t want to disregard it when a child tells us how stressed they are, how worried they are.”

Cindy Liu, a clinical psychologist in the departments of pediatric newborn medicine and psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and the director of the developmental risk and cultural

resilience program, said that in a setting in which we were all now accustomed to thinking of the risks of viral infection, it was important to consider “stress contagion” and the risks to those who were most vulnerable, and to families at higher risk because of structural racism and socioeconomic disparities.

“Stress in families can be quite contagious as well,” said Liu, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. Quarantined together, she said, children are exposed to parental stress, but also get to witness “how parents cope and regulate their stress.” And racial minorities may have less access to mental health services, she said, and to other supports to help parents cope themselves, and help their children through.

Kaslow, past president of the American Psychological Association, said that amid all the stresses of the pandemic, there had been positive experiences for many children, with strong family bonds and unusual amounts of time together.

“Be sure the balance of your interactions with your children are about love, positive nurturance and fun,” she said. Even with the responsibilities of overseeing remote learning, she said, “loving warm interactions need to take precedence” over struggling with them about behavior, or about schoolwork. “When children feel connected, they’re going to learn better, do better, stay on track.”

24 Además, adeuda a la parte demandante las costas, gastos y ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO honorarios de abogado en que DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- incurra el tenedor del pagaré NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA en este litigio. De acuerdo con SALA DE FAJARDO. dicho Contrato de Garantía Hipotecaria la parte Demandante FIRSTBANK declaró vencida la totalidad PUERTO RICO de la deuda ascendente a la Parte Demandante Vs. suma de $39,584.66 de balanLA SUCESION DE ce de principal, más intereses ROBERTO CABASSA a razón del 4.99% anual, así PILLOT compuesta por como todos aquellos créditos y sumas que surjan de la faz de John Doe y Richard la obligación hipotecaria y de la Roe como posibles hipoteca que la garantiza, incluherederos desconocidos; yendo la suma estipulada para ADMINISTRACION costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado. La parte DemandanPARA EL SUSTENTO DE MENORES, CENTRO te presentó para su inscripción el Registro de la Propiedad DE RECUADACION DE en correspondiente, un AVISO INGRESOS MUNICIPALES DE PLEITO PENDIENTE (“Lis Parte Demandada Pendens”) sobre la propiedad CASO CIVIL NUM: objeto de esta acción cuya proFA2019CV00818.

SOBRE: piedad es la siguiente: URBACOBRO DE DINERO Y EJE- NA: PROPIEDAD HORIZONCUCION DE HIPOTECA POR TAL: Apartamento residencial LA VIA ORDINARIA. EMPLA- identificado con el número doce ZAMIENTO Y NOTIFICACION (12) ubicado en el primer nivel DE INTERPELACION POR del bloque uno guion A (1-A) del EDICTO. Estados Unidos de complejo residencial KPortal de América Presidente de los Es- Ceiba”, localizado en el Barrio tados Unidos de América Es- Chupacallos del término mutado Libre Asociado de Puerto nicipal de Ceiba, Puerto Rico, Rico. con la descripción y colindanA: John Doe y Richard cias que se relacionan a continuación: Construido en conRoe como posibles herederos desconocidos creto y bloques de hormigón, un área superficial total de la Sucesión de Roberto con de setecientos sesenta y sieCabassa Pillot te punto quinientos (767 .500) POR LA PRESENTE se les pies cuadrados, equivalentes emplaza y requiere para que a setenta y uno punto treinta conteste la demanda y que se metros cuadrados (71.30 m/c). exprese en torno a su acepta- Colinda por el NORTE, con eleción o repudiación de la heren- mento común que consiste de cia de Roberto Cabassa Pillot, área verde y con la calle Carlos dentro de los treinta (30) días Cario Figueroa; por el SUR, con siguientes a la publicación de elemento común que consiste este Edicto. Usted deberá ra- de área verde y la calle uno (1 dicar su alegación responsiva ); por el OESTE. con el pasillo a través del Sistema Unificado o vestíbulo común del edificio de Manejo y Administración de que da acceso a la vía públíca Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede y con el apartamento trece (13} acceder utilizando la siguiente del bloque uno guion A (1-A); dirección electrónica: http:// y por el ESTE, con elemento unired ramajudicial.pr/sumac/, común que consiste de área salvo que se presente por de- verde y el bloque l. Consta de recho propio, en cuyo caso sala-comedor, cocina equipada deberá radicar el original de con gabinetes de cocina y facisu contestación ante el Tribu- lidades para equipo de cocina y nal correspondiente y notifique lavado de ropa, closet, un baño con copia a los abogados de la diseñado para discapacitados, parte demandante, Lcda. Mar- una habitación con closet y baljaliisa Colon Villanueva, al PO cón en su lado Norte. Cuenta BOX 7970, Ponce, P.R. 00732; también con un área de patio Teléfono: 787-843-4168. En en su lado Sur para uso partidicha demanda se tramita un cular y exclusivo de este aparprocedimiento de cobro de di- tamento. Su puerta principal de nero y ejecución de hipoteca entrada de este apartamento bajo el número mencionado ubica en su lado Oeste y coen el epígrafe. Se alega en munica al pasillo o vestíbulo del dicho procedimiento que la edificio que da acceso a ta vla parte Demandada incurrió en pública. Le corresponde a esta el incumplimiento del Contrato unidad de vivienda una partide Hipoteca, al no poder pagar cipación en los elementos colas mensualidades vencidas munes del complejo residencial correspondientes a los me- Portal de Ceiba de uno punto ses de agosto de 2018, hasta cinco cero ocho nueve por cienel presente, más los cargos to (1.5089%). Le pertenece el por demora correspondientes.

LEGAL NOTICE

@

uso y disfrute de uno ( 1) espacio de estacionamiento marcado con el mismo número de la unidad de vivienda. Presentado al asiento trecientos setenta y seis (376) del diario trescientos once (311) el dieciséis del dieciséis (16) de abril de dos mil catorce (2014) al Registro de la Propiedad de Fajardo. SE LES APERCIBE que de no hacer sus alegaciones responsivas a la demanda dentro del término aquí dispuesto, se les anotará la rebeldía y se dictará Sentencia, concediéndose el remedio solicitado en la Demanda, sin más citarle ni oírle, además se presumirá que usted ha aceptado la herencia de Roberto Cabassa Pillot y por consiguiente, responden por las cargas de dicha herencia conforme dispone el Art. 957 del Código Civil, 31 L.P.R.A. 82785 el término de treinta (30) días antes señalado. Expedido bajo m, firma y sello del Tribunal en Fajardo, Puerto Rico. A 27 de ENERO de 2020. WANDA l. SEGUI REYES, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. LINDA l. MEDINA MEDINA, SUB-SECRETARIA(O).

en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente.

Representa a la parte demandante el Lcdo. Javier Montalvo Cintrón, Delgado & Fernández, LLC, PO Box 11750, Fernández Juncos Station, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00910-1750. Tel. [787] 274-1414. DADA en Carolina, Puerto Rico, a 7 agosto de 2020. Lcda. Marilyn Aponte Rodriguez, Secretan Regional.

YANIRA P!ZARRO VAZQUEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

LEE MARY COLÓN

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE SALINAS.

ORIENTAL BANK Demandante v.

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO MORENO; JOHN DOE Y DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL RICHARD ROE GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIDemandados BUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTAN- CIVIL NÚM. SA2020CV00130.

CIA SALA DE CAROLINA. SOBRE: SUSTITUCIÓN DE ORIENTAL BANK PAGARÉ HIPOTECARIO. EMDemandante V. PLAZAMIENTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL MINERVA MARÍA VELAZCO VILLANUEVA; PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIAJOHN DOE Y RICHARD EL DO DE P.R. SS.

ROE

A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE, personas desconocidas que se designan con estos nombres ficticios, que puedan ser tenedor o tenedores, o puedan tener algún interés en el pagaré hipotecario a que se hace A: MINERVA MARÍA VELAZCO VILLANUEVA referencia más adelante en el presente edicto, que 908 Apt., Condominio Golden Tower, Carolina, se publicará una sola vez.

PR 00983; Sky Tower I, Se les notifica que en la DeApt. 3-C, San Juan, PR manda radicada en el caso de epígrafe se alega que un 00979. Teléfono 787-479- pagaré hipotecario otorgado 6284; 787-268-0505. el 16 de octubre de 1998, Lee

Demandados CIVIL NÚM. CA2020CV01361.

SOBRE: SUSTITUCIÓN DE PAGARÉ HIPOTECARIO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R. SS. EDICTO.

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al tribuna! su alegación responsiva dentro de los 30 días de haber sido diligenciado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento.

Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio,

staredictos@thesanjuandailystar.com

Mary Colón Moreno otorgó en Guayama, Puerto Rico un pagaré hipotecario por la suma principal de $25,000.00, con intereses a razón del 8.50% anual, a favor de la Oriental Bank and Trust (hoy Oriental Bank) , o a su orden, con vencimiento el 1 de noviembre de 2028, ante el Notario Raúl A. Rovira Burset, mediante el afidávit número 14814, se extravió, sin embargo la deuda evidenciada y garantizada por dicho pagaré hipotecario no ha sido salda, por lo que la parte

(787) 743-3346

Wednesday, August 19, 2020 demandante solicita que se ordene la sustitución del mismo.

En garantía de dicho pagaré el 16 de octubre de 1998, Lee Mary Colón Moreno constituyó hipoteca número 247 ante el Notario Raúl A. Rovira Burset en garantía del pago del pagaré antes descrito , inscrita al folio 1 del tomo 162 de Salinas, finca 5859, inscripción 6ta, Registro de la Propiedad de Guayama.

La hipoteca que garantiza dicho pagaré grava la propiedad inmueble que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar #182 de la manzana K, según plano de inscripción del Proyecto de solares denominado El Coquí UM-6-131, radicado en el Barrio Aguirre del término municipal de Salinas, Puerto Rico, dicho solar tiene un área de 263 .13 metros cuadrados y colinda por el NORTE, con solar #183, distancia de 21.93 metros; por el SUR, con solar #181, distancia de 21.93 metros; por el ESTE; con la calle #10, distancia de 12.00 metros; y por el OESTE, con el solar #175, distancia de 12.00 metros. En el solar antes descrito se ha construido una estructura dedicada a vivienda que se describe como sigue: casa de una planta sencilla compuesta de las siguientes partes: todos los cimientos, piso, tres paredes de carga y techo en hormigón reforzado, paredes del baño en bloques de hormigón, instalación sanitaria sin incluir accesorios, instalación eléctrica sin incluir alambrado, instalación de agua fría y caliente sin incluir accesorios , con un área total de construcción de 675 pies cuadrados por unidad.

Finca 5859 inscrita al l del tomo 162 de Salinas, Registro de la Propiedad de Guayama. POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los 30 días de haber sido diligenciado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente.

LCDO. JAVIER MONTALVO CINTRÓN

RUA NÚM. 17682 DELGADO & FERNÁNDEZ , LLC PO Box 11750, Femández Juncos Station San Juan, Puerto Rico 00910-1750, Tel. (787) 274-1414 / Fax (787) 764-8241 E-mail: jmontalvo@ delgadofemandez.com Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, hoy 7 de AGOSTO de 2020. MARISOL ROSADO RODRIGUEZ, Secretaria Regional. BRENDA L. RAMOS POMALES, Sub-Secretaria.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE PONCE - SALA SUPERIOR.

JOANNE LIZETTE CASTILLO SEES Parte Demandante v.

ORIENTAL BANK, SUCESOR DE INTERES DE RG PREMIER BANK, JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE

Demandados CIVIL NÚM. PO2020CV00501.

SOBRE: CANCELACION DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS Estados Unidos EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE Puerto Rico.

A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE, o sea, las personas ignoradas que puedan ser tenedores del pagaré extraviado

Por la presente se les notifica que se ha presentado ante este tribunal una Demanda, en el caso de epígrafe, en la cual se solicita la cancelación de un pagare a favor de RG Premier Bank of Puerto Rico, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $110,000.00 con interese al 6 1/4% anual vencedero el 1 de septiembre de 2014, suscrito al 10 de agosto de 1999, mediante el testimonio numero 3655 ante la Notario Iraida R. Rivera Almeda y que fuera garantizado mediante hipoteca, según consta de la escritura numero 297, otorgada en Ponce, el 10 de agosto de 1999, ante la Notario Iraida R. Rivera Almeda, inscrita al folio 277 del tomo 1879 de Ponce, finca numero 38,666, inscripción 3ra, sobre la propiedad que se describe a continuación: Urbana: Solar con casa de concreto numero 49 del Bloque B de la urbanización Valle Real, radicado en El Barrio Canas del Municipio de Ponce, Puerto Rico, compuesto de 446.31 metros cuadrados.

En lindes por el Norte, en una distancia de 22.96 metros, con el solar numero 50; por el Sur, en una distancia de 39.04 me-

The San Juan Daily Star tros, con el solar numero 48; por el Este, en una distancia de 27.71 metros, con los solares numero 12 y 13 y por el oeste, en una distancia de 8.03 metros, con la calle H. Consta inscrita al folio 155 del tomo 1274 de Ponce, finca 38666, Registro de la Propiedad de Ponce, Seccion Primera. Se le advierte que este edicto se publicara en un periódico de circulación general una sola vez y que si no comparece a contestar dicha Demanda dentro del termino de treinta (30) días contados a partir de la publicación de este edicto, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su discreción lo entiende procedente. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), el cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electronica: http;//unired.ramajudicial. pr. salvo que se represente por derecho propio. El abogado de la parte demandante es: Lcdo. Raul Rivera Burgos, RUA 8879, Estancias de San Fernandeo, Calle 4, A-35, Carolina, PR 00985, Tel. (787) 238-7665, Email: raulrblaw@ gmail.com. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal de Ponce, Puerto Rico 9 de agosto de 2020. Luz Mayra Caraballo Garcia, Sec Regional. Maricell Ortiz Muñiz, Sec Auxiliar del Tribunal I.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN.

AMERICAS LEADING FINANCE, LLC Demandante v.

CHERRY LYNN FLORES, SU ESPOSO FULANO DE TAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Demandados CIVIL NÚM.: SJ2020CV03191.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA Y EJECUCIÓN DE GRAVAMEN MOBILIARIO (REPOSESIÓN DE VEHÍCULO). EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. DE AMERICA EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

A: CHERRY LYNN FLORES, SU ESPOSO FULANO DE TAL Y LA

SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Quedan emplazados y notificados que en este Tribunal se ha radicado Demanda sobre cobro de dinero por la vía ordinaria y ejecución de gravamen mobiliario (reposesión de vehículo) en la que se alega que la parte demandada CHERRY LYNN FLORES, SU ESPOSO FULANO DE TAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS, le adeudan solidariamente a Americas Leading Finance, LLC., la suma de principal de $12,253.67, más los intereses que continúen acumulando, las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado según pactados.

Además, solicitamos de este Honorable Tribunal que autorice la reposesión y/o embargo del Vehículo. Se les advierte que este edicto se publicará en un periódico de circulación general una sola vez y que, si no comparecen a contestar dicha Demanda dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación del Edicto, a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https:// unired.ramajudicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal, se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará Sentencia concediendo el remedio así solicitado sin más citarles ni oírles. El abogado de la parte demandante es la Lcdo. Gerardo Ortiz Torres, cuya dirección física y postal es: Cond. El Centro I, Suite 801, 500 Muñoz Rivera Ave., San Juan, Puerto Rico 00918; cuyo número de teléfono es (787) 946-5268 y su correo electrónico es: gerardo@bellverlaw.com. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, en San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy día 10 de agosto de 2020. Griselda Rodriguez Collado, Secretaria Regional.

Ivelisse Gonzalez Nieves, Sec Trib Conf II.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBR.E ASOCIADO DE. PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL.DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN.

MIDFIRST BANK Demandante vs.

JAIME DE JESUS REYES, LA SUCESION DE MARGARITA IRIS RODRIGUEZ MASSARI COMPUESTA POR

The San Juan Daily Star

SUS HEREDEROS ELIZABETH VICTORIA DE JESUS RODRIGUEZ, EVA LORRAINE DE JESUS RODRIGUEZ, IVONNE’ MARIE DE, JESUS RODRIGUEZ, SANDRA RAMIREZ RODRIGUEZ, .FULANO DE TAL y .SUTANA DE TAL HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS, BLANCA l. DE JESUS MODLINGER y CENTRO DE RECAUDACIÓN DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM)

Demandados CiVIL NÚM: BY2020CV01101 (504). SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO E INTERPELACION. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN MARGARITA IRIS RODRIGUEZ MASSARI Dirección · Desconocida

POR LA PRESENTE se les emplaza y se· les notifica que se ha presentado en Secretarla de este Tribunal la Demanda del taso. de epígrafe solicitando la ejecución de hipoteca y el cobro de dinero relacionado al pagaré suscrito a favor de Pan American· Financial Corporation o a su orden, por la .suma. principal de $96, 729.00 más intereses computados sobre la misma desde su fecha hasta su total y completo pago a razón de la tasa fija de 7.0% anual, obligándose además a tres (3) pagos de $.9,672.90 por concepto de costas, gastos y desembolsos de litigio, más honorarios de abogados, y 4.00% por concepto de cargos por demora después de los quince (15) días de vencimiento del pago. Este pagaré fue suscrito bajo el affidávit 2173 ante notario público José M. Birríel Barreta., Lo anterior surge de la hipoteca constituida mediante escritura número 236 otorgada en Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, el día 3 de septiembre de 2003, ante notario José M. Birriel Barreto. La dirección del inmueble a ejecutarse ·es la siguiente: Urbanización Levittown. D-1107.

Calle Deleite, Toa Baja, Puerto Rico 00949. Se les advierte que este edicto se publicará en un (1) periódico de circulación general una (1) sola vez. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder. utilizando

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramaiudlcjal. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretarla del tribunal y notifique copia de la Contestación a la Demanda a las oficinas del Lcdo. Juan· B. Soto Balbás, RUA Número: 7340, JUAN B. SOTO LAW OFFICES, P.S.C., 1353 Ave. Luis Vigoreaux. PMB 270, Guaynabo. PR 00966, TEL: (787) 273-0611, FAX: (787) 273-1540, E-mail: jsoto@jbsblaw.com, abogado de la parte demandante dentro del término de sesenta (60) días a partir de la publicación del Edicto. apercibiendo que de no hacerlo así dentro del término indicado, el Tribunal podrá anotar su Rebeldía y dictar Sentencia, concediendo el remedio así solicitado sin más citarle ni oírle. Se ORDENA a los herederos de la causante a saber, Fulano de Tal y Sutana de Tal a que dentro del término legal de treinta (30) días a partir de la fecha de la notificación de la presente Orden., acepten o repudien la participación que les corresponda en la herencia de la causante Margarita Iris Rodríguez Massari. Se les APERCIBE a tos ·herederos antes mencionados que de no expresarse dentro de ese término de treinta (30) días en. torno a su aceptación o repudiación de herencia, la misma se tendrá por aceptada.

También se les APERCIBE a los herederos antes mencionados que luego del transcurso del término de treinta (30) días antes señalado contados a partir de la fecha de notificación de la presente Orden, :se presumirá que han aceptado la herencia ·de la causante y, por consiguiente, responden por las cargas de dicha herencia conforme a lo que dispone el Artículo 957 y 959 del Código Civil, 31 LP.R.A. 2785 y 2787.

EXPEDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el Sello del Tribunal, hoy día 3 de agosto de 2020. LCDA. LAURA l. SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretarla Regional. Alba Brito Borgen, Secretaria Auxiliar del Tribunal.

LEGAL NOTICE Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala Superior de TOA ALTA.

AMERICAS LEADING FINANCE LLC Demandante Vs

JOSE JULIO RIVERA DIAZ

Demandada CIVIL NUM. BY2019CV03642.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: JOSE JULIO RIVERA DIAZ

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO (A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que

el 20 de marzo de 2020, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de esta. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los diez (10) días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 14 de agosto de 2020. En TOA ALTA, Puerto Rico, el 14 de agosto de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria Regional. F/GLORIBELL VAZQUEZ MAYSONET, Sec Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOT ICE Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala Superior de TOA ALTA.

AMERICAS LEADING FINANCE LLC Demandante Vs

LOUIS DAVID FIGUEROA RIVERA

sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 14 de agosto de 2020. En TOA ALTA, Puerto Rico, el 14 de agosto de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria Regional. F/GLORIBELL VAZQUEZ MAYSONET, Sec Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala Superior de BAYAMON.

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Y SUN WEST MORTGAGE COMPANY COMO AGENTE DE SERVICIO

FIGUEROA RIVERA

la Demanda dentro del término arriba indicado, se le anotará la rebeldía y podrá dictarse sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado en la Demanda, sin más citarle ni oírle. Este caso trata sobre Acción Civil Preterición. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Bayamon, Puerto Rico, hoy día 13 de agosto de 2020.

Lcda. Laura I. Santa Sanchez, Sec Regional. Sandra I Cruz Vazquez, Sec Servicios a Sala.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYAMON SALA SUPERIOR.

Demandante Vs José Miguel y José Ángel SUCESION DE SANTIAGO Vázquez Ortiz, Amparo CONCEPCION RAMOS Margarita y José Víctor T/C/C SANTIAGO Luis Vázquez Senti, José CONCEPCION Y Enrique, José Orlando, SUCESION DE GLORIA Hilda Angélica y Ana Hilda ESTHER MARZAN Vázquez Vicente, José LEGAL NOTICE PEREZ T/C/C GLORIA Antonio Vázquez Cruz, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO ESTHER MARZAN, Sasha Michelle Vázquez DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUAMBAS COMPUESTAS NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA Rivera y Lourdes POR SU HEREDERA Amarilys Amarilys CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYACONOCIDA MARISOL MON SALA SUPERIOR. Vázquez Vázquez José Miguel y José Ángel VázDEMANDANTES Vs. CONCEPCION T/C/C Ángel Félix Vázquez MARISOL CONCEPCION quez Ortiz, Amparo Margarita y José Víctor Luis Vázquez Senti, Figueroa y José Ángel MARZAN, FULANO DE José Vázquez Díaz TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL Enrique, José Orlando, DEMANDADOS COMO HEREDEROS Hilda Angélica y Ana Hilda CIVIL NUM: BY2020CV02247.

DESCONOCIDOS Vázquez Vicente, José SOBRE: ACCIÓN CIVIL PREY/O PARTES CON Antonio Vázquez Cruz, TERICIÓN. EMPLAZAMIENINTERES EN DICHAS Sasha Michelle Vázquez TO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL SUCESIONES; ESTADOS Rivera y Lourdes PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTAUNIDOS DE AMERICA Amarilys Amarilys DOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIDemandada Vázquez Vázquez BRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO CIVIL NUM. BY2019CV07204.

Demandada CIVIL NUM. TA2019CV00811.

SALA: 702. SOBRE: EJECUSOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO, CION DE HIPOTECA y COETC. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENBRO DE DINERO (VIA ORDITENCIA POR EDICTO. NARIA). NOTIFICACIÓN DE A: LOUIS DAVID SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. (Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO (A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 13 de mayo de 2020, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de esta. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los diez (10) días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha

los términos de esta. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los diez (10) días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 12 de agosto de 2020. En BAYAMON, Puerto Rico, el 12 de agosto de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria Regional. F/ELIBETH M. TORRES ALICEA, Sec Auxiliar.

25

A: SUCESION DE SANTIAGO CONCEPCION RAMOS T/C/C SANTIAGO CONCEPCION Y SUCESION DE GLORIA ESTHER MARZAN PEREZ T/C/C GLORIA ESTHER MARZAN, AMBAS COMPUESTAS POR SU HEREDERA CONOCIDA MARISOL CONCEPCION T/C/C MARISOL CONCEPCION MARZAN, FULANO DE TAL Y SUTA DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS Y/O PARTES CON INTERES EN DICHAS SUCESIONES

EL SECRETARIO (A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 31 de JULIO de 2020, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de

DEMANDANTES Vs.

Ángel Félix Vázquez Figueroa y José Ángel Vázquez Díaz

DEMANDADOS CIVIL NUM: BY2020CV02247.

SOBRE: ACCIÓN CIVIL PRETERICIÓN. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

A: JOSE ANGEL VAZQUEZ DIAZ

POR LA PRESENTE se le notifica a usted que se ha presentado en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia de Puerto Rico, Sala de Bayamón, la Demanda de epígrafe. Se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la Demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto, radicando el original de su contestación ante el Tribunal correspondiente y notificando con copia al abogado de la demandante, Lcdo. Francisco J. Portuondo Díaz, a la siguiente dirección: D R 9 Alto Apolo, Guaynabo, PR 00969.

Número de teléfono: (787) 731-8117/ 787-382-2519. Se le apercibe que de no contestar

RICO.

A: JOSE ANGEL VAZQUEZ DIAZ

POR LA PRESENTE se le notifica a usted que se ha presentado en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia de Puerto Rico, Sala de Bayamón, la Demanda de epígrafe. Se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la Demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto, radicando el original de su contestación ante el Tribunal correspondiente y notificando con copia al abogado de la demandante, Lcdo. Francisco J. Portuondo Díaz, a la siguiente dirección: D R 9 Alto Apolo, Guaynabo, PR 00969.

Número de teléfono: (787) 731-8117/ 787-382-2519. Se le apercibe que de no contestar la Demanda dentro del término arriba indicado, se le anotará la rebeldía y podrá dictarse sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado en la Demanda, sin más citarle ni oírle. Este caso trata sobre Acción Civil Preterición. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Bayamon, Puerto Rico, hoy día 13 de agosto de 2020.

Lcda. Laura I. Santa Sanchez, Sec Regional. Sandra I Cruz Vazquez, Sec Servicios a Sala.

Puerto Rico, hoy día 1 de April de 2020. Lcda Laura I Santa ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO Sanchez, Sec Regional. Rosa DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- M Burgos Reyes, Sec Auxiliar.

NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA LEGAL NOTICE SALA DE BAYAMON. ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO ORIENTAL BANK DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUDemandante, V•, NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA HERIBERTO LO PEZ SALA DE TOA ALTA.

LEGAL NOTICE

HERNANDEZ, Fulana de tal y la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales compuesta por ambos,

Demandados CIVIL NUM.: BY2019CV06407.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: HERIBERTO LOPEZ HERNANDEZ, FULANA DE TAL y la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales compuesta por ambos

POR MEDIO del presente edicto se le notifica de la radicación de una demanda en cobro de dinero por la vía ordinaria en la que se alega que usted adeuda a la parte demandante, Oriental Bank, ciertas sumas de dinero, y las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado de este litigio.

El demandante, Oriental Bank, ha solicitado que se dicte sentencia en contra suya y que se le ordene pagar las cantidades reclamadas en la demanda.

POR EL PRESENTE EDICTO se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva a la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días de haber sido diligenciado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la Secretaría del Tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra, y conceder el remedio. solicitado en la Demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente.

Se le advierte que dentro de los diez (10) días siguientes a la publicación del presente edicto, se le estará enviando a usted por correo certificado con acuse de recibo, una copia del emplazamiento y de la demanda presentada al lugar de su última dirección conocida: Parcelas Van Scoy, F6-2 Calle 4, Bayamón, PR 00957-5879.

EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal en Bayamon,

ORIENTAL BAN.K, Demandante, V.

EMMANUEL BONILLA TRAVERSO,

Demandado CIVIL NUM.: DO2020CV00021.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE.DE LOS EE. UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: EMMANUEL BONILLA TRAVERSO

POR MEDIO del presente edicto se le notifica de la radicación de una demanda en cobro de dinero por la vía ordinaria en la que se alega que usted adeuda a la parte demandante, Oriental Bank, ciertas sumas de dinero, y las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado de este litigio.

El demandante, Oriental Bank, ha solicitado que se dicte sentencia en contra suya y que se le ordene pagar las cantidades reclamadas en la demanda.

POR EL PRESENTE EDICTO se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva a la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días me haber sido diligenciado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la ‘siguiente dirección electrónica: https: / /unired.ramajudicial. pr / sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la Secretaria del Tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su ,alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra, y conceder el remedio solicitado en la Demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, ien el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente.

Se le advierte que dentro de los diez (10) días siguientes a la publicación del presente edicto, se le estará enviando a usted por correo certificado con acuse de recibo, una copia del emplazamiento y de la demanda presentada al lugar de su última dirección conocida: Reparto Valle 9ª, Dorado, PR 00646. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal en Toa Alta, Puerto Rico, hoy día 13 de abril de 2020. Lcda Laura I Santa Sanchez, Sec Regional.

26

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

If a dunk echoes across an empty gym, is it still must-see TV?

By KEVIN DRAPER

S

ports went away and then returned to empty arenas during the past five months of the coronavirus pandemic, pushing fans ever further to the periphery of professional sports.

And yet a funny thing has happened — for the first time, the true value of live spectators has become abundantly clear.

They are not the hundreds of dollars they spend on tickets, food and parking. They are critical extras in the backdrop of an entertainment proposition that in recent years has more squarely catered to viewers watching on television, cellphones and other devices.

Without a capacity crowd cheering in person — collectively — professional sports don’t just lose their excitement. They lose their meaning.

Walk-off grand slams now have all the emotional stakes of a first-inning single. UFC fighters get no response from leaping atop the cage after a knockout, so they don’t even bother. A buzzer-beater for a team trying to make the playoffs generates all the atmosphere of cars whizzing by on a distant freeway.

“Just like the coronavirus has revealed the underpaid, unsung roles of people like nurses and grocery store employees, I think now that the virus is also revealing the underappreciated value that fans bring to the sports equation,” said Mack Hagood, a media studies professor at Miami University in Ohio, who has studied the effect of Seattle Seahawks fans on the football team.

In the past century, the economy of sports has mutated from a live-events business into a media business. The health crisis has deprived stadiums and arenas of their fundamental utility — bringing thousands of people together — and hastened a weird, apocalyptic media future: sports telecasts with simulated audio provided by video game companies, and cardboard or virtual fans in the stands.

Assuming fans return someday, a changing role for them may be one of the lasting effects of the coronavirus crisis, reorienting how they are seen by the teams and the leagues that profit from them. Thousands of fans in a stadium provide the atmosphere and are a key part of, and often create, entertainment that is worth billions to leagues.

Rich Luker, a social psychologist who studies sports fandom, described a finding of Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the league’s media and technology arm known as BAM, which, among other things, supplies game highlights online. When BAM looked at the most viewed plays each night, “they were surprised early on at how many of them were not what the players did, but what the fans did in the stands,” Luker said.

The mother who saves her child from a foul ball.

Dance-offs between strangers on opposite sides of an NBA arena. A Three Stooges-like concessions mishap. Fans at home want to watch these moments as

The sounds of fans murmuring in the stands have always been important to television sports broadcasts. That has never been more clear than during the coronavirus pandemic. much as any home run or amazing catch.

“It legitimizes the experience,” said Travis Vogan, a professor at the University of Iowa who studies sports media. “You are connected to these people that are closer to the event.”

Sports television producers lean into this idea.

They show close-ups of attractive people in the stands or fans wearing full-body paint. They use aerial views from the Goodyear blimp to show a packed house, reinforcing that the game is the place to be.

The events themselves have grown into entertainment spectacles, with mascot races, halftime shows, enormous Jumbotrons and numerous fan activities that have little to do with the games. Even a century ago, broadcast sports incorporated similar flair for fans tuning in from home, sometimes bending the truth for the sake of excitement.

When baseball was first heard on the radio, beginning in the 1920s, it was too expensive for stations to cover road games. Instead, they would receive pitchby-pitch information by telegram, and announcers at the station punched up the basic transmitted information by more or less making up what happened. They created sound effects by hitting wooden blocks.

In some ways, what you hear watching a modern sports telecast is similarly manufactured, the product of dozens of microphones and the decisions of an audio engineer in calibrating their levels. The cheering from another dismal crowd at Marlins Park can be cranked up to make games seem packed. Microphones in the shoulder pads of offensive linemen pick up audibles, as when quarterback Peyton Manning famously yelled “Omaha” repeatedly. The crowd makes that televised game feel real.

“Regardless of the pandemic, one of the cardi-

nal rules when showing a game is you want there to be atmosphere,” said John Entz, the former president of production at Fox Sports. “There is nothing better than a packed crowd with a great audio bed that is natural and they are cheering.”

Fans who cannot attend a game in person go to great lengths to re-create the experience. They watch in sports bars and invite friends over for big games.

They wear their team’s jerseys and talk about the action on Twitter and group texts. And when they watch, they relate to the fans in attendance.

Before he became president of ABC Sports, Roone Arledge, the father of modern sports broadcasting, produced lowly attended American Football League games in the 1960s. After the punter kicked the ball away, Arledge would have the camera cut directly to the return man, instead of following the arc of the football through the air. He knew if fans saw the empty seats, they wouldn’t be as immersed in the game.

As soon as sports broadcasts began to earn money, the needs of television production began to overtake those of fans. In 1958, the NFL created the TV timeout, where a break was written into the rules of the game to give broadcasters time to show commercials. The time between a touchdown and the subsequent kickoff was also lengthened for commercials.

The live sports experience has been degraded in other ways. Fans are milked through expensive tickets, eye-watering concession prices and exorbitant parking fees. Football fans have to pay a fee, euphemistically called a personal seat license, for the privilege of paying even more money to buy season tickets.

The fanless alternative for sports has led to some innovations in presentation, like the NBA’s reimagining of what a basketball court can look like and the drone camera at Major League Soccer games. But most of that innovation has been incremental.

“A lot of the stuff you are seeing on air has been worked on for many years,” said Brad Zager, head of production at Fox Sports. “This just sped it up.”

Instead, the sports industry has mostly worked hard to make games taking place under the most abnormal circumstances seem as normal as possible.

The stands are filled with cardboard cutouts and dolls, and Fox has even experimented with showing computer-generated fans. Fan shots are out, and camera angles are focused tighter on the players. Video game companies, like Electronic Arts, have been recruited to lend their audio libraries.

In 2000, CBS was criticized for adding artificial bird sounds to its telecast of a golf tournament and promised to cease doing so. Twenty years later, almost everything is artificial.

And no matter how hard producers try to convince viewers that everything is normal, it takes only a few minutes of watching for the artifice to inevitably reveal itself. Without fans in the stands, meaning is hard to find.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

27

With another slew of injuries, the Yankees aren’t taking chances

By JAMES WAGNER

S

top us if you’ve heard this before: The New York Yankees have one of the best records in Major League Baseball despite missing several star players to injury.

No, this is not 2019, when the Yankees endured a nightmarish run of setbacks and sent a major-league record 30 players to the injured list. But this season has certainly felt eerily similar in the Bronx.

In the span of eight days, the Yankees placed three of their best players — outfielders Giancarlo Stanton (left hamstring strain) and Aaron Judge (right calf strain), and infielder D.J. LeMahieu — on the 10-day injured list. LeMahieu, who was hitting an American Leagueleading .411, was the latest casualty, exiting Saturday’s game against the Boston Red Sox with a left thumb sprain.

Losing three All-Star-caliber players at once is painful enough during a traditional 162-game regular season. But in this pandemic-shortened 60-game campaign, a minimum stint on the 10day injured list is the equivalent of missing 27 days in a normal year.

“Any time off is not good,” Judge said Sunday. “That’s why I was begging for just a couple days, not really 10 days.”

The shorter-than-usual run-up to this unusual season has been seen as a contributing factor to the current rash of injuries, particularly to pitchers, across baseball. The Yankees, despite overhauling their medical and training departments last offseason, have not been an exception, with injuries to reliever Tommy Kahnle (Tommy John surgery), catcher Kyle Higashioka (right oblique strain), Stanton, Judge and LeMahieu.

The hamstring strain was particularly frustrating for Stanton, who played in just 23 games between the regular season and playoffs last year because of a slew of injuries. He missed a chunk of this spring training with a calf injury.

Hoping to avoid a repeat of last season, Stanton, listed at 6-foot-6 and 245 pounds, said he lost 20 pounds in an effort to get back to the physique of the earlier, healthier years of his career. It seemed to be working: He looked like the 2017 NL MVP version of himself, hitting .293 with three home runs.

Still, Stanton hurt his leg while running the bases on Aug. 8, during the same seven-inning doubleheader against the Tampa Bay Rays in which Judge began feeling tightness in his calf.

Stanton said his body was having trou-

Aaron Judge was put on the 10-day injured list with a calf strain that he said came from playing against the Tampa Bay Rays on the turf at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. ble catching up to the rigors of playing regularly after being absent for so much of the past few seasons.

“Words can’t really describe the disappointment I’ve had over this,” said Stanton, who is in the middle of a threeto four-week recovery. “I can’t dwell on it. I have to see what’s in front of me and that’s still a decent amount of the season and playoffs left. Though I was in this situation before, it seems unreal at times.”

On the bright side for the Yankees, their star closer, Aroldis Chapman, who tested positive for the coronavirus on July 11, was added to the active roster before Monday’s game against the Red Sox. LeMahieu, the Yankees’ best allaround player last season, could miss about two to three weeks, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Monday.

In 2018, LeMahieu missed two weeks with a similar left thumb sprain and a small fracture. This time, Boone said, there were no broken bones.

And Judge, who planned to resume batting practice Monday after a few days off, said he expected to come off

the IL as soon as he was eligible Saturday, against the New York Mets.

Judge, who leads the Yankees with nine home runs, said he begged the team’s doctors, trainers and Boone not to place him on the IL. He felt he needed only a handful of days off to recover from tightness in his calves, which he believed arose from playing against the Rays on the artificial turf at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. On Sunday, Judge declared that he was at 100 percent and felt like he could have played in a game that day.

Boone, though, said the decision to place Judge on the IL was easy because he did not want a soft tissue injury to become a larger problem. Judge said multiple times Sunday that he was frustrated, but he clarified it wasn’t directed at the team.

“I’m frustrated with myself not being out there,” he said. “They’re just looking out for me and what’s best for me.”

Although the Yankees won’t return to Tropicana Field during the regular season, they could end up as postseason opponents. To alleviate the wear

and tear of artificial turf on his legs in the future, Judge said he planned to wear sneakers when he played defense but to switch to cleats when he was hitting (the batter’s box and basepaths are dirt), a plan he came up with after talking to other players with experience playing at the stadium.

“It’s just easier on your body and easier on your knees because you don’t have all that body weight going down into nine little spikes,” Judge said of wearing tennis shoes.

The good news for the Yankees is that few MLB organizations are as equipped to handle injury absences as they are. Entering Monday, Clint Frazier was 8 for 15 with two home runs while filling in for Judge. The Yankees filled LeMahieu’s spot on the active roster with infielder-outfielder Miguel Andujar, who was the runner-up for the 2018 AL Rookie of the Year Award but had recently been at the team’s alternate site.

“We don’t skip a beat, and you’re not going to find that on very many teams,” Yankees reliever Zack Britton said.

28

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Washington hires former player as NFL’s first black team president

By KEN BELSON

J

ason Wright, a former NFL running back turned business consultant, has been named the new president of the Washington Football Team, the team announced earlier this week. He is the first African American to hold such a position in league history.

At 38, Wright, who played seven seasons in the NFL and has worked for the past seven years at McKinsey & Co., the international consulting firm, is also the youngest team president in the league.

As a consultant, he has helped reshape government agencies, industrial companies and institutions of higher learning.

Wright has no experience working at an NFL team, though he was his team’s union representative for two years heading into the lockout in 2011. While responsibilities can vary from team to team, club presidents typically oversee all business operations and sometimes look after the football side of the franchise, and report directly to the owner.

Wright will be in charge of the team’s operations, finance, sales and marketing divisions, among others.

“This organization is going through wholesale transformation on multiple fronts,” Wright said Monday in a phone interview. “This is going to be a very challenging but exciting time.”

The Fritz Pollard Alliance, which has pressed the league for years to increase the diversity of its executives and coaches, said it hoped Wright’s hiring was the start of a trend.

“We hope that it signifies a true change for the manner in which leadership is chosen in the NFL,” Rod Graves, executive director of the alliance, said in a statement.

Wright will be joining Washington at a particularly fraught juncture, becoming the latest new hire by the team’s owner, Daniel Snyder, who is in the process of overhauling his foundering franchise.

Wright replaces Bruce Allen, the longtime club president who was fired at the end of last season.

After resisting pressure for more than two decades, Snyder last month abandoned the team’s longtime name, the Redskins. The club is in the process of selecting a new name and logo.

Jason Wright, left, played four seasons with the Cleveland Browns. He had 277 yards rushing, his highest single-season total, in 2007.

The team also this summer removed references to its founding owner, George Preston Marshall, who named the team in the 1930s and was the last owner in the NFL to integrate his roster.

Snyder hired Ron Rivera, one of only four head coaches of color in the league, in late December. He has also brought in new front office personnel and broadcasters. He fired several top employees just before and after The Washington Post published an investigation that included accusations by 15 women of rampant sexual harassment by male coworkers in the team’s front office. Snyder hired a high-powered law firm to review the women’s claims.

Wright, who as a consultant helped companies transform their corporate cultures, said he hoped to use the findings as a springboard to change the team’s internal operations.

“There’s no time to waste on the culture side of it,” he said, so that the team has “a work environment that attracts the best people in sports.”

Three of the team’s minority shareholders, who together own about 40 percent of the club, have also been trying to sell their stakes. Snyder has suggested in legal filings that one of those sharehold-

ers, Dwight Schar, may be involved in a scheme to defame him.

Wright will have to lean on his business acumen to navigate the turmoil.

Before joining McKinsey, he earned an MBA from the University of Chicago.

After finishing high school in Diamond Bar, Calif., about 30 miles outside Los Angeles, Wright attended Northwestern, where he majored in psychology. He played wide receiver before switching to running back. In his four college seasons, he rushed for 2,625 yards, seventh most in team history.

Wright was signed as an undrafted free agent in 2004 by the San Francisco 49ers but was cut before the end of the preseason. He spent most of the season on the Atlanta Falcons’ practice squad before joining the active roster and appearing in two games at the end of the year.

He spent the next four seasons with the Cleveland Browns. His best season was in 2007, when he rushed for 277 yards and a touchdown and caught 24 passes for 233 yards. In 2009, he signed a two-year, $2 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals.

In July 2011, during a four-month lockout by the NFL owners, Wright re-

tired from the league to attend business school.

Wright acknowledged he “was not the greatest player in the world” but that as a lesser known player, he had time to talk to team business personnel and learn about marketing, public relations, finance and other aspects of club operations.

Wright said his relative youth will be an asset as team president because he has connections to young people in industry and can “bring a set of ideas that haven’t come up through the grapevine.”

He is also aware that he will be blazing a trail as the first Black team president.

“For any people of color, when you’re the first of anything, it’s meaningful,” he said.

The NFL has been repeatedly criticized for the lack of diversity in its management ranks. While about 70 percent of the players are Black, there are only two team owners of color. While the league has increased the diversity in its executive positions at its headquarters, the record of its teams has been spottier.

People of color make up less than 20 percent of senior administration positions at the league’s 32 clubs.

Last season, there were only two club presidents or chief executives who were people of color. Kim Pegula, coowner of the Buffalo Bills with her husband, Terry Pegula, is also the club’s president. Paraag Marathe is president of 49ers Enterprises and executive vice president for football operations for the 49ers.

There are only two female team presidents: Pegula of the Bills and Darcie Glazer Kassewitz of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Before leaving to run the Big Ten Conference, Kevin Warren, who was legal counsel and chief operating officer of the Minnesota Vikings, functioned as a team president but did not have the title, according to Cyrus Mehri, who has worked with the Fritz Pollard Alliance to help establish the so-called Rooney Rule.

The rule obligates teams to interview at least two candidates of color for top coaching and executive openings and requires at least one woman to be interviewed for openings at the league office.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

29

Sudoku How to Play: Fill in the empty fields with the numbers from 1 through 9.

Sudoku Rules: Every row must contain the numbers from 1 through 9 Every column must contain the numbers from 1 through 9 Every 3x3 square must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

Crossword

Answers on page 30

Wordsearch

GAMES

HOROSCOPE Aries

30

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

(Mar 21-April 20)

Being there for a partner will prove your commitment to this relationship. If you haven’t been communicating well, now is a good time for a meaningful discussion. Be prepared to put more time into getting the balance right in all relationships. Others will be grateful and they will make an effort too.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

You really feel a need to talk to someone but be careful who you confide in. Advice offered will be well intended but it could be totally wrong for you. A steady partner may pull out of plans at the eleventh hour which will be annoying. If you work hard at your relationship you should be able to mend any broken fences.

Taurus

(April 21-May 21)

Scorpio

It is time to stop thinking about your past.

Look forward, instead, to your future. A friend will accuse you of being distracted as you aren’t paying attention to what they are saying. You need to find a way to prove you are interested and that you do intend to keep the promises you are making.

You have always liked to keep things private and this is your choice. A friend is wondering what you are up to or what secrets you are keeping. If you don’t want them to know, don’t tell them. There is one person you’ve always discussed your hopes with and they share those same dreams. Making long term plans is a good way to support each other.

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

You’re tired of seeing constant signage and hearing frequent reminders of what you should be doing. You wish things were back to normal and you could just live your life without so many rules and regulations. Deal with issues in relationships as they arise. The longer you leave them, the worse they will get.

Changes to your social plans will be a blessing in disguise. A friend is expecting you to bend over backwards for them. If this isn’t normally what they are like and you value this relationship, it might be wise to put their needs first. After all, they would do the same for you if your roles were reversed.

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

Good news gives you something special to celebrate. A sensitive friend or partner will pick up on your hopes and wishes. They have ideas on how to make a dream come true.

Life feels wonderful. There isn’t a moment that will go by without you counting your blessings.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

Important changes are ahead for you. You’re making a big decision and it doesn’t matter what other people think, this will be your choice. Someone you have recently met will attract your attention. If you’re in a relationship, don’t be tempted to go off with another person. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

Virgo

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

Social events are full of excitement and new opportunities will be offered. Don’t take too long with any answers you need to make. You have the golden touch and a winning streak with cash concerns. Although you aren’t looking for a relationship, if you’re single you could find yourself drawn to a stranger.

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

Revealing your true feelings is one way to steer yourself away from losing someone special.

This relationship is at risk due to you holding back from them. A partner is feeling uncertain and nervous. Say what is on your mind and in your heart as you don’t want to look back on this time and think what if?’

Aquarius

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

Gossip makes you question a friendship you thought was solid. The question you should be asking yourself is: are you putting too much trust in what people are telling you? Booking a holiday will help if you’ve been feeling stressed and over worked. Taking time to relax and chill will ease any health problems you’ve been experiencing.

Pisces

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

When you are feeling loved and special you will be putting yourself out to make your family and friends happy. The little sacrifices you make will bring pleasure to others and will be worth it when you see their happy reactions. Now is a good time to attend events and small get-togethers.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

31

CARTOONS

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

BC

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

For Better or for Worse

Herman

Ziggy

32

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Queremos ayudarte en la compra de tu nuevo hogar

EN COOP LAS PIEDRAS te lo podemos financiar... ¡Estamos aquí pa ti!

*Pregunta como puedes obtener hasta un 100% de financiamiento.

• RURAL • REHABILITACIÓN • TERRENO • COMERCIAL • CONVENCIONAL • VETERANO • CONSTRUCCIÓN COOP LP NMLS #787612

787.733.2821 EXT: 1918, 1223, 1224, 1231, 1251

CAGUAS • LAS PIEDRAS • SAN LORENZO • HUMACAO • TRUIMPH PLAZA • YABUCOA • HATO REY • CAROLINA Ciertas resticciones aplican. El financiamiento será basado en el tipo de producto hipotecario que aplique en la solicitud Los depósitos y acciones están asegurados por la cantidad de $250.000 por COSSEC. En caso de insolvencia, por estar asegurados con COSSEC estamos excluidos de todo seguro federal.

www.cooplaspiedras.com