Thursday Jul 30, 2020

Thursday, July 30, 2020

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Kerry Washington on Her 4 Emmy Nods and Issues of Race at Work P20

Lack of Leadership, Readiness, Communication

UTIER President Slams PREPA Chief for Suggesting Blackout Was‘Terrorism’ (It Was a Tree) P5

Organization Launches Web Platform to Acquaint Citizens with All Local Candidates P6

Although Governor Insisted This Week That the Island Is ‘Ready,’ a Mid-July Letter from FEMA Details Concerns Over Local Gov’t Inability to Respond in a Weather Emergency

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

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July 30, 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.

Bhatia denies conflict of interest in bond purchases

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By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

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opular Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial hopeful Sen. Eduardo Bhatia acknowledged that he has invested in government bonds, saying nothing was unethical about the purchase of the bonds for which he had privileged information as alleged by the New Progressive Party (NPP) Rep. José Enrique “Quiquito” Meléndez.

“I purchased the bonds in a bet on my own country,” Bhatia told the press.

On Tuesday, Meléndez said he had referred the case to the Puerto Rico Department of Justice, urging the department to refer the case to the Special Independent Prosecutor Panel to make clear whether violations of the government ethics law had occurred, whether Bhatia acted for his own benefit, and whether the former Senate president violated other laws.

Meléndez said in a written statement that “regardless of whether Senator Bhatia had profits or losses from his bond purchases from the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), the reality is that he may have had access to privileged information while he was president of the Senate and did not abstain from voting on legislation that would benefit him as a bondholder.”

“Additionally, he could not participate in government meetings where privileged information related to the agencies where he bought bonds would be discussed,” Meléndez added.

According to press reports, Bhatia could have personally benefited from his position as president of the Senate by promoting legislation that would give him earnings as a government bondholder, Meléndez suggested.

“By participating in all kinds of meetings and voting on legislation related to the payment of bondholders, Bhatia was seeking to ensure the recovery of his money and he remained silent,” the legislator added. “While Eduardo Bhatia was buying COFINA [the Spanish acronym for the Puerto Rico Sales Tax Financing Corp.] bonds, at the same time he was cutting the funds to the retirement system of teachers and public employees.

Using insider information to seek to raise his earnings as a bondholder. And that action must be investigated by the Justice Department as soon as possible.”

Bhatia’s spokesman, PDP Rep. Ángel Matos said Bhatia’s family lost $60,000 on investments in the bonds.

While Senate regulations prohibit senators from legislating on behalf of legislation in which they stand to profit, an exception is made for measures that are meant to benefit the island such as the PREPA bonds in which Bhatia invested.

Matos called Meléndez’s accusations a “distraction”

from the federal investigations recently aimed at New Progressive Party lawmakers.

“At a time when the corruption of the NPP is at its height, they come up with these allegations, which are a whole lot of nothing,” Matos said.

Meléndez said the former Senate president traveled with public funds to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. to discuss with members of Congress issues related to debt payments and the establishment of a fiscal control board, which would immediately work in Puerto Rico in search of debt payment to the island’s bondholders. He added that in 2015 the Puerto Rico Senate approved legislation to increase the sales and use tax (IVU by its Spanish acronym) to 11.5 percent, and Bhatia voted in favor of the tax when he should have abstained as one of the bondholders who would benefit from the legislation.

“Bhatia’s actions were irregular transactions as a legislator because he was voting in favor of the repayment of his investment and that of his family, as stated in the media,” Meléndez said. “I had to refrain from participating in the processes.”

“He participated and had access to meetings where privileged information was discussed, first hand when the increase in the IVU was discussed to benefit him as a bondholder and he did not abstain,” Meléndez said. “He did not express to legislators or participants beforehand that he was a bondholder and that he should not be in those meetings, much less could he lobby in his favor with public money when he appeared as president of the Senate at the time. By participating in all kinds of meetings and voting on legislation related to the payment of bondholders, Bhatia was seeking to ensure the recovery of his money and he was silent.”

The NPP lawmaker said he referred the case to the island Justice Department and relevant federal agencies because the current Legislature has no jurisdiction over the actions of the former Senate president.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

FEMA: Puerto Rico’s current readiness to handle hurricanes requires governor’s leadership The federal agency said via letter that the government is unprepared for major climatic events; however, there’s more to that statement

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

A

lthough Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced said earlier this week that emergency plans are ready to go and that every agency is aware of its responsibilities in an emergency due to an atmospheric phenomenon, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has said otherwise, declaring in a letter earlier this month that after almost three years since Hurricane Maria, the government is neither prepared for nor capable of responding to a major climatic event.

According to the missive released by CBS Lead National Correspondent David Begnaud, FEMA Region II Administrator Thomas von Essen sent a letter on July 14 to Vázquez in which he described raising concerns about hurricane season preparations with La Fortaleza Chief of Staff Antonio Pabón, Public Safety (DPS) Secretary Pedro Janer and former Emergency Management and Disaster Administration Bureau (NMEAD by its Spanish acronym) Deputy Commissioner Marcelo Rolón. However, he said they were unaware of any issues and that the concerns were never brought to La Fortaleza. The officials’ lackluster response in turn caused a lack of faith in the DPS on the part of the federal agency, so von Essen brought the issues to the governor herself.

“I understand that you inherited a very complex government system as it relates to managing disaster preparedness and response activities and that considerable Commonwealth resources are currently committed to the FEMA-4339-DR (Hurricane Maria) recovery, but we are in the midst of the 2020 hurricane season and it is predicted to be particularly active,” von Essen said in the letter. “Puerto Rico’s current readiness posture for handling a significant hurricane, earthquake or a second wave of COVID-19, requires your leadership.”

Here are some of the perceptions and concerns FEMA Region II raised based on a June 15-19 trip to Puerto Rico: Inability to staff an Emergency Operation Center (EOC) for 24/7 during a response. The NMEAD Incident Management Team, which was initially composed of 35 core members that were trained by the federal agency, now consists of only nine members as the rest were realigned under the DSP. Von Essen said this leaves a void within the DSP and other entities in terms of responding at any time to an emergency.

“Due to the lack of staffing and departure of previously trained staff, there is a great dependency on other agencies to fill all-hazards positions and the current footprint within the EOC cannot support 24/7 operations,” the letter said. “[NMEAD] informed my staff that over 29 of the FEMAtrained [NMEAD] staff have been realigned under the Department of Public Safety, leaving critical voids within the [NMEAD]. Also, key positions, such as Information Technology, contracting, administrative support, among others, are now physically reporting to the DPS, which represents

a challenge when responding to a hurricane.”

The FEMA Region II administrator also called out DPS for an “inability to fill vacant positions,” as positions such as NMEAD commissioner, deputy commissioner, training and exercise officer, mitigation director, NMEAD zone planners, and others have been vacant for months. Furthermore, he said there is no qualification process as the agency has yet to establish a State Qualification Review Board, the deadline for which was July 10.

Contracting. According to the letter, the federal agency was informed that all contracting personnel have been removed from NMEAD and transferred to the DPS, which causes delays when executing contracts before and after an event.

“It is vital that the Government of Puerto Rico possess the ability to contract for emergency work in response to a hurricane and in compliance with 2 C.F.R. Part 200 as it applies to the State entities such as [NMEAD] if the Government of Puerto Rico wishes to be reimbursed under FEMA’s public assistance program,” von Essen’s letter said. “FEMA cannot substitute for [NMEAD] here because FEMA is not in privity of contract with the recipient’s contractors. … [I]t is vital that [NMEAD] has its own procurement capability.”

Lack of emergency power and satellite communication contracts. Von Essen said FEMA supplied more than 900 generators to key facilities during Hurricane Maria; nonetheless, most of the facilities, including Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority locations, did not have any backup power or contracts in place to provide said support.

Moreover, he said the local government acquired 127 federal very-small-aperture terminals (known as VSATs) believing it had a satellite service provider contract pending after acquiring the units; however, neither the contract nor an estimated award date for the service were in place.

“This equates to most public government locations on [the] island not having emergency communication capability …,” von Essen said in the letter. “According to [NMEAD]’s Communication POC, [NMEAD] is waiting for the approval from the DPS to acquire a satellite service contract.”

Inaccessibility of federal funding resources for Puerto Rico. The FEMA regional administrator stated that NMEAD does not have the authority to obligate the local government to federal cost sharing. Furthermore, he said this would be “very detrimental” if any support from the federal government were to be needed after an event.

Access to governor during response. At this point in his letter, von Essen said that during past disasters, one of the struggles that was highlighted was the need for the emergency management director to report directly to the governor for a more efficient response. Regarding that issue, he noted that the NMEAD commissioner had to report to the DPS secretary and the island secretary of State, who later reported to the governor. He “respectfully” recommended to Vázquez that NMEAD should report directly to the governor.

Emergency Management Preparedness Grant (EMPG).

Von Essen said that as the government has undergone several changes in leadership, it has impacted the consistent management of the EMPG grant, which is supposed to grant support for Puerto Rico’s emergency operations. The letter pointed out that the grant supports critical preparedness and emergency operations staff.

“Currently, there is approximately $9.9 million out of $14.2 million in unspent funds for the open awards (Note: this does not include 2020 awards as still under FEMA review),” von Essen wrote. “This represents 70 percent of the total award. If this continues, the Region will recom-

mend discussing the issuance of a possible sanction for non-performance.”

Chief of staff reacts to FEMA letter Pabón replied via letter on Wednesday to von Essen’s message, pointing out that the island government maintains a close and continuous relationship with FEMA as a “good team.” The chief of staff said further that their “excellent communication” has led to overcoming and clearing up any worries on the part of the FEMA Region II administrator, who visited the island in June.

“As a result, for the past two weeks, we’ve had the FEMA training staff [here], who are collaborating with [NMEAD] and DPS,” Pabón said. “It is worth noting that the main concerns expressed in the New York Region’s letter are based on the [NMEAD] fusion with DSP, an agency created as a requirement from the Financial Oversight and Management Board.”

The chief of staff reiterated that communication between the local and federal governments has been constant and focused on responding to hurricanes, tropical storms and any other emergency.

“This has been evidenced by the various conference calls amid the pandemic, and on-site meetings with FEMA and [NMEAD], such as the call that the governor made to FEMA Federal Administrator Peter Gaynor, who made all resources from the agency available himself and reiterated that, in 11 months, we have recovered the federal government’s trust,” Pabón said.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

5

PREPA says ‘terrorism’ responsible for Tuesday’s blackout; UTIER president reacts

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

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uerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) Executive Director José Ortiz said Wednesday that he has referred to the federal Department of Homeland Security the incident that caused the mega blackout at 3 p.m. on Tuesday and resulted in the temporary shutdown of the EcoEléctrica generator in Peñuelas.

“This is internal terrorism,” Ortiz said in a radio interview. “Electric power systems, like water systems, are protected by Homeland Security. So this is [a case for] direct federal intervention to evaluate all this data that we collected yesterday and that we are collecting today.”

The PREPA executive director said one or more people intentionally shut down the system for the high-voltage lines, causing the blackout.

“I think there is enough evidence.

There is video evidence. I believe that this [mischief] must end,” Ortiz said, referring to situations in the past in which electric power service has shut down in the middle of press conferences.

On the same topic, Electrical Industry and Irrigation Workers Union (UTIER) President Ángel R. Figueroa Jaramillo challenged Ortiz to make the aforementioned statements under oath.

“What he has to explain to the country is how he told the country last night that he had found nothing and at dawn [Wednesday] they were able to find what they did not find during the day [on Tuesday],” Figueroa Jaramillo said. “How come last night in front of the governor he could not show her, he could not tell the country what he alleges he found today?”

The union leader contended that if the protection system was manually turned off, the transmission line could not function as Ortiz alleged at a Tuesday evening press conference.

At the press conference, Ortiz said that in the investigation conducted after the event no situation was found that would lead to the lines going down.

“The event that caused the generators to shut down was not detected anywhere,” Ortiz said at the press conference. “There was no break, there was nothing that led

to that mentioned. The condition that was at some point did not appear.”

“An analysis is going to be made of what caused it and it must be seen that another condition could have existed, but there is no condition; therefore, that is why the system has continued to operate,” the PREPA chief added.

Ortiz said Wednesday that the event -which he said creates “suspicion” -- started in the Mora area of Isabela. Supposedly, three high-voltage lines running from Arecibo and Mayagüez to the EcoEléctrica cogenerator in Peñuelas stopped working.

The failure in the lines caused EcoEléctrica to shut down. He said PREPA engineers inspected the lines by helicopter and by land.

“We patrolled all the lines and not a single problem was found,” Ortiz said. “All of those lines are up and running an hour after the event. Something quite strange happened; we are analyzing the situation

with a lot of suspicion.”

The PREPA chief did not want to say what suspicion the event creates. The transmission lines in question are supervised by management employees from PREPA’s offices in barrio Monacillo in RÍo Piedras.

However, Figueroa Jaramillo said the event that caused the blackout at 3:12 p.m.

Tuesday began at 2 p.m. when “breakers” 80 and 90 of the 230-kilowatt line 50,500 in Mayagüez went out. At the same time, that breaker tripped breaker 40 of line 50,500 in Mora TC in Isabela.

At press time, Figuerao Jaramillo informed that the blackout was caused by a tree and not by a ‘terrorist’, like Ortiz assumed.

“They (PREPA) have sent brigades to two sectors where they have identified unhooking (of trees) areas, one in Aguadilla and the other in Mayagüez between towers 31 and 32. If once these areas are unhooked, that the information we have is that they are critical, and it is done test the line and the line test correctly, it is more than evident that the reason for the line not entering service was a disengagement problem, contrary to what the executive director told the country this morning (Wednesday) publicly,” Figueroa Jaramillo said at a press conference.

Ortiz did not comment on the UTIER president’s observation.

$14 million in FEMA funds assigned for 83 additional hurricane recovery projects

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

T

he Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Central Office for Puerto Rico Recovery, Reconstruction and Resilience (COR3) announced Wednesday the obligation of over $14 million in additional funds for 83 projects related to the recovery and reconstruction of Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria. These grants were approved during the week of July 17-23.

Among the most recent obligations is over $691,000 for the municipality of San Lorenzo to repair the Piedra Dura Water Park, which opened in May 2016.

Designed for the enjoyment of the 40,000 inhabitants of the eastern central town known as the Samaritan City, the complex employs about 34 people under the Municipal Enterprise Project. The park has several attractions such as swimming pools with water jets, a zip line, a 24-foot stone used for climbing, water jets for small children, and pavilions (gazebos), among other recreational areas.

“The Piedra Dura Water Park in San

Lorenzo is a very special place for Samaritan families,” said San Lorenzo’s acting mayor, Lynette Feliciano. “They can safely enjoy a beautiful space with excellent, fun amenities for children and seniors, who are the ones that have suffered the most from anxiety during this pandemic and [period of] social distancing.”

Meanwhile, nearly $291,000 was approved for repairs to the Las Vegas Urbanization’s basketball court in the municipality of Florida. More than 500 Floridian families will benefit from the permanent construction project located on Yori Street.

“This basketball court is the only recreational facility in the development and surrounding areas, so once rebuilt, residents will be able to enjoy it again,” said Florida Mayor José Gerena Polanco. “On behalf of all of us who live and work in the municipality of Florida, Tierra del Río Encantado (Land of the Enchanted River), we thank our staff, FEMA and COR3 for all the work and effort made to obtain these funds.”

Meanwhile, the municipality of Moca has been assigned over $38,000 to repave and repair the bridge on PR-423 Severiano

González Road, which provides access to adjacent properties and connects with other roads.

Moreover, Moca Mayor José Avilés Santiago said FEMA funds have helped the municipality in an extraordinary way since they offer the opportunity to address situations that otherwise could not be remedied.

He said the funds help prevent the municipality’s economy from being further affected and added that he is very grateful for FEMA’s work and commitment.

Part of the funds will be used as mitigation measures to prevent possible future damage.

With some $5,000 for mitigation measures, Moca will build a concrete slab at the bridge access points to provide additional resistance for the road in cases where flooding overflows the bridge and passes over the road, causing skidding.

The most recent approved grants are as follows: * Over $7.6 million for repairs to parks and recreational facilities. * Over $2.3 million for repairs to roads and bridges.

* Over $2 million for repairs to public buildings and equipment. * Over $1.4 million to municipalities and government agencies for administrative costs. * Over $1.1 million for emergency protective measures. * Over $61,300 for water control facilities. * Over $49,600 for utility repairs.

FEMA works with COR3 through the federal agency’s Public Assistance program to obligate recovery funds to private nonprofit organizations, municipalities and agencies of the Puerto Rico government for expenses related to hurricanes Irma and Maria. To date, over $7 billion has been awarded to Puerto Rico as part of FEMA’s Public Assistance program.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

Espacios Abiertos launches web platform with data on all candidates

By THE STAR STAFF

B

ecause of the “historical absence of information and the general ignorance by voters about the universe of candidates for elective positions,” the organization Espacios Abiertos (Open Spaces) presented on Wednesday the platform “QuienMeRepresentaPR.com, 2020 Elections Edition” despite the struggle to overcome what it called the notorious lack of transparency prevalent in the State Elections Commission.

At an online news conference, Espacios Abiertos CEO Cecille Blondet Passalacqua spoke about the difficulties in obtaining photos and other information on candidates from the SEC, which blamed the delays in releasing information on the problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

“The political participation of citizens goes hand in hand with the exercise of democracy. Furthermore, it is a human right recognized by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As a general rule, Puerto Ricans and residents of the island actively participate in electoral events. However, while many involve themselves in the selection of their representatives and rulers every four years, few participate in the activities of formation and construction of government policies the rest of the time, “ Blondet Passalacqua said. “Open Spaces was created with

the mission of developing the civic capacities of Puerto Ricans so that they participate actively and more effectively in the political, social, economic, and institutional spheres.

The QuienmeReprsentaPR.com platform in its original version, and now in the elections version, seeks to bring citizens closer to their elected representatives and facilitate their participation and frequency of involvement in decisions and events that affect us as a group on a daily basis.”

Running in primaries and general elections, there are almost 700 candidates vying for 158 seats, including governor, resident commissioner, mayors, district senators, at-large senators, district House seats and at-

large House seats. (That is without counting the 888 seats that represent the municipal assemblies of the 78 municipalities that vary in size from 4 to 14 municipal legislators).

The roster of applicants almost quadruples the available seats.

Blondet Passalacqua said that starting Wednesday and during the election period (from July to November), citizens will be able to get to know the candidates for elective positions at the municipal and state level through the QuienMeRepresentaPR.com portal. Geolocation technology allows a user to enter an address or postal code to identify, according to their place of residence, the district where they must vote. Then, from their mobile phone, tablet or computer, the user will have in one place information about all the candidates that will appear on the ballots of their district, under the insignia of the five parties certified by the SEC or by independent candidacies.

The detailed information on the candidates provided by the tool is not available through the SEC. Open Spaces’ collaborative alliances with other non-profit organizations will provide new layers of information to QuienMeRepresentaPRPR.com and will facilitate access and navigation for skilled voters who are interested in exercising their right to political participation,” Blondet Passalacqua said. Through direct links on the website, a user can access

the educational platforms and campaigns that have been developed for the 2020 elections: ParaVotar.org (offers information on the registration process, voter registration, etc.), Project 85 (promotes greater participation of women in elective and executive positions within the government, which tends to better reflect the representation of women), Voto con Conciencia (an educational campaign of the Puerto Rico Psychological Association) and TuVotoNoSeDeja (an educational campaign of ACLU Puerto Rico and those who currently work with the evaluation of the legislative history of the incumbents).

“As if the COVID threat was not a sufficient challenge, the primary process can be intimidating due to the wide range of applicants,” Blondet Passalacqua said. “In August, voters will have between four and six different ballots from which to select a total of 14 to 17 candidates. On the other hand, the primaries in principle offer the opportunity to the voters — armed with information — to select the best candidates for the November ballot. Those who best represent the majority.”

The QuienMeRepresentaPR.com project was subsidized with a donation from the Puerto Rico Philanthropy Fund, also known as the Foundations Network, where various foundations and philanthropic organizations from Puerto Rico and the mainland United States participate and contribute.

Oversight board cannot yet provide timeline for restructuring talks

By THE STAR STAFF

W

hile the Financial Oversight and Management Board informed the U.S. District Court earlier this week that it has resumed discussions with the Puerto Rico government’s Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority regarding the terms of a plan of adjustment, it could not provide a timeline for the restructuring negotiations.

The oversight board said in a filing Tuesday that it anticipates that it will engage in discussions with creditors and other interested parties, with the guidance of the mediation team led by bankruptcy judge Barbara J. Houser, to address the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on a plan of adjustment.

“Although the Oversight Board is not yet in a position to provide a timeline for these restructuring negotiations due to the continued uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic and the commonwealth economy, the Oversight Board expects to engage in productive discussions in the coming weeks,” the board said.

The oversight board is slated to file a status report by Sept. 9, including an update on the progress of the plan discussions and a proposal for the debtors’ plan and disclosure statement process, in accordance with the court’s scheduling order dated July 20.

The oversight board’s commonwealth plan of adjustment would restructure $35 billion of debt and other claims against the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Public Buildings Authority, and the Employee Retirement System, and more than $50 billion in pension liabilities.

The plan provides a framework to reduce the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico’s $35 billion of total liabilities – bonds and other claims – by more than 60 percent, to $12 billion. Also pending is a restructuring support agreement for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority to overhaul some $9 billion in debt and one for the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Corp.

The oversight board said it continues to believe the primary focus of the government of Puerto Rico and the oversight board should be directed at protecting the health and welfare of the people of Puerto Rico from the novel coronavirus that causes the infectious disease COVID-19.

To that end, in recent months, the oversight board created the $787 million Emergency Measure Support Package, consisting of $500 million authorized as an incremental appropriation for the fiscal year (FY) 2020 General Fund budget, a $157 million reapportionment within the current FY 2020 Commonwealth General Fund budget, and $131 million in federal funds. The

Emergency Measure Support Package is in addition to the $160 million for Puerto Rico’s Emergency Reserve Fund, which the board previously authorized.

“These emergency reserve financings were available because the Oversight Board has imposed and pursued sound budgeting practices and fiscal plans for the last three years,” the oversight board said. “The Oversight Board has worked closely with the Government to define how to spend this nearly $1 billion in emergency funding, with a clear focus on responding to and managing the ongoing pandemic.”

In addition to approving fiscal plans, the oversight board certified its own $22.2 billion FY 2021 budget for the commonwealth on June 30, as the island government did not approve and present a budget to the oversight board by the June 30 deadline.

The budget contemplates $10.045 billion in spending from the General Fund, along with special revenue and federal funds being allocated.

Regarding the general status of relations among the oversight board and the commonwealth and federal governments, the board said that despite litigation the commonwealth has filed against the oversight board, “the relationship between the Oversight Board and the Government continues to be collaborative.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

7

‘Nobody likes me,’ Trump complains, renewing defense of dubious science

By MICHAEL CROWLEY

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resident Donald Trump devolved into self-pity during a White House coronavirus briefing Tuesday, lamenting that his approval ratings were lower than those of two top government medical experts.

Just over a week after he began a rebooted effort, driven by rising infection rates and sinking poll numbers, to talk about the virus in terms more in line with medical consensus, Trump was again making unfounded claims and defending discredited medical experts. It was the sort of eccentric, science-deficient performance that many of his aides believe unnerved the public during the spring and has come to gravely threaten his reelection prospects.

Noting that Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, and Dr. Deborah L. Birx, his administration’s top coronavirus coordinator, have high approval ratings even as his own have sagged, Trump added: “And yet, they’re highly thought of — but nobody likes me.”

“It can only be my personality,” he concluded.

When the president restarted his coronavirus briefings last week after shutting them down in April, he largely hewed to a script, urging Americans to wear masks and practice social distancing.

But on Tuesday, he resumed his free- “He’s got this high approval rating,” President Trump said of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci at the White House coronavirus briefing on Tuesday. lancing and wandering into politically and “So why don’t I have a high approval rating with respect — and the administration — with respect to the virus?” medically problematic alleyways. When reporters pressed him on a viral video he had retweeted Monday night that included an authorization it had issued for emer- over high case levels in California, Arizona, good relationship” with Fauci while redoctors falsely claiming that hydroxychlo- gency use of hydroxychloroquine to treat Texas and Florida, he said: “That’s starting peating his now-routine complaint that roquine was a “cure” for the virus and that coronavirus patients, saying it acted “based to head down in the right direction. And I Fauci had opposed his ban in January on masks were unnecessary,Trump responded: on recent results from a large, randomized think you’ll see it rapidly head down very most air travel from China into the United “They’re very respected doctors. There was clinical trial in hospitalized patients that soon.”

States. (Fauci initially doubted the idea but a woman who was spectacular in her state- found these medicines showed no benefit However, a new federal report found supported the final decision.) ments about it, and she’s had tremendous for decreasing the likelihood of death or that the number of states with outbreaks The president, who said he was invoking success with it.’’ speeding recovery.” serious enough to place them in the “red the Defense Production Act for the 33rd time When a reporter noted that the phyButTrump was insistent. “Many doctors zone” has grown to 21. It called for more since the outbreak of the virus — this time sician who spoke of “a cure,” Dr. Stella think it is extremely successful,” he said of restrictions on social activity. Those states to provide a $765 million loan to Kodak Immanuel of Houston, also “made videos the drug, although he acknowledged that include the ones named by Trump, along to produce pharmaceuticals, part of a new saying that doctors make medicine using “some people don’t.” Trump also noted that with Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, effort to achieve “American pharmaceutical DNA from aliens,” Trump responded, “I he had taken a roughly 10-day course of Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, independence” from China and other naknow nothing about her,” and abruptly the drug in May, after a White House valet Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, North tions — insisted that he deserved more credit ended the briefing moments later. tested positive for the virus.

Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Ten- in relation to Fauci for his administration’s Twitter and Facebook have since remoWhile advisers have pressed Trump to nessee, Utah and Wisconsin. All had more efforts to procure more ventilators and perved that video, calling it misleading. more fully acknowledge the severity of the than 100 new cases per 100,000 people sonal protective equipment and to enable Fauci is among several top medical virus’ spread, he again offered a dissonantly in the past week. more virus testing nationwide. experts, as well as the U.S. Food and Drug upbeat assessment.

“He’s got this high approval rating, so The findings in the new report were Administration, to say repeatedly that Trump declared “large portions of our sent to state officials by the White House’s why don’t I have a high approval rating with hydroxychloroquine has no proven effect country” to be “corona-free,” even though coronavirus task force and obtained by The respect — and the administration — with against the coronavirus. The Food and no region in the United States is actually New York Times. respect to the virus?” Trump asked. “So it Drug Administration last month revoked free of the virus. While he noted concern Trump reiterated that he had a “very sort of is curious.”

8

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

‘I just don’t get it’: Republicans balk at funding FBI building in virus bill

The J. Edgar Hoover building, which houses the F.B.I.’s headquarters, is located a block away from the Trump International Hotel in Washington.

By KATIE ROGERS AND EMILY COCHRANE

M

itch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate majority leader, looked startled Monday when first asked why Republicans had agreed to a White House demand that $1.75 billion for a new FBI building be tucked into their emergency coronavirus relief bill.

Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, framed the item as a Trump administration priority, not a Republican one. Other Republicans were more blunt.

“I don’t know — that makes no sense to me” said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a close ally of President Donald Trump’s.

“I’d be fine, OK, with stripping it out.”

By Tuesday afternoon, another chapter in Trump’s long, strange and, to his critics, ethically questionable odyssey to personally shape the future of the J. Edgar Hoover Building seemed headed to a close as Republicans distanced themselves from key elements of their own coronavirus relief bill.

Senate leaders went so far as to say they hoped the administration’s bid to fund the construction of a new FBI building would ultimately be discarded from a final agreement, with McConnell backing away from the idea,

calling that provision, along with some others proposed by Democrats, “non-germane.”

It was the latest evidence of the disarray around attempts by Republicans to come to a common position as they enter talks with Democrats on another round of federal aid to deal with the economic devastation of the pandemic.

And it highlighted how the White House and Republicans have injected unrelated priorities dear to Trump into a negotiation that was already going to be complicated and intense. Republicans are also pressing to use the package to provide more than $1 billion for the Pentagon to restore projects that Trump defunded to help pay for his wall along the southern border.

Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin continued negotiations with Democrats led

by Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday, seeking agreement on a package that can pass both the Republican-controlled Senate and the Democratic-controlled House and winTrump’s signature. One key component of the earlier relief package, expanded unemployment benefits, is scheduled to expire at the end of the week, adding to the urgency of the talks.

With so much at stake, Trump’s own party seemed to draw a line at the proposal for the

FBI building. Shelby questioned whether it was an urgent priority at a time when Americans are struggling to weather a deadly pandemic and a recession.

“It’s needed,” Shelby said. “The question is, is it needed now?”

In recent days, Meadows had pushed the plan to replace the building, which is crumbling, out of date — and long the subject an unusual fixation for Trump, a former real estate developer.

As far back as 2013, two years before launching his candidacy, Trump expressed his interest in the property, located on Pennsylvania Avenue a block from the location of what would become the Trump International Hotel.

At that time, the FBI building was the subject of a long-debated plan that would allow the demolition of the existing structure and clear the way for commercial development of that location, allowing the chosen developer to construct an FBI facility in the Washington suburbs.

An executive at his company later expressed concern that the redevelopment project could create competition for Trump’s hotel. After Trump took office, his administration blocked a plan to move the building to a suburban campus, then unveiled another that would keep the building where it is, raising questions about whether he was seeking to protect his hotel from the possibility of a rival being built on the site.

His actions triggered an ongoing inquiry by the Justice Department’s inspector general and brought scrutiny by Democrats on Capitol Hill.

When asked last week why the provision was holding up negotiations among Republicans, Trump told reporters that he wanted to keep the building close to the Justice Department across the street.

“You can renovate the existing building, but it’s not a good building,” Trump said. “Or you could take it down and build a great building for the FBI for 100 years and have it be incredible.”

A senior administration official familiar with the White House’s negotiation strategy said Tuesday that Meadows and Mnuchin were treating the building provision as a potential bargaining chip to use later in negotiations with Democrats. Senate Republicans want to hold the package to around $1 trillion, while the Democrats are pushing a $3 trillion bill that would extend the $600 weekly enhanced

jobless payments through the end of the year, send $1 trillion to struggling state and local governments, and provide $3.6 billion for election assistance.

It is unclear how much leverage such a universally unpopular proposal would have provided Republicans, who are seeking to counter the Democratic plan by slashing the extra unemployment payments and have omitted funding for state and local governments as well as money to help states carry out the general election amid the pandemic.

Both proposals would send another round of $1,200 direct payments to many Americans.

An official familiar with the negotiations said that Republican senators, mindful that it had already taken days to reach consensus among themselves on an opening bid, ultimately stopped resisting the administration’s insistence on including the FBI provision in order to move on to what are expected to be much more fraught negotiations with Democrats, who have been publicly united behind their proposal since May. A chorus of Republican lawmakers said they were bemused by the demand for the FBI building, particularly given the amount of energy that they had spent hammering Democrats for including items they deemed unrelated to the coronavirus in their opening offer.

“I just don’t get it — how is it tied to coronavirus?” said Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla. “I never understood why you’re giving money to the Kennedy Center or National Endowment for the Arts. During a pandemic, let’s focus on solving the problem.”

Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., was also left bewildered.

“Even if the White House wanted it, I’d be against it because that’s certainly not necessary,” Braun told reporters.

For some Republicans, it was just another aspect of a proposal they regarded as deeply flawed.

“I’m not inclined to support it now — it’s a mess,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said of his party’s plan. “I can’t figure out what this bill is about. I don’t know what we’re trying to accomplish with it.”

After meeting with Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, Meadows and Mnuchin for a second consecutive dayTuesday afternoon, Pelosi said they were “airing our differences. There’s discovery of where there might be opportunity or not.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

9

Are the polls missing Republican voters?

By NATE COHN

W

ith polls showing Joe Biden holding a commanding lead, one question keeps popping up: Are these polls missing Trump voters?

Self-identified Democrats outnumber Republicans in most surveys, sometimes by a wide margin. This might simply mean there are more Democrats than Republicans. But to critics, the partisan makeup of most public polls is self-evidently out of step with a closely divided country.

There are many reasons the polls might ultimately be wrong in November, as many state polls were four years ago, but there’s no serious evidence that the polls are systematically missing Republican voters. There’s more evidence to the contrary — that the polls represent Republicans just fine, and President Donald Trump still trails.

Many insist otherwise. Trump campaign pollster John McLaughlin, for instance, cited the 2016 exit poll results to argue that public polls understate the number of Republicans by a clear margin. In 2016, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 3 percentage points in the exit poll, and Republicans made up 33% of the electorate. By contrast, the CNN/SSRS poll that McLaughlin criticized found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 7 points among the adult population, with Republicans at just 25% of the sample.

But few serious pollsters rely on the exit polls to determine the demographic or political makeup of their samples, with good reason.

When checked against census or voter file data, the exit polls are demonstrably inaccurate on many variables, like age and education. The errors are so large that it’s hard to trust their results on other measures. Even if the exit polls were more accurate on these demographics, they would still be just a snapshot of the electorate four years ago. And the partisan makeup of the electorate in the exit poll of a given election almost never matches that of the exit poll in the prior election.

In the absence of an authoritative benchmark for party identification, many public pollsters simply ignore the problem, doing nothing to ensure that the sample includes a certain number of self-identified Democrats or Republicans. It’s not that pollsters at various news media organizations are trying to bring about a significant partisan advantage for the

Democrats, as their detractors claim. It’s just what their results show.

Of course, those results could still be wrong. Pollsters can ignore partisanship only on the assumption neither Democrats nor Republicans are likelier to respond to telephone surveys, controlling for their demographic characteristics. If it turned out that Democrats were far likelier to respond to telephone surveys than Republicans, the public polls could be systematically biased — and the critics would be vindicated at the ballot box.

Ultimately, there’s no way to be absolutely sure that the polls include the right number of self-identified Democrats or Republicans.

Moreover, party identification is not a fixed characteristic.

Clues in the voter files But there are other ways to consider the effect of partisanship on polling, such as party registration. Unlike party identification — how respondents respond to a question about their preferred party, which could potentially flip to independent and back with every news alert — party registration is a more or less fixed characteristic, and so is the partisan composition of a state. We know that registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in Florida by a few points, even if we don’t know whether those same voters would identify as Democrats or Republicans today.

Pollsters can take advantage of this if they use voter registration files, a large data set of every registered voter. Most private pollsters and a handful of high-quality public ones use voter registration files as the foundation of their polling, and these pollsters can use a respondent’s party registration to help ensure that their sample is representative. They can make sure that 37% of their respondents in Florida, for instance, are registered Democrats. In states where voters do not have the opportunity to register with a party, a pollster can use a voter’s primary participation history in a similar way.

If polls using partisan characteristics from voter registration files showed a fundamentally different race, this could be a sign that the other polls were biased on partisanship.

But the recent surveys that are weighted by party registration or primary vote history offer nearly the same picture as polls that are not.

Arguably, they offer a picture even worse for Republicans.

The Monmouth University poll of Penn-

sylvania this month, which showed Biden up by 13 points among registered voters, was arguably Trump’s worst poll of the cycle, considering the quality of the pollsters. The NewYork Times/Siena College polls last month showed Biden leading by 9 points across the battleground states, and 14 points nationwide.

A CBS/YouGov battleground tracker, which uses online polling data matched to voter file records, found Biden up 9 points among likely voters nationwide.

Voter-file-based data lends credibility to polls showing a lopsided Democratic advantage in other ways. If all the various measures of partisanship — say, Republicans plus-two in Arizona or Democrats plus-two in Florida — are added together across the 94% of the nation with a measure of partisanship, Democrats outnumber Republicans by 6 points, 36% to 30%. This doesn’t prove that more voters identify as Democrats today, but the Democratic advantage in registration and recent primary participation nonetheless offers evidence consistent with the basic proposition that Democrats outnumber Republicans, and probably significantly.

Using this data, we found that self-identified Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 8 percentage points in the Times/Siena national poll (the unrounded figures are Democrats 34.5% to 26.4% for Republicans). Among those characterized as Democrats based on party registration or primary vote history, 69% identified as Democrats in the poll; similarly, 65% of those characterized as Republicans identified as Republicans. Those without a party, disproportionately young and nonwhite, split toward Democrats by a narrow margin of 24% to 19%. At the same time, 6% of registered Democrats identified as Republicans, while just 3% of registered Republicans now identified as Democrats.

The irrelevance of partisanship The polls that rely on voter files can help in another way: The pollster can tell whether there was a difference between Republicans and Democrats in their willingness to complete interviews. Pollsters using the voter files know the party registration of the intended respondent before they place the call. As a result, it’s easy to tell whether members of one party or another were more or less likely to respond to a survey.

If registered Democrats were likelier to respond than registered Republicans, it would undermine a core assumption of most public

Voting in Florida’s primary in March. Some Republican critics say recent polls are understating the true extent of Republican support. pollsters. It would also raise the possibility that bias contaminates the survey in unobservable ways: For instance, if Democrats were far more likely to respond than Republicans, one would have to assume that Democraticleaning independents were also likelier to respond compared with Republican-leaning independents.

But perhaps surprisingly, registered Republicans were actually more likely than registered Democrats to respond to the Times/Siena survey. Overall, telephone calls to registered Republicans or those who participated in a recent Republican primary were about 12% likelier to yield a completed interview than calls to Democrats were. This seemingly noteworthy difference can be explained by well-known demographic biases in polling: Older, rural and white voters are likelier than young, urban and nonwhite voters to respond to surveys. After these factors were controlled for, Republicans were no likelier than Democrats to respond to the survey. And if Republicans are just as likely to respond to surveys as Democrats, there’s little reason to believe that they’re vastly underrepresented in political surveys.

And there are reasons to doubt that Trump’s voters are being understated. In the last Times/Siena polls of six battleground states, for instance, respondents who voted in the 2016 election said they voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton by a margin of 2.5 points, which was even more than Trump’s actual margin of victory.

Trump’s problem wasn’t the number of people who said they voted for him last time: It was that only 86% of those who said they voted for him last time said they would do so again. Perhaps there’s a way the poll could have the right number of voters who said they voted for Trump last time, but not this time.

It would have to be an awfully specific form of polling error.

10

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

Where George Floyd was killed: solemn by day, violent by night

BY TIM ARANGO AND MATT FURBER

S

till, they come — from all over the country and beyond. From New Mexico, Texas, Massachusetts. From Africa and Europe. One man even said he walked a thousand miles, all the way from Alabama, just to be in Minneapolis.

“They are coming to feel the energy and pay tribute,” said Bianca Dawkins, 28, a local resident who has met many of the visitors.

Two months after the police killing of George Floyd, the four-block area of South Minneapolis where he gasped his last breaths remains a sacred space, a no-go zone for officers. There is a neatly trimmed garden, anchored by a sculpture of a raised fist. There are colorful murals and the words “I can’t breathe” painted across the pavement, as well as the names of dozens of other Black people killed by the police.

At night, though, the space is increasingly a battleground, with shootings and drug overdoses. The area has had an uptick in gun violence similar to what other cities have seen in the wake of protests.

At all times, the neighborhood brims with emotion. In its totality, it feels like the raw center of America’s reckoning with racial injustice.

The chaos at night has presented city officials with the challenge of how to reassert control of the space without setting off new waves of anger, all while maintaining it as a solemn place to honor Floyd. In Ferguson, Missouri, where the police killing of Michael Brown set off protests in 2014, tensions were reignited when officers moved to clear out a memorial.

But in Minneapolis, at least for now, the city is moving cautiously.

“Opening up too quickly will have a devastating effect on people still mourning,” said Angela Conley, a Hennepin County commissioner, who has been leading community discussions about the future of the area where Floyd was killed.

Even so, elected officials are fielding a growing number of calls from residents concerned about the violence and loud noise at night in the area, where, among several incidents, a pregnant woman was

recently killed.

“What people aren’t recognizing is that people who live there are having a very, very challenging time from the unlawfulness that is occurring after the sun goes down,” said Andrea Jenkins, a member of the City Council whose district includes the memorial space. “There are constant gunshots every night. Emergency vehicles can’t get in. Disabled people are not able to access their medications, their appointments, their food deliveries, et cetera. It’s a very challenging situation.”

Jenkins, who noted that the area has historically been plagued by gang violence, has also been taking a leading role in discussions over how to memorialize Floyd’s killing. One proposal suggests making the garden permanent. Other ideas include a civil rights museum and renaming Chicago Avenue in honor of Floyd. Activists are finding ways to preserve the street art that was painted over the plywood boards that went up to protect businesses during the protests.

Even before the killing of Floyd, Jenkins and other activists in South Minneapolis said they had hoped to build a site to recognize the history of racial injustice in the city. “I’ve been talking about a museum for the last three years,” Jenkins said. “My top priority is to build a center for racial healing in the city of Minneapolis because Black people have been in pain for hundreds of years.”

The conversation over what to do with the space comes as many activists in the city are fighting to defund the Police Department and reimagine public safety.

But that push for reform happening amid a rise in violence. Many Black residents of South Minneapolis, especially those who live near Cup Foods, the convenience store where Floyd was accused of using a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes before he was killed, say they are caught between two emotions: anger at the police but fearful for their safety now that officers have pulled back from the area.

Dawkins lives a few doors down from Cup Foods, and on a recent afternoon was selling candy and drinks and promoting a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to avoid foreclosure. When the pandemic hit, she was furloughed from her job at

Nordstrom, and her fiancé is also out of work.

But financial worries are only one thing on her mind. She has two children, including a 6-week-old baby. She says the daytime is fine, and she has met many people who have traveled to pay their respects to Floyd.

“But when the other crowd comes at night, I can’t call the police, and that scares the hell out of me,” she said. Dawkins pointed to a gunshot in the windshield of her car, a gold sedan.

“We have kids in this home, so I do want police to protect families,” she said. “It’s a hard balance. I’m happy this incident brought change, but I want to feel safe.”

As the protests gained momentum in late May, Dr. Jackie Kawiecki set up a medic station near Cup Foods, administering first aid to injured protesters. Since then, she has maintained a group of medics who treat minor ailments like abrasions and heat exhaustion during the daytime.

Sunset to sunrise is very different from sunrise to sunset, she said. “My nighttime world, after sunset, I have taken care of double gunshot wounds, drug overdoses.”

One night a man wounded by gunfire drove a bicycle past the barricades, she said, before collapsing outside her tent and yelling: “I’m shot! I’m shot!”

After the pregnant woman was killed nearby in early July, and having dodged gunfire herself, Kawiecki limited the hours of her medic station from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

But residents say that nothing happening at night diminishes the atmosphere that prevails in daylight. The other day, Anna Raeker, 25, was greeting visitors to the space and directing people to a pamphlet taped to a table: “This is a space community members want to decentralize white feelings and prioritize Black pain.”

“I think it’s important that white people are intentional with the ways they are using this space,” said Raeker, who is white.

Nearby, next to a large mural of Floyd, a local rapper, Jordan Wallingford, was taking a break from filming a music video. Wallingford, who performs under the name Haphduzn, said he at least wanted to see the garden, roundabout and raised fist sculpture stay permanently.

“Because that was the spark that changed the world,” he said.

Deborah Straub, who for weeks has been handing out snacks to children from the neighborhood — “free candy, free chips, free popcorn, free hot dogs,” she said — said the area should be preserved.

“Leave everything the way it is,” she said.

Outside Cup Foods, at the intersection of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis, the memorial for George Floyd is filled with flowers, signs and messages from people who came to pay their respects on June 15, 2020.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

11

Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google prepare for their ‘big tobacco moment’

By CECILIA KANG, JACK NICAS and DAVID McCABE

A

fter lawmakers collected hundreds of hours of interviews and obtained more than 1.3 million documents about Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, their chief executives will testify before Congress on Wednesday to defend their powerful businesses from the hammer of government.

The captains of the New Gilded Age — Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google — will appear together before Congress for the first time to justify their business practices. Members of the House judiciary’s antitrust subcommittee have investigated the internet giants for more than a year on accusations that they stifled rivals and harmed consumers.

The hearing is the government’s most aggressive show against tech power since the pursuit to break up Microsoft two decades ago. It is set to be a bizarre spectacle, with four men who run companies worth a total of around $4.85 trillion — and who include two of the world’s richest individuals — primed to argue that their businesses are not really that powerful after all.

And it will be a first in another way: Zuckerberg, Pichai, Bezos and Cook will all be testifying via videoconference, rather than rising side-by-side for a swearing-in at a witness table in Washington.

Perhaps appropriately, their reckoning will be broadcast online.

“It has the feeling of tech’s Big Tobacco moment,” said Gigi Sohn, a former senior adviser at the Federal Communications Commission and a fellow at Georgetown University’s law school, referring to the 1994 congressional appearance of top executives of the seven largest U.S. tobacco companies, who said they did not believe that cigarettes were addictive.

The hearing, which caps a 13-month investigation by the House subcommittee, will be closely watched for clues that could advance other antitrust cases against the companies. The Federal Trade Commission, for one, is preparing to

The chief executives of Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook will testify before Congress on Wednesday, July 29, 2020, to defend their powerful businesses from the hammer of government. depose Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives in its 13-month probe of the social network. The Justice Department may soon unveil a case against Google.

And an investigation into Apple by state attorneys general also appears to be advancing.

As a result, preparations for the hearing have been frenetic — even with the event postponed by a few days this week to accommodate the commemoration of Rep. John Lewis — as tech lobbyists jockeyed behind the scenes to influence the types of questions that lawmakers might ask.

At the hearing, which starts at noon ET Wednesday, the 15 members of the antitrust subcommittee will have five minutes for each question. Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., the chairman of the subcommittee, will control the number of rounds of questioning, potentially stretching questioning into the evening.

The length of the hearing may also be prolonged since the antitrust issues facing Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon are complex and vastly different.

Amazon is accused of abusing its role as both a retailer and a platform hosting third-party sellers on its marketplace.

Apple has been accused of unfairly using its clout over its App Store to block rivals and to force apps to pay high commis-

sions. Rivals have said Facebook has a monopoly in social networking. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is dealing with multiple antitrust allegations because of Google’s dominance in online advertising, search and smartphone software.

Democrats may also veer off the topic of antitrust and bring up concerns about misinformation on social media.

Some Republicans are expected to sidetrack discussion with their concerns of liberal bias at the Silicon Valley companies and accusations that conservative voices are censored.

“There was an attitude these were great American companies that created jobs and that we should have a hands-off approach and let them flourish,” Cicilline said in an interview. “But there are a lot of serious issues we have uncovered over the course of the investigation that weren’t apparent when we first began investigating.”

Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple declined to comment.

For the chief executives, the hearing will be a test of how they perform under fire. Bezos, 56, has not previously testified to Congress, while Cook, 59, and Pichai, 48, have both testified once before. Zuckerberg, 36, the youngest of the group, has the distinction of being the veteran: He has answered questions at three con-

gressional hearings in the past two years as Facebook has dealt with issues such as election interference and privacy violations.

But none are taking any chances for the event to go awry. Zuckerberg, who had been at his 750-acre estate on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, has been preparing for his testimony with the law firm WilmerHale, according to people with knowledge of the matter. And a small team is working with Bezos for his testimony in Seattle, said people with knowledge of the matter.

For weeks, the tech giants have also waged a lobbying battle to soften any blows. All four chief executives planned to call lawmakers on the House subcommittee in the days before the hearing, said three people with knowledge of the preparations who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Big Tech’s rivals have also jockeyed to have their gripes brought up at the hearing, even if for just a few minutes. The House subcommittee has been flooded with proposed questions, documents and letters from the companies’ competitors, according to congressional staff and rivals.

Spotify, for instance, submitted questions about Apple’s dominance of the App Store. GreatFire, a China-based group, sent a letter with nine questions for Cook about Apple’s censorship of certain apps in China. Blix, a company whose email app competes with Apple and that is suing Apple in federal court for patent infringement, sent five questions to the subcommittee, including one on why Apple ranked its own apps ahead of rivals’ offerings in its App Store.

Even if the hearing results in more theater than substance, some said the greatest risk to the tech companies was increasing momentum toward regulations.

“The CEOs don’t want to be testifying. Even having this collective hearing creates a sense of quasi-guilt just because of who else has gotten called in like this — Big Pharma, Big Tobacco, Big Banks,” said Paul Gallant, a tech policy analyst at the investment firm Cowen.

“That’s not a crowd they want to be associated with.”

12

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

Uber and Lyft Drivers win ruling on unemployment benefits

Drivers for Uber and Lyft won a key victory in their yearslong campaign to secure traditional unemployment insurance on Tuesday, July 28, 2020, when a federal judge in New York ruled that the state must promptly begin paying them benefits.

By NOAM SCHEIBER

D

rivers for Uber and Lyft won a key victory Tuesday in their continuing effort to be treated like other workers when a federal judge in New York ruled that the state must promptly begin paying them unemployment benefits.

Many drivers have waged a long legal and political battle with the companies over their employment status. Uber and Lyft have maintained that drivers are independent contractors who are not entitled to standard employment protections, such as a minimum wage, overtime pay and unemployment insurance.

The companies have gone to elaborate lengths to prosecute this argument, including spending tens of millions of dollars on a ballot measure that would exempt their drivers from a California law that effectively classifies them as employees.

In her ruling, Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall appeared to come down firmly on the side of drivers in this broader debate, citing “an avoidable and inexcusable delay in the payment of unemployment insurance.”

The ruling resulted from a lawsuit filed in late May by drivers and an advocacy group called the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, who argued that the state was taking months to pay unemployed drivers while typically processing benefits for other workers in two to three weeks.

Although the lawsuit was filed against the state rather

than Uber and Lyft, the judge called out the companies for extensive delay tactics that had made it difficult for drivers to receive the benefits they are owed.

LaShann DeArcy Hall cited “an avoidable and inexcusable delay in the payment of unemployment insurance” to drivers.

Under the ruling, the state Department of Labor has seven days to convene and train a “work group” of several dozen staff members who will identify backlogged claims by drivers who have sought “reconsideration” after being told that they were ineligible and take the necessary steps to pay them promptly. The state has 45 days to resolve this backlog.

Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the taxi workers’ group, said thousands of drivers were in this position. The judge gave the state 14 days to report back on the number.

Going forward, the Department of Labor must perform weekly queries to identify eligible claims by drivers who are currently denied prompt payment of their benefits so they can receive them quickly.

The ruling was a preliminary injunction, meaning the court was sufficiently persuaded by the drivers’ arguments and the urgency of the situation to require the state to accelerate the payments while the case is being litigated. The state can appeal the preliminary injunction to a higher court, and the court’s decision at the end of the trial could also reverse the preliminary decision, though that is unlikely.

“We are closely reviewing the decision and considering all of our options,” said Deanna Cohen, a spokeswoman for New York state’s Department of Labor.

The issue has become especially urgent during the pandemic, as the incomes of thousands of drivers have collapsed.

“Today’s decision is a huge victory for app-based drivers across New York,” said Nicole Salk, a senior staff attorney at Legal Services NYC, who represents the plaintiffs.

Central to the case before DeArcy Hall is data on driver earnings that would make it possible for the state to process unemployment benefits quickly.

The lawsuit contends that the state has failed to require Uber and Lyft to submit this information, despite the earlier rulings. In court proceedings this month, a lawyer for the state said that Uber had cooperated with a data request from the Department of Labor, though it was unclear if what was requested would allow the state to process benefits quickly. The lawyer said in court that the state had yet to review the data.

Lyft said in May that it was working with the state to provide data, but the state lawyer said at the court hearing that the company had yet to submit data similar to what Uber provided.

Without the earnings data that employers typically provide the state’s Department of Labor, drivers receive a statement saying that they have no earnings on file regarding their work for Uber and Lyft, forcing them into a bureaucratic process to demonstrate their eligibility for traditional benefits that can last months.

During court proceedings, the lawyer for the state accused Uber and Lyft of playing “games” to prevent the Department of Labor from being able to obtain the relevant earnings information through an audit. He said the companies did this by initially fighting determinations of unemployment eligibility, then withdrawing their appeals, which prevented a final determination that could be broadly applied to other drivers and could also be used to prompt an audit.

The ruling sheds light on the scale at which the companies employed this tactic, noting that there were about 294 cases in which the state had found Uber to be an employer and that the company had appealed 227 of them, only to abandon more than 200 of the appeals. There were about 78 instances in which the state deemed Lyft to be an employer, and the company abandoned nine of its 11 appeals, according to the ruling.

DeArcy Hall said in a hearing that if the data “is categorically made unavailable by the gamesmanship of the company, that it is incumbent upon the Department of Labor to use all the tools in its tool kit to ensure that unemployment insurance benefits are nonetheless paid.”

She said later that the department “has allowed itself to be led by the leash” of companies like Uber and Lyft, but added that “my determination on this issue is in no way a condemnation of the Department of Labor” whose culpability remains to be litigated.

Alix Anfang, a spokeswoman for Uber, said the company had provided all the data requested by state officials. A spokeswoman for Lyft declined to comment. Neither company responded to a request for comment about the appeals tactics cited by the judge.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

13 Stocks

Bank of America urge small-business agency to fix erroneous PPP loan data

B

ank of America Inc (BAC.N), the second-largest U.S. lender, has asked the Trump administration to correct data meant to offer public accountability on the recipients of $520 billion in pandemic aid, and a group of U.S. Democratic lawmakers has written to demand action before more funds are allocated.

The 30 lawmakers outlined a series of “grave concerns” about errors in the data for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in a letter on Monday to the Small Business Administration (SBA), asking that the agency “rectify these issues promptly,” according to a copy of the letter viewed by Reuters.

Bank of America, which the SBA said was the largest PPP lender by volume as of June 30, has asked the SBA to pull the data, clean it up and re-issue it, according to the person with direct knowledge of the discussions. A spokesman for the bank, which processed 334,761 PPP loans through June, declined to comment.

The requests, not previously reported, will likely raise pressure on the SBA and the Treasury to explain how they put together lending data on the program, which was designed to help businesses keep workers on their payrolls with forgivable loans.

Reuters and other news outlets have reported numerous red flags throughout the massive data set that suggest the number of jobs salvaged by PPP aid has been overstated.

President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign has said the data shows that his administration protected 51 million jobs after the coronavirus pandemic ruptured the economy.

Released on July 6 after some initial resistance by the administration, the data was meant to let Americans see who got cash — boosting transparency and allowing policymakers to assess the program’s success.

“We have found much of the released data to be grossly incorrect,” the lawmakers, who included the chair of the House of Representatives Committee on Small Business, wrote in a letter sent to SBA administrator Jovita Carranza on Monday.

“Data covering the number of jobs retained per loan and the borrower’s congressional district has proved to be largely erroneous, casting shadows on the veracity, quality, and reliability of other loan data,” they wrote.

The lawmakers asked the SBA to address a series of items — including how it arrived at the “jobs retained” figure and whether the SBA made efforts to independently verify data.Errors previously identified by Reuters in the data included loans which lenders and borrowers say were neither sought nor approved; loans which had been canceled; and incorrect loan amounts.

A spokesman for the SBA declined to comment, but Carranza said during a hearing this month that she was willing to address errors.

The 51 million jobs figure touted by the administration is much larger than the estimates of some independent observers.

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14

Thursday, July 30, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Vatican is said to be hacked from China before talks with Beijing

By DAVID E. SANGER, EDWARD WONG and JASON HOROWITZ

C

hinese hackers infiltrated the Vatican’s computer networks in the past three months, a private monitoring group has concluded, in an apparent espionage effort before the beginning of sensitive negotiations with Beijing.

The attack was detected by Recorded Future, a firm based in Somerville, Massachusetts. The Chinese Communist Party has been waging a broad campaign to tighten its grip on religious groups, in what government leaders have periodically referred to as an effort to “Sinicize religions” in the country.

China officially recognizes five religions, including Catholicism, but the authorities often suspect religious groups and worshippers of undermining the control of the Communist Party and the state, and of threatening the country’s national security.

Chinese hackers and state authorities have often used cyberattacks to try to gather information on groups of Buddhist Tibetans, Muslim Uighurs and Falun Gong practitioners outside China.

But this appears to be the first time that hackers, presumed by cybersecurity experts at Recorded Future to be working for the Chinese state, have been publicly caught directly hacking into the Vatican and the Holy See’s Study Mission to China, the Hong Kong-based group of de facto Vatican representatives who have played a role in negotiating the Catholic Church’s status.

The Vatican and Beijing are expected to start talks in September over control of the appointment of bishops and the status of houses of worship as part of a renewal of a provisional agreement signed in 2018 that revised the terms of the Catholic Church’s operations in China.

The series of intrusions began in early May. One attack was hidden inside a document that appeared to be a legitimate letter from the Vatican to Monsignor Javier Corona Herrera, the chaplain who heads the study mission in Hong Kong, Recorded Future said in a report to be released on Wednesday.

It was an artful deception: an electronic file that looked as if it was on the official stationery of Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra. The letter carried a message from Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, the pope’s second in command and an old China hand who has defended the deal. In his message, Parolin expressed the pope’s sadness about the death of a bishop.

It is unclear whether the letter was fabricated or a real document that the attackers had obtained and then linked to malware that gave them access to the computers of the Hong Kong church offices and the Vatican’s mail servers. Recorded Future concluded that the attack was most likely connected to negotiations over the extension of the 2018 agreement.

In a recent interview with an Italian television program, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, a key negotiator of the agreement, said that with the provisional agreement set to expire in September, the Holy See “wants to continue with this step, it wants to go forward.”

Recorded Future concluded that the attack was carried out by a state-sponsored group in China, which it named Red-

Pope Francis celebrating a Holy Mass at the Vatican last month. As part of a provisional agreement in 2018, the pope agreed to recognize bishops who had been appointed by the Chinese government.

Delta. It said that the tactics used by the group were similar to those of other state-sponsored hacking operations that had been identified in the past. But there were also new techniques and new computer code, and identifying the true source of a hack is difficult.

The revelations are certain to anger the Vatican as its relationship with the Chinese government has been enormously delicate, especially over China’s crackdown on Hong Kong.

When the Vatican issued prepared remarks on July 5 for Pope Francis’ blessing at St. Peter’s Square, it included a message to the people of Hong Kong, saying the current standoff “requires courage, humility, nonviolence and respect for the dignity and rights of all. I hope that social and especially religious life may be expressed in full and true liberty, as indeed several international documents foresee.”

But in the end, the pope did not deliver those words when he spoke.

The negotiations between the Vatican and Beijing would follow on the provisional agreement of 2018. The deal, the details of which are still largely unknown, was aimed at laying the foundation for a process by which the pope and the Chinese authorities could agree on bishops appointed to the head of official churches in China. As part of the deal, Francis agreed to recognize several bishops who had been appointed by the Chinese government.

At the time, both sides said it was a starting point for deeper talks, and the Vatican praised it as leading to a rapprochement between the official churches in China and the Holy See. In

China, churches for various Christian denominations, including Roman Catholicism, are either sanctioned by the Chinese government, which appoints or approves clerical leaders, or underground ones. The underground Catholic Churches have been loyal to the Vatican, and they are overseen by bishops secretly appointed by the pope.

The 2018 reportedly allowed Beijing to name bishop candidates to the official churches but gave the pope final say over the appointments. This was understood to be the process moving forward after the pope recognized the several bishops appointed by Chinese officials. Those bishops had been excommunicated by the Vatican.

Critics of the agreement denounced the Vatican for dealing with an authoritarian government and endowing Beijing with greater legitimacy, allowing it potentially more influence over the religious lives of China’s 10 million to 12 million Catholics.

Some prominent American politicians, such as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., have been among those urging the Vatican to refrain from dealing with the Chinese Communist Party.

Under the rule of Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, the party has tightened its control over the nation’s religious and spiritual life as part of a drive that Xi has led to increase party oversight in almost every aspect of society. Officials in southeastern China have imposed especially harsh restrictions on the practice of Christianity. From 2014 to 2016, the authorities in Zhejiang province, where Xi once served as party chief, ordered crosses to be torn down from 1,200 to 1,700 churches, according to officials and residents there.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

15

North Korea thinks he brought COVID-19. The South wanted to arrest him.

By CHOE- SANG-HUN

T

hree years ago, out of work and hungry, Kim Geum Hyok climbed Mount White Horse near his North Korean hometown, Kaesong, brooding on the meaninglessness of life.

Not far to the south, across a river, the 21-year-old could see high-rise buildings in South Korea, dazzlingly lit up. The sight beckoned him.

After two nights on the mountain, Kim crossed the world’s most heavily armed border to get to it. He climbed down, crawled under and over layers of barbed-wire fences and made his way through minefields. At the river’s edge, he hid among reeds, improvising a life jacket from washed-up plastic trash. When night fell, he began to swim.

“I kept swimming toward the light,” Kim said of his 7 1/2 hours in the water, in an interview that a fellow North Korean defector posted on YouTube. “When I finally landed on the South Korean side and walked through reeds and saw South Korean soldiers approaching, I was so exhausted I collapsed.”

This month, after three years of life in the South, Kim went back — swimming across the same river he’d crossed in 2017, South Korean officials said. On Sunday, North Korea said he may have brought the coronavirus into the country for the first time, and it put Kaesong, Kim’s hometown, under lockdown.

On Monday, a police department in South Korea said that before Kim left, a warrant had been issued for his arrest on a rape accusation.

North Korea did not identify Kim in its statement. But South Korea said he was the only defector in the South who had gone back to the North this month. The South did not disclose his full name, but it released enough information for reporters to establish his identity.

And other defectors who knew him — including the YouTube interviewer, Kim Jin-ah, a woman from Kaesong — confirmed that it was him, uploading photos of Kim Geum Hyok to social media.

Weeks before his departure, Kim, now 24, gave several interviews for Kim Jin-ah’s YouTube channel, Lady From Kaesong, talking about his lives in the two Koreas.

He used an alias and wore sunglasses, and in some clips his face had been digitally altered. Much of what he said could not be independently verified.

“I once visited his apartment in late June and I was surprised that it was so bare of furniture,” Kim Jin-ah said in a video posted after the man’s return to the North.

“Looking back, I think he was already preparing to leave South Korea.”

Even before Kim Geum Hyok went back, his story was an unusual one. Most of the 33,000 North Korean defectors now living in South Korea got there by way of China and Southeast Asia. But some, like Kim, made the dangerous decision to cross the inter-Korean border.

For a defector to return, however — to a desolate

economy and a dictatorship that calls defectors “human scum” — is rare. Eleven have done so in the past five years, according to the South’s Unification Ministry. Like many defectors, those who go back have often had trouble adjusting to the South’s freewheeling capitalist society.

In one of the YouTube interviews, Kim said he had lost most of his hearing at an early age.

“Because of that, I had difficulty communicating with people,” he said. “I was beaten because I was told to bring one thing and brought something else.”

When he was still a child, Kaesong, a city of 300,000, was chosen as the site of an industrial park run jointly by the two Koreas. It opened in 2004, and Kaesong became a boomtown, awash with cash. Kim’s cousins worked at the park, he said, and he himself sold eggs and vegetables.

But four years ago, the South shut down the complex in a dispute over the North’s nuclear weapons program.

The economy crashed, and Kim, like many others, was soon out of work. (Last month, with inter-Korean relations at another low, the North blew up an office in Kaesong that it had jointly operated with the South.)

By the time he climbed Mount White Horse in June of 2017, Kim told Kim Jin-ah, he “saw no hope for the future, no meaning in life, wondering whether I should continue to live or die.” Seeing the South Korean buildings at night compelled him to “go there and check it out even

if that meant my death,” he said.

Kim said he could not take his eyes off South Korean television during his debriefing by officials, which all defectors undergo after arriving in the South. In the North, all TV sets are preset to government propaganda channels.

Kim settled in Gimpo, a city across the Han River from Kaesong. A doctor corrected the hearing problem that he had lived with since childhood. He gave Kim Jinah no details about his condition or the treatment, but he told her that he cried that day.

He also told her that he missed his parents deeply.

He had enrolled in a vocational school, as part of the resettlement program that the South offers to defectors.

But he said he quit and found work, hoping to send money to his family, as defectors often do through middlemen in China.

Off camera, according to Kim Jin-ah, Kim confided something else.

He told her that he was being investigated by the police because another defector had accused him of raping her. He told the YouTube interviewer that he had been so drunk on the night in question that he couldn’t remember anything.

With Kim now in the North, it is impossible to contact him for comment. But the police in Gimpo confirmed that a warrant had been issued for his arrest.

South Korean officials believe that Kim Geum-hyok, a North Korean defector, went through this drain on Ganghwa Island as he made his way back to the North.

16

Thursday, July 30, 2020

Egypt sentences women to 2 years in prison for TikTok videos

By DECLAN WALSH

A

rmed with vaguely worded laws, Egypt’s guardians of conservative morals have long focused on belly dancers and pop stars in their efforts to police women’s behavior.

Now they have hit upon a new target — young women who have become famous on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

In the latest episode of a long-running culture war, an Egyptian court Monday convicted two women, social media stars, on charges of “violating family values,” and sentenced each of them to two years imprisonment. The court also found three men guilty on charges of helping post the women’s videos, lawyers said, and received the same sentence.

The convictions were the first verdicts from a series of at least nine arrests since April of young Egyptian women who are prominent on TikTok, a wildly popular app. A third woman is expected to be sentenced Wednesday, when two more will go on trial on similar charges.

Social media is a highly contested and

often perilous space in Egypt, where the government exerts tight controls over traditional media like newspapers and television, and has used courts to patrol digital platforms beyond its reach.

Numerous Egyptians have been jailed for posts on Twitter and Facebook deemed critical of the government, or of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, and at least 500 news websites have been blocked.

In some countries, TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company, has come under intense scrutiny over concerns that the Chinese government could use it to spy on users. President Donald Trump is considering steps to ban the app.

But in Egypt, the focus is largely on the app’s potential effect on the country’s moral probity.

Several women, mostly in their 20s, have become famous through their use of TikTok, in some cases earning thousands of dollars by monetizing their large followings. Some wear headscarves, a sign they come from conserva-

Mowada al-Adham, left, and Haneen Hossam were convicted on charges of “violating family values” on Monday.

tive families.

The backlash has come from Egypt’s Parliament as well as the courts, with some lawmakers demanding that the government suspend TikTok, accusing it of promoting nudity and immorality.

Most of the women facing prosecution for their TikTok posts were put in jail without bail.

Human rights activists launched a digital campaign last week to demand their release.

The two women convicted Monday — Haneen Hossam, 20, and Mawada el-Adham, 22 — gained millions of followers for lighthearted videos they posted to TikTok and other platforms that show them dancing, singing and clowning about. The clips are tame by social media standards, and nothing that would raise the eyebrow of a broadcast censor in the West.

The women wept as a judge at the Cairo Economic Court handed down the sentences, one of their lawyers said. They were also fined nearly $19,000 each.

Hossam, a second-year archaeology student at Cairo University, was arrested in April for a short Instagram video clip that prosecutors called “indecent.” In the video, she encouraged women to post videos of themselves to the app Likee, which pays users based on the number of views they receive.

Egyptian prosecutors accused Hossam, who usually wears a headscarf in her videos, of inviting young women to sell sex online. Her lawyer, Ahmed Abdelnaby, denied the charge.

“Nothing she said in that video violated the law,” he said. “The video is proof of her innocence, not the opposite.”

El-Adham, a former beauty pageant contestant with 3.2 million followers on TikTok, was on the run for days before her arrest in May, moving between houses in the Cairo suburbs and Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. During the trial, prosecutors slammed videos that she posted as “disgraceful and insulting,” her lawyer said.

Like many of the defendants, el-Adham, the daughter of a retired policeman, is from solidly middle-class family. She moved to Cairo from the coastal town of Marsa Matruh four

years ago to pursue her university studies, she said in a television interview in 2018. At the time, she worked in sales.

In one of el-Adham’s last videos, before police tracked her down using her phone signal and internet usage, she posed smiling in a velour one-piece jumpsuit with her hair dyed blue.

“They have destroyed us, they have destroyed an entire family,” her older sister, Rahma el-Adham, said in a tearful interview with a television station Monday night.

The two women who are scheduled to stand trial Wednesday on similar charges are Nora Hisham and her mother, Sherifa Refaat, both of whom posted videos to TikTok. They were arrested Jun. 11.

Such prosecutions often start when activist lawyers, who present themselves as arbiters of public morality and protectors of Egyptian nationalism, file criminal cases accusing the women of offenses like “inciting debauchery” and “spreading fake news.”

The cases are then taken to trial by zealous public prosecutors who enjoy sweeping powers under a cybercrimes law passed in 2018, which provides for prison sentences and heavy fines for digital content deemed to violate public morals.

The criminalization of women for their TikTok videos stands in sharp contrast to the treatment of another group of Egyptian women who, earlier this month, were commended for their use of social media to highlight assault complaints, leading to an Egyptian #MeToo moment.

A flood of sexual assault complaints posted to an Instagram page about Ahmed Bassam Zaki, a 21-year-old business student, prompted the authorities to arrest Zaki and start an investigation. Since then, the government has introduced draft legislation that aims to protect the privacy of sexual abuse victims.

Egyptian activists say that social class partly accounts for the differing treatment of the two groups of women. While the TikTok women come from working- or middle-class backgrounds, Zaki’s accusers come from wealthier and powerful families that are less often the target of moral censure.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

17

Cold comfort: France to ban heated terraces, but not this winter

By CONSTANT MÉHEUT

F

rance will ban heaters used by cafes and restaurants on outdoor terraces as part of a package of measures aimed at reducing carbon emissions and energy consumption, the French ecology minister said on Monday.

The French government’s announcement came at a difficult time for cafe and restaurant owners hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with many largely relying on outdoor dining to comply with social distancing rules.

In an attempt to give businesses time to continue in their recovery and adapt to the new law, the ban will not go into effect this winter, when many experts expect a resurgence of the virus.

In a country famous for its terrace culture, heat lamps running on electricity or gas have flooded outdoor terraces for over a decade, making sitting outside in cold weather not only possible but comfortable. In Paris alone, some 70% of cafe terraces are estimated to have heating devices.

Now, though, France is looking to accelerate its fight against climate change, and energy hungry heaters are increasingly seen as anachronistic.

Several cities in France banned outdoor heaters in recent months and calls to follow suit in Paris gained traction in the run-up to the municipal elections in March.

“It’s about ending practices that are ecological aberrations and that lead to totally unjustified energy consumption,” France’s new ecology minister, Barbara Pompili, said after meeting with President Emmanuel Macron’s environmental defense council on Monday.

“It is not possible to heat terraces at full capacity in the depths of winter when it is zero degrees for the sheer pleasure of drinking your coffee on a terrace while being warm,” she added.

Even before the pandemic, the country’s cafes and restaurants were suffering a drop in business because of monthlong strikes that kept many people off the street.

Then they were forced to shut their

doors for 11 weeks as the nation locked down to slow the spread of the virus.

“Restaurant owners were already down on their knees,” said Marcel Benezet, a representative of the GNIHCR, the country’s main union for cafes, hotels and restaurants. “Now, with this ban, the government is giving us a second sledgehammer blow.”

Benezet said that as the reopening of cafes and restaurants came with new health restrictions limiting attendance in enclosed areas, outdoor terraces had become the only place where “you can make a little money.”

Many cities across France have allowed cafes and restaurants to extend their outdoor terraces into areas normally reserved for pedestrians in order to compensate for the loss of income resulting from social distancing rules imposed on these businesses.

In Paris, with some 17,000 cafe

terraces, dozens of cobblestone streets are now buzzing with customers sometimes sitting right in the middle of the street, as they enjoy their apéros, a pre-dinner drinking tradition that the pandemic had all but extinguished.

Despite the government delaying the ban until next spring, Benezet said that since no one knew how long the epidemic would last, it could come into force at a time when outdoor seating is still needed to mitigate the economic effects of social distancing rules.

France, like other European countries, is facing a slow but worrisome resurgence of the epidemic. There were about 800 new cases a day on average over the last two weeks, compared with 500 a day the previous week, with authorities reporting about 100 active clusters of the virus, which officials fear could foster a second wave of infections nationally.

The terrace at Les Deux Magots, which uses overhead heating, in Paris on Feb. 24, 2020.

“We need more time to adapt ourselves,” Benezet said. “We should not be sacrificed in the name of ecology.”

The ban is part of a series of environmental measures to be introduced in the coming months, such as encouraging building owners to improve insulation and prohibiting them from installing coal or fuel oil furnaces in new homes.

Some measures, including the ban on heated terraces, are a direct result of proposals from a Citizen’s Convention on Climate that Macron set up after the Yellow Vest protests in 2019, in a bid to balance economic policies with long-term environmental objectives.

In late June, just after the Green party won a landslide victory in the municipal elections that has put the French government to the test, Macron pledged 15 billion euros, or about $18 billion, to pay for environmental proposals.

18

Thursday, July 30, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

If our masks could speak

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

W

hen people ask me about my mood these days, I tell them that I feel like I’m a reporter for The Pompeii Daily News in A.D. 79, and I’m sitting in the foothills of Mount Vesuvius and someone just walked up and asked, “Hey, do you feel a rumbling?”

Do I ever.

The summer of 2020 could be remembered as one of those truly important dates in American history. Everywhere you turn you see parents who don’t know where or if their kids will go to school this fall, renters who don’t know when or if they will be evicted, unemployed who don’t know what if any safety net Congress will put under them, businesses that don’t know how or if they can hold on another day — and none of us who know whether we’ll be able to vote in November.

That is a lot of hot, molten anxiety building up beneath our economy, society, schools and city streets — just waiting to blow the top off our country — because we have so failed at managing the coronavirus. We have 25% of all recorded infections in the world, and we’re only 4% of the world’s population.

In the ultimate irony, Vietnam, which has a little less than onethird of our population but has reported only 416 cases and no deaths, is feeling sorry for us.

How did we get so inept?

If, God forbid, America were buried under lava the way Pompeii was and future archaeologists were to come along and

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dig it out, I have no doubt that the artifact they’d dust off and hold up first to answer that huge question would be a simple item that costs pennies to make and is so easy to wear: the face mask.

For something that’s supposed to cover our mouths it speaks volumes about how crazy some have gotten. Specifically, that face mask tells how the world’s richest and most scientifically advanced country generated a cadre of leaders and citizens who made wearing a covering over their nose and mouth to prevent the spread of a contagion into a freedom-of-speech issue and cultural marker — something no other country in the world did.

There is nothing more demoralizing than this, nothing that set us back in the fight against COVID-19 further and faster. A society that can politicize something as simple as a face mask in a pandemic can politicize anything, can make anything a wedge issue — physics, gravity, rainfall, you name it. And a society that politicizes everything will never realize its full potential in good times or prevent the worst in bad times.

And that’s where we are now. When you compare the sacrifices — including the ultimate sacrifice — that the Greatest Generation of Americans made to defend their fellow citizens from the scourge of Nazism with how little some members of today’s generations will sacrifice to defend their fellow Americans from the scourge of COVID-19 — by just wearing a face mask — it leaves you speechless.

It’s inexcusable. Resisting wearing a mask in a pandemic is nothing more than selfish, libertarian nonsense masquerading as a comic-book defense of freedom: “Don’t tread on me, but I can breathe on you.”

And yet for months our president and vice president, and most Republican governors and their followers, equated resisting mask-wearing with resisting an infringement on personal freedom, rather than the most effective and cheapest thing we could do to limit the spread of the virus and get back to work and our kids back to school.

President Donald Trump’s resistance to masks actually had nothing to do with ideology. It was just his primitive opposition to anything that would highlight the true health crisis we were in and that therefore might hurt his reelection.

But Vice President Mike Pence — always happy to put lipstick on Trump’s piggishness — dressed up his crude maskresistance in elegant constitutional garb. When asked by a reporter at Trump’s Tulsa rally a few weeks ago why the president appeared unconcerned about the absence of masks and social distancing at his event, Pence solemnly intoned: “I want to remind you again, freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble is in the Constitution of the U.S. Even in a health crisis, the American people don’t forfeit our constitutional rights.”

What a fraud.

As John Finn, professor emeritus of government at Wesleyan University, writing on TheConversation.com, noted, “There are two reasons why mask mandates don’t violate the First Amendment. First, a mask doesn’t keep you from expressing yourself. … Additionally, the First Amendment, like all liberties

“For something that’s supposed to cover our mouths it speaks volumes about how crazy some have gotten,” writes Thomas Friedman. ensured by the Constitution, is not absolute. All constitutional rights are subject to the government’s authority to protect the health, safety and welfare of the community.”

A study by the Boston Consulting Group on which countries not only flattened the curve of the coronavirus but “crushed it,” found that the key to reopening economies while also containing virus transmission was “physical distancing, frequent hand-washing and the widespread use of masks” — and the fact that these governments developed detailed guidelines for all three when it came to workplace settings, schools and public transportation.

But our future archaeologists would also be right to focus on face masks, because the early intense resistance by proTrump Republican leaders and faithful to wearing them was the distilled essence of how far off-track today’s GOP and its enabling media ecosystem have drifted. In that sense it was yet another stark reminder that we can’t be at our best as a country — as we need to be most in a pandemic — without a principled conservative party, grounded in science, not just cultural markers and mindless, kneejerk libertarianism.

We have a way to go. Forbes reported last week that “of the 19 states that have yet to issue a mask mandate, 18 are run

by Republican governors.”

But let’s give a small shout-out to Republican Govs. Larry Hogan of Maryland, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Eric Holcomb of Indiana and Kay Ivey of Alabama, who have been or become pro-mask. It is not only good for their states’ physical health but also the country’s political health.

Wearing a mask in this pandemic is a sign of respect for your fellow citizens and neighbors — no matter what their race, creed or political affiliation. Wearing a mask says: “I’m not just concerned about myself. I’m concerned about you, too. We are all part of the same community, the same country and the same struggle to stay healthy.”

A different president would have been urging every American, from the start of this pandemic, to don a red, white and blue mask. He would have used such a mask to do double duty — crush COVID-19 and bring us together for the long march needed to do so.

As I said, a different president.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

19

Alcalde de Caguas alega acuerdo con DTOP no le permite recoger los escombros de las carreteras Por THE STAR

E

l alcalde de Caguas, William Miranda Torres, le cursó una carta al secretario del Departamento de Transportación y Obras Públicas (DTOP), porque entiende que el acuerdo con los municipios no resulta en beneficio para los ciudadanos.

Según el alcalde, el acuerdo que presentó el DTOP, “no le resuelve un problema a la ciudadanía y, por el contrario, lo crea al no permitirle al municipio recoger los escombros en las carreteras estatales tras el paso de un evento atmosférico”.

Bajo el acuerdo- a su entenderel municipio solo puede despejar las carreteras estatales y no recoger los escombros.

“Luego de evaluarlo (el acuerdo) y ante la dilación en el recibo de este y la emergencia que se avecina, estamos firmando el documento, pero entendemos que el no permitir que el municipio se encargue del recogido y disposición de dichos materiales no cumple con las expectativas de nues-

tros ciudadanos”, reza la carta de Miranda Torres con fecha del 28 de julio de 2020.

La misiva agrega que “de la experiencia vivida, no solo de los huracanes Irma y María sino de todos los eventos atmosféricos que hemos atendido, ciertamente la primera respuesta está dirigida a abrir brecha para el libre acceso de los servicios

de emergencias y de todas las comunidades. Sin embargo, el abrir brechas y no ser efectivos en el recogido de los materiales (vegetativos y escombros) conlleva situaciones de seguridad en el tránsito, acumulación de agua en los sistemas de recogido pluviales, situaciones de salud pública, molestia en los ciudadanos que sus viviendas colindan con las carre-

teras, entre otras; que pueden resultar en problemas mayores. Esto sin considerar que a cerca de tres años de paso de los huracanes Irma y María, continuamos con situaciones de seguridad, derrumbes, asfalto, etc. en varias carreteras estatales de nuestra ciudad, lo que nos ha llevado a dar seguimiento continuo de los proyectos bajo el Programa Abriendo Caminos, programa que iba a atender algunos de estos casos”.

El acuerdo suministrado por el DTOP indica que el municipio “tendrá a su cargo la responsabilidad de llevar a cabo los trabajos necesarios para la apertura de carreteras estatales dentro de su jurisdicción tan pronto el Gobierno Federal declare en estado de emergencia a Puerto Rico debido al paso de algún evento atmosférico”.

Dispone además que “los trabajos autorizados en este convenio son exclusivamente para abrir brecha o “cut and push” en las carreteras estatales.

No se autoriza al Municipio a realizar trabajos de recogido de escombros”.

PR participará en proyecto multiestatal de revisión de datos reportados por la pandemia del COVID-19 Por THE STAR

L

a contralora Yesmín Valdivieso informó que la Oficina del Contralor de Puerto Rico se unió hoy a un esfuerzo multiestatal para crear un modelo uniforme de auditoría de calidad de los datos reportados y monitoreados del Covid-19.

“Nos alegra participar en este valioso instrumento que servirá, entre otros fines, para la fiscalización de los fondos relacionados a la pandemia del Coronavirus” expresó Valdivieso en declaraciones escritas.

Este proyecto colaborativo, impulsado por la Auditora Estatal de Delaware, Kathy McGuiness, cuenta con la asistencia de la Asociación

Nacional de Auditores Estatales.

“A raíz de los retos que representa la pandemia, la Contraloría de Puerto Rico se ha ido preparando para responder a los nuevos escenarios de auditoría. A tales efectos, varios funcionarios se han reunido con la Asociación Nacional de Auditores Estatales, Contralores y Tesoreros (National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Tresurers-NASACT) para establecer estrategias sobre la fiscalización de los fondos asignados”, mencionó.

A la iniciativa de Delawares se han unido estados como Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Tennessee, el Distrito de Columbia y Puerto Rico.

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Thursday, July 30, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Kerry Washington on her 4 Emmy nods and issues of race in her work

Kerry Washington in a scene from “Little Fires Everywhere,” for which she received an Emmy nod for lead actress. She also executive produced the show, which was nominated for best limited series.

By JULIA JACOBS

K

erry Washington’s most visible Emmy nomination Tuesday was for her lead role as Mia Warren, a roaming artist and headstrong mother of a teenage daughter in “Little Fires Everywhere.” But that acting nod was just one piece of a big morning for Washington all around, much of it as a producer.

“Fires,” of which Washington was an executive producer, also received a nomination for best limited series or movie.

And two other nominated projects showed the growing reach of her new production company, Simpson Street.

“American Son,” a Netflix adaptation of the Broadway play, received a nomination for best TV movie. (Washington also plays a mother in the film who awaits news about her missing son at a South Florida police station.) “Live in Front of a Studio Audience,” which restaged Norman Lear sitcoms from the 1970s, was nominated for best variety special. Washington was an executive producer on both.

Washington took a moment Tuesday to discuss her four nominations, getting back to work during the pandemic and the way her nominated works contain mes-

sages that align with the national debate over racial justice.

Q: Three projects that you executive produced received Emmy nominations this year. How does that feel?

A: Crazy. Surreal. I have to say, the thing that has meant the most to me this morning, the thing that my heart really swells about, is Lynn Shelton’s nomination. I’m so grateful that the Academy has honored her in this way. It’s so immensely deserved. At a time when women’s voices in directing and producing are just so important, to really honor her, in her passing, for her extraordinary work on our show, is just so meaningful. I just keep getting so emotional thinking about it. (Shelton died at age 54 in May.) Q: It’s striking to me that three out of your four nominations are for executive producer roles when I think the American television audience knows you primarily as an actress. What does that say about where you are in your career right now?

A: We really took a bet on ourselves by being such diverse producers. It’s exciting because I’m really drawn to doing different kinds of work, and I really love producing, so it’s exciting for the company to be acknowledged in this way.

Q: What was it like to have two roles on “Little Fires Everywhere” — to be the lead actress and also to be overseeing the project as an executive producer.

A: It’s really what I know. I entered the world of producing as an actor-producer. Our first project was “Confirmation” for HBO, and I was a producer and actor on that. It’s funny for me when I’m producing and not in it. It’s a funny feeling.

Q: In terms of planning new projects during the coronavirus pandemic, how far out can you plan given the uncertainty in the entertainment industry right now?

A: There’s filming happening. People are starting to really work on different protocols. We had almost finished “The Prom” with Ryan Murphy for Netflix when the shutdown happened, and so just recently we’ve been working to finish. There’s innovations happening. People are really trying to figure out how to get back to work safely. We’ll be part of that effort to figure out best practices and make sure we’re putting people’s health ahead of business but also looking for ways to return to business and for people to be able to support themselves.

Q: Have you been on a set yet?

A: I haven’t. I’ve only been doing remote from home filming stuff. But we’re figuring out how to move forward.

Q: Is the idea of being back on a set anxiety inducing, or are you ready?

A: Can both be true? All over the country you’re seeing people wanting to be in community and be at work and be living their lives. But the virus is really scary and has to be taken seriously.

Q: The debut of “Little Fires Everywhere” felt sandwiched between two major national moments. When it started, it was the pandemic; then after the series ended, it was the killing of George Floyd in police custody and the protests for racial justice that followed. Do you think the discussions happening around the country and in all sorts of institutions about racism and racial justice resonate with issues in the show?

A: I would say, in some ways, “American Son” deals with these issues in a much more direct manner. That material is really about the value of Black life in the face of

police violence. It was really interesting to see the film surge back into people’s consciousness and conversation because of this real awakening around the movement for Black lives.

A lot of those themes — particularly unconscious bias and microaggressions and the ’90s modality of reaching for colorblindness — a lot of that is explored in “Little Fires” in ways that I think are really important. That was Lauren Neustadter and Reese Witherspoon — my dear, dear friend — they had the idea to cast me as Mia and to produce this project together.

(Neustadter and Witherspoon were also executive producers.) They opened up a landscape. In the novel, Mia is racially ambiguous. But by making her African American in the ’90s, we were able to really bravely go into narrative territory that was exciting.

Q: The casting opened so many doors in the story that the book didn’t go into.

A: It’s funny you say that because that’s how I always describe the role of adapting. We work with a lot of writers on a lot of special material. I always say, when you develop literature it’s like you’re going into all the same rooms but by transforming it for a visual medium you get to open those drawers and dig inside.

Q: I was listening to “Code Switch” on NPR and they had a whole episode on this idea of a “Karen,” or, an entitled white woman, and they mentioned Reese Witherspoon’s character on “Little Fires” as the prototypical Karen. Would you agree?

A: I’m no Karen expert, but that sounds about right. But I think one of the things that is so extraordinary about the show is Reese’s performance. Just by labeling that social phenomenon as “Karen,” it requires a level of stereotyping that can be reductive, and what Reese did was really breathe so much humanity into that perspective, into that worldview, that we understood it, that we could unpack it. We could be invited into it and really examine it more. I think her performance is so beautiful because it required a level of nuance and a commitment to the humanity of her character that I think was artistically heroic.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

21

House votes to create a National Museum of the American Latino

By JULIA JACOBS

S

upporters of a National Museum of the American Latino are the closest they have ever been to gaining a spot on the National Mall.

On Monday, the House passed a bill to establish such a museum within the Smithsonian, delivering a significant victory to a yearslong effort to build an institution devoted to the history and contributions of Latino Americans.

Legislation establishing such a museum was first introduced in 2011, but this was the first time it secured House approval, and it did so by voice vote with bipartisan support.

Prospects for a Senate version of the bill are unclear, but its Republican lead sponsor, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, said that he hopes that the chamber will be able to make the museum a reality.

In the past, the proposal has met with opposition from legislators concerned about budget pressures who said the Smithsonian should focus on improving the museums that it already had.

But Latino activists, artists and legislators gained traction in Congress at a time when President Donald Trump’s standing with Hispanics remains low after his inflammatory remarks about, and efforts to curb, immigration from Central and South America.

In the House chamber on Monday, Democratic legislators gestured toward that rhetoric as one reason for the necessity of a National Museum of the American Latino.

“Our community has been used as scapegoats for the problems that America faces,” Rep. Tony Cárdenas, D-Calif., said on the House floor. “The American people deserve to learn the truth of our history and our heritage.”

The effort to establish the museum dates to 1994, when a report found that the Smithsonian “displays a pattern of willful neglect toward the estimated 25 million Latinos in the United States,” noting that the institution had no museum or permanent exhibition that features Hispanic American art, culture or history. (That figure has more than doubled. In 2017, there were nearly 60 million Latinos in the United States, equaling about 18% of the total population, according to Pew Research Center.)

The report, issued by a 15-member task force that was appointed by the Smithsonian’s secretary himself, noted how few Hispanics had roles in the Smithsonian’s top management or were featured in the “notable Americans” section of the National Portrait Gallery.

Three years later, the Smithsonian Latino Center was created to ensure that the contributions of the demographic were represented throughout the museum system.

But despite calls for a museum dedicated entirely to Latino Americans, it wasn’t until 2008 that Congress

On Monday, July 27, the House passed a bill to establish a National Museum of the American Latino within the Smithsonian, delivering a significant victory to a yearslong effort to build an institution devoted to the history and contributions of Latino Americans. passed legislation authorizing a commission to plot out the specifics.

At the time, the National Museum of the American Indian had recently opened and the National Museum of African American History and Culture was in the works, contributing to an unwillingness in Washington to offer the same level of federal funding to another new museum.

The report by the commission, released in 2011, proposed a 310,000-square-foot building, roughly the same size as the African American museum, that would be situated prominently on the National Mall. It assured legislators that the museum would need no federal appropriations in the first six years after it was established, relying instead on private funding. The report estimated that the project would cost $600 million and set a private fundraising goal of $300 million. The commission identified possible locations on the National Mall where the museum could be constructed, but nothing has been finalized.

The plan that was passed in the House bill Monday, however, involved the government providing funds to reach 50% of the money needed for the design and construction of the museum, the same financial model that was used for the African American museum. (The government paid for two-thirds of the American Indian

museum.)

Henry Muñoz III, who chaired the commission and was head of the Smithsonian Latino Center, said that the success of those museums has shown that the funding model worked and should be replicated for the Latino museum.

Legislators from both parties celebrated the passage of the bill as a milestone for the effort; in particular, the bill’s lead sponsor on the Democratic side, Rep. José Serrano of New York, who is nearing retirement, framed it as a sort of capstone on his 30-year career in the House, urging the Senate to “finish the job.”

In a statement, Cornyn, the lead sponsor of the legislation in the Senate, said that “I look forward to making that a reality.”

Congressional approval would be an important step for the museum, but the road ahead remains long if the process unfolds as it did in the case of the Museum of African American History and Culture. The legislation establishing the museum and the council that would shepherd its creation passed in 2003. The building itself opened in 2016.

“This is far from over, and it will take many years,” Muñoz said. “But I think that this is a recognition of the importance of our community to the building of this country.”

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Thursday, July 30, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

The star of this $70 Million Sci-Fi film is a robot

The producer Sam Khoze with Erica, the android star of the film “b.”

By SARAH BAHR

T

he strangest part of Matthew Helderman’s video call came when he bit into an apple.

Or rather, what followed.

“What kind of apple is that?” asked the 23-year-old with blunt bangs and big brown eyes peering at him through his laptop screen.

Helderman, chief executive of BondIt Media Capital, was meeting with the leading lady of “b,” the $70 million sci-fi film his company is backing.

Only the actress, Erica, was not, in fact, a woman but an android. Though her curious eyes were trained on Helderman’s face, the giveaway was a faint whirring when she rose from her chair.

Erica was created by Hiroshi Ishiguro, a roboticist at Osaka University in Japan, to be “the most beautiful woman in the world” — he modeled her after images of Miss Universe pageant finalists — and the most humanlike robot in existence. But she’s more than just a pretty face: Though “b” is still in preproduction, when she makes her debut, producers believe it will be the first time a film has relied on a fully autonomous artificially intelligent actor.

Despite her flawless features and easy smile, her pupils are clearly plastic. Her synthesized British voice has a slight metallic tone that sounds as if she’s speaking into a pipe. When she walks, the motion of her air compressor joints makes it look as though she’s performing either a sped-up or slowed-down version of the robot. For that reason, most her scenes will be filmed while she’s sitting down.

But she does have one advantage over the Margot Robbies and Brad Pitts of the world: She’s immune to the coronavirus.

‘The most beautiful woman in the world’ Ishiguro has a dream, and in it, the world is filled with Ericas.

The barista who hands you your morning coffee. The anchor who delivers the nightly news. The receptionist at the doctor’s office.

He can make artificially intelligent androids that walk and talk, of course. But he’d rather you forget they aren’t human.

To that end, his goal is to understand what makes humans, well, human. “Erica does not understand or operate in the same system as humans,” the 56-year-old director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University said by email. “So she always makes believe to be human.”

Ishiguro developed Erica with the goal of creating an android that people wouldn’t just relate to but would confide in and feel affection for. The more humanlike he could make her appear, he said, the more people would trust her.

When he unveiled her in 2015, she was the most advanced of the dozens of androids he had produced over his career that have performed in plays, sung in malls and even delivered the news.

So when one of the “b” producers, Sam Khoze of LIFE Productions, was looking for an android to headline a feature film in 2017, he entertained pitches from several robotics companies.

But the moment he met Erica, Khoze said he knew she was their star.

“She really looks like a human,” Khoze said, “even down to such small details as her tongue and eyelids.”

A compelling pitch When Khoze pitched the project to Helderman and BondIt Media Capital, about two years ago, its android actor was unquestionably the selling point.

Helderman, whose company’s credits include the 2017 Netflix movie “To the Bone,” said the film had a dime-a-dozen scifi plot that wouldn’t have made it on his radar if it hadn’t been for the star. (In addition to BondIt, the Belgium-based Happy Moon Productions has also committed to back the film.) But video calls with Ishiguro and Kohei Ogawa, an assistant professor at Osaka University who had joined the Erica project in 2016, convinced Helderman that the project was more than slush-pile material.

In the story, which was written by Khoze, visual effects supervisor Eric Pham and Tarek Zohdy, Erica plays an artificially intelligent woman, b, who can surge into the body and mind of any human host. The film follows her creators’ efforts to gain control of her as she becomes self-aware.

Erica had originally been set to star in a project directed by Tony Kaye (“American History X”), but scheduling issues led the producers to abandon it. No director or human co-stars are attached to “b” yet (Khoze said they have interviewed several filmmakers and will make their choice in the next few weeks), but some of Erica’s scenes were filmed in Japan last year. They hope to finish the rest in Europe next summer.

‘What is a human being?’

While she awaits co-stars, Helderman said, Erica continues to run lines with amateur local actors. “The coronavirus is a double-edged sword,” he said. “We don’t know when production can begin again, but she’ll be ready when it does.”

The script calls for three supporting human lead actors, but Khoze said they’re also looking at several other robots for supporting roles and are in negotiations to hire a robot for a crew position.

But Erica still has a way to go in the quest to not just masquerade as humans but to emulate them. She speaks both English and Japanese, and can talk to a stranger in Japanese for 10 minutes on more than 80 topics. But Ishiguro said they’re still working toward conversations that are deeper or involve multiple people.

“The machines that humans use become more human,” he said. “So the most important question for us is, ‘What is a human being?’”

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

23

Meditation may be good for the heart

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

M

editation may be linked to a lower risk for cardiovascular disease, a new study suggests.

Researchers used data from a national survey conducted annually by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, identifying all patients with high cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, stroke and coronary artery disease and any who reported that they meditated. Of 61,267 people in the survey, there were 5,851 who participated in some form of meditation. The study is in the American Journal of Cardiology.

After controlling for age, sex, body mass index, marital status, smoking, sleep duration and depression, they found that meditating was associated with a 35% lower risk of high cholesterol, a 14% lower risk of high blood pressure, a 30% lower risk of diabetes, a 24% lower risk of stroke and a 49% lower risk of coronary artery disease.

The lead author, Dr. Chayakrit Krittanawong

of the Baylor College of Medicine, said the reduction in stress that meditation can provide could at least partially explain the result. But he cautioned that the study is observational, and that clinical trials would be needed to determine the mechanism that

explains the association. He added that the study did not distinguish between the many different kinds of meditation.

Still, he said, “I believe that any kind of meditation would have benefits for cardiovascular disease

Even in toddlers, excess weight sets the stage for heart ills

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

O

verweight and obese children may show signs of cardiovascular disease risk even before age 11, Australian researchers report.

For a study published in Pediatrics, scientists measured body mass index in 1,811 children every two years between ages 2 and 11 and calculated their metabolic syndrome risk scores. For this study, the score calculated risk for cardiovascular disease

based on the presence of four factors: high blood pressure, high blood sugar levels (insulin resistance), high triglyceride levels and low levels of HDL (“good cholesterol”).

They found that BMI was relatively stable over time in most children. Higher BMI was associated with higher metabolic risk scores, and the association became stronger with age. Higher BMI in 2- and 3-year-olds predicted higher metabolic risk scores at age 11 to 12.

By age 6 to 7, obesity was also associated with thickened arterial walls and greater arterial stiffness, which can be precursors of vascular disease.

“Children who are obese in childhood track into obese adolescents and adults,” said the lead author, Kate Lycett, a child health researcher at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia. “As a parent, it’s really difficult, but turning it around early in life would prevent later cardiovascular disease.

“We’ve made very successful efforts to control heart disease,” she continued, “but when you have children who are obese throughout life, we’re really at risk that a lot of that good work can be undone.”

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

Bringing Mars rocks to earth: Our greatest interplanetary circus act

NASA and the European Space Agency plan to toss rocks from one spacecraft to another before the samples finally land on Earth in 2031.

By KENNETH CHANG

S

end a robotic spacecraft to Mars, grab some rocks and dirt and bring those back to Earth.

How hard could that be?

It’s more like an interplanetary circus act than you might imagine, but NASA and the European Space Agency think that now is the time they can finally pull off this complex choreography, tossing the rocks from one spacecraft to another before the samples finally land on Earth in 2031.

“The science community, of course, has lusted after doing this for quite some time,” said James Watzin, the director of the Mars exploration program at NASA. The first step of this epic undertaking, known as Mars sample return, starts soon with Perseverance, the next

NASA rover. It is scheduled to liftoff on July 30, headed for Jezero, a crater that was once a lake about 3.5 billion years ago, and is a promising place where signs of past life on Mars could be preserved.

One of the key tasks for Perseverance is to drill up to 39 rock cores, each a half-inch wide and 2.4 inches long, that look interesting enough to merit additional scrutiny on Earth.

Each sample of rock and dirt, weighing about half an ounce, will be sealed in an ultraclean cigar-size metal tube.

But initially, NASA had no plans to bring those tubes back to Earth. Perseverance has no way of flinging the rocks off Mars.

Three years ago, a team of engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, began taking a closer look at when the return part of

Mars sample return could be undertaken. They considered the possibility of launching the retrieval spacecraft in 2026 with the samples returning three years later.

That timeline, they found, was too ambitious.

But if the landing on Earth was pushed back to 2031, the schedule appeared to be feasible. “We actually feel like we could do this,” Watzin said.

Space agency officials have not yet announced a total price tag, but the cost is expected to run several billion dollars.

“We’re trying to keep this under a certain cost target,” said Brian K. Muirhead, who is leading the sample return design at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “We’re really coming up with the estimates — ‘This is what we think it’s going to take’ — and so far, NASA has said, ‘OK, keep going.’”

If everything goes to plan, two spacecraft will blast off to Mars in 2026. One will be a NASA-built lander that will be the heaviest vehicle ever put on the surface of Mars. It will be carrying a rover, built by the Europeans, to fetch the rock samples, and a small rocket that will launch the rocks to orbit around Mars.

The lander will take a roundabout trajectory to Mars, arriving in August 2028, the beginning of the Martian spring. The solar-powered fetch rover will then roll off the lander, make a dash to collect at least some of the rock samples and bring them back and transfer them to the lander. The samples, in turn, will be robotically moved to the top of the Mars ascent vehicle, the rocket that will launch the rocks off Mars.

The second spacecraft, the Earth Return Orbiter, will be built by the European Space Agency. It will take a quicker path to Mars, pulling into orbit before the lander’s arrival. That will allow the orbiter to serve as the relay for communications from the lander as it zooms to the surface.

The launch of the ascent vehicle

will deposit a container, about the size of a soccer ball, with the rock samples circling around Mars about 200 miles above the surface. The orbiter then has to find this container, like a baseball outfielder chasing down a fly ball.

The orbiter will be tracking the launch of the rocket, but for simplicity, the container itself does not possess any thrusters or a radio beacon. It is, however, white, which should make it easier to spot against the darkness of space.

“This is obviously one of the key issues: How do you find it?” Muirhead said. “Once you know where its orbit is, it’s very easy to match orbit.”

A door on the orbiter will open to capture the container. A 1,000-pound contraption within the orbiter then rotates and slides the container to the proper configuration within the spacecraft, taking care to seal off the possibility that anything from Mars could contaminate anything outside of the sample container.

The orbiter would then depart Mars. As it approached Earth, it would eject the samples, now mounted within what is called the Earth entry vehicle, on a collision course with the Utah desert.

Parachutes were another complication that engineers decided was unnecessary, so the entry vehicle, which resembles a large sombrero, is to hit the ground at a speed comparable to a highway car crash: 90 mph.

The scientific cargo — rocks and dirt, which are not fragile — will easily survive that impact.

Many of the details like where the lander will set down, remain undecided. If Perseverance is still in good working condition, it might head to a second site outside Jezero where there might have been geothermal hot springs, another environment where life could have thrived.

But these decisions do not have to be made for years, and the best answers may not become apparent until Perseverance gets a good look at Jezero.

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

ROOSEVELT CAYMAN ASSET COMPANY Plaintiff, v.

LILA RITA HERNANDEZ CALDERON

Defendant CIVIL NO. 16-03085-GAG. COLLECTION OF MONEIS - FORECLOSURE OF MORTGAGE. NOTICE OF SALE.

TO: LILA RITA HERNANDEZ CALDERON, General Public, and all parties that may have an interest in the property

WHEREAS, Judgment in favor of Plaintiff was entered for the principal sum of $181,419.48 plus accrued interest annual commencing in 3.00%, and monthly late charges from the 1st day of November, 2016, until the debt is paid in full. Such interests continue to accrue until the debt is paid in full. The Defendants was also ordered to pay Plaintiff late charges in the amount of $33.77 of each and any monthly installment not received by the note holder within 15 days after the installment was due until the debt is paid in full. Such late charges continue to accrue until the debt is paid in full. The defendant was also ordered to pay Plaintiff all advances made under the mortgage note including but not limited to insurance premiums, taxes and inspections as well as 10% of the original principal amount ($18,863.83) to cover costs, expenses, and attorney’s fees guaranteed under the mortgage obligation. WHEREAS, pursuant to said judgment, the undersigned SPECIAL MASTER, Joel Ronda Feliciano, was ordered to sell at public auction for US currency in cash or certified check, without appraisal or right to redemption to the highest bidder and at the office E Street, Lot 3, Section 4, Los Frailes Industrial Park, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico 00969 (18,3699028-66.1126971) the following property: “URBANA: Solar radicado en la Urbanización Ciudad Universitaria, situada en el barrio Cuevas de Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico, que se describe en el piano de inscripción de la urbanización con el número cinco de la manzana U, con un área de trescientos veinticinco metros cuadrados.

En lindes por el NORTE, con el solar cuatro, distancia de veinticinco metros; por el SUR, con el solar seis, distancia de vein-

@

ticinco metros; por el ESTE, con el solar ocho, distancia de trece metros; y por el OESTE, con la calle cinco, distancia de trece metros. El inmueble antes descrito contiene una casa de concreto, diseñada para una familia. Recorded at page 242 of volume 481 of Trujillo Alto, Property Registry of San Juan, Fourth Section of San Juan, property number 6,820. The mortgage foreclosed as part of the instant proceeding is recorded at page number 242 of volume number 481 of Trujillo Alto, in the Registry of Property of San Juan, Fourth Section, property number 6,820. Potential bidders are advised to verify the extent of preferential liens with the holders thereof. It is understood that the potential bidders acquire the property subject to any and all the senior liens that encumber the property. It shall be understood that each bidder accepts as sufficient the title 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 further that the successful bidder accepts then and is subrogated in the responsibility for the same and the bid price shall not be applied toward the cancellation of the senior liens. WHEREFORE, the first public sale will be held on September 4th, 2020 at 9:30 am and the minimum bidding amount that will be accepted is the sum of $188,638.34. 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 September 11th, 2020 at 9:30 am and the minimum bidding amount that will be accepted is the sum of $125,758.89. If said second auction does not result in the adjudication and sale of the property, a THIRD public auction shall be held on September 18th, 2020 at 9:40 am and the minimum bidding amount that will be accepted is the sum of $94,319.17. Upon confirmation of the sale, an order shall be issued canceling 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 aforementioned office of the Clerk of the United States District Court. San Juan, Puerto Rico, this 9th day of July, 2020. Joel Ronda Feliciano, Special Master. E-mail: rondajoel@me.com. Tel: 787565-0415.

staredictos1@outlook.com

Thursday, July 30, 2020 LEGAL NOTICE IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO.

ROOSEVELT CAYMAN ASSET COMPANY IV Plaintiff v.

CARMEN HERNIDHIA COLOMBANI LATORRE

Defendant CIVIL NO. 18-cv-01499 (ADC).

FORECLOSURE OF MORTGAGE AND COLLECTION MONIES. NOTICE OF SALE.

TO: CARMEN HERNIDHIA COLOMBANI LATORRE, General Public, and all parties that may have an interest in the property

WHEREAS, Judgment in favor of Plaintiff was entered for the principal sum of $116,611.16, accrued variable interests starting at 6.95%, and deferred balance of $9,373.33 for a total of $125,984.49 from February 1, 2016 until the debt is paid in full. Such interests continue to accrue until the debt is paid in full. The Defendants was also ordered to pay Plaintiff late charges in the amount of $39.04 of each and any monthly installment not received by the note holder within 15 days after the installment was due until the debt is paid in full.

Such late charges continue to accrue until the debt is paid in full. The defendant was also ordered to pay Plaintiff all advances made under the mortgage note including but not limited to insurance premiums, taxes and inspections as well as 10% of the original principal amount ($12,800.00) to cover costs, expenses, and attorney’s fees guaranteed under the mortgage obligation. WHEREAS, pursuant to said judgment, the undersigned SPECIAL MASTER, Joel Ronda Feliciano, was ordered to sell at public auction for US currency in cash or certified check, without appraisal or right to redemption to the highest bidder and at the office E Street, Lot 3, Section 4, Los Frailes Industrial Park, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico 00969 (18,3699028-66.1126971), the following property: “URBANA: Solar marcado con el número Seiscientos Siete (607) en el bloque LC-35 (607 LC-35) en el plano de inscripción de la Urbanización La Cumbre, radicado en el Barrio Monacillos de Rio Piedras, termino municipal de la Capital de Puerto Rico, con un área superficial de trescientos cuarenta y ocho metros cuadrados con cuatro centímetros cuadrados (348.04). Y colinda por el NOR-

TE: en veinticuatro metros con ochenta centímetros con el Solar número Seiscientos Seis del bloque LC-Treinta y Cinco del mencionado plano; SUR; en veintitrés metros con cuarenta centímetros con el Solar número Seiscientos Ocho del bloque LC-Treinta y Cinco del mencionado plano; ESTE; en dieciséis metros con cincuenta centímetros con la calle denominada “Madison Street” del mencionado piano; OESTE; en doce metros con veinticinco centímetros con terrenos propiedad de la Corporación de Renovación Urbana y Vivienda de Puerto Rico. Enclava en dicho solar una edificación para usos residenciales. The mortgage foreclosed as part of the instant proceeding is recorded at page number 161 of volume number 112 of Monacillos Este y el Cinco, property number 3,541 in the Registry of Property of Puerto Rico, Fifth Section of San Juan. The aforementioned mortgage has one senior lien: i. MORTGAGE: In favor of Doral Mortgage Corporation, in the original principal amount of $20,000.00, with 9.95% annual interests, due on February 1, 2012 constituted by deed #53, executed in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on January 28, 2002, before Notary Eric Hernandez Batalla, recorded at mobile volume 267 of Monacillos Este y el Cinco, property #3,541. and one junior lien: i. AL ASIENTO 151 DEL DIARIO 893, se presentó el día 1 de julio de 2010, mandamiento de fecha 21 de junio de 2010, expedida en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, en el Caso Civil número KCD2010-2223, para que se anote embargo a favor de Doral Bank, por la suma de $122,109.63. Potential bidders are advised to verify the extent of preferential liens with the holders thereof. It is understood that the potential bidders acquire the property subject to any and all the senior liens that encumber the property. It shall be understood that each bidder accepts as sufficient the title 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 further that the successful bidder accepts then and is subrogated in the responsibility for the same and the bid price shall not be applied toward the cancellation of the senior liens. WHEREFORE, the first public sale will be held on September 4th, 2020 at 9:45 am and the minimum bidding amount

(787) 743-3346

25 that will be accepted is the sum of $128,000.00. 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 September 11th, 2020 at 9:45 am and the minimum bidding amount that will be accepted is the sum of $85,333.33. If said second auction does not result in the adjudication and sale of the property, a THIRD public auction shall be held on September 18th, at 9:45 am and the minimum bidding amount that will be accepted is the sum of $64,000.00. Upon confirmation of the sale, an order shall be issued canceling all liens. For further particulars, reference is made to the judgment entered by the Court in this case, which can be examined in the aforementioned office of the Clerk of the United States District Court.

In San Juan, Puerto Rico, this 14th day of July, 2020. JOEL RONDA FELICIANO, Special Master. Email: rondajoel@ me.com. Phone number: 787565-0415. ****

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO REGIÓN JUDICIAL DE BAYAMÓN TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE GUAYNABO.

ASOCIACIÓN DE RESIDENTES DE TORRIMAR, Demandante v.

GERMÁN MUÑIZ BERNABE, MIRIAM MARGARITA BENITEZ ALONSO, LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS, SUCESIÓN DE MIRIAM MARGARITA BENITEZ ALONSO, COMPUESTA POR GERMÁN MUÑIZ BENÍTEZ, JANE Y JOHN DOE,

se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste dicha Demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto, radicando su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala de Guaynabo y enviando copia a la parte demandante: Lcdo. Israel O. Alicea Luciano, Número RUA: 16,267, Capital Center Building, South Tower, 239 Arterial Hostos Ave., Suite 305, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00918-1476, teléfono (787) 250-1420, correo electrónico: israel_alicea@yahoo. com. Se le apercibe que si dejare de comparecer se podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra de acuerdo con la súplica de la demanda, conforme a lo establecido en la Regla 45 de Procedimiento Civil de 2009.

EXPEDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Guaynabo, Puerto Rico hoy día 22 de julio de 2020. Lcda. Laura I Santa Sanchez, Sec Regional.

Sara Rosa Villegas, Sec Tribunal Conf I.

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

ASOCIACIÓN DE RESIDENTES DE TORRIMAR, Demandante v.

GERMÁN MUÑIZ BERNABE, MIRIAM MARGARITA BENITEZ ALONSO, LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS, SUCESIÓN DE MIRIAM MARGARITA BENITEZ ALONSO, COMPUESTA POR GERMAN MUÑIZ BENÍTEZ, JANE Y JOHN DOE,

Demandados Civil Núm.: GB2020CV00212.

SALA: 201. Sobre: Cobro de Dinero (Procedimiento Ordinario). EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDemandados DOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCivil Núm.: GB2020CV00212.

CIADO DE PUERO RICO. SALA: 201. Sobre: Cobro de A: German Muñiz Bernabe Dinero (Procedimiento OrdinaPOR LA PRESENTE, se le rio). EMPLAZAMIENTO POR notifica que se ha presentado EDICTO E INTERPELACIÓN. una Demanda en cobro de diESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉnero por la vía ordinaria, en la RICA EL PRESIDENTE DE cual la parte demandante aleLOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ga se le adeuda la cantidad de ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO $1,415.00. Por consecuencia,

DE PUERO RICO.

A: Jane y John Doe como posibles herederos desconocidos de la Sucesión de Miriam Margarita Benítez Alonso.

POR LA PRESENTE, se le notifica que se ha presentado una Demanda en cobro de dinero por la vía ordinaria, en la cual la parte demandante alega se le adeuda la cantidad de $1,415.00. Por consecuencia, se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste dicha Demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto, radicando su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala de Guaynabo y enviando copia a la parte demandante: Lcdo.

Israel O. Alicea Luciano, Número RUA: 16,267, Capital Center Building, South Tower, 239 Arterial Hostos Ave., Suite 305, San Juan, Puerto Rico 009181476, teléfono (787) 250-1420, correo electrónico: israel_alicea@yahoo.com. Se le apercibe que si dejare de comparecer se podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra de acuerdo con la súplica de la demanda, conforme a lo establecido en la Regla 45 de Procedimiento Civil de 2009. A SU VEZ, se le notifica que, como miembros de la Sucesión de Miriam Margarita Benítez Alonso, se ha presentado una solicitud de interpelación judicial para que sirva en el término de treinta (30) días aceptar o repudiar la herencia.

Se le apercibe que si no compareciere usted a expresarse dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación de este edicto en torno a la aceptación o repudiación de la herencia, se presumirá que han aceptado la herencia de la causante Miriam Margarita Benítez Alonso y, por consiguiente, responderán por las cargas de dicha herencia conforme dispone el Art. 957 del Código Civil L.P.R.A. §2785. EXPEDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Guaynabo, Puerto Rico hoy día 22 de julio de 2020. Lcda. Laura I Santa Sanchez, Sec Regional. Sara Rosa Villegas, Sec Tribunal Conf I.

DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE DORADO.

AMERICAS LEADING FINANCE, LLC Demandante v.

ELIZABETH ALAMO SANTANA

Demandados CIVIL NÚM.: BY2020CV01134.

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

A: ELIZABETH ÁLAMO SANTANA

Quedan emplazados y notificados que en este Tribunal se ha radicado Demanda sobre cobro de dinero por la vía ordinaria en la que se alega que el demandado, ELIZABETH ÁLAMO SANTANA, le adeudan solidariamente al Americas Leading Finance, LLC la suma de $6,405.21, por deficiencia, más los intereses que continúen acumulando, las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado según pactados. Se les advierte que este edicto se publicará en un periódico de circulación general una sola vez y que, si no comparecen a contestar dicha Demanda dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación del Edicto, a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https:// unired.ramajudicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal, se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará Sentencia concediendo el remedio así solicitado sin más citarles ni oírles. La abogada de la parte demandante es el Lcdo. Gerardo M. Ortiz Torres, cuya dirección física y postal es: Cond. El Centro I, Suite 801, 500 Muñoz Rivera Ave., San Juan, Puerto Rico 00918; cuyo número de teléfono es (787) 946-5268, el facsímile (787) 946-0062 y su correo electrónico es: gerardo@bellverlaw.com. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, en TOA ALTA, Puerto Rico, hoy día 24 de julio de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretario. GloriLEGAL NOTICE bell Vazquez Maysonet, Sec ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO del Tribunal Conf I.

26

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

MLB’s botched return could be a warning for the NFL

By KEN BELSON

N

FL, you’re on the clock. Now that nearly every major North American sports league has resumed some form of play, it’s the NFL’s turn to see if it can navigate the coronavirus pandemic as red flags arise at every turn.

The loudest alarm went off Monday, when Major League Baseball, its new season less than a week old, was forced to postpone several games because of an outbreak among the Miami Marlins. The fallout continued Tuesday when the Washington Nationals players voted against traveling to Miami to play this weekend, and the league postponed all of the Marlins’ games through Sunday. The Marlins now have 17 confirmed positive cases, including 15 players, within their traveling party.

The Marlins’ infections and MLB’s subsequent schedule shuffle were swift and scary reminders that, as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease doctor, told The New York Times in April, “the virus decides how quickly you’re going to get back to normal.”

Because the NFL season ended just before the pandemic hit, the league was able to keep to its offseason calendar, albeit mostly online.

For months, the team owners and the players union approved plans to reduce the risk of infection by, among other things, reconfiguring locker rooms, reducing travel schedules, eliminating preseason games and carrying out extensive testing of all employees.

But unlike the NBA, WNBA, Major League Soccer and other leagues that created enclosed communities to isolate their players and staff, the NFL followed the lead set by Major League Baseball and the PGA Tour and chose to let players and other employees return to their homes after play, vastly increasing their risk of exposure. Now NFL players are reporting to training camp with one eye warily watching the uncertainty enveloping MLB and the rest of the country as virus cases surge in certain regions.

“I’m not confident in the entire system because it is so contagious,” Austin Ekeler, a Los Angeles Chargers running back, told TMZ Sports. “There’s a reason we’re going through all these shutdowns and things like that. There’s not been really any progress made as far as

containing this thing.”

The reasons for going without a so-called bubble are myriad. NFL rosters are far larger than those in other leagues, so zones that players would be restricted to would have to be enormous. Players resisted being cooped up in hotels for months before the league and the union made the decision in the spring to go without a single-site locale to host the regular season. DeMaurice Smith, the executive president of the players union, added another factor: The league and union made their decision when cases were declining, not rising.

As one agent put it: “The league gambled on the calendar and COVID ‘progress’ falling in their favor. They are losing the gamble.”

So now the league and the NFL Players Association are banking on extensive testing and an honor code to keep their season running. On Sunday, the union sent players a memo reminding them that teams can penalize players who are caught at an indoor nightclub, a bar, a house party or other gatherings with more than 15 people. Never mind that the sport itself requires hand-to-hand contact or that the league is only recommending, not requiring, players to wear face coverings.

“This is just the beginning,” said Dr. Scott Braunstein, the medical director of Sollis Health-LA, who was a sideline doctor for the Los Angeles Rams for four seasons. “If they go on without mandating masks and the testing protocol does not change dramatically, this is going to spread like wildfire through the teams.”

It may be too late for the NFL to heed many of the lessons that MLB is learning. Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, told reporters Monday that there are no plans for an enclosed community like the NBA has built. The league, he said, will instead rely on a “virtual football bubble.” In a letter to fans Monday, Commissioner Roger Goodell said the virus will present “a major challenge” this season and that “adjustments are necessary to reduce the risk for everyone involved.”

The commissioner has said he will consult the league’s competition committee to determine what, if any, thresholds must be met to shut down a team hit with a wave of infections, or cancel or postpone games.

The risks are only now being tallied. During the offseason, 95 players and staff members tested positive for the coronavirus. On

Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady, center, held a private workout with his new teammates at a local school in June.

Tuesday, the league said eight more players were added to the injured reserve list because of positive tests for the virus in addition to the two dozen that were put on the list Sunday and Monday.

Tellingly, Eric Sugarman, the Minnesota Vikings head trainer and infection control officer, tested positive and is now quarantined.

“As I sit here in quarantine, it is clear this virus does not discriminate,” Sugarman said in a statement.

A growing list of players have chosen to sit out the season, including Kansas City guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, Dallas cornerback Maurice Canady and several New England players, including linebacker Dont’a Hightower. Philadelphia wide receiver Marquise Goodwin said on Twitter that he opted out this season because he did not want to increase the risk that his wife might lose another child after they’d lost three to childbirth complications before the birth of their daughter in February. “I won’t take the chance of experiencing another loss because of my selfish decision making.”

Per the terms of the agreement reached between the league and the union last week, players who opt out will receive a stipend of

$150,000 as an advance on the salary they would have earned this season.

Caleb Brantley, a defensive tackle with Washington, is one of a handful of players who opted out because he has one of the 15 medical conditions that the league deems “high risk.” He and others who qualify will receive a $350,000 stipend, but it won’t be treated as a salary advance.

With thousands of players crisscrossing the country to report to training camp this week, the list of positive tests is bound to grow.

And as the infections ricochet through MLB, more NFL players are bound to decide to sit out the season.

This is going to test the NFL like never before. Players and coaches abide by the mercenary’s ethic of “next man up”: When one player goes down with an ankle sprain, torn knee ligaments or a concussion, the next man must be ready to take his place. We’re about to find out what happens when the injury is not a bruise or broken bone but an invisible virus.

“It’s at least going to get started,” Eagles center Jason Kelce said. “How it goes after that probably depends on how well we keep the virus from contaminating the whole building, how other teams do.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

27

Benches clear in first Astros-Dodgers game since cheating revelations

By VICTOR MATHER

Y

eah, the other teams still don’t like the Astros very much.

Baseball really and truly came back earlier this week in Houston with the first bench-clearing brouhaha, which included the usual jawing and posturing, but no punches thrown.

It was the first game between the Astros and the Los Angeles Dodgers since the revelation that Houston had been stealing signs via an illegal video stream and communicating them to batters by banging on a trash can. The scheme was used in the 2017 World Series, which the Astros won over the Dodgers in seven games, giving Los Angeles an extra incentive to hold a grudge.

“I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that if they weren’t cheating, we would have won the World Series,” Dodgers pitcher Alex Wood said this spring.

In the sixth inning Tuesday, the Dodgers were ahead by 5-2, with reliever Joe Kelly on the mound. He seemed to be having control problems and got behind in the count against Alex Bregman, 3-0, with some very bad pitches.

Pitch four was the worst, a fastball that flew behind Bregman’s head. Bregman ducked sharply to avoid it, but it was an obvious ball four.

Tension was in the air after the pitch, but players stayed on the benches. Kelly’s previous wildness perhaps gave him the benefit of the doubt and indicated the pitch might have been unintentional.

It was a little harder to call the next one unintentional. After a groundout and another walk, Kelly threw high and inside again to Carlos Correa, who likewise had to duck out of the way. There were some stares, but the at-bat continued and Correa wound up striking out.

Then the jawboning really ignited, and Kelly was seen making faces at Correa. The Astros said later that he had said, “Nice swing,” after the strikeout.

At last the teams could no longer resist and poured onto the field. No shoves or punches were seen, but there was plenty of arguing and shouting as dozens of players and coaches spilled onto the field.

In the center of the action was Astros manager Dusty Baker, who didn’t let his mask stop him from giving an extended piece of his mind to the umpires.

Astros Manager Dusty Baker had something to say about some inside pitches by the Dodgers.

“Balls get away sometimes, but not that many in the big leagues,” Baker told reporters after the game.

While some of those in the scrum were wearing masks, most were not, and the contretemps took place at distances that were far from social. The sport’s health and safety protocols for this season state: “Players must not make physical contact with others for any reason unless it occurs in normal and permissible game action,” and players were at the very least skirting this line.

Things calmed down after the confrontation, and the game ended in a 5-2 Dodgers victory.

Kelly was with the Boston Red Sox in 2017, not the Dodgers, but he is known as being something of a combative play-

er. After the game, he denied throwing at either Astros player and said his facial expressions were merely an imitation of Correa.

While the Astros were hit with fines and the loss of draft picks over the cheating scandal, and their manager, A.J. Hinch, and general manager, Jeff Luhnow, were fired in the aftermath of the cheating revelations, many in the league would have liked to see even harsher penalties. Perhaps a few have resolved to deal those punishments themselves by way of an inside pitch or two.

Other teams besides the Dodgers have expressed displeasure with Houston for the cheating scandal. It could well be that Tuesday’s fracas is not the last one in this short season.

JOSÉ BURGOS Técnico Generadores Gas Propano

787•607•3343

28

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 2020

Divergent paths bring Rangers and Islanders to same postseason start

By ALLAN KREDA

A

fter a four-month pandemic pause to the NHL season, the New York Rangers and the New York Islanders find themselves at the same point — with a berth in a play-in round in the league’s expanded playoffs, which begin this weekend.

That did not seem likely way back when the regular season was still in progress, with the two teams going in opposite directions. The Rangers won 12 of 15 games from Jan. 31 to Feb. 27, which vaulted them into the chase for their first playoff berth since 2017. The Islanders had slid into wild-card territory before play was halted March 12, winning two of their previous 10 games.

Those results now amount to ancient history for the rivals, who were to face each other in an exhibition game Wednesday in Toronto as they work their way into shape.

The 11th-seeded Rangers (37-28-5) will play the sixth-seeded Carolina Hurricanes (38-25-5), and the seventh-seeded Islanders (35-23-10) will meet the 10thseeded Florida Panthers (35-26-8), in a best-of-five series that begins Saturday.

What to expect in terms of the caliber of play is anyone’s guess in this unusual postseason, but after months of planning for this phased return, coach Barry Trotz of the Islanders said he thought the first playoff games would be a cathartic, if frenzied, release.

“It probably will be a lot of chaos in that first 10 minutes of Game 1, exciting bad hockey and emotional hockey,” Trotz said on a conference call with reporters last week.

The major challenge now for the 24 playoff teams — 16 of which are competing in the qualifier round — will be revving up to postseason-level intensity. Teams had two weeks of training camp before traveling to Toronto and Edmonton to acclimate to the playoffs’ two host cities.

“It’s kind of like trying to jump on a speeding train in a lot of ways,” Rangers wing Chris Kreider said last week.

“But it’s like that for everybody.”

The Rangers will rely on Artemi Panarin, a Hart Trophy finalist with 95 points in his first season with the team, and Mika Zibanejad, who scored five of his teamleading 41 goals on March 5.

Coach David Quinn has said he will not name a starting goaltender until Friday or Saturday, when the series starts against the Hurricanes, whom the Rangers defeated four times in the regular season. It seems very likely that Igor Shesterkin, 10-2-0 in his rookie season, will be the team’s top goaltender to start the playoffs. But Alexandar Georgiev and Henrik Lundqvist could vie for playing time in a condensed schedule.

For the Islanders, who reached the second round of last season’s playoffs, the difference between a standard postseason and the new format will be the first hurdle to clear.

“This is going to be a challenge mentally,” Anders Lee, the Islanders’ captain, said. “Going to a hub city, staying in a hotel and having that bubble and quarantine

Speaking about the postseason format in two hub cities in Canada, Islanders wing Anders Lee, center, said, “This is going to be a challenge mentally. life — none of us have been through that. The hockey stuff will fall into place.”

Forward Cal Clutterbuck, who recovered from surgery after his left wrist was sliced by a skate blade in December, said the difficulty of the task ahead is apparent. His team will have to win 19 games over five rounds to be champion. The Stanley Cup Final is expected to begin Sept. 20.

“I know for a fact the guys who win the Stanley Cup will feel an immense sense of accomplishment because this, in a lot of ways, is more difficult,” he said. “You’re trying to get to that level after a standstill of 3 1/2 to four months, and you have to play an extra series. It was already the hardest trophy to win. It just got a little bit harder.”

Gary Bettman, the NHL commissioner, said that even bringing these unorthodox playoffs to fruition amid a pandemic was a victory unto itself.

“If there’s any point where I’m going to feel substantial emotion, it’ll be a sense of relief when I get to present the Stanley Cup,” Bettman said. “This has been, as I think I indicated before, an extraordinarily involved, difficult and unusual circumstance.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, July 30, 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

Thursday, July 30, 2020

(Mar 21-April 20)

Take time away from technology. Furthering a special project or domestic goal would be a better way to spend your energy. You are easily distracted and this is keeping you from bringing a project to fruition. Be far-sighted and practical about your future. Take some exercise if you’re finding it hard to switch off your thoughts.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

Instead of telling yourself you can’t achieve, change your thoughts to something more positive. Trust that you will find the confidence and courage to reach your goals. No more deliberating. Today you will make a definite decision about a matter you have been thinking about for some time.

Taurus

(April 21-May 21)

Scorpio

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

A strong need for more independence could cause problems in the workplace. A senior colleague might seem reluctant to trust you to carry out some jobs alone. If they can’t leave you to work without supervision, it may mean searching for another job where you will be given greater freedom and more chance to work unsupervised.

You’ve been wondering about a recent event Put your best foot forward. Persuade others who are working towards the same goals to make a determined effort to achieve. A senior colleague or administrator will be keen to be seen grappling with issues that need to be addressed in the workplace. They want everyone to know they are listening.

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

It’s a great time to spruce up your home or garden. Redecorating your place will make it feel brand new and give you an uplift. Finances need attention. Take a fresh look at accounts or credit arrangements. Check there is enough money in the budget to carry out a domestic project.

You’re working hard to better yourself and your hopes to improve your life and your prospects could soon become a reality. Now is a good time to introduce positive change into your life. Booking a future holiday will give you something exciting to anticipate.

Travel will open the door to the adventure you are longing for.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

You will be awarded a plum assignment due to your recent accomplishments. You’re up for a challenge and will find a way to fulfil a promise or new obligations. Your prospects for success are stronger than ever as you are recognised for your unique skills and talents.

Relationships need to be lovingly nurtured to keep them running smoothly. You find it hard to share your emotions but if you hope to avoid future misunderstandings it is important for you to discuss feelings with a loved one.

Accept an offer to an online function where tickets are limited. If you say no, you won’t get a chance to reconsider.

Aquarius

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

You long for more time away from familiar routines, places and people. The thought of continuing with a project or staying in a situation that has been taking up a lot of your time, makes you miserable. You’re doing too much, you need a break and you should start listening to your body.

Some brilliant ideas are discussed within a group of creative people. Comments made off the top of your head will help develop new projects. Teammates will be keen to put your inspirational suggestions into practice. Encourage a partner to pursue their own interests as well as joint ones. You hate it when people get too clingy.

Virgo

Pisces

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

You need energy, stamina and determination to complete the tasks you take on today. Demands from all directions will keep you on your toes. A senior colleague will give you some good tips on how to achieve a special goal. You’re making great progress and they’re justifiably proud of you. You need to believe in yourself, too.

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

When unexpected opportunities pop up around you, be ready to act quickly. A group of friends are getting together to arrange something special for the future. When you hear what it is, this will renew your interest in your social life. Be spontaneous and be ready to have some fun.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

Thursday, July 30, 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

Thursday, July 30, 2020

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