Thursday Aug 20, 2020

Thursday, August 20, 2020

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Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter Party On with Bill and Ted P20-21

A New, Not-So-Restrictive Executive Order

Juan Dalmau: ‘Puerto Rico Is Like a Dying Patient. We Must Stabilize It First’ P3

PREPA Strikes Back After Board’s Rejection of Renegotiated Green Energy Project Agreements

Governor Announces Capacity Restrictions for Businesses Curfew Hours Stay the Same, Full Lockdown on Sundays

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NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 19

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

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August 20, 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.

Dalmau: ‘Our homeland needs to be built anew’

Today’s

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

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From ENE 15 mph 67% 10 of 10 6:07 AM Local Time 6:47 PM Local Time

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uerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) gubernatorial candidate Juan Dalmau told The Star on Wednesday that under his national project proposal, titled “A New Homeland,” as governor of Puerto Rico he and his team will build a public vision and execution based on a platform that defends dignity and human rights.

Dalmau said his gubernatorial proposal consists of focusing on subjects such as healthcare, education, essential public services and economic security to build a Puerto Rico citizens are proud of. The pro-independence senator said one of his main priorities is to devise a universal healthcare plan, given that around 300,000 citizens of the island don’t have health care.

“A New Homeland means that we, Puerto Ricans, are proud of being who we are and where we are from.

However, we are aware that, at this moment in time, our homeland needs to be built anew,” Dalmau said. “In terms of healthcare, my government will devise a public corporation independent from the Department of Health and autonomous from the government to prevent the harmful party-political germ. It will have a board of directors composed of members who represent patient service providers and public health management professionals.”

The PIP gubernatorial candidate said the board would negotiate directly with service providers on payment methods and levels according to the services that are provided, which later translates to providers getting paid directly on behalf of the universal healthcare plan. He said the healthcare plan could be financed by state funds assigned by the Health Insurance Administration, funds from federal healthcare programs, and premiums.

“This would not ban private healthcare insurers; whoever wants to pay for it, they can,” Dalmau said. “Now, this would force these insurers to be more competitive and provide better services.”

Regarding education, Dalmau was brief, saying he wants to provide an “accessible and democratic education [system] on all academic levels” that it is not subject to privatization. However, when the Star asked how his government would be able to do so, Dalmau responded that as 45 percent of homes in Puerto Rico do not have access to the internet, he proposed that bandwidth internet should be essential; in order to comply, his government would be making the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s (PREPA) network, commonly known as PREPANet, accessible to the public.

“It is one of the most effective systems that we have as a country, but during this administration, Law 80 was signed, which is the Fair Competition in Information Telecommunications and Paid Television Act, and which opens bandwidth use for private enterprises for business purposes,” he said.

Meanwhile, as for PREPA and the Puerto Rico Aqueducts and Sewer Authority, Dalmau said his government would put a stop to negotiations to privatize both authorities because he wants to treat them as “fundamental services for human rights.”

“Access to electric power, potable water, and sanitary services, the United Nations (UN) points these out as human rights,” he said. “Hence production and distribution [of such services] must not be bound to privatization.”

When it comes to economic security, Dalmau said his government would implement a uniform tax liability on corporations of 10 percent, which would reduce local enterprises’ tax rates to 20 percent and push international corporations to pay for taxes, something they are currently exempt from by law.

“It’s not a confiscatory position in relation to these businesses; first, because it’s a competitive rate on an international scale, as foreign enterprises pay from 15 to 20 percent tax rates in other countries. Furthermore, these foreign corporations, especially American ones, receive a tax credit when they pay abroad,” Dalmau said. “It would make us more competitive in terms of economic development.”

The senator at-large said meanwhile that his gubernatorial platform includes providing health care and a dignified retirement system to the elderly community, establishing a merit system for official recruitment in the monitoring and management departments of government agencies, eliminating the political party criteria from public employment and cutting private service contracts.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

New, but old, restrictions in new executive order; full lockdown on Sunday

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

G

ov. Wanda Vázquez Garced said Wednesday that the new Executive Order 2020-062 will go into effect on Aug. 22 and will extend for 21 days until Sept. 11, and that 24-hour lockdowns will be imposed on Sundays in order to tackle increased rates of positive COVID-19 cases in Puerto Rico.

Vázquez said curfew hours will remain from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., while on Sundays, only gas stations, pharmacies, supermarkets, and hardware stores will remain open. In-person restaurants will be able to operate via drive-thru or delivery.

Meanwhile, restaurants that have open-air spaces are to occupy at 25 percent capacity from Monday to Saturday via reservation; however, customers must maintain six to nine feet of distance.

The Star explains other measures issued in the new executive order: * Public or private social or family activities are prohibited, while alcohol sale is forbidden after 7 p.m from Monday to Saturday and at all times on Sunday * Alcoholic beverage consumption in parking spots, public spaces, and areas close to operating businesses, including gas stations, is prohibited; business managers expose themselves to license suspension if such activity takes place

* The use of face masks is compulsory. In addition, Puerto Rico Police Bureau agents will issue a fine of $100 to each person who does not comply with the order * Businesses that sell alcoholic beverages will remain under the current sales prohibition during the next 21 days, while supermarkets must guarantee social distancing inside their enterprises and the sanitization of grocery carts * Each employer is obligated to notify the island Health Department of any positive or suspicious COVID-19 case at covidpatronos@salud.pr.gov * Banks and other financial institutions will only be authorized to offer deposit, withdrawal and payment services * Laundries and nurseries will remain operating at 25 percent of their capacity * The current instructions on renewals of vehicle inspection stickers are extended during the executive order * Lines are forbidden at retail stores, and malls will be able to open from Monday to Saturday at up to 25 percent capacity * Movie theaters, game rooms and valet parking services will not operate * In closed malls, occupation will be limited to one person per 100 square feet * Outdoor recreation and sports activities are authorized during the hours established by the curfew. Group exercise activities are prohibited * Beaches are open only for sports activities. Coolers

and beach chairs are prohibited * Auto concessionaires remain open from Monday to Saturday * Childcare centers can operate while complying with established guidelines * Churches and funeral homes cannot exceed 25 percent capacity * Public transportation remains suspended * In-person classes in both public and private schools will not begin until evidence proves a decrease in daily confirmed COVID-19 cases * Equestrian sports are allowed to operate.

The governor also pointed out that any citizen who does not comply with the executive order and resists enforcement by police officers could face prosecution.

Charbonier to resign from House seat, thinks twice about going independent

By THE STAR STAFF

N

ew Progressive Party (NPP) Rep. María Milagros “Tata” Charbonier Laureano tendered her letter of resignation from her at-large seat in the Puerto Rico House of Representatives on Wednesday, effective Sept. 15.

“In my pondered reflection on recent events, I have decided to resign from the seat that I currently occupy as at-large House representative effective on

September 15, 2020,” reads the letter sent to House Speaker Carlos “Johnny” Méndez Núñez.

Charbonier requested the period of two weeks so as to make an orderly transition. She had worked on the Penal Code and on a Civil Code, among other measures.

“I have to assume this responsibility and this will require time, commitment, a lot of effort and money.

It is worth noting that this burden is not on you,” Charbonier said in the letter. “I am calm, at peace, with a clear conscience. I came here to work and I did that with responsibility and determination.”

In another letter, Charbonier had announced her disaffiliation from the NPP. In a letter sent to Méndez earlier, Charbonier notified him of her disaffiliation from the NPP and indicated that she will continue as an independent legislator. However, she changed her mind.

Charbonier was arrested by the FBI on Monday along with her husband, their son, and an employee of her legislative office.

A federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court of Puerto Rico issued a 13-count indictment against Charbonier as well as her husband, Orlando Montes Rivera, their son, Orlando Gabriel Montes Charbonier, and Frances Acevedo Ceballos for her alleged participation over several years in a conspiracy of theft, bribery and illegal commissions.

According to the indictment’s charges, from early

2017 to July 2020, Charbonier, Montes, Montes Charbonier and Acevedo executed a scheme to defraud the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. In early 2017, Charbonier inflated Acevedo’s net salary from $800 to $2,100 biweekly. From each inflated paycheck, it was agreed that Acevedo would keep a portion and pay a kickback commission of between $1,000 and $1,500 to Charbonier, Montes and Montes Charbonier.

The lawmaker was also charged with obstruction of justice for erasing messages in her cellphone and mobile ATM account.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

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PREPA: Fiscal board’s rejection of renegotiated green energy projects was ‘unexpected’

By THE STAR STAFF

T

he Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) on Wednesday said it was surprised by the position taken by the Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB) essentially rejecting as non-operational the 16 renegotiated renewable energy projects submitted by PREPA, because the board had monitored the renegotiation process.

The news comes as several creditors are asking the court to end PREPA’s bankruptcy process.

PREPA’s director of administration and fiscal affairs, Francisco Padilla, said PREPA has worked extensively to secure a renegotiation process that achieved the recommendations made by New Energy Partners and the oversight board, and that it was unfortunate to have received the board’s letter undermining the efforts of the stakeholders involved.

“This unexpected turn of events has significant impact for the development of solar renewable energy projects given that it not only affects the timeline for transition to renewable energy sources but also the investment environment on the island,” Padilla said. “The after-the-fact fiscal plan certified by the FOMB did not provide a realistic price structure that allowed PREPA to renegotiate with project sponsors. Even if PREPA is fully committed to the development and implementation of new renewable energy projects, the FOMB’s decision is an indisputable setback for the transition to renewable energy sources and adversely affects the economic environment of the island.”

The oversight board on Monday said some 16

PREPA renewable energy agreements renegotiated recently would result in electricity rates higher than projected in the 2020 certified fiscal plan.

“Despite achieving improved prices (when compared to original prices) and contract terms more favorable to PREPA, the approval and development of all 16 Proposed Contracts (representing a total renewable energy capacity of 593 MW [megawatts]), 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,” the oversight board said. “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.”

Padilla said he was surprised by the oversight board’s remarks because PREPA negotiated the non-operational power purchase and operating agreements (PPOAs) with the guidance and pricing input suggested by the board during the past 18 months.

“Both PREPA management and its governing board was thoroughly advised by New Energy Partners, a global expert on solar development,

which provided the price structure that would secure the lowest price for the rate payer while allowing realistic development of the PPOAs for compliance with Act 17-2019,” Padilla said.

The news comes as the Official Unsecured Creditors Committee (UCC) asked the U.S. District Court to end PREPA’s bankruptcy process under Title III of the federal Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, commonly known as PROMESA. Over a year ago, officials filed a restructuring support agreement (RSA) for PREPA’s $9 billion debt which has yet to bear fruit.

In its status report filed on July 31, the Puerto Rico government conceded that there were grave doubts about the PREPA RSA’s viability, but claimed that “additional time is required to understand how and if the situation will impact PREPA and to what extent (if any) they should seek to amend the RSA.” The request was granted by the court.

The UCC submitted that, notwithstanding the government’s desire to continue indefinitely adjourning their 9019 Motion or bankruptcy motion, unless the government says it is prepared to immediately move forward with its bankruptcy, the court should dismiss it.

The UCC said that all available evidence demonstrates that the RSA — which forms the sole basis for the case or controversy underlying the relief requested in the 9019 Motion — no longer exists as a viable agreement and the government parties have no intention of moving forward with their motion seeking approval of the RSA.

PDP lawmaker denounces ‘illegal’ integration of Tourism Co. into Economic Development Dept.

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

R

ep. Ángel Matos García (District 40-Carolina), a member of the Tourism and Social Wellness Committee in the island House of Representatives, on Wednesday described as illegal the transfer of executive personnel from the Puerto Rico Tourism Co. to the Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC

by its Spanish acronym), an action taken last Friday by DDEC Secretary Manuel Laboy.

Laboy justified the integration of the Tourism career employees into the DDEC under the provisions of Law 141 of 2018.

However, Matos García charged that Laboy’s action was carried out contrary to the law, since DDEC could not unilaterally begin a movement of personnel to dissolve the Tourism Co. without first notifying the Legislative Assembly, as well as the chief of staff through certification, that DDEC was ready to receive and integrate the Tourism Co. “Under article 2.2 of the Reorganization Plan number 7 of Law 141 of 2018, it is clearly established and obliges the Secretary of the DDEC to certify to the Legislature that financially, as well as at the level of physical capacity, he has the authority to transfer these employees,” the legislator said. “At no time did the Legislature receive a certification, which violates the law.”

Matos García noted further that “[o]bviously the fiscal situation of the DDEC is not the best and it is not ready to receive the Tourism Company and the fiscal responsibilities of this agency.”

“It is a shame to see that yesterday [Tuesday], the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Puerto Rico

Tourism Company, created by Don Luis A. Ferré, was celebrated, when what they were actually celebrating was the last day of its existence,” he said. “The only thing that Secretary Laboy seeks with this illegal action is to make Tourism disappear, as part of the consolidation of agencies of this administration. We are evaluating with our attorneys the possibility of taking an appeal to Court to stop this taking by assault against the Tourism Company, since we are convinced that the law has not been complied with and the acquired rights of 15 and 20 years in more career positions, of employees who gave everything for the development of tourism in the country, are endangered.”

Matos García added that the current New Progressive Party administration has done two “unforgivable things” during its four-year term, including eliminating the Tourism Company, which “with so much sacrifice and commitment has fought for the island’s tourism industry.”

He said it has also allowed the Destination Marketing Organization (DMO), which is in its third year with a bloated expense budget and only a performance ranging from extremely poor to mediocre to show for it. All the DMO has done, the minority lawmaker said, is spend exorbitantly on payroll and contracts, in disregard of the best interests of the Puerto Rico tourism industry.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

Union denounces threat to 9-1-1 emergency service

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

T

he Puerto Rico Communications Workers Union, which represents the workers of the 9-1-1 System Bureau, charged on Wednesday that Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced, in coordination with 9-1-1 Commissioner Yazmín González, is threatening the security of funding for the service and thereby endangering the lives of citizens who need an immediate response through 9-1-1.

The union expressed support for Law 32-2020, which seeks to protect 9-1-1 funds so that they are used solely and exclusively for handling emergency calls, as established by federal statutes.

“Our union, with the support of Senators Henry Neumann and José Vargas Vidot, presents what today is Law 32-2020, to be able to return to 9-1-1 the tools it needs and to ensure that funds are protected,” said Aramis Cruz, president of the union. “It is necessary to exclude the negotiated Law 26-2017, which is the ‘Law of Compliance with the Fiscal Plan.’ The 9-1-1 funds cannot be used to pay debt nor can they be transferred to the general fund; it does not make sense to apply austerity measures to 9-1-1 and what it has created is an increase in the response time

and the reduction of resources to attend to emergencies in the country.”

According to the union, the bill favoring the 9-1-1 service has been worked on for two years and at no time did the governor or the Financial Oversight and Management Board indicate that it was incompatible with the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, better known as PROMESA, or the Fiscal Plan.

In fact, letters held by the union from the executive director of the oversight board, Natalie Jaresko, clearly state that the use of 9-1-1 funds will be used for the purposes established in Law 32 and for the improvement of the system.

“The problem lies in the fact that, for the moment, Gov. Wanda Vázquez, along with Commissioner Yazmín González and the secretary of the Department of Public Safety (DPS), Pedro Janer, submitted a letter to the Board reporting that they cannot comply with Law 32-2020 as it is incompatible with the Fiscal Plan, despite the fact that the Government has approved other measures whose impact on the general fund is palpable,” Cruz said. “All this is due to the fact that Law 32-2020 makes it impossible to divert funds as has been done in the past.”

Cruz reminded the island government

that from 2014 to 2017 more than $24 million was diverted from 9-1-1 for matters not related to the handling of emergency calls.

That caused an imbalance in the agency’s finances as the integrated municipalities and response agencies received the budget items that were destined for these purposes.

As a result, Cruz said, response times increased to almost 35 minutes, putting the lives of citizens at risk. He also pointed out that under the current administration funds have been diverted, such as for the purchase of a vehicle for then-Public Safety Secretary Héctor Pesquera.

“The commissioner insists that it was the Financial Oversight and Management Board that paralyzed the Law and that is

not correct,” Cruz said. “The Board clearly asked the Government to justify why Law 32-2020 could be applied when the impact is to increase the budget (with 9-1-1’s own funds) by approximately $450,000 and the Government decided not to justify the Act. In fact, 9-1-1 today is seeking to pay with 9-1-1 funds for expenses directly related to the DPS, which this law would not allow.

Since the DPS and [Resident] Commissioner [Jenniffer] González could not amend the law, the easiest thing was to put it aside.

And that was exactly what these officials did.

They thought first of their political agendas and put the safety of the people aside. We cannot allow that.”

Currently, all employees are holding peaceful demonstrations in both 9-1-1 centers in repudiation and public denunciation of the resident commissioner’s silence regarding the matter, the union leader said.

“The [resident] commissioner claims to be a victim of the bureaucracy, but she does not come out in public defending this bill, nor has she even written to the Financial Oversight and Management Board defending the importance of it,” Cruz said. “Nor has she criticized the DPS in the strong way that her colleague Dr. María Conte Miller did with the Bureau of Forensic Sciences.”

FEMA obligates funds to restore historic structures

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

I

n the past three years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has obligated funds so that iconic structures with historic value in Puerto Rico can regain their luster, the agency said in a press release Wednesday.

During this time, FEMA has obligated over $360 million to municipalities, the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture and the Office of Historic Preservation for

repairs to public buildings and parks, which include hospitals, government offices, educational centers, and sports complexes, as well as several points of interest throughout the island.

The effort includes funds for the Guajataca Tunnel in Isabela, a project with great economic impact in its area since it attracts about 7,000 visitors a year.

Given the complexity of the project repairs, FEMA allocated $47,000 to perform architectural and engineering studies to repair the tunnel permanently.

Built in 1904, the tunnel connects the towns of Isabela and Quebradillas, and is a remnant of Puerto Rico’s sugarcane era, when a railroad system spanned the island.

Similarly, a grant of about $22,000 was approved for the renowned Fortín Conde Mirasol in Vieques.

The funds will be used to repair and replace the contents of the structure, which includes a collection of paper artwork containing silkscreen prints, maps and posters of activities and festivals held at the fort.

Also planned is the repair of a wagon wheel from the beginning of the last century that was used to move sugar cane and a wooden sculpture, as well as the replacement of 15 exhibit cases.

“This first part of the two phases of assistance expected for Fortín Conde Mirasol paves the way for the recovery and improvements we need,” said Carlos

Ruiz Cortés, executive director of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. “We will follow up on every step and support in this process to rescue this piece of historical and cultural heritage of Vieques and Puerto Rico.”

In the municipality of Rincón, meanwhile, funds were awarded for the Punta Higuero Lighthouse. Some $20,000 is designated for architectural and engineering design costs needed to repair the site. Once the technical studies are completed, plans will include the replacement of the wood deck, lighting fixtures, ceiling tiles and other repairs.

Since 1993, the lighthouse has included a passive park with a maritime museum, cafeteria, meeting areas and a lookout point for whale watching and a view of Desecheo Island. It is currently run by the municipal administration and is visited by thousands of tourists every year.

To date, FEMA has obligated over $7.2 billion for costs related to hurricanes Irma and Maria, including projects to help rebuild infrastructure throughout Puerto Rico.

“Roughly 1,200 local staff are leading the recovery efforts and play a key role in moving recovery forward,” said the FEMA press release. “The Agency is part of the transformation and revival of the island, a process that is becoming more evident every day and that will benefit the island’s residents and its future generations.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

7

FDA’s emergency approval of blood plasma is now on hold

By NOAH WEILAND, SHARON LAFRANIERE and SHERI FINK

L

ast week, just as the Food and Drug Administration was preparing to issue an emergency authorization for blood plasma as a COVID-19 treatment, a group of top federal health officials including Dr. Francis Collins and Dr. Anthony Fauci intervened, arguing that emerging data on the treatment was too weak, according to two senior administration officials.

The authorization is on hold for now as more data is reviewed, according to H. Clifford Lane, the clinical director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. An emergency approval could still be issued in the near future, he said.

Donated by people who have survived the disease, antibody-rich plasma is considered safe. President Donald Trump has hailed it as a “beautiful ingredient” in the veins of people who have survived COVID-19.

But clinical trials have not proved whether plasma can help people fighting the coronavirus.

Several top health officials — led by Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health; Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert; and Lane — urged their colleagues last week to hold off, citing recent data from the country’s largest plasma study, run by the Mayo Clinic. They thought the study’s data to date was not strong enough to warrant an emergency approval.

“The three of us are pretty aligned on the importance of robust data through randomized control trials, and that a pandemic does not change that,” Lane said in an interview Tuesday.

The drafted emergency authorization leaned on the history of plasma’s use in other disease outbreaks and on animal research and a spate of plasma studies, including the Mayo Clinic’s program, which has given infusions to more than 66,000 COVID-19 patients thanks to financing from the federal government.

An FDA spokeswoman declined to comment.

Plasma, the pale yellow liquid leftover after blood is stripped of its red and white cells, has been the subject of months of intense enthusiasm from scientists, celebrities and Trump, part of the administration’s push for coronavirus treatments as a stopgap while pharmaceutical companies race to comple-

te dozens of clinical trials for coronavirus vaccines.

Emergency authorizations, which do not require the same level of evidence as a full FDA approval would, have been a fraught subject for the government during the pandemic. The agency gave one to the malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine only to rescind it months later after the drugs were found to be ineffective against the coronavirus, and potentially harmful. An emergency authorization for blood plasma would most likely ease the clerical burdens on hospitals in conducting infusions.

Senior health officials have privately expressed concern about the rapid growth of the Mayo program and the perceived rush to declare plasma effective without the affirmation of results from randomized trials, which scientists have long relied on as the gold standard of evidence. Skyrocketing enrollment in the program has prompted a debate among researchers about what kind of empirical certainty is needed in treating patients in a public health emergency.

An emergency approval now would “change the way people view trials,” said Dr. Mila B. Ortigoza, an infectious disease specialist at NYU Langone Health who started a trial with colleagues at Montefiore Medical Center.

“We want to make sure that when we say it works, we are confident, with indisputable evidence,” she said. “We’re dealing with patients’ lives here.”

Unlike the malaria drugs, plasma, which has been used since the 1890s to treat infectious diseases, has earned the attention of a highly credentialed community of microbiologists and immunologists eager to prove its usefulness. The Mayo Clinic has already published analysis on tens of thousands of patients in its expanded access program showing that plasma is safe.

The most recent batch of data from the program included more than 35,000 COVID-19 patients, many of them in intensive care and on ventilators, and suggested that plasma administered within three days of a diagnosis reduced mortality rates. When calculated a month after the infusions, the death rate of patients who received plasma within three days of diagnosis was lower (21.6%) than it was for those who received plasma later (26.7%).

But the study did not have a control

Javier Alvarez donates his plasma at Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas on July 6, 2020, after his grandmother died from the coronavirus. group of patients given a placebo to compare with those given plasma, making it difficult for scientists to assess whether the treatment really worked. And given the limited supply of plasma, it is not clear how realistic treating patients within three days of diagnosis would be.

Statisticians at the FDA are now examining the Mayo data to better understand what factors other than the treatment might have influenced patient responses, such as higher-quality care in the hospital, Lane said.

A research team from Houston Methodist hospitals also published preliminary results from a plasma trial last week. Their study of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the American Journal of Pathology reported that a group of 136 patients who received the treatment were more likely to be alive four weeks later compared with 251 patients who did not receive it. That study found a statistically significant benefit only when patients were treated within three days of admission and when the plasma contained a high concentration of antibodies.

The Houston study was not randomized, meaning that all of the patients enrolled received the treatment and none received a placebo. (The researchers later compared

their outcomes to records from other COVID-19 patients who were not in the study but were matched to be similar to them.)

A surge in cases in Texas this summer quickly brought the hospital system to its enrollment cap, and doctors there have not been able to provide the experimental treatment since mid-July. If the FDA gave an emergency authorization, doctors at the hospital could possibly begin administering it again, said Dr. Eric Salazar, the study’s principal investigator.

But an emergency authorization could have the unintended effect of making it harder for rigorous clinical trials to definitively show whether plasma works. Scientists have struggled to recruit patients for randomized trials, as many patients and their doctors — knowing they could get the treatment under the Mayo program — have been unwilling to risk receiving a placebo.

Last month, one such trial in the Netherlands was stopped when researchers realized that patients given plasma showed no difference in mortality, length of hospital stay or disease severity compared with those given a placebo. Most of the patients had already developed their own antibodies by the time they entered the study, the researchers noted.

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Thursday, August 20, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

‘I’m only one human being’: Parents brace for a go-it-alone school year

Janae Sturgeon and Demetrus Dugar at home with their children, Hannah, Isabel and Xayvion, in Kent, Wash.

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

P

arents across America are facing the pandemic school year feeling overwhelmed, anxious and abandoned. With few good options for support, the vast majority have resigned themselves to going it alone, a new survey for The New York Times has found.

Just one in seven parents said their children would be returning to school full time this fall, and for most children, remote school requires hands-on help from an adult at home.

Yet four in five parents said they would have no in-person help educating and caring for them, whether from relatives, neighbors, nannies or tutors, according to the survey, administered by Morning Consult. And more than half of parents will be taking on this second, unpaid job at the same time they’re holding down paid work.

Raising children has always been a community endeavor, and suddenly the village that parents relied on is gone. It’s taking a toll on parents’ careers, families’ well-being and children’s education.

In families where both wage earners need to work outside the home, parents have obvious logistical challenges because they cannot be in two places at once. Three-fourths of these parents say they will be overseeing their children’s education, and nearly half will be handling primary child care, according to the survey, answered by a nationally representative group of 1,081 parents from Aug. 4 to 8.

Eighty percent of parents who are both working remotely during the pandemic will also be handling child care and education.

One-fifth of parents are considering hiring a private teacher or tutor to help with their children’s education while school is remote, according to the survey.

“All the choices stink,” said Kate Averett, a sociologist at the University at Albany who has been interviewing parents nationwide since the spring. “There is a lot of stress, a lot of

anxiety. Parents tell me about not being able to sleep because they’re so anxious, or tell me they’ve been crying a lot. There’s been a lot of actual crying during interviews.”

Euqueva Varner and Kenneth Watts are security officers in Detroit who cannot work remotely, with sons in second and third grade. Their plan for the fall is precarious: They have back-to-back shifts, so they’ll trade off who’s home with the children, with no flexibility in their handoffs and little time to spend together as a couple or a family. Sometimes the children have to go to work with a parent, busying themselves with coloring and reading.

“They’re suffering,” Varner said of her children. “They really miss their friends, they miss going to school. My kids love school.”

“I try to work with them as much as I can to get them up to grade level,” she said. “It’s very difficult. I don’t have any help at all. It’s just me and the kids and my husband.”

“But we’ll get through it,” she said. “We’ll make a way.”

It’s mothers who are doing most of the planning, and spending the most time caring for and educating the children.

In the new survey, 54% of women said they’d be mostly responsible for educating their children on weekdays. Twentynine percent of men said they would be — though just 2% of women said their partners would be. Some couples said they planned to split the job equally, though again, men and women disagreed: 36% of men, and 18% of women, said they were splitting the work.

“Here’s the reality: The moms are doing it,” said Betsy Twitchell, a mother of two in Oakland, California, who works in communications for a union. “It’s been frustrating that this term ‘pods’ has become so charged. Actually, when you say that, you’re not supporting women, because we’re the ones who are really bearing the brunt of this, and having to take on this third shift in order to get our children through this distance learning.”

‘Impossible choices’ Parents of all races — those living in urban, suburban and rural America; those who have babies, elementary schoolers and teenagers — say they’re highly stressed, with few options other than to take it all on themselves.

While schools are providing remote learning, in most cases this requires an adult to be actively involved. Three-fourths of parents of elementary-school-aged children and half of parents of high-school-aged children say they need adult help to do virtual learning. Some schools have begun sending out sample schedules of days with multiple live video meetings and timed assignments. It’s an effort to make remote school more robust than it was in the spring, but requires even more hands-on effort from parents.

“To assume they can just do everything independently — they can’t,” said Amy Nunn, a teacher in Portland, Oregon, and the mother of two children, ages 9 and 11.

Her partner, Kelli Burke, is a house painter, so Nunn is home alone with the children during the day. She has decided to take a 12-week leave from her teaching job, the longest allowed by the federal government, to help their children, both of whom are dyslexic.

“I’m only one human being, and I just can’t give everything to supporting 20 other families and children while I’m trying to

support my own children,” she said.

Parents have taken extreme measures. One in three said they had left a child at home without supervision from an adult or teenager, because of the lack of child care options and the need to fulfill other obligations. Some parents said the risk calculation had changed, since bringing a child on an errand or to their workplace, or hiring a babysitter, now carried the risk of contracting the coronavirus. Single parents and those with outside-the-home jobs have even fewer options.

“I think that really just underscores the impossible choices that parents are having to make right now, especially essential workers,” said Anna Gassman-Pines, who studies child and family policy at Duke and has been interviewing hourly service workers with young children. “The set of folks you can rely on to come to your house in a pinch — family, friends, neighbors — is just really limited right now.”

Thirteen percent of parents have considered quitting their jobs. The same share has considered moving to be closer to family who could help, or moving to a different district or enrolling in private school because of reopening plans.

A long list of fears Across demographic divides, parents share the same fears.

The vast majority of parents say they are worried not just about their children’s academic progress, but also about their mental health, social skills and participation in sports and extracurricular activities. They’re also concerned about the time they spend on screens and the consistency of their routines.

Such worries didn’t vary by parents’ income or employment status. Across the board, the concern was about what their children were missing: school.

“For many poor families and immigrant families, education really is the way out of poverty,” said Frank Worrell, a professor at the graduate school of education at the University of California, Berkeley. “Even parents who didn’t have college degrees are recognizing the importance of college in this economy, and wanting that for their kids.”

Parents’ income and resources do, however, play a role in shaping the plans they are making for the year. Meeting children’s basic needs, like access to healthy food and regular meals, was a bigger concern for low earners and unemployed parents. For essential workers, help with child care is even harder to find, because of fears of coronavirus exposure.

Parents with college or graduate degrees and six-figure incomes have more options, starting with a greater ability to work from home. Twenty-two percent of parents said they had considered hiring a private teacher or tutor for their child or a small group of children, including 35% of those with postgraduate degrees and 18% of those without college degrees.

Twitchell, the mother in Oakland, and her husband, Charlie Dolman, both have white-collar jobs they can do from home.

They’ve formed a pod with three friends of their third-grade son and turned their garage into a schoolhouse, with an extension cord running to it for the children’s laptops. Each child’s parents will take turns overseeing remote school and child care. On Twitchell’s day, her baby will attend.

“It’s that, or somebody quits their job, and one of us cannot quit our jobs,” she said. “This was literally a question of survival.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

9

Hillary Clinton’s bittersweet return to the Democratic convention

By LISA LERER and GLENN THRUSH

H

illary Clinton, whose presidential candidacy in 2016 sent Joe Biden to the sidelines, spent much of the 2020 primaries telling friends that her longtime ally and onetime rival was the only contender who could defeat President Donald Trump, according to people close to both.

But she also saw Kamala Harris as a possible successor of sorts, a next-generation leader with the toughness to build on Clinton’s legacy.

So Clinton is, by all accounts, reassured by the BidenHarris ticket. But her return to center stage at the convention on Wednesday night, four years after becoming the first woman to win the nomination of a major party, is bittersweet.

Had things turned out differently, Clinton would be preparing her second acceptance speech. Instead, she has spent the last several days putting the finishing touches on a speech aimed at making a case for Biden and Harris.

It’s a familiar position for the former secretary of state. For decades, she spoke on behalf of her husband, Bill, then to help elect Barack Obama. Over her many years at the center of the Democratic Party, she campaigned for hundreds of federal, state and local candidates.

Yet, this moment is uniquely emotional for Clinton and the tens of millions who propelled her to a popular-vote majority of nearly 3 million in 2016, but a loss in the Electoral College. It is both a reminder of a job some allies still maintain was unfairly taken from Clinton and the wave of feminist activism sparked by her loss.

The former secretary of state plans to acknowledge that sentiment, relating how, in the days after her defeat, she was repeatedly confronted by despairing Democrats who presented her with all their “woulda, coulda, shoulda” scenarios, a person familiar with her remarks said.

Clinton, who will speak against the familiar backdrop of her parlor in Chappaqua, sees her return to the spotlight as an opportunity to harness the powerful feminist movement that grew out of her loss and to eject Trump from power.

The last time Clinton addressed a Democratic convention was July 26, 2016, in Philadelphia’s hockey arena. She accepted the nomination in a white pantsuit, a nod to the informal uniform of the women’s suffrage movement. It was a highlight of her campaign, say former aides, vindication for decades of grueling work, brutal attacks and controversy.

“I remember watching that roll call vote and being on bated breath knowing there would be something that would take this moment away from her and being so relieved when it wasn’t,” recalled Amanda Litman, a political strategist who worked on Clinton’s campaign. “It was the most celebratory it ever felt.”

She added, “It’s also proof positive that a very good convention has no relevance to the outcome of the election.”

But there were danger signs, even then.

Clinton’s speech was preceded by a queasy moment, when supporters of Bernie Sanders began booing as she approached the podium, to be quickly drowned out by shouts of “Hillary!”

The scars of 2016 have not entirely healed, especially when it comes to the FBI’s investigation into her email accounts, publicly reopened by FBI Director James Comey just 11 days before the election.

On Tuesday, Clinton posted a brief video clip of herself blinking disdainfully in response to a tweet by Comey that read: “#19thAmendment is an important anniversary but the vote is not enough. We need more women in office. VP and Virginia governor are good next steps.”

Clinton’s return performance at the convention will be hailed by her many millions of supporters. But there will be hecklers, too — most likely led by Trump, who has tried, without much success, to find another foil who evokes comparable vitriol among conservatives as the former first lady.

Clinton remains a divisive figure among parts of her party, blamed by some for the Democrats’ defeat and considered by others to be a victim of a misogynistic political system.

She is trying not to be defined by her enemies — on the right or the left. Clinton’s speech will be as focused on praising Biden and Harris as burying Trump, people close to her said; she is expected to include a forceful testimonial to Harris as the first woman of color on a major party’s presidential ticket.

She will also discuss what she sees as a connective thread among Biden, Harris and herself — their strong mothers. Clinton has never forgotten Biden’s attempts to console her over the death of her mother, Dorothy, in 2011 at the age of 92.

Clinton returned that favor and reached out to Biden after his son Beau learned he had terminal brain cancer in 2013.

After considering a third presidential run in early 2019, Clinton offered private support for Biden without endorsing him, calling the former vice president on several occasions to give advice and encouragement, two Democrats close to the situation said.

“Hillary Clinton really likes Joe Biden, and always has,” said Thomas R. Nides, a Biden supporter who served as undersecretary of state for Clinton from 2011 to 2013. “This is a real thing, not politics. She really liked him as a human being, and the feeling is mutual.”

During Obama’s first term, Biden and Clinton had a standing breakfast appointment every two weeks at the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory. But the relationship was tested in the second term when it became apparent to Biden that the president viewed Clinton as his rightful successor.

Biden was privately furious, and two of his top aides, Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti, drafted a memo outlining his strengths as a candidate, arguing that negative perceptions of Clinton made her a deeply vulnerable candidate.

The death of Beau Biden in mid-2015 effectively ended Biden’s aspirations that cycle. But he has often contended he could have beaten Trump.

He campaigned vigorously for Clinton, but the bitter experience of being pushed to stand down helped fuel his fire to run again, aides said.

More than anything, Clinton is embracing the role as a gender trailblazer that has defined her career, an updated

version of the never-give-up message she delivered in the most admired address she has ever delivered, the “glass ceiling” speech that signified her exit from the 2008 Democratic primary.

During her last campaign, Clinton hoped to ride into office on the support of such a feminist uprising. The fact that the movement she hoped to spark grew from her defeat marks another twist in a career full of them.

In the Trump era, women have mobilized behind the Democratic Party, volunteering, donating and running for office in record numbers. The support of suburban women helped Democrats win control of the House in 2018, flip state legislatures and boost Biden to the nomination.

Clinton still possesses a loyal constituency of female supporters. As late as the fall of 2019, Clinton was considering a third bid for the presidency, as no real front-runner emerged in the primary race.

While she cast herself as a champion of women in politics, she declined to endorse or even more subtly signal a possible female heir among the diverse group of women running for president.

When Clinton did speak out, she courted controversy. A critique of Sanders during the launch of a documentary about her spurred fears that she was reigniting divides within the party. And her suggestion that Russian forces were grooming Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii to become a third-party spoiler helped Gabbard extend her time in the national spotlight.

But many of Clinton’s longtime supporters see Wednesday night’s speech as an opportunity for her to transfer her legacy to someone else — not to Biden but to Harris.

“She’s passing the torch to the Kamala Harris generation.

That’s what makes it really exciting,” said Litman, now the executive director of Run for Something, which encourages young Democrats to seek political office. “It’s not just to Kamala Harris but to a whole generation of women that come next that can do so because Hillary Clinton went first.”

Former President Bill Clinton speaks on the second day of the Democratic National Convention at Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 5, 2012.

10

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

Report details Manafort’s ties during 2016 Trump campaign to a Russian agent

By SHARON LAFRANIERE and JULIAN E. BARNES

R

ussian intelligence services pursued myriad avenues to influence the Trump campaign in 2016, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee, but none was more important than the relationship between campaign chairman Paul Manafort and a man who had been his friend and co-worker for years: a Russian intelligence officer named Konstantin Kilimnik.

Their link was “the single most direct tie between senior Trump campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services,” according to the fifth and final volume of the committee’s report on its bipartisan threeyear investigation issued Tuesday.

While the interactions between the two men remain largely hidden, investigators found enough facts to declare that Manafort created “a grave counterintelligence threat” by sharing inside information about the presidential race with Kilimnik and the Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs whom he served.

The report portrayed Manafort as deeply compromised by years of business dealings with those oligarchs. Collectively, they had paid him tens of millions of dollars, lent him millions more and may also have owed him millions.

These complex financial entanglements apparently figured in Manafort’s decision to give Kilimnik inside campaign information, including confidential polling data and details of Trump’s campaign strategy.

The report builds on other evidence sugges-

Paul Manafort, center, then President Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, before the final night of the Republican National Convention, in Cleveland, July 21, 2016. ting that Manafort hoped that Kilimnik would open up lucrative business deals with the oligarchs in return or that they would consider the value of the information as its own form of payment.

The committee had little explanation for the connection between the two men, citing Manafort’s lies to federal authorities, coupled with the care the two men took to protect their communications, as roadblocks to learning more.

“What did the Russians do with all this information, how did they use it, did they use it?” Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the committee’s top Democrat, asked in an interview Tuesday. “Those are serious counterintelligence questions we may never get the full answer on.”

The report said Kilimnik was Manafort’s link to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who is close to President Vladimir Putin of Russia and has acted “as a proxy for the Russian state and intelligence services” since at least 2004, when Manafort apparently met him, the report said.

Deripaska, who has worked to install pro-Kremlin governments around the globe, initially hired Manafort as a political consultant, the report said. A group of pro-Russia oligarchs in Ukraine later became the financiers of Manafort’s operations to help Viktor Yanukovych, a politician aligned with Russia, become Ukraine’s president.

Despite questions about who was behind Kilimnik — both financially and politically — Manafort increasingly depended on him. But by 2014, the Ukraine work had dried up.

Yanukovych had been forced out as president after a popular uprising and fled to Russia. Manafort claimed the Ukrainian oligarchs had stiffed him out of millions for his work for Yanukovych. And Deripaska was trying to collect from Manafort for a failed private equity deal in Eastern Europe.

Now broke, Manafort volunteered to work for the Trump campaign, which hired him in March 2016. In a memo, Manafort offered to brief Deripaska on “this development with Trump.”

Manafort also speedily passed along the news of his new job to Kilimnik, who traveled to the United States specifically to meet him in May and again in August 2016.

According to the report, Manafort was forthcoming: He briefed Kilimnik on Trump’s path to victory and his strategy to win in

battleground states.

After he rose to campaign chairman, Manafort also instructed his deputy, Rick Gates, to periodically share confidential Trump campaign polling data with Kilimnik, including surveys showing what voters most disliked about Hillary Clinton, Trump’s Democratic opponent. Gates “understood that Kilimnik would share the information with Deripaska,” the report said.

The transfer of internal campaign data to a known Russian agent is “about as clear a coordination or cooperation between two entities as could be established,” said Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent on the Intelligence Committee who votes with Democrats.

The committee said it found evidence — redacted for national security reasons — that Kilimnik may have been involved in the covert effort by the Russian government to hack into the computer networks of Democratic organizations and funnel damaging emails to the rogue website WikiLeaks, which released them just before the election.

The report also cited but did not reveal information it said potentially links Manafort to that operation, which was by far Russia’s most significant effort to disrupt the American election.

Manafort was forced to resign from the Trump campaign in August 2016 amid a growing scandal over his work in Ukraine. He later told the FBI that he had briefed Trump on his Ukraine work before the campaign hired him, but “did not go into detail because Trump was not interested.”

After he was convicted of orchestrating a financial fraud scheme, Manafort agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors working for special counsel Robert Mueller, who was investigating Russian interference in the election.

The prosecutors were especially eager to question him about Kilimnik, who was also indicted on charges of obstruction of justice but could not be extradited. Kilimnik has denied any ties to Russian intelligence services.

Prosecutors ultimately decided that Manafort was lying to them and pulled out of a plea agreement with him. He is now serving his 7 1/2-year prison sentence at home because of the coronavirus pandemic.

After he was indicted, Manafort purchased a pay-as-you-go phone, the report said. One primary purpose was to talk to Kilimnik.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

11

How your phone is used to track you, and what you can do about it

By JENNIFER VALENTINO-DEVRIES

A

s researchers and journalists try to understand how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting people’s behavior, they have repeatedly relied on location information from smartphones. The data allows for an expansive look at the movements of millions of people, but it raises troublesome questions about privacy.

In several articles, The New York Times has used location data provided by a company called Cuebiq, which analyzes data for advertisers and marketers. This data comes from smartphone users who have agreed to share their locations with certain apps, such as ones that provide weather alerts or information on local gas stations. Cuebiq helps app makers use technology like GPS to determine the location of people’s phones, and in turn some of the app makers provide data to Cuebiq for it to analyze.

The data obtained by The Times is anonymized and aggregated, meaning that the journalists see broad statistics compiled by geographic area — such as the median distance moved per day by devices in a census tract. The Times did not receive information about individual phones and did not see the path any particular phone took.

About 15 million people in the United States use the relevant apps daily and allow them to track their location regularly.

The aggregate data provides a representative sample of the population, according to academic papers that studied Cuebiq’s data in different metro areas.

What are the dangers of this data?

Although the data excludes names, phone numbers and other identifying information, even anonymous location information can be revealing. The Times has reported on the intrusiveness of such data, which can show intimate details like trips to doctor’s offices and outings with romantic partners.

The fact that companies are collecting, storing and selling location information about individuals at all presents risks. Hackers or people with access to raw location data could identify or follow a person without consent, by pinpointing, for example, which phone regularly spent time at that person’s home address.

Different companies have widely varying approaches to handling the information, including deleting large portions of it for privacy reasons or selling the raw data with no protections.

Location data on individuals is used for purposes like marketing and analysis for hedge funds and law enforcement. There is no federal law in the United States that limits the use of location information in this way, although some have been proposed.

Cuebiq said it collects and stores raw location data but does not sell it.

What are the benefits of this data?

Location data from smartphones is used for several purposes, most frequently for targeted advertising. For example, companies may show ads for sneakers to people who often go to a gym. Companies such as Apple and Google use similar information for mapping and traffic monitoring, or to tell people when stores are likely to be busy.

Makers of apps that sell the data say it allows them to give users their services without charging them money.

Millions of Americans are regularly sharing their location data with smartphone apps, driving an industry that provides information to advertisers and other companies.

During the coronavirus pandemic, location information has shown where people are following social distancing rules, and where they have traveled — enabling analysis of potential hot spots. The Times has used this data to show that people from low-income areas were less likely to be able to shelter at home than people from high-income locations and to demonstrate how the virus may have spiraled out of control in the United States.

How would I know if my data is collected?

It can be difficult for people to keep track of whether and how their data is being gathered. Android-based devices and iPhones both require apps to ask users to enable location services before collecting the information, but the explanations people see when prompted to give permission are often incomplete or misleading. An app may tell users that granting access to their location will help them get weather alerts, but not mention that the data will be sold. That disclosure is often buried in a densely worded privacy policy.

In a recent test of five apps that provide information for Cuebiq’s data set, the disclosures indicated that the data would

be shared for advertising and analysis, and users were directed to information on limiting that sharing. But some apps made it easier than others to stop the data collection. And in a test last year by New York Times opinion journalists of an app that sent data to Cuebiq, the initial prompt for the user to allow access to location information did not mention all the ways it would be used. That app later changed its messaging.

Even with such disclosures, it may not be clear to users how frequently someone’s information is collected and what it can show. In Europe and California, users can request their data.

Elsewhere, policies vary by company.

You can request your data from Cuebiq or ask the company to delete your data regardless of where you live. Cuebiq ties your data to your phone’s so-called advertising ID, which is used by marketers and others to differentiate phones from each other, and will send you the information associated with that ID. To prevent people from getting data on others’ IDs, the company requires you to download an app that verifies the number and then makes the request. You can then delete the app without affecting your request. The app is available for both Android and iOS. How can I opt out?

If you want to prevent Cuebiq from collecting your data, the easiest way is to disable the advertising ID on your phone. If you disable it, Cuebiq will no longer keep track of your device.

Cuebiq also provides several other ways to opt out of location tracking, outlined if you click “Control” on the company’s privacy page.

However, opting out of Cuebiq’s database will not prevent your information from being collected by a variety of other companies that gather and store precise location information. Some provide similar options, but not all do, and it is difficult to keep track of the myriad firms in the location-tracking industry.

If you want to avoid collection of your location data altogether, your best bet is to evaluate the individual apps on your phone to see whether they are collecting more about you than you would like. Prevent all but your most important apps from gaining access to the data, and allow them to get it only when you are using the app.

NOTICE OF UNCLAIMED PROPERTIES IN PUERTO RICO

Assets listed in this notice will be remitted to the Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions (OCFI) if not claimed by November 30th, 2020.

Sr. No. Owner Name 1 2 3 4 5 6

Property Address

AMAURY VELASCO VELEZ GUILLERMO MARTINEZ NEREIDA GONZALEZ NESTOR SANTANA CARIRE PROVALUE PROPERTY SERVICE THOMAS EDWARD KIERCE ITURRIOZ

1800 MCLEARY AVE #401, SAN JUAN, PR 00911 STE 207, OLIMPO PLAZA BLDG, 1002 MUNOZ RIVERA AVE, SAN JUAN, PR 00927 PO BOX 912, LAJAS, PR 00667 APARTMENT W-302 BUILDING C HATO REY CENTRO CONDOMI, SAN JUAN, PR 00919 PO BOX #548, VEGA ALTA, PR 00692 187 APARTMENT TORRE PONCE DE LEON 100 CIUDADELA CO, SAN JUAN, PR 00908

Unclaimed Fund $138.61 $375.00 $375.00 $353.84 $350.00 $965.84

To access this notice on Sun West Mortgage Company’s website, please visit:

https://www.swmc.com/swmc-press-releases.php?d=08%2F10%2F2020&n=pr-publications-2020

12

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

Amazon sticks with office expansion plans in New York and elsewhere T

By KAREN WEISE and MATHEW HAAG

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he pandemic has upended many companies’ expansion plans. Not Amazon’s.

The tech giant said Tuesday that it would hire 3,500 white-collar employees across the country, including 2,000 in New York, following through on plans it had largely put in place before the coronavirus made office towers empty as employees work from home.

The new Amazon jobs will fill a lot of office space that the company acquired before COVID-19 took hold in the United States. In early March, Amazon bought the iconic Lord & Taylor building on Fifth Avenue from the coworking company WeWork, which was retrenching after unsustainable expansion. The New York Post reported at the time that Amazon had paid $1.15 billion for the property. Amazon declined to comment on the deal.

Amazon expects employees to occupy the space in 2023.

The company also plans to expand offices in its hubs in Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Phoenix and San Diego within two years. It signed a lease for roughly 90,000 square feet near Phoenix in the first quarter, according to Lee & Associates, a commercial real estate broker.

Amazon has 35,000 white-collar employees in more than a dozen tech hubs, so the growth announced on Tuesday would be a 10% expansion.

The announcement shows how Amazon, like other large tech companies, has been thriving in the economic chaos of the pandemic. As consumers hunkered down and shopped online, Amazon posted record sales and profits in the most recent quarter. It sold 57% more products than a year earlier, and profit doubled to $5.2 billion.

In recent years, the rapid growth of technology firms, both those from the West Coast and local startups, has transformed a broad swath of Manhattan into a vibrant tech hub. The biggest firms — Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google — have all expanded their footprints in the city, cementing New York City as a global tech corridor.

The companies have largely settled on the Far West Side, stretching along West 34th Street to the Hudson River and down to the Chelsea neighborhood. Collectively, they employ roughly 20,000 people in the city, and Google’s campus there has become its largest outside its headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Just this year, Facebook has hired more than 1,000 people in New York City, bringing

The Lord & Taylor building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, Oct. 23, 2017. its total there to more than 4,000. It has plans to hire thousands more for new offices it has recently leased at the Farley Building near Penn Station and down the street at Hudson Yards, the minicity on the Hudson River that is the country’s largest private development.

Amazon backed out of plans to build a second headquarters in New York last year, after fierce criticism from some lawmakers and residents. When the company made that sudden change, executives said they would take the 25,000 jobs it had planned in Queens and spread them around smaller tech hubs, including thousands of jobs in New York. It is proceeding with plans to build a second headquarters, known as HQ2, in the Washington area, where it expects to employ 25,000 people.

Even after dropping its plans for a large corporate campus in Queens, Amazon has continued to invest in the city, expanding its offices in Manhattan and opening warehouses in the other boroughs.

The company had 876,800 employees at the end of the quarter, most of them at its warehouses. It also has 400,000 drivers delivering packages to customers’ doors, largely working through contractors and as gig workers.

The pandemic has made it hard for real estate developers to find companies to lease office towers that have recently opened, and many commercial tenants are trying to renegotiate leases. Some companies have considered making working from home permanent, and others have backed away from office expansion plans.

Last week, REI Co-op, the outdoor retailer, said it was abandoning plans to occupy the new corporate campus it was building in the Seattle area, saying it will sell the new headquarters and instead distribute its workforce across the region. The company said the change would create more flexibility and have “financial benefits.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

13 Stocks

S&P 500, Nasdaq hit record highs as Apple crosses $2 trillion mark

T

he S&P 500 and the Nasdaq indexes hit all-time highs on Wednesday as Apple became the first publicly listed U.S. company to cross $2 trillion in market capitalization, with strong results from retailers Target and Lowe’s also lifting sentiment.

Already crowned the most valuable listed company in the world, Apple Inc rose 1.4% to cross the milestone, while providing the biggest support to the three main indexes.

“For this market to sustain all-time high levels we either have to see something develop on the fiscal side, or we would need to see large-cap tech continue to lead,” said Yousef Abbasi, global market strategist at StoneX. The S&P 500 closed at a record level on Tuesday in what has been its fastest recovery ever from a bear market.

The Nasdaq recouped its losses from the pandemic selloff two months ago, but the Dow is still nearly 5% below February’s record closing high.

However, some market experts were skeptical of the new peaks at a time when volumes are typically weak due to slow summer trading.

“The record high was met without any real fanfare, in the sense that we have low volumes, and not really any strong conviction of the rally ahead,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.

While trillions of dollars in fiscal and monetary support and a rally in tech-related shares have helped the benchmark surge about 55% from its March lows, the country’s economy is struggling to recover from the pandemic shocks.

Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s meeting, set for release at 2 p.m. ET (1800 GMT), could offer clues into the central bank’s plans for September.

Hopes for another round of fiscal coronavirus aid, after enhanced unemployment benefits expired last month, have been driving U.S. stocks higher. But Democrats and Republicans remain divided on key issues of the bill.

Big-box chain Target Corp jumped 12.3% after posting its best quarterly comparable sales growth while home improvement chain Lowe’s Cos Inc also beat estimates for quarterly results.

However, Lowe’s shares dipped 0.1%.

At 12:43 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 56.67 points, or 0.20%, at 27,834.74 and the S&P 500 was up 6.53 points, or 0.19%, at 3,396.31. The Nasdaq Composite was up 32.93 points, or 0.29%, at 11,243.77.

Johnson & Johnson said it would buy Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc for about $6.5 billion to bolster its portfolio of treatments for autoimmune diseases. Momenta shares soared 69.4%.

Gilead Sciences Inc fell 4.1% after the U.S. FDA refused to approve its experimental treatment for rheumatoid arthritis in its current form.

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14

Thursday, August 20, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Venezuela deploys security forces in Coronavirus crackdown

Police officers in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, detain people suspected of defying quarantine measures on July 31, 2020.

By ANATOLY KURMANAEV, ISAYEN HERRERA and SHEYLA URDANETA

P

resident Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela has tackled the coronavirus much as he has any internal threat to his rule: by deploying his repressive security apparatus against it.

Officials in Venezuela’s government are denouncing people who may have come into contact with the coronavirus as “bioterrorists” and urging their neighbors to report them. The government is detaining and intimidating doctors and experts who question Maduro’s policies on the virus.

And it is corralling thousands of Venezuelans who are streaming home after losing jobs abroad, holding them in makeshift containment centers out of fear that they may be infected.

In commandeered hotels, disused schools and cordonedoff bus stations, the returning Venezuelans are forced into crowded rooms with limited food, water or masks and held under military guard for weeks or months for coronavirus tests or treatment with unproven medications, according to interviews with the detainees, videos they have taken on their cellphones and government documents.

“They told us we’re contaminated, that we’re guilty of infecting the country,” said Javier Aristizabal, a nurse from the capital, Caracas, who said he spent 70 days in centers after he returned from Colombia in March.

In one major city, San Cristóbal, governing party activists are marking the homes of families suspected of having the virus with plaques and threatening them with detention, residents said. In another city, Maracaibo, the police are patrolling the streets in search of Venezuelans who re-entered the country without official approval. Local opposition politicians whose constituencies register an outbreak say they are threatened with prosecution.

“This is the only country in the world where having COVID is a crime,” said Sergio Hidalgo, a Venezuelan opposition activist who said he had come down with symptoms of the disease, only to find police officers at his door and government officials accusing him of infecting the community.

As the pandemic tore through neighboring countries, overwhelming health care networks far more prepared than Venezuela’s collapsed system, Maduro took a hard-line approach, treating the coronavirus as a national security threat that could destabilize his bankrupt nation and jeopardize his grip on power.

“The pandemic clearly presents a threat to the government because it shows the precariousness of its resources,” said John Magdaleno, a Venezuelan political scientist in Caracas. “The priority is not dealing with the pandemic. It is short-term political survival.”

In his seven years in power, Maduro has overseen the collapse of Venezuela’s health care system, the destruction of the national economy, and a marked increase in the country’s international isolation.

With dwindling resources to prepare the nation’s broken hospitals or help its already impoverished population survive the crisis, Maduro has turned to bare-bones detention facilities, repression and coercion to try to stop the virus from overwhelming the country, political analysts said.

The government’s heavy-handed approach may be keeping more people at home and slowing the virus’ spread, but it is also discouraging those who may be sick from seeking help.

That, in turn, is making the pandemic even harder to fight, doctors in Venezuela said.

“When people feel sick, they think they have a legal or a police problem, as if they were delinquents,” said Julio Castro, a Venezuelan doctor who advises the opposition-controlled Congress on health care. “So they prefer to hide.”

The true scope of the pandemic in Venezuela, a country that stopped releasing health statistics as basic as infant mortality years ago, is nearly impossible to determine.

But with 20 top officials reporting that they had tested positive and some doctors warning that their hospitals were near capacity, the situation may be far worse than the official tally of 288 deaths in a country of about 30 million people suggests.

Doctors and journalists who have questioned official statistics say they have been threatened. At least 12 Venezuelan doctors and nurses have been detained for making public comments on the coronavirus, according to medical unions.

Venezuelan migrants who return home after losing their jobs abroad in the wake of the pandemic are particularly targeted.

According to the Colombian government, about 95,000 Venezuelans have crossed back into their home country since March, and 42,000 are waiting their turn along the border.

Only 1,200 are allowed to return each week through the main border crossing, under Venezuelan government guidelines, forcing others to wait for months in makeshift camps. Those who use illegal trails to cross the porous land border are publicly labeled threats.

On Twitter, the armed forces of Venezuela urged the population to report so-called bioterrorists, referring to Venezuelans who had evaded government border controls and returned home.

The Times interviewed seven Venezuelans who were held in containment centers. Several said they had been crammed into rooms without beds, hot food, windows or

sufficient drinking water.

“You couldn’t ask anyone for help, because the only thing you got was abuse,” said Aristizabal, the nurse, who was shuttled among several centers after he returned from visiting his mother in Colombia.

During his detention, Aristizabal said he had slept on the ground at times — on the asphalt of a bus station or on the floor of a windowless hotel room that he shared with five other people.

Some said that they had been detained with babies just a year old, with no special provisions made for the children.

Others said that they had been obliged to take the medications outlined in Venezuela’s official protocol for treating anyone who has, or is suspected of having, the coronavirus, even without showing any symptoms.

The drugs listed in the government guidelines are unproven for treating the coronavirus, and could have dangerous consequences. The treatments include hydroxychloroquine, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned can cause dangerous heart rhythm abnormalities in coronavirus patients, and an anti-parasite drug called ivermectin, which the World Health Organization said should not be used to treat the illness.

Videos taken by Venezuelans in confinement centers showed unsanitary conditions. Several people said they were not getting treatment for preexisting conditions, were given a single mask for their stay and were unable to practice social distancing.

But the worst part, they said, was that they had no idea of how long they would be held.

In one video published by an opposition lawmaker, five older men and women wrapped in dirty blankets are shown crammed into a small, windowless room with dilapidated chairs and one bunk bed without mattresses in what they said was a government-run first-aid station in Caracas.

“Please take me out of here,” said one visibly distraught man. “I’m dying here. I feel worse every day.”

Maduro claims that his rapid response — he locked down the country on March 17, right after the first two coronavirus cases were confirmed — has prevented the devastation endured by nearby countries.

Officially, Venezuela boasts one of the region’s lowest infection rates. Five months after the virus was detected, the number of daily deaths, according to the government, has never surpassed 12.

“You’re given care that’s unique in the world, humane care, loving, Christian,” said Maduro in a national address on Aug. 14.

But health experts say the low official figures are the result of extremely low testing rates. Accurate coronavirus tests are scarce and take weeks to process in one of the two laboratories approved by the government, according to eight doctors in three Venezuelan states interviewed for this article. The doctors did not want to reveal their names for fear of government persecution.

Most patients with COVID-19 symptoms are never tested or die before they receive their results, so they are never included in the official statistics, the doctors said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

15

Italy wants its tourists back, unless they sit on the statues

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

F

irst, two German tourists took an unauthorized dip in the Grand Canal in Venice, under the Rialto Bridge.

Then an Austrian tourist broke the toe of a plaster statue of Napoleon’s sister while posing for a photograph at a museum in northern Italy. After that, a French tourist was caught red-handed using a black felttip pen to immortalize her stay in Florence on the city’s famed Ponte Vecchio.

Now Italian officials have set their sights on a young woman who took a selfie standing atop some newly reopened thermal baths in Pompeii, the fragile archaeological site.

“An investigation has been opened,” said Massimo Osanna, the outgoing director of the Pompeii site, adding that prosecutors in a nearby city were looking into the events.

The coronavirus pandemic may have crushed the tourism industry in Italy this year — delivering a significant blow to the country’s economy — but Italians say that should not give tourists who do come a free pass to run amok among the country’s cultural treasures.

“There’s a question of vigilance, but also of the unpreparedness of visitors,” read an editorial published Tuesday in the Rome daily La Repubblica. “What happened in Pompeii shows that the path to educating those who visit museums is still dotted with difficulties and unforeseen events,” a nod to countless episodes of vandalism and damage caused to cultural treasures by visiting tourists.

Past attempts to curb such behavior

have not always been successful.

Lawmakers in the lower house of Parliament introduced a bill last month that would toughen penalties for those convicted of destroying Italy’s artistic patrimony. Culture Minister Dario Franceschini has been trying to put such a law on the books since 2016 but has not managed to get approval from both houses of Parliament.

“We’re not in the Wild West; laws for damaging cultural heritage do exist,” Franceschini’s spokesman, Mattia Morandi, said Tuesday. But the minister said he hoped that tougher penalties would be a greater deterrent to people “who might carve their names in the Colosseum or take mosaics from Pompeii,” not appreciating that they were destroying something priceless, he said.

“We have to make a better effort to educate tourists to respect our patrimony, to make them understand where they are,” said Osanna, who is to leave Pompeii next month to take up a job at the Culture Ministry overseeing Italy’s state museums.

Pompeii is a huge site and hard to monitor, he said.

“Even increasing security staff by the hundreds, there will always be some place that you can access without direct control,” Osanna said.

Instead of limiting access to the site, Osanna said it would be better to inform visitors that they were treading on fragile ground that belonged to all of humanity, “and that any harm done to the site is a harm done to the world’s patrimony.”

In the case of the statue whose toes were damaged in July, local authorities

St. Mark’s Square in Venice, a city that is usually swarmed with tourists. tracked the man using museum visitor logs.

Prosecutors will look through Pompeii’s reservation system to try matching a name to the photograph that caught the selfietaking tourist out of bounds. The incident took place July 24 but did not make news in Italy until this past weekend, after it was posted on several social media accounts.

The man who took the photograph, Antonio Irlando, said he thought the woman might have been unaware she was breaking the rules, as the rope that was supposed to block the brick stairs to the roof had been untied and cast to the side.

Irlando, an architect and president of a local association that monitors the Pompeii sites, said in an interview that

after taking the photograph, he tried to reach the woman but she had gone by the time he got to the baths. Instead, he saw another family climbing the steps, unaware that they were off limits.

“I told them it wasn’t safe,” he said.

“Who knows how many others went up and no one noticed.”

Irlando said his database was full of “very extreme” photographs of tourists behaving badly at Pompeii, like walking along the protected ancient walls of the city, or leaning against frescoes created some 2,000 years ago.

“It’s an atavistic vice,” he said. “If you want other photos of people who vandalized the site, just let me know.”

16

Thursday, August 20, 2020

Why the world is watching a military takeover in Mali

By ERIC NAGOURNEY

T

he military in Mali arrested the country’s president and prime minister Tuesday in a coup staged after weeks of destabilizing protests over a disputed election, government corruption and a violent Islamist insurgency that has lasted for eight years.

The streets of Bamako, the capital, exploded with both jubilation and gunfire after President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta and his prime minister, Boubou Cissé, were detained along with other government officials. Around midnight, the president announced on state TV that he was resigning.

The effects of the turmoil could spill beyond the borders of Mali, a country whose strategic location has geopolitical implications for West Africa, the Sahel, the broader Arab world, the European Union and the United States.

Malians celebrating in Bamako on Tuesday.

French forces and U.S. advisers show the West’s keen interest France has remained deeply involved in the affairs of Mali, its former colony, decades after the country gained independence.

For the French forces battling Islamists in the region, Mali is part of what some call France’s “Forever War” in the Sahel, the far-stretching land beneath the Sahara.

The United States, too, has military advisers in Mali, and U.S. officials have a keen interest in a stable Malian government whose interests align with the West.

“Mali’s internal governance and security challenges are driving instability across the Sahel,” said Kyle Murphy, a former senior analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency who is now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“This matters to the United States,” Murphy added, “because instability in the

region allows violent extremists to prey on populations and advance their objectives, and displaces millions of civilians.”

Extremists driven from power, but not defeated After a previous military coup in 2012, Islamist rebels, some with ties to alQaida, took advantage of the disarray to seize control of large areas of the country’s north, including the ancient city of Timbuktu.

Under their brutal rule, Malians in those areas under jihadist control were forced to follow a strict religious code or risk severe punishment. Women were forced into marriage, and historical sites were demolished.

The rebels lost control of their territories after French forces intervened to help the Malian military drive them out.

But armed groups continue to terrorize civilians in the countryside, and the violence has metastasized across borders into the neighboring countries of Burkina Faso and Niger.

More than 10,000 West Africans have died, more than 1 million have fled their homes and military forces from West Africa and France have suffered many losses.

“That is the major concern here,” said Chiedo Nwankwor, a researcher and lecturer at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “These various jihadist movements in Africa do not bode well for any Western government.”

A success story turned sour In the years following its independence from France in 1960, Mali was viewed as having achieved a good track record in democratic government.

In 1996, a New York Times correspondent on a reporting trip to Mali made note of the pervasive poverty afflicting the citizenry but said the West African coun-

try nevertheless had become “one of this continent’s most vibrant democracies.”

But Mali, once cited as a democratic role model in the region, has lurched from one crisis to another since the 2012 coup that overthrew President Amadou Touré a month before elections were to be held.

The factors behind that coup, in part a consequence of the Arab Spring, underscore Mali’s position connecting North Africa with the rest of the continent. After the fall of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya in 2011, hundreds of heavily armed Malian rebels who had fought for the Libyan leader returned home and attacked northern towns, creating the chaos that preceded the military takeover.

Another leader falls Keïta, the president arrested in Tuesday’s coup, won office in a landslide in 2013. But whatever hopes Keita raised when he took 78% of the vote, his star, and his genuine popularity, gradually faded.

He vowed “zero tolerance” for corruption, but Malians came to view him with mistrust.

Keita won reelection in 2018, when he ran for a second term, but only after being forced into a runoff. In recent weeks, protesters complained that those in charge had not done enough to address the corruption and bloodshed that have plagued the country. And they accused the president of stealing a parliamentary election in March and installing his own candidates.

After security forces shot and killed at least 11 protesters earlier this summer, the demands for reform only grew.

A team of regional mediators arrived in the capital, Bamako, to try to ease the unrest.

Then the military stepped in.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

17

Why did a Chinese diplomat walk all over people on a Pacific island?

By DAMIEN CAVE

T

he grainy photograph certainly said something about China and the Pacific: It showed the Chinese ambassador, Tang Songgen, walking over the backs of 30 people on a remote island in the nation of Kiribati soon after he had landed on a grassy airstrip.

To some, especially U.S. and Australian officials who helped the image go viral this week, there was no greater symbol of Chinese “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy — in their view, it reinforced Beijing’s domineering, colonial approach.

To others, including people from Kiribati, the criticism was a sign of ignorance.

The ambassador was simply taking part in a local welcome ceremony, typically reserved for weddings, that elders had chosen to adapt.

Whether it was inappropriate statecraft or a tempest in a tropical teapot, the debate reflected a new reality for the nations of the Pacific: They suddenly matter again in geopolitics. China and the United States are waging a war of influence across the vast region that often brings aid and attention — but also an urge to talk (or walk) first and ask questions later.

“Our islands have always been geopolitical playgrounds for others,” said Katerina Teaiwa, an associate professor at the Australian National University’s College of Asia and the Pacific, whose father is from Kiribati. “Given all that, it’s quite frustrating for Pacific Islanders not to be taken seriously or heard.”

The photo’s viral surge cannot be separated from both the global and local context.

Kiribati, a former British colony near the Equator that is made up of 33 islands sprawled over 1.4 million square miles of ocean, is one of several Pacific countries that have gradually taken on greater importance for both Beijing and Washington as their bitter rivalry has intensified.

It is primarily a matter of location.

Kiribati is the closest neighboring country to Hawaii. All together, the hundreds of sparsely populated islands in the Pacific are scattered across an area equivalent to 15% of the globe’s surface, sitting like scattered chess pieces right between China, the United States and Australia.

“For their small size, they have really profound strategic significance,” said

Jonathan Pryke, director of the Pacific Islands Program at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney think tank. “In the Second World War, these tiny islands in the middle of a far-flung ocean had immeasurable strategic importance, and the geography hasn’t changed much since then.”

China has been building momentum in the region, with victories just starting to emerge. Last month, Papua New Guinea joined nations like Iran and Venezuela in voting to support a U.N. resolution endorsing the draconian new security law that China had imposed on the semiautonomous territory of Hong Kong.

In January, the Solomon Islands, where some of the most important battles of World War II were fought, cut ties with the self-ruling democracy of Taiwan and shifted its allegiance to Beijing, which claims Taiwan as part of China’s territory.

A few days later, Kiribati (pronounced keer-uh-bas) followed suit.

The shift brought immediate praise from China’s leader, Xi Jinping. He celebrated Kiribati and its president for being “on the right side of history” after the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding that brought the island nation into China’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative and established diplomatic ties.

Soon after that, Tang became China’s first ambassador on the ground there, where he has been fielding requests for help raising portions of the islands to evade rising seas from climate change. But the image of him walking on the backs of others gave him a new visibility.

It is unclear where the photograph came from. It seems to have been taken from beneath the plane that took the ambassador to the small island of Marakei during a visit earlier this month.

According to a statement that the Chinese Embassy in Kiribati posted on Facebook on Monday, the trip was purely educational, aimed at promoting “mutual understanding” and exploring “cooperation opportunities.”

The statement did not defend or explain the welcome ceremony, but it appeared to be a response to the discussion online after the image was posted on Facebook and Twitter a few days ago.

Cmdr. Constantine Panayiotou, the U.S. defense attaché based in Fiji, was among those who took up the cause, delivering a rebuke on Twitter: “I simply

Students holding the national flags of China and Kiribati at a welcome ceremony for the president of Kiribati, Taneti Maamau, in Beijing in January. cannot imagine any scenario in which walking on the backs of children is acceptable behavior by an ambassador of any country (or any adult for that matter!)

Yet here we are thanks to China’s ambassador to Kiribati.”

Australian officials provided a similar critique, prompting a flood of objections from people who were familiar with the ritual. Some pointed out that the people lying on their stomachs all seemed to be adults. Others noted that the ceremony was an expression of respect, initiated not by the ambassador but rather by local elders.

“This is mainly seen at weddings but not all islands,” Teaiwa wrote on Twitter. The people of Marakei, she added, have a right to decide how to welcome people, and they were “probably trying something extra customary to show honor and hospitality.”

In an interview, she said she believed that an Australian ambassador had once taken part in a similar ritual. (Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that it was not aware of any senior diplomat ever participating.)

Panayiotou, when asked about his response Wednesday, said that he would not be able to comment except to say

that the tweet “reflects my own personal opinions,” not the official position of the U.S. Embassy in Fiji or the Defense Department. Other U.S. officials have said they are worried that China will exploit rampant corruption in Kiribati to build strategic outposts on Christmas Island, which sits south of Hawaii.

Anne-Marie Brady, a professor at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, who has frequently criticized the Chinese government’s approach to the region, said the intent of the ceremony simply could not compete with the way it would be viewed: “as a visual image of the perceived unbalanced neocolonial relationship.”

And maybe that scrutiny of colonialism should continue, Teaiwa said — but more broadly, to include how the United States, Australia and the rest of the world treat a region they seem to consider only when a risk of conflict in Asia arises.

“Islanders are infantilized by foreign governments, development experts, missionaries, tourists and researchers from all disciplines,” she said. “The China-U.S.Australia tug of war is frustrating when it removes the voices and agencies of Pacific leaders and communities — especially communities.”

18

Thursday, August 20, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

Yes, we are living in a computer simulation

By FARHAD MANJOO

I

was flying recently from Los Angeles to Temuco, the largest city in the Araucanía region of Chile, when I got to thinking — as one inevitably does during globe-spanning flights — about the fallacy of maps.

In a way that is relatively novel in human history, people today are constantly bombarded with abstract representations of geography. Consider the red and blue of the polarized American electorate, the first-person view of a GPS navigator, and the blistering crimsons and oranges of global coronavirus hot spots.

One understands, intellectually, that maps are mere representations, and that they may conceal as much as they illuminate. In “real life,” states are neither red nor blue nor in any other way homogeneous; borders, in most places, do not exist other than in our minds, as the virus has made so tragically obvious. Yet when one experiences the world primarily through the mediated interfaces of our pocketable screens, such distinctions tend to fall away. We live inside this digital world; it’s as real as anything else.

Believe it or not, these insights occurred to me while playing a video game. Microsoft has just released a new version of Flight Simulator, an institution in the gaming world that made its debut in 1982, back in the

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Microsoft’s new Flight Simulator perfectly depicts a Boeing 787 Dreamliner flying over Los Angeles County. primordial age of video games. The update was released this week, and Microsoft provided it to some journalists and Flight Sim enthusiasts as a preview version weeks ago. It’s meant to show off the what’s possible in computing — in particular, how the increasing fidelity of virtual worlds might alter how we understand the “real” one.

Of course, I was not actually flying from Los Angeles to Chile; the last time I took a real airplane trip was in January (to make matters worse, it was to Newark, New Jersey). Yet my in-game epiphanies about the misleading nature of maps and borders were quite real, and they are a testament to how unusually deep a digital experience Microsoft has created.

The tech giant has done something uncanny here: It has created a virtual representation of Earth so realistic that nearly all sense of abstraction falls away. What you are left with, instead, is the feeling of actually being there — in which “there” is just about anywhere, from London to Seattle to Patagonia and every point in between.

Everything in Flight Simulator is meant to be as close to the physical Earth as possible — the buildings, the airports, the avionics, the airplanes, and even the weather. If you set the game to fly a Boeing 787 Dreamliner from San Francisco to New York right now, you will experience wind of the same direction and intensity that a pilot taking off from San Francisco would feel right now. You will see other planes in the sky just where they are in the sky right now; you will see houses (maybe even yours) and other landmarks of the same size, scale and color as they exist in wood and steel.

And you might, as you flit about the globe, feel the same sense of nervous terror and excitement that you did when traveling someplace new back in the Before Times, when we weren’t all grounded by contagion.

Flight Simulator is, technically, a video game, but little about it is explicitly designed to be fun. Though it does attract an avid community of enthusiasts, playing this game can be quite complicated and expensive. The best and most realistic experience requires an extremely powerful computer and lots of peripherals, which are meant to ape real airplane controllers. The game is currently so big and gangly that you’ll suffer through lengthy load times and more than a few bugs. (Microsoft says it’s aiming to fix these.)

But the new Flight Sim is more than a technical achievement or a marketing demo. I found it to be most compelling as a preview of a new kind of digital experience. In a way that I have never before felt from a piece of software, the game plunged me into sustained meditations on the permeability between the real world and the online one — and it offered me some hope of a more realistic kind of online life in the future.

At the moment, much of what happens online seems to be diverging from what happens offline. The digital world is, as we have seen, lousy with alternative facts and harebrained theories that have little bearing in fact. It often feels like society is being shaped by the algorithmically defined sensibilities of online echo chambers and anonymous bots and trolls rather than the nuanced ideas of living and breathing people.

It’s not just social media that distorts reality. As a lot of parents and kids have recently discovered, online education is an unsatisfactory simulacrum of a real world classroom. Today’s virtual office is convenient, but it’s flat and emotionless. The Zoom audience at the Democratic National Convention? It was gimmicky, I thought, with something crucial lost in the transition from a raucous convention hall to our webcammed living rooms.

The new Flight Sim suggests a different model of digital interaction, even if you have no interest in flying a plane. Until now, we have had to make do with abstract fictions online; from The Sims to Fortnite to the fake friends and tossed-off Likes of Facebook, our understanding of digital life is as a computer-generated realm stretched and shaped merely to approximate reality.

But now, computers can give us something different — a view of the world that is more real than the one we can see outside, a picture that illuminates our understanding of reality rather than hides it under abstractions.

I am not saying that such a view will cure all of society’s problems; but if we want to understand the world as it actually is, isn’t it better to use tools that depict it that way, rather than to delve deeper into the fakery of our present digital dystopia?

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

19

Comisión Derechos Civiles investigará fracasado proceso primarista Por THE STAR presidenta de la Comisión de DereLlesachos Civiles (CDC), Nieve de los ÁngeVázquez, adelantó el miércoles que el

organismo público se apresta a investigar el fracasado proceso primarista en aras de asegurar el derecho fundamental al voto, de cara a la elección general.

“La Junta de Comisionados, en reunión celebrada en el día de hoy, acordó llevar a cabo una investigación sobre el proceso primarista en aras de asegurar el derecho fundamental al voto. La investigación se centrará en identificar las causas del fracaso del proceso que se llevó a cabo”, indicó la también catedrática de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Bayamón en comunicación escrita.

Asimismo, añadió que con la pesquisa buscan, a su vez, identificar estrategias que

permitan “fortalecer el proceso y garantizar al país el ejercicio pleno del voto convocado para el martes, 3 de noviembre”.

“Vamos a mantenernos bien vocales en esta tarea porque la elección de quienes dirigirán los destinos de nuestro país por los próximos cuatro años tiene que darse en un ambiente serio y transparente, pero más importante aún, que garantice total democracia”, aseguró Vázquez.

La Comisión de Derechos Civiles, a raíz de los traspiés que demostró la Comisión Estatal de Elecciones en el proceso primarista que comenzó el pasado 9 de agosto y culminó una semana después, tomó un rol activo al presentar en el Tribunal un recurso de ‘amicus curiae’ para convertirse en observador del todo el proceso, desde la planificación, preparación y embalaje, hasta el envío de maletines.

Fundación Puertorriqueña Síndrome Down reenfoca sus esfuerzos en la educación y diversión durante la cuarentena

Por THE STAR

L

a Fundación Puertorriqueña Síndrome Down reiteró este miércoles el compromiso con su comunidad de participantes de cara a las limitaciones impuestas por la pandemia.

Según Francisco Correa, director ejecutivo de la Fundación, “ante los retos de una vida en tiempos de pandemia, es

importante que nuestros participantes sepan que no están solos. Aprovechan las herramientas tecnológicas para seguir en comunidad, educando y entreteniendo. Además, todo tipo de tratamiento, si se detiene, puede perder su efectividad.

Esto hace que se pierda tiempo en el desarrollo del participante. La terapia presencial o ‘a distancia’ es clave porque mantiene en práctica lo aprendido”.

La Fundación ofrecerá un ciclo de talleres virtuales por la plataforma de videoconferencias Zoom. También mantiene la continuidad de sus servicios ofreciendo terapias por telemedicina y presenciales, en complimiento con los más recientes protocolos de seguridad y sanidad, informó la entidad en declaraciones escritas.

Los participantes podrán beneficiarse de talleres de cocina, huerto casero y baile, además de reforzar destrezas de aprendizaje básico como lectura y matemáticas.

Orientado tanto a su comunidad de participantes como público general, los talleres son aptos para todas las edades y niveles de destrezas. El itinerario de talleres e instrucciones para verlas por Zoom están disponible en www.facebook.com/FPSindromeDown o llamando al 787.283.8210.

Talleres por telemedicina o presenciales Asimismo, la Fundación cuenta con servicios de terapia presenciales y para aquellos que opten por la telemedicina.

Para los servicios de terapia presenciales, la entidad cuenta con un protocolo de seguridad que salvaguarda a tanto los participantes, como a los emplea-

dos. Estos protocolos fueron implementados en cumplimiento con los requerimientos de la orden ejecutiva.

Correa asegura que en los pasados meses la Fundación ha tomado las medidas de seguridad que le permite ofrecer servicios a su población de manera continua. Se incorpora de manera permanente la telemedicina para asistir en el desarrollo de los participantes y romper con las barreras de distancia de aquellos que se les dificulta llegar a las facilidades.

Con 30 años de historia en la Isla, la Fundación Puertorriqueña Síndrome Down cuenta con una larga trayectoria de logros gracias a la implementación de su enfoque integral de servicios a jóvenes y adultos. Realiza diversos talleres y terapias tales como taller preempleo, talleres de empleo sostenible, terapia física, terapia ocupacional, terapia del habla y terapia oro-motor, para así mejorar el nivel de independencia y desarrollo social de los participantes.

Para más información se pueden comunicar al 787-283-8210 o escribir un correo electrónico a fpsd@sindromedownpr.com.

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Thursday, August 20, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter party on with Bill and Ted

By DAVE ITZKOFF

I

n the chronicles of late-20th-century popular culture, you will find few friends as excellent as Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan. The dopey Southern California dudes and bandmates

always stood faithfully alongside each other, whether bumbling through time in their 1989 film debut, “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” or wheedling themselves out of the afterlife in the 1991 sequel, “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey.” These movies helped bring a bodacious bounty of slang into the wider

The actors Keanu Reeves, left, and Alex Winter, the stars of the “Bill & Ted” movie franchise, in South Pasadena, Calif., June 18, 2020.

lexicon while providing early career boosts to their leading men, Alex Winter (Bill) and Keanu Reeves (Ted).

Three decades later, the actors, both 55, have remained close friends themselves. Reeves is now the star of franchises like “The Matrix” and “John Wick,” and Winter is a director of documentaries like “Showbiz Kids” and the upcoming “Zappa.” But they’re forever connected by “Bill & Ted” and the fact that they genuinely like each other, as they explained in a Zoom conversation earlier this summer.

“There’s very little constancy in this business,” Winter said. “You come together on a set, you’re like, ‘We’re like a family!’

And then it’s, ‘OK, bye.’ You never, ever see them again.” But with Reeves, Winter said, “I think of him as my brother.”

Reeves said: “We enjoy each other’s company and our thoughts and takes on the world. When we come together, it’s like, ‘What are you thinking?’ ‘I don’t know, but this is kind of funny.’ ‘Yeah, that’s kind of weird, too.’”

Now they are reuniting in a third film, “Bill & Ted Face the Music,” which after a lengthy and occasionally heinous development process, will be released on demand and in theaters on Aug. 28. The new movie, written by the “Bill & Ted” creators, Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, and directed

by Dean Parisot (“Galaxy Quest”), finds the title characters muddling through middle age, still chasing their unfulfilled dream of uniting the world with their music — this time with the help of their daughters, Thea Preston (Samara Weaving) and Billie Logan (Brigette Lundy-Paine).

Reeves and Winter spoke about their enduring bond, their formative experiences on the original “Bill & Ted” films and the making of “Face the Music.” These are edited excerpts from that conversation, dude.

Q: You both started acting when you were young. Had you ever crossed paths before you made “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure”?

KEANU REEVES: Nope!

ALEX WINTER: We met in the audition process. Keanu had come to Hollywood from Toronto. I had come from New York.

REEVES: I turned professional when I

was 15, 16. Al, you first got paid when you were, what, 5?

WINTER: 8. [Laughter] REEVES: We both grew up in show business.

WINTER: We hit it off early on in the audition. We had similar training and similar interests, about acting and drama and the plays we liked.

REEVES: And cinema!

WINTER: When they told us we both got the part, we were both like, ah, that’s great that you got it. It’s like when you start at a new school, you’re like, oh great, you’re going to be in my class. It was that vibe.

Q: What was the spirit like when the film went into production?

WINTER: Everybody involved was super-young. [The director] Stephen Herek was in his late 20s. Chris and Ed were only a few years older than Keanu and myself.

Everybody didn’t know what the hell they were doing.

REEVES: But Stephen Herek had a real vision and we were all on board. Tonally, no one was off on their own. Let’s make this real, but it’s hyper-reality. Bill and Ted were Chris and Ed’s characters, but they really let us have our voice.

Q: Was it meaningful to you that you got to work with George Carlin, who played Rufus, your time-traveling guardian?

WINTER: We didn’t know who Rufus was going to be until well into shooting and it was scary. There were names that were being floated around — they were great actors, but just not right for that role. Scott Kroopf [a producer of the “Bill & Ted” series] had worked with Carlin before, so that was where he came in. Keanu and I were blown away that it was George. He was an extremely grounded, down-to-earth person off-camera. And I would say he was very charitably nice to both of us. [Laughter] We were well aware of the gravitas of having him.

REEVES: We were young and we were trained, but it was very helpful to have people to help elevate us. We felt very fortunate about that.

Q: Did the release of the film have a noticeable impact on your lives?

REEVES: I was just happy it came out.

The San Juan Daily Star WINTER: DEG [the film’s original distributor] went bankrupt and it got shelved for a year. We were told it was never, ever going to come out, ever. So we went on with our lives and careers. Then it was bought in a fire sale by a company called Nelson Entertainment. They had done a test of the movie and it had done incredibly well. I was shooting a Butthole Surfers video in Austin the weekend it came out. I got a call from my agent to get a copy of Variety. There was a picture of me and Keanu, like really cheesy, sitting on top of a giant pile of cash. I remember thinking, well, someone’s making money off this. I guess that’s nice for them.

REEVES: I don’t know where I was when it was released. After a while, I would just have people calling from the streets, like, “Excellent!” “Be excellent!” There was an affection for it.

WINTER: I was in France on a vacation that summer and heard kids in the Champs-Élysées skating and talking like Bill and Ted with thick French accents. I was like, oh, OK, this thing is having some kind of impact.

REEVES: Our personal lives changed a little bit. When we would go out to dinner together, people were like, [excitedly] “Whoa! Dudes!” We would just be like, [blandly] “Yeah. Yeah.” “Party on, dudes!”

“Yeah.”

WINTER: I remember somebody doing an air-guitar slide on their knees, all the way across the floor of the restaurant up to our bar stools. I remember saying to Keanu, you realize that this — no matter what happens — is never going to stop. [Laughter] Q: Were you at all hesitant to make a sequel — like, if we play these characters again, we’ll be associated with them forever?

WINTER: That door ain’t closing anyway. [Laughter] I mean, it could be worse.

I remember walking down the street with Alan Rickman once. A fan came up to us, and afterwards Alan was like, “You’re so lucky that you’re known for playing Bill and not Hans Gruber the terrorist. People come up to me and spit in my face. They come up to you and tell you how much they love you.”

Q: Was there a different energy on the set of “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey”?

REEVES: I had just come from shooting 88 days playing Johnny Utah [in “Point Break”]. And then I was playing Ted. [Pause] So that was a bit wacky.

WINTER: And “My Own Private Idaho.”

Thursday, August 20, 2020

REEVES: Right! So it was “Point Break,” “Private Idaho” and then “Bogus Journey.”

I’m sorry. I’m already getting trippy.

WINTER: Some of [“Bogus Journey”] grew out of the fact that on “Bill and Ted” 1, Keanu and I and Chris and Ed would riff, off-camera, on all kinds of subjects. They were writing for us now, which was a benefit. We could make something that was more physical, more linguistically complicated, and plotwise, much more far out.

Q: When you’d see other dude-duo comedies that followed “Bill & Ted,” like “Wayne’s World” or “Beavis and ButtHead,” how did you feel?

WINTER: I think that people have the chronology wrong, in our favor. I don’t think it was chicken-and-egg. I think the zeitgeist barfed all this stuff up at the same time. Those comparisons really came later.

Q: Do you think “Bill & Ted” was unique, for its time, in how it presented an innocent and nonjudgmental take on male friendship?

WINTER: That’s interesting.

REEVES: [cheerfully] I don’t know if I agree with you!

Q: Please, feel free to knock down my theory.

REEVES: No, no, no, we’re talking about something that’s subjective. You think “Bill & Ted” is the rebirth of friendship in American cinema?

WINTER: I think for youth films, that’s probably true. The sweetness of [“Excellent Adventure”] struck me when I first read the script. Because of the popularity of John Hughes, it was much more common to get youth comedies that were about sex and neuroses. It was all about adult-ifying kids.

And this was about two really good friends.

There’s an authenticity to that.

REEVES: OK, so I agree then that the story was uncommon, and not necessarily that it was common, then it went out of favor and came back.

WINTER: We’ve arrived at a thesis!

REEVES: [Deviously] I’m always looking for catharsis. [Laughter] Q: What took so long to get “Bill & Ted Face the Music” made?

WINTER: Oy. Where to begin?

REEVES: It’s show business, right?

Many moons ago, the writers had an idea.

And we said, yes, that’s a good idea. Let’s go try and do it. Then we brought on a producer, then we found a director. And then we got into the business.

WINTER: [Makes squealing noise] That’s a record scratch. [Laughter] To the

21

The real-life friends are reuniting in a third film, “Bill & Ted Face the Music.” fans, it was a no-brainer. To the marketplace, the movies have never been a nobrainer until they come out.

REEVES: There’s a lot of, um, creative and business challenges to bringing it onscreen.

Q: Did the movie always center on the idea of Bill and Ted growing up to be middle-age losers?

REEVES: That’s been the core premise from the very beginning — of course that’s what would happen.

WINTER: That was the heart, the comic engine that we responded to in the first place. The longer it took us to get it made, in a way, the funnier that got.

REEVES: I think it’s safe to say that future versions of Bill and Ted are living the lives of the consequences of our present failure. [Laughter] For me, there was always a deliciousness to playing the dark side, the grumpier versions. I loved playing Evil Ted in “Bogus Journey.” There’s such a whimsy to it.

Q: What was your experience like working with Samara Weaving and Brigette Lundy-Paine, who play your daughters and who go on their own adventure in this film?

REEVES: They did amazing work.

They looked to the past films for how they would be, but then they created their own dynamic together. They have a unique fash-

ion sense. They’re more modern. They’re connected to us but different.

WINTER: They really are their own people. They played the characters as two good friends who have grown up together from birth. They took a page from us, in terms of being our kids, but were by no means trying to be us. They picked up a little bit of surface-y stuff, just a couple of nuances that would just help connect us all, and they came at the characters in a very authentic way.

Q: What, ultimately, made you want to come back to play Bill and Ted again?

REEVES: I love the characters. I love the world and I love working with Alex.

I’m grateful that we had the chance to play again.

WINTER: That’s how I feel. It’s a really fun playground to be in. And it’s very emotionally heartfelt. It’s hard to have any kind of a post-mortem, because the real test lies ahead of us still.

Q: Not to spoil anything, but your post-credits scene in “Face the Music” seems to reveal the extent of your devotion to the roles and to each other.

REEVES: Oh, you got that!

WINTER: And it was the very, very last thing that he and I shot, which was great.

The makeup was protracted and excruciating, but other than that, it was really sweet to do that at the end. That was our martini.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

‘Project Power’ review: Ye olde bangs, scares and clichés

Jamie Foxx has the savior-redeemer role in “Project Power.”

By MANOHLA DARGIS

M

idway through “Project Power,” a shiny, noisy, more-orless tolerable blowout from Netflix, the rugged-yet-caring hero gives the tough-yet-sensitive youngster a quick talking to. Basically he speaks to this young grasshopper’s potential, a moment that made me wonder if there were any Scientologists on board, before dropping some wisdom on her. If you’ve seen a lot of action movies, you know what’s next: confusion, scares, brinkmanship, big and bigger bangs — anything new just won’t do.

Some moviemakers (not many!) upend genre expectations; others just toy with them on the way to an unsurprising finish: Bad guys die, good guys win, and that’s the way many viewers like it, to judge from all the superhero hits. The crew behind “Project Power” runs at those expectations with wideopen arms. They know that the way to mainstream hearts and wallets is not by upsetting viewers (oh, hi, Rian Johnson), but by soothing them with the same candy they’ve grown to love.

Sugar highs can be fun.

Here, the tasty emptiness begins with the story, which involves a potentially cool, possibly deadly drug that’s being poured onto the market.

It’s wreaking havoc on a shadowy but vibrantly colorful New Orleans, where the caring-yet-grimacing Art (Jamie Foxx) has come searching for a missing girl. As usual with movies of this sort there is a lot of exposition and many location changes and cartoonish types, including the skulking honcho (Rodrigo Santoro), a suave yet sleazy middle manager whose minions might as well have bull’s-eye tattoos alongside expiration dates.

The three main characters occupy separate storylines that periodically overlap before being braided together. Art meets his protégée, Robin (Dominique Fishback), who has a testy if friendly relationship with an ostensibly renegade cop, Frank (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Robin seems to have her name so the filmmakers can joke about Batman. The character is such an amalgam of clichés — a drugdealing, inventively rapping schoolgirl who cares for her sick mother — that she too seems like a joke. The only

reason it doesn’t land is Fishback herself, a warm, expressive performer and one of the few bright spots in the HBO series “The Deuce.”

The humanity of the leads fills up the hollowness, putting flesh, or at least charm and attitude, on their archetypes. Foxx holds the center easily with the kind of imposing physicality and emotional stoicism that has long defined the male savior-redeemers played by John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Denzel Washington and so on

(and so on). Comfortably, and without any of the self-consciousness that can sometimes make him seem unproductively uptight, Foxx plays well off the other actors, especially Fishback. She in turn securely shares the screen with him and the amusing, showboating Gordon-Levitt, whose accent slips and slides among the punches and bullets.

There’s nothing else here that feels remotely personal, including the direction, by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. Working from Mattson Tomlin’s script, they hit every note squarely, tap, tap, boom. There are fireballs of death, positive paternalism, a stern police captain (Courtney B. Vance). Many characters die, sadistically or jokingly or with a carefully choreographed flourish. The cruelest death, though, is reserved for one of the most despised stereotypes in movies like this: the beautiful bimbo who seems to inspire a special kind of contempt in some filmmakers. That two of the most powerful baddies in the movie are women may be another joke, but I bet not.

The movie’s sexism is predictable and dull; how it navigates race is similarly obvious but a touch more interesting.

At the center of “Project Power” is an evil government entity, which suggests someone here dipped into old conspiracy theories involving crack and the CIA. (There’s a nod to Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose tumor cells were used in research without her knowledge.) “The system,” Art warns Robin, “is designed to swallow you whole.” His solution is that Robin find what she does better than anyone and “rock that,” an appeal to her creativity that, depending on your view, is either nice or cynical given all the white guys behind these scenes.

The San Juan Daily Star este edicto, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO su contra y conceder el remeDE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL dio solicitado en la demanda o GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRI- cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en BUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTAN- el ejercicio de su discreción, CIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN lo entiende procedente. Usted JUAN. deberá presentar su alegación CARLOS NACHMANN responsiva a través del Sistema Y MARIA LEDESMA DE Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), el NACHMANN cual puede acceder utilizando Demandante Vs. la siguiente dirección electróniR. F. MORTGAGE ca: https://unired.ramajudicial.

INVESTMENT pr, salvo que se represente por CORPORATION JOHN derecho propio. El abogado de DOE Y RICHARD ROE, la parte demandante es: Lcdo.

Raúl Rivera Burgos, RUA 8879, Demandados CASO NÚM. SJ2020CV03754. Estancias de San Fernando, SOBRE: CANCELACIÓN DE Calle 4, Número 4, A-35, CaPAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. EDIC- rolina, P.R. 00985, Tel. (787) TO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE 238-7665, Email: raulrblaw@ AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE gmail.com. EXPEDIDO bajo mi DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS firma y sello de este Tribunal de EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIA- San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy día 5 de agosto de 2020. Griselda DO DE PUERTO RICO. A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD Rodriguez Collado, Sec RegioROE o sea, las personas nal. Brenda Baez Acaba, Sec Serv a Sala.

LEGAL NOTICE

ignoradas que puedan ser tenedores del pagaré extraviado.

Por la presente se les notifica que se ha presentada ante este tribunal una Demanda, en el caso de epígrafe, en la cual se solicita la cancelación de un pagaré a favor de R.F. Mortgage Investment Corporation., o a su orden, por la suma de $30,400.00, intereses al 10.

750% anual, vencedero el 1 de diciembre de 2017; escritura número 493, otorgada en San Juan el 16 de noviembre de 1987 , ante la notaria Enrique N. Vela Colón; inscrita al folio 5 del tomo 622 de Santurce Norte, finca 21997; inscripción cuarta, y que grava la propiedad que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Apartment number four-B of 402. Located in Condominio Condado Ambassador in the Municipality of San Juan. It has an approximate area of 499.54 square feet , equivalent to 45.96 square meters, including beasing and columns, including half of the walt partition walls which divide it from apartment four-D or 404 and including the remaining wall and partitions and recorded in the Registry of Property of san Juan, of Santurce Norte Section. Consta inscrita al folio 1 del tomo 622 de Santurce Norte, finca 21997, Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección, Primera. Se le advierte que este edicto se publicará en un periódico de circulación general una sola vez y que si no comparece a contestar dicha Demanda dentro del término de treinta (30) días, contados a partir de la publicación de

@

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

AMERICAS LEADING FINANCE, LLC Demandante, v.

GLORIVET FALCÓN RIVERA, SU ESPOSO FULANO DE TAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Demandados CIVIL NÚM.: CG2020CV01220.

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: GLORIVET FALCÓN RIVERA, 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 GLORIVET FALCÓN RIVERA, SU ESPOSO FULA-

Thursday, August 20, 2020 NO DE TAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS, le adeudan solidariamente a Americas Leading Finance, LLC., la suma de principal de $7,827.67, 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 Caguas, Puerto Rico, hoy día 11 de agosto de 2020. Carmen Ana Pereira Ortiz, Secretaria. Cynthia Garcia Del Valle, Sec Auxiliar.

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BLANCA IRIS MORALES MATOS compuesta por Andrés Colón Morales; John Doe y Richard Roe como miembros Desconocidos; ADMINISTRACIÓN A: Maribel de Jesús Santiago, como miembros PARA EL SUSTENTO DE de la Sucesión de Aida MENORES, Y CENTRO DE RECAUDACIÓN SOBRE Medina Echevarría; O’neill de Jesús Santiago, INGRESOS MUNICIPALES Parte Demandada como miembros de la CIVIL NUM: Sucesión de Aida Medina CASO HU2020CV00102.

SOBRE: Echevarría EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA Calle Atún D-7 Vistas del POR LA VIA ORDINARIA Y Atlantico, Arecibo, PR COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLA00612 ZAMIENTO Y NOTIFICACION DE INTERPELACION POR 9 Andrew Ct., Middle Town, New York, 10941 EDICTO. Estados Unidos de Y EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO

Por la presente se le notifica a usted que se ha radicado en esta Secretaría la demanda de epígrafe. Se le emplaza y requiere para que notifique al licenciado: Alberto De Diego Collar, DE DIEGO LAW OFFICES, PSC, PO BOX 79552, Carolina, PR 00984-9552, Teléfono: (787)622-3939, abogado de la parte demandante, con copia de la contestación a la Demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este edicto, que se publicará una vez en un periódico de circulación diaria general. 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. Se le apercibe que si no contesta la demanda dentro del término antes indicado, radicando el original de la contestación ante el Tribunal correspondiente, y LEGAL NOTICE notificando con copia a la parte ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO demandante, se le anotará la DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUrebeldía y se le dictará SentenNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA cia en su contra concediendo SALA DE ARECIBO. el remedio solicitado a favor de LUNA ACQUISITION, LLC la parte demandante sin mas Demandante vs citarle ni oírle. EXTENDIDO SUCESION DE AIDA BAJO MI FIRMA y el Sello del MEDINA ECHEVARRIA Tribunal, en Arecibo, Puerto Rico, hoy día 10 de agosto de compuesta por 2020. Vivian Y Fresse GonzaMARIBEL DE JESUS SANTIAGO y O’NEILL lez, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. Anabel Perez Rios, Sec Auxiliar DE JESUS SANTIAGO; del Tribunal I.

América Presidente de los Estados Unidos de América Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico.

A: Andrés Colón Morales como heredero de la Sucesión de Blanca Iris Morales Matos; John Doe y Richard Roe como posibles herederos desconocidos de la Sucesión de Blanca Iris Morales Matos

POR LA PRESENTE se les emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá radicar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired.ramajudicial.pr/ sumac/, salvo que se presente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá radicar el original de su contestación ante el Tribunal correspondiente y notifique con copia a los abogados de la parte demandante, Lcda.

Marjaliisa Colón Villanueva, al PO BOX 7970, Ponce, P.R. 00732; Teléfono: 787-8434168. En dicha demanda se tramita un procedimiento de cobro de dinero y ejecución de hipoteca bajo el número mencionado en el epígrafe. Se alega en dicho procedimiento que la parte Demandada incurrió en el incumplimiento del Contrato de Hipoteca, al no poder pagar DEPARTAMENTO las mensualidades vencidas LEGAL NOTICE DE HACIENDA POR correspondientes a los meses ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO de febrero de 2015, hasta el CONDUCTO DE LA DIVISION DE CAUDALES DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- presente, mas los cargos por NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA demora correspondientes.

RELICTOS; CENTRO Además, adeuda a la parte deDE RECUDACIONES DE SALA DE HUMACAO. mandante las costas, gastos y DLJ MORTGAGE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES honorarios de abogado en que CAPITAL INC. Demandada incurra el tenedor del pagaré Parte Demandante Vs. CIVIL NÚM. AR2019CV02046. en este litigio. De acuerdo con LA SUCESION DE SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO dicho Contrato de Garantía Hi-

staredictos@thesanjuandailystar.com

(787) 743-3346

potecaria la parte Demandante declaró vencida la totalidad de la deuda ascendente a la suma $27,043.04 de principal, más los intereses sobre dicha suma al 7.49520% anual así como todos aquellos créditos y sumas que surjan de la faz de la obligación hipotecaria y de la hipoteca que la garantiza, incluyendo la suma estipulada para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado. La parte Demandante presentó para su inscripción en el Registro de la Propiedad correspondiente, un AVISO DE PLEITO PENDIENTE (“Lis Pendens”) sobre la propiedad objeto de esta acción cuya propiedad es la siguiente: RUSTICA: Parcela marcada con el numero trescientos treinta y ocho (338), en el plano de parcelación de la Comunidad Rural Peña Pobre, del barrio Pobre del término municipal de Naguabo, con una cabida superficial de cero cuerdas con ochocientos noventa diezmilésimas de otra (0.890), equivalentes a trescientos cuarenta y nueve punto noventa y nueve (349.99) metros cuadrados. En lindes por el Norte, con la parcela número trescientos treinta y siete (337) de la comunidad; por Sur, con la parcela número trescientos treinta y nueve (339) de la comunidad; por el Este, con la parcela número trescientos treinta y tres (333) de la comunidad; y por el Oeste, con la calle F de la comunidad. Enclava una casa. Inscrita al folio diez (10) del tomo ciento cuarenta y ocho (148) de Naguabo, finca número ocho mil trescientos sesenta y ocho (8,368). Registro de la Propiedad de Humacao.

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, como miembro de la Sucesión de Blanca Iris Morales Matos se ha presentado una solicitud de interpelación judicial para que sirva en el término de treinta (30) días aceptar o repudiar la herencia.

Se le apercibe que si no compareciera usted a expresarse dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación de este edicto en tomo a la aceptación o repudiación de la herencia, se presumirá que han aceptado la herencia del causante Blanca Iris Morales Matos y por consiguiente, responderán por las cargas de dicha herencia conforme dispone el Art 957 del Código Civil, 31 L.P.R.A. 52785. En Humacao,

Puerto Rico, a 11 de agosto de Gonzalez Barreto, Sec del Tri2020. Dominga Gómez Fuster, bunal Conf II. Secretarla Regional. Dalias ReLEGAL NOTICE yes de Leon, SubSecretaria, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO LEGAL NOTICE DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYANAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA MÓN. SALA DE GUAYNABO. MIDFIRST BANK

LUNA ACQUISITION, LLC Demandante v.

COLLEEN COMER NERI; MIGUEL ANGEL LOPEZ ARROYO

Demandados CIVIL NÚM. GB2019CV01513.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO.

A: MIGUEL ANGEL LOPEZ ARROYO FISICA - Calle 28 C-11 E9B Sur St, Green Hills Dev, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico 00969 POSTAL - PMB 301, 35 Juan C. Borbón 67 P, Guaynabo, PR 00969-5375

Por la presente se le notifica a usted que se ha radicado en esta Secretaría la demanda de epígrafe. Se le emplaza y requiere para que notifique al licenciado: Alberto De Diego Collar, DE DIEGO LAW OFFICES, PSC, PO BOX 79552, Carolina, PR 00984-9552, Teléfono: (787)622-3939, abogado de la parte demandante, con copia de la contestación a la Demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este edicto, que se publicará una vez en un periódico de circulación diaria general. 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. Se le apercibe que si no contesta la demanda dentro del término antes indicado, radicando el original de la contestación ante el Tribunal correspondiente, y notificando con copia a la parte demandante, se le anotará la rebeldía y se le dictará Sentencia en su contra concediendo el remedio solicitado a favor de la parte demandante sin mas citarle ni oírle. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el Sello del Tribunal, en Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, hoy día 21 de julio de 2020. Lcda. Laura I Santa Sanchez, Sec Regional. Diamar T.

Demandante vs.

JAIME DE JESUS REYES, LA SUCESION DE MARGARITA IRIS RODRIGUEZ MASSARI COMPUESTA POR SUS HEREDEROS ELIZABETH VICTORIA DE JESUS ROORIGUEZ, 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.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO E INTERPELACION. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: JAIME DE JESUS REYES; LA SUCESION DE MARGARITA IRIS RODRIGUEZ MASSARI COMPUESTA POR SUS HEREDEROS ELIZABETH VICTORIA DE JESUS RODRIGUEZ, EVA LORRAINE DE JESUS RODRIGUEZ, IVONNE MARIE DE JESUS, SANDRA RAMIREZ RODRIGUEZ Y JAIME DE JUSUS EN SU CUOTA USUFRUCTUARIA Urbanización Levlttown, D-1107 Calle Deleite, Toa Baja 00949 BLANCA l. DE JESÚS MODLINGER 3850 Sedgwtck Ave., Apt 12-0, Bronx, New York, 10463-4414

POR LA PRESENTE se les emplaza y se les notifica que se ha presentado en Secretaría de este Tribunal la Demanda

24 del caso de epígrafe solicitando la ejecución de hipoteca y el cobro de dinero relacionado al pagaré suscrito a favor de Pan American Financia! 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. Birriel 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 Barreta. 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 la siguiente dirección electrónica:h ttps://ynired. ramajudicial.p,r salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal y notifique copia de la Contestación a la Demanda a las oficinas del Ledo. Juan B. Soto Batbás, 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@ ibsblaw.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 oír1e.

Se ORDENA a los herederos de la causante a saber, Jaime de Jesús Reyes, la Sucesión de Margarita Iris Rodríguez Massari compuesta por sus herederos Elizabeth Victoria de Jesús Rodríguez, Eva Lorraine de Jesús Rodriguez, Ivonne Marie de Jesús Rodríguez. Sandra Ramirez Rodríguez; Jaime de Jesús Reyes en su cuota usufructuaria y Blanca l. de Jesús Modlinger, a que dentro. del término legal de treinta (30) días a partir de la fecha de la noti-

ficación de la presente Orden, acepten o repudien la participación que les corresponda en la herencia de la causante Margarita Iris Rodríguez Massari. Se les AP.ERCIBEa los herederos antes mencionados que de no expresarse dentro de ese término de treinta (30) días en tomo a su aceptación o repudiación de herencia, la mismas e tendrá por aceptada. También se les APERCIBE a los herederos antes mencionados que luego del transcurso del termino 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 Articulo 957 y 959 del Código Civil, 31 L.P.RA 2785 y 2787. EXPEDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el Sello del Tribunal, hoy día 11 de agosto de 2020.

Lcda. Laura I Santa Sanchez, Sec Regional. Luz E. Amador Ruiz, Sec Auxiliar del Tribunal I. 2020. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, Secretaria Regional. LUZ E. AMADOR RUlZ, Sec Auxiliar del Tribunal I.

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

PR RECOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT JV, LLC DEMANDANTE Vs.

LUIS C. PASTRANA NAVARRO.

DEMANDADO CIVIL NÚM: SJ2019CV11028.

SALA: 604. SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R. SS.

A: LUIS C. PASTRANA NAVARRO

Queda emplazado y notificado de que en este Tribunal se ha radicado una demanda de cobro de dinero en su contra. Se le notifica que 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 Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala de San Juan y enviando copia a la parte demandante: Lcdo. José F. Aguilar Vélez, P.O. Box 71418, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, Tel. 787-993-3731 / FAX 787-3024762, correos electrónicos:

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

Jose.aguilar@orf-law.com; Notificaciones@orf-law.com.

Se le apercibe y notifica que si no contesta la demanda radicada en su contra dentro del término de treinta (30) días de la publicación de este edicto, se le anotará la Rebeldía y se dictara sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado en la demanda, sin más citárseles ni oírseles. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, a 5 de agosto de 2020. Griselda Rodriguez Collado, Sec Regional.

Luz E. Fernandez Del Valle, Sec Serv a Sala.

LEGAL NOT ICE

MINGA GOMEZ FUSTER, Secretaria. F/ILEANA MIRANDA ARROYO, Sec Auxiliar.

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

TRESAMICI PROPERTIES, INC VS

HOGAR PRIMAVERA INC.; BLESSY MARÍA DE JESÚS OLIVERO; SHIRLEY JOANNE DANNER RODRIGUEZ; FULANO DE TAL Y MENGANO DEL CUAL

Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de PriCIVIL NUM. SJ2020CV00175 mera Instancia Sala de HUMA(908). SOBRE: CANCELACAO-SUPERIOR. CIÓN DE PAGARÉ HIPOTELIME RESIDENTIAL LTD CARIO EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFIDemandante Vs CACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR RIOS GONZALEZ, EDICTO POR SUMAC.

JOSE OMAR

Demandada CIVIL NUM. HSCI201401233.

SOBRE: EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: JOSE OMAR RJOS G NZALEZ, A SU DIRECCION CONOCIDA: URB SANTA CLARA 19 CALLE 2 SAN LORENZO PR 00754, URB CUIDAD CRISTIANA J-10 HUMACAO PR 00791 P/C LIC. WENDELL W COLON MUÑOZ

NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. EL SECRETARIO (A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 13 de AGOSTO 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 17 de agosto de 2020.

LIC. COLON MUÑOZ, WENDELL W. COLONLAWOFFICE@YAHOO.COM En HUMACAO, Puerto Rico, el 17 de agosto de 2020. DO-

A HOGAR PRIMAVERA INC.; BLESSY MARÍA DE JESÚS OLIVERO; SHIRLEY JOANNE DANNER RODRIGUEZ; FULANO DE TAL Y MENGANO DEL CUAL

EL SECRETARIO (A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 14 de AGOSTO 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 San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 14 de agosto de 2020. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, Secretaria Regional. f/ DENISE M. AMARO MACHUCA, secretario (a) Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE

INSURANCE COMPANY Demandante V.

ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA Y OTROS

Demandada CIVIL NUM. TA2020CV00019.

SOBRE: CANCELACION DE HIPOTECA REPRESENTADA POR PAGARE HIPOTECARIO EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: FULANO DE TAL Y MENGANO MAS CUAL

EL SECRETARIO (A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 21 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 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 5 de agosto de 2020. En TOA ALTA, Puerto Rico, el 5 de agosto de 2020. ce: LCDA. SANDRA DE L. TOUS CHEVRES-EDIFICIO LA ELECTRONICA, 1608 CALLE BORI, SUITE 205, SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO, 00927-0000 LCDA. LAURA l. SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria Regional.

LIRIAM M. HERNANDEZ OTERO, Secretario (a) Auxiliar.

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

BOSCO IX OVERSEAS, LLC, BY FRANKLIN CREDIT MANAGEMENT CORPORATION AS SERVICER Parte Demandante VS.

SAM MARTIN PADILLA PÉREZ, DEBORAH ROBLES ROBLES Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala Superior Parte Demandada de TOA ALTA. CIVIL NUM: SJ2019CV10162 FIRST AMERICAN TITLE (604). SOBRE: EJECUCIÓN DE GARANTÍAS (IN REM).

NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTEN- enterarse detalladamente de CIA POR EDICTO. los términos de esta. Esta A: SAM MARTIN PADILLA notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de PÉREZ POR SÍ Y EN REPRESENTACIÓN DE circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE diez (10) días siguientes a su BIENES GANANCIALES notificación. Y, siendo o repreCOMPUESTA CON sentando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los térDEBORAH ROBLES minos de la Sentencia, SentenROBLES LA SECRETARIA que suscribe cia Parcial o Resolución, de la le notifica a usted que el 11 de cual puede establecerse recuragosto de 2020, este Tribunal so de revisión o apelación denha dictado Sentencia, Senten- tro del término de 30 días concia Parcial o Resolución en este tados a partir de la publicación caso, que ha sido debidamente por edicto de esta notificación, registrada y archivada en autos dirijo a usted esta notificación donde podrá usted enterarse que se considerará hecha en la detalladamente de los términos fecha de la publicación de este de la misma. Esta notificación edicto. Copia de esta notificase publicará una sola vez en ción ha sido archivada en los un periódico de circulación ge- autos de este caso, con fecha neral en la Isla de Puerto Rico, de 18 de agosto de 2020. En dentro de los lUdías siguientes SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, el 18 a su notificación. Y, siendo o de agosto de 2020. GRISELrepresentando usted una parte DA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, en el procedimiento sujeta a los Secretaria. Regional. f/DENISE términos de la Sentencia, Sen- M. AMARO MACHUCA, Secretencia Parcial o Resolución, tario (a) Auxiliar.

edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 14 de agosto de 2020. En SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, el 14 de agosto de 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Secretaria. Regional. f/DENISE M. AMARO MACHUCA, Secretario (a) Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE GUAYNABO.

ORIENTAL BANK Demandante,v.

NELSON NIEVES MOJICA, DENIZAIRA REYES DEL VALLE y la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales compuesta por ambos,

Demandados CIVIL NUM.: GB2019CV01458.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VIA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMELEGAL NOTICE RICA EL PRESIDENTE DE Estado Libre Asociado de Puer- LOS EE. UU. EL ESTADO LIto Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL BRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Pri- RICO. SS. mera Instancia Sala Superior A: NELSON NIEVES de San Juan.

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 COOPERATIVA DE en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta AHORRO Y CRÉDITO SAN notificación ha sido archivada MIGUEL DE NARANJITO en los autos de este caso, con Demandante V. fecha 12 de agosto de 2020.

BANCO POPULAR DE En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el PUERTO RICO; JOHN 12 de agosto de 2020. Griselda DOE Y RICHARD ROE Rodríguez Collado, SecretaDemandada ria Regional. Mildred Martínez Acosta, Secretaria Confidencial CIVIL NUM. SJ2020CV00232 (802). SOBRE: CANCELAdel Tribunal I. CIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIALEGAL NOTICE DO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENEstado Libre Asociado de Puer- TENCIA POR EDICTO POR to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL SUMAC.

A: JOHN DOE Y DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala Superior RICHARD ROE EL SECRETARIO (A) que susde San Juan.

BANCO POPULAR DE cribe le notifica a usted que el 13 de AGOSTO de 2020, este PUERTO RICO Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Demandante V. PEDRO L. GONZÁLEZ Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debiSEIJO, X, Y, Z POR SI Y damente registrada y archivada COMO MIEMBROS DE LA en autos donde podrá usted SUCESIÓN DE MARÍA S. enterarse detalladamente de MONSERRATE CUEVAS los términos de esta. Esta notificación se publicará una Demandada CIVIL NUM. SJ2019CV01677 sola vez en un periódico de (901). SOBRE: COBRO DE circulación general en la Isla DINERO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE de Puerto Rico, dentro de los diez (10) días siguientes a su SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. A: PEDRO L. GONZÁLEZ notificación. Y, siendo o repreSEIJO, X, Y, Z POR SI Y sentando usted una parte en el sujeta a los térCOMO MIEMBROS DE LA procedimiento minos de la Sentencia, SentenSUCESIÓN DE MARÍA S. cia Parcial o Resolución, de la MONSERRATE CUEVAS cual puede establecerse recurEL SECRETARIO (A) que sus- so de revisión o apelación dencribe le notifica a usted que el tro del término de 30 días con16 de AGOSTO de 2020, este tados a partir de la publicación Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, por edicto de esta notificación, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución dirijo a usted esta notificación en este caso, que ha sido debi- que se considerará hecha en la damente registrada y archivada fecha de la publicación de este en autos donde podrá usted

MOJICA, DENIZAIRA REYES DEL VALLE 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 Secretaria del Tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido termino, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra, y conceder el remedio solicitado en la Demanda, o cualquier otro,

The San Juan Daily Star pagare extraviado. Se alega en dicho procedimiento que se extravió un pagaré hipotecario por la suma de $351,000.00, con intereses al 7.00% anual, vencedero el primero de agosto de 2037, a favor de Doral Mortgage, Corporation o a su orden, según consta de la escritura según escritura número 279 otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 31 de julio de 2007, ante la notario Magda V. Alsina Figueroa y cuya obligación hipotecaria. Inscrita al folio ciento cuarenta y ocho (148) del tomo cuatrocientos veintidós (422) de Carolina, finca número dieciséis mil ciento ochenta y cuatro guion A (16, 184-A), Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina LEGAL NOTICE Sección primera (1ra). Que ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO grava la propiedad que se desDE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- cribe a continuación: URBANA: NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA solar marcado con el número SALA DE CAROLINA. ochenta y nueve (89) del bloWILMINGTON SAVING que R localizado en la UrbaniFUND SOCIETY, FSB, zación Villa Venencia, situada d/b/a CHRISTIANA TRUST, en el Barrio Sabana Abajo del término municipal de Carolina, as indenture trustee, Puerto Rico, con un área de for the CSMC 2015- PR1 seiscientos setenta y dos punto TRUST, MORTGAGEsesenta y uno (672.61) metros BACKED NOTES, SERIE cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, en veinticinco punto 2015-PR1 noventa y tres (25.93) metros, DEMANDANTE Vs. con el solar número ochenta y DORAL MORTGAGE, (88) del bloque R; por el CORPORATION, ahora ocho SUR, en cuarenta y tres punto BANCO POPULAR DE cincuenta y dos {43.52) metros, PUERTO RICO; JOHN con el solar número noventa DOE y RICHARD ROE (90) del bloque R y con un área como posibles tenedores reservada para futuro expreso Torrecillas; por el ESTE, en desconocidos veinticinco puntos noventa y DEMANDADOS CIVIL NUM. CA2020CV01628 dos (25.92) metros, con los so(402). SOBRE: CANCELA- lares ciento seis (106) y ciento CION DE PAGARE EXTRAVIA- siete (107) del bloque R; por el DO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR OESTE, en diez punto cuarenEDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS ta y seis {10.46) metros, con la DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDEN- calle número ocho (8),. Enclava TE DE LOS EE. UU. EL ES- una casa. Inscrita al folio ciento TADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE cuarenta y ocho (148) del tomo cuatrocientos veintidós (422) PUERTO RICO SS. A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD de Carolína, finca número dieciséis mil ciento ochenta y cuatro ROE como posibles guion A (16,184- A), Registro tenedores desconocidos de la Propiedad de Carolina POR LA PRESENTE se les em- Sección primera (1ra). SE LES plaza y requiere para que con- APERCIBE que, de no hacer teste la demanda dentro de los sus alegaciones responsivas a treinta (30) días siguientes a la la demanda dentro del término publicación de este Edicto. Us- aquí dispuesto, se les anotará ted deberá radicar su alegación la rebeldía y se dictará Sentenresponsiva a través del Sistema cia, concediéndose el remedio Unificado de Manejo y Adminis- solicitado en la Demanda, sin tración de Casos (SUMAC), al más citarle ni oírle. Expedido cual puede acceder utilizando bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal la siguiente dirección electróni- en Carolina, Puerto Rico, a día ca: http://unired.ramajudicial.pr/ 12 de agosto de 2020. Lcda. sumac/, salvo que se presente Marilyn Aponte Rodriguez, Sec por derecho propio, en cuyo Regional. Myriam I Figueroa caso deberá radicar el original Pastrana, Sec Auxiliar. de su contestación ante el TriLEGAL NOTICE bunal correspondiente y notifique con copia a los abogados Estado Libre Asociado de Puerde la parte demandante, LCDA. to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL MARJALIISA COLÓN VILLA- DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de PriNUEVA A su dirección: PO. mera Instancia Sala Superior Box 7970 Ponce, PR. 00732. de CAROLINA. Tel: 787-843-4168. En dicha LUNA ACQUISITION, LLC demanda se tramita un proParte Demandante VS. cedimiento de cancelación de 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 ultima dirección conocida: Urb. Parkville, Y15 Calle Colorado, PR 00969-3923.

EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal en Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, hoy dia 29 de abril de 2020. Lcda. Laura I Santa Sanchez, Secretaria. Diamar T. Gonzalez Barreto, Secretaria del Tribunal Confidencial II.

Thursday, August 20, 2020 CARLOS ALBERTO CATALA DE JESUS

Parte Demandada CIVIL NUM: SJ2019CV06724.

SALA (409). SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: CARLOS ALBERTO CATALA DE JESUS, FISICA: CONDOMINIO PARQUE SAN LUIS APARTAMENTO B-11, TRUJILLO ALTO PR 00976; POSTAL: URBANIZACION LAS CUMBRES PMB 198, 267 CALLE SIERRA MORENA, SAN JUAN PR 00926-5339; 17 HONEY BLOSSOM CR, ORLANDO FL 32824-4863

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) LA SECRETARIA que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 13 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 la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los lUdías 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 17 de agosto de 2020.

En CAROLINA, Puerto Rico, el 17 de agosto de 2020. LCDA. MARILYN APONTE RODRIGUEZ, Secretaria Regional.

MARICRUZ APONTE ALICEA, Secretaria Auxiliar.

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

AMERICAS LEADING FINANCE LLC Demandante V.

GADIEL OYOLA FEBUS, SU ESPOSA FULANA DE TAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR

AMBOS

Demandada CIVIL NUM. BY2020CV01147.

SALA: 703. SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VIA ORDINARIA Y EJECUCION DE GRAVAMEN MOBILIARIO (REPOSESION DE VEHICULO).

NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: GADIEL OYOLA FEBUS, SU ESPOSA FULANA DE TAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

EL SECRETARIO (A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 17 de AGOSTO 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 17 de agosto de 2020.

En BAYAMON, Puerto Rico, el 17 de agosto de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria. f/MARIA E. COLLAZO, Secretario (a) Auxiliar.

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

AMERICAS LEADING FINANCE LLC Demandante V.

VICTOR MORALES MALDONADO, SU ESPOSA FULANA DE TAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Demandada CIVIL NUM. SJ2020CV00851 (802) . SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA Y EJECUCIÓN DE GRAVAMEN MOBILIARIO (REPOSESIÓN DE VEHÍCULO). NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO POR

SUMAC.

A: VICTOR MORALES MALDONADO

EL SECRETARIO (A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 17 de AGOSTO 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 17 de agosto de 2020. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 17 de agosto de 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Secretaria Regional. f/DENISSE M. AMARO MACHUCA, Secretario (a) Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE GUAYNABO.

25

le ordene pagar las cantidades reclamadas en la demanda. l?OR 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: La Ciudadela, 2 Ave. Las Cumbres Apto. 509, Guaynabo, PR 00969-4812. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal en Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, hoy dia 29 de abril de 2020. Lcda.

Laura I Santa Sanchez, Secretaria. Diamar T. González Barreta, Secretaria del Tribunal ConfidenciaIl.

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 17 de agosto de 2020.

En CAGUAS, Puerto Rico, el 17 de agosto de 2020. CARMEN ANA PEREIRA ORTIZ, Secretaria Regional. f/YARITZA ROSARIO PLACERES, Secretario (a) Auxiliar.

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

LIME RESIDENCIAL, LTD DEMANDANTE Vs.

BANCO BILBAO VIZCAYA ARGENTARIA PUERTO RICO ahora ORIENTAL BANK; JOHN DOE y RICHARD ROE como posibles tenedores desconocidos

DEMANDADOS CIVIL NUM. CA2020CV01632.

SOBRE: CANCELACION DE ORIENTAL BANK, PAGARE EXTRAVIADO. EMDemandante, v., PLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. MAYA CHE SALAZAR, ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉLEGAL NOTICE FULANO DE TAL y RICA EL PRESIDENTE DE la Sociedad Legal de Estado Libre Asociado de Puer- LOS EE. UU. EL ESTADO LIGananciales compuesta to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL BRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Pri- RICO. SS. por ambos, mera Instancia Sala Superior Demandados.

A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD CIVIL NUM.: GB2020CV00039. de CAGUAS. ROE como posibles PR RECOVERY AND SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO tenedores desconocidos POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EM- DEVELOPMENT JV, LLC POR LA PRESENTE se les PLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. Demandante V. emplaza y requiere para que ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AME- GASH, LLC; ALEJANDRA conteste la demanda dentro de RICA EL PRESIDENTE DE SANCHEZ ALVAREZ los treinta (30) días siguientes LOS EE. UU. EL ESTADO LIDemandada a la publicación de este Edicto.

BRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO CIVIL NUM. CG2019CV04066 .

Usted deberá radicar su aleRICO. SS. SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO gación responsiva a través del A: MAYA CHE SALAZAR, Y EJECUCION DE GRAVA- Sistema Unificado de Manejo y FULANO DE TAL y MEN MOBILIA, RIO. NOTIFI- Administración de Casos (SUCACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR MAC). al cual puede acceder la Sociedad Legal de utilizando la siguiente dirección Gananciales compuesta EDICTO. electrónica: http://unired.ramaA: GASH, LLC; por ambos ALEJANDRA SANCHEZ judicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se POR MEDIO del presente edicpresente por derecho propio, to se le notifica de la radicación ALVAREZ en cuyo caso deberá radicar el de una demanda en cobro de EL SECRETARIO (A) que susoriginal de su contestación ante dinero por la vía ordinaria en la cribe le notifica a usted que el 8 el Tribunal correspondiente y que se alega que usted adeuda de marzo de 2020, este Tribunal notifique con copia a los aboa la parte demandante, Oriental ha dictado Sentencia, Sentengados de la parte demandante, Bank, ciertas sumas de dinero, cia Parcial o Resolución en este LCDA. MARJALIISA COLÓN y las costas, gastos y honora- caso, que ha sido debidamente VILLANUEVA A su dirección: rios de abogado de este litigio. registrada y archivada en autos PO. Box 7970 Ponce, PR. El demandante, Oriental Bank, donde podrá usted enterarse 00732. Te!: 787-843-4168. En ha solicitado que se dicte sen- detalladamente de los términos dicha demanda se tramita un tencia en contra suya y que se

procedimiento de cancelación de pagare extraviado. Se alega en dicho procedimiento que se extravió un pagaré hipotecario luego de modificada y cancelada parcialmente por la suma de $379,950.00, con intereses al 6.875% anual, vencedero el primero de junio de 2036, a favor del Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria Puerto Rico ahora Oriental Bank, o a su orden, según consta de la escritura número $352,730.00, intereses al 5.375% anual vencedero el primero de septiembre de 2015, según escritura número 545 otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico el 29 de septiembre de 2010 ante el notario Raúl J. Vila Selles. Inscrita al folio ciento ochenta y uno (181) del tomo mil trescientos cuarenta y dos (1342) de Carolina, finca número cuarenta y siete mil seiscientos ochenta y cuatro (47,684), inscripción séptima (7ma). La propiedad sobre la cual se constituyó dicha hipoteca es la siguiente: URBANA: Solar marcado con el número doce (12) del bloque D, en el plano de inscripción de la Urbanización Estancia de San Fernando, radicada en el Barrio Hoyos Mulas, el término municipal de Carolina, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de setecientos treinta y siete punto cero cuarenta y uno (737.041) metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, en una distancia de diez punto cuatrocientos dieciocho (10.418} metros, con la calle seis (6); por el SUR, en una distancia de veintisiete punto setecientos sesenta y ocho (27.768) metros, con terrenos del señor Julio Lorenzo Matos; por el ESTE, en una distancia de cuarenta y cuatro punto ochocientos ochenta y seis (44.886) metros, con el solar once (11); y por OESTE, en una distancia de treinta y siete punto seiscientos noventa y cinco (37 .695) metros, con el solar trece (13) del mismo bloque. Enclava una casa. Inscrita al folio ciento ochenta y uno (181) del tomo mil trescientos cuarenta y dos (1342) de Carolina, finca número cuarenta y siete mil seiscientos ochenta y cuatro (47,684) Registro de la Propiedad Sección Segunda (2da) de Carolina. 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. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal en Carolina, Puerto Rico, a día 12 de agosto de 2020.

Lcda. Marilyn Aponte Rodriguez, Secretaria Regional.

Myriam I. Figueroa Pastrana, Sec Auxiliar.

26

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

Even in a pandemic, everyone still hates the Astros

By DAVID WALDSTEIN

J

ust the thought of the Houston Astros skating away without any public rebuke rankled Jon Wilson.

A 43-year-old software consultant from California’s East Bay and a devout Oakland Athletics fan, Wilson was stewing at the injustice of it all as the 2020 season approached. First the Astros cheated their way to the 2017 World Series, he thought, and then their players avoided punishment in what amounted to an unsavory plea bargain after Major League Baseball’s investigation this year.

The final outrage was the empty ballparks.

Because of the coronavirus, MLB decided to start its 2020 season without fans in stadiums, enabling the Astros to avoid what Wilson and many others had eagerly anticipated: a season-long public flogging in the form of loud, visceral, deep-throated jeers.

“How many different ways can they get away with what happened?” Wilson said in a telephone interview. “They don’t even have to face the wrath of the fans.”

So, earlier this month, inspired by a video of a lone Los Angeles Dodgers fan outside Anaheim Stadium booing the Astros (who were playing inside), Wilson took action. He hired a plane to fly above Oakland Coliseum during batting practice before an Athletics-Astros game, towing a sign that read, “Houston Asterisks.”

The words referred to the notion held by many fans besides Houston’s that the Astros’ 2017 World Series title is tainted. That year, Astros players stole signs using a live video feed and communicated them to batters by banging on a trash can. When The Athletic revealed the scheme last winter, many in the baseball world felt the championship deserved an asterisk in the record book to highlight the cheating.

In lieu of that, Wilson and others are carrying out an ongoing, underground opposition campaign against the Astros. With an assist from a widely followed Twitter account called 2020 Astros Shame Tour, Wilson raised the $1,200 for the flight in less than 24 hours. So much money came in, he said, that he can afford another flight when the Astros return to Oakland in September.

“It would be cool to have a banner follow the Astros from city to city,” he said. “No mat-

ter where they go, the same banner just keeps popping up to remind them.”

Even in a most unusual MLB season, fans like Wilson and the lone booer in Anaheim have uncovered unique ways to express their outrage despite not being allowed in ballparks, determined to keep a spotlight on Houston, which remains a lightning rod for negativity.

To the delight of the anti-Astros crowd, the Houston players have faced more than their share of misfortune this year. They’ve had bench-clearing altercations, suspensions, costly injuries, a five-game losing streak and enough batting slumps to fuel joyful speculation that perhaps the team’s players, especially second baseman José Altuve, can’t hit as well when it’s on the up and up.

A three-time American League batting champion, Altuve was batting .176 through Monday, 136 points below his career average.

Manager Dusty Baker, who was hired in January after the team fired A.J. Hinch in the wake of the cheating scandal, was asked last week if Altuve might be putting too much pressure on himself, trying to prove to a skeptical world that he can perform without knowing what pitch is coming.

“Altuve, he has been hitting all his life,” Baker responded. “It’s only a matter of time before Altuve hits again.”

Until then, many are relishing his struggles and those of his team: The Astros, who reached the World Series last season, were 12-10 and battling for second place in the American League West just over a third of the way through the season.

Brendan Donley, a writer and Cubs fan from Chicago, started the Astros Shame Tour Twitter account for the same reason Wilson had in flying his sign over an empty Coliseum: to give the Astros a steady reminder of their transgressions. While Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow were suspended and then fired, no Astros players were punished by MLB, something that outraged many fans and opposing players.

Donley opened the account in February, before the pandemic was declared, and within a short time it became a central clearinghouse for all things anti-Astros.

His account has exploded, with nearly 300,000 followers who get a daily dose of mockery, sarcasm and news of Houston’s

Senent. Jose Altuve has struggled at the plate this season. struggles. Donley particularly enjoys that the account has gained more followers than either Alex Bregman or Carlos Correa, two popular Astros players implicated in the scandal.

“It would have been fine if it were only 10,000 people,” said Donley, who has written a book about the 1968 World Series. “But to see the legion of people who feel the same way is really cool.”

The anti-Astros movement has adopted a few heroes along the way. Among them is Trevor Bauer, the outspoken Cincinnati Reds pitcher who has written about the “bad blood” many MLB players still have for the Astros.

Another is Ramón Laureano, the Athletics outfielder who was hit by an Astros pitch Aug. 8, then engaged in a shouting match with Alex Cintrón, Houston’s hitting coach, charged the Astros dugout and incited a bench-clearing fracas that flouted any sense of physical distancing.

Cintrón received a 20-game suspension for starting the shouting match, while Laureano was barred for four games and joined Dodgers pitcher Joe Kelly in the pantheon of anti-Astros antagonizers.

“Everybody who hates the Astros loves Joe Kelly,” said Wilson, the man who hired the plane.

Kelly, a Dodgers reliever, earned his special status July 28 — not so much for throwing a fastball behind Bregman’s head during a game in Houston but because he later taunted

Correa with a pouty-face expression that incited another benches-clearing encounter and has since been canonized on social media and emblazoned on T-shirts.

Kelly received an eight-game suspension, which was later reduced to five games on appeal. Chris Young, MLB’s senior vice president for on-field operations, said in an interview that the league was not intentionally making an example of Kelly, who had previously been suspended for throwing at batters. But he added that the league would not tolerate players taking justice into their own hands against Houston.

“We will closely monitor any throwing incidents involving the Astros, as with any other team,” Young said. “There is just no place in our game for players issuing their own punishment by inflicting pain on another player.

We can’t have that.”

Shame aside, the Astros have faced a litany of other baseball issues this year, including injuries to Justin Verlander, Michael Brantley and Yordan Álvarez, all while Baker tries to manage a shaky bullpen with nine rookies in it. No surprise, then, that the Astros are off to such a disappointing start — not that people outside Houston are upset over it.

“They are definitely not the same team, and that makes me happy,” Wilson said. “They need to feel what it’s like to be in last place, to finally have some tangible consequences. Because so far, they haven’t had them.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

27

NBA Playoff power rankings

By MARC STEIN

T

he Los Angeles Lakers were set to play their first playoff game in seven years Tuesday night — at a centralized NBA site in the middle of August.

This, in other words, is a special occasion.

It was under these auspices that I decided to break from my recent once-a-season tradition to convene what is known as the Committee (of One) and assemble an emergency edition of my power rankings to assess the 16 teams that, after spending some 40 days in the NBA bubble, have advanced to the playoffs.

The higher-seeded team won each of Monday’s first four playoff games, but Tuesday was another matter. Lower seeds won three of the four games, as the streaking Portland Trailblazers beat the Lakers, the top seed in the West, the Miami Heat topped the Indiana Pacers, and the Orlando Magic stunned the Milwaukee Bucks, the No. 1 seed in the East.

The Houston Rockets’ win over the Oklahoma City Thunder was the only victory for a higher seed on Tuesday.

Many NBA experts believe the 2020 postseason will be more unpredictable than ever because home-court advantage and the usual rigors of travel have been deleted from the equation. Everyone is playing and living at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., with only a few hundred virtual fans admitted to the games.

“I hate giving predictions, but especially in this scenario, where literally anybody could get upset,” Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors told me last week when I asked him for his NBA Finals picks.

“I’m prepared for anything as a quote-unquote fan.”

As a reminder: The Committee computes the order by weighing what is happening in the present alongside each team’s big-picture outlook — guided to some degree by subjectivity and whimsy.

1. TORONTO RAPTORS The Raptors did not quite match the unbeaten Phoenix Suns in the seeding games, but they looked more playoff-ready, at 7-1, than anyone else in the bubble. The Raptors also recorded more wins this season than the Clippers (53 to 49) even after Kawhi Leonard swapped Canada for Hollywood.

Given Toronto’s versatility on defense, its towering confidence after last season’s title run and coach Nick Nurse’s creativity, it shouldn’t surprise anyone if the Raptors win the East again — even without Leonard.

2. MILWAUKEE BUCKS The Bucks have such a favorable first-round matchup against Orlando that it made more sense to laser

in on their mental state. Because Milwaukee’s No. 1 seeding in the East was all but assured before the team arrived in Florida, its intermittent focus was an understandable problem. Harder to understand was the impression that Giannis Antetokounmpo’s patience was already wearing thin, as suggested by a scuffle with Brooklyn’s Donta Hall and a head butt of Washington’s Moritz Wagner. The Bucks will have to spend nearly two more months here to win the franchise’s first championship since 197071. They haven’t enjoyed themselves much so far.

3. LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS The Clippers’ ceiling may still be the league’s highest, but it’s rather late and they still haven’t found that peak. More than a year after the acquisitions of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, coach Doc Rivers still seems to be waiting to have access to his whole roster. Maybe Monday night’s Game 1 win over Dallas was the first step, at last, to putting all those inviting pieces together.

4. LOS ANGELES LAKERS LeBron James, like Kawhi Leonard, is bidding to become the first superstar to lead three different franchises to an NBA title. Yet it can be argued that the season’s lengthy hiatus hurt LeBron’s Lakers as much as any title contender. This team was rolling when the coronavirus pandemic forced an indefinite shutdown. Now the Lakers face a tricky firstround matchup with Portland amid growing concerns about a lack of perimeter shooting and the defensive void created by Avery Bradley’s absence.

5. DENVER NUGGETS The Nuggets barely had enough players available to get through a practice in the early stages of the bubble. Now? Denver isn’t completely healthy, but coach Mike Malone has more options than ever thanks to the emergence of Michael Porter Jr. and Bol Bol. Although Denver was a worst-in-thebubble No. 22 in defensive efficiency in its eight seeding games, it sure looks like the West’s most credible contender outside Los Angeles when Jamal Murray closes games alongside Nikola Jokic the way Murray finished off Utah in Game 1.

6. OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER Even without its best James Harden defender (Luguentz Dort) for Game 1 and possibly longer, Oklahoma City was seen as having a real chance to upset Houston in the first round and continuing a surge that would see the Thunder at No. 1 if we were ranking this season’s overachievers. Chris Paul predictably gets much of the credit in what has been a turn-back-the-clock season for him at age 35 — and his team got a classic subjective boost here from the Committee in recognition of Paul’s behind-thescenes work just to make this restart happen

Chris Paul has powered the Oklahoma City Thunder on a surprising run to the playoffs.

7. MIAMI HEAT The Heat are not quite the title contenders that Jimmy Butler has proclaimed them to be — not yet — but the Committee is higher on them than most.

Coach Erik Spoelstra has playmakers (Butler, Goran Dragic, Bam Adebayo), shooters (Duncan Robinson, Tyler Herro) and a variety of defenders to throw at Indiana’s T.J. Warren (Butler, Andre Iguodala, Jae Crowder) — enough across the board to feel good about Miami’s first-round series with the Pacers.

8. BOSTON CELTICS No one questions Jayson Tatum’s franchise-player viability, and Jaylen Brown continues to impress with both his on-court maturation and his off-court activism. But Boston, with its well-chronicled lack of dependable size, was already sweating its firstround matchup with the Philadelphia 76ers — before Gordon Hayward sprained his ankle Monday night, sidelining him for at least four weeks. The Celtics, who are also managing Kemba Walker’s long-standing knee problem, should find a way past the Ben Simmons-less Sixers, but that’s the most we’re prepared to promise.

Continues on page 28

28

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

From page 27

NBA Playoff power rankings 9. HOUSTON ROCKETS There were so many fit questions and so much skepticism when the Rockets acquired Russell Westbrook from Oklahoma City in July 2019. The big mystery now, amazingly, is whether Houston can survive a difficult first-round series against the surprising Thunder without Westbrook, who is out indefinitely with a quadriceps injury. With its ultrasmall lineups, Houston was supposed to be the most feared wild card in the West playoffs, but it may take all of coach Mike D’Antoni’s tricks just to steer Houston into the second round — amid numerous questions about D’Antoni’s future.

10. INDIANA PACERS The Phoenix Suns’ 8-0 run in the bubble prevented the Pacers from getting the shine they deserved. Despite losing All-Star big man Domantas Sabonis (foot) and coping with the ups and downs of Victor Oladipo’s spotty comeback, Indiana overcame its rebounding issues without Sabonis to go 6-2 and help coach Nate McMillan secure a one-year contract extension. Best of all is T.J. Warren’s looming best-of-seven showdown with Miami’s Jimmy Butler after Warren averaged a ridiculous 31.0 points per game to finish third in seeding games scoring.

11. UTAH JAZZ I was a big believer in Utah after the offseason acquisitions of Mike Conley and Bojan Bogdanovic — so big that in October I picked the Jazz to reach the Western Conference Finals. Sadly, that attempt at bold, out-of-the-box forecasting hasn’t aged well, with Bogdanovic and key reserve Ed Davis sidelined and Conley most likely out until at least Game 3 after the recent birth of his son. The Jazz face yet another immediate challenge emotionally, knowing they wasted Donovan Mitchell’s 57 points in a crushing Game 1 loss to Denver.

12. PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS After what coach Terry Stotts described as “a ninegame series” just to get a playoff shot at the mighty Lakers, Portland theoretically should have a sharpness edge — at least at the start of the series. The Blazers, though, have considerable defensive issues, and they aren’t the healthiest — CJ McCollum (back) and Zach Collins (ankle) will try to play through injuries. The group also has to be weary after the exertion required to bump Memphis out of the eighth seed. Even with Damian Lillard on its side, Portland has much to overcome to produce the first-round shocker Charles Barkley has been touting on TNT. 13. DALLAS MAVERICKS The euphoria that the Mavericks undoubtedly felt after reaching the playoffs in Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis’s first full season together

The Toronto Raptors are ready for championship No. 2. From left, Fred VanVleet, Kyle Lowry and Marc Gasol. was surely tempered by the reality of facing the Clippers’ array of top-flight defenders. That, combined with Dallas’ defensive frailties, makes for a brutal Round 1 matchup. Doncic insisted before the series that the Mavericks had “nothing to lose,” but Game 1 played out in agonizing fashion, with Doncic blighting his 42 points with 11 turnovers and Porzingis getting ejected in the third quarter.

14. PHILADELPHIA 76ers For fans of a certain age, there is still a majesty attached to the mere mention of a Philadelphia vs.

Boston playoff series. Yet one suspects that these 76ers are not in much of a mood to romanticize after losing Simmons (knee surgery) indefinitely and a Game 1 fade against the Celtics that highlighted so many of the Sixers’ familiar ills: Joel Embiid either wore down or didn’t see enough of the ball in crunchtime; Al Horford, last summer’s marquee signing, had minimal impact against his former team; and the usual wails about Philadelphia’s lack of perimeter shooting persist. The pressure is on the Sixers — especially coach Brett Brown.

15. BROOKLYN NETS The Nets lost so many players in the weeks

before coming to Florida that they had no shortage of NBA Twitter cynics asking if they should have even bothered showing up to Disney World. Then they went a spunky 5-3 on the way to the playoffs, rallying around the blossoming Caris LeVert and the steady Joe Harris to beat Milwaukee (with Giannis Antetokounmpo in the lineup) and nearly eliminate a desperate Portland. They’ve been a great story here, even if Toronto sweeps the Nets in the first round — especially LeVert and the response Jacque Vaughn is getting from this group as the interim coach.

16. ORLANDO MAGIC The Magic have been a curiosity for me from the moment they became the first team to arrive on the NBA campus, because they had to travel only about 25 miles. Orlando’s staycation, though, is surely coming to an end soon. Milwaukee has too many weapons, and the Magic’s only realistic defensive counter to Giannis Antetokounmpo — Jonathan Isaac — tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in his second game here.

Adding to Orlando’s problems: Aaron Gordon is still recovering from a hamstring injury.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 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

(Mar 21-April 20)

It is time to work out a partner’s true intentions. Things have been happening that have made you wonder whether they’re just with you for your money. Plan and suggest activities where you won’t need to pay. Will they still be as keen to join in if there’s nothing to gain but your wonderful company?

Taurus

(April 21-May 21)

Arguments and someone comparing the past with the present will leave you regretting what you said. It isn’t too late to apologise.

It’s important for this relationship for you both to work together and focus on the future. Push away the past. It will be good to mix with strong minded people in business and pleasure.

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Someone who feels you’ve let them down will let you know it in no uncertain terms. It might surprise you how angry they are feeling. You and a partner don’t seem to be getting on well with each other. If all this tension is starting to affect your health, you might need some time alone.

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

You may not have planned a little outing but taking up a spontaneous offer could take you to new places. Once you get away you will be surprised by how much you needed this.

Friends enjoy your company. They’ll be disappointed if you cry out of social plans even if this is just a regular online gathering.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

You’re about to make some new moves and you feel cautiously optimistic that these are perfect for you. In romance, finance and business you won’t build your hopes up too high but you feel you are making good choices. If you’re single, you’d rather wait for the right person to come along than go with a friend’s attempts at matchmaking.

Virgo

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

It’s important for a close friend or partner to feel they can make you happy. Secret plans you are making together will make life more exciting. Joint long-term arrangements excite and inspire you. A social or travel invitation will be too good to turn down so rearrange things to fit it in.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

Finding time to share interests in a new relationship will help you foster a common ground. Getting to know someone better by helping them get a special project off the ground could lead to surprising rewards. Travel delays won’t spoil a holiday so don’t stress or fluster as it will be worth it when you get to your destination.

Scorpio

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

You’re determined to get to the bottom of a mystery. Follow up any clues you see or hear.

You could learn something to your advantage. Despite all the secrecy, a happy aura surrounds most relationships. Are you single?

Chances are, you will soon be enjoying an incredible new romance.

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

As problems are solved, tension between you and a partner will start to dissolve. Seeing a profit from a joint venture will help too. Seek approval from your family before committing to a long-term arrangement. You wouldn’t want to get involved in anything they might object to.

Loved ones will be there to reassure you when your workmates or a senior colleague annoys you. Don’t keep your emotions bottled up inside as this can affect your health. Equally, if anyone needs a shoulder to lean on, offer yours. Be sincere about how you are feeling and honest about your hopes for the future.

Aquarius

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

Problems with a partner are starting to ease.

You are both enjoying making up and improving your relationship. Family plans are providing you with the sense of security that you need right now. It will be a relief to resolve a long-term conflict that has been keeping you and a friend apart.

Pisces

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

Invitations, offers and opportunities will open new doors for you. Single? Then don’t jump too quickly into a relationship. Give yourself a chance to consider whether it is love or lust that’s in the air. It might feel like love at first sight but only time will tell if you are wrong or right.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

Thursday, August 20, 2020

31

CARTOONS

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

BC

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

For Better or for Worse

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Ziggy

32

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, August 20, 2020

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