Monday Jul 20, 2020

Monday, July 20, 2020

San Juan The

50¢

DAILY

On Some Planes, Empty Rows While Passengers Crowd Together

Star

P22

Island’s Coronavirus Reality Unmasked

COVID-19 Cases Skyrocket as Hospitals Prepare for the Worst of the Worst Physicians Association President: ‘(At This Point) Anyone Can Get COVID-19’

P5

Nearly 400 Police Officers Infected with Virus

NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 19

P4

Local Economists Suggest Use of Debt Reserve for Stimulus

P5

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

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July 20, 2020

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

Bond insurers ask court to name them co-trustees of HTA

Today’s

Weather

By THE STAR STAFF

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Wind: Humidity: UV Index: Sunrise: Sunset:

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From E 13 mph 70% 10 of 10 5:58 AM Local Time 7:02 PM Local Time

INDEX Local 3 Mainland 7 Business 11 International 13 Viewpoint 17 Noticias en Español 19 Entertainment 20 22 Travel

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everal bond insurers, headed by Ambac Assurance Corp., want the U.S. District Court to name them co-trustees of the Highway and Transportation Authority (HTA), asserting that the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico has a conflict of interest because it does not want to go after the commonwealth to stop it from pillaging the HTA. The bond insurers for some time have sought to have the stay on bankruptcy lifted to pursue claims against the HTA, whose tolls and taxes pay for the bonds. To finance infrastructure, the HTA was assigned its own revenue streams, including toll revenues and excise taxes, which HTA then pledged as security so that it could issue HTA bonds.

The bond insurers say the commonwealth has diverted HTA revenue to the commonwealth coffers and rendered it insolvent. The bond insurers want the court to declare them co-trustees so they can pursue avoidance actions against the commonwealth, something the oversight board has refused to do.

U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain put the matter on the schedule, telling stakeholders to file papers opposing the bond insurers’ request by July 22. She said she will decide on the matter upon submission for the time being.

Meanwhile, the oversight board recently filed answers and counterclaims to five lawsuits the Puerto Rico government had filed against the board related to laws that were enacted in violation of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA).

Of the laws it challenged, the board announced that it no longer opposes Law 90-2019, which sets a price floor for Medicare Advantage reimbursements so that service providers do not receive a rate lower than the amount established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for applicable services.

“The Oversight Board initially believed that Law 90 would impact the Government’s health expenditures,” the oversight board said in a statement. “It is now the Oversight Board’s understanding that the Government is not seeking to increase expenditures and therefore no longer opposes the implementation of Law 90.”

For the remaining laws, the oversight board said the government violated PROMESA Section 204, which requires the governor to submit to the oversight board new legislation within seven business days of its enactment, and to include a formal estimate of the law’s impact on the commonwealth’s expenditures and revenues, and a certification of whether the law is or is not “significantly inconsistent” with the certified Fiscal Plan.

The island government failed to fully comply with those legal obligations when it enacted and implemented five laws in 2019 and 2020 that are significantly inconsistent with the certified Fiscal Plan, the oversight board said.

“The Oversight Board has tried to work with the Government to resolve these issues, and, in some cases, engaged for a period of months to understand how these laws affect the

certified Fiscal Plan and budget,” said the oversight board’s executive director, Natalie Jaresko. “Instead of collaborating with the Oversight Board as PROMESA requires, the Government decided to go to court.”

The laws that the oversight board said violated PROMESA were Law 82-2019, which prevents pharmacy benefit managers from controlling costs of prescription drugs, causing an increase in the prices of prescription drugs that will ultimately be borne by the commonwealth.

In its counterclaims, the oversight board challenged the law on several grounds, including that the law is significantly inconsistent with the Fiscal Plan, and the government’s approximate estimate of the impact of Law 82 is contrary to the Health Insurance Administration’s public testimony and includes no corresponding savings or make-up action.

The oversight board also challenged Law 138-2019 on the grounds that it forces public health insurance companies such as managed care organizations (MCOs) to accept higher priced providers into their network, the cost of which will ultimately be borne by the commonwealth.

In its counterclaims, the oversight board said the law is significantly inconsistent with the Fiscal Plan and that it will inhibit MCOs’ ability to control costs.

The board also challenged Law 176-2019, arguing that it increases available vacation days and sick days for public employees, making the commonwealth’s workforce less efficient and/or forcing the commonwealth to hire more employees.

In its counterclaims, the oversight board said Law 176 forces the commonwealth to choose between increasing the number of employees on its payroll or providing the people of Puerto Rico with fewer essential services.

The oversight board noted that Law 181-2019 provides for a salary increase to firefighters amounting to almost $3 million per year, without certainty of available resources to fund this increase.

The board also invalidated Law 47-2020 which expands the group of health professionals eligible for tax benefits under the Puerto Rico Incentives Code. In its counterclaims, the oversight board said the new law lacked even the barest specificity needed for a formal estimate of Law 47’s impact on expenditures and revenues, as PROMESA requires.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

Physicians Association president: ‘This just got worse; (at this point) anyone can get COVID-19’

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

A

s the island Health Department reported an astonishing and downright scary number of COVID-19 cases on Sunday, Puerto Rico’s medical community is bracing itself as the continuous increase of positive cases is leading to more hospitalizations, which could lead to more casualties and a possible collapse of the public health system.

The Health Department reported 325 confirmed and 255 probable cases of COVID-19 early Sunday, numbers that are changing by the minute.

Puerto Rico Physicians and Surgeons Association President VÍctor Ramos said the recent positive case rises did not come as a surprise as the tests dated back to around the Fourth of July weekend, when citizens flocked to local beaches and family events to celebrate the holiday without complying with guidelines for either physical distancing or the use of face masks.

However, Ramos said people, especially those around 20 to 29 years old, must understand that the disease caused by the coronavirus is a serious matter and they need to protect themselves and their loved ones.

“This just got worse; anyone can get COVID-19, anyone can die from this. There are people who are more vulnerable than others, but anyone, including young and healthy people, could get sick,” Ramos said. “We have seen people who were 29, 27, 26, even 13 years old, associated with this disease. Most of our recent infection cases were from people who are 20 to 29 years old. They believe that they will never get COVID-19; they think they are immortal.”

The pediatrician raised concerns as the pressure in hospitals builds up due to an increase in patients with symptoms related to COVID-19 and patients with decompensated chronic diseases who have been without the needed medical attention since March.

“Both sorts of patients are arriving simultaneously at hospitals, and there is pressure building in hospitals outside the metropolitan area, as this area holds more hospitals than any other sector in Puerto Rico,” Ramos said. “We already have hospitals that are quite full in the northern and western regions. We have to keep an eye on how this situation behaves in the coming days.”

When The Star asked for the surgeon’s opinion on the COVID-19 Citizens Task Force demanding that Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced amend the recent executive order with stricter rules, such as implementing the Dry Law across the island, recommending emergency-based resources to control travelers’ flow from airports, shutting down all businesses on Sunday except essential services and reverting churches to remote services, he said the rules implemented on Friday were more than enough; however, citizens must cooperate and the government should take charge in enforcing compliance with the restrictions.

“Citizens should follow rules, social distancing, using face masks that cover both nose and mouth properly, washing your hands; it’s not complicated what we are asking people to do,” Ramos said. “The recent Executive Order addressed two concerns: delaying tourism back to August 15, although we have to see how the Health Department’s protocol works as it is a novel process, and controlling alcoholic beverage sales, as many of the cases, once we traced them, were due to travelers’ activities and private

or family events that involved alcohol consumption.”

Ramos added that he is opposed to limiting businesses’ hours of operation. He pointed out that if businesses operate for fewer hours, there is a higher chance of more crowding.

“The main issue we had during the weekend was not that these businesses were open, it was the [size] of crowds of people who came by to consume especially alcoholic beverages,” Ramos said. “When the order stated the shutting down of casinos, gyms, and other non-essential services, it’s not that they didn’t comply with safety measures, it’s that we are on a positive case spike and there is no reason for these businesses to be open [at this time].”

When it came to the safety of healthcare workers in the midst of the situation, the doctor told The Star that with more positive cases, there is a higher chance for them to be infected. He said the numbers of medical workers with COVID-19 plateaued at 31 cases for the past two months.

At press time, that number had gone up to 43, including two fatalities and a third patient on a ventilator.

“With more COVID-19 cases, the quantity of personal protective equipment available in the medical field is reduced, which becomes an issue since everyone fighting against this virus needs it,” Ramos said. “You could order some, but the gear might be put on backorder.”

Puerto Rico Hospitals Association President Jaime Plá said meanwhile that since the pandemic began in Puerto Rico, hospitals have been preparing and making the necessary adjustments to safeguard the health of employees, patients and visitors. He said hospitals have enabled isolation areas in order to attend to possible COVID-19 patients safely. Plá noted that, at press time, there were 315 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 infection, which represents 4 percent of hospital capacity.

“Hospitals have been able to educate and prepare themselves, and, as of today, [they] are more prepared to attend to COVID-19 patients specifically that they could not attend before,” Plá said. “Hospitals can handle more cases before there is a real and direct emergency.

Obviously, the preparation that we must address has to do with when the intensive care unit beds are depleted

or if the available ventilators are depleted. But we have around 800 ventilators available for use; we could have 800 patients on ventilators and we still would meet their needs, although we recognize that we do not want to reach that quantity.”

However, Puerto Rico Medical Services Administration (ASEM by its Spanish acronym) Executive Director Jorge Matta González said the ASEM hospital on Friday received patients in its emergency room for whom the hospitals of origin did not relay notification that they had tested positive for COVID-19. Matta González said that, at that moment, they worked on transferring those patients from the emergency room to the Medical Center’s University Hospital for Adults (UDH by its Spanish initials), where the majority of COVID-19 patients are being admitted.

“Receiving a COVID-19 patient requires activating our protocols, which include, among other things, making sure that we have rooms available and that our personnel is duly prepared to provide the required attention,” Matta González said. “It is because of this that transfers from other hospitals should be organized, well reported, and follow every rule to ensure that both the patients and the health professionals are safe while serving and receiving any other case.”

The ASEM chief said that after resolving the issue, they had around four rooms available at their emergency room to accommodate any patient who needed one. Likewise, he said the hospital is capable of helping and serving seven patients who are suspicious or positive for COVID-19 in an isolation room. Meanwhile they installed two carps with exterior negative pressure that can maximize their capacity.

“Actually, the UDH, which is the institution that admits most patients from the Medical Center, relies on 16 negative pressure rooms that are available at this moment,” Matta González said. “In addition, if the hospital anticipates an increase of patients in the next few days, we have instructed them on using two negative pressure areas that can have up to 30 patients each. The units will be ready once it is necessary to admit patients in these areas, which will expand our hospital services considerably.”

At the moment, Matta González said, the Health Department is investigating the event and urged every citizen to not lower their guard, to maintain social distancing, and to use their face masks.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

5

Close to 400 police agents in quarantine after Coronavirus exposure

By THE STAR STAFF

P

uerto Rico Police Bureau (NPPR by its Spanish initials) Commissioner Henry Escalera Rivera on Sunday announced updated data on the status of COVID-19 cases in police stations and personnel.

At press time Sunday, seven police stations and work units were closed as pre-emptive measures, Escalera Rivera said in a written statement.

They were the following: San Juan Athletic League Division, San Juan Community Relations Office, Cybernetic Crimes Division, Legal Affairs Division, Guayama District Police Station, Bayamón North Police Station, and San Juan Precinct Police Station.

In total, 379 agents are isolated as a pre-emptive measure. Since the emergency began, 2,301 agents have reincorporated to their workplace. Recently, 23 agents have reported positive COVID-19 results test results, according to tests ordered and certified by NPPR physician María del Carmen Calderón.

The following is a breakdown of positive cases as of last Friday, July 17: Ponce Aerial Unit 1, Airport 1, Caimito 1, Aguadilla CIC 1, Carolina CIC 1, Fajardo CIC 1, Ponce Command 1, Comerío 1, Culebra 1, Caguas District 1, FURA 2 (includes SWAT), Humacao 1, Legal Affairs Office 1, Guayama Highway Patrol 1, San Juan Community Relations 5, Yabucoa 1 and Yauco 2.

The NPPR commissioner said agents assigned to the affected neighborhood police stations have been

designated to reinforce the preventive patrol and handle complaints that are being reported.

“Since the beginning of the emergency, we have taken the necessary measures so that our personnel have the required protection equipment, including face masks, gloves and disinfecting solution,” Escalera

said. “We are working on a decontamination and deepcleaning procedure in all of the closed police stations and work units to safeguard our colleagues’ health.

Once the medical team certifies that our personnel can resume work, the reopening of the police stations will be announced.”

Economists urge oversight board to use reserve fund for stimulus package

By THE STAR STAFF

E

conomists Association President Heriberto Martínez urged the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico on Sunday to use money from the debt reserve to create a local economic stimulus package amid the new round of closings ordered by the governor last week.

“We urge the governor and the Board to use this fund to inject liquidity into families and businesses” Martínez said.

“If that is not done, we will not be able to tolerate any more restrictions.”

Total non-farm salaried employment in Puerto Rico was 781,900 in May of this year compared to 877,300 in May 2019, a reduction of 95,400 -- an almost 11 percent decline -- according to the most recent statistics from the island Institute of Statistics.

Preliminary numbers for June, which is when the government reopened the economy after shutting down all non-

essential businesses on March 15, show employment numbers going up slightly to 803,500 people, but that was still an 8 percent reduction from the same month last year, according to the U.S. Labor Department. However, the government ordered the closing of casinos, bars and gymnasiums last week. It also ordered restaurants to operate at 50 percent capacity. No alcoholic beverages or alcohol purchases can be made after 7 p.m.

The governor’s actions, experts said, would bring the total number of unemployed back up and weaken the economy.

The head of the United Retailers Association, Jorge Arguelles, criticized the governor for reversing economic advances.

“The environment inside a chinchorro is not the same as a restaurant or hotel,” he said. “It is unfair for restaurants to not be able to serve alcohol. At 7 p.m. is when people go to have dinner and alcohol sales are the lion’s share of their sales.”

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Monday, July 20, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Resident commissioner complains about transfer of federal inmates to Guaynabo Detention Center

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

R

esident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón has sent a letter to several federal officials over the transfer of some inmates from the mainland United States to the Guaynabo Metropolitan Detention Center, where at the moment officials report that 10 detainees have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

“I join the serious concerns of federal officials on the island who were appointed by the President and confirmed by the United States Senate,” Gonzalez Colón said in a written statement. “These are the representatives of the highest-ranking Federal Judicial and Executive Branch in Puerto Rico; however, this fact was not taken into account to consult on the transfer of prisoners to the island, hindering the COVID-19 control plans in the prisons that have been shown to be successful.”

González Colón sent letters to United States Attorney General William Barr, the director of the Bureau of Prisons,

Michael Carvajal, and the director of the U.S. Marshals, Donald Washington.

In the letter, the congresswoman expressed her concern about the transfer of 54 inmates to the Guaynabo Detention Center, despite the objection of federal officials in Puerto Rico to the chief judge of the United States District Court, Gustavo Gelpí, the head of the federal prosecutor’s office in Puerto Rico, W. Stephen Muldrow, and the United States Sheriff for the District of Puerto Rico, Wilmer Ocasio.

González Colón said that due to this situation, federal bailiffs and Detention Center employees were sent into isolation in their residences because of contact with infected inmates.

“This directly affects the aggressive pandemic control plan that the local authorities had developed on the island, achieving zero contagion in the Detention Center,” the resident commissioner said. “There were no court orders to bring federal prisoners to Puerto Rico since all sentencing procedures are currently carried out by videoconference, as authorized by Congress in the CARES [Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic

Security] Act. Furthermore, the United States District Court has been closed by order of the Chief Judge since the end of March and will not reopen for in-person criminal hearings until at least September 7.”

DNER clarifies aquatic recreation rules in latest executive order

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

N

atural and Environmental Resources (DRNA by its Spanish initials) Secretary Rafael Machargo Maldonado issued Administrative Order 2020-07J and 2020-06B, over the weekend to clarify and update the extent of Executive Order 2020-054 on marine concessionaires and aquatic recreational activities in Puerto Rico.

“According to the most recent Executive Order issued by the Governor, aquatic recreational activities will be allowed while maintaining certain controls to protect the health and safety of citizens,” Machargo Maldonado said. “However, to clarify certain doubts regarding the Executive Order, we have prepared communications that specify in detail what is allowed in the marinas and the aquatic recreational activities that can be conducted.”

With regard to marinas, the executive order issued late last week by Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced established that their operation is allowed seven days a week from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m.; however, activities in common areas are prohibited. The use of marinas by vessels related to commercial fishing registered in Puerto Rico is allowed as it is part of the food production chain.

The following is a summary of the highlights of Administrative Order 2020-07J: * The entry and exit of boats from island marinas for recreational purposes is prohibited. * The agglomeration of people is not allowed in the facilities of the marinas and social distancing and the use of masks must be maintained at all times. * Recreational fishing, tournaments and marine events are prohibited. * The use of marinas is permitted for government vessels, contractors or scientific research. * The prohibition on the entry of vessels from other jurisdictions than that of Puerto Rico remains in force, with the exceptions being in emergency circumstances that endanger the lives of the crew, and that have the proper authorizations. * In emergency circumstances that endanger the lives of the crew or activity directly linked to the safety of the vessels, foreign vessels or those from ports outside Puerto Rico will be accepted with the authorization, coordination and prior instruction of the DRNA, U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Customs in the following four marinas: Club Náutico de San Juan, Marina Pescadería Puerto Real in Cabo Rojo, Club Náutico in Guayama and Marina Puerto del Rey in Fajardo. * All types of boat repair and maintenance work, the opening of boat parts stores, retail stores and restaurants within the marinas will be allowed following the prevention protocols.

The following is a summary of the most outstanding points of the Administrative Order 2020-06B (aquatic recreational activities): * Aquatic recreation activities will be allowed seven (7) days a week from 5 a.m. until 7 p.m. * The opening of beaches, protected natural areas and spas administered under the DRNA is authorized for the purpose of exercising or sports practices. * The hours of the DRNA spas are from Wednesday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. On Mondays and Tuesdays they are closed for maintenance. * The hours of the natural areas are from Wednesday to

Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. However, the following areas will remain closed: Guajataca Reservoir Wildlife Refuge, Lucchetti Reservoir Wildlife Refuge, Lucchetti Wildlife Refuge, La Plata Reservoir Wildlife Refuge, Cerrillos Reservoir Wildlife Refuge and Laguna de Tortuguero Natural Reserve * The PPN spas will operate with 50 percent of their entrance capacity.

Crowding is prohibited, either on the beach or shore, as well as in the water. At the end of your activity, you must leave the site immediately.

The following aquatic activities are allowed, provided they are carried out using the method of immediate entry and exit of the water, without stopping (“keep moving”), off the beach or shore and maintaining social distance in the water: * Snorkeling and diving (accessing by the shore) * Rowing: kayak, paddleboard and canoe * Surfing in all its modalities (surfing, shore surfing, boogie boarding) * Windsurfing, sunfish and Hobie Cat (accessing by the shore) * Walking, running, jogging, calisthenics * Bird watching * And any sport allowed by the Department of Recreation and Sports in its Internal Memo No. 2020-06ª, of July 17, 2020.

Failure by concessionaires, or citizens who wish to enjoy aquatic recreational activities with the provisions herein will be sufficient cause for the imposition of an administrative fine and the suspension or revocation of the concession, if applicable.

“We urge all sea craft, commercial fishermen and the general public to follow the guidelines given in these communications, which are immediately effective and must be strictly followed,” Machargo Maldonado added.

Failure to comply with the provisions of the administrative orders by concessionaires or citizens will be sufficient cause for the imposition of an administrative fine and the suspension or revocation of the concession, if applicable.

For more information, access the DRNA website or any of the agency’s official social networks for more information.

Likewise, any questions or concerns can be directed via email to: ayudaciudadano@drna.pr.gov.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

7

‘They didn’t just love him. They knew him.’ Atlanta activists mourn John Lewis.

By RICK ROJAS

B

y the time the Rev. James Woodall came to know John Lewis, Lewis was already a longtime congressman and a towering figure in the civil rights movement, one whose legacy loomed large over Atlanta.

At 26, Woodall is one of the youngest leaders in the NAACP, serving as the president for the organization in Georgia. Despite the more than half a century that separated them, Woodall said he identified with Lewis as an inspirational leader who at a very young age worked to change the world.

The fight that Lewis led, Woodall said, was now his.

“I have been a student of his work from the seventh grade,” said Woodall, who grew up just outside of Atlanta.

“He really was not OK with waiting for justice, he was not OK with incremental changes to a system that, in many regards, wanted him dead.”

Lewis, who died Friday at the age of 80, had long served as a kind of connective tissue, linking the lions of the civil rights movement to the new generation of activists in the city who stood on their shoulders. He was one of the few remaining leaders from that era, and his death has left many in Atlanta wrestling with what feels like a gaping void even as they try and push forward his ideals.

“The most humble of heroes, the most brave of giants,” Keisha Lance Bottoms, Atlanta’s mayor, said in a remembrance she posted on Twitter, adding, “He was my Congressman and my best example of true servant leadership.”

Lewis’ death has also added a layer of anguish to the turmoil that has rankled Atlanta for months. Protests broke out in the city, as in the rest of the country, after George Floyd died in the custody of the Minneapolis police in May, and the unrest intensified after Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old Black man, was fatally shot by the Atlanta police in June.

During these protests, a contingent of younger activists has emerged that is generations removed from the efforts of the past but still contending with the same struggles that their parents and grandparents faced.

In Lewis, they saw a kindred spirit. He had been the youngest of the major figures in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He was just 23 when he gave one of the most fiery speeches at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. (Others in his cohort pleaded with him to soften some of the most heated language in his speech.)

He moved to Atlanta in 1963 to become chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and made the city his home.

“He was never condescending or shaming toward younger people and their choice of actions, the way they decided to protest, what they were protesting,” said Jasmine Amussen, an editor of Burnaway, a magazine focused on arts and activism in the South.

“It was very reassuring and loving,” she added. “It

John Lewis, who died on Friday at the age of 80, had long served as a kind of connective tissue, linking the lions of the civil rights movement to the new generation of activists in the city who stood on their shoulders. almost feels like, I don’t know.” She paused as her voice broke. “This is a really tough time for this city.”

In Atlanta, Lewis has been given the kind of tributes reserved for the most prominent people in the city’s history: His face fills a 65-foot mural on the side of a downtown building declaring him a hero, and across the interstate, a busy thoroughfare was named the John Lewis Freedom Parkway in 2018. An exhibit showcasing his life and work greets visitors at Atlanta’s international airport.

Yet many in Atlanta became accustomed to seeing him in the flesh — shopping for produce and shaking hands at the Publix supermarket on Cascade Road and stopping in at Mary Mac’s Tea Room. (When Jo Carter, its longtime server and an Atlanta institution in her own right, retired in 2017, he was at the party.) Clerks at department stores would tip him off when suits were going on sale; he had a limited budget as a public servant, aides said, but he was also thrilled by a bargain.

Andrew Aydin, who worked as a policy adviser and digital director for Lewis, remembered him trying to place an order in a Burger King drive-thru. “The lady, through the speaker, said, “‘Is that you, John Lewis?’” Aydin recalled.

“I think that’s what people misunderstand,” he added.

“They see the icon, but they didn’t just love him. They knew him. This wasn’t a guy hanging out at the Commerce

Club. He was out in the streets. He was eating in the same place as everyone else.”

Atlanta had a preview of its pain now a week ago, when false reports circulated that he had died, spurring mournful social media posts and tributes before his office clarified that he was still alive.

When his death was announced late Friday, it came as many in the city were grieving the Rev. C.T. Vivian, another pioneering figure and associate of Martin Luther King Jr., who also died in Atlanta.

The Rev. Bernice King, the youngest daughter of King, posted photographs of both men on Twitter, saying: “Elders, now ancestors. Hallelujah.”

They were part of a generation that molded Atlanta as it grew into what has come to be regarded as a “Black mecca,” a capital for culture and commerce, home to some of the most prestigious Black colleges and universities. African Americans gravitated to the city from across the South, drawn by a chance for upward mobility and a sense that the racial hostility that was onerous in so much of the region was less prevalent.

“That gave the Atlanta movement a very special kind of flavor and power, and a capacity to try and produce social change,” said Barry Lee, a longtime history professor at Morehouse College.

8

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

Who were the Freedom Riders?

By DERRICK BRYSON TAYLOR

R

ep. John Lewis, who died Friday at age 80, was an imposing figure in U.S. politics and the civil rights movement.

But his legacy of confronting racism directly, while never swaying from his commitment to nonviolence, started long before he became a national figure.

Lewis, a Georgia Democrat, was among the original 13 Freedom Riders who rode buses across the South in 1961 to challenge segregation in public transportation. The riders were attacked and beaten, and one of their buses was firebombed, but the rides changed the way people traveled and set the stage for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Q: How did the Freedom Rides start?

A: In 1947, the Congress of Racial Equality, known as CORE, created a “Journey of Reconciliation” to draw attention to racial segregation in public transportation in Southern cities and states across the United States. That movement was only moderately successful, but it led to the Freedom Rides of 1961, which forever changed the way Americans traveled between states.

The Freedom Rides, which began in May 1961 and ended late that year, were organized

by CORE’s national director, James Farmer. The mission of the rides was to test compliance with two Supreme Court rulings: Boynton v. Virginia, which declared that segregated bathrooms, waiting rooms and lunch counters were unconstitutional, and Morgan v. Virginia, in which the court ruled that it was unconstitutional to implement and enforce segregation on interstate buses and trains. The Freedom Rides took place as the Civil Rights movement was gathering momentum and during a period in which African Americans were routinely harassed and subjected to segregation in the Jim Crow South.

Q: Who were the first 13 Freedom Riders?

A: The original Freedom Riders were 13 Black and white men and women of various ages from across the U.S. Raymond Arsenault, a Civil Rights historian and author of “Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice,” said CORE had advertised for participants and asked for applications. “They wanted a geographic distribution and age distribution,” he said.

Among those chosen were the Rev. Benjamin Elton Cox, a minister from High Point, North Carolina; and Charles Person of Atlanta, then a freshman at Morehouse College in Atlanta,

who was the youngest of the group at 18. “They had anti-nuclear activists; they had a husbandand-wife team from Michigan,” Arsenault said of the diverse group of participants.

Lewis, then 21, represented the Nashville, Tennessee, movement, which staged demon-

strations at department stores and sit-ins at lunch counters. But Lewis nearly missed his opportunity, according to his 1998 autobiography, “Walking With the Wind.” After receiving his bus ticket to Washington, D.C., from CORE, Lewis was driven to the bus station by

In a photo provided by Mississippi Department of Archives and History, in Jackson, Miss., hundreds of Freedom Riders were arrested and convicted of breach of peace, including John Lewis, upper left; Ralph Abernathy, middle row, second from right; and Stokely Carmichael, bottom row, second from left.

two friends, James Bevel and Bernard Lafayette.

He arrived to find that his scheduled bus had already departed. “We threw my bag back in Bevel’s car, floored it east and caught up in Murfreesboro,” Lewis said.

Q: What was the first ride like?

A: On May 4, 1961, the first crew of 13 Freedom Riders left Washington for New Orleans in two buses.The group encountered some resistance in Virginia, but they didn’t encounter violence until they arrived in Rock Hill, South Carolina. At the bus station there, Lewis and another rider were beaten, and a third person was arrested after using a whites-only restroom.

When they reached Anniston, Alabama, on May 14, Mother’s Day, they were met by an angry mob. Local officials had given the Ku Klux Klan permission to attack the riders without consequences. The first bus was firebombed outside Anniston while the mob held the door closed. The passengers were beaten as they fled the burning bus.

When the second bus reached Anniston, eight Klansmen boarded it and attacked and beat the Freedom Riders. The bus managed to continue on to Birmingham, Alabama, where the passengers were again attacked at a bus terminal, this time with baseball bats, iron pipes and bicycle chains.

At one point during the rides, Lewis and others were attacked by a mob of white people in Montgomery, Alabama, and he was left unconscious in a pool of his own blood outside the Greyhound Bus Terminal. He was jailed several times and spent a month in Mississippi’s notorious Parchman Penitentiary.

The attacks received widespread attention in the news media, but they pushed Farmer to end the initial campaign. The Freedom Riders finished their journey to New Orleans by plane.

Many more Freedom Rides followed over the next several months. Ultimately, 436 riders participated in more than 60 Freedom Rides, Arsenault said.

Q: Were the rides a success?

A: Yes. On May 29, 1961, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission to ban to segregation in interstate bus travel, according to PBS. The order, which was issued on Sept. 22 and went into effect on Nov. 1, led to the removal of Jim Crow signs from stations, waiting rooms, water fountains and restrooms in bus terminals.

Three years later, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended segregation in public spaces across the U.S.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

9

Trump administration balks at funding for testing and CDC

By EMILY COCHRANE

T

he Trump administration has balked at providing billions of dollars to fund coronavirus testing and shore up federal health agencies as the virus surges across the country, complicating efforts to reach agreement on the next round of pandemic aid.

Senate Republicans had drafted a proposal that would allocate $25 billion in grants to states for conducting testing and contact tracing, as well as about $10 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and about $15 billion for the National Institutes of Health, according to a person familiar with the tentative plans, who cautioned that the final dollar figures remained in flux. They had also proposed providing $5.5 billion to the State Department and $20 billion to the Pentagon to help counter the virus outbreak and potentially distribute a vaccine at home and abroad.

But in talks over the weekend, administration officials instead pushed to zero out the funding for testing and for the nation’s top health agencies, and to cut the Pentagon funding to $5 billion, according to another person familiar with the discussions. The people asked for anonymity to disclose private details of the talks, which were first reported by The Washington Post.

The suggestions from the administration infuriated several Republicans on Capitol Hill, who saw them as tone deaf, given that more than 3.7 million people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and many states are experiencing spikes in cases.

Although few, if any, of the administration’s proposals are likely to be accepted by Senate Republicans, the disconnect reflects a deep rift between lawmakers who have come to see approving another robust coronavirus relief package as a public health and political imperative and a White House that has been reluctant to follow the lead of the CDC or to assume responsibility for implementing a rigorous testing program across the country.

With unemployment benefits and a number of other aid measures included in the stimulus package set to expire at the end of the month, Congress is rushing to pull together the measure within the next two weeks.

The administration’s position presents an added complication to negotiations between Democrats, who are pressing for a more expansive aid bill, and Republicans, who hope to unveil a narrower opening offer for coronavirus relief as early as this week.

The White House declined to comment, and a spokesman for the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

After approving more than $3 trillion in economic relief over the last four months, the package to be considered this month is expected to be the last sweeping coronavirus relief legislation that Congress will consider before the November election.

Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, are expected to take the lead on negotiations for the White House.

Even though Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, is moving to introduce his own measure as early as this week, some Republicans remain skeptical that another coronavirus package is even needed, arguing that some of the aid approved in the stimulus law enacted in March has yet to be spent.

Both parties remain far apart on a number of critical policy areas, including whether to maintain expanded unemployment insurance benefits, which include an additional $600 per week. Democrats have said they will accept no less than the $3 trillion proposal House Democrats pushed through their chamber in May, while Republicans are eyeing closer to $1 trillion in new spending and aim to prioritize “kids, jobs, health care and liability protection,” according to McConnell.

But the suggestions from the administration, according to two officials familiar with them, also included funding priorities unrelated to the spread

of the coronavirus, including constructing a new building for the FBI, a longtime priority for President Donald Trump.

The administration also suggested eliminating a proposed $2 billion allocated to the Indian Health Service, which is responsible for providing medical care to more than half of the nation’s tribal citizens and Alaska Natives, who have been devastated by the pandemic and are particularly vulnerable to the virus.

Left relatively unscathed, according to one official, was nearly $3 billion set aside for the Department of Homeland Security and close to $17 billion proposed for agriculture programs. Some senators are pushing to allocate even more aid for farmers and agriculture programs.

A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Saturday that discussions were just beginning and that the White House’s team remained committed to ensuring “appropriate levels across all agencies to address this crisis.”

Led by Trump, the White House has also pushed for the inclusion of a payroll tax cut and tax deductions for dining and entertainment expenses, although members of both parties have been cool to the idea.

It is unclear whether administration officials were continuing to push for such provisions in the opening proposal from Senate Republicans.

Wisconsin National Guard personnel at a drive-through testing site in Milwaukee yesterday.

10

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

For families of 9/11 victims, virus further slows the pace of justice

By CAROL ROSENBERG

T

erry Strada breathed a sigh of relief last summer when a military judge finally set a date to begin the death penalty trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other men accused of planning the attacks that killed her husband and 2,975 other people on Sept. 11.

So did Joel Shapiro, whose wife was killed in the World Trade Center; Ken Fairben, who lost his son there; and the family members of other victims who have attended the slow-moving pretrial proceedings at the war crimes court at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and had been counting on the trial to begin early next year.

Now the coronavirus pandemic has dashed those hopes. With the proceedings halted for now, there is a real possibility that the trial will not even have begun on the 20th anniversary of the attacks 14 months from now.

“The calamity of COVID is definitely disrupting our personal lives and our hopes for this trial to come to fruition,” said Strada, whose husband, Tom Strada, a bond broker, was killed at the twin towers. “We were very hopeful back then. It’s hard to have something taken away from you that you were really counting on. And that is a shame, just a crying shame.”

Jury trials across the country have been put on hold as courts struggle with how to safely assemble a judge, witnesses, victims,

lawyers and defendant during a pandemic before a reliable vaccine is developed and distributed. The challenge is especially great at Guantánamo because all the participants in the trial except the prisoners have to travel there from across the country, flying in together from Washington, D.C., aboard a military charter airplane.

Guantánamo is under Defense Department travel restrictions, including a twoweek quarantine for new arrivals, which have so far forced cancellation of nine weeks of pretrial hearings needed to resolve key preliminary issues before a jury of military officers can be chosen.

Last month, the office of the war crimes prosecutor notified families who signed up to go to hearings and represent the victims that “until this health threat has passed,” they would not be permitted to travel to the proceedings.

“The virus? It’s just another obstacle thrown in our way,” said Fairben, 71, a former fire chief in Floral Park, Long Island, whose 24-year-old son, Keith Fairben, was killed at the World Trade Center while working as a paramedic for NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

“I don’t see anything happening until after the first of the year. And even that is wishful thinking,” he said, anticipating new outbreaks of the virus. “The medical community I’m involved with, the rescue company, hospital people, they honestly have a thought that in

Camp Justice at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, April 17, 2019. Jury trials across the country have been put on hold as courts struggle with how to safely assemble a judge, witnesses, victims, lawyers and defendant during a pandemic before a reliable vaccine is developed and distributed.

the fall it’s going to rear its ugly head again and it’s going to flourish.”

Compounding the problem, the case needs a new judge. Col. W. Shane Cohen, the judge who scheduled jury selection to start Jan. 11, 2021, abruptly announced his retirement from the Air Force on March 17, days after the World Health Organization declared the rapidly spreading virus a pandemic.

The health crisis has disrupted the assignments and training of American military judges across the globe. So the chief of the war court judiciary has been supervising the case administratively from Fort Hood, Texas, casting further doubt on when the trial might start.

Shapiro, 72, whose wife, Sareve Dukat, 53, was killed at the World Trade Center, said the timetable for an early 2021 start to the trial “feels like it was a tease.”

He worked as a volunteer at the Sept. 11 memorial and museum in Manhattan until the pandemic closed the site. “Sept. 11 basically has been marginalized in the public imagination,” he said.

For some family members of those who died on Sept. 11, the response to the virus has stirred painful reminders of the attacks by 19 hijackers who crashed four passenger planes in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon. Then, as now, rescue workers selflessly put themselves in harm’s way, refrigerator trucks served as overflow morgues in New York City, and grieving families held incomplete funerals.

Glenn Morgan, 57, of Belmont, Massachusetts, whose father, Richard Morgan, was killed in the collapse of the World Trade Center, likened the magnitude of death brought by the virus to “40 moving 9/11s rolling across the country like a dirty cloud.”

“It is viscerally impacting everyone,” he said.

The current Sept. 11 case began in May 2012 with the arraignment of Mohammed, his nephew and three other men who, before their transfer to Guantánamo, had spent years in clandestine CIA prisons where detainees were tortured.

Eight years later, hearings continue to consider questions about evidence, witnesses and the application of the Constitution before the trial begins. The now-stalled timetable of pretrial hearings requires frequent shuttles, with participants going to a classified courtroom in Guantánamo several weeks a month for extensive testimony by health experts, former CIA contractors and FBI interrogators, in both open and closed national security sessions.

For selection of the 12-member jury, in addition to alternates, planners envisioned shuttling about four dozen military officers at a time to the base from assignments across the globe. The last judge predicted the trial would last at least a year, including recesses that would let participants leave the base and return, and involve weekly shuttles to switch out staff, observers, family members and reporters.

The problem for now is how to resume pretrial hearings. The base, which has 6,000 residents, has a small hospital, no capacity to conduct widespread testing of the virus in real time and an information blackout on how many people have contracted the virus since the military disclosed the first two cases in the spring.

Under the current proposal, a plane of at least 100 court participants would arrive at Guantánamo more than two weeks before a hearing begins, and passengers would individually quarantine for 14 days.

So far, the chief judge and another in the case of a prisoner accused of orchestrating alQaida’s 2000 bombing of the Cole warship, both Army colonels, have canceled hearings that had been scheduled before the pandemic. One called the logistics of the quarantine and other restrictions “unduly burdensome.”

The other called them “impracticable.”

Terry Kay Rockefeller, whose sister, Laura Rockefeller, was killed Sept. 11 at a conference at Windows on the World, has gone to Guantánamo eight times as an observer and questions how the Pentagon can safely move a planeload of court participants to two weeks of quarantine on a base with limited guest housing and health care.

“Every single team has people in the high-risk category just by age alone,” said Rockefeller, 70, of Boston. “Experienced lawyers on the defense as well as the prosecution are at significant risk if they can contract the disease.”

Unlike others, she said she never counted on the trial beginning by the 20th anniversary of the attack. She is a member of the anti-war group September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, which supports resolving the case through a negotiated plea. That means the maximum punishment would be a life sentence, not capital punishment.

“To say it has been 20 years and we haven’t started a trial would be reprehensible,” she said. “Now I’m thinking we’ll get to 25 years, and who knows if we’ll be around anymore.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

11

FTC’s Facebook investigation may stretch past election

Joseph Simons, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, in Washington on May 8, 2019.

By CECILIA KANG

N

early a year ago, Joseph J. Simons, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, predicted his agency would wrap up an antitrust investigation of Facebook by the presidential election.

That goal now seems virtually impossible, according to numerous people with knowledge of the inquiry. Instead, it will probably roll into next year, when there may be a new president choosing its leader. The change could alter the commission’s priorities.

The investigation into whether the tech giant has broken antitrust laws continues to move along, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was private. A round of document production from the company and its rivals was done in the spring, and staff members appear to be preparing depositions of Facebook’s top leadership, including its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, according to the people. The agency also began looking into concerns by rivals about Facebook’s recent acquisition of Giphy, a search database for short video clips.

But investigations often require multiple rounds of document requests, and the interviews will take time to complete, indicating that the agency is far from finishing its review and deciding whether to pursue a lawsuit, the

people said.

The FTC declined to comment.

The handling of the case by the agency and Simons stands in stark contrast to the antitrust investigation into Google by the Justice Department. Attorney General William Barr, who like Simons was appointed by President Donald Trump, has been vocal about his desire to wrap up the Justice Department’s antitrust inquiry into Google.

He is widely expected to bring a suit this year, though no decision has been made. Simons has said very little publicly about the case.

Their investigations are two of the many inquiries by federal and state regulators into Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. Trump has regularly complained about the power of the tech companies, and the FTC and Justice Department opened antitrust investigations into the four companies last June. Nearly all state attorneys general have begun investigations into Facebook and Google as well.

Later this month, the chief executives of those companies will testify before Congress, which has been investigating the four companies for abusing their dominant market positions to impede competition and ultimately harm consumers.

“We look forward to sharing our views about the competitive landscape, along with other technology lea-

ders, during this month’s congressional hearing,” Facebook said in a statement, “while also demonstrating for enforcement agencies that our innovation provides more choices for consumers.”

The FTC’s investigation of Facebook is seen as a test of the agency’s ability to enforce antitrust laws in the internet economy, where market definitions and theories of violations have been hard to prove. In 2013, the agency closed an investigation into Google without charges, a decision often criticized by consumer groups.

Last July, the FTC announced a record $5 billion settlement with Facebook over violations of a 2011 consent decree over data abuses. Simons has said the fine is one of his proudest achievements as the lead member of the FTC, but many consumer advocates say the settlement did not significantly restrain Facebook’s business practices.

The FTC has not disclosed details of its investigation, but it appears the agency is partly focused on whether Facebook illegally maintained its dominance in social networking through acquisitions. The company has bought more than 80 companies over the last 15 or so years.

The agency, which has not paused the investigation during the pandemic, has conducted hundreds of interviews and collected thousands of internal documents.

Many questions are related to past mergers like the $21 billion acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014 and the $1 billion purchase of Instagram in 2012, according to the people.

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are among the most popular apps in the world, with more than 3 billion users altogether.

The House antitrust subcommittee has also inquired about Giphy, which is used by competitors like Twitter, Snap and ByteDance’s TikTok. The $400 million merger, the rivals have argued, follows a long pattern of acquisitions by Facebook that could put competitors at a disadvantage. Giphy is not only used by Facebook’s rivals, but the company also has valuable market data about them.

Facebook has said it faces stiff competition in the United States and elsewhere, pointing to companies like TikTok. It also says that the barriers to starting a possible challenger to its business are lower than ever. Startups like Snap and TikTok have sprung up quickly over the past 10 years, building huge businesses.

“At this point in time, it’s hard to understand why it would take substantially longer to determine whether there is a case to file unless there are new complexities that have arisen,” said Gene Kimmelman, a former antitrust official at the Justice Department and a senior adviser at the consumer group Public Knowledge.

But many investigations take a long time and the agency appears to be exploring multiple issues related to the company.

In addition, the stakes are high. Simons, a veteran antitrust lawyer, may be trying to ensure any case the agency makes can last no matter who is president or chairman, Kimmelman said.

12

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

Stocks

Fund managers navigate ‘Night of the Living Dead’ in small caps

I

nvestors are searching for bargains in the world of U.S. small-caps, as the beaten-down asset class prepares for what may be the worst earnings season in its history amid a resurgent coronavirus pandemic.

Small-cap companies are expected to post a yearover-year earnings declines of approximately 90% as companies report their second-quarter results over the next several weeks, compared to a 67% hit for mid-caps and 44% for large-caps, according to Jefferies. That would be the largest drop since the fourth quarter of 2008, data from S&P Dow Jones Indices showed.

While some investors had counted on a third-quarter rebound, many are now concerned that potential coronavirus-fueled economic shutdowns in California, Florida and Texas will deal a disproportionate hit to smaller firms, which are more directly tied to domestic spending and have been among the biggest beneficiaries of stimulus measures delivered by the Federal Reserve and Congress.

People fear a “‘Night of the Living Dead’ of small-cap companies that would otherwise go bankrupt without the benefit of the stimulus and record-low interest rates,” said Brian Jacobsen, senior investment strategist at Wells Fargo Asset Management.

Small-cap stocks are often considered a barometer of investor sentiment and tend to be among the first to recover in an economic revival. Their lackluster performance this year has led to concerns over the sustainability of a nascent recovery in unemployment and other key metrics after devastating declines.

The Russell 2000 index of small-cap companies is down approximately 12% for the year to date, compared with a less than 1% decline in the S&P 500 index, according to Refinitiv data. The Russell 2000 is up just 16.5% over the last 5 years, compared with an approximately 52% gain in the S&P 500.

There are signs that recent economic gains may already be faltering. Real-time measures of the economy such as retail foot traffic and employee work hours have stalled recently, as states have implemented new restrictions to try to halt the spread of coronavirus pandemic.

Still, some investors believe a patient approach will win out over time.

Jon Christensen, a portfolio manager at Kayne Anderson Rudnick, said the recent jump in coronavirus cases will likely make small-caps more volatile until there is a vaccine or effective treatment.

As a result, Christensen is buying companies he believes will outperform over the next three years, despite recent hits to their share prices. He recently added shares of daycare provider Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc (BFAM.N), which are down 23.1% for the year to date.

“Over the long term, even if we have more people working from home we know that Bright Horizon centers will continue to benefit from people needing childcare away from home,” he said.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

13

Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinistas fall victim to COVID-19, highlighting the disease’s spread

By FRANCES ROBLES

A

string of recent deaths across Nicaragua — including mayors, judges, police officials, sports figures, university rectors and government bureaucrats — is pointing to the chilling reality that the coronavirus is devastating the Central American country, although the government is not publicly acknowledging it.

To critics of the government, the deaths are a result of President Daniel Ortega’s haphazard and politicized response to the pandemic — with no encouragement of wearing masks or social distancing measures, and little testing and no stay-at-home orders or shutdowns. Instead, the government has encouraged large gatherings.

That response seems to have hit members of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front party the hardest.

Several young epidemiologists, virologists and related specialists said in the medical journal Lancet that Nicaragua’s handling of the coronavirus “has been perhaps the most erratic of any country in the world to date.”

“They were the only ones going around without masks,” said Dora María Tellez, a former health minister under the Sandinistas who broke with the party, “as the mask came to be considered a sign of opposition.”

Francisco Aguirre Sacasa, a former Nicaraguan ambassador to Washington, said the deaths of the public officials were strikingly obvious looking at the National Assembly and seeing a lot of empty chairs in the Sandinista side.

“You can’t just ignore that,” he said. “You can’t hide it. You can’t cover that up. It is obvious, obvious, that Sandinistas have been dying.”

Still, the deaths of few officials have been publicly attributed to COVID-19 — as is the case with most virus fatalities in Nicaragua. Many are officially designated as “atypical pneumonia.”

Officially, the government reports that just 99 people have died from the virus, although the Citizens COVID-19 Observatory, an anonymous group of doctors and activists in Nicaragua, has registered 2,397 probable deaths.

Sacasa said one of the Sandinista legislators who died of COVID-19 in late May was his cousin, María Manuela Sacasa de Prego, although she also had cancer.

“Her kids told me she died of COVID,” Sacasa said.

The government has now created COVID-only hospital units, and mass disinfection campaigns are being organized by the military. But many critics say one clear sign that those measures came too late are the high-profile deaths of the party’s own members.

The government is preparing for its annual July 19 anniversary extravaganza celebrating the victory of the Sandinista revolution, which toppled the Somoza family dictatorship in 1979.

The event, held every year at a public square in the capital, Managua, features hundreds of thousands of people bused in from throughout the country. They wear matching T-shirts and carry black-and-red party flags before a dais where all the leading government officials sit.

But this year, for the first time in its 41-year history, the event

Relatives of coronavirus patients wait outside the German-Nicaraguan Hospital in Managua, Nicaragua, May 21, 2020. will be held as a virtual concert — and absent major members of the party who have died in recent weeks.

Dampening the festive mood further, the U.S. Treasury Department on Friday sanctioned the son of Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, who is also the vice president of the country.

The son, Juan Carlos Ortega, manages a media company “which he uses to stifle independent voices, spread regime propaganda, and defend the Ortegas’ violence and repression,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

Nicaragua, which spent the past two years battling a popular uprising, was one of a few countries that never shut down schools and businesses and never issued a stay-at-home order.

Trying to stave off economic collapse, the government continued to organize mass events, even after the pandemic was raging around the world.

In May, the government released a report justifying its approach to the pandemic. The report noted that a desperately poor country like Nicaragua could ill afford an economic shutdown.

Many people in Nicaragua must work to eat and cannot stay home, the government said.

But it did not explain why it allowed large gatherings to continue even as similarly popular, crowded events were canceled worldwide.

Among the recent deaths of Sandinista officials was that of Orlando Noguera, the former mayor of Masaya, a city 15 miles south of Nicaragua’s capital. He was best known for a crackdown on anti-government protesters two years ago that left seven people dead in his city.

Relatives of Eden Pastora, a government ally and a prominent figure in the nation’s civil war, said he did not have the illness.

But his death certificate, which was read to The New York Times by a family member, showed Pastora died of “atypical pneumonia” — the usual official designation for a coronavirus death.

Orlando J. Castillo, the head of the government telecommunications office who had recently been sanctioned for human-rights violations by the U.S. Treasury Department, died June 2. Local media, citing family sources, said the cause was COVID-19.

When a top police official, Olivio Salguera Hernández, died in May, his family insisted he had suffered a fatal heart attack.

But the media reported that his body was buried the same day he died, as is customary in Nicaragua when people die of COVID-19 — suggesting that he had the disease.

Tellez, the former Sandinista health minister, provided the Times with a list of 38 Sandinistas who were believed to have died of the coronavirus and said some 200 names have circulated on social media.

She also said that Ortega does not appear to be following his government’s own strategy because he has not been seen in public for over a month, the second time he disappeared during the pandemic.

Carlos Fernando Chamorro, editor of Confidencial, a leading news outlet, said his team has counted some 100 deaths of Sandinistas, including about 10 well-known figures.

“The problem is that here, nobody officially dies of COVID-19,” he said.

14

Monday, July 20, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Long waits for UK hospital treatment as NHS fights Coronavirus

Ruth Fawcett, who is waiting for knee surgery, at her home in Cockermouth, England on July 4, 2020.

By CEYLAN YEGINSU

A

fter nine months of waiting for surgery, Ruth Fawcett’s knee muscles wasted away, causing her joint to come loose in its socket and leaving her unable to walk without assistance.

“They’ve just stopped doing surgery for cases that they call nonlife-threatening, and when they start again, they will probably have to prioritize the most urgent cases,” she said, taking a deep sigh.

Fawcett, 82, a jewelry designer from the northwestern county of Cumbria, is one of nearly 4 million people in England on the National Health Service waiting list for routine hospital treatments, which have been disrupted in recent months, as hospitals have been forced to suspend services in favor of coronavirus cases.

Many patients like Fawcett are experiencing a significant deterioration in their health because of the delay and are growing anxious and frustrated because of the lack of guidance as to where they are placed on the list or how long they will have to wait before they can receive treatment.

Many fear that they could be pushed down the list if hospitals resume services on a triage basis.

“They won’t tell me where I am on the list or how urgent they consider my case to be,” Fawcett continued. “I can hardly walk. My knee just wobbles about, and if I don’t use my two walking sticks, I will fall. It’s very scary.”

Even before the pandemic, the service was struggling to meet waiting-time standards, with 1 in 6 patients waiting more than the target of 18 weeks for routine treatment in January.

The number of people on the waiting list for elective care

fell from 3.94 million in April to 3.84 million in May, according to NHS figures published Thursday. However, the drop has been attributed to fewer people being referred for testing and treatment during the pandemic; numbers are expected to start climbing again when services resume.

With hospitals operating at reduced capacity to accommodate patients suffering from COVID-19, the waiting list could soar to 10 million people by the end of the year, according to the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals and other health care providers.

“There is a real determination to rise to this challenge, but it will need extra funding and capacity, not least in rehabilitation and recovery services in the community, where so much of the coming demand will be felt,” said Niall Dickson, chief executive of the confederation.

The NHS rejects the confederation’s estimate, saying that waiting lists for both diagnostic tests and elective care have fallen since February.

“The overall waiting list has fallen by more than half a million since the onset of COVID, but as more patients come forward, local health services continue work to expand services safely,” an NHS spokesperson said.

“Despite responding rapidly to the coronavirus pandemic and the need to ensure over 100,000 patients could receive hospital care, NHS staff also provided more than 5 million urgent tests, checks and treatment in a safe way during the peak of the virus.”

Experts say there is a growing crisis in the provision of diagnostic tests, including magnetic resonance imaging and computerized tomography scans.

“The total number of patients waiting six weeks or more from referral for one of the 15 key tests is at almost 571,500 — 58.5% of the total number of patients waiting — which is shocking, given the target is 1%,” said Dr. Nick Scriven, former president of the Society for Acute Medicine.

Cancer patients have been hit particularly hard.

About 2.4 million people were waiting for cancer treatment or tests in June, according to the charity Cancer Research UK, and thousands of people have missed out on hospital referrals for the diagnostic tests that are critical in the early detection and successful treatment of cancer.

Even after patients were referred to a specialist, the median length of time they waited for treatment in April was 12.2 weeks, the longest time in more than a decade. More than 1 million patients waited more than 18 weeks, NHS England figures show.

Sylvia Traynor has cervical cancer and was undergoing a six-month regimen of chemo and radiation therapy when her doctor called in late April to tell her that her treatment had been paused for seven weeks because of the risks posed by the coronavirus.

“Just like that, they said, ‘Don’t come in,’” she recalled. “I couldn’t believe that they could just pull the plug like that. I know they have higher-priority cases to deal with, but my treatment was actually working, and all I could think was, ‘What if this goes on for the rest of the year and I regress? What if all this treatment was for nothing?’”

The uncertainty and anxiety caused by the backlog has been taking a toll on mental health.

Many patients waiting for surgery complain about having to deal with excruciating pain on a daily basis, and many of them are reluctant to take strong opioid painkillers prescribed by doctors because of the side effects and addictive properties.

“I may not be young, but my brain is very active, and sometimes I just get so down because I’m in so much pain and I can’t do anything,” Fawcett said. “I feel trapped.”

Many younger people and families are also being affected by the delays. Melis Kip, 31, a client manager at a retail consultancy firm in London, has been waiting more than six months to see a dermatologist for her 1-year-old son, who has an acute form of eczema.

“Our doctor says this is not serious, it is OK to wait, and we will treat him in the meantime, but the treatment is not working,” Kip said. “He gets these terrible flare-ups where his skin becomes all itchy and red, and he is very uncomfortable. It’s worrying.”

Kip has also been struggling with her own health issues.

She has been unable to get a referral to her local women’s clinic for a contraceptive fitting because it is not considered urgent.

“Women’s health is a big issue, but most matters are dismissed because they are not seen as life-threatening,” Kip said.

“But when the whole health system is on hold for nonurgent treatment, that can lead to other problems. For example, women can suffer from mental health issues because of hormonal imbalances.”

Now that borders have reopened, Kip, who is Turkish, plans to travel to Turkey with her son for treatment.

“We can’t afford to wait any longer and are in the fortunate position to be able to travel and receive good care at an affordable price,” she said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

15

A cemetery for all faiths in Iraq, and a single cause of death

By ALISSA J. RUBIN

T

here are no signs to signal the way to the New Valley of Peace, or, as the Iraqis call it, the “Corona cemetery.” But it’s not hard to find: Just follow the cars. It’s the only place they are headed on the rough desert road.

Ground was broken on this cemetery in southern Iraq four months ago, and already there are more than 3,200 graves. The backhoes work every night to make new furrows in the sandy soil.

“We are waiting for our mother,” said Ali Radhi, 49, from Nasiriyah as he stood by his car at the cemetery’s gate in the blazing summer sun earlier this month, when midafternoon temperatures hit 115 degrees. “She died two days ago, but now with corona, we cannot bring her. We have to wait for the ambulance to carry her.”

“There are some rituals we should be doing, but with corona we cannot even touch her body and we did not hold a funeral,” he added softly, staring up the road as if willing the ambulance carrying his mother’s body to appear on the horizon.

The story of how the cemetery came into existence starts when the first coronavirus patients began to die in March in Baghdad.

Religious and health authorities were unprepared for the sense of stigma that having the disease carried, as well as the fear that touching the body would risk contagion. Cemeteries refused to take those who had died of COVID-19 because people whose relatives had not died of the virus felt it was a stigma to be buried next to someone who had.

While scientists have not established how long the virus survives in a person who has died of it, they believe it might linger for as much as a few hours and could be on materials used in wrapping and transporting bodies.

“I began to see these scenes on TV — I still remember them — there were seven or eight bodies thrown outside a hospital morgue and they left them there,” recalled Sheikh Tahir Al-Khaqani, who is head of the Imam Ali Combat Division, one of the first militias created to fight the Islamic State group. Unlike some of the militias that are close to Iran, the Imam Ali brigade is linked to the moderate, inclusive senior Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani.

The idea came to Al-Khaqani that the solution was a new graveyard just for those who died of the coronavirus. He conferred with the governor of Najaf, with al-Sistani and with the leader of the Shia Endowment, which is in charge of all Shiite financial and real estate matters.

Within days, they had a 1,500-acre patch of ground 20 miles from the city of Najaf, allocated for the burials.

The Imam Ali combat division volunteered to run the cemetery. Its medical teams took on the job of re-

ceiving the dead, disinfecting the body bags in which they arrived and then washing the deceased.

Other contingents took responsibility for the digging and burials. Some took on the role of guides to help family members when they come to find their relative’s grave among the thousands stretching out across the desert. Family visits are permitted 10 days after burial.

Under orders from the grand ayatollah, although the graveyard is run by Shiites, it welcomes everyone regardless of faith or sect and burial is free.

Mohammed Qasim, a date and vegetable farmer from near Baghdad, said those digging the graves, attending to the washing and pronouncing the last rites are “human angels.”

“Yes, these are the noblest people I have ever met,” he said. “How can they not be the noblest when they are with death at the same table for breakfast, lunch and dinner and yet they do not complain.”

For Ari Sahak Dirthal, 33, an Armenian Christian, his father’s burial on July 1 is still a source of pain. “I immediately went to the Armenian Orthodox church in Baghdad because I knew that my father wanted to be buried there, and so I was surprised when they said we cannot bury him here,” he said.

They directed him to the coronavirus cemetery.

On the way, he frantically made calls to find out what prayers to say. It still cuts to the quick, he said, that no one from the Armenian Orthodox Church came with him.

Dirthal said he was welcomed by the sheikhs in charge of the cemetery, who told him his father could

be buried anywhere.

“I just said, ‘I want the grave of my father to be away from the others,’ and indeed he was buried 1 kilometer away from the graves of the Muslims,” Dirthal said.

The cemetery entrance is nothing more than a metal skeleton frame in the shape of a grand mosque door. Beyond stretches the desert, glittering in the sun, with row after row after row of graves, each with the words of the Quran: “This is the will of Allah.”

As the sun set on the evening earlier this month, more families arrived along with the ambulances.

Burials take place from 6 p.m. until the first prayers of the morning.

Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters stood at the edge of the cemetery. A rope kept them from entering to ensure that they stay far from the bodies and any live infection. Some raised their arms to the sky and cried their loss.

Although the weeping and keening are ritual, it expressed perhaps even more than usual a sense of injustice: How could they be kept from their loved ones in these crucial last moments? They had traveled so far, to a cemetery in the middle of nowhere, but could not follow the body to the end. It was the ultimate, most painful form of social distancing.

A middle-aged brother and sister stood together in the hot night. The wind blew the woman’s abaya around her in swirls and the man raised his arms to the sky.

“I give you to the care of Imam Ali,” he said to his dead father, referring to a founding figure of Shiite Islam.

His sister wept into the wind.

The New Valley of Peace cemetery, a graveyard for coronavirus victims outside of Najaf in southern Iraq.

16

Monday, July 20, 2020

Defying Kremlin, protesters stage biggest rally yet in Russian far east

By ANDREW HIGGINS

I

gnoring pleas from the Kremlin for calm after more than a week of unrest, protesters in the Russian Far East on Saturday staged their biggest display of defiance yet, with tens of thousands of people pouring into the streets to protest the arrest of a popular regional governor.

Russian news media reported that 50,000 or more people had joined a rally in the capital of Khabarovsk Krai, a sprawling territory nearly 4,000 miles east of Moscow. Thousands more attended protests in other regional towns and in Vladivostok, a port city on the Pacific Ocean in neighboring Primorsky Krai.

The government in Khabarovsk, the regional capital, said in a statement that only 10,000 people had gathered

“at the beginning” but gave no figure for the overall turnout. Police officers in Khabarovsk made no effort to stop what authorities described as an “illegal” but peaceful protest and instead handed out face masks. In Vladivostok, however, a number of arrests were reported.

The protests began after the arrest July 9 on murder charges of Khabarovsk’s governor, Sergei I. Furgal, one of a handful of regional leaders not affiliated with a party entirely controlled by the Kremlin.

Instead of being held in Khabarovsk, where authorities allege the crimes took place, Furgal was flown to Moscow immediately after his arrest, a move seen by many locals as an unwarranted intrusion into their affairs and an effort by the Kremlin to grab control of the case.

The case has crystallized long-

Khabarovsk’s governor, Sergei I. Furgal, in a Moscow court this month after his arrest on murder charges.

standing resentments in Russia’s far-flung regions toward Moscow, which is often seen as demanding loyalty while giving little in return. In a blow to local pride, the Kremlin responded to Furgal’s election victory in 2018 over its own candidate by rejiggering bureaucratic boundaries in the Far East to give primacy to Vladivostok, Khabarovsk’s longtime rival.

Furgal is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, a far-right outfit that has grown increasingly restive over its Kremlin-assigned role as a decorative and largely powerless “opposition” party in Russia’s tightly controlled political system.

In an interview with The New York Times this past week, the leader of the party, the nationalist firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky, complained that the Kremlin “treats us like idiots” and gives no space for real opposition. He said that after Furgal took office, the Kremlin had tried to get the new governor to quit the Liberal Democratic Party.

Protesters Saturday focused their chants and banners on mostly local grievances, demanding that Furgal be returned to his home region and given a fair trial. They chanted “freedom, freedom” but muted the denunciations of President Vladimir Putin that were heard at earlier protests.

All the same, the large turnout, particularly unusual in Russia’s quiescent hinterland, posed a bold challenge to the Kremlin, exposing deep wells of public anger as Russia struggles with the economic damage left by the coronavirus pandemic and growing fatigue with political stagnation.

State-controlled television ignored the protests, sticking to its line that Russia is united in joyous support for Putin after a recent national plebiscite in which 78%

of voters endorsed constitutional amendments allowing him to remain in office until 2036. But the vote, rigged from the start, only highlighted how hollow Russia’s democratic rituals have become.

Putin, whose approval rating slumped to a 20-year-low after the coronavirus hit Russia, was supposed to step down at the end of his current term in 2024, but under the amended constitution he can now run for two more sixyear terms.

Events in the Far East, however, have highlighted the weakness of once reliable methods of control. Saturday’s protests delivered a dramatic defeat to frenzied efforts by the authorities, both local and national, to tamp down public anger with pleas and threats.

The Kremlin’s special envoy for the Far East, Yuri P. Trutnev, rushed to Khabarovsk last week to express an understanding of the protests while demanding that they stop. The Federal Security Service soon announced that it had foiled a terrorist plot in Khabarovsk, stirring fears of a crackdown on protesters under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

Then, officials warned protesters that they risked spreading the coronavirus and ordered that people stay away from all “illegal” gatherings for health reasons.

The authorities even recruited the arrested governor, Furgal, in their efforts to halt the protests. Speaking in Moscow on Thursday, his lawyer, Boris Kozhemyakin, told reporters that the jailed governor “thanks” the protesters “but does not approve of these mass actions.”

But that failed, too, with Furgal’s supporters thronging the streets in even larger numbers.

“Moscow go away,” read one banner Saturday.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

17

The real white fragility

By ROSS DOUTHAT

I

n 2001, when I was still attending college, David Brooks wrote an essay for The Atlantic called “The Organization Kid,” in which he spent a lot of time with young Ivy Leaguers and came away struck by their basic existential contentment. Instead of campus rebels, they were résumé builders and accomplishment collectors and apple polishers, distinguished by their serenity, their faux-adult professionalism, their politesse.

I thought at the time that Brooks made my cohort out to be more decent than we really were, mistaking the mask we wore for encounters with, say, an Atlantic journalist for our truer, darker, more ambitious selves. But he was entirely correct that most of my peers believed that meritocracy was fair and just and worked — because after all it seemed to work for us.

I graduated the year after “The Organization Kid” ran, wrote a lot about college in my 20s, and then drifted to other interests and obsessions. To the extent that I followed the college admissions racket thereafter, it seemed to become more competitive, more ruthless, more itself — and to extend its rigors ever earlier into childhood.

But a few years ago we moved back to the college town where I grew up, which gave me a close vantage point on youngmeritocratic life again. Some of the striving culture that Brooks described remains very much in place. But talking to students and professors, the most striking difference is the disappearance of serenity, the evaporation of contentment, the spread of anxiety and mental illness — with the reputed scale of antidepressant use a particular stark marker of this change.

I don’t think this alteration just reflects a darkening vision of the wider world, a fear of climate change or Donald Trump. It also reflects a transformation within the meritocracy itself — a sense in which, since 2001, the system has consistently been asking more of ladder climbers and delivering less as its reward.

Scholar Peter Turchin of the University of Connecticut, whose work on the cycles of American history may have predicted this year’s unrest, has a phrase that describes part of this dynamic: the “overproduction of elites.” In the context of college admissions that means exactly what it sounds like: We’ve had a surplus of smart, young Americans pursuing admission to a narrow list of elite colleges whose enrollment doesn’t expand with population, even as foreign students increasingly compete for the same stagnant share of slots.

Then, having run this gantlet, our meritocrats graduate into a big-city ecosystem where the price of adult goods like schools and housing has been bid up dramatically, while important cultural industries — especially academia and journalism — supply fewer jobs even in good economic times. And they live half in these crowded, over-competitive worlds and half on the internet, which has extended the competition for status almost infinitely and weakened some of the normal ways that local prestige might compensate for disappointing income.

These stresses have exposed the thinness of meritocracy as a culture, a Hogwarts with SATs instead of magic, a secular substitute for older forms of community, tradition or religion. For instance, it was the frequent boast of Obama-era liberalism that

The campus of Columbia University in New York, March 11, 2020. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat asks, “Does the white upper class feel exhausted and oppressed by meritocracy?” it had restored certain bourgeois virtues — delayed childbearing, stable marriages — without requiring anything so anachronistic as Christianity or courtship rituals. But if your bourgeois order is built on a cycle of competition and reward, and the competition gets fiercer while the rewards diminish, then instead of young people hooking up safely on the way to a lucrative job and a dual-income marriage with 2.1 kids, you’ll get young people set adrift, unable to pair off, postponing marriage permanently while they wait for a stability that never comes.

Which brings us to the subject invoked in this column’s title — the increasing appeal, to these unhappy young people and to their parents and educators as well, of an emergent ideology that accuses many of them of embodying white privilege, and of being “fragile,” in the words of the now-famous anti-racism consultant Robin DiAngelo, if they object or disagree.

Part of this ideology’s appeal is clearly about meaning and morality: The new anti-racism has a confessional, religious energy that the secular meritocracy has always lacked. But there is also something important about its more radical and even ridiculous elements — like the weird business that increasingly shows up in official documents, from the New York Public Schools or the Smithsonian, describing things like “perfectionism” or “worship of the written word” or “emphasis on the scientific method” or “delayed gratification” as features of a toxic whiteness.

Imagine yourself as a relatively privileged white person exhausted by meritocracy — an overworked student or a fretful parent or a school administrator constantly besieged by both. (Given the demographics of The New York Times’ readership, this may not require much imagination.)

Wouldn’t it come as a relief, in some way, if it turned out that the whole “exhausting ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Red Queen Race of full-time meritocratic achievement,” in the words of a pseudonymous critic, was nothing more than a manifestation of the very white supremacy that you, as a good liberal, are obliged to dismantle and oppose? If all the testing, all the “delayed gratification” and “perfectionism,” was, after all, just itself a form of racism, and in easing

up, chilling out, just relaxing a little bit, you can improve your life and your kid’s life and, happily, strike an anti-racist blow as well?

And wouldn’t it be especially appealing if — and here I’m afraid I’m going to be very cynical — in the course of relaxing the demands of whiteness you could, just coincidentally, make your own family’s position a little bit more secure?

For instance: Once you dismiss the SAT as just a tool of white supremacy, then it gets easier for elite schools to justify excluding the Asian American students whose standardized-test scores keep climbing while white scores stay relatively flat. Or again: If you induce inner-city charter schools to disavow their previous stress on hard work and discipline and meritocratic ambition, because those are racist, too — well, then their minority graduates might become less competitive with your own kids in the college-admissions race as well.

Not that anyone is consciously thinking like this. What I’m describing is a subtle and subconscious current, deep down in the progressive stream.

But deep currents can run strong. And if the avowed intention of the moment is to challenge “white fragility” and yet lots of white people seem strangely enthusiastic about the challenge, it is worth considering that maybe a different kind of fragility is in play: the stress and unhappiness felt by meritocracy’s strivers, who may be open to a revolution that seems to promise more stability and less exhaustion, and asks them only to denounce the “whiteness” of a system that has made even its most successful participants feel fragile and existentially depressed.

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Monday, July 20, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

Republicans keep flunking microbe economics

A coronavirus drive-through testing site in West Palm Beach, Fla.

By PAUL KRUGMAN

G

ov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said something remarkably stupid the other day. I know, I know: It’s probably harder to find a day on which DeSantis didn’t say something stupid than a day on which he did.

But this particular piece of thickheadedness, I’d argue, helps us understand why America’s response to the coronavirus has been so disastrous compared with other wealthy nations.

Florida has, of course, become a COVID-19 epicenter, with soaring case totals and a daily death toll now consistently exceeding that of the whole European Union, which has 20 times its population. But DeSantis won’t contemplate any rollback of the state’s obviously premature reopening; he even refuses to close venues that are perfect coronavirus incubators.

In particular, he insists on letting gyms — closed spaces full of people huffing and puffing — stay open.

Why? Because “if you are in good shape, you have a very low likelihood of ending up in a significant condition.”

Actually, this isn’t true. Even healthy people can suffer terribly from COVID-19. And if you’ve ever actually gone to a gym, you know that not everyone there is young and fit.

But all this is beside the point. The reason we need to close gyms isn’t to protect the people working out; it’s to protect the other people they might infect. Even gym rats have families, friends and co-workers; the guy lifting weights might be OK, but the older adults who get sick because he spent time hanging out in a petri dish might well die.

This should be obvious. Yet five months and almost 140,000 deaths into this pandemic, many Republicans still can’t or won’t grasp the point that choices have consequences beyond those to the individual who makes them.

Take the insane resistance to wearing masks. Some of this is about insecure masculinity — people refusing to take the simplest, cheapest of precautions because they think it will make them look silly. Some of it is about culture wars: Liberals wear masks, so I won’t. But a lot of it is about fetishization of individual choice.

Many things should be left up to the individual. I may not share your taste in music or want to do the same things you do with consenting adults, but such matters aren’t legitimately my business.

Other things, however, aren’t just about you. The question of whether to dump raw sewage into a public lake isn’t something that should be left up to individual

choice. And going to a gym or refusing to wear a mask during a pandemic is exactly like dumping sewage into a lake: It’s behavior that may be convenient for the people who engage in it, but it puts others at risk.

Again, this should be obvious. It’s common sense; it is also, as it happens, basic economics. Econ 101 has lots of good things to say about free markets (probably too many good things, but that’s a discussion for another time), but no rational discussion of economics says that free markets, left to themselves, can solve the problem of “externalities” — costs that individuals or businesses impose on others who have no say in the matter. Pollution is the classic example of an externality that requires government intervention, but spreading a dangerous virus poses exactly the same issues.

Yet many conservatives seem unable or unwilling to grasp this simple point. And they seem equally unwilling to grasp a related point: that there are some things that must be supplied through public policy rather than individual initiative. And the most important of these “public goods” is probably scientific knowledge.

Some readers may be aware that Sen. Rand Paul — who proclaims himself a libertarian — has been doing a lot of sniping at Dr. Anthony Fauci. Back in May he denounced Fauci for warning that premature reopening might lead to a surge in new COVID-19 cases. More recently, apparently undaunted by the fact that Fauci was right, he demanded that Fauci show “humility” and display some “optimism.”

What struck me, however, was the way Paul justified his attacks on epidemiologists’ recommendations: by invoking the free-market doctrines of Friedrich Hayek. “Hayek had it right: Only decentralized power and decision-making, based on millions of individualized situations, can arrive at what risks and behaviors each individual should choose.”

Whatever you think of Hayek (as you might guess, I’m not a fan), this is bizarre. Decentralized decision-making can do lots of things, but establishing scientific truth isn’t one of those things. And even conservatives used to understand both that expertise matters and that promoting scientific research is a legitimate and necessary role of government.

But conservatives, and Republicans, have changed. The modern American right is all about denying that people have any responsibility for each other and muzzling experts who try to tell people in power things they don’t want to hear.

And the fact that selfishness and willful ignorance are now guiding principles for much of our political establishment is a large part of the reason America is failing the COVID-19 test so spectacularly.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

19

Nueve casos positivos de COVID-19 en un centro de cuidado para adultos mayores en Vega Baja Por THE STAR de Departamento de Salud y de la Oficina de Licenciamiento del Departamento de la Familia P(DF)ersonal informaron el domingo sobre una intervención en

el centro de cuidado para adultos mayores Hogar Villa Almirante en Vega Baja, donde hay cuatro casos confirmados positivos de residentes y cinco de empleados contagiados.

Todos los empleados están en cuarentena y aquellos residentes bajo custodia del Estado serán trasladados a una facilidad hospitalaria para que permanezcan en aislamiento. Todos los casos son asintomáticos.

“Se han tomado acciones inmediatas, en conjunto con funcionarios del Departamento de Salud para controlar y disminuir el riesgo de contagio de otros residentes. Se coordinó el traslado de los residentes con pruebas positivas a COVID-19 y se están comunicando con los familiares del resto de los residentes para informarles de la situación y puedan tomar las decisiones que correspondan,” informó el Secretario de la Familia, Orlando López Belmonte, en declaraciones escritas.

“El centro tiene un total de 23 residentes y a todos se les realizó la prueba molecular. Se ha ordenado una nueva ronda de pruebas de seguimiento para asegurar un monitoreo continuo y eficaz”, manifestó López Belmonte.

El funcionario reiteró la importancia de seguir los protocolos de manera rigurosa para disminuir el riesgo de contagio y proteger esta población vulnerable y señaló iniciará una ronda de inspecciones sin avisar para asegurarse de que los centros están cumpliendo con los protocolos.

“Cada centro para el cuidado de adultos mayores tiene que observar un estricto protocolo promulgado desde el mes de abril. Estos tienen la obligación de cumplirlo con rigurosidad. De no hacerlo, vamos a tomar medidas extremas, como lo sería un cierre.

También se exponen a la revocación de su licencia de operación de hallarse que han sido negligentes”, dijo López Belmonte.

“La mayoría de estos residentes están colocados en el hogar de manera privada. Sus familias subvencionan los cuidados y el operador tiene una obligación con estos adultos mayores que necesitan asistencia.

Este es un asunto muy serio con consecuencias fatales para la salud de los residentes. Ningún adulto mayor institucionalizado debe estar vulnerable por fallas en los protocolos”, añadió el secretario de la Familia.

Por su parte, la epidemióloga Idania Rodríguez informó que contrario a lo informado por el operador el personal del Departamento de Salud se mantiene asistiendo al hogar y orientando sobre las medidas

que deben tomar para un fiel cumplimiento con los protocolos de salud, como un efectivo aislamiento, control de infecciones y monitoreo de casos, ya que el operador es dueño de otras tres instituciones privadas.

“El rol del Departamento de Salud es asegurar que se cumplan con los parámetros que garanticen la salud de la población. De nuestra parte, se ha orientado sobre las mejores prácticas de higiene y brindado recomendaciones para mantener la salud de los residentes de este establecimiento. Dado el proceso de coordinación actual de pruebas de cernimiento, se está haciendo el esfuerzo de asistirle con la toma de muestras esta semana, para que no tenga que hacerlo de forma privada y apoyando los esfuerzos que realice el equipo médico de este establecimiento. Recordemos, las pruebas solo funcionan si vienen acompañadas de un protocolo de control de infecciones,” afirmó la epidemióloga.

Sobre el caso del hogar de Carolina, se informa de los casos positivos trasladados a un hospital, ya 12 retornaron al centro y cuatro permanecen en observación en condición estable. Tienen abastos de agua potable, se hizo entrega de alimentos y se está implementando con buenos resultados las recomendaciones del Departamento de Salud. El domingo no se reportaron nuevos fallecimientos.

AAA amplía opciones de servicio a clientes mediante turnos virtuales y citas para oficina Por THE STAR

L

a presidenta ejecutiva de la Autoridad de Acueductos y Alcantarillados (AAA), Doriel Pagán Crespo, informó en la tarde de hoy domingo la ampliación de las opciones de servicio a los abonados, quienes a partir de este lunes 20 de julio, podrán realizar sus trámites a través de Turno Virtual o en la oficina comercial mediante cita previa.

“Conscientes de la necesidad de mantener distanciamiento social, pero al mismo tiempo acercando nuestros servicios a los abonados, hemos establecido dos alternativas de servicio directo, que se unen a los sistemas ya utilizados de oficina virtual y centro telefónico”, explicó la funcionaria en declaraciones escritas.

Turno Virtual estará disponible de lunes a viernes en el horario de 7:40 am hasta las 3:00 pm. En este, los abonados deberán acceder a www.aaa.turnospr.com y proporcionarán su nombre y número de teléfono. Un representante de servicio devolverá la llamada para informarle los documentos requeridos y completar el trámite solicitado.

En cambio, si el abonado desea visitar la oficina comercial, debe seleccionar la opción de Cita para Oficina en www.aaa.turnospr.com.

Para esta opción es requisito tener todos los documentos al momento de hacer la cita y llegar entre 15 a 20 minutos antes a la oficina comercial seleccionada o perderá la cita y deberá coordinar otra.

“Estos sistemas de turnos y citas son parte de los esfuer-

zos de prevención para empleados y visitantes, así como alternativas para facilitar el servicio a abonados que desean abrir cuentas nuevas, hacer transferencias de servicio, reclamación de facturas, certificaciones, bajas de servicio, y reporte de averías, entre otros”, explicó Pagán Crespo.

Los pagos de facturas, se continuarán atendiendo a través de la Oficina Virtual en www.acueductospr.com y el Centro Telefónico de Servicio al Cliente, comunicándose al (787) 620-2482, que está disponible 24 horas al día los siete días de la semana, o al (787) 679-7322 para audio impedidos.

No se podrán realizar los pagos en las oficinas comerciales. De igual forma, pueden ser utilizados los medios de

pago alternos o estaciones autorizadas incluyendo bancos, cooperativas, farmacias que provean el servicio, comercios participantes y supermercados.

“Estamos comprometidos en ampliar las opciones de servicios para nuestros clientes. Aun así, la seguridad y prevención es un asunto importante. Por esto, hemos limitado el espacio dentro de las oficinas comerciales y en el área de atención con representantes de servicio se instalaron acrílicos para evitar el contacto. Del mismo modo, es mandatorio el uso de mascarillas, toma de temperatura, desinfección de manos antes de entrar a la oficina comercial y distanciamiento de seis pies entre personas”, recalcó la presidenta ejecutiva.

20

Monday, July 20, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Christopher Nolan says ‘Tenet’ will come out this summer. Should it?

John David Washington at the helm with Elizabeth Debicki on board in “Tenet.”

By KYLE BUCHANAN

I

’m dying to see Christopher Nolan’s new film “Tenet.” But would I actually die to see it?

These are the things we must mull about movies now that the pandemic has turned Nolan’s $200 million spectacle into a high-stakes test case. After months of being shuttered, movie theaters in many states have begun the tentative process of reopening. Still, with the number of coronavirus infections rising in the United States, it’s unclear whether those theaters can safely launch a would-be summer blockbuster like “Tenet” in just a few weeks.

A time-bending sci-fi flick starring John David Washington and Robert Pattinson, “Tenet” was long scheduled to come out on July 17, right in the middle of Hollywood’s most lucrative season.

Then the pandemic hit American shores, states like New York and California began issuing stay-at-home orders, and spooked studios started shuffling their blockbusters out of the summer corridor. Only “Tenet” held firm to its date, the rare tentpole that wouldn’t pull up stakes.

But as that July 17 release drew closer, Warner Bros. finally blinked, mov-

ing “Tenet” back two weeks to July 31.

This date would prove temporary, too: As coronavirus cases continued to climb over the summer, the studio hit “Tenet” with another two-week delay, this time shifting the movie to its current release date of Aug. 12.

I’m skeptical that date will hold, and curious what the studio thinks will significantly change during those two weeks. Infections are still going up in many states, and there is no federal plan in place to halt that spread. Simple acts to contain the coronavirus, like wearing a mask or staying at home, have now become so hopelessly politicized that it’s all but impossible to imagine our country flattening the curve by Aug. 12, and analysts expect that discouraging trend line to prompt more states to keep their movie theaters closed.

If Nolan expects some miracle to occur between now and then, I’m afraid the science-fiction filmmaker is erring more on the side of fiction than science.

It’s not hard to imagine where he might be coming from: A longtime champion of the theatrical experience, Nolan surely hopes that a major action film like “Tenet” will pump money into movie theaters’ depleted coffers, while also luring

back the audiences that have flocked to streamers like Netflix and Disney+ during the pandemic. “Movie theaters are a vital part of American social life,” read the headline on Nolan’s Washington Post oped this spring. “They will need our help.”

In that article, Nolan made special mention of B&B Theatres, a familyowned, Missouri-based chain that had to lay off thousands of employees when its theaters closed. Those employees, Nolan wrote, were among the hardest hit by the pandemic and deserved our consideration.

But in a Los Angeles Times article published just last week, B&B Theatres’ executive vice president, Brock Bagby, said that the delay of films like “Tenet” had left 16 of his recently reopened theaters in dire straits. Without brand-new summer movies to show, Bagby had to halt his plan to reopen the rest of his theaters, and the workers who had counted on those jobs were now high and dry.

In his attempt to come to the rescue of movie theaters, then, did Nolan give them false hope? And as he dangled the gleamingly expensive “Tenet,” for which he will receive 20% of the film’s first-dollar gross, did Nolan encourage theaters to reopen before we were ready to go back?

It’s become increasingly clear that people are most susceptible to the coronavirus when congregating indoors, and a recent chart from the Texas Medical Association deemed moviegoing an even higher-risk activity than traveling on a crowded plane. We simply can’t do communal things at this point in the pandemic, and to keep pretending that we soon could is at best unrealistic, and at worst irresponsible.

Yes, movie theaters have touted new health and safety measures like disinfectant sprays and reduced audience sizes, but major chains like AMC and Cinemark tipped their hand when they initially announced that wearing a mask would be up to moviegoers. After a social-media outcry, the companies reversed course and promised to mandate mask-wearing, but their initial message remained loud and clear: Safety is not guaranteed.

With that in mind, it’s hard to imag-

ine a large-scale return to moviegoing anytime soon, and Warner Bros. is unlikely to release “Tenet” if many major markets continue to keep their theaters closed. (In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo won’t even include movie theaters in a phased reopening plan.) A roadshow strategy, where “Tenet” would make its way through states and countries as they conquer the coronavirus, is just as unrealistic: A film this anticipated would surely be pirated in its early weeks of release, while the theater-rich China has so far pledged to show no film longer than two hours. “Tenet” exceeds that by 30 minutes.

So what is this movie’s best move?

Though some medium-size summer flicks have opted for a digital debut, that’s not a route “Tenet” is likely to take: Blockbusters that cost as much as “Tenet” aspire to a billion-dollar worldwide gross that simply isn’t possible with a digital release.

It’s far more likely that Warner Bros. will delay “Tenet” yet again, but the time for half-measures is past. If Nolan and his studio are committed to doing the right thing, they will push “Tenet” out of the summer season altogether.

Delaying the film by several months, or even pushing it all the way to 2021, would have major consequences for this year’s already diminished release calendar: Other big movies like “Mulan” (Aug. 21) and “A Quiet Place Part II” (Sept. 4) have largely been taking their cues from “Tenet,” and without Nolan’s film leading the charge, they might be inclined to move, too. With an all-but-barren August and September ahead, it’s possible that movie theaters would have to close once again, a potentially devastating situation for a business sector still trying to claw back from the brink.

Still, in his laudable attempt to aid theater owners, Nolan and his studio have only kept prolonging their pain.

With the summer movie slate wiped clean, perhaps a more realistic rescue plan can finally be forged. It won’t be easy, but if Hollywood hopes to truly grapple with this pandemic, it’s going to take a lot more than two-week delays to figure out what to do next.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

21

Black artists on how to change classical music

By ZACHARY WOLFE and JOSHUA BARONE

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ith their major institutions founded on white European models and obstinately focused on the distant past, classical music and opera have been even slower than American society at large to confront racial inequity. Black players make up less than 2% of the nation’s orchestras; the Metropolitan Opera still has yet to put on a work by a Black composer.

The protests against police brutality and racial exclusion that have engulfed the country since the end of May have encouraged individuals and organizations toward new awareness of long-held biases and provided new motivation to change. Nine Black performers spoke with The New York Times about steps that could be taken to begin transforming a white-dominated field. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.

Monica Ellis, bassoonist The first step is admitting that these organizations are built on a white framework built to benefit white people. Have you done the work to create a structure that is actually benefiting Black and brown communities? When that occurs, diversity is a natural byproduct.

There needs to be intentional hiring of qualified Black musicians who you know are going to bring the goods to your audiences. Intentionally adding qualified Black board members to your organization — that’s going to allow access to these communities you need to bring into the circle. Administratively, people who are in the room will bring different perspectives. Chamber groups like mine, Imani Winds, have the ability to be more nimble; we can make our own rules and make our own platforms. As a chamber presenter, you can support groups that bring Blackness and diversity in their programs.

Thomas Wilkins, conductor It’s incumbent upon leadership from the podium to be part of this: who gets hired, what repertory gets played, where the orchestra plays.

If you’re not willing, for example, to have minority music interns playing subscription concerts because they didn’t take the audition, that doesn’t make any sense to me. This person needs the opportunity to play this repertoire; you have to be willing to let that happen, and you can’t bow to blowback from the full-time players.

In Philadelphia, for a community concert, they once found a high school that was acoustically inferior; aesthetically, no comparison; the chorus in the audience behind me. It made no sense, except for the joy it brought to that community to have the Philadelphia Orchestra in

their backyard. They want some sense that they count and they matter, and by going there, it’s us saying, “Yes, you do.”

Jessie Montgomery, composer I’m in my fifth year on the board of Chamber Music America, and more than half the board is people of color. It’s very evenly balanced as far as gender and race; those changes were implemented through consulting work and training and facilitated discussions among the board to make sure everyone was on the same page. Going through that process has been eyeopening and proves how much time it takes.

Now we are equipped to have these discussions about how this can trickle down to membership and granting opportunities. And I think presenting organizations need to take the time to get to know the artists. Getting to know new artists takes time and commitment; it’s a commitment to widen your perspective.

Roderick Cox, conductor I would like changes to be made in how we train musicians in conservatories and universities. A lot of our thinking and our perceptions of what’s good music becomes indoctrinated at that stage. I say this because even though I’m a person of color, I was guilty of not being accepting of new voices and styles outside of Beethoven, Schumann, all the usual music of the past. When we start with preconceived notions, we limit ourselves. People are afraid of being uncomfortable, but with discomfort comes growth. If students learn about composers like William Grant Still or Florence Price — and their approaches to making music — then they will become more versatile. And we will see that change taking place in our programming;

schools won’t just be producing conductors who want to do Wagner, Strauss and Mahler. I love these composers. But there are more voices to hear.

Anthony McGill, clarinetist Over the last month, you’ve seen all these outpourings, and it’s in these moments when you see: Are we really connected with the communities we’re doing this work in? At the New York Philharmonic, where I am principal clarinet, I think there’s been incentive to partner up with the Harmony Program, which does afterschool music education. I’m doing the Music Advancement Program at Juilliard; the mission revolves around students from underserved communities. It’s being a citizen in that way.

The new way is actually getting on the ground and teaching, getting on the ground and having tough conversations about the state of our field and who we’re trying to reach, being there to help people understand that the orchestra is there for them.

Lawrence Brownlee, singer Artistic institutions need to be focused on representing and really serving the communities that they’re in. There needs to be community engagement, not community outreach. Outreach is something you do occasionally. But you’re always in the act of engaging; it’s a constant effort.

If there are changes in the administration and the makeup of the board — every level of every artistic organization — that will spill into how this stuff is packaged. This is the beginning of change that can be meaningful. If we reinvent what the opera or classical music audience is, we won’t have the disparities in people hired, people attending, even what’s presented, be-

cause you will have different people coming up with new ideas.

Terence Blanchard, composer It’s like anything else: The organizations need to represent what America looks like.

Well-intentioned people can just have blinders on. I don’t look at it like a sinister plot; I look at it as, people are going with what they’re comfortable with. If we had more representation in the leadership, in terms of who is signing off on projects, you’ll have more people bringing things to the table. What I saw at Opera Theater of St. Louis — where I did “Champion” and “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” which is going to the Met — is, those people are open to a lot of ideas. But we have to bring the ideas to them.

We have to open their eyes. I really think in the art music world, people are clamoring for something different. When we did “Champion” in New Orleans, this African American guy in his 70s said, “If this is opera, I will come.” That’s a new audience member we didn’t have before.

“La Bohème” doesn’t mean anything to him. But these contemporary stories do.

Latonia Moore, singer Please, in the future, cast with your heart, not just with your eyes and your ears. Who gives you the goose bumps? Pick them. Some people see a Black tenor, and they think Otello. Or they see a Black soprano, and they think Aida. “Who wants to see a Black Cio-Cio San?” You’ll hear that. But yes, opera is a suspension of disbelief.

When someone does “Eugene Onegin,” they will often cast someone Russian or fluent in Russian. It doesn’t have to be who you expect. There are other people who can sing it. When it comes to “Otello,” you could paint everyone blue and paint Desdemona green. When it comes down to it, it’s not about color; it’s about difference.

Tania León, composer Certain groups of people have felt that they did not belong, because most of the time they didn’t see people who resembled them onstage. But even if things look good onstage, internally is that what is happening in the institution? It’s a family type of thing. That person working in the office goes home and tells the people at home, and they usually have other friends. That is how audiences change. It has to be from the inside out. And if the stage reflects the society, you can find the best artists to be the ambassadors to those coming and put them in front of the people. It could be the administrator, the person in charge of programming or a member of the orchestra. People have to address the audience, to let them feel “I am one of you.”

And you will see, the whole thing will change like you have no idea.

22

Monday, July 20, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

On some planes, empty rows while passengers crowd together

Passengers are increasingly worried about the lack of social distancing on airlines. Above, an American Airlines flight to Dallas earlier this month.

By ELAINE GLUSAC

O

n a June 30 flight on American Airlines from Dallas to Newark, New Jersey, Joy Gonzalez, an aviation engineer based in Seattle, found herself seated at a window with two older passengers beside her in the middle and aisle seats. In order to gain more social distance, she and the aisle passenger both moved to seats behind them where two rows were empty. But before takeoff, a flight attendant ordered them back to their assigned seats, telling them they had not paid for those exit row seats, which are more expensive.

A second flight attendant listened to Gonzalez’s request, consulted with the other attendants and gave her two options: Take your assigned seat or return to the gate and pay for the exit row. As the flight was on the verge of departing, she sat down.

“The irony of then hearing on the public address system, ‘Your health and safety is our top priority,’” said Gonzalez, who posted photos of the full and empty

rows on Instagram. “Behind me, seats went empty and wasted while I was squished and touching someone.”

After the coronavirus pandemic hit, airlines vowed to bring social distancing to the air — even if it wasn’t the full 6 feet recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — by reducing capacity and blocking many middle seats.

Now as air travel builds, freeing up that kind of space is plainly at odds with the airlines’ profit motive, and passengers are finding they may be confined to a cramped seat if they don’t pay for a premium one, though American denies this is their policy.

Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for the airline, wrote in an email that the restriction “appears to be in error, as we are permitting customers to move within the main cabin, including Main Cabin Extra seats,” which include exit rows.

Since April, American Airlines has capped capacity at 85%. As of July 1, according to new guidelines, it began filling its planes.

The exit row issue seems to be rooted in an un-

sympathetic flight crew, more evidence of the stress on the aviation system that emerged over the holiday weekend in videos and photos of packed flights.

They included a tweet from Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., with a picture of him on a busy American Airlines flight on July 2, asking: “@AmericanAir how many Americans will die bc you fill middle seats, w/ your customers shoulder to shoulder, hour after hour.

This is incredibly irresponsible. People eat & drink on planes & must take off masks to do so. No way you aren’t facilitating spread of COVID infections.”

Capacity flights now have the green light from American and United. Both have announced they will inform travelers when their flights are reaching capacity and allow passengers to rebook on less crowded flights if available without penalty.

In contrast, Southwest Airlines is blocking middle seats through at least Sept. 30. JetBlue is doing the same through July 31. Delta Air Lines has reduced capacity to 60% in its main cabin by blocking middle seats or, in a two-by-two seat row, aisle seats, through Sept. 30.

“These policies are aimed at ensuring extra space for every customer on every flight, regardless of where on the plane a customer may be seated,” wrote Drake Castañeda, a spokesman for Delta, in an email.

“Airlines are between a rock and a hard place,” said Joseph P. Schwieterman, a transportation expert and professor in the School of Public Service at DePaul University in Chicago. “They can’t cover their costs unless their planes are at least three-quarters full, but, for many passengers, the prospect of flying elbow-toelbow with strangers is a forbidding prospect. There is no obvious way to reconcile this contradiction.”

The problem will only grow as demand for travel grows. On July 2, the Transportation Security Administration reached a high of 764,761 travelers passing through its airport checkpoints, the highest figure since March 18 but still well below the more than 2 million travelers processed the same day a year ago.

Kristi Brooks, who works in financial services in Dallas and has high-level Platinum status on American, recently flew Delta on a business trip to Alaska.

Through several connecting flights, she never had another passenger sit next to her and received hand sanitizer and hand wipes on each leg of the trip.

Last week, she flew American to Minneapolis and found the empty seat between her and her boyfriend, which, she said, had been blocked when she booked the tickets in May, was eventually filled. Now she’s considering returning home on Delta.

“People should know there are choices and they should look at them,” she said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

23

Should we be drinking less?

By ANAHAD O’CONNOR

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an a daily drink or two lead to better health?

For many years, the federal government’s influential dietary guidelines implied as much, saying there was evidence that moderate drinking could lower the risk of heart disease and reduce mortality.

But now a committee of scientists that is helping to update the latest edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans is taking a harder stance on alcohol. The committee said in a recent conference call that it planned to recommend that men and women who drink limit themselves to a single serving of wine, beer or liquor per day. Do not drink because you think it will make you healthier, the committee says: It won’t. And it maintains that drinking less is generally better for health than drinking more.

That message is a departure from previous guidelines, which since 1980 have defined “moderate” drinking as up to two drinks a day for men and one for women. Government agencies have also long defined a standard drink as 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1 1/2 ounces of distilled spirits (40% alcohol), amounts often exceeded in Americans’ typical “drink.”

The new advice is not yet final. The advisory panel is expected to include it in a report that it will release publicly in midJuly and submit to the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services. Those two agencies are scheduled to publish the official dietary guidelines later this year.

If accepted, the new recommendation would make the United States the latest country to issue stricter guidelines on alcohol consumption. In recent years, Australia, Britain, France and other countries have issued new guidelines lowering their recommended limits on daily and weekly alcohol intake. Health authorities in those countries have said that evidence suggests consuming less alcohol is safer and that even one drink a day increases cancer risk.

The scientific debate over moderate drinking dates at least back to the 1970s, when researchers in California noticed that teetotalers seemed to have more heart attacks than people who drank moderately. In the decades that followed, many observational studies looking at large populations documented what is known as a J-shaped curve between alcohol and mortality from all causes, especially heart disease: Mortality rates dipped for moderate drinkers compared to nondrinkers and then climbed higher among people whose intake exceeded one or two drinks daily.

But observational studies can show only correlations, not causation. And they have other limitations. One major confounding factor is that socioeconomic status is a strong predictor of health and life span — and it tracks closely with drinking levels. Studies show that compared with heavy drinkers and abstainers, people who drink moderately tend to be wealthier and have higher levels of education. They tend to have better health care, exercise more, eat healthier diets and have less obesity.

One study that compared nondrinkers with moderate drinkers — defined as having two drinks daily for men and one for women — found that 27 out of 30 well-established risk fac-

Scientists helping to update the latest edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans are taking a harder stance on alcohol: it plans to recommend that men and women who drink limit themselves to a single serving of wine, beer or liquor per day. tors for heart disease were “significantly more prevalent” among nondrinkers. Rather than causing better health, in other words, moderate drinking may be a marker for higher socioeconomic status and other lifestyle factors that promote a longer life.

Another problem with observational studies is selection bias. In some large studies, people categorized as “nondrinkers” may actually be former heavy drinkers, or they may have health issues that cause them not to imbibe. Studies have found that nondrinkers have higher rates of physical disabilities, psychiatric problems and preexisting illnesses. When rigorous studies take these factors into account, they find that the protective effect of moderate drinking disappears.

“The appearance of protection vanishes like the mist on an autumn day as the sun comes up,” said Timothy Stockwell, an alcohol researcher and director of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria. “All of these thousands of studies, when you do a forensic examination of them, most of them have these horrendous flaws and are open to these systematic biases.”

One way to get around these limitations is through genetic studies. Some people carry a genetic variant that disrupts their ability to metabolize alcohol, causing them to develop skin flushing, irritation and other unpleasant symptoms when they drink alcohol. As a result, they tend to abstain or drink

very little. If alcohol was good for heart health, these people should in theory have more heart disease compared with others. Instead, as one large analysis published in BMJ in 2014 found, they have “a more favorable cardiovascular profile and a reduced risk of coronary heart disease than those without the genetic variant.”

The study concluded: “This suggests that reduction of alcohol consumption, even for light to moderate drinkers, is beneficial for cardiovascular health.”

Not everyone agrees that the health benefits of moderate drinking are illusory. Alcohol has blood-thinning properties, and red wine in particular contains polyphenols that have beneficial effects on the microbiome, said Dr. Erik Skovenborg, a family doctor and member of the International Alcohol Forum, an international group of scientists who study alcohol and health. Alcohol also raises HDL cholesterol, often referred to as the “good” kind, though recent studies have cast doubt on it being cardioprotective.

Skovenborg said the observational data made it clear that moderate drinking was more than a marker for a healthy lifestyle.

“In these studies you have many participants that have all the healthy lifestyle factors,” he said, “and if you add moderate alcohol consumption on top of that, it increases the benefits regarding longer life and fewer health problems.”

24

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

You’re a senior. How do you calculate Coronavirus risk right now?

Nancy and Dave Nathan at their Bethesda, Maryland, home, July 12, 2020.

Early in the pandemic, older adults were simply told to stay at home. Now, with different states reopening or re-closing at varying paces, the calculations for weighing the risks of various activities are getting more complicated.

By PAULA SPAN

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hat to do about Lake Placid?

For weeks, Dave and Nancy Nathan had been debating whether to proceed with a longplanned family trip to a lodge there next month, marking his 80th birthday.

“It looked dreamy, mountains and lakes,” said Nancy, 74. Besides, they hadn’t gathered their clan — three daughters and their families, a dozen people in all — for a year. She thought she and Dave could manage the drive from their home in Bethesda, Maryland, to upstate New York.

He wasn’t so sure.

Both retirees, they’d been cautious through the pandemic, mindful that while neither had health conditions that would make COVID-19 especially dangerous, age alone put them at higher risk. They had avoided supermarkets, relying on grocery delivery services and takeout food. Dave wore gloves on the

tennis court.

“I’ve been dubious about travel,” he said. “I have no need to be more daring.” Worried, too, about the family members flying from Oregon and Florida for his birthday, he called himself Dr. No. “It’s not fun for him, or anyone, if he’s always looking over his shoulder,” Nancy said, sympathizing. Still, she hoped they could go.

Early on in the pandemic, most public health officials warned older adults to simply stay at home, except to buy food or medicine or exercise outdoors apart from others. Now, with states and cities reopening (and some re-closing) at varying paces, the calculations grow steadily more complicated.

“Lots of people are really agonizing about what to do and whom to have faith in,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported, based on March data, that COVID-19 hospitalizations rise with age, from about 12 per 100,000 among those 65 to 74 years old to 17 per 100,000 for those over 85. And a large study from England has reported that patients over 80 are at least 20 times more likely to die than those in their 50s.

While the risk of contracting the new coronavirus appears no higher for people over 65, “once you get an infection, the virus is much nastier,” said Schaffner, an older adult himself.

“Even if we recover, there’s the possibility that we never get back to the same level of physical and mental competence we had,” he added.

Given that prospect, do you get a haircut? Schaffner has decided he will, wearing a surgical mask and knowing his longtime stylist will take “meticulous” precautions.

The Nathans’ book group has been meeting on Zoom. Can the four couples now meet in a backyard? The members agreed, as long as everyone distanced.

“The least risky thing is to stay home, lock the door and seal yourself in Saran Wrap,” Schaffner said.

Though he was being sardonic, economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology came close to endorsing that strategy (minus the plastic wrap) in a recent paper suggesting age-targeted lockdowns. They proposed protecting people over 65 by having them isolate for an estimated 18 months until a vaccine becomes available; younger people, facing less health risk, would return to work.

“We could have both way fewer deaths and way less economic pain,” said Michael Whinston, a co-author. In March, when he and three colleagues developed their model, they wanted to avert two extreme prospects: a projected 2 million American deaths if the country didn’t shut down; economic devastation if it did.

But their approach also assumes that older adults’ only interest lies in not dying.

“We have to find a balance between preserving safety and living,” said Dr. Linda Fried, a geriatrician and the dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. “We all need to do some things to maintain our mental health and wellbeing.”

Normally, Fried pointed out, seniors would find decision-making less knotty because the CDC would be providing detailed, science-based guidance for at-risk groups, updated weekly.

“It’s immensely atypical, I believe unprecedented, that we’re not seeing this,” she said. Without that leadership, seniors confront a crazy quilt of changing state and local policies, and “everyone’s on their own.”

That means older people need to consider their individual health status when deciding which risks to take.

Their less robust immune systems make it harder to bounce back from serious infection. They’re also more apt to have the underlying conditions — diabetes, serious heart, lung or kidney disease — shown to increase severe illness and hospitalizations. People of color, obese people and men face higher risk.

“If you’re a vibrant older person without chronic illnesses, you’re probably a little more resilient,” said Fried, quickly adding that “there are no guarantees.”

A calculator at riskcalc.org/COVID19/ developed by researchers at the Cleveland Clinic may provide a clearer sense of individual risk.

Geography matters too. Older people in New Hampshire or Maine — where new cases were falling last week — may reasonably opt for less restrictive behavior than those in Florida and Arizona, where COVID has been surging. Pay attention to which counties are seeing cases rise and which are doing a good job at observing guidelines.

“You base what you do on where you are,” said Dr. Nathaniel Hupert, co-director of the Institute for Disease and Disaster Preparedness at Weill Cornell Medicine, who advises New York state’s COVID task force.

The San Juan Daily Star LEGAL NOTICE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO.

Live Well Financial, Inc. Plaintiff v.

The Estate of Altagracia Romanacce Porratadoria a/k/a Altagracia Romanacce de Rodriguez composed of Maribel Rodriguez Romanacce, José Gabriel Rodriguez Romanacce, Graciela Margarita Rodriguez Romanacce and Carlos Sergio Rodriguez Romanacce, Jane Doe and John Doe; Centro de Recaudaciones de Ingresos Municipales; United States of America

Defendants CIVIL ACTION NO.: 3:16-cv3004-ADC. COLLECTION OF MONIES AND FORECLOSURE OF MORTGAGE. NOTICE OF SALE.

TO: The Estate of Altagracia Romanacce Porratadoria a/k/a Altagracia Romanacce de Rodriguez composed of Maribel Rodriguez Romanacce, José Gabriel Rodriguez Romanacce, Graciela Margarita Rodriguez Romanacce and Carlos Sergio Rodriguez Romanacce, Jane Doe and John Doe; Centro de Recaudaciones de Ingresos Municipales; United States of America GENERAL PUBLIC

WHEREAS: Judgment was entered in favor of plaintiff to recover from defendants the principal sum of $91,149.92, plus the annual interest rate convened of 5.060% per annum until the debt is paid in full. The defendants, the Estate of Altagracia Romanacce Porratadoria a/k/a Altagracia Romanacce de Rodriguez composed of Maribel Rodriguez Romanacce, José Gabriel Rodriguez Romanacce, Graciela Margarita Rodriguez Romanacce and Carlos Sergio Rodriguez Romanacce, Jane Doe and John Doe to pay Live Well Financial, Inc., all advances made under the mortgage note including but not limited to insurance premiums, taxes and inspections as well as 10% (18,750.00) of the original principal amount to cover costs, expenses, and attorney’s fees guaranteed under the mortgage obligation. The records of the case and of these proceedings may be examined by interested parties at the Office of the Clerk

@

of the United States District Court, Room 400 or 150 Federal Office Building, 150 Chardon Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. WHEREAS: Pursuant to the terms of the aforementioned Judgment, Order of Execution, and the Writ of Execution thereof, the undersigned Special Master was ordered to sell at public auction for U.S. currency in cash or certified check without appraisement or right of redemption to the highest bidder and at the office of the Clerk of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, Room 400 or 150 – Federal Office Building, 150 Carlos Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, to cover the sums adjudged to be paid to the plaintiff, the following property. “URBANA: Parcela de terreno localizada en la Urbanización San Demetrio del término municipal de Vega Baja, Puerto Rico e identificada en el Plano de Inscripción final de la Urbanización San Demetrio, con el número cuarenta (40) del Bloque “X” con un área superficial de trescientos cincuenta punto cero cero metros cuadrados (350.00 m/c). Colinda por el NORTE, en veinticinco punto cero cero (25.00m), con el solar número cuarenta y uno (41); por el SUR, en veinticinco punto cero cero metros (25.00m), con el solar número treinta y nueve (39); por el ESTE, en catorce punto cero cero (14.00), con la Calle “C”; y por el OESTE, en catorce punto cero cero metros (14.00m), con el solar número catorce (14). Enclava una casa de concreto reforzado y bloques de concreto para fines residenciales.” Property Number 6,007 recorded at page 136 of volume 125 of Vega Baja, Registry of the Property of Puerto Rico, Section IV of Bayamón. The mortgage is recorded at Karibe Volumen, Registry of the Property of Puerto Rico, Section IV of Bayamón, inscription 9th. WHEREAS: This property is subject to the following liens: Senior Liens: None.

Junior Liens: Reverse mortgage securing a note in favor of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, or its order, in the original principal amount of $187,500.00, due on January 31, 2087 pursuant to deed number 159, issued in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on April 23, 2014, before notary María I. García Mantilla, and recorded, at Karibe volume, property number 6007, 10th inscription. Other Liens: None. Potential bidders are advised to verify the extent of preferential liens with the holders thereof. It shall be understood that each bidder accepts as sufficient the title and that prior and preferential liens to the one being foreclosed upon, including but not limited to any property tax, liens, (express, tacit, implied or legal) shall continue in effect it being understood

Monday, July 20, 2020 further that the successful bidder accepts them and is subrogated in the responsibility for the same and that the bid price shall not be applied toward their cancellation.

THEREFORE, the FIRST public sale shall be held on the 18th day of August, 2020, at: 9:45 am. The minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum of $187,500.00.

In the event said first auction does not produce a bidder and the property is not adjudicated, a SECOND public auction shall be held on the 25th day of August, 2020, at: 9:45 am, and the minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum $125,000.00, which is two-thirds of the amount of the minimum bid for the first public sale. If a second auction does not result in the adjudication and sale of the property, a THIRD public auction will be held on the 1st day of September, 2020, at: 9:45 am, and the minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum of $93,750.00, which is one-half of the minimum bid in the first public sale. The Special Master shall not accept in payment of the property to be sold anything but United States currency or certified checks, except in case the property is sold and adjudicated to the plaintiff, in which case the amount of the bid made by said plaintiff shall be credited and deducted from its credit; said plaintiff being bound to pay in cash or certified check only any excess of its bid over the secured indebtedness that remains unsatisfied. WHEREAS: Said sale to be made by the Special Master subject to confirmation by the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico and the deed of conveyance and possession to the property will be executed and delivered only after such confirmation. Upon confirmation of the sale, an order shall be issued cancelling all junior liens.

For further particulars, reference is made to the judgment entered by the Court in this case, which can be examined in the Office of Clerk of the United States District Court, District of Puerto Rico. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, this 6th day of July of 2020.. By: Pedro A. Vélez-Baerga, Special Master. specialmasterpr@gmail.com.

787-672-8269. **

INFINITY HOME & CORPORATION; JOHN CONSTRUCTION, DOE y RICHARD ROE CORP., FULANO Y como posibles tenedores MENGANO DE TAL, desconocidos DEMANDADOS POSIBLES TENEDORES CIVIL NUM. CG2020CV01200.

DESCONOCIDOS DEL SOBRE: CANCELACION DE PAPAGARE GARE EXTRAVIADO. EMPLA-

Demandado(a) Civil Núm: MT2019CV01060. Sobre: CANCELACION DE PAGARE EXTRAVIADO POR LA VIA JUDICIAL. NOTIFICACION DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: INFINITY HOME & CONSTRUCTION, CORP. A las siguientes direcciones conocidas URB. BRISAS DEL MONTE, C-12, BARCELONETA PR 00617; URB. LUCHETTI 29 CALLE RAMON FERNANDEZ MANATI PR 00674-6036; 20 CALLE CARIBE MANATI PR 00674-5228 y PO BOX 340 MANATI PR 00674-0340

(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 29 de mayo de 2020, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada, y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de 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 considerara hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos del caso con fecha de 14 de JULIO de 2020.

En Manati, Puerto. Rico, el 14 de julio de 2020. F/Vivian Y Fresse Gonzalez, Secretaria Regional.

LEGAL NOTICE F/Saray Salgado, Secretaria AuESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE xiliar.

PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GELEGAL NOTICE NERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala Supe- ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE rior de MANATI. PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE BANCO POPULAR DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE CAGUAS.

PUERTO RICO Demandante v.

COOPERATIVA DE AHORRO Y CREDITO DE MANATI, INC.; VIG MORTGAGE CORPORATION,

staredictos@thesanjuandailystar.com

25

LEGACY MORTGAGE ASSET TRUST 2019-PR1 DEMANDANTE Vs.

ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS

(787) 743-3346

ZAMIENTO POR EDICTO . ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE como posibles tenedores desconocidos

POR LA PRESENTE se les emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá radicar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired.ramajudicial.pr/ sumac/, salvo que se presente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá radicar el original de su contestación ante el Tribunal correspondiente y notifique con copia a los abogados de la parte demandante, LCDA. MARJALIISACOLÓN VILLANUEVA A su dirección: PO. Box 7970 Ponce, PR. 00732. Tel: 787-843-4168.

En dicha demanda se tramita un procedimiento de cancelación de pagare extraviado. Se alega en dicho procedimiento que se extravió un pagaré hipotecario a favor Associates International Holdings Corporation., o a su orden por la suma de $20,799.99, intereses al 11.27%, anual, vencedero el primero de 3 de febrero de 2019, según escritura 41, otorgada en Caguas, Puerto Rico, el día 29 de enero de 2004, ante la notario Arlene Echevarría Rodríguez. Inscrita al folio ciento sesenta y nueve (169) del tomo trescientos sesenta y nueve (369) de finca número seis mil novecientos noventa y seis, (6,996), Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección II, inscripción segunda (2da). Que grava la propiedad que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar número cuarenta y nueve (49) de la manzana C, según plano de inscripción del proyecto de solares denominado Villa Alegre radicado en la zona Urbana del término municipal de Gurabo, Puerto Rico, Dicho solar tiene un área de trescientos cincuenta punto veinticuatro (350.24) metros cuadrados. En lindes por el Norte, con el solar C guion cuarenta y ocho (C-48) , distancia de veintiséis punto setenta y nueve (26.79) metros; por el SUR, con el solar C guion cincuenta (C-50), distancia de veintiocho punto setenta y nueve (28.79) metros; por

el ESTE, con la calle existente, distancia de catorce punto doce (14.12) metros; por el OESTE, solar C guion cincuenta y cinco C-55) , distancia de once punto treinta (11.30) metros. Inscrita al folio doscientos noventa (290) del tomo ciento ochenta y tres (183) de Gurabo, finca número seis mil novecientos noventa y seis, (6,996). Registro de la Propiedad Sección Segunda (2da) de Caguas. SE LES APERCIBE que, de no hacer sus alegaciones responsivas a la demanda dentro del término aquí dispuesto, se les anotará la rebeldía y se dictará Sentencia, concediéndose el remedio solicitado en la Demanda, sin más citarle ni oírle. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal en Caguas, Puerto Rico, a día 8 de julio de 2020. Carmen Ana Pereira Ortiz, Secretaria. Yaritza Rosario Placeres, Sec Auxiliar del Tribunal I.

pagado la deuda en su totalidad por lo cual, si ustedes no formulan oposición, dentro del término de treinta (30) días, contados a partir de la fecha de publicación de este Edicto, la parte demandante podrá obtener Sentencia en Rebeldía declarando que la Hipoteca que garantiza el mismo se ha extinguido y se ordenará su cancelación en el Registro de la Propiedad, sin más citarles ni oírles a ustedes. Deberán radicar el original de su Contestación a Demanda en la Secretaría del Tribunal de epígrafe y enviar copia por correo al abogado de la parte demandante cuyo nombre y dirección postal es la siguiente: Lic. EBIK M. TORRES LOPEZ, URB. SANTA JUANA, CALLE 15 N-3 CAGUAS, PR 00725. Su teléfono es el (787) 547-3245.

EXPEDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello de este Tribunal, por orden de un Juez de esta Sala. En Fajardo, Puerto Rico a 9 de JULIO LEGAL NOT ICE de 2020. Wanda I Segui Reyes, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE Sec Regional. Jeniffer CarrasquiPUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE llo, Sec Auxiliar.

PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE LEGAL NOTICE FAJARDO. ESTAD’O,LIBRE ASOCIADO MARIA EUGENIA DE. PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL ENCARNACION EN DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA REPRESENTAION SUPERIOR.DE JUNCOS

DE SIXTA FELICIANO AGOSTO DEMANDANTE VS.

ADMINISTRACION DE HOGARES DE AGRICULTORES

DEMANDADOS CIVIL NÚM: FA2020CV00220.

SOBRE: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARE EXTRAVIADO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA PRESIDENTE DE LOS E.E.U.U. ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PR. SS.

A: ADMINISTRACION DE HOGARES DE AGRICULTORES y a todas las personas ignoradas que puedan ser tenedores o que en su poder tengan dos pagarés hipotecarios que se extraviaron

Por el presente Edicto, que se publicará una sola vez, se les notifica que se ha presentado ante este Tribunal una Demanda alegando que mediante escritura número 16 otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 1 de febrero de 1979 ante el notario público José A. Hernández Colon se constituyó una hipoteca en garantía de un pagaré por la suma principal de $20,700.00 con intereses al 8 1/2 % anual a favor de Puerto Rico Financial Corp., o a su orden, con vencimiento del día 1ro de marzo de 2001. Inscrita en el Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, al folio 153, tomo 684 de Caguas, finca número 22190. Dicho Pagaré se ha extraviado y la parte demandante desea cancelarlo por haberse

MIDFIRST·BANK Demandante Vs

PAN AMERICAN FINANCIAL CORPORATION, INC., RAFAEL HUMBERTO APARICIO CALDAS, CELIMAR GONZALEZ SUARES LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA ENTRE AMBOS, WILSON PARRILLA HERNANDEZ, SASHA TAMARIS RODRIGUEZ COLON, LA SOCIEDAD DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA ENTRE AMBOS, JOHN DOE Y RICHARD DOE

Demandada CIVIL.NÚM.: JU2020CV00100.

SOBRE: ·CANCELACION DE PAGARÉ HIPOTECARIO EXTRAVIADO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EOICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE’ P!JERTO RICO. SS.

A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD DOE COMO POSIBLES TENEDORES DE PAGARE DIRECCION DESCONOCIDA

Quedan ustedes notificados que el demandante de epígrafe ha radicado en este Tribunal una demanda contra ustedes como

codemandados, en la que se solicita la sustitución judicial de un pagare extraviado con fecha de 28 de febrero de 2004 por la suma principal de $77,640.00, con intereses al 7% anual y vencedero el 1 de marzo de 2034, conforme affidávit num. 2484 ante el Notario Publico Jose M. Birriel Barreto según consta de la Escritura Numero 54, otorgada en Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, el día 28 de febrero de 2004, ante el Notario Publico Jose M. Birriel Barreto constituido sobre la siguiente propiedad: URBANA: Solar marcado con el numero 1 del bloque “D” de la Urbanización Laderas de Juncos, radicado en El Barrio Gurabo abajo del termino municipal de Juncos, Puerto Rico; con una cabida superficial de MIL DOSCIENTOS OCHO METROS PUNTO TREINTA Y TREINTA Y DOS DECIMETROS CUADRADOS (así surge del Registro). En lindes por el NORTE, en 20.38 metros con el Solar numero dos del bloque “D”; por el SUR, en distancia de 34.75 metros con “State Road PR-31”; por el ESTE, en distancia de 25.07 metros con el solar numero 23 del bloque C y por el OESTE, en distancia de 39.86 metros con el Solar numero 27 del bloque “D”.

Enclava casa para fines residenciales. Se encuentra afecta a Servidumbre de paso. Inscrito al folio 65 del tomo 380 de Juncos, fina numero 14,383, Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, sección segunda, inscripción primera.

Se les advierte que este edicto se publicar en un (1) periódico de circulación general una (1) sola vez. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaria del tribunal y notifique copia de la Contestación a la Demanda a las oficinas del Lcdo.

Juan B. Soto Balas, RUA. Numero: 7340, JUAN B. SOTO LAW OFFICES, P.S.C.. 1353 Ave. Luis Vigoreaux, PMB 270, Guaynabo, PR 00966, TEL. (787) 273-0611, FAX (787) 273-1540, Email: jsoto@jbsblaw.com, abogado de la parte demandante. Dentro del termino de sesenta (60) días a partir de la publicación del Edicto, apercibiendo que de no hacerlo así dentro del termino indicado, el Tribunal podrá anotar su Rebeldía y dictar Sentencia, concediendo el remedio así solicitado sin mas citarle ni oírle. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, en Juncos, Puerto Rico, hoy día 8 de julio de 2020. Carmen Ana Pereira Ortiz, Secretaria. Maritza Rosario Placeres, Sec Auxiliar del Tribunal I.

26

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

The Tokyo Olympics will open a year from now. Maybe.

By MATTHEW FUTTERMAN, MOTOKO RICH and ANDREW KHE

A

year from now, the world will begin to gather in Japan to celebrate the opening of the Tokyo Olympics, which were supposed to begin this week.

Or maybe it won’t.

Four months after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and officials in Japan postponed the games amid soaring coronavirus infection rates and lockdowns across the world, uncertainty prevails. The unpredictable nature of the virus is making it impossible for officials to say definitively that the games will happen or, if they do, what they might look like.

Maybe there won’t be spectators. Maybe only people living in Japan will be able to attend. Or maybe only those from countries where the virus is under control. Will there be an Olympic Village, the traditional home for the roughly 10,000 competitors? Will athletes from the United States, where the pandemic shows no signs of abating, be allowed to attend?

In a news conference last week, Thomas Bach, the president of the IOC, said that planning for the games now involves multiple options. All of them, he said, prioritize the health of the athletes.

“It includes all different countermeasures,” Bach said of the planning. “An Olympic Games behind closed doors is clearly something we do not want. We are working for a solution that safeguards the health of all the participants and is also reflecting of the Olympic spirit.”

Bach has said a further postponement is not an option at the moment; if the games cannot be held next summer, they will not be held at all.

As sports leagues everywhere struggle to return to some semblance of normalcy while balancing virus outbreaks and safety concerns, the challenges of planning a global event that is still a year away have only grown — or merely been exacerbated as hot spots for infections continue to shift.

“People right now are focused on the health of the citizens of their countries,” said Harvey Schiller, the former chief executive of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC).

No one doubts the resolve of the IOC and its local organizers in Japan, who desperately want to hold the games, given the resources they’ve already committed and the money at stake. Japan has already

A spreading coronavirus outbreak in the United States is being closely watch by the International Olympic Committee and organizers of the Tokyo Games. spent roughly $12 billion to prepare for the games. The IOC stands to lose the billions of dollars in revenue from media rights, tickets and sponsorships if the games do not happen.

Despite a recent spike in coronavirus cases and a ban on travel from 129 countries, the official line in Japan remains that the postponed 2020 Games will open July 23, 2021, in Tokyo.

Shortly after Yuriko Koike, the governor of Tokyo, won a second term this month, she met with Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to discuss measures to contain the virus.

“I would like to lead the Olympics and Paralympics next year as proof that we have overcome the coronavirus,” she said.

Last Wednesday, Tokyo raised its pandemic alert level to red, its highest classification, in response to a recent spike in cases concentrated in the metropolis’s sprawling nightlife district. Tokyo recorded two consecutive daily records last week, hitting a peak of 243 new infections last Friday.

Compared with other international cities, Tokyo has been relatively successful in containing the virus. A city of 14 million people, it has reported less than 8,200 cases and 325 deaths since February, compared with more than 3.5 million cases and nearly 140,000 deaths in the U.S. Tra-

ditionally the financial engine of an Olympics, the U.S. currently poses perhaps the biggest threat to the games.

Part of Japan’s strategy has been to close its borders to citizens traveling from 129 countries, including the U.S. and large portions of Europe, Africa, Latin America and the rest of Asia. Japan recently announced plans to negotiate some reciprocal travel between the country and Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Vietnam, but it has not indicated when it plans to reopen its borders to travelers from the rest of the world.

Even inside Japan, citizens remain wary about traveling: A plan to encourage domestic travel has been met with resistance as people worry that Tokyo residents could spread the virus to other parts of the country.

Polls suggest the public is also wary of the Olympics. In a survey late last month by the Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan’s largest daily newspapers, 59 percent of those polled said they wanted the Olympics to be postponed again or canceled. Koike, though, was recently re-elected governor of Tokyo in a landslide, even as she adhered to the official position of holding the games in 2021.

During a recent conference call with athletes, though, leaders of the USOPC had few concrete answers. No one could

say if athletes would still have to share rooms in the Olympic Village, if the common dining hall would be a potentially germ-spreading buffet, or if the American team — traditionally the biggest contingent at any games — might have to be housed separately from people representing other nations.

“Athletes are yearning for more concrete communication directly from the IOC and other organizations,” said Han Xiao, chair of the USOPC’s Athletes’ Advisory Council.

The U.S. team of more than 500 athletes might have to be smaller, although so far the IOC has maintained that it does not plan to reduce the number of events or participants.

“There is a lot of speculation and proposals, but not one specific plan that anyone is able to focus on,” said Christian Taylor, a two-time gold medalist in the triple jump.

Rick Adams, the chief of sport performance at the USOPC, said the organization remained focused on Plan A — a typical Olympic Games with most athletes living and eating in the Olympic Village and using a training center the USOPC will set up in Tokyo’s Setagaya City neighborhood. But the organization also has considered how it would adjust if it has to come up with an alternative plan for housing and feeding its team and for shrinking its support staff.

“We understand what a pivot might look like,” Adams said. “We know how to adjust quickly and would be able to do that.”

Xiao, the athletes’ council chair, said thinking about travel restrictions is keeping athletes awake at night. Many need to compete to qualify for the games and also to hone their skills for an event that for many is the zenith of their athletic lives. Doing that properly requires the intensity of competition, Xiao said. But athletes also need assurances that they will be allowed to take part.

Governments generally can’t interfere with a qualified athlete’s right to participate in the games, but those debates are usually related to political issues. The coronavirus has changed the equation.

“Our athletes are used to, ‘You can’t infringe upon my right to compete,’” Xiao said. “But this is going to be a real challenge to try to figure out where that line is.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

27

Blue Jays can’t play games in Canada because of pandemic

By TYLER KEPNER

M

ajor League Baseball’s plan to use all 30 home ballparks for a shortened, 60-game season met an immovable obstacle Saturday: the Canadian government. The Toronto Blue Jays, the only team in the league that is based outside the United States, will not be allowed to stage home games during the coronavirus pandemic.

Marco Mendicino, Canada’s immigration minister, announced Saturday that the government had turned down the Blue Jays’ request to play at Rogers Centre, where their first game had been scheduled for July 29 against the Washington Nationals.

The Blue Jays have been training at home this month and had gotten permission from the city of Toronto and the province of Ontario to play games there. But the federal government ruled that the travel required to host 10 series involving eight visiting teams was not worth the risk.

“Unlike preseason training, regularseason games would require repeated cross-border travel of Blue Jays players and staff, as well as opponent teams into and out of Canada,” Mendicino said in a statement. “Of particular concern, the Toronto Blue Jays would be required to play in locations where the risk of virus transmission remains high.”

He continued: “Based on the bestavailable public health advice, we have concluded the cross-border travel required for MLB regular-season play would not adequately protect Canadians’ health and safety. As a result, Canada will not be issuing a National Interest Exemption for the MLB’s regular season at this time.”

In a statement, the Blue Jays said they were “in the process of finalizing the best home location,” without specifying where that would be.

“The team completely respects the federal government’s decision,” Mark Shapiro, the Blue Jays’ president and chief executive, said in a statement.

“Though our team will not be playing home games at Rogers Centre this summer, our players will take the field for the 2020 season with the same pride and passion representative of an entire nation.”

An official with knowledge of the Blue Jays’ plans, who spoke on condi-

The Toronto Blue Jays at batting practice earlier this month at Rogers Centre in Toronto. tion of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the team, said the likely destination would be Buffalo, nearly a two-hour drive south and home of the Blue Jays’ Class AAA team.

“As Mayor of Buffalo,” the city’s mayor, Byron Brown, wrote on Twitter, “I would love to see the @BlueJays play at Sahlen Field.”

The Blue Jays’ spring training complex in Dunedin, Fla., is a less likely landing spot because of the surge in coronavirus cases in Florida. MLB already has two teams in Florida — the Miami Marlins and the Tampa Bay Rays — but they have been training there all month, and it would seem unwise to ask a whole new group of players to relocate to a virus hot spot.

Sahlen Field in Buffalo — named for a local meatpacking company — opened in 1988 with hopes of landing an expansion team or luring an existing team to town. The ballpark added a $1 million lighting system in 2011, accord-

ing to The Buffalo News, but that was before advancements in LED lighting that a major league team might require.

There are two other Class AAA parks in upstate New York, in Rochester and Syracuse, and the Blue Jays’ Class AA team plays in Manchester, N.H., in a state that has never hosted a major league game. The closest major league facility to Toronto is Comerica Park in Detroit — although the Tigers, of course, will be playing games there.

Asking the Blue Jays to play all 60 games on the road would seem impractical, especially considering the health risks of so much extra travel. If Buffalo becomes their temporary home, it would give the state of New York three home teams — for one mini-season, anyway — for the first time since 1957, when the Giants and the Dodgers fled to California and left the Yankees alone in New York.

Teams have been forced out of their home ballparks before. Miller Park in

Milwaukee was a temporary home for the Cleveland Indians in 2007 and the Houston Astros in 2008 because of weather in those cities.

In 1991, the Montreal Expos shifted their final 13 home games to opponents’ parks after a 55-ton chunk of concrete fell at Olympic Stadium. Three years later, the Seattle Mariners ended their season with a 20-game road trip after ceiling tiles fell from the Kingdome roof.

In 1998, the Yankees moved a home game to Shea Stadium after a concreteand-steel beam fell into the loge-level seats at Yankee Stadium before a game with the Angels.

Buffalo had a National League franchise, the Bisons, from 1879 through 1885, with Hall of Fame pitcher Pud Galvin the team’s biggest star. To signify how much baseball has changed since then, consider that Galvin won 46 games while pitching more than 600 innings in 1883 — and then did it again the next year.

28

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

Lost and now found, Leeds returns to the Premier League

By RORY SMITH

O

n the touchline, a member of the coaching staff had leapt into the arms of defender Stuart Dallas and was hanging onto him for dear life.

Andrea Radrizzani, the team owner, was standing by the tunnel, embracing every player who approached him. In the stands, Victor Orta, the technical director, was pumping his arms and screaming into the sky.

Leeds United was almost there. For 16 years, the club has been yearning to regain its place in the Premier League: a decade and a half of humiliation, chaos, false dawns and even falser prophets in the perpetual sunsets of English soccer’s second and third tiers. And now, a fraught, narrow victory against Barnsley last Thursday had brought it to the cusp: not mathematically, not officially, not quite, not yet, but spiritually, nearly.

Amid all the emotion, the architect of its exodus from the wilderness, eccentric Argentine coach Marcelo Bielsa, walked across to his Barnsley counterpart, Gerhard Struber. Bielsa wanted to tell Struber, with that slightly awkward, studious air he has, how impressed he had been by his team, how much he admired his work.

“He found the right words for me,” Struber said.

Bielsa was not concerned with what came next. If either of Leeds’ closest rivals, West Bromwich Albion and Brentford, dropped so much as a point over the weekend, that would be it, and Leeds would be promoted. Bielsa did not, he said, intend to watch either match.

He did not find daydreaming, hoping for others to stutter so that he might be a Premier League manager, “convenient.”

“The situation is not resolved,” he said.

He would instead do what he always does: pore over opposition analysis and scouting reports and prepare training programs.

Barely 24 hours later, the spiritual became mathematical. West Brom lost at Huddersfield. Leeds United, after 16 long years, was up. Thousands of fans quickly descended on Elland Road, congregating on Bremner Square, burning flares and setting off fireworks and draping scarves over the statue of Billy Bremner, the club’s greatest idol.

Leeds United’s 16-year absence from the Premier League ended Friday.

In one of the stadium suites high above, the team — gathered together to watch their moment of ascension — danced and sang with them. Bielsa was at home in Wetherby, a quiet market town 20 minutes outside the city. A few of his neighbors turned up to congratulate him.

“Thank you,” he said. “I don’t speak English, but thank you.”

They smiled.

“You are God,” one replied.

Doing a Leeds As a teenager, in those long, hard years of training and sparring and hoping for a chance, featherweight world champion Josh Warrington looked on with envy at Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield, northern cities with “a good tradition of boxing.” Leeds, his hometown, was not like that. It would, he realized, be his responsibility to “put it on the map.”

Leeds has plenty of sporting traditions. If anything, it has too many. In Warrington’s eyes, it is first and foremost a soccer city.

“If you read the back page of the paper, the football always dominates,” he said.

But it is also a rugby city: the sport predates soccer in Leeds by several de-

cades. It is a cricket city, too: Headingley, the local stadium, has produced at least two of the finest moments in English cricket history.

Through the 1990s and early 2000s, Leeds variously rebranded itself as the “Barcelona of the north,” based around a cafe culture and urban living; as a financial boomtown, complete with the first branch of luxury department store Harvey Nichols outside London; and, later, one of the twin poles of the Conservative government’s promised Northern Powerhouse.

It is a city with a proud musical back catalog — Soft Cell, Sisters of Mercy, Utah Saints — that did not have a major music venue until 2013; a cultural hot spot — Alan Bennett, Keith Waterhouse, Northern Ballet, Opera North — that built its “cultural offer” around “passive mass-consumption experiences,” according to a paper published in 2004 by academics at the University of Leeds.

It has long been a city in search of a defining identity, some sort of calling card. At times, the soccer team has provided it: in the 1960s and ’70s, the title-winning era before “The Damned United” days of Brian Clough’s disastrous (and brief) tenure; and again at the turn of the century, when its thrilling team,

fueled by youth and debt, reached the semifinals of the Champions League.

More recently, for much of the country, the association of Leeds and soccer has been a negative one. “Doing a Leeds” has entered the sport’s lexicon, a cautionary tale about the dangers of spending more than you earn, of living beyond your means, of the hubris that comes from excess. For a decade and a half, that has been Leeds’ sporting identity.

A couple of years ago, Warrington achieved his ambition. In 2018, nine years after turning professional, he fought Lee Selby for the IBF world featherweight title. The fight was scheduled for Elland Road. In front of a crowd of 25,000, the boyhood Leeds United fan won a split decision. It made him the first male world champion boxer the city had produced.

It put Leeds, as he had always wanted, on the boxing map, creating another aspect of its identity.

“That season had been a disaster for Leeds United,” Warrington remembered.

“I had fans coming up to me saying I had given them something to cheer about. I had brought a bit of glory back to the city.

They said they hoped it would push the team on a bit. A few weeks later, Bielsa joined. The phoenix started rising.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

29

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

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

Crossword

Answers on page 30

Wordsearch

GAMES

HOROSCOPE Aries

30

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

(Mar 21-April 20)

A rumour you hear that’s going around about your life will intrigue you especially when you find out who started it. Resist the urge to say anything. People who know you well will recognise truth from fiction. Travel has a strong appeal. The moment travel restrictions are relaxed, you will be booking a holiday.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

If you’re uncertain, say nothing. Remaining silent will help you avoid putting your foot in it. Stay in charge of your life by anticipating what could go wrong. Be ready with alternative plans, solutions or suggestions. Keep your wits about you and be sure to back up your words with facts and figures.

Taurus

(April 21-May 21)

Scorpio

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

You find it hard to put emotions into words.

You’re keeping your views a secret from the world around you and this can lead to misunderstandings. Someone will assume you agree with them, taking your silence as approval.

Remaining quiet resolves nothing. If you state your views, a middle ground will be found.

You’ve been wondering about a recent event as you seem to have missed something. A long talk with a relative or neighbour will help the penny drop. A friend is ready to strike out in new directions. This may mean going your separate ways but if this is important to them, don’t hold them back.

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

Consider your partner’s wishes. Your love life will be going great guns but you will still need to work at keeping the passion alive.

The more cooperative you are with the family, the more relaxed your home life will be. If someone wants your views, diplomacy is key. Treat tense situations with tact.

A friend or neighbour’s thoughtful actions are hiding some very special feelings. Your friendship means more to them than they could ever say. If it’s your birthday, don’t be put off by a gift that is more useful than romantic. A lot of thought will have gone into the things other people are doing for you now.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

You need excitement and stimulation. You’re tired of wondering when things are going to get back to normal and you can meet up with friends without complicated restrictions. Seek out the company of online friends and workmates who are interesting and avant-garde.

A senior colleague will admire your creative flair.

Virgo

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

Finances are tight. If you’re worried about bills that are piling up and this is keeping you awake at night, you may need to talk to a financial advisor. Lean on a friend or partner for emotional support. You prefer to be selfsufficient but when you’re out of your depth, admit it.

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

You’ve been wondering about a recent event as you seem to have missed something. A long talk with a relative or neighbour will help the penny drop. A friend is ready to strike out in new directions. This may mean going your separate ways but if this is important to them, don’t hold them back.

Plans you’re making will include both people from a distance and in your neighbourhood.

Meeting up virtually allows you to connect with friends from anywhere in the world.

People are receptive to your suggestions and ideas. An online reunion will bring old friends back together. Pleasant memories will be shared.

Aquarius

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

A friend is going through a tough time and you understand how they are feeling. You’re doing your best to help people but you need to look after yourself too. Try not to push past your own energy limits. A strange experience will get you pondering on your spiritual direction in life. It may be time to focus on inner concerns.

Pisces

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

Laughter and having fun with friends will remind you there’s more to life than work and worries. Surround yourself with positive, upbeat people. Spending time with the right people will help you forget your cares and woes, even if just temporarily. Gossip will be informative. Try to take most things in your stride.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

Monday, July 20, 2020

31

CARTOONS

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

BC

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

For Better or for Worse

The San Juan Daily Star

Ziggy

32

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, July 20, 2020

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