Monday Aug 31, 2020

Monday, August 31, 2020

San Juan The

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A Pandemic Financial Guide for Millennials P12

Note to Self: Hurricane Peak Season Is Here Candidate for Governor César Vázquez on Island’s Bankruptcy, Pandemic, Abortion, Change of Gender in Gov’t Documents

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All the Anger, a Governor’s Resignation, Etc. for Nothing?

Why the GEO Closed Its Telegram Investigation

NWS Keeping a Close Eye on Tropical Systems Although Presently They Don’t Represent Danger Citizens Called on to Use This Week to Check Emergency Plans

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NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 19

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

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August 31, 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.

César Vázquez: ‘We believe in equal protection under the law’

Today’s

Weather

By THE STAR STAFF This is the fifth in a series of interviews with candidates running in the 2020 general elections.

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INDEX Local 3 Mainland 7 Business 11 International 14 Viewpoint 18 Noticias en Español 19 Entertainment 20 22 Travel

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ésar Vázquez, the physician and former pastor who is the gubernatorial candidate of Proyecto Dignidad, a conservative party that promotes honesty in government, is betting on the voters’ fatigue from the failed promises of the two main traditional parties in his bid to take over La Fortaleza.

“We live in a Puerto Rico that has been the victim of bipartisanship for 60 years. The traditional parties have failed the people. They have stolen from us and so don’t be scared in this election. Vote differently,” reads a slogan of the Proyecto Dignidad.

More than that, Vázquez said his background in medicine and science makes him more qualified than his opponents to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, which has already shattered Puerto Rico’s economy and people’s livelihoods.

With 42 years of experience as a family doctor, medical internist and cardiologist under his belt, Vázquez said the government has been forced to close down businesses and restrict the movement of the people because it does not have adequate tools in place to deal with the coronavirus, which is spread between people through direct, indirect (through contaminated objects or surfaces), or close contact with infected people via mouth and nose secretions.

In his opinion, the way to deal with the pandemic is through adequate contact tracing and the identification of sources of infection and their selective closing.

“Right now, the numbers [of infected people] are manageable, but I don’t see that continuing for long,” he said.

When Vázquez announced that he was running for governor under the newly created Proyecto Dignidad, he said the party was a civil society party that was not promoting religious beliefs of any kind but whose members were mostly Christians.

“This party is mostly composed of Christians, but we do not belong to any church. We accept everyone,” the candidate said in a radio interview at the time. “I used to be a pastor. I am no longer part of the pastoral leadership of my church.”

The party promotes governing with honesty and integrity.

Asked about the new Civil Code, Vázquez told the Star that as governor he would “limit the right to an abortion to the maximum level permitted by law” and noted that minors should only be allowed to have an abortion with parental consent. He said he would not allow individuals to change their gender on their birth certificates because they are historical documents that should not be changed by people’s whims.

He also would ban eugenics, the practice of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable hereditary traits, and euthanasia, defined as intentionally ending someone’s life to help the person avoid suffering or relieve pain.

“We believe in equal protection under the law,” Vázquez said.

The Proyecto Dignidad does not advocate any specific political status and supports Puerto Rico’s self-determination.

However, Vázquez said he does not support the statehood Yes-No status referendum and will not vote in it, arguing it is biased and is an instrument created by the New Progressive Party to bring its voters to the polls.

“We advocate realistic status formulas approved by Congress,” he said. “That is just an expensive survey and I will not legitimize it with my vote.”

Vázquez expressed concern over the high amount of debt, $70 billion, amassed by the government. While he supports auditing the debt, he also believes “it has already been audited.”

“The problem is that they have yet to put a name to it,” he said.

He described as a blessing in disguise the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, commonly known as PROMESA, because while it created a Financial Oversight and Management Board to oversee Puerto Rico’s finances, it also allowed for an orderly bankruptcy process to deal with the U.S. territory’s debt.

He said he would work with the oversight board to get Puerto Rico out of bankruptcy, but “if we have to make our objections, we will do so even if we have to go to court.”

“But there is no need to be hostile toward the board,” he added.

Still, Vázquez said he will give a second look to the restructuring support agreements for the commonwealth and the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) to make sure they are sustainable.

“The bankruptcy process seeks to protect the assets of the debtor and allow it to make realistic payments,” he said.

In dealing with PREPA’s debt, Vázquez said energy rates should not cost consumers more than 20 cents per kilowatthour, so the amount of money devoted to debt payments should not be higher than 3 cents per kilowatt-hour. He said pension payments to PREPA retirees should not be part of the rate scheme, but rather should be treated separately.

On the question of how to spur Puerto Rico’s economic development, Vázquez said the government should not be the leading employer or the main economic engine.

“We have to limit government to help the economy grow,” he said.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

NWS: ‘It’s absolutely fundamental for people to get ready’ With tropical waves brewing in the Atlantic, meteorologist urges citizens to review their emergency plans as peak month for hurricane season arrives

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

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s Puerto Rico heads into its peak hurricane season in September, National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist Gabriel Lojero called for Puerto Rico residents on Sunday to check their emergency plans as the Miami National Hurricane Center (NHC) monitors four tropical waves in the Atlantic Ocean that have formation chances, yet do not represent an “immediate threat” to the island.

The first tropical wave, which is located to the south of Puerto Rico and close to the Windward Islands, is expected to move west through the central west part of the Caribbean Sea a has a 70 percent and 80 percent chance of forming into a storm in the next 48 hours or five days, respectively, Lojero told the Star.

Meanwhile, the meteorologist said the second tropical wave, located southwest of the Cape Verde Islands, has a 20 percent chance of formation in the next five days, while a third tropical wave that is still over Africa is expected to move westward into the Atlantic and has a 30 percent chance of formation in the next five

days. Lojero said there’s still uncertainty as forecasters are having difficulty figuring out which of the inconsistent systems may develop based on current models.

“Independent of what might happen, these two tropical waves that are being monitored by the NHC for potential formation, if they arrive

in the Caribbean region, it won’t for a week or a week and a half; therefore, we will have a lot of time to keep monitoring their evolutions,” Lojero said. “We have to remind others that we’re in the peak of hurricane season, as the month of September is, climatically speaking, the most active month. There are many waves that are under suspected development and, especially given that this year is forecast as a very active year, it should not come as a surprise.”

Meanwhile, Lojero told the Star that although it’s still too early to forecast what impacts these systems might have in Puerto Rico, citizens must keep monitoring their development and once again review their hurricane emergency plans.

“We still don’t have a clear view as to what might happen. What we are aware of is that we still have to keep monitoring; this is not a time to start worrying. Meanwhile, people should get ready, that’s the main thing; it’s absolutely fundamental for people to get ready,” the NWS meteorologist said. “We already have the experience of living through a catastrophic event such as Hurricane Maria three years ago;, let’s use that experience to repeat what worked and improve what didn’t.”

As for COVID-19, Lojero recognized that the disease caused by the coronavirus is “an additional challenge to face” for this hurricane season. Henceforth, he said it would be advisable for citizens to not leave their preparations for the last minute, such as acquiring non-perishable food, water, batteries, and other essential sources to stay safe during the height of the storm season.

GEO investigation of Telegram chat that led ex-Gov. Rosselló to resign last summer yields nothing

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

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ver a year after the Center for Investigative Journalism released an 889-page document that contained a Telegram chat which involved former Gov. Ricardo Rosselló Nevares and various members of his cabinet and led to their resignations, the Government Ethics Office (GEO) announced recently through a press release that they were forced to close their investigation on July 25 due to a lack of authentication from the aforementioned chat.

GEO Director Luis Pérez Várgas defended the office against accusations of throwing in the towel on the investigation during an interview on Telenoticias. He said he could not compel his office to “sow evidence where there is none.”

Meanwhile, he told the same outlet that both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice declined to provide information to the GEO as both have ongoing investigations into the case and, he added, the plaintiffs pointed out that the documents had been tampered with.

“I don’t like it when my office is being tarnished or when they say: ‘Oh, look, they gave in, they covered it up.’ All of that is shocking, but none of that can move the office to despair because they attack us in order to sow evidence where there is none,” he said. “I think that you’re not telling the truth, put in your sworn statement this and that because I think that you’re

lying. That’s not how it works, even if it seems obvious.”

Meanwhile, in an interview with Noticentro, Pérez Vargas said he couldn’t say why the GEO did not disclose that the investigation had been closed since July, yet it could have disclosed it. Meanwhile, when asked by the interviewer for the names of the plaintiffs who did not cooperate, he said he would not mention them as there was a chance of the investigation being reopened should new evidence appear.

“There were people who did not cooperate. We will not go into the names of people involved in an ongoing criminal investigation,” Pérez Vargas said. “[As a matter of] responsibility, we do not want to affect the likelihood that they are seized.”

Nonetheless, attorney Mayra López Mulero told Noticentro that neither of her clients, former Treasury Secretary Raúl Maldonado Gautier or his son Raúl Maldonado Nieves (also known as “Raulie”), were summoned by the GEO “at any moment involving the chat.”

“I am simply telling you that, involving this case, it was executed along the path of least resistance, superficially,” López Múlero said. “[The procedure was] irresponsible, mediocre … motivated with the deliberate purpose of favoring ‘the brothers.’”

Neither federal authorities nor the Special Independent Prosecutor Panel (PFEI by its Spanish initials), who took up the investigation on June 23, have reported any outcomes of their investigations. According to a PFEI resolution released on Feb. 13, possible violations of the Penal Code and the GEO Law, such as interfering in governmental matters, institutional negligence and ideological falsehood,

could have been committed by Rosselló Nevares, former Financial Advisory Authority and Fiscal Agency Director Christian Sobrino Vega, former La Fortaleza legal adviser Alfonso Orona Amilivia, former Public Affairs Secretary Ramón Rosario Cortés, advertiser Edwin Miranda Reyes and/or lobbyist and Rosselló Nevares’ former campaign director Elías Sánchez Sifonte.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

5

Two fiscal board members say goodbye today. What about the decision-making process?

By THE STAR STAFF

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he Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico will lose two of its seven members today and a third in October, a situation that may complicate the board’s decision-making process unless the U.S. Congress makes new appointments.

With the departure today of José R. González, chief executive officer and president of Federal Home Loan Bank of New York, and Carlos García, chief executive officer of BayBoston Managers LLC and managing partner of BayBoston Capital LP, the oversight board will be left with only five members.

The Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) requires only a majority vote of the seven-member board for the approval of fiscal plans or budgets, to cause a legislative act not to be enforced or for an infrastructure project.

The bylaws approved by the oversight board in January 2017, however, state that all decisions made by the board must be approved with a minimum of four votes.

While bankruptcy attorney Rosana Cruz believes that the oversight board can function with five members as it has publicly said it can, the problem may arise once Board Chairman José Carrión leaves in October as he has said he plans to do, because the

board will be left with only four members.

“Unless Congress approves their replacements, they will have problems because they will not have the required number of votes,” she said, adding that she “was unsure” whether amending the bylaws will help solve the problem with the decision-making process.

Regardless of the number of oversight board members, observers believe there will not be any significant advancements in the bankruptcy process until after the general election in November. The restructuring agreements of the commonwealth and of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority need legislative approval to

enable them. Both agreements are currently held up in the courts because of the global pandemic.

The appointments of the oversight board members do not follow the constitutional appointment method in which the U.S. president appoints members and submits them to the Senate for confirmation. PROMESA calls for the president to select one of the seven board members and the rest from lists submitted to him by legislative leaders.

Section 2121 of PROMESA reads: “(A) The President shall appoint the individual members of the Oversight Board, of which — (i) the Category A member should be selected from a list of individuals submitted by the Speaker of the House of Representatives; (ii) the Category B member should be selected from a separate, non-overlapping list of individuals submitted by the Speaker of the House of Representatives; (iii) the Category C members should be selected from a list submitted by the Majority Leader of the Senate; (iv) the Category D member should be selected from a list submitted by the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives; (v) the Category E member should be selected from a list submitted by the Minority Leader of the Senate; and (vi) the Category F member may be selected at the President’s sole discretion.”

However, Congress has yet to submit to President Trump its new lists of prospective board members.

Fiscal board recommends property tax system changes

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

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he Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB) announced over the weekend that it has submitted a series of recommendations to the Puerto Rico government to implement legislative changes that would improve the island’s property tax system so that it becomes fairer and more efficient.

The oversight board recommends broadening the tax base by eliminating or reducing exemptions, measuring the tax base by the real market value of the properties instead of the last appraisals of real estate values in 1957, and reducing the statutory contribution rate.

The board made the recommendations in a letter dated Aug. 26 and addressed to Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced, Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz, and Speaker of the House of Representatives Carlos Méndez Núñez.

“The property tax system in Puerto Rico is not up to date and the recommendations provide for a more transparent tax system,” said Natalie Jaresko, the executive director of the oversight board, in a written statement.

“The people of Puerto Rico deserve a modern tax system based on the principles of justice and equity,” she added. “All property owners must pay their fair share of taxes, not just those who cannot claim exemptions.

“Meanwhile, municipalities are in a very difficult fiscal position and property taxes represent the most important source of revenue. Reforming the property tax laws would stabilize the municipalities’ finances and help pay for the much-needed services they provide to the people of Puerto Rico.”

Section 205 of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act gives the oversight board the power to present recommendations to the governor or the island Legislature to promote financial stability, economic growth, and the efficiency of government services.

The recommended reforms consider the following four categories for changes: Reduce exemptions: The existing property tax system is outdated, confusing and unfair. There are more than 26 general exemptions and exemptions under the Municipal Code, in addition to additional exemptions, including those directed at economic development.

Establish a market value base for property valuation: 58 percent of the tax base of real property in Puerto Rico is exempt from taxes. Switching to a market-based system would establish a more equitable distribution of property taxes.

Impose appropriate property tax rates: Property tax rates of more than 10 percent are high and only feasible due to the extreme under-evaluation of the property for tax purposes in the current system. These regulatory rates translate into actual effective tax rates that are substantially less than 1 percent for residential and commercial real estate. Puerto Rico should improve the uniformity of the effective tax rate on residential property and evaluate the increase in the effective tax rate for commercial property.

Use classification to transparently vary effective tax rates: Unlike in Puerto Rico, in most state and municipal property tax systems in the United States, taxes vary based on commercial, industrial, residential, and agricultural property. To improve transparency, equity and efficiency, the oversight oard recommends that Puerto Rico vary tax

rates on different types of property.

The recommendations correspond to the measures of the fiscal plan of the Municipal Revenue Collections Center (CRIM by its Spanish acronym) that the board certified in June.

The Certified Tax Plan outlines 10 steps for CRIM to increase tax revenue collected without increasing the tax rate, broaden the tax base by adding properties that were tax-free, and update appraisals to reflect property improvements and make it easier for homeowners to pay taxes.

Credit: Investopedia

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

Private employers to receive discount on State Insurance Fund policy payment

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

F

or fiscal year 2020-2021, private employers may receive a credit of 10 percent on the State Insurance Fund Corp. (CFSE by its Spanish initials) policy, capped at up to $50 million, Sen. Miguel Romero Lugo said Sunday.

The credit, provided in Joint Resolution 77-2020, authored by Romero Lugo, will be capped at $50 million and covered from the surplus generated by the Fund during previous fiscal years, as certified by the administrator of the public corporation.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a great impact on the island’s economy,” the senator said.

“The employers in the private sector have been the economic sector most affected as a result of the prevention measures to prevent the spread of the [corona]virus, and it is important that we take them into account since their sacrifice contributes to the imperative of public health and well being.”

Romero Lugo added that “offering this economic relief to employers is among the measures that we must take in support of the business sector.”

“This loan helps private employers so they can maintain their employer immunity, the protection against lawsuits offered only by the Fund and the payment of expensive medical treatments in cases of work accidents, for the benefit of our workers,” he said.

To obtain the benefit, employers must file their payroll statement within the period provided by law. The granting of the credit will be subject to the

payment of the policy within the terms established by the legislation.

To calculate the premium employers pay for their policy, the annual payroll estimated by risk classification must be taken into consideration.

However, as a result of the emergency, many businesses are closed and are not generating income.

Meanwhile, exempt businesses are operating on a limited basis and their income has been reduced significantly.

According to the law, 115,000 permanent policies range from $0 to $1 million annually in payroll, 111,000 policies range from $0 to $250,000, and 2,100 policies exceed $1 million annually in payroll.

The aforementioned savings generated by the CFSE have been generated by sound administration measures taken by current management, the senator indicated.

“Given the economic catastrophe we are experiencing, it is fair and meritorious that this money be used to grant this credit to employers and thus stimulate the important role represented by businesses and companies in the local economy,” Romero Lugo said.

PIP mayoral candidate criticizes opponent Romero’s meeting with Santini

By THE STAR STAFF

A

drián González Costa, the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) candidate for mayor of San Juan, questioned New Progressive Party (NPP) mayoral candidate Miguel Romero’s meeting with former San Juan mayor Jorge Santini to supposedly seek solutions to the capital city’s problems, saying the pair is responsible for the problems.

González Costa was responding to the publication on social networks of a photo of Romero with

González Costa responded to the publication on social networks of a photo of Romero with Santini that reads “Looking for Solutions for San Juan.”

Santini that reads “Looking for Solutions for San Juan.”

“Is this the new thing that Miguel Romero brings to San Juan? Looking for solutions along with one of the co-authors of the problems that the capital city faces today, such as the giant debt that it drags?” the PIP candidate said. “It seems to me a lack of respect for the electorate of San Juan to try to offer themselves as an alternative to lead from the mayor’s office along with a person who has already been rejected by San Juan, precisely because of his performance, and to that we must add the multiple accusations that exist against the former mayor, for example, the investigation still underway on billing the National Guard and the Senate of Puerto Rico at the same time, which caused that legislative body to cancel his contract.

They do not respect the people, neither of them.”

González Costa added that he has already presented several of the proposals in his government program for San Juan, such as the creation of a municipal development bank, measures to manage the COVID-19 situation and an emergency management and disaster prevention plan.

“I urge the other candidates to present proposals and debate them and the electorate of San Juan, those generations that have trusted these people for decades and are already tired of these behaviors and of the NPP and PDP [Popular Democratic Party] politicians trying to deceive them, I invite you not to

run away,” said González Costa, a pro-independence attorney. “I also invite the new generation, who want to build a new country, not to be left behind. All votes count. And those votes must be in favor of a different and trustworthy option, like the PIP. To those who did it wrong, with votes they got in and with votes we can remove them. To those who have not [held office], do not give them your vote, so that they do not come to power to continue damaging San Juan and the country.”

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

7

Trump visits storm-ravaged Lake Charles, a Louisiana city still without power

By WILL WRIGHT, RICK ROJAS and NICHOLAS BOGERBURROUGHS

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ays after Hurricane Laura slammed into Louisiana, hundreds of thousands of people remained without electricity Saturday, with the situation especially dire in Lake Charles, a city near the coastline where nearly all 80,000 residents have been without power for days and many have no running water.

President Donald Trump arrived Saturday afternoon in the troubled city, where residents were just beginning to pick up the pieces after the hurricane that made landfall Thursday as a Category 4 storm.

“Our hearts go out to the families that have lost loved ones,” Trump said during a stop in Lake Charles, expressing relief that the death toll was not higher. “It’s a tremendous number, but it could have been a lot worse.”

But both Trump and the residents who were returning to their homes arrived in a city still packed with perils, where the streets were obstacle courses filled with tangled power lines, fallen trees and debris from rooftops.

“We have water in some locations, but it’s a trickle,” Mayor Nic Hunter said in a telephone interview shortly before Trump’s visit, describing an overwhelmed water system that, combined with the near-total electricity failure, has left the city foundering in the summer heat.

Sandra Staves, who works as a housekeeper at a hospital, returned to her home for the first time Saturday. Her roof was torn apart, the windows were broken, and water had soaked her furniture and mattress. The power was out and no water ran from the tap. She looked in the refrigerator to find that all of her food had spoiled.

“What am I supposed to do?” Staves asked. “What am I supposed to eat? I have nothing.”

The efforts to dig into a cleanup were stalled by heavy rain Saturday afternoon, adding yet another layer of frustration.

“It’s literally like kids and parents and families picking up pieces,” said Layla Winbush, 19, whose family-owned car detail shop was wrecked by the storm. “It’s locals out here on hands and knees.”

The extended electrical outages have turned deadly, as the majority of the state’s deaths have come from people who were overcome by fumes after using generators to power refrigerators, lights and air conditioners.

At least seven people have been killed by carbon monoxide from generators, including four members of a family found dead in a home in Lake Charles. A fifth member of that family was taken to a hospital. Their generator was located in a garage and the deadly gas was able to seep into the house through a door that was left cracked open, the mayor said.

Another man in Calcasieu Parish, which includes Lake Charles, died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator, as did an 84-year-old man and an 80-year-old woman in the same home in Allen Parish, to the northeast, said health officials, who warned people never to place generators in homes or in closed garages.

In addition to the deaths tied to generators, five other

President Donald Trump tours storm damage from Hurricane Laura with, from left, acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Pete Gaynor, and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, in white, in Lake Charles, La., on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2020. people have died in Louisiana, four from falling trees and one from drowning. In Texas, where Trump headed next, at least four deaths have been tied to carbon monoxide poisoning from generators.

“This is just way, way worse than Rita,” said Brett Geymann, 58, a former Louisiana state lawmaker who lives in Moss Bluff, a suburb of Lake Charles, referring to the powerful hurricane that struck the area in 2005.

Geymann said residents were increasingly worried about the lack of water as they contemplated not having flushable toilets or being able to wash their hands in a sink, particularly during the pandemic.

The virus is “not even an issue anymore for most people,” said Geymann, who has let about five people stay with him after their homes were destroyed.

Patrick Goodwill, 50, rode out the storm in Lake Charles.

When he walked out of his house the next morning, he found his carport had been flattened and shingles from his roof carpeted the yard. His dog, Lucas, was missing. He still is.

“Thank God we didn’t get the water, but the wind — Jesus,” Goodwill said. “That did it.”

In the community of Westlake, a town just outside Lake Charles that was eviscerated by the storm, George Green sat on his front porch, looking out at a pecan tree that had been uprooted and smashed into his daughter’s car.

His house had been damaged by Hurricane Rita and three years later, in 2008, by Hurricane Ike, which sent a foot

of water flowing through his house. “Ike didn’t even knock,” said Green, 63.

“You never get used to it,” he said. “It is just a nightmare happening all over again.”

Visiting Orange, Texas, Trump said the state had been “a little bit lucky” to avoid a direct hit from the hurricane. While he had “never seen anything quite like” what Louisiana had endured, he said, both states had managed to escape a worstcase scenario.

In his earlier meeting with John Bel Edwards, Louisiana’s Democratic governor, and several other officials, Trump said it was important to visit Louisiana because it had been “a tremendous state for me.” He won the state with 58% of the vote in 2016 and won an even higher percentage of voters in Calcasieu Parish.

Even as residents turned to clean up their homes, some found time to show their support, with Trump 2020 signs put up after the storm and a Make America Great Again sign planted in a mound of debris.

The president noted that the hurricane had made landfall as a more powerful storm than Hurricane Katrina, which hit the region 15 years ago this weekend and caused catastrophic devastation.

“Here we are today and you’re going to have this situation taken care of very, very quickly,” Trump said.

He struck a reassuring note with Hunter, the mayor, saying, “You took a big punch, but you’ll be back.”

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

Deadly shooting in Portland after pro-Trump ralliers clash with protesters

By MIKE BAKER

A

man was shot and killed Saturday as a large group of supporters of President Donald Trump traveled in a caravan through downtown Portland, Oregon, which has seen nightly protests for three consecutive months.

The pro-Trump rally drew hundreds of trucks full of supporters into the city. At times, Trump supporters and counterprotesters clashed on the streets, with people shooting paintball guns from the beds of pickup trucks and protesters throwing objects back at them.

A video that purports to be of the shooting, taken from the far side of the street, showed a small group of people in the road outside what appears to be a parking garage. Gunfire erupts, and a man collapses in the street.

The man who was shot and killed was wearing a hat with the insignia of Patriot Prayer, a far-right group based in Portland that has clashed with protesters in the past.

The Portland Police Bureau said that of-

ficers heard reports of gunfire shortly before 9 p.m. and found a victim with a gunshot wound to the chest. It was determined that the victim had died. They did not release any information about a possible shooter.

At the scene, police officers blocked off the road, and medics attended to a person who appeared to have a chest wound.

The shooting capped a volatile week in the United States that began when the police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, repeatedly shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, prompting new protests against racism and police brutality that included the cancellation of professional sports games.

During the unrest after the shooting of Blake, Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old Illinois resident, was charged in connection with the fatal shootings of two protesters.

Portland has seen nightly demonstrations since the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis in May. In recent days, right-wing demonstrations have also sprung up in the city, and Trump has repeatedly highlighted the unrest

in Portland as evidence of the need for a tougher law-and-order response to the chaotic protests over police violence and racial injustice that have swept through many American cities.

The Trump supporters gathered earlier Saturday in the suburbs and plotted a route for the several hundred vehicles involved in the event that would have kept them on the highways outside the city center. But some of the ralliers headed directly downtown, where counterprotesters confronted some of the vehicles. Some of the conflicts led to fistfights. In one encounter, someone drove over a bike, drawing police to the scene.

While protests in Portland have persisted, their numbers have changed over time. The nightly events began with mass demonstrations after Floyd’s death, then shrank to smaller numbers of people who repeatedly clashed with the police. In July, when the federal government sent camouflaged agents into the city, the protest numbers grew dramatically once again.

In more recent days, the protest crowd has

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typically numbered just a few hundred people.

On Friday, after a peaceful demonstration in front of Mayor Ted Wheeler’s residence, a crowd went out to a police association building, where some of the protesters set fire to the front of the building before the police dispersed the crowd.

The police have made dozens of arrests in recent days as they have chased protesters through the streets, at times knocking them to the ground.

Trump has repeatedly focused on the unrest in Portland, including during the Republican National Convention last week, challenging the city’s leaders to end the chaos. Trump said in a tweet Friday that the federal government would go into the city if the mayor were unable to maintain control.

Wheeler in a letter on Friday asked Trump to stay away, saying the earlier federal presence had made things worse. “Your offer to repeat that disaster is a cynical attempt to stoke fear and distract us from the real work of our city,” he wrote.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

9

No more in-person election briefings for Congress, Intelligence chief says

By NICHOLAS FANDOS and JULIAN E. BARNES

T

he nation’s top intelligence officials moved Saturday to tighten control over the flow of sensitive intelligence about foreign threats to November’s election, telling Congress that they would no longer provide in-person briefings about election security and would rely solely on written updates instead.

Representatives from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence informed the House and Senate Intelligence Committees of the policy change by telephone Friday and followed up with a batch of letters to congressional leaders Saturday.

In the letters, the chief of the intelligence office, John L. Ratcliffe, framed the move as an attempt to “ensure clarity and consistency” in intelligence agencies’ interactions with Congress and to crack down on leaks that have infuriated some intelligence officials.

“I believe this approach helps ensure, to the maximum extent possible, that the information ODNI provides the Congress in support of your oversight responsibilities on elections security, foreign malign influence and election interference is not misunderstood nor politicized,” he wrote, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times. “It will also better protect our sources and methods and most sensitive intelligence from additional unauthorized disclosures or misuse.”

But coming just 10 weeks before Election Day, the change drew complaints from lawmakers in both parties who worried the move would block their ability to question and test intelligence assessments from the executive branch at a time when they are crucial to ensuring that foreign powers do not undermine the results. Intelligence agencies have revealed that Russia is again trying to bolster the campaign of President Donald Trump, who has insisted he is actually “the last person Russia wants to see in office” and consistently attacked the intelligence agencies during his time in office.

Democrats, who fear Trump’s appointees have moved to color intelligence assessments for his political benefit, were particularly furious.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, called the new policy “shameful” and said intelligence officials had also canceled briefings with committees and the full House on election security threats already scheduled for September at the request of Ratcliffe’s office. They vowed to try to force their reinstatement.

“This is a shocking abdication of its lawful responsibility to keep the Congress currently informed, and a betrayal of the public’s right to know how foreign powers are trying to subvert our democracy,” the two senior Democrats wrote.

A spokeswoman with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment. CNN first reported the change.

Lawmakers far prefer hearing in person from executive branch officials responsible for national security and intelligence. While written briefings can be carefully edited to present the message the agencies want heard, in-person sessions allow lawmakers to ask questions; press for additional information about sources, methods and assumptions involved in drawing up intelligence assessments; and analyze the tone of those briefing them.

Eliminating in-person briefings about intelligence threats to the election could also undermine a key lesson for lawmakers after Russian interference in the 2016 election.

This month, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded its bipartisan, yearslong investigation of the 2016 election and recommended that intelligence agencies release as much information about foreign interference efforts to lawmakers and the public as quickly as possible, to undercut any propaganda and disinformation.

Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent member of the Senate Intelligence Committee who votes with the Democrats, said dry written briefings never had the breadth of information that a full questionand-answer session had.

“It is an outrage,” King said in an interview. “It smacks of a cover-up of information about foreign interference in our elections. If there is foreign interference in our election, we should know about it before the election. The intelligence committee is not a history organization, it is a current

The director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, in July. He framed the move as an attempt to crack down on leaks that have infuriated some intelligence officials. events organization.”

King said that the classified information that had been presented to his committee in recent sessions had been protected.

Composed of lawmakers from both parties, the House and Senate intelligence committees are highly secretive bodies that are responsible for overseeing intelligence policies and the operations of the nation’s intelligence agencies. Both panels were expecting additional in-person briefings before Nov. 3.

While details of the new restrictions are murky, in-person briefings to the political campaigns and the Democratic and Republican National Committees are likely to continue, according to a person briefed on the administration’s plans.

The directive appears to apply to all intelligence agencies that report to Ratcliffe, though not necessarily other entities in the Justice Department, Defense Department and Homeland Security Department that are responsible for election security and that also regularly apprise Congress of their work. An official from Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which monitors the security of voting machines, said it would continue to brief Congress.

Still, the distinction may matter little.

In May, the Trump administration consolidated election-related congressional briefings

under William R. Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, who reports to Ratcliffe.

That change ensured that a single voice speaks for the sprawling intelligence community, but it also effectively sidelined other agencies and officials like the election czar at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Shelby Pierson, from doing so.

Pierson was appointed to the post last year, but when she briefed House lawmakers that the Russian government preferred that Trump was reelected, it prompted widespread anger among Republicans.

Richard Grenell, Ratcliffe’s predecessor, praised the move Saturday, saying he had heard from career intelligence officials that they no longer wanted to brief lawmakers, “because the partial information leaks and manipulation of their words were detrimental to their careers.”

Lawmakers saw it differently. The decision by Ratcliffe, who once received similar briefings as a Republican lawmaker on the House Intelligence Committee, fanned accusations by Democrats that he had politicized the intelligence community since becoming its director this year.

“Ratcliffe has made clear he’s in the job only to protect Trump from democracy, not democracy from Trump,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the top Senate Democrat.

10

Monday, August 31, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

‘Enough is enough’: New racial justice leaders rise in Kenosha

Jacob Blake Sr. speaks to a crowd as a march in honor of his son, Jacob Blake, takes place on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2020, in Kenosha, Wis.

By JOHN ELIGON

H

e walked near the front of the march in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Saturday, a trail of hundreds of demonstrators behind him, raising a black-gloved fist in the air. His white Chicago Bulls shorts flopped past his knees and the gold block letters on his black T-shirt glistened.

“BLAK,” it read, an acronym for Black Lives Activists of Kenosha.

Just a week earlier, Jesse Franklin, who drives a delivery truck, had never been to a protest. He’d never marched in a rally, never chanted for justice, never had a large group of people waiting to hear what he would say.

But that all changed a week ago when he heard gunshots up the street from where he was walking, raced toward the sound and came upon a horrific scene. A man he knew from the neighborhood as a doting father and big sports fan, Jacob Blake, was bloodied and slumped over after being shot by the police.

Franklin’s life changed that day, too.

“Enough is enough,” he said. “We’ve been seeing it on TV. It’s time for somebody to take a stand and make some changes.”

And so the day after the shooting, on Monday, Franklin and a handful of friends went out to protest. On

Tuesday, they formed the Black Lives Activists group, and

by Saturday, they were among the groups that, at the request of Blake’s family, were running a major rally on the streets of Kenosha, calling for justice for the father of six who is now paralyzed after being shot in the back.

With his swift push into activism, Franklin joins a growing crop of young people who have come from the sidelines and moved in as new leaders of a movement for racial justice that has grown at warp speed over the past several months in the wake of several highly publicized cases of police violence against Black people.

Saturday’s event brought together some of these new organizers, along with a mix of politicians, longtime activist organizations like the Black Panthers and some of Blake’s family members, for a daytime rally in front of the Kenosha courthouse.

The same location had been the site of demonstrations earlier in the week that tumbled into property destruction and violence. But on Saturday, Jacob Blake Sr., Blake’s father, urged for peace and also spoke of the need for decisive change.

“What gave them the right to think that they can attempt murder on my son?” he roared into the microphone, wearing a T-shirt with a picture of his son that read, “I am a human being.”

“I’m tired of this,” he said.

The police have suggested that the officers who confronted the younger Blake were responding to a caller’s complaint against him, and that they had an earlier warrant for his arrest on a sexual assault charge.

After speaking from the stage on Saturday, the elder Blake, in a conversation with reporters, pushed back against that narrative.

“None of those policemen standing out there had any idea what charges my son had in his past, what kind of person he was,” he said.

Letetra Widman, the sister of the younger Blake, said the shooting of her brother helped to bring new energy to the fight for racial justice. \“I want to send a special thank you to the Kenosha Police Department,” she said, pausing as the crowd buzzed with curiosity, and then adding, “for showing their true colors.”

The protesters cheered.

“And I want to thank you again for recharging my melanin,” she continued. “Giving me all the courage I needed to speak up, to stand up. Not just for Jacob, but for all the people who have not gotten justice.”

Kenosha — population 100,000 — is a quiet community on the shores of Lake Michigan, about 40 minutes south of Milwaukee. Although there have been tensions between the police and Black residents in the past, the eruption after Blake’s shooting, which was captured on video, has been unlike anything that locals had ever imagined.

Demonstrations gave way to clashes between the police and protesters, which led to tear gas and rubber bullets being deployed. Some people vandalized and burned buildings and cars. White militiamen descended on the town with rifles, and a 17-year-old among them was charged with first-degree intentional homicide after fatally shooting two protesters.

President Donald Trump has used the unrest in Kenosha to emphasize the need for more law and order in cities rattled by protests. Many in Kenosha, though, have rejected the president’s assertion, arguing that their community is already safe. The White House on Saturday said that Trump would visit Kenosha on Tuesday. While there, the White House said, he will meet with law enforcement officials and survey damage from the recent unrest.

Politicians in the city urged protesters on Saturday to channel their energy and anger toward voting in November.

“We need to march on them ballot boxes,” Rep. Gwen Moore, a Democratic lawmaker from Wisconsin, told the crowd. “We’re going through the worst things we’ve ever experienced, but keep your eyes on the prize, please.”

Franklin, with his long hair pulled back into a knot atop his head, spent much of Saturday’s rally flanking the stage with fellow members of BLAK. They escorted speakers up and down the stairs and raised their fists in the air as the crowd chanted: “No justice! No peace!”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

11

TikTok deal is complicated by new rules from China over tech exports

By PAUL MOZUR, RAYMOND ZHONGand DAVID McCABE

A

s the sale of TikTok enters its final stages, Beijing is saying it wants the last word.

In a bureaucratic two-step, China on Friday updated its export control rules to cover a variety of technologies it deemed sensitive, including technology that sounded much like TikTok’s personalized recommendation engine. Then on Saturday, the country’s official Xinhua news agency published commentary by a professor who said the new rule would mean that the video app’s parent, the Chinese internet giant ByteDance, might need a license to sell its technology to an American suitor.

Beijing’s last-minute assertion of authority is an unexpected wrinkle for a deal as two groups race to buy TikTok’s U.S. operations before the Trump administration bans the app. Taken together, the rule change and the commentary in official media signaled China’s intention to dictate terms over a potential deal, though experts said it remained unclear whether the Chinese government would go as far as to sink it.

The moves from Beijing ensnare TikTok and potential American buyers including Microsoft and Oracle, wedging them in the middle of a tussle between the United States and China over the future of global technology. Beijing’s displeasure alone could scare off TikTok’s suitors, many of whom have operations in China. TikTok is the most globally successful app ever produced by a Chinese company, and the conflict over its fate could further fracture the internet and plunge the world’s two largest economies into a deeper standoff.

“At a minimum they’re flexing their muscles and saying, ‘We get a say in this and we’re not going to be bystanders,’” said Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies who studies Chinese economic policy.

“It could be an effort to outright block the sale, or just raise the price, or attach conditions to it to give China leverage down the road,” he said. He added that it showed a rare bit of consensus between China and the United States that both agreed ByteDance was a national security priority.

If Beijing blocks the sale of TikTok, it would effectively be calling the Trump administration’s bluff, forcing the U.S. government to actually go through with restricting the app and potentially incurring the wrath of its legions of influencers and fans.

Ordering companies like Apple and Google to take down TikTok in app stores globally could also prompt further anger against the Trump administration and even lawsuits.

ByteDance and Oracle declined to comment on the rule changes and the Xinhua article. Microsoft did not have immediate comment. The U.S. Department of Commerce did not respond to requests for comment.

China’s changes to its export rules came just as ByteDance had signaled that it was close to reaching a resolution on the future of TikTok’s business in the United States. President Donald Trump this month issued an executive order restricting Americans’ dealings with TikTok beginning in mid-September. He and other White House officials have said the app could be a Trojan Horse for data gathering by the Chinese Communist Party, an

Employees leaving ByteDance’s headquarters in Beijing this month. The ByteDance-owned app TikTok has become caught in the middle of U.S.-China tensions. accusation that ByteDance has denied. That set off the deal negotiations.

Chinese officials have denounced the Trump administration’s treatment of TikTok, characterizing it as “bullying.”

In Friday’s update to the export control rules, China’s Commerce Ministry and its Science and Technology Ministry restricted the export of “technology based on data analysis for personalized information recommendation services.” TikTok plays up its ability to use technology to understand users’ interests and fill their feeds with more of what they will enjoy watching.

In the Saturday article published by Xinhua, a professor of international trade at China’s University of International Business and Economics, Cui Fan, said that ByteDance’s technologies would most likely be covered by the new export controls.

“If ByteDance plans to export relevant technologies, it should go through the licensing procedures,” the article cited Cui as saying. Any sale of TikTok would most likely require the transfer overseas of code and technical services, the article said.

“It is recommended that ByteDance seriously study the adjusted catalog, and carefully consider whether it is necessary to suspend the substantive negotiation of related transactions, perform the legal declaration procedures and then take further actions as appropriate,” Cui was quoted as saying.

Kennedy said that it was exceedingly rare for a professor

to make comments about a specific, in-progress deal, and that it signaled that ByteDance would now have to consult Chinese authorities about the controls.

China has previously used bureaucratic procedure to block commercial deals without appearing to do so outright. In 2018, Qualcomm called off a $44 billion deal to buy the Dutch chipmaker NXP Semiconductors after Chinese regulators simply failed to either approve or reject the transaction. Beijing’s prolonged antitrust review was seen as a form of leverage over trade talks with the Trump administration, though China’s Ministry of Commerce denied that the two matters were related.

In other industries, too, foreign companies including Microsoft, Volkswagen and Chrysler have been investigated for what China says are anticompetitive practices. Beijing has rejected the charge, made by American business groups, that it uses laws like anti-monopoly rules to advance industrial policy.

The use of export controls was novel, but it mirrors similar regulatory hurdles thrown at Chinese companies by the Trump administration. The White House order that prompted TikTok’s sale cited national security concerns, and the United States has repeatedly blocked Chinese bids for companies with sensitive technologies as well as data.

Kennedy said China’s ultimate motivation in holding up or thwarting the deal could be, at minimum, a “kneejerk assertion of sovereignty.”

12

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

Staying afloat: A pandemic financial guide for millennials

By SARA ARIDI

S

everal months into the coronavirus crisis, millions of Americans are still suffering from the economic fallout. Younger people are in an especially tough spot.

Millennials, or those in their mid20s to late-30s, have accumulated considerably less wealth than previous generations had at similar stages in life, and many older millennials suffered during the Great Recession only to face the current crisis a decade later. “They already had entered into the job market at somewhat of a disadvantage,” said Kimberly Palmer, a personal finance expert at NerdWallet. “This is like a double whammy.”

Younger Americans also experienced significant losses this year. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted in April — a month after the pandemic struck the country in earnest — showed that voters age 18 to 34 were most likely to suffer an economic blow, like losing health insurance or getting a pay cut, because of the crisis.

Whether or not you fall into that category, the uncertainty brought on by the pandemic may leave you worried about your financial stability. Here are some tips to help you manage your finances.

Reconsider your spending priorities.

If you recently lost significant income, find out if you are eligible for unemployment benefits and, if so, apply, said Tripp Kelly, a financial adviser and principal of Socium Advisors of Northwestern Mutual, a financial services company.

Then, consider where you can save most. That may be housing: About 2.7 million adults across the country moved in with a parent or grandparent in the early days of the pandemic, according to an analysis of population data from the Census Bureau by the real estate company Zillow. If you can no longer afford rent, talk to your landlord. You may be able to negotiate your rent, start a repayment plan or even break your lease early.

If you rent through a management company, find out whether it reports to credit agencies before making any big decisions that might affect your credit score.

If you can’t cut on rent or mortgage costs, revise your budget so that you prio-

Younger people were hit particularly hard by the economic crisis. Whether or not you were greatly affected, here are ways to manage your finances during the pandemic. ritize those payments and other essentials like groceries and utilities, Palmer said. If you are still working, she recommends the 50/30/20 budget rule: Allocate 50% of your after-tax income toward needs (like rent or mortgage payments), 30 to wants (takeout, entertainment) and 20 for savings or debt payments.

Contact your lenders.

Many companies and institutions have hardship programs to help debtors during difficult times. If you are struggling to pay off student loans, your mortgage or credit card debt, call your lenders and discuss your payment options. “Financial accommodations are generally readily available right now,” said Amy Thomann, the head of consumer credit education at TransUnion, a credit reporting agency.

“Lenders, just like consumers, understand the hardships that are going on in the economy.”

If your lender agrees to defer your payments or lower your interest rates, Kelly recommends putting the amount you would have owed into an emergency fund.

Speaking of interest rates — they are extremely low right now, so read up on incentives and find out whether this is a good time to refinance your mortgage or private student loan, said Taha Choukhmane, an assistant professor of finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Techno-

logy.

Whatever you do, don’t allow your debt to pile up. “The worst thing you can do in a tough financial situation is just to let it accumulate and not face it up front,” Choukhmane said.

Start an emergency fund.

If you are still working but don’t have an emergency fund, start one. The economy remains precarious, so it’s best to plan ahead as much as possible.

“We always talk about saving for a rainy day,” Palmer said. “This is the rainy day.”

In an ideal world, you should put away three months worth of expenses, she added. If that’s not feasible, save at least $1,000 in the event that you need something to fall back on down the line.

If you are facing dire circumstances and have a retirement account, one option is to make an early withdrawal. Under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, individuals affected by the coronavirus may qualify to withdraw up to $100,000 from their plans through Dec. 30 without the 10% penalty that typically applies to those under 59 1/2. You would have to pay income taxes on the amount, but the payments can be spread out over the next three years. You could also pay back the distribution anytime during that period and claim a tax refund on the taxes you’ve already paid.

Normally you should avoid dipping into your savings, but “now we’re in a situation where maybe that’s not clear,” said Choukhmane.

Build a new skill set.

Struggling to find work? Try to learn new skills or gain qualifications that will help you in your job search. You can sign up for online courses through websites like edX or Coursera. Some are free; others cost a few hundred dollars.

The most expensive option would be to apply for a graduate degree. If you have been unemployed for some time, you might have less to lose and more to gain by going back to school, Palmer said.

And because of those low interest rates, this is a better time than usual to take out student loans. The investment may be worth it if you previously worked in an industry that has been drastically disrupted by the pandemic and are looking to shift to a career with more promise.

Or you can gain new skills by taking on part-time work through platforms like Upwork or TaskRabbit. “Rather than pay for traditional education, go pound the pavement and get the experience that way,” Kelly said. No matter what jobs you take on, having that experience will show prospective employers that you remained productive during the crisis and expanded your résumé, Choukhmane said.

When in doubt, ask for help.

Managing your money can be stressful, especially when the world is reeling from a global health crisis. It may be tempting to ignore your bank statements or credit score when you are in a financial rut — but fight that urge.

“Monitoring your credit is an important foundational principle of managing your financial and credit well-being,” said Thomann. In response to the pandemic, all three of the credit agencies — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — are offering free weekly access to credit reports through AnnualCreditReport.com.

Not sure how to navigate these decisions? Reach out to a financial counselor or a knowledgeable relative who can help you get your ducks in a row. If you need career advice, search your network for a potential mentor and build that relationship. Millions of Americans are dealing with extreme circumstances, so people may be more likely to empathize and lend a hand.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

13 Stocks

Value bulls bang drum for cheap stock resurgence on Fed, vaccine hopes

A

s U.S. stocks hit record highs, some investors are betting the market’s future gains will be increasingly driven by some of its lesser-loved companies.

Value stocks - shares of economically sensitive companies trading at multiples that are usually below those found on growth names - have been among the laggards in the market’s blistering rally from its March lows.

Some investors believe the relative cheapness of value stocks, which include energy companies, banks and industrial conglomerates, will catapult them to leadership if the nascent U.S. economic revival gains momentum, shifting focus from the big technology-related stocks that have led markets during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Russell 1000 Value index trades at almost 18 times earnings, up from 14 a year ago, and is up some 45% since late March. By comparison, the Russell 1000 Growth index trades at a multiple of 31, up from 22, and has gained over 70% in the same period.

“It’s an important part of validating the market’s rise, to have cyclicals and value sectors move,” said Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research.

“At the end of the day I think value can outperform, but it’s going to be very episodic.”

Hopes of economic healing got a second wind Thursday, when Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell rolled out a sweeping policy rewrite that puts more focus on fighting unemployment than controlling inflation, sending shares of banks like Wells Fargo and Citigroup higher on the day.

Investors in the coming week will be keeping a close eye on Friday’s U.S. non-farm payrolls data, looking for a snapshot of how the country’s economic recovery is faring.

Other arguments for a value resurgence have been fueled by signs of progress on a vaccine against COVID-19, which some investors believe could accelerate business reopenings and a return to in-person schooling across the United States.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said a vaccine for the novel coronavirus could be available before the Nov. 3 presidential election, sooner than most experts anticipate.

Some analysts, including those at Goldman Sachs, believe a vaccine could be approved as early as the end of this year.

That could take the S&P 500 as high as 3,700 by yearend and spur a rotation to value names, especially if the news flow regarding a vaccine continues to be encouraging, Goldman’s analysts said earlier this month. The index recently hovered near 3,500.

Plenty of market participants doubt value will return anytime soon, or that such a move can be timed profitably.

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14

Monday, August 31, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

As Coronavirus reappears in Italy, migrants become a target for politicians

Migrants wait to disembark to Italy in Pozzallo’s harbor in Sicily, Aug. 22, 2020. Right-wing politicians say migrants threaten Italy by bringing Covid-19 with them, even as official data shows “minimal” effect from new arrivals.

By GAIA PIANIGIANI and EMMA BUBOLA

A

s the summer vacation season draws to a close in Italy, a flare-up of COVID-19 cases is fueling a surge in anti-immigrant sentiment, even though the government says that migrants are just a small part of the problem.

Sicily’s president, Nello Musumeci, ordered the closure of all migrant centers on the island last weekend, saying it was impossible to prevent the spread of the illness at the facilities. And although a court blocked him, saying that he did not have the authority to close them, his order underlined the challenges Italy faces as right-wing politicians seek to rekindle a polarizing debate about immigration in a country hit hard by the pandemic.

In Pozzallo, a town in southern Sicily that has the highest rate of infection among newly arrived migrants, Roberto Ammatuna, the center-left mayor, has found himself trying to balance fears of a coronavirus influx with an obligation to rescue migrants in distress at sea.

“Our citizens need to feel safe and protected, because we are here in the front lines of Europe,” he said in an interview in his office overlooking the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean. “No one wants migrants who are sick with COVID,” but, he said, “we can’t stop rescuing people at sea.”

In one week in August, 73 migrants tested positive out of about 200 quarantined in Pozzallo. About 11,700 migrants have

reached Sicily since June, and 3% either tested positive upon arrival or during the quarantine period that the Italian authorities imposed inside shelters.

But Franco Locatelli, the president of Italy’s Superior Health Council, a government advisory body, said migrants’ role in bringing COVID-19 back to Italy was “minimal.”

In the first two weeks of August, around 25% of new infections registered in the country were imported from abroad, according to Italy’s National Health Institute. Over half of those were Italians who had traveled abroad, and many others were foreigners who already lived in Italy and were returning to the country.

Less than 5% of the total were new immigrants, according to Italy’s Health Ministry.

Italy was one of the worst-hit countries when the coronavirus struck Europe this year, with over 35,000 deaths recorded, before a strict lockdown helped reduce the outbreak’s spread. Controls were gradually lifted as summer approached, and a surge of new cases arose, often linked to young people gathering in crowded nightclubs.

Although there have been outbreaks in migrant centers, the seasonal summer flow of migrants heading for Italy across the Mediterranean and from Eastern Europe has intensified fears of a more general resurgence of the virus.

Last weekend, a ship carrying hundreds of migrants from Africa and the Middle East, about 20 of whom had tested positive

for COVID-19, circled the waters around Sicily. They were turned away by mayor after mayor, before eventually docking in Augusta, in the southeast.

“Outlaw state,” Matteo Salvini, the leader of the anti-immigrant League party and a former interior minister, said of Sicily on Twitter this week. “An invasion of illegal migrants, a boom of infections, Sicily is collapsing. ” The message being pushed by Salvini, whose political rise was forged by stoking fears of immigration and criminality before he and his party were ousted from the government last year, has been taken up by other right-wing politicians, even as the League has declined in popularity.

“We can’t afford that this land, after all its efforts and the success in the fight against the pandemic, finds itself in a difficult situation because of the lack of controls,” said Massimiliano Fedriga, a League member and president of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region.

This month, Italy’s government banned dancing in nightclubs and dancing halls, recognizing that people were letting down their guard. Many regions introduced testing at ports, airports and train stations. But controlling the spread of virus among the roughly 60,700 migrants who live in large shelters scattered throughout the country has been a bigger challenge.

“Foreigners in Italy are more in danger of getting sick, because they are more segregated, live in poorer hygienic conditions and in large groups,” Matteo Villa, an immigration researcher with Italy’s Institute for International Political Studies, said in a telephone interview. “But that has to do with segregation, not with their ethnicity or origin.”

In early August, the virus spread through a migrant center in Treviso, in northern Italy, infecting 256 of the 293 people housed there, making it one of the country’s biggest recent coronavirus clusters.

“Everybody got it,” Baxso Sanyang, a 28-year-old Gambian migrant who shared a room with two young men who had tested positive before catching the virus himself, said in a telephone interview. “There was no choice.”

Mario Conte, the mayor of Treviso, from Salvini’s party, said that given the conditions in the center, the spread was inevitable.

“This shows a failure by the state,” he said.

Keeping nearly 300 people in one place is “already complicated when things are normal,” he said. But with COVID, “it is completely unmanageable.”

Even as some politicians stir up anti-immigrant sentiments, many Italians say they are far more concerned about people throughout the country letting down their guards after travel links reopened, despite required testing for those coming from many destinations.

In Pozzallo, a 800-passenger boat now offers fast daily connections with Malta, which Italy considers risky after a recent coronavirus outbreak there.

“I am more worried about that and the young going to parties and discos with no face masks to find out two days later that they have COVID,” said Isabel Gugliotta, 17, sitting at a Pozzallo beach bar.

“Why should I worry about migrants?” she said. “Any person can transmit it. We all simply need to act responsibly.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

15

Berlin police halt march against virus restrictions, saying protesters risked spreading disease

By CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE and MELISSA EDDY

T

housands of Germans angered over restrictions intended to control the coronavirus marched in Berlin on Saturday, but the police dispersed them after an hour because many were violating the very social-distancing rules championed by Chancellor Angela Merkel that they say threaten their rights and livelihoods.

Many of the marchers were bunched together and maskless in Berlin’s streets, with some shouting “Merkel must go!” and others carrying American flags and a photo of President Donald Trump that read, “Help.”

The city’s police chief, Barbara Slowik, had earlier warned that even though the march was allowed to proceed after a week of legal wrangling, “we will not be able or willing to watch tens of thousands assemble and create infection risks.”

Despite some threats of violence from far-right groups, most marchers dispersed peacefully as police bullhorns declared the march an impermissible risk, and they moved to a nearby park for a rally that the police did not stop. But the events laid bare a percolating resentment of Merkel’s handling of the coronavirus threat despite its success compared with the response in other developed countries, especially the United States.

And it came as Merkel warned that infections would likely rise as winter approaches, with more people confined indoors, which could mean a return to a more severe lockdown like the one this past spring, which is credited with helping limit the spread of the virus.

“We must expect that some things will be even more difficult in the coming months,” Merkel said Friday at her traditional summer news conference.

Officials estimated that 18,000 people had turned out to march in Berlin, and the park rally was expected to draw at least that many. A large, mostly maskless crowd also gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square on Saturday, calling for an end to virus lockdowns and other restrictions.

Although Germany has been celebrated for its ability to manage the pandemic, with schools reopening and signs of an economic rebound, many Germans who have found themselves out of work or furloughed are angry and afraid they could not withstand a second lockdown.

“This is the second demonstration I’ve taken part in my lifetime,” said Thomas Dausend, 64, from southwestern Germany. “I’m here for my children and my grandchildren.”

Pastor Dietmar Schwesig, who came from Bad Salzungen for the protest, said he had initially stood behind the governmental guidelines. But when Easter services in his church had to be canceled, he had

Many Germans who have found themselves out of work or furloughed are angry and afraid they could not withstand a second lockdown. what he called a change in perspective.

“It’s probably the first time in 2,000 years that Easter church services had to be canceled because of an infectious disease,” he said, holding a Bible and wearing his collar.

The protest scene at the park, the Tiergarten near Berlin’s famed Brandenburg Gate, was peaceful and almost picnic-like in some places. The protesters were not wearing masks but were mostly spread out, with some holding signs such as “The Truth Will Come to Light.”

On Friday, the German health authorities registered 1,571 new infections over the previous 24 hours, a slight dip from a recent high point a week earlier, when more than 2,000 new cases were registered in a single day, according to a New York Times database.

The group that organized the march, based in the southwestern city of Stuttgart, is angry over the economic damage caused by the monthslong lockdown in the spring and restrictions imposed on public life that have led the German economy to shrink by 9.7% and caused millions to lose their jobs or be furloughed.

But it quickly attracted support from vaccination skeptics, anticapitalists and members of the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, a party best known for its noisy nationalism and anti-immigrant views.

It also is the largest opposition party in Parliament.

For the AfD, the demonstration provided a chance to highlight criticism of Merkel’s government, which has enjoyed widespread success and made Germany the envy of many countries for its handling of the virus.

Berlin security authorities sought to ban the march over fears that participants would violate rules intended to prevent the spread of the virus.

But supporters of the march assailed the ban as an attempt to stifle citizens’ freedom and a violation of their constitutional rights.

“The decision is a victory for freedom over the established parties’ antidemocratic, ideology-driven policy of prohibition and paternalism,” said Tino Chrupalla, a spokesman for the AfD. Earlier this month, police broke up a similar protest after an estimated 20,000 demonstrators, defying orders that they wear masks and keep a distance of at least 5 feet from one another, marched along the same route demanding an end to the restrictions.

Berlin’s top security official, Andreas Geisel, cited behavior during the Aug. 1 demonstration in welcoming the initial decision to ban Saturday’s protest, a decision that was later overturned. Nevertheless, Geisel said he was “not prepared to accept that Berlin is abused a second time as a stage for corona deniers” and “right-wing extremists.”

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Monday, August 31, 2020

‘Something broke inside Belarusians.’ Why an apolitical people rose up

By ANTON TROIANOVSKI

D

enis Dudinsky, the long-haired and mustachioed host of “Good Morning Belarus!,” can still hear the producer’s nervous voice in his ear any time his banter approached something remotely political.

“Denis, careful, careful, let’s not cross the line!”

In his 15 years on television, Dudinsky never did. Then, riding in a taxi in June, he witnessed people lined up outside a store near his parents’ house being beaten and detained. He posted on Instagram that the riot police were “dumb and ridiculous.”

The bosses at state television took him off the air the next day, but Dudinsky insists he has no second thoughts. “When a man is drowning, you don’t think, ‘Hmm, he’s 100 meters away,’” he said. “You take your clothes off and jump.”

Europe’s most authoritarian political system is coming undone at the hands of people like Dudinsky, who long flourished within it. Alexander Lukashenko, the country’s ruler since 1994, is teetering in the face of a broad popular uprising spearheaded by thousands of Belarusians who have stopped compromising and started fighting.

Lukashenko wears the moniker of “Europe’s last dictator,” and he built a system even more stifling of personal freedoms and political opposition than the one in Russia,

its neighbor to the east.

But to a large middle class and a worldly elite in the former Soviet republic of 9.5 million people, the system was one they could live with: For those who stayed out of politics, the good roads, clean streets, prim lawns, tax breaks for tech companies and ease of travel to the West could make for a good living by Eastern Europe standards.

It took just months this year for that balance to collapse. Trapped inside their country by the coronavirus pandemic, many Belarusians began to chafe at the inhumanity in Lukashenko’s rule and language that had once been easy to ignore.

Then came the presidential election campaign, which exposed his sense of vulnerability; of Lukashenko’s three main challengers, two were arrested and the third fled the country.

“We wanted there to be some kind of order — a comprehensible, clear, formulated system of living,” said Oksana Koltovich, the owner of two beauty parlors and a bar called the Blue Goat, where she gathers with friends for sips of wine or Calvados. “We did not feel the consequences of the fact that we were always somehow putting up with something.”

More than 100,000 Belarusians rallied against Lukashenko in Minsk on each of the past two Sundays, despite the threat of arrest and police violence, insisting that his landslide reelection on Aug. 9 was falsified.

An anti-government protest rally in Minsk, Belarus, on Sunday, Aug. 23, 2020. More than 100,000 people have joined rallies in Minsk in August to protest the country’s authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko.

With more protests planned Sunday, the government has moved to clamp down on news coverage, deporting two Moscowbased journalists for The Associated Press and revoking the credentials of journalists from several organizations, including Reuters and the BBC. Many of the protesters bearing the white and red national flag that has been adopted by the opposition took little interest in politics until recently. Each of them, it seems, had their own breaking point.

The coronavirus set the stage. Lukashenko refused to institute any lockdown measures and, commenting on one of the country’s first coronavirus-related deaths, he noted that the victim weighed 300 pounds.

With the government absent, Belarusians started their own campaigns to raise money for victims’ families and encourage people to work from home.

For Koltovich, the breaking point came in late May when Lukashenko told workers at the Minsk Tractor Factory that a woman could not be president in Belarus because “our Constitution is not for women.”

Koltovich, who is 47, filed a complaint with the election commission over the president’s “discriminatory and blatantly illegal statements” and published it on Facebook.

She shrugged off a letter from the tax inspectors and helped conceive the idea of a protest of Belarusian women wearing white that reinvigorated the opposition movement after the police beat and detained thousands of protesters after the election.

“This is not about economic demands,” said Olga Chekulayeva, 57, a friend of Koltovich’s who joined her in protesting.

“This is about a feeling of personal dignity.”

Chekulayeva said that had Lukashenko claimed victory not with 80% of the vote but say a more believable 52%, she and other critics of the president would have said, “OK, we’ll keep at it,” and moved on.

In Eastern Europe, Belarus’ image revolves around tractors and potatoes, and Lukashenko boasts of safeguarding the country’s Soviet legacy as an industrial and agricultural powerhouse. But he also approved tax breaks and loosened visa restrictions to help the country’s technology sector become one of the region’s biggest.

For years, members of Belarus’ wellheeled and well-traveled tech community — which includes the builders of the online game World of Tanks and the women’s health app Flo, as well as 10,000 employees

of EPAM, a Pennsylvania-based programming giant — essentially returned the favor to Lukashenko.

The industry accounted for some 7% of gross domestic product, helped create a booming restaurant scene and largely stayed out of politics.

Daria Danilova, 33, the chief executive of a 60-employee startup called RocketData, said she had long accepted the limitations on her freedom as a given — just like the reality that Minsk winters are cold.

“In terms of your life as a normal person, the fact that there is a dictatorship in your country has no effect whatsoever,” she said. “You understand that it’s probably wrong, but there’s absolutely nothing that you can do about it.”

Then two people she respected announced presidential campaigns: Viktor Babariko, a banker, and Valery Tsepkalo, a former adviser to Lukashenko who had helped shape the president’s friendly policy toward tech companies.

Danilova collected signatures to try to get Babariko on the ballot and helped start a volunteer group called Honest People that, she says, has channeled some $150,000 in donations to Belarusians fired for their political views.

In June, Babariko was arrested, shocking people who had expected Lukashenko to allow at least a semblance of a fair election.

The arrests of activists underscored that Lukashenko has honed a security apparatus even more repressive than the one in Russia, taking advantage of Belarus’ small size — it has about the same land area and population as Michigan. In Moscow, opposition groups also face risks, but they have been able to organize to a much greater degree.

This month, Danilova, the startup founder, left her phone at home and moved in with friends, planning to hop in a car and leave the country if her husband were to tell her that the KGB — as the Belarus security service is still known — had come looking for her.

The KGB did not come, and Danilova is back in her office, crowded with beanbag chairs and employee photographs hanging artfully from strings. She said she remained torn between two extreme emotions, like every Belarusian she knows.

“It’s either the shame of not doing enough,” she said, “or the fear that you’ve done so much that there will be serious consequences.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

17

With a wary eye on China, Taiwan moves to revamp its military

By STEVEN LEE MYERS and JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ

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n a cloudy day last month, thousands of soldiers massed on a beach in central Taiwan for the culmination of five days of exercises intended to demonstrate how the island’s military would repel an invasion from China.

Jets, helicopters and artillery and missile batteries fired live ammunition at targets offshore, sending plumes of sea spray into the air. Then, a few hours later, a military helicopter taking part in the same exercise crashed at an airfield farther up the coast, killing two pilots and casting a shadow over the show of force.

It was the latest in a string of deadly mishaps, including a crash in January that killed the military’s top commander, that has given new urgency to the debate over Taiwan’s readiness to defend its 24 million people — with or without the help of the United States.

“I have to be honest: Taiwan’s military needs to improve a lot,” Wang Ting-yu, a member of the parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committee, said in a telephone interview.

Taiwan’s leaders have been moving to shake up the military and increase spending. Military tensions across the Taiwan Strait have surged in recent months as Taiwan has increasingly become a focal point in the confrontation between China and the United States.

Last week, the People’s Liberation Army of China held a fresh round of live-fire exercises — an unusually concentrated training schedule that the state news media said was directed at Taiwan and the United States.

The latest involved a test firing of four medium-range ballistic missiles into an area of the South China Sea near Hainan on Wednesday. The barrage came a day after China accused the Americans of flying a U-2 spy plane over one of the exercises, calling it a “naked provocation.”

China’s authoritarian leader, Xi Jinping, has long threatened to use force, if needed, to prevent any movement toward formal independence for Taiwan, a self-governing democracy.

China has stepped up those warnings ever since Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, won reelection in January by vowing to protect the island’s sovereignty, defeating a candidate viewed as more conciliatory. That has raised fears that Xi could feel compelled to act aggressively, as China has from the South China Sea to the border with India.

Chinese aircraft and warships have repeatedly menaced Taiwan’s airspace and territorial waters in recent months, while officials have taunted its military, comparing it to “an ant trying to shake a tree.”

“The likelihood of a military clash is much higher than before,” said Lin Yu-fang, a Taiwanese former legislator from the opposition party that ruled the island for decades, the Kuomintang.

Tsai has responded to China’s muscle flexing by pressing ahead with military changes. She has moved to revamp Taiwan’s military doctrine and strengthen its reserves, a force that would be crucial to defending the island in the event of an invasion.

Tsai’s government announced this month that it would increase Taiwan’s defense budget by 10%, on top of a 5%

A military exercise in Taichung, Taiwan, last month. increase the year before. That would raise military spending to more than 2% of gross domestic product — a level that President Donald Trump has derided many NATO allies for not sustaining, and the highest since the 1990s.

Taiwan also finalized a deal announced last year to buy 66 American F-16 fighter jets, worth $62 billion over the next 10 years.

By law, the United States is committed to providing Taiwan with the support necessary to defend itself, a point reiterated by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper in a recent talk.

Yet it is far from clear whether the United States would risk a broader confrontation with a nuclear-armed China, meaning Taiwan cannot count on it as a matter of strategy.

Tsai’s predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, has accused Tsai of clinging to hopes that as long as Taiwan put up an initial defense, the United States would intervene on the island’s behalf, a scenario he considered impossible.

He did not elaborate, but Tsai said in an interview last year that Taiwan would be able to hold out for 24 hours and then China would face international pressure.

“I feel as a president, one should not tell our people how many days we can last,” said Ma, who pursued a policy of détente with China during his two terms from 2008 to 2016 and has urged Tsai to do the same. “We need to tell our people we can stop the war from happening.”

For decades, Taiwan’s security was assured by the island’s military capabilities, but China’s efforts to modernize its forces have upended the balance of power.

China now has “an array of options for a Taiwan cam-

paign, ranging from an air and maritime blockade to a full-scale amphibious invasion,” according to a 2019 Pentagon report on the Chinese military.

The report acknowledged the challenges that the Chinese army would face in such an attack but said China’s buildup “has eroded or negated” many of Taiwan’s advantages. Those include the island’s geography and the technical superiority it once had from buying American and other foreign weaponry.

Taiwan’s summer exercises, like the large purchases of American hardware, are intended to demonstrate the military’s ability to counter Chinese aggression, even if outnumbered and outgunned. (The authorities are investigating the cause of last month’s helicopter crash.)

The F-16 jets are meant to replace Taiwan’s aging air force, which has suffered a number of accidents in recent years, and that could help challenge Chinese aircraft for domination of the skies.

At the same time, Taiwan cannot afford to compete plane for plane, ship for ship, tank for tank against the far larger People’s Liberation Army, according to military analysts.

They argue resources would be better used on capabilities that would slow or even cripple an invading force.

Those include sea mines, submarines and missile systems that could destroy Chinese aircraft and warships before they reached the island. Others have suggested training units for guerrilla warfare to grind down conventional forces of the type the Chinese would land in an invasion, replicating a strategy used by smaller countries facing larger adversaries, like Estonia or Finland.

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Monday, August 31, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

The lawbreakers Trump loves

By NICHOLAS KRISTOFF

E

ven as President Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination on the White House lawn, lawbreakers rampaged through the capital.

Would our law-and-order president leap off the podium and tackle them? He once said he would race unarmed into a building to tackle a school shooter. But sadly he ignored these blatant lawbreakers, presidential aides violating Hatch Act restrictions on political manipulation of government.

It’s one law he doesn’t want to uphold. Asked about the Hatch Act, the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, scoffed, “Nobody outside of the beltway really cares.”

Inside the beltway, Trump and other speakers at the Republican National Convention conjure grave national threats from raging anarchists.

“Your vote will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans, or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists, and agitators, and criminals,” Trump warned in his acceptance speech.

The Republican convention included video glimpses of “Biden’s America,” with a scary scene of fire raging in the streets.

But those streets turned out to be in Barcelona, Spain; it wasn’t “Biden’s America” or even America at all, just another in a stream of lies. (By the count of The Washington Post, Trump has uttered more than 20,000 false and misleading statements since taking office.)

Of course, even if it had been filmed in America this year,

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it wouldn’t have been Biden’s America but Trump’s America. The real Biden’s America, the period when he was vice president, was a time of comparative calm, growing prosperity and improving health care.

Yet Trump is determined to terrify Americans.

“If you want a vision of your life under a Biden presidency, think of the smoldering ruins of Minneapolis, the violent anarchy of Portland, the bloodstained sidewalks of Chicago,” Trump warned earlier.

It’s true that there has been violence and looting in some American cities, and this is a genuine challenge to order and economic recovery. But by any objective measure the bigger risk comes from right-wing extremists.

“Right-wing attacks and plots account for the majority of all terrorist incidents in the United States since 1994, and the total number of right-wing attacks and plots has grown significantly during the past six years,” the Center for Strategic & International Studies concluded after examining terror plots in the United States from 1994 to May of this year. “Right-wing extremists perpetrated two-thirds of the attacks and plots in the United States in 2019 and over 90% between January 1 and May 8, 2020.”

The anti-fascist protesters known as antifa have committed violent acts but aren’t known to have ever killed anyone, while right-wing extremists have killed hundreds. Just a few days ago, a Trump supporter, Kyle H. Rittenhouse, allegedly shot two protesters dead in Kenosha, Wisconsin. One can’t help wondering if Rittenhouse, an impressionable 17-year-old living in Illinois, was galvanized to take a gun and drive to Kenosha because of panic promoted by Trump and Fox News.

After fulminating about threats from Black Lives Matter protesters, Tucker Carlson of Fox News seemed to defend the Kenosha killings, saying, “How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?”

At the Republican convention, Vice President Mike Pence warned voters, “You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America,” and cited a federal officer, Dave Underwood, “killed during the riots in Oakland.” But the man charged with killing Underwood was Steven Carrillo, a follower of the extremist right-wing Boogaloo movement.

I covered the Portland protests and was duly tear-gassed by the federal agents dispatched by Trump to create violent street scenes. Sure, Portland had a genuine problem with protest violence, but it was inflamed by Trump — and those leftists who did throw rocks or set fires played into the hands of Trump, even as they damaged their own city.

I asked Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon what she thought of Trump turning the state into a punching bag.

“He has nothing else,” she said. “He has to scare the bejesus out of people.”

“This is all about distraction from his appalling failure to provide a national response” to COVID-19, she added.

Trump and his proxies used the GOP convention to defame Democratic-run parts of America as caldrons of violence. In fact,

“Inside the beltway, Trump and other speakers at the Republican National Convention conjure grave national threats from raging anarchists,” writes New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof. the single state with the highest rate of violent crime is Alaska, a red state with Republican leaders. The state with the lowest violent crime is Maine, a swing state that currently has a Democratic governor.

“Don’t let Democrats do to America what they’ve done to New York,” Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, pleaded in his convention speech.

Hmm. Let’s just note that there were 319 murders in New York City last year under Democratic leadership; when Giuliani was mayor, the lowest annual total was 649, under a police commissioner who later went to prison.

Oh, and two Giuliani associates were indicted last year on federal campaign finance charges, and he reportedly is himself under criminal investigation. What distinguishes this White House on law and order is simply its ties to criminals: Eight associates of Trump have already pleaded guilty or been convicted of crimes since he took office.

Even as Trump exaggerates threats from “anarchists,” there are plenty of legitimate threats to the public that he ignores.

Climate change raises the risk of forest fires, drought, intense hurricanes and flooding. And the coronavirus is claiming American lives at the rate of more than one every 90 seconds — yet Trump simply pretends to have defeated the virus, defying the need for masks and social distancing.

“The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens,” Trump said in his 2016 convention speech.

“Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead.”

That’s a fair point that Trump voters should consider: His missteps contributed to the 180,000 American deaths from the coronavirus; Trump is one reason the United States has 4% of the world’s population and 22% of coronavirus deaths.

There’s nothing new about politicians trying to scare the public. The present fearmongering recalls Nixon’s Southern Strategy. Two years ago, Trump and Fox News tried to win Republican votes in the midterm elections by manufacturing fears of an invasion by Central American caravans; predictably, the issue disappeared as soon as voting ended.

“This is an old game that the Trump campaign is playing,” said Daniel Ziblatt, a Harvard scholar and co-author of “How Democracies Die.” “It is out of the authoritarian’s playbook.”

Ziblatt said he doubted that scare tactics would win over many voters, but he fears that the alarmism may activate fans in the Trump base to take the law (and guns) into their own hands.

“That is terrifying,” Ziblatt added.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

19

Gobierno federal aprueba propuesta de ASSMCA para atender la crisis por uso de opiáceos y sobredosis Por THE STAR

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a administradora de la Administración de Servicios de Salud Mental y Contra la Adicción (ASSMCA), Suzanne Roig Fuertes, anunció la aprobación de la propuesta “Puerto Rico State Opioid Response” (SOR, por sus siglas en inglés) por parte de la Administración de Salud Mental y Abuso de Sustancias (SAMHSA, por sus siglas en inglés).

La subvención federal, garantiza $24 millones por dos años para continuar desarrollando proyectos que fortalezcan la atención a la adicción por uso de opiáceos y las sobredosis en Puerto Rico.

“Esta es sin duda, una de las propuestas más abarcadores en el tema de prevención y atención que ha logrado ASSMCA. Con esta nueva asignación de fondos, continuaremos desarrollando proyectos que buscan concientizar sobre el riesgo de abusar de los medicamentos opioides, así como ayudar a las personas que lamentablemente han desarrollado alguna dependencia de estos medicamentos y por supuesto evitar las muertes por sobredosis”, explicó Suzanne Roig.

Para fortalecer los esfuerzos de prevención, el proyecto contempla la capacitación a cerca de 1,500 primeros respondedores, incluyendo a médicos, farmacéuticos y oficiales correccionales. Además, se distribuirá Naloxona para atender de manera inmediata los casos de sobredosis.

El tratamiento y la recuperación de la población

adulta con uso de sustancias se fortalecerá a través de la integración de las mejores prácticas basadas en la evidencia en los programas de metadona, centros residenciales y “Drug Courts”. La Unidad de Desintoxicación de ASSMCA integrará el uso de Naltrexona y Buprenorfina, que han probado ser efectivas en el tratamiento de opiáceos.

En Estados Unidos, entre 1999 y 2017 murieron 399 mil personas por sobredosis de opiáceos, siendo una de las causas principales de muertes a nivel nacional. En Puerto Rico durante el 2018, se registraron 100 sobredosis fatales, mientras que en el 2019 ese número aumentó a 188.

Además, se fortalecerá el proceso de realizar pruebas a la población con diagnóstico de VIH y

la vacunación de miles de pacientes en riesgo de Hepatitis. También, se ha iniciado el diálogo para crear alianzas con organizaciones de base comunitaria y municipios que han probado tener programas exitosos.

El Programa de Monitoreo de Medicamentos Recetados (PDMP), desarrollado por ASSMCA a través de la Ley 70 del 2017, estableció un sistema electrónico de monitoreo de medicamentos y establece sanciones y penalidades que resultan del manejo inadecuado de los mismos. El PDMP, permite rastrear la prescripción de narcóticos, ayuda en la identificación de problemas de adicción y facilita la toma de decisiones clínicas.

De igual forma, se implantará un programa de recogido de medicamentos controlados en 50 municipios de la Isla en colaboración con las farmacias y se le asignará fondos a ciertos municipios para que desarrollen proyectos dirigidos a la prevención de sobredosis por opioides y se impactará a cientos de confinados en su proceso de transición a la libre comunidad.

“Es pertinente agradecer la aprobación por parte del Gobierno Federal de esta propuesta. A tono con las prioridades de la gobernadora Wanda Vázquez Garced, nuestra meta es continuar realizando acciones afirmativas para orientar sobre la peligrosidad de estas drogas y desalentar su consumo y evitar el incremento en las muertes por sobredosis de opiáceos”, concluyó Roig.

Lluvia de intervenciones en negocios durante fin de semana Por THE STAR

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gentes que participan del Plan Anticrimen, del Plan Vial y de la División de Tránsito del área de Bayamón intervinieron con varios conductores y negocios, entre el sábado y la madrugada del domingo, con el fin de hacer cumplir la Orden Ejecutiva e intervenir con las corridas en “Four Tracks”.

La iniciativa fue coordinada con el Cuerpo de Bomberos, el Departamento de Hacienda y la Autoridad de Energía Eléctrica.

Las autoridades intervinieron con varios establecimientos como El Hípico, localizado en la Carretera 891 kilómetro 0.9 en Vega Alta, negocio que fue multado por violar la Orden Ejecutiva, recibiendo,

además, sanciones de $1,500 por el Departamento de Hacienda y 1,000 dólares por el Cuerpo de Bomberos.

Este local fue cerrado por la venta de bebidas alcohólicas Madrugada y tarde del sábado Más temprano el sábado, agentes de la División de Vehículos Hurtados y Tránsito de Bayamón expidieron 7 denuncias debido a la Orden Ejecutiva; 144 boletos por violación a la Ley 22 y ocuparon tres motoras, una de ellas por falta de documentos y otra para investigación.

Además, dos negocios y dos estaciones de gasolina fueron intervenidas por Hacienda y los Bomberos en Bayamón.

Por otra parte, el negocio La Placitade Mayo, que ubica en la carretera 152 en el Barrio Cedro Debajo de

Naranjito, fue intervenido en la tarde del sábado, así como con su dueño, Nelson Torres Ortiz, por violación a la Orden Ejecutiva y por los permisos vencidos para ventas de bebidas alcohólicas. La investigación la lleva a cabo la Policía Municipal.

En Naranjito también se denunció a Rey Collazo Berríos, dueño del establecimiento Caldosos, por violar la orden ejecutiva, operando una barra abierta en la que se estaba vendiendo bebidas alcohólicas con la aglomeración de personas en su parte frontal.

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Monday, August 31, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

It’s hard to make dignity interesting. Chadwick Boseman found a way.

Chadwick Boseman as James Brown in “Get On Up.” Our critic writes that the actor “turned the friction of Brown’s personality into fire.”

By WESLEY MORRIS

T

he problem with dignity is that there’s not much an actor can do with it. Not when he’s playing Jackie Robinson or Thurgood Marshall, not when you’re the leader of a made-up African kingdom, like Wakanda.

For a performer, dignity can seem like an anchor or a void. What can he show us of a baseball legend or a titan of jurisprudence that they hadn’t previously revealed?

In playing dignity, Chadwick Boseman, who died Friday, at just 43, of colon cancer, often seemed tasked to perform its burden. But there was always more to him in these parts than heft. He pumped in plenty of its opposite: lightness. In “Marshall,” instead of bearing down on the man’s owlish brilliance, Boseman turned the concept of what’s actionable into physical action. He was light, quick, smooth, chic. He sprinkled the truth with herbs and spices.

Amazingly, between his work as Robinson and Marshall, Boseman also played the great American superstar James Brown in “Get On Up.” Had any actor spent more time in such enormous shoes in so brief a span? (The Jackie Robinson film, “42,” came out in 2013; “Marshall” was four years later.) No one

in the movies comes to mind. Sidney Poitier maybe. But he went first and so had to make his own shoes.

I’ll confess to finding it odd that Boseman played these three roles so quickly. It seemed at first like a joke on the movies’ ongoing obsession with stories about exceptional Black Americans or like Hollywood was too lazy to imagine anyone else inhabiting the exceptions. The truth is that Boseman actually cornered a market with his inner elasticity and, at least for me, exploded the parameters of what biographical moviemaking ought to be. With him, “seems like” mattered more than “looks like.”

It was daring, and he didn’t even seem aware of the risks.

What can an actor show us when he doesn’t even look like the people he’s playing? That always seemed peculiar, his resemblance to none of the three men.

But Chadwick Boseman had these eyes.

They weren’t Robinson’s, a young Marshall’s or Brown’s. In each case, Boseman’s eyes were too large (and his frame, while we’re at it, was too small). But, my, their sincerity and tenderness reached inside you. That’s what his eyes could do with entire personas: get to their point and go beyond it.

During this “great man” stretch, Boseman’s idea of the legends he em-

bodied won out over verisimilitude. The movies themselves aren’t bold enough to let him go too deep or get too dark — “42” is more about how Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) handled the team Robinson integrated.

Nonetheless, Boseman made each man sexy, contemplative, certain.

“Seems like” took him to some beguiling places in “Get On Up,” that James Brown movie from 2014. He got Brown’s gunshot kinetics and percussive way with a conversation, his allure and mercurial short fuse. An audience might have had trouble harmonizing Brown’s contradictions — the libertine and conservative urges, his tyranny, paranoia and generosity, that he loved women and hit them.

Boseman turned the friction of Brown’s personality into fire. The movie’s unruliness, its kitchen-sink way with a life story, its divergence from reality all probably would have overwhelmed a regular actor. Boseman, it turns out, was far from a regular actor.

The movie came and went that summer. What everybody missed was not only one of the year’s best performances but a milestone for a tired genre. Unlike Joaquin Phoenix (who played Johnny Cash) and, eventually, Rami Malek (Freddie Mercury) and Renée Zellweger (Judy Garland), Boseman didn’t attempt to sing. You’re hearing James Brown’s vocals. But Boseman obviates any editing tricks. The camera gets right up close to him as, say, he stands motionless — motionless for Brown, anyway — and belts “Try Me,” a cappella. Boseman was so fluent in the curl of Brown’s tongue and the aperture of his mouth as it sculpted and spat “I need you” and “I want you to stop my heart from crying” and “heh!” that the singer’s voice may as well have been the actor’s.

Boseman’s career didn’t take off until he was well into his 30s. So a heavy “what if” looms over his career, the bulk of which was spent, of course, in the Marvel universe, where he thrived as T’Challa, king of Wakanda, the country he defends as Black Panther. When T’Challa first appears, in the first “Captain America” sequel, there’s a smolder to Boseman that

makes him the most compelling person in the movie for as long he’s around, which isn’t much, yet more than I would have expected. But Marvel always has a plan, and the plan for Boseman was a stand-alone “Black Panther” film. He was his trademark cocktail of pensive and cool. The crown didn’t weigh on him. He played the part like the movie star “Black Panther” would turn him into.

A wonderful aspect of Boseman’s fame was how little he seemed to mind having it wrapped up in that franchise.

Whatever “Black Panther” means to millions of people also meant something to him. He walked red carpets in floorlength designer coats, embroidered suits, knightly capes and so many bright, lickable patterns that the clothes became their own candy shop. He did so, apparently — unimaginably — while also battling cancer. In public, he crossed his arms across his chest the way they do in Wakanda, as a salutation that doubles as a promise to endure.

The exciting mystery was always going to be where Boseman would take his classiness in addition to Wakanda.

He’d completed a film version of August Wilson’s play “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” for George C. Wolfe, with Viola Davis. And though he might have been hesitant to try yet another extraordinary American, he was good at it. Why stop at Thurgood Marshall? Boseman’s solemnity and round, serious, searching eyes better matched James Baldwin. That pairing might have been something — Baldwin’s middle age meeting Boseman’s, the actor’s dexterous way with dignity approaching the thinker’s never-ending demand that the country respect the dignity of Black Americans.

His loose resemblance to Baldwin is secondary to what Boseman might have done with Baldwin’s erudition and elocution. For Boseman was no impersonator. He was in his way a historian — of other people’s magnetism and volition. Excellence and leadership spoke to and sparked him. They had to. No one approximates this much greatness without a considerable reserve of greatness himself.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

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Urban singer Omar Courtz debuts by Pitbull to release his new single ‘Disoriented’

By THE STAR STAFF

J

oshua Omar Medina Cortes better known as Omar Courtz; celebrated great after being signed by the record label of the international artist "Pitbull". The singer-songwriter, originally from Carolina, now formally begins promoting his career with the release of the single “Disoriented’’ that comes from the label Mr. 305 Records.

“Disoriented” is a sticky theme that invites all people to dance especially in these times of so much social estrangement by COVID-19. Courtz recounts that the single is about “when life goes so fast that we feel lost. We all have a person who calls us disoriented by trouble. Sometimes we just need to give him a break from life, a break.

Sometimes the wrong person is right for that moment. You have to remember that there are times when women don’t want flowers, they just want to burn them.”

Courtz revealed that he is single and uncompromising and stated that “the label will release its music by the modern method from simple to simple. It’s the trend and it’s the easiest way for how fast music is promoted right now and by the fact that now as you travel and meet other artists you can record various collaborations and release them instantly.

My new single is ‘Disoriented’,

but I already have two singles: ‘Dime’ and ‘Su Nota’; that were released on social networks and virtual platforms, and are already playing on major radio stations in Puerto Rico and other markets. On the other hand, I am recording several collaborations with various artists such as Dalex and Justin, who I have also composed songs for their productions.”

According to Pitbull’s expressions, “Omar Courtz considers it the new promise of the urban genre and we will make every effort to make his music heard in the universe. His musical versatility is leading him to captivate everyone’s hearts, especially women and my company bets on his talent.”

In addition to singing and composing, Courtz is a professional. Recently Courtz celebrated in a great time that he graduated as a mechanical engineer from the Universidad Interamericana.

“My message to youth right now revolves around the focus”. The world we live in is going very fast, has many distractions and there are many ways to waste time because we are so connected. Harness the power of being connected; to create, build, and educate. I believe that today we all have resources that in some way or another give us a space to undertake the career that we want, we have to use those resources to educate, to join and build. So focus on what really matters because the world is full of distractions, use them in your favor to bring new ideas that are always needed, educate yourself and let no one tell you where you can go, there are no limits,” advised the singer-songwriter.

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Monday, August 31, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Getaways during a crisis: A ticket to squabbles

Opinions on traveling during a pandemic are causing fights between family members and fissures among friends.

By TARIRO MZEZEWA

M

ichael Huxley has been getting called out a lot lately.

His sin? Traveling during the coronavirus pandemic.

Huxley flew to Spain from Liverpool a few weeks ago and has been on a handful of trips within Britain since the onset of the pandemic, upsetting friends, family members and strangers, who say he should stay home to lessen the risk of contracting or spreading the virus.

“I’ve been getting criticism in my professional life and from people in my personal life,” said Huxley, who runs a blog, Bemused Backpacker. “Some come at it from an ethical point of view and think I shouldn’t be traveling and spreading disease anywhere, and then others come from the emotional ‘You shouldn’t be traveling because you’ll kill my grandma’ point of view.”

The decision to travel or stay home has become a flashpoint this summer, with people defining what kind of travel, if any, is acceptable in different ways.

Some say people should only go on essential trips. Others say pleasure trips within driving distance are acceptable.

Still others, like Huxley, who is from Liverpool, say traveling is fine, with rules in place like washing hands, maintaining a clean environment and keeping distance. The various de-

lineations of what’s right and what’s not are creating fissures among friends and family members.

“It was easier to ease my family, who know that I’m a qualified nurse, that I’ve traveled the world for 20 years and can look after myself,” Huxley said. “But communicating to acquaintances and people who don’t know me that I have weighed the risks, that I have worked the various ways I can reduce the risk for myself, and I am still choosing to travel was impossible.”

Huxley said he traveled during other crises, including the SARS and MERS outbreaks, as well as in the period after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and was in Egypt during the 2011 revolution.

“I don’t see this as any different from those events,” he said. “You do get outbreaks, pandemics, terrorist attacks, but life goes on. Travel still goes on.”

Erin Niimi Longhurst, a British Japanese author and director at a digital agency in New York, got the silent treatment from her mother for weeks after she traveled to London from New York this spring — a rare thing for the mother and daughter, who typically talk multiple times a day. Niimi Longhurst went to London to be with her partner and relatives, upsetting her mother, who lives in Hawaii and is not traveling. She stayed for three months before returning to New

York. Niimi Longhurst’s sister lives in New York and just had a child.

“My mother really wanted to go and be with my sister but had made the decision not to,” Niimi Longhurst said.

“Her mentality was, ‘Why is it OK for you to go back? If everyone acted like you, we’d be in a worse situation.’ She was incredibly worried for me, and she was pretty furious with me.”

Jill Locke, a professor of political science at a college in Minnesota, and her younger sister, Jennifer, who lives in California and is the chief executive of a wine company, initially didn’t see eye to eye about visiting their parents, who are in their 80s, in Seattle this summer. The sisters exchanged texts and phone calls, with Jennifer Locke pushing for the trip.

“We were coming at it from such different places,” Jill Locke said. “For many reasons, for me, it felt like it was the wrong thing to do, even though I really wanted to see our parents, but she didn’t feel the same way.”

Before the pandemic, Locke planned to fly to Seattle with her husband and children, but as the coronavirus spread across the United States, she decided to rent an RV and drive there. She soon realized that the cost of the RV would be prohibitive, and felt that some states between Minnesota and Washington weren’t taking the virus seriously enough. In the end, both sisters decided to stay home.

“Weighing all these contingencies made me wonder what I would be bringing to my parents even if I traveled as responsibly as possible,” Locke said. “There have been a lot of texts between us, and we both got so worked up and frustrated.”

Locke’s sister said she didn’t take the prospect of traveling lightly and has been following guidance to not travel during the pandemic. Nonetheless, she thought it was important that she see her aging parents soon.

“At the time, I felt like ‘If we don’t go see our parents now, then when will we?’” Jennifer Locke said. “That’s been the gutting thing: not knowing the answer to that. It feels like time is being stolen from us.”

Lindsay Chambers, a writer and editor who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, said she has been surprised by the ways people are justifying going on vacation this year, including those who don’t want to pass up cheap flights and those who would not reschedule bachelor and bachelorette parties. Chambers said she has barely left her home since February but has been following local news and seen images of people gathering at bars and tourist spots in downtown Nashville. The tourists, she said, are not being considerate of others. She was stunned to learn that her own friends were going on a beach trip this summer.

“I had to stop myself from shouting at friends who told us they’d be ‘quarantining at the beach,’ ” she said. “Traveling to another state and staying in a rented condo in the middle of a raging pandemic is not how quarantine works.

At all.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

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What if the first Coronavirus vaccines aren’t the best?

By CARL ZIMMER

S

even months into the coronavirus crisis, with more than 30 vaccines rapidly advancing through the rigorous stages of clinical trials, a surprising number of research groups are placing bets on some that have not yet been given to a single person.

The New York Times has confirmed that at least 88 candidates are under active preclinical investigation in laboratories across the world, with 67 of them slated to begin clinical trials before the end of 2021.

Those trials may begin after millions of people have already received the first wave of vaccines. It will take months to see if any of them are safe and effective. Nevertheless, the scientists developing them say their designs may be able to prompt more powerful immune responses, or be much cheaper to produce, or both — making them the slow and steady winners of the race against the coronavirus.

“The first vaccines may not be the most effective,” said Ted Ross, the director of the Center for Vaccines and Immunology at the University of Georgia, who is working on an experimental vaccine he hopes to put into clinical trials in 2021.

Many of the vaccines at the front of the pack today try to teach the body the same basic lesson. They deliver a protein that covers the surface of the coronavirus, called spike, which appears to prompt the immune system to make antibodies to fight it off.

But some researchers worry that we may be pinning too many hopes on a strategy that has not been proved to work.

“It would be a shame to put all our eggs in the same basket,” said David Veesler, a virologist at the University of Washington.

In March, Veesler and his colleagues designed a vaccine that consists of millions of nanoparticles, each one studded with 60 copies of the tip of the spike protein, rather than the entire thing. The researchers thought these bundles of tips might pack a stronger immunological punch.

When the researchers injected these nanoparticles into mice, the animals responded with a flood of antibodies to the coronavirus — much more than produced by a vaccine containing the entire spike. When the scientists exposed vaccinated mice to the coronavirus, they found that it completely protected them from infection.

The researchers shared their initial results this month in a paper that has yet to be published in a scientific journal.

Icosavax, a startup company co-founded by Veesler’s collaborator, Neil King, is preparing to begin clinical trials of the nanoparticle vaccine by the end of this year.

U.S. Army researchers at the Walter Reed Army Institute have created another spike-tip nanoparticle vaccine, and are recruiting volunteers for a clinical trial that they also plan to start by the end of 2020. A number of other companies and universities are creating spike-tip-based vaccines as well, using recipes of their own.

Immune punch Antibodies are only one weapon in the immune arse-

Work on a vaccine assembly line at the Serum Institute in Pune, India, on July 10, 2020. Dozens of research groups around the world are playing the long game, convinced that their experimental vaccines will be cheaper and more powerful than the ones leading the race today. nal. Blood cells known as T cells can fight infections by attacking other cells that have been infiltrated by the virus.

“We still don’t know which kind of immune response will be important for protection,” said Luciana Leite, a vaccine researcher at Instituto Butantan in São Paulo, Brazil.

It’s possible that vaccines that arouse only antibody responses will fail in the long run. Leite and other researchers are testing vaccines made of several parts of the coronavirus to see if they can coax T cells to fight it off.

“It’s a second line of defense that might work better than antibodies,” said Anne De Groot, the CEO of Epivax, a company based in Providence, Rhode Island.

Epivax has created an experimental vaccine with several pieces of the spike protein, as well as other viral proteins, which it plans to test in a clinical trial in December.

The effectiveness of a vaccine can also be influenced by how it gets into our body. All of the first-wave vaccines now in clinical trials have to be injected into muscle. A nasal spray vaccine — similar to FluMist for influenza — might work better, since the coronavirus invades our bodies through the airway.

Several groups are gearing up for clinical trials of nasal spray vaccines. One of the most imaginative approaches comes from a New York company called Codagenix. They are testing a vaccine that contains a synthetic version of the coronavirus that they made from scratch.

The Codagenix vaccine is a new twist on an old formula. For decades, vaccine makers have created vaccines for diseases such as chickenpox and yellow fever from live but weakened viruses. Traditionally, scientists have weakened the viruses by growing them in cells of chickens or some other animal. The viruses adapt to their new host, and in the process they become ill-suited for growing in the human body.

The viruses still slip into cells, but they replicate at a glacial pace. As a result, they can’t make us sick. But a small dose of these weakened viruses can deliver a powerful jolt to

the immune system.

Yet there are relatively few live weakened viruses, because making them is a struggle. “It’s really trial-and-error based,” said J. Robert Coleman, the chief executive of Codagenix. “You can never say exactly what the mutations are doing.”

The Codagenix scientists came up with a different approach. They sat down at a computer and edited the coronavirus’ genome, creating 283 mutations. They then created a piece of DNA containing their new genome and put it in monkey cells. The cells then made their rewritten viruses. In experiments on hamsters, the researchers found that their vaccine didn’t make the animals sick — but did protect them against the coronavirus.

Codagenix is preparing to open a Phase 1 trial of an intranasal spray with one of these synthesized coronaviruses as early as September. Two similar vaccines are in earlier stages of development.

Faster and cheaper production Even if the first wave of vaccines work, many researchers worry that it won’t be possible to make enough of them fast enough to tackle the global need.

“It’s a numbers game — we need a lot of doses,” said Florian Krammer, a virologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

Some of the most promising first-wave products, such as RNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer, are based on designs that have never been put into large-scale production before.

“The manufacturing math just doesn’t add up,” said Steffen Mueller, the chief scientific officer of Codagenix.

Many of the second-wave vaccines wouldn’t require a large scale-up of experimental manufacturing. Instead, they could piggyback on standard methods that have been used for years to make safe and effective vaccines.

Codagenix, for example, has entered into a partnership with the Serum Institute of India to grow their recoded coronaviruses. The institute already makes billions of doses of live weakened virus vaccines for measles, rotaviruses and influenza, growing them in large tanks of cells.

Tapping into well-established methods could also cut down the cost of a coronavirus vaccine, which will make it easier to get it distributed to less wealthy countries.

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, for example, are doing preclinical work on a vaccine that they said might cost as little as $2 a dose. By contrast, Pfizer is charging $19 a dose in a deal with the U.S. government, and other companies have floated even higher prices.

Even if the world gets cheap, effective vaccines against COVID-19, that doesn’t mean all of our pandemic worries are over. With an abundance of other coronaviruses lurking in wild animals, another COVID-like pandemic may be not far off. Several companies — including Anhui Zhifei in China, Osivax in France and VBI in Massachusetts — are developing “universal” coronavirus vaccines that might protect people from an array of the viruses, even those that haven’t colonized our species yet.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

How do you solve a moon mystery? Fire a laser at it

By KATHERINE KORNEI

T

he moon is drifting away. Every year, it gets about an inch and a half farther from us.

For decades, scientists have measured the moon’s retreat by firing a laser at light-reflecting panels, known as retroreflectors, that were left on the lunar surface, and then timing the light’s round trip. But the moon’s five retroreflectors are old, and they’re now much less efficient at flinging back light. To determine whether a layer of moon dust might be the culprit, researchers devised an audacious plan: They bounced laser light off a much smaller but newer retroreflector mounted aboard a NASA spacecraft that was skimming over the moon’s surface at thousands of miles per hour. And it worked.

These results were published in the journal Earth, Planets and Space.

Of all the stuff humans have left on the moon, the five retroreflectors, which were delivered by Apollo astronauts and two Soviet robotic rovers, are among the most scientifically important. They’re akin to really long yardsticks: By precisely timing how long it takes laser light to travel to the moon, bounce off a retroreflector and return to Earth (roughly 2.5 seconds, give or take), scientists can calculate the distance between the moon and Earth.

While it has been nearly 50 years since a retroreflector was placed on the moon’s surface, a NASA spacecraft launched in 2009 carries a retroreflector roughly the size of a paperback book. That spacecraft, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, circles the moon once every two hours, and it has beamed home millions of high-resolution images of the lunar surface.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter “provides a pristine target,” said

Erwan Mazarico, a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center who, along with his colleagues, tested the hypothesis that lunar dust might be affecting the moon’s retroreflectors.

But it’s also a moving target. The orbiter skims over the moon’s surface at 3,600 mph In 2017, Mazarico and his collaborators began firing an infrared laser from a station near Grasse, France — about a half-hour drive from Cannes — toward the orbiter’s retroreflector.

At roughly 3 a.m. Sept. 4, 2018, they recorded their first success: a detection of 25 photons that made the round trip.

The researchers notched three more successes by the fall of 2019. After accounting for the smaller size of the orbiter’s retroreflector, Mazarico and his colleagues found it often returned photons more efficiently than the Apollo retroreflectors.

In a photo provided by NASA, A laser being beamed at the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter from the Goddard Space Flight Center’s Laser Ranging Facility in Greenbelt, Md., in 2010.

A honeybee’s tongue is more Swiss army knife than ladle

By JAMES GORMAN

F

or a century, scientists have known how honeybees drink nectar. They lap it up.

They dip their hairy tongues rapidly in and out of syrupy nectar to draw it up into their mouth. For the last century or so, scientists have been convinced that this is the only way they drink nectar.

Scientists have now discovered bees can also suck nectar, which is more efficient when the sugar content is lower and the nectar is less viscous.

High-speed video of bees drinking a nectar substitute in a lab shows that not only do honeybees have this unexpected ability, but they can also go backand-forth from one drinking mode to another.

Jianing Wu, an engineering and biophysics specialist, at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, and the senior researcher on the experiment, said that while honeybees excel at feeding on highly concentrated nectar, “we find that they can also flexibly switch the feeding strategy from lapping to suction.” He and his colleagues reported the results in the journal Biol-

ogy Letters.

Alejandro Rico-Guevara, who runs the Behavioral Ecophysics Lab at the University of Washington, Seattle and studies nectar feeding in birds, also worked on the project. He said this flexibility in nectar drinking behavior means that although bees prefer the more syrupy nectars, they can efficiently feed from flowers whose nectar is more watery. “This has implications at many different scales, from pollination, for our food, all the way to the role they have in natural ecosystems,” he said.

The honeybee tongue is adapted perfectly to lapping syrupy nectars.

Once the tongue is dipped into thick nectars, Wu explained, “approximately 10,000 bristles covering the tongue erect simultaneously at a certain angle for trapping the nectar.” The bee then pulls its tongue back into its proboscis, which is really a part of its mouth, and a pumping mechanism in the head sucks the nectar off the tongue.

When the viscosity changes so that the nectar is less thick, the bees let their tongues stay in the nectar and sucked it up into their mouths, apparently using the same pumping mechanism.

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Demandante V.

Monday, August 31, 2020

DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE Demandados Queda emplazado y notificado de DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL CIVIL NÚM.: BY2020CV01845. que en este Tribunal se ha radi- ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE SOBRE: COBRO DE DINEcado una demanda en su contra PUERTO RICO. SS. RO POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA Y A: AIHC of Puerto Rico, EJECUCIÓN DE GRAVAMEN por la parte demandante MARINA PDR OPERATIONS, LLC sobre MOBILIARIO (REPOSESIÓN DE Inc., antes conocido Cobro de Dinero. Se le notifica VEHÍCULO). EMPLAZAMIENcomo Associates para que comparezca ante el TO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS International Holdings Tribunal dentro del término de UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRECorporation, es una treinta (30) días a partir de la puSIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. DE blicación de este edicto y exponer corporación organizada AMERICA EL ESTADO LIBRE lo que a sus derechos convenga, y existente bajo las leyes ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. en el presente caso. POR LO ANdel Estado Libre Asociado A: MIGUEL A. VARGAS TERIORMENTE INDICADO, se CAMARENO, POR SÍ Y de Puerto Rico con le emplaza y requiere que dentro EN REPRESENTACIÓN del término de treinta (30) días si- capacidad para demandar guientes a la publicación de este y ser demandada cuya DE LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL Edicto, notifique su contestación DE GANANCIALES dirección es Agustín a la Demanda. Se le notifica que COMPUESTA POR ÉL Stahl, Carr. 174 A-10, deberá presentar su alegación Y KRISABEL ROMAN responsiva a través del Sistema Bayamón, PR 00956 HERNANDEZ. Unificado de Manejo y Adminis- POR LA PRESENTE se le emtración de Casos (SUMAC), a la plaza para que presente al tri- Quedan emplazados y notificacual puede acceder utilizando la bunal su alegación responsiva a dos que en este Tribunal se ha siguiente dirección electrónica: la demanda dentro de los treinta radicado Demanda sobre cobro https//unired.ramajudicial.pr, sal- (30) días de haber sido diligen- de dinero por la vía ordinaria vo que se represente por dere- ciado este emplazamiento, ex- en la que se alega que la parte cho propio, en cuyo caso deberá cluyéndose el día del diligencia- codemandada, MIGUEL A. VARpresentar su alegación responsi- miento, notificando copia de la GAS CAMARENO, POR SÍ Y va en la Secretaría del Tribunal misma al abogado de la parte EN REPRESENTACIÓN DE LA Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala de demandante o a ésta, de no te- SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANFajardo y enviando copia a la par- ner representación legal. Usted CIALES COMPUESTA POR ÉL te demandante: Lcdo. Ricardo R. deberá presentar su alegación Y KRISABEL ROMAN HERNÁNLozada Franco-RUA 19823-Abo- responsiva a través del Sistema DEZ, le adeuda solidariamente gado de la Demandante- Direc- Unificado de Manejo y Adminis- a Americas Leading Finance, ción Postal: PO Box 10081, San tración de Casos (SUMAC), al LLC, la suma de principal de Juan, PR.,00908-1081-Teléfono cual puede acceder utilizando la $7,910.97, más los intereses que Oficina:787-379-1148- Email: ri- siguiente dirección electrónica: continúen acumulando, las cosclozfragmai l.com Se le apercibe https://unired.ramaiudicial.pr/su- tas, gastos y honorarios de aboy notifica que, si no contesta la mac/, salvo que se represente gado según pactados. Además, demanda radicada en su contra por derecho propio. Si usted deja solicitamos de este Honorable dentro del término de treinta (30) de presentar su alegación res- Tribunal que autorice la reposedías de la publicación de este ponsiva dentro del referido tér- sión y/o embargo del Vehículo. edicto, se le anotará rebeldía en mino, el tribunal podrá dictar sen- Se les advierte que este edicto su contra y se dictará sentencia tencia en rebeldía en su contra y se publicará en un periódico de en su contra, conforme se solicita conceder el remedio solicitado en circulación general una sola vez en la Demanda, sin más citársele, la demanda, o cualquier otro, si y que, si no comparecen a conni oírsele. Expido bajo mi firma y el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su testar dicha Demanda dentro sello del Tribunal, hoy día 25 de sana discreción, lo entiende pro- del término de treinta (30) días a agosto de 2020. Wanda I Segui cedente. El nombre, dirección y partir de la publicación del EdicReyes, Sec Regional. Linda I número de teléfono del abogado to, a través del Sistema Unificado de Maneio y Administración de Medina Medina, Sec Auxiliar del de la parte demandante Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede Tribunal I. es la siguiente: LCDA. LIZBET AVILES VEGA acceder utilizando la siguiente LEGAL NOTICE RUA: 12536 dirección electrónica: https://uniUrb. Los Sauces, Calle Pomarrosa red.ramaiudicial.pr/sumac/, salvo ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE #222, Humacao, PR 00791 que se represente por derecho PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE Tel: 787-354-0061 propio; en cuyo caso deberá prePRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUlizbet_avilesyahoo.com ó sentar su alegación responsiva PERIOR DE TOA ALTA. lcdalizbetaviles@gmail.com CAPITAL TILE EXPEDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y en la secretaría del tribunal, se le el Sello del Tribunal, hoy 3 de anotará la rebeldía y se dictará

SERVICES INC.

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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 el Lcdo. Gerardo M. Ortiz Torres, cuya dirección física y postal es: Cond. El Centro I, Suite 801, 500 Muñoz Rivera Ave., San Juan, Puerto Rico LEGAL NOTICE 00918; cuyo número de teléfono ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE es (787) 946-5268, el facsímile PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE (787) 946-0062 y su correo elecPRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SU- trónico es: gerardo@bellverlaw.

PERIOR DE AGUADILLA. com. Expedido bajo mi firma y AMERICAS LEADING sello de este Tribunal, en Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, hoy día 20 de FINANCE LLC agosto de 2020. Sarahi Reyes Demandante, v.

Perez, Secretaria. Zuheily GonLUIS LORENZO zalez Aviles, Subsecretario (a)

agosto de 2020. LCDA LAURA Sentencia concediendo el remedio así solicitado sin más citarles ni oírles. El abogado de la parte demandante es el Lcdo. Gerardo M. 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, el facsímile (787) 946-0062 y su correo electrónico es: gerardo©bellverlaw. com. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, en Bayamon, Puerto Rico, hoy día 20 de agosto de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, Secretaria Regional. Samari Diaz Collazo, Secretaria Auxiliar del Tribunal.

AIHC OF PUERTO RICO, I SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria.

GLORIBELL VAZQUEZ MAYSOINC antes conocida NET, Sec del Trib Conf I. como ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL LEGAL NOTICE HOLDINGS ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE CORPORATION; JUAN PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE DEL PUEBLO Y JUANA PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN. DEL PUEBLO y cualquier AMERICAS LEADING persona desconocida FINANCE LLC con posible interés Demandante, V. en la obligación cuya MIGUEL A. VARGAS cancelación por decreto CAMARENO, SU ESPOSA judicial se solicita.

FULANA DE TAL Y LA Demandados SOCIEDAD LEGAL CIVIL NÚM. TB2020CV00178.

DE GANANCIALES SOBRE: CANCELACION DE PAGARE EXTRAVIADO. EMPLACOMPUESTA POR ZAMIENTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS AMBOS

staredictos@thesanjuandailystar.com

25

LÓPEZ, SU ESPOSA FULANA DE TAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Demandados CIVIL NÚM.: AG2020CV00424.

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 SS.

A: LUIS LORENZO LÓPEZ, SU ESPOSA FULANA 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 en la que se alega que los demandados LUIS LORENZO LÓPEZ, SU ESPOSA FULANA DE TAL, Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS, le adeudan solidariamente al Americas Leading Finance, LLC la suma de principal de $8,954.88, 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

(787) 743-3346

trict of Puerto Rico, and serving a copy to counsel for Plaintiff: Charline Michelle Jiménez-Echevarría, Esq., at PO Box 367308, San Juan, PR 00936, telephone number 787-758-6550. This Summons shall be published by edict only once in a newspaper of general circulation in the Island of Puerto Rico. Within ten (10) days following publication of this Summons, a copy of this Summons and Complaint will be sent to Defendants Jane Doe and John Doe as members of the Estate of Raul Santana Martínez a/k/a Raul Rufino Santana Martínez a/k/a Raul R. Santana Martínez, by certified mail/return receipt requested, addressed to their last known address. Should you fail to appear, plead or answer to the Complaint as ordered by the Court and noticed by this Summons, the Court will proceed to hear and adjudicate this cause against you based on the relief demanded in the Complaint. BY ORDER OF THE COURT, summons is issued pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. Pr. 4(e) and Rule 4.5 of the Rules of Civil ProLEGAL NOTICE cedure for the Commonwealth of UNITED STATES DISTRICT Puerto Rico. In San Juan, Puerto COURT DISTRICT OF PUERTO Rico, this 25th day of August, RICO. 2020. MARIA ANTONGIORGILive Well Financial, Inc. JORDAN, ESQ., CLERK OF THE COURT. By: Ana E. DuranPlaintiff v.

Capella, Deputy Clerk.

The Estate of Raul Santana Martinez a/k/a Raul Rufino Santana Martinez a/k/a Raul R. Santana Martinez composed of Estela Anzardo Casanova a/k/a Estela de la Trinidad Anzardo Casanova a/k/a Estela D. Anzardo Casanova, Jane Doe and John Doe; Estela Anzardo Casanova a/k/a Estela de la Trinidad Anzardo Casanova a/k/a Estela D. Anzardo Casanova; Centro de Recaudacion de Ingresos Municipales; United States of America

Defendants CIVIL ACTION NO.: 19-cv-1039.

SUMMONS BY PUBLICATION.

TO: Jane Doe and John Doe as members of the Estate of Raul Santana Martínez a/k/a Raul Rufino Santana Martínez a/k/a Raul R. Santana Martínez

Pursuant to the Order for Service entered on August 25th, 20,2 0by the Honorable Raul AriasMarxuach, United States District Judge (Docket No. 31), you are hereby SUMMONED to appear, plead or answer the Complaint filed herein no later than thirty (30) days after publication of this Summons by serving the original plea or answer in the United States District Court for the Dis-

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

ORIENTAL BANK Demandante V.

MARIBEL CAMACHO GINES; JOHN DOE Y RICARD ROE

Demandado Civil: BY2020CV02016. Sobre: SUSTITUCION DE PAGARE HIPOTECARIO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 26 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 la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 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 27 de agosto de 2020.

En BAYAMON , Puerto Rico , el 27 de agosto de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretari. F/ MARIA E. COLLAZO, Secretaria Auxiliar.

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

JOSÉ MANUEL LIZARDI O´NEILL Demandante V.

ASSET COMPANY Demandante v.

JUAN ABNER TORRES JIMÉNEZ, JANNICE REBECA TOLEDO VÉLEZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Demandadas CIVIL NUM.: VB2020CV00012.

SALA: 201. SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO - EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: JUAN ABNER TORRES DORAL MORTGAGE JIMÉNEZ, JANNICE CORPORATION, REP. REBECA TOLEDO VÉLEZ BANCO POPULAR DE Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL PUERTO RICO, JUAN DE GANANCIALES DEL PUEBLO Y FULANO COMPUESTA POR DE TAL AMBOS Demandado Lot #4 SE 686 RD, Civil: GB2020CV00305. SALA: 201. Sobre: CANCELACION DE Yeguada Ward, Km. 9.6 PAGARE HIPOTECARIO EXVega Baja, Puerto Rico TRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE 00693; Urb. Hacienda Real SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. 209 Calle Flor de Sierra A: JUAN DEL PUEBLO Y #C8 Carolina, Puerto Rico FULANO DE TAL (Nombre de las partes a las que se 00987; 964 232nd NE PL le notifican la sentencia por edicto) Sammamish, WA 98074; EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 25 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 la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 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 27 de agosto de 2020.

En Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, el 27 de agosto de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria. F/DIAMAR GONZALEZ BARRETO, Secretaria Auxiliar.

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

ROOSEVELT CAYMAN

Por la presente se le emplaza y notifica que debe contestar la demanda incoada en su contra dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación del presente edicto. 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. Si usted deja de presentar y notificar 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. Los abogados de la parte demandante son: ABOGADOS DE LA PARTE DEMANDANTE: Lcdo. Reggie Díaz Hernández Número ante el Tribunal Supremo.: 16,393 BERMUDEZ DIAZ & SÁNCHEZ, LLP 500 Calle De La Tanca - Suite 200 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00901 Tel.: (787) 523-2670 Fax: (787) 523-2664 rdíaz@bdslawpr.com Expido este edicto bajo mi firma y el sello de este Tribunal, hoy 27 de agosto de 2020. LCDA LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Sec Regional. CARMEN MELENDEZ HERNANDEZ, Sec Auxiliar del Tribunal I.

26

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

‘It was challenging’: Bucks return, balancing basketball and activism

By MARC STEIN

I

t is bound to be forgotten with time that the Milwaukee Bucks, determined as they were in their pursuit of social justice, merely wanted to forfeit a basketball game Wednesday. The Bucks initially believed that they could stage a one-game, spur-ofthe-moment walkout, even during the NBA playoffs, without far-reaching consequences.

No chance.

What is sure to be remembered as one of the most tumultuous weeks this league has ever seen all started with the 2019-20 Bucks refusing to emerge from their locker room to face the Orlando Magic. They are destined to be memorialized as the fed-up group that responded to a police shooting in their home state with a protest conceived minutes before a playoff game was set to tip-off. In that moment, Milwaukee unexpectedly brought the NBA’s maiden summer postseason to a sudden halt — and ultimately forced players leaguewide to decide if they wanted to keep playing or burst the league’s so-called bubble altogether.

Convinced that they should not play after Jacob Blake, a Black man, was shot several times by the police in Kenosha, Wisc., these Bucks likewise inspired a momentous wave of protests against racism and police brutality throughout North American sports.

The resulting fallout prompted NBA team owners to pledge that arenas all over the league would be used as voting sites in November.

“I think it’s great we all came to the bubble, and it’s great when we kneel together for the national anthem,” said Michael Carter-Williams of the Magic. “It’s great that we took a stand, but where’s the real action?”

Carter-Williams added admiringly: “Milwaukee pushed that needle and made it uncomfortable again. They made us realize, ‘OK, we need to do more.’”

Yet the Bucks were greeted by new demands Saturday afternoon — and they presumably felt the degree of difficulty more acutely than any of the teams still alive at Walt Disney World given the scrutiny they have invited. After all the activism, Milwaukee had to return to the basketball grind and play out the Game 5 that was ultimately postponed Wednesday.

A ragged 118-104 victory over the shorthanded Magic to finally finish this first-round series, with Orlando slicing a 17-point halftime deficit down to 3 points in the fourth quarter, made for a somewhat unconvincing

Giannis Antetokounmpo had 28 points and 17 rebounds on Saturday, but was plagued by foul trouble. send-off to the three upcoming best-of-seven rounds that await the Bucks in their pursuit of a championship.

“This group wants to do both,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said, “and fight for both.” He was referring to his team’s twin aims of using the high-profile platform provided by the NBA restart to continue combating systemic racism while staying on a path that could lead to the Bucks’ first title since the days of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson in 1971.

Of course, even with Giannis Antetokounmpo — who amassed 28 points and 17 rebounds in Saturday’s clincher — that won’t be easy.

“It was challenging,” Antetokounmpo said, referring far more to the strain of the occasion than his second-half foul trouble that helped fuel Orlando’s rally.

“I would say it was very difficult today,” said Milwaukee’s Khris Middleton, who contributed 21 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists.

Budenholzer admitted that he “actually wondered which locker room” the Bucks would be assigned. It was indeed the same converted storage room at the AdventHealth

Arena at the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex, with a maximum occupancy of 49 people, where the Bucks made the collective call Wednesday to stay inside.

“You felt something going back in there,” Budenholzer said.

All around the NBA’s campus, after an emotional 48 hours in the wake of the Bucks’ walkout, there appeared to be a renewed belief among players this weekend that they could continue campaigning effectively against systemic racism and voter suppression from within the bubble. Frustration on those fronts had been mounting even before the Blake shooting and the subsequent uproar; numerous players had complained that league-approved social justice messaging on jerseys and “Black Lives Matter” lettering on the floor were no longer resonating.

The uncomfortable basketball truth for the Bucks, though, is that they had left the impression they were having an unhappy time at Disney World long before the chaos of recent days. Antetokounmpo and Co. held the league’s best record (53-12) on March 11, when the NBA season was suspended indefinitely in response to the coronavirus outbreak, but they have scarcely looked like that

team during their eight-week stay in Florida.

While Toronto, Boston and Miami were completing impressive first-round sweeps in the East, Milwaukee stumbled to a Game 1 loss to the injury-riddled Magic, who played the entire series without Aaron Gordon (hamstring), Jonathan Isaac (knee) and Carter-Williams (foot), each having sustained their injuries in the bubble. Antetokounmpo already looked to have lost his patience more than once during the Bucks’ eight seeding games — scuffling with the Nets’ Donta Hall and earning a one-game suspension for head-butting Washington’s Moritz Wagner — and must now contend with a Heat team that is not only well-rested but appears to have adapted to the restrictive rigors of bubble life better than most.

The Magic, who were the first of 22 teams to arrive at Disney World on July 7, have spent this whole trip less than 25 miles from their Amway Center home and were able to begin leaving the bubble immediately Saturday night because of that proximity. The Bucks avoided embarrassment in this restartwithin-a-restart thanks to two key 3-pointers in the fourth quarter from substitute Marvin Williams, restoring a cushion despite the absence of a foul-plagued Antetokounmpo, but questions persist about their championship viability — especially with the Raptors, Celtics and Heat all suddenly conspiring to make the oft-lampooned East feel deeper than usual.

How much such questions even matter now, mind you, is debatable. These Bucks, no matter what happens on the court from here, have made an indelible mark on an NBA season like no other. That may not inspire much calm for the fans back in Milwaukee, who have been tracking Antetokounmpo’s future for months — amid the fervent hope in many other cities that the Greek supernova will spurn a long-term contract extension if the Bucks fail to win it all. Yet this is hardly the time to contemplate such matters.

Wesley Matthews, one of Antetokounmpo’s teammates, made that clear when he spoke at length about a conversation that the Bucks had with Blake’s family as the whirlwind of Wednesday’s walkout was taking hold.

“We didn’t need any other validation after talking to them about what we did,” Matthews said.

Antetokounmpo added: “That’s bigger than basketball to me. We’re going to remember the way we felt for the rest of our lives.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

27

Why does the WNBA #SayHerName? Ask Angel McCoughtry

By GINA MIZELL

W

henever a WNBA team steps on the floor during the 2020 season, Angel McCoughtry’s influence is there.

Each player wears Breonna Taylor’s name on the back of her jersey, an idea that came from McCoughtry. Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was shot and killed by the police while asleep in her bed in Louisville, Ky. “It’s a lot deeper than just the jersey,” said McCoughtry, who played basketball at the University of Louisville. “But I think that’s a great start.”

McCoughtry’s activism carries weight in part because of her stature as one of the WNBA’s premier players for more than a decade.

She is a five-time All-Star, two-time scoring champion, seven-time all-defensive performer and two-time Olympian. This season, the 33-year-old is reinventing herself on a new team, two years removed from major knee surgery. She is now the savvy veteran for the ultra-talented Las Vegas Aces, who are vying for a championship inside the league’s bubble in Bradenton, Fla. On Friday, after the WNBA postponed two days of games as players joined NBA players in protesting racism and police brutality, McCoughtry expressed pride in the WNBA players’ unity.

On a video conference with reporters, she said that change did not happen overnight, “but we continue to fight because it will happen.” But she also called the past few days “draining,” and added, “You guys should be drained, as well, watching this stuff and seeing this stuff over and over.”

“As an American, us as people, I’m tired of living in the most racist country in the world,” McCoughtry said. “Who wants to live in a world like that?”

McCoughtry was joined on the video conference by her Aces teammate A’ja Wilson. They are a powerful pair on the court as well; McCoughtry is the Aces’ second-leading scorer behind the All-Star Wilson, unleashing efficient-yet-explosive play on both ends of the court. McCoughtry wonders why outsiders are surprised by her successful comeback.

“What was I supposed to look like?” she said. “In my mind, all my tools were already still there. Your skills don’t leave because you have a bump in the road or because you have a knee injury.

“I’ve been through a lot, but none of that distracts me from my game.”

A few months ago, McCoughtry was still walking with a slight limp and still struggling to run, jump and move laterally while playing

overseas in Russia.

She initially tore the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in her left knee in an August 2018 game against, coincidentally, Las Vegas. Moriah Jefferson, then an Aces guard, dived for the ball off a rebound and inadvertently collided with McCoughtry’s leg.

It was McCoughtry’s first serious injury.

After missing the 2019 season, she called her doctor from Russia and was assured that her recovery was on track. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit just as she felt she was back to “smooth sailing” physically, sending her home to trade game action for park workouts as a means of strengthening her leg.

“Maybe this is a blessing in disguise,” she said she thought then.

It was a fraught time: McCoughtry was preparing to play for a new WNBA team for the first time after a decade with the Atlanta Dream. As the league’s wild free-agency period began last winter, McCoughtry said she felt “pushed out” by Atlanta. She said she had to get past the initial shock that she would not finish her career with the franchise she helped lead to three WNBA finals.

Then, she made a list of priorities for her next destination: championship contender, great coach and on-court fit.

Las Vegas coach Bill Laimbeer made his pitch to McCoughtry over dinner in Louisville. He candidly shared that the Aces would continue to be anchored by Wilson, the third-year forward who is already one of the league’s biggest stars and a front-runner for the Most Valuable Player Award this year. But Las Vegas needed a seasoned small forward who could create her own shot — and help a young group make a deep playoff run.

“They’re hungry to get there. They want it,” McCoughtry said she thought at the time.

“And I’m going to add some veteran leadership. It’s like, ‘This is the perfect place for me to be.’”

Laimbeer’s bluntness has not wavered since that first meeting, a quality McCoughtry said she had always “craved” in a coach. She said Laimbeer’s direct style most reminded her of Jeff Walz, her college coach at Louisville, and the legendary Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma, whom McCoughtry has played for with Team USA. “When she’s not engaged at the mental level or the physical level I think she should be, I will tell her in front of everybody else,” Laimbeer said.

Yet Laimbeer is also quick to praise.

The coach said McCoughtry was striking the right balance between imparting knowledge without being overbearing. She has

McCoughtry, right, has made an impact on and off the court this year. “She’s really just been someone that I can count on to just talk to,” her teammate Jackie Young said. taken a particular mentoring interest in Jackie Young, the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2019, who plays the same position and is a spark off the Aces’ bench.

“As soon as she got here, she’s really just been someone that I can count on to just talk to,” Young said. “Somebody that motivates me. Somebody that’s just been in the league for a really long time and understands the game. So any time I have any questions or if I’m getting down or just whatever it is, she’s just always there to help me.”

McCoughtry’s off-court approach with teammates is translating to games. Laimbeer compared it with last year when the Aces acquired Liz Cambage, whom he said once had a reputation, like McCoughtry, as someone who too often took over games in a way that was detrimental to the team.

Both have changed minds with their play in Las Vegas, he said.

With Las Vegas, McCoughtry is putting up the best shooting numbers of her career from the field and 3-point distance. She is still capable of swiping a steal on one end and dashing the other way for a transition layup, enhancing the Aces’ focus on consistently attacking the basket. Laimbeer’s choice to play McCoughtry in deliberate four- and five-minute bursts gives her the

freedom to play relentlessly, and helps keep her knee healthy and her body fresh.

Yet the first thing Laimbeer mentioned when asked what has most surprised him about McCoughtry’s game is that “she makes the best vision passes of anybody we have — by far.”

“Before I got her, I just thought she was an overwhelming talent,” Laimbeer said.

“But the way she sees the game and the game goes so slowly for her — which is a compliment — that’s what I didn’t know.”

But before McCoughtry was wowing the WNBA with her veteran game this season, she was having a social impact on the league. It began with a mid-July photo of her holding up an Aces jersey with Taylor’s name printed under hers. Shortly after, the WNBA’s players’ union helped organize a video conference with more than 100 participants and Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, which McCoughtry called “emotional” and “inspiring.”

McCoughtry hopes that, once it is safe to gather at sporting events again, she can invite Palmer to an Aces game.

“It’s just really an honor that our ideas are in the forefront,” McCoughtry said.

“People are listening to us and they’re coming to fruition. With this jersey idea, I feel like this is just the beginning.”

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

The pandemic’s secret formula: Backyard workouts and lots of sleep

By JERÉ LONGMAN

R

yan Crouser, the 2016 Olympic shot-put champion, expected to defend his gold medal in Tokyo this summer. He did not expect to enter bassfishing tournaments to stoke competitive fires doused by a coronavirus pandemic.

“Finished in the money three of the last four tournaments,” Crouser, 27, who lives in Fayetteville, Ark., said in a telephone interview. “Been on a bit of a hot streak. It’s helped me from going a little crazy.”

Track and field, like many other Olympic sports, lost its primary showcase with the postponement of this year’s Tokyo Games. But for many athletes, that wasn’t the worst of it. The annual international circuit for dozens of sports also were disrupted, with travel restricted and meets and competitions delayed or canceled.

Some athletes, their motivation sagging, decided to throw in the towel and resume serious training again in the fall in preparation for the Games next summer, if they happen.

But not everyone.

On July 18, after driving 10 hours to compete in one of the rare track meets held this summer, Crouser unleashed the best throw of his life — 75 feet, 2 inches, or 22.91 meters — tied for the fourth-best throw of all time.

Newly confident, Crouser said he felt it was possible to challenge the 30-yearold world record of 75 feet, 10 1/4 inches, or 23.12 meters. His attempt to do so this weekend at a meet in Des Moines, Iowa came up short. His best throw at the Drake Blue Oval Showcase was 74 feet, 6 1/2 inches, or 22.72 meters, a stadium record (all six of his throws landed well beyond 22 meters). The record is an old and suspect one, set in 1990 by an American, Randy Barnes, who in 1998 was barred from the sport for life after a second doping infraction.

Crouser is one of many athletes across sports, from track and field to swimming to baseball, who have performed as well or better than ever despite the hardships imposed by the global pandemic. They say they have channeled the frustration of forced shutdowns into opportunity, and that they feel refreshed by increased rest, less exhaustive travel, enhanced focus on training, healed injuries, creative improvisation and a less stressful perspective

Crouser stretching before a training session at a middle school in Fayetteville, Ark. about sport.

Some athletes and coaches said they had begun to reconsider their training habits, especially the value of sleep.

In a normal year, Crouser, who is 6 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs 310 pounds, would have been on the road from January to September, traveling to compete nationally and internationally. With his ability to travel all but halted by the pandemic, gyms closed, track facilities off limits and rehab therapists unavailable, Crouser mostly remained at home, ad-libbing. He said he has not missed a day of scheduled training, expanding his foundational workouts to six months from the usual six to eight weeks.

He kept waking up at the same time, and continued to eat his four meals and snacks totaling about 5,000 calories every day, as usual. He built a throwing ring out of plywood. He lifted weights in his garage. He hurled a medicine ball against the cement base of a bridge. He even did his own physical therapy, using a tennis ball, a lacrosse ball and a foam roller.

“The quarantine has been such a mental battle to stay engaged,” Crouser said.

“Training is the highlight of your day to break the monotony. That’s what’s keeping you sane.”

A Throw and a Sprint On Aug. 1, Valarie Allman, 25, set the American women’s discus record with a throw of 230 feet, 2 inches, or 70.15 meters. Remarkably, it was a 10-foot im-

provement over her personal best.

When the Olympics were postponed and other meets were canceled, Allman said, she nearly gave up on the season.

With no prize money available, she would have had to “puzzle piece” money from sponsors, training grants, her personal savings and help from her family to keep going.

“I felt lost,” she said.

But her coach, Zeb Sion, challenged Allman to reset her goals and to remain as strong and fit as possible at their training base in Austin, Texas. At the beginning of this month, Allman competed in a tiny meet in Rathdrum, Idaho. It was her first competition since last October, at the world track and field championships in Doha, Qatar. Allman had finished seventh there to conclude her first season on the professional circuit, feeling worn down from the travel and the pressure and logistics of competition.

The meet in Idaho was tiny, intimate, by comparison. Six or seven competitors, 20 or 30 spectators. No international flight required.

“I felt there were no distractions,” Allman said. “I could just focus on performance.”

After her record throw, which went viral in track and field circles for its strength, balletic grace and technique, Allman, a former dancer, faced another challenge.

She needed to be tested for performanceenhancing drugs within 24 hours for her

American record to be ratified — and to pre-empt suspicion at a time when antidoping operations have been reduced during the pandemic.

Racing the clock, Allman and her coach found an accredited doping control officer to administer the test. They drove four hours to Hermiston, Ore., where Allman produced a urine sample in a gas station restroom.

“It felt kind of sketchy,” Allman said with a laugh, “but we wanted to prove that all of our hard work had been legitimate.”

Long Trip to Record Time When the Olympics were postponed, Joshua Cheptegei, 23, of Uganda changed his goal from winning a gold medal to setting a world record in the 5,000-meter run. Locked down in his hometown, Kapchorwa, near the country’s border with Kenya, from March through May, Cheptegei said he reduced his training and got more sleep and relaxation.

In a normal year, it would usually take him 24 hours to travel from East Africa to Europe for five or six meets. This year, with the pandemic, he spent more time at home with his wife and two children, gardened at his grandparents’ home and painted the walls of a local elementary school.

“Just to keep the body awake,” he said on a Zoom call.

Once the lockdown ended, Cheptegei moved to a high-altitude training camp in Uganda. His Dutch coach, who usually traveled back and forth from the Netherlands, remained with him full time. Rested, Cheptegei was able to push himself hard in vigorous speed-training sessions.

Still, lingering international travel restrictions forced him to make an 80-hour journey to Monaco — including a flight chartered for him by Uganda’s president — for the Diamond League meet where he attempted his record-breaking run on Aug. 14.

Running metronomic laps before a small, socially distanced crowd, Cheptegei lowered the world record in the 5,000 to 12 minutes, 35.36 seconds, averaging a searing 4:03 per mile in the 3.1-mile race and erasing an obstinate mark that had stood for 16 years.

“I had a lot of rest because I couldn’t travel to competitions,” Cheptegei said. “I had the fitness to break the record, but the biggest obstacle was, how was I going to get to Monaco?”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

29

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

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

Crossword

Answers on page 30

Wordsearch

GAMES

HOROSCOPE Aries

30

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, August 31, 2020

(Mar 21-April 20)

Visiting an open market could be an enjoyable experience even if it’s very different from what you would normally expect. Don’t be surprised if you spot items that have been hard to find recently. Be ready to make a choice from a number of opportunities as there are others who would like to take advantage of an offer too.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

There are lessons to be learned from past mistakes. Apologies will be made from those in positions of power. A compensation scheme will be put in place. It may seem like an afterthought but better late than never. Progress is being made and you are seeing people who have suffered being treated with fairness.

Taurus

(April 21-May 21)

Scorpio

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

Everything that can go wrong seems to be doing so, today. If a relative or workmate offers to take over your responsibilities and you like the idea, let them. A message you receive from abroad will be a good omen for some future plans. Reaching a goal will take longer than expected but you will get there.

A friend is becoming fixated on meaningless trivialities. They are wasting your time trying to drag you into their concerns. Make an excuse and leave them to it. If a job you’re doing every day is growing monotonous, rather than be consumed by boredom, find someone else to take over these responsibilities. You have much better things to do.

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

Dwelling on the past is preventing you from making the most of opportunities now around you. If you can’t let go of resentment, pain or old hurts, this will keep you rooted in the past. If you’re watching friends celebrate their achievements and moving on, there’s a lesson to be learned somewhere.

Take advantage of any time you get to yourself to reformulate your goals. You want something different out of life and although it isn’t possible yet to start down new paths, you can start making long-term plans. For now, you must accept life the way it is but it will change and you will be ready for new opportunities.

You could use some mental stimulation but you don’t want to think of anything too serious. There’s nothing wrong with taking a break and doing something different. This might be a good time to remind yourself that all work and no play isn’t good for your health or your social life.

Following a self-improvement or spiritual development program will make you feel like a better person. If you aren’t feeling good about your appearance, instead of dwelling on minor flaws, embrace your imperfections. This is a great time to add to your wardrobe. Get a new outfit for an important meeting or interview.

Leo

Aquarius

(July 24-Aug 23)

Gather people around you as you could do with some company. If you’re worried about what someone might think about your ideas, find the courage to ask. This will give you a chance to discuss your thoughts and feelings rather than keeping it all bottled up inside. If a close relationship is showing signs of strain, find fun things to do together.

Virgo

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

Community and fundraising activities have taken up a lot of your time or a partner has been kept occupied with outside interests. It may not be easy to arrange but you want to be with your loved ones. They are missing your company too and one way or another you will find a way to be together.

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

You’re wasting your time trying to make sense of a set of instructions that haven’t been written well. Instead of going back over each step to try to work out where you have gone wrong, ask for the help of a talented friend.

Do some internet research and you will get to the bottom of a problem.

Pisces

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

Fill your life with activities you love most and notice the improvement in your mood and outlook. Relying on other people to bring you happiness can create problems in a relationship. You have the ability to find contentment all by yourself. You might start with trying to please yourself rather than please others.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

Monday, August 31, 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

Monday, August 31, 2020

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