Monday Jun 29, 2020

Monday, June 29, 2020

San Juan The

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DAILY

How ‘Hamilton’ Reached the Small Screen

Star

NMEAD Chief: ‘We Are Definitely in a Jumanji Game’

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Amid Rising Suffering and Anxiety, Gov’t Official Compares Overlapping Emergencies to a Board Game P4

Curfew Hours Stay the Same; UTIER Leader: Luma to Public Transportation to Resume, Schools to Prepare for Reopening Increase Electricity Bill

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NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 19

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

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June 29, 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.

Same curfew hours, but more flexibility in reopening and new back-to-school plans

Today’s

Weather

By THE STAR STAFF

G Day

Night

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76ºF

Precip 20%

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Wind: Humidity: UV Index: Sunrise: Sunset:

From ESE 12 mph 62% 10 of 10 5:47 AM Local Time 6:57 PM Local Time

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

Travel Science Legals Sports Games Horoscope Cartoons

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ov. Wanda Vázquez Garced announced Sunday that she extended the curfew until July 22.

Vázquez Garced issued Executive Order 2020048, which maintains the nighttime curfew, with islanders permitted to leave their residences from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., and establishes the parameters for the start of work in the public sector and in the public and private education system.

“As in previous executive orders, the importance of wearing a mask at all times is emphasized, as recommended by the medical task force and the Health Secretary [Lorenzo González Feliciano],” the governor said in a written statement.

“The precautionary measures with which compliance will be mandatory are the use of a mask, scarf or cloth to cover the area of the mouth and nose at all times; maintain a minimum space of six feet between people when visiting an establishment, store, restaurant, cinema or office; and avoid unnecessary crowds,” Vázquez said. “Anyone failing to comply with these precautionary measures would be violating the order, so they would be subject to established fines and penalties. Our priority is to keep our island healthy and protect everyone’s life.”

The order establishes that Puerto Rico government employees whom the appointing authority determines necessary in its work plan must begin to work in stages in their respective agencies on July 1. In order to preserve the health and safety of public employees, each agency head must maintain all the safety, health and infection control measures established in the COVID-19 Risk Management and Exposure Control Plan.

Agencies that provide services to citizens will be able to start receiving public at their facilities as of July 6, taking all the measures established in the plan. Each agency, according to its particular circumstances, must notify citizens of the conditions for care and offering services. It is important to avoid crowding and the use of masks is mandatory, Vázquez stressed.

Regarding services in university educational centers, each institution will be allowed to prepare a protocol for COVID-19 in accordance with the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Puerto Rico Department of Health, and Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration (OSHA) regulations.

The opening of university educational services will be allowed, complying with the six-foot separation parameter, the mandatory use of a mask and frequent hand washing.

“Public schools and private schools, whose classes are scheduled to start in mid-August, must prepare their work plans to reopen the campus according to health and safety parameters to prevent the spread of the virus during the next school semester,” the governor said. “Each educational entity, including the Department of Education, must present their plans in a timely fashion for returning to classes and the modality in which their courses will be offered.”

She added that each educational entity must establish communication and education activities for the opening with teachers, parents and those in charge of what the protection protocols will be for employees and students so that their doubts and concerns are dispelled and so it is recognized that responsibility for avoiding infection is shared.

For these reasons, it is reiterated that the opening of private schools and schools of the public education system during the term of the order (until July 22) has the purpose of preparing the facilities for the next school semester, as well as preparing students even though they will not be able to visit the schools

during the term of the order.

Vázquez said the order allows sales of the electronic lottery and the traditional lottery, and also allows the operation of public transportation services, beginning July 1, in accordance with the regulations for COVID-19 established by the Metropolitan Bus Authority and by the Urban Train (Tren Urbano).

Meanwhile, funerals may be carried out in accordance with the protocol established by the island Health Department. For such purposes, cemeteries may open to the public, provided they comply with the precautionary measures, the rules of social distancing and the protocol established by the Health Department. The entry of children under 12 is prohibited, both to funeral homes and cemeteries. The hours for all funeral services will be until 8 p.m., since as part of Health Department protocol time must be allowed after every wake for disinfecting the area.

In her order, Vázquez said that “in accordance with strict compliance with the guidelines and regulations promulgated by the Department of Recreation and Sports, as of the time this Administrative Bulletin is in force, within the hours allowed by the curfew, individual, collective or full team sports and recreational training will be permitted to resume.

As of July 15, within the hours allowed by the curfew, the resumption of sporting events will only be allowed for professional leagues, with the exception of contact sports, such as boxing, among others.

Casinos may open, as long as they do not exceed the maximum occupancy equivalent to 75 percent of the capacity established in the current building code in Puerto Rico (PR Building Code 2018). They must comply with the protocols and guidelines established for COVID-19 by the Gaming Division, which are in accordance with the recommendations of the CDC, the Department of Health and PR-OSHA. Likewise, the occupancy of shops and restaurants was modified to be up to 75 percent occupancy, according to the capacity established in the current building code (PR Building Code 2018). Each business premises will be responsible for complying with the safety and health measures required in the reopening protocols, including but not limited to the use of appropriate personal protective equipment, screening and social distancing.

In the entertainment area, the opening of venues is authorized for face-to-face events and concerts, complying with the standards of the CDC, the Department of Health and the PR-OSHA standards for COVID-19, including the six-foot separation parameter, the mandatory use of a mask, frequent hand washing and disinfection of the establishment daily, according to the protocols established by the industry. To this end, each location must establish a risk control plan for COVID-19 in accordance with the guidelines of the CDC, the Department of Health and the COVID-19 standards of PR-OSHA. The producers will be responsible for following the risk control plans established by the venues so that each event is carried out in compliance with those plans.

Those who carry out sporting events must also comply with the specific rules and guidelines for each of the permitted activities, and with the details of protection for the holding of such events promoted by the Department of Recreation and Sports.

The Governor stressed that the central government remains vigilant and is closely monitoring the increase in cases of COVID-19 in the mainland United States and other countries, and will later announce the measures to be taken at airports in the event of the arrival of passengers.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

With rising anxiety on the island, NMEAD chief compares recent events to ‘Jumanji’

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

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s Puerto Rico residents woke up to two consecutive earthquakes off the southwestern coast of the island on Sunday morning, the Emergency Management and Disaster Administration Bureau (NMEAD by its Spanish acronym) has been monitoring and addressing any disruption.

The 4.9- and 4.7-magnitude tremors that took place at 2:42 a.m. and 2:45 a.m., respectively, have not been the only events that have raised concerns among citizens. As the island is nearly a month into the hurricane season, battling against COVID-19 and a Sahara Desert dust haze, with some municipalities on the verge of water rationing due to a drought, NMEAD Commissioner José Burgos compared all the concurrent emergencies to “Jumanji,” a movie revolving around a board game in which levels unlock new challenges and the characters have to fight against the forces of nature.

“We are working with the hurricane season, we are dealing with the pandemic, we have had quakes, we have the Saharan dust. … We are definitely in a Jumanji game,” Burgos told The Star.

However, Burgos confirmed to The Star that the agency has reached out to its 10 area

managers and its 78 emergency directors to submit any damage reports as they become aware of events in their neighborhoods and their vulnerable communities.

“At this moment, no one has reported major damage,” he said.

Meanwhile, as the brigadier general spoke with the executive director of the Puerto Rico Seismic Network (PRSN), Víctor Huérfano, both recognized how important it is for citizens to keep their emergency backpacks up to date.

“We have to be on the lookout,” Burgos said. “[The earth] is moving a lot. We must be careful. This is not meant to startle our readers, but we must stay aware as we are getting on with hurricane season, as we are with the pandemic. These backpacks must include face masks, hand sanitizer, soap. It’s our new reality.”

The NMEAD commissioner also recommended that all citizens report any felt earthquake to the PRSN at its website (http:// redsismica.uprm.edu) or by calling 787-8338433 and selecting the Analysis option, as this provides essential information that could help the Network understand such phenomena.

Recent quakes are aftershocks Huérfano said Sunday morning’s tremors were aftershocks of the fault line that has been active since late 2019.

“This is a challenge that the Network has on its hands,” Huérfano said. “This seismic

sequence did not start early in the morning; this has been going on for many years due to our geographic setting.”

The physicist pointed out to The Star that the island is close to a fault line between the North American Plate and the Caribbean Plate, and where the two meet forms a plate boundary that releases accumulated energy and produces such earthquakes.

Huérfano also spoke about how some people have brought up if there is any relationship between the earthquakes in the southwest of Puerto Rico and those in Mexico, to which the answer is no.

“Each zone has its particularities; the southwestern [Puerto Rico] region has its own behavior,” he said. “This is a zone where energy has gathered for thousands of years, some [sources] might even say 5,000 years.

It was up until the 2020 generation who had to live through and witness such convulsions.”

Meanwhile, although the scientist might not have the answer as to when the aftershocks will come to an end, he suggested that citizens should not let their guard down, but rather should continue to check their home structures, stay alert and keep their contingency plans up to date.

“Although I am not telling anyone to get used to this, because that might mean becoming tone-deaf, house structures should be checked -- be aware if there is any damage,”

Huérfano said. “If anything happens, you would risk your well being. Likewise, being in the midst of a pandemic and hurricane season, emergencies must be addressed with the same amount of effort.”

Uncertain if a tropical wave will restore local water supplies Other emergencies are on the radar of local authorities.

While Puerto Rico is on the verge of water rationing due to a severe drought, the National Weather Service of San Juan (NWS San Juan) and the National Hurricane Service are looking at a tropical wave located a hundred miles west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands that is moving west-northwestward at 15-20 miles per hour and has a 10-20 percent chance of forming in the next 48 hours and five days, respectively.

NWS San Juan meteorologist Ian Colón Pagán noted that it might mostly be dry during the day, while isolated rain showers could move to the east of Puerto Rico by night. Nevertheless, although there might be a “tropical system” coming by the weekend, it is still not certain if there will be a significant improvement in the state of the island’s water supplies.

“There are many factors that could affect the chance for rain showers, from the Saharan Desert haze to the strong wind shears,” Colón Pagán said. “We have to keep an eye on it during the coming days. Everything could change.”

Figueroa Jaramillo: Luma Energy to schedule power increase by December

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

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s the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) is continuing its transition to private management, Electrical Industry and Irrigation Workers Union (UTIER by its Spanish acronym) President Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo released a contract from Luma Energy that schedules a request for a Puerto Rico Energy Bureau (PREB) Rate Filing by December 2020.

Figueroa Jaramillo, both on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, published excerpts of the contract showing that Luma Energy is already taking administrative decisions over PREPA in requesting a power rate increase before the 15-year agreement commences.

Meanwhile, the union leader said Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced is “fooling you and will raise your power [bill].”

“There are three premises which they considered to privatize PREPA; one of them is free competition, where you could choose the company that fits your needs and your pockets, but this turned a public monopoly into a private monopoly,” Figueroa Jaramillo said. “Second, because there was no capital because the authority was bankrupt, they had to sell it, when that’s not true because the Authority itself will pay for a year of this transition. And third, for rate reduction, when you can see

documents and annexes that set deadlines on a rate review. I shared what the contract said because the government will say that there’s nothing different here. The problem is not asking for a rate review, it is that it is already planned.”

The UTIER president said the decision, which has already been signed by the governor, could revoke the agreement because Luma Energy must wait for the approval of the RCA agreement from federal judge Laura Taylor Swain.

“We’re paying Luma $60 million for a year so they learn how the power system works; however, they can’t make choices like this until judge Laura Taylor Swain approves the shareholder’s payment agreement,” Figueroa Jaramillo said. “Once the judge accepts the RCA agreement, this could happen.”

According to a press release from the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, the contract establishes an estimated 12-month transition period before the 15-year contract starts in 2021.

“It’s important, and very interesting, that the authority completely delegated such power to Luma, the UTIER president said. “This is a contract that is harmful for Puerto Ricans.

This is a contract where the Authority will cover all of Luma’s running costs, except the $125 million that we will pay to the executive board.”

Last week UTIER released an organizational chart that includes the names of PREPA and Luma Energy executives and

the “juicy” hourly rates that will be paid during the transition, where the vice president will be making $325 per hour.

The PREB, meanwhile, announced a new reduction of approximately 0.2 cents per kilowatt-hour, which places the kilowatt-hour price around 17.27 cents, one of the lowest rates in years in Puerto Rico, according to a press release.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

5

The clock is ticking: Oversight board to approve its version of Fiscal Plan if Legislature doesn’t adopt a compliant budget

By THE STAR STAFF

T

he Financial Oversight and Management Board gave the Puerto Rico Legislature until today to adopt a compliant fiscal year 2021 budget or the board will approve its version as it seeks this week to certify fiscal plans for several entities.

In a letter last week, the oversight board noted that on June 24, at the Legislature’s request, it had agreed on a revised schedule that allowed the Legislature until June 25 to present a compliant budget to the board. However, that did not happen.

The House passed the governor’s budget totaling $10.2 billion while the Senate passed the oversight board’s version, which is $10 billion. The budget went to a conference committee.

“If the Legislature fails to submit a compliant budget by June 29, the Oversight Board will submit a compliant budget (including the technical revisions mentioned above) to the Governor and the Legislature in accordance with Section 202(e)(2) of PROMESA [Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act],” the board said.

Among the most important bills pending for a final vote in the session are House Bill 2434, which seeks to avoid cuts to pensions and Senate Bill 1616, which is an early retirement bill. Both are in the conference committee.

This week, the oversight board intends to approve fiscal plans and budgets for the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Co. and for the Highway and Transportation Authority. It also asked the Health Insurance Administration and the Department of Health to provide this week the most recent methodology or revised eligibility criteria and financial impact of the governor’s proposed policy for expanding Medicaid enrollment through an increase to the Puerto Rico Poverty Line.

Last week, the oversight board certified a new fiscal plan for the Municipal Revenue Collections Center (CRIM by its Spanish acronym) that was not the version submitted by the island’s mayors. The board said its version of the fiscal plan would ensure the effective distribution of those funds to Puerto Rico’s 78 municipalities.

“Municipalities are at the heart of life for all Puerto Rico residents. The Fiscal Plan, which adopts mainly measures CRIM proposed, will provide municipalities with the fiscal stability they need to provide the services their residents need and deserve,” said the oversight board’s executive director, Natalie Jaresko. “We have to make sure all residents pay their fair share of property taxes, and that CRIM is able to collect that fair share of property taxes.”

The 11 measures the Fiscal Plan proposes are: • Sell the portfolio of account receivables from property taxes past due with an estimated value of about $400 million

• Update incorrect mailing addresses to collect property taxes • Identify and appraise new properties: CRIM identified more than 230,000 new properties whose owners have not paid taxes • Improve property tax collection rates: CRIM aims to in crease property tax collection rate from 68 percent to 76 percent • Adjust the value of more than 500,000 homes that made improvements not currently reflected on the tax rolls.

• Collect $45 million in tax revenue from homeowners who did not pay taxes in fiscal year 2019 • Conduct appraisals of more than 17,000 currently unappraised properties • Update CRIM’s database with almost 26,000 swimming pools, which would add about $100 of additional tax per pool • Improve personal property self-reporting compliance by working closely with the island Treasury Department.

This will increase transparency and accountability • Launch operational and organizational development initiatives: critical systems improvements. For example, data warehouse, billing system update, replacing appraisal system, improving employee performance • Implement commonwealth agency efficiencies, including a payroll freeze, elimination of the Christmas bonus, and healthcare standardization, to align with the certified Commonwealth Fiscal Plan.

Pro-statehood lawyer asks oversight board chairman for support to fix island’s financial problems

By THE STAR STAFF

P

ro-statehood lawyer Gregorio Igartúa has asked the Financial Oversight and Management Board in a letter to chairman José Carrión to support statehood for Puerto Rico as a way to resolve the island’s financial problems.

Igartúa has taken several cases to court seeking to obtain equal rights for Puerto Rico. He also currently has a case pending before the Organization of American States related to the presidential vote.

“The Financial Oversight Management Board

for Puerto Rico you are presiding over is working hard in good faith, in attempting to restructure and improve Puerto Rico’s fiscal challenges as ordered

by Congress,” Igartúa said. “Notwithstanding, in my view, its fiscal exercise will be one of futility unless it acknowledges the real cause of the economic problems it is attempting to solve. Within this context, the real cause is the unequal and discriminatory treatment given to the American Citizen residents of Puerto Rico by the three Branches of the Federal Government.”

Igartúa noted that the judicial branch as well as Congress have imposed discriminatory policies historically against Puerto Rico. The U.S. territory receives less in federal funding than U.S. states.

“Notwithstanding, within the Board’s work perspective, there is no way Puerto Rico’s fiscal problems will ever be solved under a federalist structure in which it is at a disadvantage by being treated unequally by way of lower transfer of payments in economic aid as compared to those to States,” Igartúa said. “These are the source of the serious

problems with Puerto Rico’s fiscal structure, budget execution, public administration, and tax structure.

There is no way you can restructure economic policies to solve our financial crisis under the unequal treatment scenario to which we are subjected, and/ or under such an economic labyrinth.”

“I believe it is long overdue for the Board to demonstrate it is working with Puerto Rico’s financial crisis within the correct perspective, that it is aware of this reality, and to inform the President, Congress, and the Governor of Puerto Rico about it,” the attorney added. “Equal treatment to Puerto Rico under equal footing as that given to those in the States is the only road to the solution of the fiscal crisis. If you deem it pertinent, I am willing to appear personally before the Board to explain and support my analysis and proposition with evidence.”

The oversight board, following a request made by this newspaper, declined to comment on the letter. Puerto Rico is slated to vote on whether it supports statehood or not in a “Yes-No” plebiscite on election day.

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Monday, June 29, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Deadlines extended for several CDBG-DR programs

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

T

he island Housing Department announced Sunday that the deadline has been extended for applying to the Small Business Incubators and Accelerators, Job Training and Social Interest Housing programs.

The deadlines for applying for funds under those federal Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) programs were postponed due to the effect that the coronavirus pandemic emergency has had on business and dealings with government agencies.

“We are aware that COVID-19 altered many of the steps that are carried out at the government level and in this case for those who have an interest in applying to these three programs,” said Housing Secretary Luis Fernández Trinchet.

The official urged citizens that “if they have not yet had the opportunity to inform themselves about the programs and apply, this is a good opportunity to do so.”

“Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced continues to be committed to contributing to the urban and social development of Puerto Rico and we remain willing to guide and assist applicants during the process,” he said. “We want these programs to benefit as many people as possible.”

The extended period of the Notice of Availability of Funds to request assistance through the Small Business Incubators and Accelerators Program will be until July 9 at 11:59 p.m.; through the Job Training Program, until July 16 at 11:59 p.m.; and through the Social Interest Housing Program, until July 14 at 11:59 p.m.

Fernández Trinchet emphasized that the evaluation period for

each program has also been extended with the application period. The extension applies equally to people who have already completed their applications.

The Small Business Incubators and Accelerators Program will provide grants to organizations and entities for the implementation of initiatives related to the incubation and acceleration of small businesses on the island, and will assist in the development of small business incubation and acceleration facilities.

Meanwhile, the Job Training Program will support training programs to meet the need for skills training on the island, in order to create a workforce that meets the needs of reconstruction and the skills necessary to place Puerto Rico within the economy of the future.

The Social Interest Housing Program will provide financing to non-profit organizations that are committed to providing affordable housing and that work with vulnerable populations to guarantee housing accessibility for people with a wide range of socioeconomic, physical, emotional, and other disabilities.

Social Interest Housing also seeks to expand the number of existing homes to increase the number of vulnerable people served, in addition to bringing existing homes to decent, safe and sanitary conditions, in accordance with all applicable building codes and with health and safety regulations in disaster-affected areas.

DNER announces changes in public beach hours

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

N

atural and Environmental Resources Secretary Rafael Machargo Maldonado on Sunday announced changes in the summer hours of operation for the public beaches known locally as “balnearios” assigned to the Puerto Rico National Parks Program.

“Starting Wednesday, July 1, 2020, on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, “the balnearios will be open to the general public from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., while on Saturdays and Sundays they will open from 9:30 in the morning to 6 in the afternoon,” Machargo Maldonado said in a written

statement. “This schedule is exclusive for balnearios and will be valid until August 30, 2020.”

He said the balnearios will be closed to the public Monday and Tuesday, when maintenance, cleaning and disinfection work is carried out.

“We reiterate the need to protect such important resources, which is why we make an emphatic call to the users of and visitors to the beaches, parks and recreational areas to enjoy them without leaving a trace,” Machargo Maldonado said. “This means leaving no garbage or debris such as masks or gloves. Our natural resources are very precious and unique. It is our responsibility, as citizens, to protect and maintain them for this and future generations.”

Once at a public beach, visitors must follow Health Department safety instructions and continue to maintain physical distance to avoid infection with COVID-19.

The balnearios that will be open to the public are the following: Boquerón in Cabo Rojo, Caña Gorda in Guánica, Cerro Gordo in Vega Alta, La Monserrate in Luquillo, Manuel “Nolo” Morales in Dorado, Punta Salinas in Toa Baja, Seven Seas in Fajardo and Sun Bay in Vieques.

Three San Juan metro area national parks -- Isla de Cabras in Toa Baja, Julio Enrique Monagas in Bayamón and Luis Muñoz Rivera in San Juan -- will continue with the established schedule,” the DNER chief said.

As provided in the governor’s pandemic emergency executive order, all parks and balnearios open to the public will be operating at 50 percent capacity.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

7

As the Coronavirus spreads, drug pricing legislation remains stalled

By NOAH WEILAND

W

hen President Donald Trump visited Senate Republicans last month for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began ripping across the country, Sen. Charles Grassley, the powerful chairman of the Finance Committee, confronted him about whether he still wanted to fulfill his years-old promise of lowering the cost of prescription drugs.

“You started this whole process,” said Grassley, R-Iowa, who had drafted such a plan, and whom Trump had taken to calling early in the morning to discuss the issue. “Are you still interested in signing a bill?”

The president said that he was, according to a person in the room that day, adding that the Senate had “no choice” but to act.

But the exchange only underscored that the drive to reduce pharmaceutical costs — once a marquee priority seen by both parties as a political imperative — has stalled at the very moment when people most need a fix.

Millions of Americans, including droves of newly unemployed, are stuck with increasing out-of-pocket costs for medication in the middle of a historic health crisis. But the political will to address the issue appears to have faded away.

“The problems are real. They’ve only gotten bigger,” said Tricia Neuman, a drug policy expert who directs the Medicare policy program at the Kaiser Family Foundation. A solution, she said, is on “life support.”

The politics have hardly changed — prescription drug prices have consistently ranked as the top health care concern for voters heading into the 2020 election — but Senate Republicans have shied away from acting, and Democrats have resisted making concessions.

Now Grassley, working to salvage the effort, is planning to call for his bill to be included in the next round of coronavirus relief legislation that Congress is expected to consider later this summer, according to a senior Republican aide.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, who has raised more than $200,000 from pharmaceutical companies so far this election cycle, appears to be in no mood to tackle the issue by bringing Grassley’s measure to the floor. In December,

Grassley accused him of sabotaging his bill.

Longtime patient advocates now fear that the broad support they built among lawmakers for moving on the issue may be eroding in the face of an even more dramatic health crisis, one that has also prompted a health insurance emergency that has gone largely unaddressed by the Trump administration.

“All of the problems that preexisted the pandemic are still there, if you’re paying too much for insulin, if you’re paying too much for cancer drugs like I am,” said David Mitchell, who founded Patients for Affordable Drugs and is battling a blood cancer called multiple myeloma. “Nothing has changed, except now we have millions of people who are unemployed who have lost income, who have lost insurance.”

Like Trump, Democrats have said they support a bill to lower drug costs, and the House passed such a measure in December.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, released a sweeping prescription drug plan last summer that went far beyond what Grassley has proposed.

Months ago, House Democrats in politically competitive districts were inundated at town hall meetings with questions about drug costs and assumed the issue would feature prominently in their reelection campaigns.

Many Republicans in Congress who have fretted about the political risks of their party’s push to repeal the Affordable Care Act — which the Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to overturn — had hoped for action on drug costs, eager to show voters that they were willing to address the most pressing health care problems. Grassley said that during his town hall meetings in Iowa before the pandemic, a quarter of the time was spent discussing prescription drugs.

“It’s a pocketbook issue,” Neuman said. “And it is one that candidates who are Republicans and Democrats all talk about.”

Americans spend tens of billions of dollars on prescription drugs annually. Public health experts say that level of spending is not surprising given how manufacturers keep debuting new drugs at high prices while raising prices on hundreds of drugs already on the market.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) speaks at a press conference ahead of the introduction of prescription drug costs bill on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Prescription medicine use has only intensified during the coronavirus crisis: Express Scripts, a prescription benefit manager with more than 100 million customers, saw spikes in March for three-month refills and new prescriptions for conditions associated with higher coronavirus risk.

Grassley’s bill would cap the growth of drug prices in Medicare at inflation level and impose a $3,100 limit on out-of-pocket costs for tens of millions of seniors and Americans with disabilities enrolled in its drug coverage program. The plan would provide nearly $100 billion in savings, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The House bill goes further in seeking to control the growth of drug costs, calling for the secretary of health and human services to negotiate prices with manufacturers, a provision that is projected to save more than $500 billion over a decade, according to the CBO. The House will vote on that provision again as part of a bill it plans to bring to the floor next week to bolster the Affordable Care Act. The bills have faced predictable but fierce resistance from pharmaceutical companies, which lawmakers say are newly fortified as a result of their work developing coronavirus treatments, including the most sought-after drug — a vaccine — that could

arrive next year.

“They feel emboldened,” Grassley said.

“And I think they feel that they don’t have to worry about this bill.”

But Grassley and his colleagues have yet to find a compromise with House Democrats, and the measure has stalled since its approval by the Finance Committee. Democratic and Republican aides in the House and Senate privately say that Trump, notoriously fickle and uninformed on policy, could hasten a resolution with a phone call to McConnell, but he has chosen not to do so. Vice President Mike Pence and Alex Azar, the health secretary, have endorsed the legislation.

Late last month, Grassley met with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and policy aides to see whether a compromise was still feasible and where components of their bills might go. But little has come of it.

A final target could be late November, when Congress faces a deadline to extend some health care programs. But by then, in the wake of the election, the political landscape could look far different. And voters may well have already have exacted a political price for Congress’ failure to move on the issue.

“The issue does not go away” without a deal, said Neuman, the drug policy expert.

“The question is, will voters hold candidates responsible for not taking action?”

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Monday, June 29, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Houston moves to ‘severe’ COVID warning. Will enough people listen?

People lined up in cars in Houston this week to get tested for the coronavirus. Until recently, the region had escaped the worst of the pandemic

By MANNY FERNANDEZ and DANNY MONTGOMERY

A

lex Belt, a single mother of three girls and the owner of Silly Silly Girls gift boutique, has a succinct way of describing her life in Houston as officials warn of an alarming spike in coronavirus cases: “Business as usual without the business.”

When Belt, 46, first reopened her store after weeks of mandatory business closures, a wave of loyal customers came in to show their support. Lately, though, the store has often been empty again as Houston residents try to make sense of a fluctuating series of recommendations from state and local officials and a virus that seems to be characterized chiefly by its unpredictability.

“It’s hurt us all over the board,” Belt said. “People are just scared.”

On Friday, a troubling spike in virus cases led county officials to again urge residents to stay in their homes, nearly two months after the state had started to reopen. Texas, like Florida and parts of California, Idaho and other states where cases are on the rise, has reinstated some of the restrictions it once lifted.

But some fear that Texans who were told only recently that it was safe to gather in small numbers, shop and go to restaurants may not be as willing to hunker down inside — again.

When officials in Harris County, which includes Houston, sent a message to residents’ cellphones Friday evening, alerting them that the virus threat level had been bumped up to “LEVEL 1 (RED) SEVERE,” many residents were doing the opposite of what the advisory recommended: avoid gatherings, stay at home

except for necessary tasks and wear a mask.

The bumper-to-bumper vehicles crawling along a section of Interstate 610 resembled pre-coronavirus traffic. And at a shopping plaza off Interstate 10 with a view of the downtown skyline, the parking lot was packed, as shoppers headed in and out of a grocery store, liquor shop and salon.

Houston had until recently avoided the worst of the pandemic. In April, county officials had shuttered a medical shelter that was meant to serve coronavirus patients in case hospitals were overrun. That never happened. On May 1, Gov. Greg Abbott said he would begin to reopen the state in phases.

But Friday, Lina Hidalgo, the Harris County judge, warned that hospitals would be overwhelmed if people did not stay inside.

“We are in a worse situation now than we were back then, and the only thing that worked back then was flattening that curve by staying home,” Hidalgo said at a news conference, adding bluntly that the rise in cases was happening because “we opened too quickly.”

Harris County, home to about 4.7 million people, has seen a sudden rise in reported cases over the last few weeks. There have now been at least 28,255 cases in the county and 361 deaths, a majority of which have come from within Houston’s city limits.

But despite Hidalgo’s urging residents to stay home, the county is not under a stay-at-home order as it was two months ago because Abbott’s reopening guidelines supersede Hidalgo’s recommendations. She said at the news conference that she had urged the governor to let her issue an enforceable stay-at-home

order, and when that did not happen, she pleaded with residents to remain at home voluntarily.

At Gatlin’s BBQ in Houston, the restaurant owners kept a tighter limit on customers than the state guidelines require because Mary Gatlin, 69, a co-owner, felt it was simply too soon.

They have been mostly serving takeout and allowing customers at only 25% of full capacity. Even so, they are sometimes selling out of brisket and ribs.

“Our neighbors all around the area, they actually support us, and we really thank God for them, because they’re helping to keep us open and to keep the employees that we have working,” Gatlin said.

Houstonians are not the only ones who have had to deal with whipsawing public health guidelines. In Florida, where cases are also rising, officials banned alcohol consumption at bars, an acknowledgment that infections could be spreading there. Bars in and around Boise, Idaho, were ordered closed only weeks after they had opened.

Russ Duke, the director of the state health agency in Idaho that oversees four central counties, moved Ada County, which includes Boise, back one stage in its reopening progression this week after investigators determined that half of the region’s new cases were among people who had flocked to the just-opened bars and nightclubs. Duke said it seemed increasingly clear that reopening would have to happen slowly and cautiously, allowing a reversal to more restrictive measures if things got worse.

“We’ll be able to kind of dial this up and down based on what we’re seeing,” Duke said, later adding: “The sad reality is there’s going to be no choice but to implement restrictions and lift restrictions until we have a vaccine or an effective treatment.”

That back-and-forth in several states raised questions about how seriously the public would comply after weeks of relative freedom.

“It’s hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube once you’ve got it out,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “It’s hard to get enough people to follow the rules when the rules keep changing.”

As cases rise in Harris County, residents have overrun testing sites. Two stadium testing locations in Houston reached capacity just hours after opening Saturday, according to the city’s Health Department.

Joi Ross-Moore said she arrived at a drive-thru facility at 8 a.m. Tuesday and was told that people had been waiting since 4 a.m. Unable to get a test, Ross-Moore had to go to a different facility the next day.

“It’s exploded here,” Ross-Moore said.

Belt saw a good uptick in business at her boutique after it reopened, with a lot of loyal customers — mostly neighborhood moms — coming back to show their support, buying artwork, gifts and toys.

Since then, while there are plenty of people at malls and restaurants, there have been only a handful of customers at her store.

The drop in sales is hurting her bottom line, but she understands that people are frightened. She is, too.

“This is unfortunately what we have to deal with,” she said. “It’s scary.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

9

Activists push for removal of statue of freed slave kneeling before Lincoln

By AISHVARYA KAVI

A

s communities across the country reconsider statues and monuments of historical figures, protesters in Washington, D.C., are increasing calls to remove the Emancipation Memorial, a statue of a freed slave crouching before President Abraham Lincoln, after attempts in the past week to tear it down have intensified the debate over its value.

The bronze memorial in Lincoln Park dates back to 1876 and was intended to commemorate the Emancipation Proclamation, the executive order signed by Lincoln that ended slavery in the Confederacy. Though the funds for the memorial were raised by freed slaves, they did not have a say in what it would depict. It has long drawn controversy for the position of the freed slave at the feet of Lincoln, whose left hand hovers above the slave’s shirtless back.

The push to remove the statue comes amid a broader campaign unfolding across the country to remove or topple statues and monuments that are seen by some as honoring racist historical figures. Discussions around the Emancipation Memorial, however, have proved to be more thorny, with everyone from local residents to President Donald Trump debating what the interaction between the two figures was intended to convey.

“The meaning is degrading,” said Marcus Goodwin, a candidate for the District of Columbia Council. “To see my ancestors at the feet of Lincoln — it’s not imagery that inspires African Americans to see themselves as equal in this society.”

Goodwin has led calls for the memorial, also known as the Freedman’s Memorial, to be taken down through a legal process, including a petition that prompted Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., to announce she will introduce legislation before the House of Representatives to remove the memorial.

“The statue fails to note in any way how enslaved African Americans pushed for their own emancipation,” Norton said in a statement Tuesday. “It is time it was placed in a museum.”

For Marcia E. Cole, those criticizing the memorial are ignoring its context, one that she has tried to defend in heated conversations with protesters at Lincoln Park.

“He’s on one knee, clearly in the act of rising,” Cole said of the freed slave depicted in the memorial. “He’s seizing his own agency.”

Some critics of the memorial, impatient with the lack of a response from government officials over the years, announced their intention in the past week to take matters into their own hands and tear it down.

“When I look at that statue, I’m reminded my freedom and my liberation is only dictated by white people’s terms,” said Glenn Foster, 20, who formed The Freedom Neighborhood, a local group that has organized efforts to topple the memorial.

“We’re trying to let the government know we’re not going to wait any longer for our freedom to happen.”

Word spread quickly of the group’s intentions, and on Friday, supporters of the statue showed up alongside those prepared to topple it, as well as those who wanted to wait for the legal process to play out.

Police officers guarding the Emancipation Memorial in Washington.

“Things have gone from zero to 100 in a matter of days,” said Cole, who often portrays Charlotte Scott, the African American woman who raised funds for the memorial after Lincoln’s assassination, in reenactments and other events organized by a group associated with the African-American Civil War Museum. Scott is remembered in a plaque below the memorial.

But tensions were not limited to the streets of Washington.

Trump, speaking at a Fox News forum Thursday, slammed the protesters who want to tear down the memorial, calling them “rioters” and “bad people.”

“I can see the controversy, but I can also see the beauty in it,” Trump said of the memorial.

“I can understand certain things being taken down,” he added. “But we ought to go through a process, legally.”

The memorial sits in Lincoln Park, which is federal land under the jurisdiction of the Interior Department. So although mayors and governors across the country have responded to calls from local protesters by removing statues and monuments seen as racist, Washington’s mayor does not have that authority.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the minority leader, wrote Wednesday on Twitter that he had spoken about the memorial with David Bernhardt, the interior secretary, who had conveyed to him that Trump would “not allow the Emancipation Memorial of President Lincoln to be destroyed by the left-wing mob.”

Norton, the congresswoman, said that she would work

with the National Park Service, the Interior Department agency that manages the park, to determine whether the memorial could be removed without congressional direction. If not, she said, she intends to push forward on efforts to pass legislation in Congress directing that the memorial be removed.

Katie Liming, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service, said that the service “appreciates the community’s engagement” and that park staff has met with members of the community regarding the memorial. But with the Trump administration at the helm, it is unlikely that the National Park Service will remove the memorial.Yet, the alternative of passing legislation through a Congress divided on most issues also presents a great challenge to activists calling for its removal.

“If we had autonomy, it would be a different situation,” said Cole, who ultimately would like to see a peaceful solution that appeases all parties. She is not against placing the memorial in a museum.

Among other options that they support, Goodwin and Foster have advocated replacing the memorial with one that honors an African American woman. Goodwin added that the depiction of a freed slave in the memorial is probably one that even Lincoln himself would not have approved.

He pointed to an anecdote penned by a U.S. Navy officer who served in the Civil War, when freed slaves knelt before the president after their emancipation. According to Adm. David Porter, Lincoln was “much embarrassed.”

“Don’t kneel to me,” Lincoln said. “That is not right.”

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Monday, June 29, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

In historic vote, House approves statehood for the District of Columbia

House Speak­er Nancy Pelos­i (D-Ca­lif.) during a news conference about statehood for Washington, D.C., on Capitol Hill in Washington.

By EMILY COCHRANE

T

he House of Representatives voted nearly along party lines Friday to grant statehood to Washington, D.C., the first time a chamber of Congress has approved establishing the nation’s capital as a state.

The legislation, which is unlikely to advance in the Republican-led Senate, would establish a 51st state — Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, named in honor of Frederick Douglass — and allow it two senators and a voting representative in the House. The National Mall, the White House, Capitol Hill and some other federal property would remain under congressional jurisdiction, with the rest of the land becoming the new state.

The vote was 232-180, with every Republican and one Democrat voting “no.”

Republicans have long opposed the move to give congressional representation to the District of Columbia, where more than three-quarters of voters are registered Democrats, but the long-suffering movement for statehood, led by Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the capital’s lone nonvoting delegate, has been pressing for a vote on the matter for years.

When Democrats assumed the House majority last year, Norton secured a promise from leaders to bring up the bill for the first time in more than a quarter-century.

Anger over the Trump administration’s handling of racial justice protests — particularly the use of federal officers in the city and the violent removal of protesters from Lafayette Square outside the White House — further galvanized advocates of statehood and cast a national spotlight on how much control the federal government retains over more than 700,000 residents in

the District of Columbia.

“Over the last few months, the nation, and even the world, has witnessed the discriminatory and outrageous treatment of D.C. residents by the federal government,” Norton said Friday on the House floor, where she was unable to cast a vote for the bill she championed. “The federal occupation of D.C. occurred solely because the president thought he could get away with it here. He was wrong.”

The bill, which passed along party lines, is not expected to become law. The White House issued a veto threat against it Wednesday, declaring the measure unconstitutional.

Republicans in the Senate, where the legislation would have to meet a bipartisan 60-vote threshold to advance, have rejected the idea, arguing that if representation for its citizens was the sole issue, the District of Columbia should simply be absorbed into Maryland, another heavily Democratic state.

“Retrocession wouldn’t give the Democrats their real aim: two Democratic senators in perpetuity to rubber-stamp the swamp’s agenda, so you won’t hear them talk about it,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Thursday in a lengthy diatribe on the floor.

He declared that Wyoming, a state with a smaller population, was a “well-rounded, working-class state” superior to Washington, which would amount to “an appendage of the federal government” full of lobbyists and civil servants. Wyoming is more than 80% white, while the majority of the District of Columbia is composed of people of color.

The arguments against statehood on the House floor barely shifted since the full chamber last debated the merits of granting statehood to Washington more than a quarter of a century ago.

Opponents questioned the constitutional merits, arguing that the

Founding Fathers intentionally did not establish the nation’s capital as a state. Others questioned whether the District of Columbia was geographically and economically viable to be a state.

“Our nation’s founders made it clear that D.C. is not meant to be a state,” said Rep. Jody B. Hice, R-Ga. “They thought about it, they debated it, and they rejected it.”

Rep. Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota was the sole Democrat to join Republicans in opposing the measure Friday.

Top Democrats, several wearing masks with a symbol of the statehood movement, took to the floor to argue passionately for its passage, denouncing the disenfranchisement of Washington residents. Applause broke out on the floor as soon as the bill reached the necessary 218 threshold to pass.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at her weekly news conference in the Capitol, dismissed as shortsighted the Republican arguments that the new state would simply give Democrats a political advantage. Alaska and Hawaii, she pointed out, had entered the union as overwhelmingly Democratic and Republican states and then flipped politically.

“What the state is, that can change over time,” Pelosi said.

“But the fact is, people in the District of Columbia pay taxes, fight wars, risk their lives for our democracy — and yet in this place, they have no vote in the House and Senate.”

The District of Columbia, where license plates read “Taxation Without Representation,” has long been burdened by a lack of federal representation.

The capital first earned three electoral votes and the right to vote for president in 1961 with the passage of the 23rd Amendment. The right to elect a nonvoting delegate came a decade later, but lawmakers could not agree on whether to give that delegate the right to vote, and the statehood legislation never survived a floor vote.

The disparity has gained renewed national attention during the coronavirus pandemic and the protests over racial injustice.

In the $2.2 trillion stimulus law enacted in March, the District of Columbia received a small fraction of the funds doled out to states to help dull the economic effect of the virus because it was treated as a territory, despite customarily being granted funding as if it were a state.

And when the administration flooded the streets of Washington with National Guard forces from elsewhere and troops in riot gear during protests over the death of George Floyd in police custody, Bowser had few options this month because of how much control Congress maintains over the District of Columbia’s finances and laws.

“Denying D.C. statehood to over 700,000 residents, the majority of them Black and brown, is systemic racism,” said Stasha Rhodes, campaign director of the pro-statehood group 51 for 51. “D.C. statehood is one of the most urgent civil rights and racial justice issues of our time — and we know we are on the right side of history.”

Bowser, a fifth-generation Washingtonian, told reporters at a news conference Thursday that she was “born here without a vote, but I swear I will not die here without a vote.”

The House vote, she said, would lay the groundwork for another administration to make statehood law. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has said he would support the move.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

11

As Facebook boycott grows, advertisers grapple with race

By TIFFANY HSU

A

t this time of year, hordes of advertising executives are usually striking deals on yachts in the French Riviera or at meetings in Manhattan, not sitting at home worrying about their future.

But the industry, hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, has watched its glamorous midyear calendar morph into a procession of video presentations recorded in bathrooms and backyard sheds.

The discussions about audience metrics and targeting technologies have now expanded to include difficult reflections on systemic racism and concerns about an economy in recession.

The annual Cannes Lions advertising festival, which was supposed to take place this week in the south of France, was replaced by several days of online sessions featuring companies like Unilever and guests like Chelsea Clinton. The NewFronts, a separate series of springtime events in New York intended to showcase digital platforms such as Snap, TikTok and Roku, were instead streamed online this week. (YouTube sent out thousands of pizzas to accompany personalized videos.)

But many in the industry were distracted during the week by a growing boycott against Facebook, which Unilever, one of the largest advertisers in the world, joined Friday. The effort involves dozens of advertisers, such as Honda, Verizon and Patagonia, that are displeased with the social media giant’s handsoff attitude toward posts from President Donald Trump amid widespread protests against racism and police brutality.

Unilever said it would not run advertising on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter in the United States for at least the rest of the year, during a “polarized election period.” The company added in a statement that “continuing to advertise on these platforms at this time would not add value to people and society.” Unilever spent $42.4 million advertising on Facebook in the United States last year, according to the advertising analytics platform Pathmatics.

A screenshot from Hulu’s 2020 presentation for the NewFronts. Because of the pandemic, the series of events was streamed online this year.

Marc Pritchard, the chief brand officer of Procter & Gamble, said in an online speech for Cannes Lions on Wednesday that the company would not be “advertising on or near content that we determine is hateful, denigrating or discriminatory.” A spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble declined to say where the company advertises. Ad agencies like IPG Mediabrands said they were working with companies that wanted to cut ties with Facebook.

Coca-Cola said on Friday that it would stop all paid ads on social media platforms globally for at least 30 days but would not join the official Facebook boycott. The company’s chief executive, James Quincey, said in a statement that it would use the time to reevaluate its advertising standards and would inform the platforms that “we expect greater accountability, action and transparency from them.”

Coca-Cola spent $22.1 million on Facebook ads last year and more than $18 million on Twitter, according to Pathmatics.

Facebook spends billions of dollars a year to keep its platforms safe and works with outside experts to review and update its policies, the company said in a statement Friday. But it added that “we know we have more work to do.”

The worldwide uproar over race

following the police killing of George Floyd last month was never far from the NewFronts and Cannes presentations this week.

YouTube prefaced its session with a message from Susan Wojcicki, its chief executive, that highlighted Black YouTube creators like Marques Brownlee and Greta Onieogou. Hulu kicked off its segment with rapper RZA calling on viewers to “take action, help us fight against this systemic racism,” saying “you have the platform — use it.” Cannes Lions released a study on bias that found that people of color represented more than 46% of screen time in ads last year but were less likely than white characters to be shown working or portrayed as “smart.”

Vice Media Group announced a plan at the NewFronts to expand its coverage of racism, which it called “The 8:46 Project,” a reference to the nearly 9 minutes a police officer spent kneeling on Floyd’s neck. Vice also asked advertisers to reconsider the “antiquated practice of keyword blocklists,” which it said had recently hurt revenue by keeping ads from appearing next to content that mentions terms like “Black Lives Matter,” “protest” and even “Black people.”

The Vice presentation glossed over Refinery29, the women’s lifestyle publication it acquired last year, which faced

accusations of discrimination from former employees this month.

Condé Nast’s presentation, however, dealt directly with what one executive called “the elephant in the kitchen”: concerns about racism that led to recent leadership changes at the food publication Bon Appétit and the Condé Nast Entertainment studio. Roger Lynch, Condé Nast’s chief executive, said in a live address that the company had been forced to “hold a mirror up to ourselves” and would create an anti-racism advisory council.

“As society is changing, Condé Nast is changing,” he said.

Many of the NewFront sessions were also shot through with anxiety about the advertising industry’s health.

Ad spending this year, excluding political advertising, will slump 13% in the United States and grow 4% next year, according to a forecast this month from GroupM, the media investing arm of ad giant WPP. That estimate assumes that the reopening of the economy will continue without a resurgence of coronavirus cases pushing the country back into lockdown.

“When advertisers can’t predict what’s going to happen in July, it’s hard to make any substantial commitments for the remainder of the year,” said Christian Juhl, the global chief executive of GroupM. “The underlying economic understanding just isn’t in place right now for people to make a good bet.”

The reluctance to lock down longterm contracts has already led to calls for television networks to adjust how they sell space for commercials during the broadcast year, which starts in October. This week, while previewing programs during their NewFront presentations, many digital platforms tried to address the uncertainty by promising performance guarantees and flexibility in contracts.

Roku offered clients a range of options, including 14-day cancellations and the ability to quickly remove ads from areas where they are no longer relevant (for example, if local stay-athome guidelines shift).

12

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

Stocks

Investors eye economic data, stimulus measures as stocks rally stalls

U

pcoming U.S. economic data and deadlines for renewing some fiscal stimulus measures in July could prove key tests for an equities rebound that has wavered in recent weeks.

The benchmark S&P 500 has risen about 34% from its late March lows. But those gains have slowed in June, as investors weigh expectations of further stimulus and improving data against a resurgence in coronavirus cases in the United States.

Investors will look to a raft of U.S. data next week - including reports on employment, consumer confidence and manufacturing - for clues on whether a nascent rebound in the U.S. economy remains intact.

Improvements in some economic indicators, such as home sales, manufacturing activity and an unexpected bounce in employment data last month, have bolstered investor confidence and helped extend the rally in stocks. But others, including scant declines in jobless claims, reflect a still-tentative recovery.

“There’s some evidence that the economy is expanding, but how robust it will be is an open question,” said David Joy, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial.

Market participants are also looking for clues on whether lawmakers are likely to push through more fiscal stimulus measures in coming weeks.

The House of Representatives passed another $3 trillion aid bill in May, but the Republican-controlled Senate has not taken up the House package and lawmakers are not expected to move toward another coronavirus bill until sometime in July.

One component of Congress’ fiscal aid, a $600 per week supplement to unemployment insurance payments, is set to expire at the end of July.

Michael Wilson, chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley, said that bill is critical to the bank’s thesis for a “V”-shaped U.S. economic recovery.

“Our outlook for the economy is probably going to have to change” without further stimulus, he said.

The looming deadline has added to a cluster of worries that have limited stocks’ gains this month.

U.S. stocks tumbled this week, including a more than 2% drop on Friday, in response to a resurgence in the number of cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Even with that recent pullback, stock valuations, as measured by forward price-to-earnings ratios, are near their highest level since the 2000 dot-com boom.

Other sources of worry include a potential flare-up in U.S.- China trade tensions and political uncertainty stemming from the Nov. 3 presidential election.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

13

How the world missed COVID-19’s silent spread

By MATT APUZZO, SELAM GEBREKIDAN and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

D

r. Camilla Rothe was about to leave for dinner when the government laboratory called with the surprising test result.

Positive. It was Jan. 27. She had just discovered Germany’s first case of the new coronavirus.

But the diagnosis made no sense. Her patient, a businessman from a nearby auto parts company, could have been infected by only one person: a colleague visiting from China. And that colleague should not have been contagious.

The visitor had seemed perfectly healthy during her stay in Germany. No coughing or sneezing, no signs of fatigue or fever during two days of long meetings. She told colleagues that she had started feeling ill after the flight back to China. Days later, she tested positive for the coronavirus.

Scientists at the time believed that only people with symptoms could spread the coronavirus.

“People who know much more about coronaviruses than I do were absolutely sure,” recalled Rothe, an infectious disease specialist at Munich University Hospital.

But if the experts were wrong — if the virus could spread from seemingly healthy carriers or people who had not yet developed symptoms — the ramifications were potentially catastrophic. Public awareness campaigns, airport screening and stay-home-if-you’re sick policies might not stop it. More aggressive measures might be required: ordering healthy people to wear masks, for instance, or restricting international travel.

Rothe and her colleagues were among the first to warn the world. But even as evidence accumulated from other scientists, leading health officials expressed unwavering confidence that symptomless spreading was not important.

In the days and weeks to come, politicians, public health officials and rival academics disparaged or ignored the Munich team. Some actively worked to undermine the warnings at a crucial moment, as the disease was spreading unnoticed.

Interviews with doctors and public health officials in more than a dozen countries show that for two crucial months — and in the face of mounting genetic evidence — Western health officials and political leaders played down or denied the risk of symptomless spreading. Leading health agencies including the World Health Organization and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control provided contradictory

Workers make cloth masks at a factory in Bangkok, April 21, 2020. and sometimes misleading advice. A crucial public health discussion devolved into a semantic debate over what to call infected people without clear symptoms.

The two-month delay was a product of faulty scientific assumptions, academic rivalries and, perhaps most important, a reluctance to accept that containing the virus would take drastic measures. The resistance to emerging evidence was one part of the world’s sluggish response to the virus.

It is impossible to calculate the human toll of that delay, but models suggest that earlier, aggressive action might have saved tens of thousands of lives.

It is now widely accepted that seemingly healthy people can spread the virus, though uncertainty remains over how much they have contributed to the pandemic. Although estimates vary, models using data from Hong Kong, Singapore and China suggest that 30% to 60% of spreading occurs when people have no symptoms.

Even now, with more than 9 million cases around the world and a death toll approaching 500,000, COVID-19 remains an unsolved riddle. But it is clear that an array of countries have fumbled their response, misjudged the virus and ignored their own emergency plans.

It is also painfully clear that time was a critical commodity in curbing the virus — and that too much of it was wasted.

On the night of Germany’s first positive

test, Rothe tapped out an email to a few dozen doctors and public health officials.

“Infections can actually be transmitted during the incubation period,” she wrote.

Three more employees from the auto parts company, Webasto, tested positive the following day. Their symptoms were so mild that, normally, it’s likely that none would have been flagged for testing or would have thought to stay at home.

Rothe decided she had to sound the

alarm. Her boss, Dr. Michael Hoelscher, dashed off an email to The New England Journal of Medicine. “We believe that this observation is of utmost importance,” he wrote.

Editors responded immediately. How soon could they see the paper?

The next morning, Jan. 30, public health officials interviewed the Chinese businesswoman by phone. Hospitalized in Shanghai, she explained that she’d started feeling sick on the flight home. Looking back, maybe she’d had some mild aches or fatigue, but she had chalked them up to a long day of travel.

When the health officials described the call, Rothe and Hoelscher quickly finished and submitted their article. Rothe did not talk to the patient herself but said she relied on the health authority summary.

Within hours, it was online.

What the authors did not know, however, was that in a suburb 20 minutes away, another group of doctors had also been rushing to publish a report. Neither knew what the other was working on, a seemingly small academic rift that would have global implications.

Academic Hairsplitting The second group was made up of officials with the Bavarian health authority and Germany’s national health agency, known as the Robert Koch Institute. Their team, led by Bavarian epidemiologist Dr. Merle Böhmer, submitted an article to The Lancet, another premier medical journal. But the Munich hospital group had scooped them by three hours.

Shoppers wait outside a Costco in Livermore, Calif., April 10, 2020.

14

A crowded Columbia Road Flower Market in London, March 15, 2020.

Böhmer said her team’s article, which went unpublished as a result, had reached similar conclusions but worded them slightly differently. Rothe had written that patients appeared to be contagious before the onset of any symptoms. The government team had written that patients appeared to be contagious before the onset of full symptoms — at a time when symptoms were so mild that people might not even recognize them.

After two lengthy phone calls with the woman, doctors at the Robert Koch Institute were convinced that she had simply failed to recognize her symptoms. They wrote to the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, casting doubt on Rothe’s findings.

The journal did not publish the letter. But that would not be the end of it.

That weekend, Andreas Zapf, head of the Bavarian health authority, called Hoelscher of the Munich clinic. “Look, the people in Berlin are very angry about your publication,” Zapf said, according to Hoelscher.

He suggested changing the wording of Rothe’s report and replacing her name with those of members of the government task force, Hoelscher said. He refused.

The health agency would not discuss the phone call.

Until then, Hoelscher said, their report had seemed straightforward. Now it was clear: “Politically, this was a major, major issue.”

On Monday, Feb. 3, the journal Science published an article calling Rothe’s report “flawed.” Science reported that the Robert Koch Institute had written to the New England Journal to dispute her findings and correct an error.

The Robert Koch Institute declined repeated interview requests over several weeks

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

and did not answer written questions.

Rothe’s report quickly became a symbol of rushed research. Scientists said she should have talked to the Chinese patient herself before publishing and that the omission had undermined her team’s work.

If Rothe’s paper had implied that governments might need to do more against COVID-19, the pushback from the Robert Koch Institute was an implicit defense of the conventional thinking.

Immediately after Rothe’s report, the WHO noted that patients might transmit the virus before showing symptoms. But the organization also underscored a point that it continues to make: Patients with symptoms are the main drivers of the epidemic.

Once the Science paper was published, however, the organization waded directly into the debate on Rothe’s work. On Tuesday, Feb. 4, Dr. Sylvie Briand, the agency’s chief of infectious disease preparedness, tweeted a link to the Science paper, calling Rothe’s report flawed.

With that tweet, the WHO focused on a semantic distinction that would cloud discussion for months: Was the patient asymptomatic, meaning she would never show symptoms? Or presymptomatic, meaning she became sick later? Or, even more confusing, oligo-symptomatic, meaning that she had symptoms so mild that she didn’t recognize them?

Böhmer, from the Bavarian health team, received a startling phone call in the second week of February.

Virologists had discovered a subtle genetic mutation in the infections of two patients from the Munich cluster. They had crossed paths for the briefest of moments, one passing a saltshaker to the other in the company cafeteria, when neither had symptoms. Their shared mutation made

it clear that one had infected the other.

Böhmer had been skeptical of symptomless spreading. But now there was no doubt.

Now it was Böhmer who sounded the alarm. She said she promptly shared the finding, and its significance, with the WHO and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

Neither organization included the discovery in its regular reports.

The WHO still maintains that people who cough or sneeze are more contagious than people who don’t. But there is no scientific consensus on how significant this difference is or how it affects the spread of virus.

Public health officials saw danger in promoting the risk of silent spreaders. If quarantining sick people and tracing their contacts could not reliably contain the disease, governments might abandon those efforts altogether. Plus, preventing silent spreading required aggressive, widespread testing that was then impossible for most countries.

European health officials said they were reluctant to acknowledge silent spreading because the evidence was trickling in and the consequences of a false alarm would have been severe.

Looking back, health officials should have said that, yes, symptomless spreading was happening and they did not understand how prevalent it was, said Dr. Agoritsa Baka, a senior EU doctor. But doing that, she said, would have amounted to an implicit warning to countries: What you’re doing might not be enough.

By early March, while the WHO continued pressing the case that symptom-free transmission was rare, science was breaking in the other direction.

Researchers in Hong Kong estimated that 44% of COVID-19 transmission occurred before symptoms began, an estimate that was in line with a British study that put that number as high as 50%.

The Hong Kong study concluded that people became infectious about two days before their illness emerged, with a peak on their first day of symptoms. By the time patients felt the first headache or scratch in the throat, they might have been spreading the disease for days.

In Munich, Hoelscher has asked himself many times whether things would have been different if world leaders had taken the issue seriously earlier.

Still, the WHO is sending confusing signals. Earlier this month, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the organization’s technical lead on the coronavirus response, repeated that transmission from asymptomatic patients was “very rare.” After an outcry from doctors, the agency said there had been a misunderstanding.

“In all honesty, we don’t have a clear picture on this yet,” Van Kerkhove said.

Back in Munich, there is little doubt left.

Böhmer, the Bavarian government doctor, published a study in The Lancet last month that relied on extensive interviews and genetic information to methodically track every case in the cluster.

In the months after Rothe swabbed her first patient, 16 infected people were identified and caught early. All survived. Aggressive testing and flawless contact tracing contained the spread.

Böhmer’s study found “substantial” transmission from people with no symptoms or exceptionally mild, nonspecific symptoms.

Rothe and her colleagues got a footnote.

Health care workers tend to patients awaiting test results at a hospital in Brescia, Italy, March 16, 2020.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

15

African migrants in Yemen scapegoated for Coronavirus outbreak

By VIVIAN YEE and TIKSA NEGERI

T

he Yemeni militiamen rumbled up to the settlement of Al Ghar Saturday, firing their machine guns at the Ethiopian migrants caught in the middle of somebody else’s war. They shouted at the migrants: Take your coronavirus and leave the country or face death.

Fatima Mohammed’s baby, Naa’if, was screaming. She grabbed him and ran behind her husband as bullets streaked overhead.

“The sound of the bullets was like thunder that wouldn’t stop,” said Kedir Jenni, 30, an Ethiopian waiter who also fled Al Ghar, near the Saudi border in northern Yemen, on that morning in early April. “Men and women get shot next to you. You see them die and move on.”

This scene and others were recounted in phone interviews with a half-dozen migrants now in Saudi prisons. Their accounts could not be independently verified, but human rights groups have corroborated similar episodes.

The Houthis, the Iran-backed militia that controls most of northern Yemen, have driven thousands of migrants out of their territory at gunpoint over the past three months, blaming them for spreading the coronavirus, and dumped them in the desert without food or water.

Others were forced to the border with Saudi Arabia, the Houthis’ Migrants say Houthi militia who control northern primary foe, only to be shot at by Saudi border guards and detained Yemen are brutally forcing them out of their terriin prisons where they were beaten, given little food and forced to tory and into dangerous situations. sleep on the same floor that they use as a toilet, migrants said in A Saudi official, who asked not to be named, said allegations interviews from prison. Some have returned to abusive smugglers, determined to cross the border to find jobs in oil-rich Saudi Arabia. of mistreatment of migrants who cross the border illegally are not A Houthi spokesman would not immediately comment on true and would be an affront to Saudi values.

Since borders clamped shut during the pandemic, the flow the allegations.

Five years of war between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coa- of migrants to Yemen has nearly evaporated, plummeting from lition propping up Yemen’s government have ransacked the country, 18,904 in May 2019 to 1,195 this May, according to the U.N. But at the poorest in the Middle East, starving and killing its people and least 14,500 remain in the country. Many arrived in years past and stayed to scrape together a living or save up before trying to go on smashing the door open to a mounting coronavirus outbreak.

Not only Yemeni civilians are caught in the crossfire. Humani- to Saudi Arabia.

Mohammed, 23, said she left Kemise, Ethiopia, after a divorce tarian officials and researchers say the African migrant workers who traverse Yemen every year endure torture, rape, extortion, bombs two years ago, hoping to earn enough as a maid in Saudi Arabia and bullets in their desperation to get to Saudi Arabia. This spring, to support her widowed mother and two children back home. The when the pandemic made them convenient scapegoats for Yemen’s smuggler who brought her to Yemen beat her repeatedly, threatening to kill her unless her family sent money. troubles, they lost even that slender hope.

When she could not pay, Mohammed said, she was sold to “COVID is just one tragedy inside so many other tragedies that these migrants are facing,” said Afrah Nasser, a Yemen researcher at another smuggler who put her to work at a shisha house in Al Ghar, where the owner forced her to have sex with her customers.

Human Rights Watch.

Al Ghar was where she met her current husband. They made More than 100,000 Ethiopians, Somalis and other East Africans board overstuffed smugglers’ boats across the Red Sea or the a living selling food to other migrants from under a plastic tent. She Gulf of Aden to Yemen every year, according to the United Nations, was making breakfast there when the Houthis arrived.

Jenni, who was working at a hotel in Al Ghar, was the only hoping to make their way north to support their families with jobs as domestic servants, animal herders or laborers in the wealthy Gulf one of a group of friends from his Ethiopian hometown, Harage, to have made it that far. He and about 270 others had crammed into countries whose economies depend on migrants.

The journey is murderous at every stage. At sea, smugglers a small boat from the Somali coast, forbidden to move, eat or drink withhold water and food and throw uncooperative passengers over- for the two-day journey to Yemen. When two friends asked for board; in Yemen, the migrants are at the mercy of traffickers who water, he said, smugglers stabbed them and threw them overboard.

As he watched them drown, Jenni said, “I cried silently, because torture and sexually abuse them, demanding huge sums of money from their impoverished families to buy their freedom, according to I knew my fate would be the same if they heard me.”

When the Houthis stormed into town in April, Jenni said, he the U.N., Human Rights Watch and other groups as well as interfled in his flip-flops, shoving $1,300 — all his savings — into his views with migrants.

U.N. surveys show that most migrants do not know about underwear.

Some of the migrants who ran from Al Ghar toward Saudi the fighting in Yemen before they arrive, but crossfire and coalition airstrikes find them anyway. At border crossings, Saudi guards shoot Arabia on April 8 estimated that the Houthis shot and killed at least and kill them, littering what the migrants call “slaughter valleys” with 250 migrants that day. Another migrant, Ali Mohammed, 28, who bodies, migrants and humanitarian officials say. Those who survive recounted being chased off a farm in nearby Al Haydan, said only 57 of the 200 Ethiopians with him survived. are often detained by Saudi authorities and deported.

Authorities on both sides of the war have long found it easy to stigmatize African migrants as carriers of disease — first cholera and now the coronavirus, which is consuming what remains of Yemen’s health care system. Although rumors of sick residents had been circulating for some time, the first person the Houthis confirmed had died from coronavirus in Yemen, in early May, was a Somali man.

“This kind of stigmatization on migrants is life-threatening,” said Mohammed Abdiker, the East and Horn of Africa director for the International Organization for Migration. Some migrants had been harassed for trying to get water or food, he added, and others blocked from getting medical care.

All spring, the Houthis have done little to curb the coronavirus, denying reports of mass deaths in their territory. Instead, humanitarian officials, local security officials and residents say, the Houthis have used it as an excuse to expel unwanted migrants, mostly Ethiopians, driving them toward the Saudi border or rounding up truckloads of people to dump outside Houthi land.

The IOM estimates the northern authorities have arrested 1,500 migrants and relocated them to southern Yemen over the past two months. Thousands are marooned in the southern port city of Aden, where, according to the organization, about 4,000 are living on the street, struggling to get food or water.

Migrants meet just as harsh a fate at the Saudi border.

At one point in April, humanitarian officials estimate, the Houthis left more than 20,000 migrants — mostly Ethiopians, many of them women — stranded in the “slaughter valleys” along the border. About 7,000 are believed to be there now. There is little food, water or aid.

The number of dead is unknown.

Fatima Mohammed, Jenni and the other Ethiopians reached the Saudi border after three hours’ running, only to be shot at by Saudi guards, they said. Fatima Mohammed took cover under a large rock until the Houthis retreated the next morning, while Jenni hid in a wooded area.

Arriving at the border from Al Haydan, Ali Mohammed and six others managed to escape the bullets by hiding under a rock, but the remaining 50 in their group were killed.

A half-dozen migrants interviewed by phone from prisons in Saudi Arabia said Saudi police stripped the men to their underwear and took the women’s bags. They hit Jenni in the chest with the butt of a gun and forced him to hand over his money, he said: Four years of savings, gone.

Then they were driven to Saudi prisons, husbands separated from wives and children.

In phone interviews from prison this month, Ethiopians said they received nothing to eat but a few biscuits or a piece of bread and a small portion of rice each day. The bare concrete floor was both toilet and bed. They said they cleaned it as best they could before sleeping.

Imprisoned in the Saudi city of Jeddah, Fatima Mohammed could only watch her baby shrivel.

“I’m worried he’ll die in my hands one day,” she said. “We are human but poor. I want to go home and die on my soil.”

She will probably get her wish.

Saudi Arabia has deported about 300,000 Ethiopians in the last two years for being in the kingdom illegally, according to humanitarian officials.

But for the migrants, going home means giving up.

“I promised my six younger brothers and sisters I would go to Saudi Arabia to find a job and send them to school,” said Jenni.

“But it only turned out to be a wild dream.”

16

Monday, June 29, 2020

Thai dissidents are disappearing, and families are fighting for answers

By HANNAH BEECH

T crete.

hree Thai dissidents went missing in Laos for months. Then, last year, two of their bodies turned up on the banks of the Mekong River, their limbs bound and bellies filled with con-

Another three Thai activists who fled to Vietnam have not been seen for more than a year, ever since they were delivered into the hands of Thai authorities by the Vietnamese government, according to their political allies.

This month, Wanchalerm Satsaksit, a Thai pro-democracy campaigner in Cambodia, was bundled into a black sedan by armed men, according to witnesses. His last words, caught by his sister, with whom he was on a call: “Can’t breathe.”

All these Thais living in exile since a military coup in Thailand in 2014 have two things in common: They had criticized Thailand’s most influential institutions, the monarchy and the military. Then they disappeared.

At least nine prominent critics of the Thai government have vanished over the past two years, according to human rights groups. It is a pattern of disappearances that the Thai public is having a hard time ignoring, despite legislation that criminalizes some dissent and a state of emergency that has been extended because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“The people are more aware that there are abnormalities in this country,” said Nuttaa Mahattana, a democracy activist in Bangkok. “This should be the point where people start questioning the authorities about what’s going on: Why have the nice people been abducted?”

As face-mask-wearing crowds gathered across Thailand on Wednesday to commemorate the anniversary of the 1932 revolu-

Thai activists with placards showing the abducted Thai antigovernment activist Wanchalerm Satsaksit in Bangkok on June 12.

tion that ended absolute monarchy, some people held up pictures of Wanchalerm.

Earlier this month, a Thai former beauty queen expressed solidarity with those who wanted to know his fate.

“I am standing together with the Thai people in saying that what is happening is wrong and we want answers,” Maria Poonlertlarp, a former Miss Universe Thailand, wrote on Instagram.

Even as it has cultivated a reputation as a tropical wonderland for tourists, Thailand has been roiled by a long history of military coups, upended elections and violently crushed street protests. The spate of forcible disappearances, which evoke the tactics of military rulers in places like Argentina and Chile, are a more recent phenomenon, rights groups say.

“Since the May 2014 coup, Thai authorities have aggressively pursued the apprehension of pro-democracy activists who took refuge in neighboring countries,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

But without clarity in most of the cases — neither the activists’ whereabouts nor the plotters of the disappearances are certain — their relatives are suspended in a terrible limbo.

“We don’t know if he is dead or still alive,” said Sitanan Satsaksit, Wanchalerm’s sister. “We know nothing at all.”

Wanchalerm, 37, grew up in the rural northeast of Thailand, where opposition to the country’s entrenched elites is strongest.

He was the head of his high school student council and after college worked for grassroots civil society groups.

For much of the 21st century, most Thais have voted for populist parties, only for those governments to be unseated either by coups or judicial means. The 2014 putsch scattered some of the most forceful critics of the political establishment, many of whom sought refuge in other Southeast Asian nations.

Wanchalerm fled Thailand six years ago after he was ordered to attend a so-called attitude adjustment camp, indoctrination sessions at army bases for those who publicly opposed the coup. Thousands of Thais were forced into these camps, some for weeks at a time.

For the first couple years, he rarely contacted his relatives, worried about their safety and his own, his sister said. But even from self-imposed exile, he continued to post critiques of the military-linked government on social media.

The day before his disappearance June 4, Wanchalerm wrote a post on Facebook criticizing Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha of Thailand, who was the architect of the last coup.

Sitanan was on the phone with her brother as he left his apartment in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, to buy supplies at a nearby minimart. Suddenly, she heard the urgent voices of Cambodian men and sharp sounds that she described as “pang, pang, pang.”

“I heard it all,” Sitanan said.

An employee of the minimart, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she was afraid of retribution by authorities, said that she had seen Wanchalerm almost every day. For a few days before his kidnapping, a black car had idled outside the store, she said.

Wanchalerm was surrounded and then bundled into the vehicle, the minimart employee said. Bystanders wanted to help him, but the men were armed.

“We have grave fears for his safety and are concerned that his reported abduction in Phnom Penh on 4 June 2020 may now comprise an enforced disappearance,” said Jeremy Laurence, a media officer for the United Nations human rights agency in Geneva.

Don Pramudwinai, Thailand’s minister of foreign affairs, told Parliament that it was up to the Cambodians to investigate the case.

Chhay Kimkhoeun, a spokesman for the Cambodian National Police, said that the Cambodian government had not ordered Wanchalerm’s arrest. An initial police inquiry found that the Thai exile did not live in the building where his friends and colleagues said he did, Chhay Kimkhoeun said. The owner of the building stated that he did not know Wanchalerm. And the license plate of the black car was a fake one, Chhay Kimkhoeun said.

He also noted that Wanchalerm’s visa had expired three years ago.

“If he lives in Cambodia,” he said, “it means it is illegal.”

Governed by Asia’s longest-serving autocrat, Cambodia has crushed its own opposition movement, outlawing political parties and imprisoning activists.

Back in Thailand, news of Wanchalerm’s abduction radiated from pro-democracy groups to the broader public. In a country where various laws, including a Computer Crimes Act and lèse-majesté legislation, make speaking out a potentially criminal offense, some prominent individuals kept quiet.

Praya Lundberg, a Thai actress and model who is a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. refugee agency, posted on Instagram that “the situation is highly sensitive and complicated.”

“I promote peace and nonpolitical agendas,” she wrote, adding that the case was “not my fight.”

The U.N. refugee agency in Geneva said that it did not comment on individual cases.

Kanya Theerawut, mother of Siam Theerawut, one of the activists who disappeared in Vietnam last year, has written letter after letter to the Thai police, the Thai government and the Vietnamese authorities, all to no avail.

“Everybody gives a similar answer, that there’s no evidence,” she said. “I still don’t know where to look, but I’ll keep looking.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

17

Waking up in 2030

By ROSS DOUTHAT

T

here is something peculiar about time during the pandemic. On the one hand there’s a feeling that the normal calendar has simply stopped, school schedules and sports seasons evaporating, one homebound day passing much like another. It’s a feeling of hiatus, intermission, like the days between Christmas and the new year, or some extra season invented by a Renaissance pope to fix a lagging calendar.

Yet at the same time there’s a feeling of acceleration, of changes that might have otherwise dragged out across a decade piling one atop the other. The George Floyd protests and their electoral consequences, the transformation of liberal institutions by internal agitation, the changes happening to cities and corporations and colleges and churches — in each case, trends that were working slowly have seemingly speeded up.

This means that when the coronavirus era finally ends, there will be a Rip Van Winkle feeling — a sense of having been asleep and waking to normality, except that we will have time-traveled, and the normality will resemble the year 2030 as it might have been without the virus, rather than just a simple turn to 2021 or 2022.

What will this 2030-in-2022 look like? First, certain key cultural institutions will be increasingly consolidated and concentrated, academia and journalism especially. In the newspaper industry much of this process happened already, but COVID is delivering a swifter coup de grâce to midsize daily newspapers and online startups and handing advantages to a few national entities (ahem) that they might have otherwise taken five or 10 more years to gain.

In higher education a similar transformation is being pulled forward: Colleges were expecting a grim landscape in the later 2020s because 2010s birthrates were so low, but now a decline in foreign enrollment and an acceleration of online learning will threaten marginal state schools and possibly close small liberal arts colleges much sooner. (The coronavirus experience is also likely to push birthrates still lower, delaying any higher ed recovery by years or decades more.)

The likely winners will be the prestige schools and big state campuses, who will have the resources to survive and expand and the name brands to leverage in new online markets — although so long as pandemic fears keep kids close to home, the state schools may gain some ground at the prestige schools’ expense.

In religion, the pandemic may strengthen certain forms of faith, but that won’t save institutional churches from what Fordham’s David Gibson calls a “religion

But the latter because the remote-work experience, pandemic fears and possibly rising crime rates may encourage more companies to abandon the great consolidated hubs of the digital age, or at least fling more satellite campuses out to Idaho and Iowa and other lower-cost-of-living states, dispersing talent back into the heartland for the first time in two generations.

Of the trends I’ve described, only this last one seems like a hopeful sign that post-pandemic America might become less sclerotic, less decadent than the America of 2019. If one wanted to be especially optimistic, one could add that maybe — maybe — a corporate dispersal will reduce social stratification and help create new intellectual, journalistic and even “There is something peculiar about time during the pan- religious centers. demic,” writes New York Times columnist Ross Douthat.

But overall, the pandemic seems likely to bring us more quickly to a future of consolidated power, recession” caused by falling donations and shrunken weakened human-scale institutions and growing attendance. Smaller churches may suffer most, for ideological conformity. Along with far too many lives, the same tight-margins, high-overhead reasons that that’s what’s likely to be lost in this strange betweenrestaurants are going under. But big religious bodies time: a decade’s worth of chances to take an off-ramp, like Roman Catholicism and the Southern Baptists will choose a different direction or just stand athwart 2030 probably decline as well, in a hurried-up version of yelling stop. the decay that awaited them with the next decade’s worth of generational turnover. (Any Catholic diocese that had a 10-year plan for closing or consolidating schools or parishes, for instance, can expect to do the same thing but much faster.)

In politics, similarly, what was likely to be a slow-motion leftward shift — as the less-married, lessPO BOX 6537 Caguas PR 00726 religious, more ethnically diverse younger generation Telephones: (787) 743-3346 • (787) 743-6537 gained more power — is being accelerated nation(787) 743-5606 • Fax (787) 743-5100 ally by the catastrophes of the Trump administration, which is putting states in play for Democrats five or 10 years early.

A political shift is certainly accelerating within elite institutions, where the younger generation is trying to establish a new ideological consensus, a new set of standards and boundaries for behavior Publisher and opinion, that otherwise would have advanced more slowly, with more contestation, over the next Manuel Sierra Ray Ruiz 10 years. (That these institutions are subject to the General Manager Legal Notice Director consolidating forces described above makes the battle to control them more important and the professional María de L. Márquez Sharon Ramírez stakes more fraught.)

Business Director Legal Notices Graphics Manager Finally, in corporate America, there may be R. Mariani Elsa Velázquez trends toward both consolidation and dispersal. The Circulation Director Editor / Reporter former because even federal intervention probably won’t prevent small businesses from going under Lisette Martínez María Rivera while bigger businesses ride things out, accelerating Advertising Agency Director Graphic Artist Manager the preexisting drift toward a less entrepreneurial, more monopolist America.

Dr. Ricardo Angulo

18

Monday, June 29, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

Trump, not so statuesque

President Donald Trump in the East Room of the White House in Washington.

By MAUREEN DOWD

F

or a long time, Republicans have brandished the same old narrative to try to scare their way into the White House.

Their candidates were presented as the patriarchs, protecting the house from invaders with dark skin.

With Richard Nixon, it was the Southern Strategy, raising alarms about the dismantling of Jim Crow laws.

With Ronald Reagan, it was launching his 1980 campaign on fairgrounds near where the Ku Klux Klan murdered three civil rights activists.

With George H.W. Bush, it was Willie Horton coming to stab you and rape your girlfriend.

With George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, it was alQaida terrorists coming back to kill us.

With Donald Trump, it was Mexican rapists and the Barack Obama birther lie.

For reelection, Trump is sifting through the embers of the Civil War, promising to protect America from “troublemakers” and “agitators” and “anarchists” rioting, looting and pulling down statues that they find racially offensive. “They said, ‘We want to get Jesus,’” Trump ominously told Sean Hannity on Thursday night.

But Trump is badly out of step with the national psyche. The actual narrative gripping America is, at long last, about white men in uniforms targeting Black and brown people.

In the last election, Trump milked white aggrievement to catapult himself into the White House. But even Republicans today recognize that we have to grapple with systemic racism and force some changes in police conduct — except for our president, who hailed stop-and-frisk in the Hannity interview.

The other scary narrative is about our “protean” enemy, as Dr. Anthony Fauci calls COVID-19, which Trump pretends has disappeared, with lethal consequences. With no plan, he is reduced to more race-baiting, calling the virus “the China plague” and the “Kung Flu.” Nasty nicknames don’t work on diseases.

The pathogen is roaring back in the South and the West in places that buoyed Trump in 2016. Texas, Florida and Arizona are turning into COVID Calamity Land after many residents emulated their president and scorned masks and social distancing as a Commie hoax.

Is Trump’s perverse Southern Strategy to send the older men and women who are a large part of his base to the intensive care unit?

The president showed off his sociopathic flair by demanding the repeal of Obamacare — just because he can’t stand that it was done by Obama. Millions losing their jobs and insurance during a plague, and he wants to eliminate their alternative? Willful maliciousness.

And this at the same time he has been ensuring more infections by lowballing the virus, resisting more testing because the numbers would not be flattering to him, sidelining

Fauci and setting a terrible example.

The Dow fell 700 points on the news that Texas and Florida are ordering a COVID-driven last call, closing their bars again, and the virus is revivifying in 30 states.

In 2016, the mood was against the status quo, represented by Hillary Clinton. But now the mood is against chaos, cruelty, deception and incompetence, represented

by Trump. In light of our tempestuous, vertiginous times, Joe Biden’s status quo seems comforting.

It is a stunning twist in history that the former vice president was pushed aside in 2016 by the first Black president and put back in the game this year by pragmatic Black voters.

Bill Clinton was needy; he played a game with voters called “How much do you love me?” Do you love me enough to forgive me for this embarrassing personal transgression, or that one?

But Trump has taken that solipsism to the stratosphere, asking rallygoers in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to choose him over their health, possibly their lives, recklessly turning a medical necessity into a tribal signifier. I wasn’t surprised that so many seats there were empty, but that so many were filled.

In a rare moment of self-awareness, Trump whinged to Hannity about Biden: “The man can’t speak, and he’s going to be your president ’cause some people don’t love me, maybe.”

It’s not only the virus that Trump is willfully blind about. A New York Times story that broke Friday evening was extremely disturbing about Trump’s love of Vladimir Putin. U.S. intelligence briefed the president about a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offering bounties to Taliban-linked insurgents for killing coalition troops in Afghanistan, including Americans. Yet Trump has still been lobbying for Putin to rejoin the Group of 7.

Trump had a chance, with twin existential crises, to be better after his abominable performance in his first three years. But then, we’ve known all along that he is not interested in science, racial harmony or leading the basest elements of his base out of Dixie and into the 21st century. Yes, the kid from Queens enjoys his newfound status as a son of the Confederacy.

A Wall Street Journal editorial Thursday warned that he could be defeated because he has no message beyond personal grievances and “four more years of himself.”

But Trump has always been about Trump. And the presidency was always going to distill him to his Trumpiest essence.

I asked Tim O’Brien, the Trump biographer, what to expect as the man obsessed with winning faces humiliating rejection.

“He will descend further into abuse, alienation and authoritarianism,” O’Brien said. “That’s what he’s stewing on most of the time, the triple A’s.”

Good times.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

19

Inicia proceso de reconciliación de reclamaciones de potenciales acreedores Por THE STAR director ejecutivo de la Autoridad de Asesoría FiEOmarlnanciera y Agencia Fiscal de Puerto Rico (AAFAF) J. Marrero Díaz informó el domingo que, como

parte del proceso de reestructuración de la deuda al amparo del Título III de PROMESA, durante los próximos días se enviarán notificaciones adicionales a ciertos potenciales acreedores que anteriormente presentaron sus reclamaciones contra el Gobierno de Puerto Rico, el Sistema de Retiro de los Empleados del Gobierno de Puerto Rico, la Autoridad de Carreteras y Transportación (ACT) y la Autoridad de Energía Eléctrica (AEE).

Dichas notificaciones se remitirán por correo postal y están relacionadas únicamente al proceso de reconciliación administrativa de las reclamaciones de los potenciales acreedores. Dichas reclamaciones fueron examinadas por los agentes de los deudores “Esto significa que la reclamación del potencial acreedor será adjudicada utilizando los procesos administrativos existentes del Gobierno de Puerto Rico y descritos en la orden que autoriza el proceso de Reconciliación de Reclamaciones Administrativas (RRA). La notificación que recibirán alrededor de mil personas será para constatar si el potencial acreedor impugna o no la cantidad de su pensión o si tiene una reclamación independiente contra el Sistema de Retiro, no relacionada a su derecho a recibir pensión. Todo acreedor puede determinar la cantidad del pago de su pensión que el Sistema anticipa hoy día que usted recibirá, consultando los estados de beneficios de pensión más reciente”, explicó Marre-

ro Díaz.

Estas notificaciones se llevan a cabo por orden del Tribunal Federal y no afectan las reclamaciones presentadas oportuna y adecuadamente. Estos trámites son liderados por la Junta de Supervisión Fiscal (JSF), como representante de los deudores en los procedimientos al amparo del Título III de PROMESA. Lo que se persigue es poder manejar administrativamente aquellas reclamaciones de potenciales acreedores que en efecto impugnan la cuantía de su

pensión.

Marrero Díaz añadió que, si el potencial acreedor no impugna la cantidad del pago de su pensión o no tiene una reclamación independiente, entonces no se tiene que tomar ninguna otra acción y se dará por resuelta la reclamación.

“Esta notificación no es una determinación de que el reclamante no tiene derecho a recibir pensión ni afecta en nada la cuantía total de la pensión a la cual el potencial acreedor tendrá derecho, en su día.

La política pública de la administración de Wanda Vázquez Garced continúa siendo que los pensionados no deben recibir recortes en sus pensiones”, señaló el funcionario.

Si el potencial acreedor no impugna la cantidad del pago de su pensión ni tiene una reclamación independiente contra el Sistema, deberá reconocer tal hecho al completar el formulario que se acompaña a la notificación.

Por otro lado, si el potencial acreedor impugna la cantidad del pago de su pensión, debe responder a la notificación que se reciba, llenar un breve formulario, compartir toda la documentación solicitada y evidenciar la cantidad del pago de la pensión que el potencial acreedor entiende que le corresponde.

Las personas que deseen obtener información adicional pueden contactar a Prime Clerk al (844) 822-9231 entre 10:00 a.m. y 7:00 p.m. o enviar un correo electrónico a puertoricoinfo@primeclerk. com. Además, los documentos relacionados a los procedimientos judiciales se encuentran disponibles en el siguiente portal electrónico https://cases.primeclerk.com/puertorico”.

Pierluisi dice que él es “el ejemplo de cómo deben actuar los estadistas” Por THE STAR aspirante a la gobernación por el Partido Nuevo ProgreEgo lsista (PNP), Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia se describió el domincomo “la persona que ha dado el ejemplo de cómo se

une el partido”, luego de un evento de primarias.

“Yo personalmente sirvo de ejemplo en el partido de cómo deben actuar los estadistas. Porque yo con mis propios actos he demostrado que las causas de este partido son más importantes que las aspiraciones personales de cada uno de nosotros”, dijo Pierluisi Urrutia en conferencia de prensa.

Cuestionado sobre un audio en el que se le escucha decir – para el periodo de las primarias- que “detestaba” debatir con el renunciante gobernador Ricardo Rosselló Nevares, Pierluisi Urrutia respondió que “los que están reviviendo eso, la verdad que son estrategias tan malas y tan bajas. Realmente, es poca cosa”.

Sobre la supuesta “guerra” entre el Senado y la Cámara por el apoyo en las primarias, el aspirante a la gobernación habló sobre el respaldo que según él tiene de parte del liderato del partido azul. Alega tiene 30 de 34 representantes, 12 de 19 senadores, 25 alcaldes y 40 de 45 presidentes municipales no electos.

“Así que cuando hablan de que hay una guerra por esa razón no es correcto, porque yo tengo muchísimos senadores. Lo que pasa es que hay diferencias de criterio entre ambos cuerpos”, sostuvo.

El excomisionado residente se calificó como “un representante de esos electores que dicen que son penepés”.

“Yo no estoy haciéndome pasar por lo que no soy. Yo estoy siendo bien genuino y extrovertido en mi aspiración como penepé y estadista”, declaró.

El fugaz inquilino de La Fortaleza criticó nuevamente a la gobernadora por incluirlo en las denuncias sobre la supuesta desaparición de unos muebles.

“Eso denota la falta de experiencia. Eso es casi la política más baja, la política bajuna. Me da pena, al que se le ocurrió sugerir eso”, expresó.

Pierluisi Urrutia resaltó la capacidad de su equipo de trabajo para reclutar funcionarios de colegio.

“La estructura de mi maquinaria esta aceitada. Es más, la información que me llega es que la otra campaña está teniendo serias dificultades, en ocasiones, llamando a personas que ya están desempeñándose con mi candidatura”, sentenció.

Las expresiones del aspirante se dieron al finalizar una reunión en el municipio de Cataño, con su equipo electo-

ral, de cara a la primaria del 9 de agosto. En su mensaje, Pierluisi Urrutia dijo no está en guerra con Wanda Vázquez Garced, sino en competencia.

“Yo lo que voy a hacer en estas seis semanas es tirarme a la calle, visitar todos los pueblos que no he visitado, seguir visitando los que ya visité, estar disponible para los medios y recabe el apoyo de todo el liderato para movilizar el voto”, concluyó.

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Monday, June 29, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

How ‘Hamilton’ reached the small screen

Lin-Manuel Miranda, center, created and starred in “Hamilton” on Broadway. A filming of the show was slated for theatrical release in 2021, but instead will stream this summer because of the coronavirus pandemic

By MICHAEL PAULSON

I

n the spring of 2017, a production executive withdrew an encrypted hard drive from a midtown Manhattan vault and boarded a flight to London.

A year before, a film crew had shot two of the final “Hamilton” performances featuring most of the original cast, and the plan was to lock the footage away for five or six years, until the time felt right to share it with the public.

But a cut was ready to show the person whose opinion mattered most: Lin-Manuel Miranda, the show’s laureled creator and star.

Miranda was in Britain, filming “Mary Poppins Returns.”

(He played the lamplighter.) So the “Hamilton” movie’s brain trust flew over, renting a private screening room in a hotel basement that the star could readily access during a break from Cherry Tree Lane.

The team did not have to wait long to find out what Miranda thought. As the screening got underway, he periodically interjected his approval, and when the final number began, he took off a shoe and threw it into the air.

“I thought, ‘OK, we did our job,’” said Jon Kamen, chairman and chief executive of RadicalMedia, which produced the film. “If he starts throwing his shoes around the theater, it’s pretty special.”

The public will now finally get a chance to see the film — neither a feature nor a documentary but a live-capture of the stage show — and will not even have to wear shoes. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Disney, which last year outbid competing

studios for the rights to the film, announced that it would forgo a planned theatrical release and instead stream it on Disney Plus starting July 3.

The movie, known to legions of obsessive fans by the hashtag #Hamilfilm, will be the first opportunity for many to see a show that chronicles the Revolution-era life and death of Alexander Hamilton, who was the United States’ first Treasury secretary.

The show won both the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in drama and the Tony Award for best new musical; its prepandemic productions around North America and in London were routinely sold out, with the best seats on Broadway retailing for $847, and its cast album has been on the Billboard 200 chart for 246 weeks.

Broadway shows are often recorded for archival purposes, but rarely for commercial runs. The “Hamilton” film was shot over just three days in June 2016, shortly after the Tonys and shortly before Miranda and several other performers departed from the cast.

“Theater is like ‘Brigadoon’ — it’s this kind of magical thing, and if you weren’t there you missed it,” said actress Renée Elise Goldsberry, who plays Hamilton’s sister-in-law, Angelica Schuyler.

“So to be able to save how it felt to do that show, at that time, together with this group of people, was a gift.”

There were no rehearsals — that seemed unnecessary, given that most of the cast had already done the show several hundred times. “These are the most well-rehearsed actors in the history of movies,” Miranda said.

But there was no room for missteps. “We didn’t have the option to go back,” said Thomas Kail, who directed the stage production and the film.

Kail had strong ideas about the “Hamilton” capture. “I didn’t want to pretend we weren’t in the theater,” he said. “That’s why you hear the audience and see the audience a little bit. I wanted to create a document that could feel like what it was to be in the theater at that time.”

Declan Quinn, director of photography, spent two months watching performances and reading the script, trying to suss out the best angles to capture key dramatic beats. He installed nine cameras around the Richard Rodgers Theater — one with a view toward the audience through a hole cut into the back of the stage set, one fixed on the balcony rail for a wide shot, and seven hidden behind black drapes so they would be less distracting to theatergoers — to shoot a Sunday matinee and a Tuesday evening show. Between those performances, the cast ran through 13 of the 46 numbers, but this time with onstage equipment — a Steadicam, a crane and a dolly-mounted camera — for close-ups and overheads.

Sound was recorded through more than 100 microphones.

Quinn and Kail sat in a truck on the street, watching live feeds and radioing in adjustments to the camera operators.

“You have to find the sweet spots where all of the language comes together — lighting, choreography, costumes,” Quinn said.

The film’s editor, Jonah Moran, had been unable to score tickets to “Hamilton” until coming on board for the movie; he then saw it about five times in New York and once in San Francisco as he and Kail wrestled with when to show the full stage, with set and choreography, and when to go tight on an actor’s face or a costume detail. “We were playing with the scale and the spectacle of it,” Moran said. “How do you capture all these details?”

The 161-minute film is the full Broadway show — with all scenes, all songs, even an intermission. Careful listeners may, however, notice a pair of elisions: Miranda allowed two of three obscenities in the libretto to be rendered inaudible to secure a PG13 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.

The musical’s lead producers — Jeffrey Seller, Sander Jacobs and Jill Furman — financed the filming themselves. “We just had a funny feeling that, no matter what deal we made at that point, it wouldn’t be enough,” Seller said. “It turned out it was a good decision.”

The producers spent “less than $10 million” shooting “Hamilton,” he said. They sold it to Disney for roughly $75 million.

Disney in some ways seemed like an inevitable choice, not just because of its scale and power, but also because of its growing

Miranda, left, with Leslie Odom Jr., who co-stars as Aaron Burr.

The San Juan Daily Star relationship with Miranda, who wrote songs for “Moana,” starred in “Mary Poppins Returns,” and is now co-writing a new animated musical, set in Colombia, for the studio.

But Team “Hamilton” made Disney sweat for the rights to the film. In 2018, the producers shopped it around Hollywood and then turned everyone down. “We weren’t sure what to do,” Seller said, “and sometimes when you’re not sure, slow down.”

Then Kail unexpectedly joined the Disney family. He was directing the miniseries “Fosse/Verdon” for FX when Disney acquired 20th Century Fox. And last year, Kail reached out to Bob Iger, then Disney’s chief executive, to inform him that the film was still available.

Iger really wanted it. He had seen the musical on Broadway (but not the original cast) and in Los Angeles; he said his children were “big fans,” and that he had “a few grandchildren who know every word.”

“I thought that ‘Hamilton’ was one of the most culturally significant pieces of art I had seen,” he said. “And when I saw the film, I was extremely impressed. It’s not just the best seat in the house; it’s a seat that doesn’t exist in the house, because when you’re onstage it’s like you’re among those characters.”

So Iger boarded a plane to New York to make his case. “I pitched my heart out,” he said. “Being associated with it would not only be great for our company, but we would do it real justice.”

A deal was sealed. “Honestly, it seemed like the best way to get the movie to as many places as possible,” Miranda said.

(Miranda, by the way, continues to own the rights to any future feature film adaptation of “Hamilton.” Will there ever be one? “I don’t know,” he said.)

Proceeds from the sale, Seller said, will be shared with the beneficiaries of the Broadway production, including the nonprofit Public Theater, where the off-Broadway production was staged, and members of the original cast, who in 2016 won a hard-fought battle to share in the profits of the stage production. “The actors are absolutely reaping the benefits of our financial rewards,” Seller said.

The cast welcomed the arrangement.

“The vessels that the story comes through are part of the creation of the piece of art, and I’m so grateful that this family understands that,” Goldsberry said. “That should always be the case for anybody that contributes to a film, just like it should be the case for anybody that’s in the theater.”

In February, Disney announced it would release the livecapture film in theaters on Oct. 15, 2021. But at the same time, the coronavirus was quietly spreading around the world. Among the side effects: By mid-March, new film and television production had largely halted, leaving the company’s streaming service hungry for material.

“After the pandemic hit, and everything shut down, I sent an email to Tommy and Lin, and I said, ‘The world needs this now more than ever,’” said Iger, who had just become Disney’s executive chairman. “Would you consider not taking it to theaters, and bringing it right to Disney Plus?”

The response was immediate: “No.” “I thought we should stay the course, but I confess that was early in the epidemic, when we thought we might go back to work in the summer,” said Seller, still reeling from having to shut down all six productions of “Hamilton.” “As the profundity of this pandemic set in, and I realized we’re not coming back this year, I thought we should reconsider.”

On May 12, the studio and the musical producers announced that the film would stream on Disney Plus, starting the weekend of Independence Day, which commemorates part of the history depicted in the show.

Monday, June 29, 2020

“I’m getting messages every day from folks who had tickets to ‘Hamilton’ and can’t go because of the pandemic, so moving up the release so everyone could experience it this summer felt like the right move,” Miranda said.

Disney has no current plans to show it on the big screen, but the “Hamilton” team remains optimistic. “Absolutely,” Kail said.

“I hope at some point, when people go back to movie theaters, there’s an opportunity for people to experience this in a group, sitting in the dark.”

The move to streaming has implications for Disney and “Hamilton.”

“It is a very different financial proposition than if we had put it in movie theaters,” Iger said. He declined to share a specific estimate for the movie’s box office potential, but said, “We felt it would get extremely well reviewed, and that people would love it, but it was also unclear how it would do globally, so our estimates were relatively conservative outside the U.S. and bullish inside the U.S.” Now the company hopes to benefit via new Disney Plus subscriptions. In the run-up to the film’s release, the service has stopped offering free trials in the United States, although it says that change is not tied to “Hamilton.” And Iger said the benefits to Disney are not entirely monetary. “We don’t really view it as a pure financial proposition for us at all actually,” he said. “We view it as something really great to be associated with.”

As for “Hamilton,” there is some financial downside. Iger said the initial deal has been “adjusted” to reflect the lack of a theatrical release. Seller declined to discuss details, but said he thinks that the film will further whet the appetite for the stage produc-

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tions. “I’ve looked at the effects of audiovisual performances on live theater over the last 20 years, and they’ve all been positive,” he said. “It’s a calculated risk, but I believe it’s going to help.”

There has been another unexpected development: Two weeks after Disney announced its streaming plan for “Hamilton,” George Floyd was killed while in police custody in Minneapolis, prompting weeks of protest and a national conversation about racial injustice. Will that conversation affect how “Hamilton,” with leading roles played almost entirely by actors of color, is seen?

Leslie Odom Jr., who stars as Aaron Burr, said the casting was important because of the significance of “who has the mic, who is allowed to tell the story, and what language the story is told in.”

“Raising a young Black girl, I can’t tell you how difficult it is for me to find books and films and works of art that are not centered around white people and white beauty and white genius and white joy,” Odom said. “Ushering Black and brown beauty into the world is still political, and it is still important because the examples are few and far between.”

And the show’s cast members said they hoped the questions it raises will feel newly relevant as the musical reaches a wider audience.

“Now more than ever we need to see representation onscreen, and to use ‘Hamilton’ as a way, once again, to hold up a mirror to ourselves and ask who we are as a society, and what we want to be,” said Phillipa Soo, who stars as Hamilton’s wife, Eliza.

“As much as we are grappling with the things that are very flawed in our country, I hope it gets people excited about what it means to be an American.”

The film features members of the original cast, including, at front from left, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Miranda and Soo.

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Monday, June 29, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

The new escapism: Isolationist travel

Tentrr connects travelers looking for camping sites on private land. Above, a site near Wevertown, N.Y., in the Adirondacks, which goes for $150 a night.

By ELAINE GLUSAC

F

rom taking cooking classes in the home of a local to learning traditional crafts from Indigenous people, much of travel — up until March 2020 — was all about connecting with others.

Now, in the COVID-19 era, travel is fraught with the demands of social distancing and hygiene. As people start thinking about taking trips, either by themselves or with close family or friends, travel companies are pivoting with new offerings and ways to offer distance from the crowd.

In pursuit of the great outdoors Pre-pandemic, less than 20% of Americans spent time outdoors more than once a week, according to the Outdoor Industry Association. Since then, adult bike sales have risen 121% nationally; in Vermont, sales of fishing licenses have gone up 50%. In a recent McKinsey survey on how behaviors are changing because of COVID-19, 18% say they are spending more time outdoors, where transmission rates of the virus are believed to be lower.

Now, even endeavors that seem to mandate a team are offering self-guided options. Rowing The World is introducing self-guided rowing tours for individuals and small groups in Seattle; Sarasota, Florida; northern Michigan and Maine.

Llamas help carry the loads on picnic hikes and

multiday treks with Paragon Guides in Vail, Colorado.

This summer, the company will continue to offer the guided trips, but those who seek to avoid all human contact can rent a llama and go it alone (llama rentals start at $100 a day; lunch hikes cost $490 for two).

Camping where no one will find you It can be hard to get a prime camping spot in summer through Recreation.gov, the reservation website that represents 12 federal agencies managing public land, including the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.

The anticipated surge in domestic outdoor travel may only tighten the squeeze.

One solution: Seek private land. Websites and apps like Hipcamp and Campspace connect campers with landowners.

“Getting outside is essential for human health and happiness, and in this current moment in time of stress and anxiety, the outdoors are more important than ever,” said Alyssa Ravasio, the chief executive of Hipcamp, which manages bookings at more than 300,000 sites in the United States. About a third of the sites have canvas tents, yurts or tree houses.

Hipcamp expects a busy summer. Already in May, its landowners have earned three times as much as they did in May 2019.

Another service, Tentrr, offers sites on private land with glamping-style furnished tents and outhous-

es. Sites range from a brewery in the Finger Lakes region of New York (from $145) to a farm in Tennessee (from $75).

“I don’t want the average camper who has all the stuff,” said Ken Ford, who recently built a Tentrr site on family property near Wevertown, New York, in the Adirondacks ($150 a night). “I want a person who drives up in a motorcycle with nothing, and it’s turnkey.”

Group tours spread out Hand sanitizer has long been on the buses of group trips. Now those buses will be scrubbed, their occupancy reduced and new routes established as tour companies like Collette and G Adventures reboot post-pandemic, which includes offering generous cancellation policies.

Active tour companies like Backroads think naturally socially distanced forms of travel such as biking and hiking lend themselves to current demands.

In July, Backroads plans to resume trips in the United States in places like Sedona, Arizona, and the Florida Keys. The company is taking the temperature of all travelers at the start of a trip, reducing group sizes to an average of about 10 and planning fewer group meals.

For some companies that are looking ahead to international travel getting its footing back, the crisis offers an itinerary reset. Geographic Expeditions plans on altering its walking tours to avoid crowded destinations in places like Japan.

“It’s a challenge,” said Don George, who will guide three of the company’s trips to Japan, including Kyoto, next spring, “but it’s also exciting to think about off-the-beaten-path places that we can visit that will illuminate the spirit and soul of Kyoto.”

Paddle-boarding in southern Utah with the Moab Adventure Center. The company is offering small, private programs for those who prefer not to be in larger groups.

The San Juan Daily Star In the future, travelers won’t be touring Bangkok by tuk tuk with G Adventures. In redesigning its trips for the pandemic, the small-group tour operator plans to drop elements over which it doesn’t have full control — like cleaning tuk-tuks — and work on offering things like assigned seats in vehicles to ensure social distancing and single rooms without a supplemental charge.

Pivoting to small groups By renting cabins, villas, RVs or houseboats, small groups can practice social distancing in isolation. Families and friends who decide to travel together in the near future will find resorts and services scaling to suit them.

When the prospects for event travel fell off the coronavirus cliff, the owners of Cedar Lakes Estate, a 500-acre compound in New York’s Hudson Valley that normally relies on weddings and meetings in summer, decided to pivot from catering to large groups to reopening as a resort that offers plenty of social distancing. Now, travelers can rent its 18 cottages, which sleep two to 12 people, and enjoy mountain hikes, sports like volleyball and tennis, and swimming in two lakes. Guests order meals to be delivered and arrange activities via a concierge using text or video conferencing (rates from $1,180 a week).

In June, the New York City-based travel agency Embark Beyond started Camp Embark, a private camp program based at luxury resorts from Rhode Island to Montana, with a dedicated camp counselor organizing children’s activities (prices from about $1,200 a night, plus $1,000 to $2,000 a week for camp counselors).

Adventure International, which specializes in private tours to places like Mount Kilimanjaro, has found that interest in trips in the United States is surging. Six days at its private glamping site near Yellowstone National Park, including meals, excursions and a guide, starts at $2,900 a person.

Roadies, which offers itineraries in top-of-theline buses modeled after rock-star tours, is offering the coaches to private groups of up to 10, spending a week visiting U.S. Open golf courses, ski resorts in the Rockies or California wineries (prices start around $4,000 a person).

More affordable options include private tours offered by the Moab Adventure Center in southern Utah, which runs rafting, mountain biking and rock climbing trips. Climbing lessons that normally cost $107 a person will cost $595 for up to four people.

The couple’s bubble just got cozier Images of empty beaches and sunset drinks for two: In many ways, the travel industry already caters to couples with the promise of shutting everyone else out.

“We’ve been doing social distancing for years.

It’s what we’ve built our brand on,” said Adam Stewart, the deputy chairman of Sandals Resorts, which operates 15 all-inclusive properties in six Caribbean countries. “Romance requires privacy.”

Monday, June 29, 2020

The resorts, most of which are reopening this summer, cater to couples with two-person soaking tubs, hammocks for two and private dinners on the beach. When the resorts reopen, their restaurant tables will be spaced farther apart. Elevator trips will be limited to one couple. Thirty-passenger buses that transfer guests from the airport will take a maximum of 10. Beach parties with rum drinks and reggae remain but, added Stewart, “We will not be having the conga line.”

Restricted to employees and guests only, all-inclusive resorts offer more privacy.

“With everything being contained to the resort itself, I truly don’t have any fears,” said Bobbie Mergenthaler, a home health care worker in Kouts, Indiana, who booked a weeklong trip with her husband in November to celebrate their anniversary at the allinclusive Secrets Cap Cana Resort & Spa in the Dominican Republic.

Resorts consisting of stand-alone guest quarters, from the high-end Bluefields Bay Villas in Jamaica that come with their own chef (villas start at $980) to the glamping tents at Collective Vail in Colorado (from $249) and the budget-friendly tiny house rentals at Canoe Bay Escape Village in Wisconsin (from $125), say they are naturally configured for the COVID-19 travel era.

A bubble of one In May, moderators of the Facebook page Solo Travel Society asked their 260,000-some members, “Has the pandemic changed your outlook on how you

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TRAVEL

will travel solo going forward?”

Within three hours, nearly 200 responses ran the gamut from fear of getting the virus on a flight to impatience with travel restrictions. But most hewed in the resilient direction of Chris Engelman of Ottawa, Illinois, who wrote, “Traveling makes me happy. I’m going to continue to live a life of joy.”

“People are looking at road trips in your bubble, in your car,” said Janice Waugh, the founder of the website SoloTravelerWorld.com who also runs Solo Travel Society on Facebook where members are also talking about solo camping and self-guided walking and cycling trips.

Solo travelers often join tours, and companies like Tauck have catered to them by dropping single supplements on some trips. But with trips abroad on hold because of border restrictions, and group trips a potential health threat, Audley Travel, a custom tour operator, said the private trips it has designed for solos have doubled since mid-March, indicating a shift away from group departures.

For summer and fall, Caren Kabot, the founder of Solo Escapes, plans to replace small group trips to places like Morocco with weekend trips in the rural Northeast where many of her clients can drive until they get comfortable with the safety of air travel.

Hiking, boating and culinary activities may be on the agenda.

“We’ll do socially distanced dinners,” she said.

“It may be a very long dinner table, or two tables.

We’re adjusting.”

A tiny rental home at Canoe Bay Escape Village in Wisconsin.

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Monday, June 29, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

The scientist, the air and the virus

By TARA PARKER-POPE

W

hen Linsey Marr’s son started attending day care 12 years ago, she noticed that he kept getting sick with the sniffles and other minor illnesses. But unlike most parents, Marr, an aerosol scientist at Virginia Tech, tried to figure out why.

“When I’d pick him up, I’d find out that more than half the kids in the room were sick too,” Marr said. “I was really curious, and wondered, if it was spreading this fast, maybe it was going through the air.”

Marr was uniquely equipped to tackle the problem. She had graduated with an engineering science degree from Harvard, where she developed an interest in air pollution during her daily runs breathing car exhaust on nearby Boston streets. She earned a doctorate in civil and environmental engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, and completed post-doctorate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with Mario J. Molina, a Nobel laureate recognized for research into ozone damage caused by chlorofluorocarbon gases.

But it was during that first foray into day care germs that she discovered how little was known about airborne transmission of viruses.

“I was surprised to find out we don’t even know how much of the flu is spread through the air or through touching,” Marr said. “There was so little known about it that this personal fascination became an obsession.”

Now, Marr’s maternal and scientific curiosity and her multidisciplinary background have made her a leading scientist on airborne viruses. Her research led to the publication of a groundbreaking study that found flu virus in droplets that were small enough to remain floating in the air for an hour or more. Another study suggested that the seasonality of flu was associated with humidity. Her work led to a National Institutes of Health New Innovator Award in 2013 and an appointment in January to a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine board.

But the coronavirus pandemic has put her in the spotlight. Public health officials in the United States and with the World Health Organization have called on Marr for her expertise, and scientists from all over the world have asked her to review their papers. Her lab has focused on testing new materials to solve shortages of personal protective equipment for medical workers. Working with her colleagues and graduate students, Marr’s lab found that a large stockpile of expired respirator masks were still effective but that 3D printed masks unfortunately were not.

“There are not many people who are trained

Linsey Marr engineers who also study infectious disease,” said Dr. X.J. Meng, a Virginia Tech professor who studies emerging animal viruses. Meng said he remembered being impressed by Marr after watching her presentation at a 2017 National Academy of Sciences meeting on emerging infections, which included Dr. Anthony Fauci and other leaders in the field.

“She’s really the star in the field right now,” Meng said. “Linsey is one of very few scientists who has this ability to study aerosol transmission because she can use the engineering tools to study the dynamics of viruses and bacteria in the air. If you look at the work she’s doing she collaborates with virologists, epidemiologists, physicians and public health specialists.

Her work is interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary to solve public health problems.”

Her Twitter feed is a daily exchange of ideas among fellow scientists, and it’s also peppered with questions from followers, which she tries to answer.

Part of the reason Marr has become so popular in public forums is her ability to explain difficult scientific concepts in easy-to-understand terms.

She uses the visual of cigarette smoke when explaining viral plumes. To explain a concept called Brownian motion — and why masks can more easily filter the smallest microscopic particles — she uses the analogy of a drunken person stumbling into chairs and walls while trying to cross a room. “The particle is the drunk person, and the chairs are the fibers of the masks,” she said. “The fibers stop the particles.”

When people began asking whether their clothes could be covered in virus after going to the store or walking outdoors, she gave us all a lesson in aerody-

namics. Just as bugs don’t smash into the windshield of a slow-moving car because they’re carried by air currents alongside the car, lingering viral particles also slip by the human body as we move, and don’t smash into our clothes, she explained.

And in the midst of a public health crisis that has upended our lives, Marr has used her knowledge to solve practical everyday challenges of parents and families. She used mathematical models to determine the safety of hugging during a viral outbreak, taking photos with her daughter in various positions to explain how to lower risk. She collaborated with Dutch researchers on how we can safely return to the gym.

And her team is in the midst of research on the benefits of homemade masks.

But the demand for Marr’s expertise also highlights an alarming problem in the study of viruses and respiratory illness.

There are, perhaps, fewer than a dozen scientists with extensive expertise in aerosol transmission of viruses, but funding for their research often falls between the cracks of different disciplines. Basic science grants tend to view airborne viruses as a topic to be supported by health funds. But health agencies tend to focus on how a virus behaves inside the body, not how it gets there. Environmental scientists may study waterborne pathogens or air pollution, but they don’t typically focus on airborne transmission of disease.

“Somehow it hasn’t been on the radar screen,” Marr said. “I’m not the only one studying this. There are other people who do this, but not nearly enough to answer all the questions that everyone has right now.”

Marr is among a small but vocal group of scientists who are calling for more attention to be given to the airborne route of coronavirus transmission.

Although the World Health Organization has been adamant that COVID-19 is not an airborne disease, a large body of evidence suggests people get sick by sharing the same air with an infected person, including outbreaks in a restaurant, during choir practice and when nearly half of 200 workers in a call center office fell ill.

“It’s hard to believe this pandemic could have spread the way it did so quickly around the world without the airborne route playing a role,” said Richard L. Corsi, dean of engineering and computer science at Portland State University and a specialist in indoor air quality. “It’s a frustration for people who understand aerosols and air pollution particles that this hasn’t received more attention. There are about a half-dozen people screaming about this from the rooftops.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Pri- VORCIO (RUPTURA IRREPA- TIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA mera Instancia Sala Superior RABLE).

EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO de Caquas.

POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNI- A: JOHN DOE & RICHARD DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUBANCO POPULAR DE DOS DE NORTEAMERICA EL ROE: DIRECCIÓN NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. PUERTO RICO DESCONOCIDA. CENTRO JUDICIAL DE SAN ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE DEMANDANTE EL SECRETARIO que suscribe le JUAN. PUERTO RICO. ss.

E.M.I. EQUITY notifica a usted que el 23 de JUPR RECOVERY AND A: Sr. Pedro Pablo NIO de 2020, este tribunal ha dicMORTGAGE, INC, DEVELOPMENT JV, LLC Mendoza Contreras tado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial WANDA IVETTE ALGARÍN DEMANDANTE Barrio Andrés Bocachica, o Resolución en este caso, que NEGRÓN, FULANO Y JESUS M. QUILES Sector Los Tronquitos, ha sido debidamente registrada y MENGANO DE TAL, COTTO H/N/C JMQ Finca Vigía, Calle Sol archivada en autos donde podrá POSIBLES TENEDORES LANDSCAPING Naciente Santo Domingo, usted enterarse detalladamente DESCONOCIDÓS DEL de los términos de la misma. Esta SERVICES República Dominicana notificación se publicará una sola PAGARÉ DEMANDADO POR LA PRESENTE se le vez en un periódico de circulación DEMANDADO CIVIL NÚM: SJ2019CV11026. emplaza y requiere para que general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, SALA: 504. SOBRE: COBRO CASO NUM. JU2019CV00393. presente al Tribunal su alegadentro de los 10 días siguientes DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIEN- SOBRE: SUSTITUCION DE ción responsiva a la demanda a su notificación. Y, siendo o rePAGARE EXTRAVIADO. NOTO POR EDICTO. dentro de los treinta (30) días presentando usted una parte en TIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA A: JESUS M. QUILES siguientes a la publicación de el procedimiento sujeta a los térPOR EDICTO. COTI’O H/N/C JMQ este Edicto. Usted deberá preminos de la Sentencia, Sentencia A: FULANO Y sentar su alegación responsiva LANDSCAPING Parcial o Resolución, de la cual MENGANO DE TAL , a través del Sistema Unificado SERVICES puede establecerse recursos de Calle Alcañiz Apartamento POSIBLES TENEDORES de Manejo y Administración revisión o apelación dentro del DESCONOCIDOS DEL de Casos (SUMAC) a, la cual término de 30 días contados a 1 Barriada San José #334 puede acceder utilizando la PAGARE partir de la publicación por edicto San Juan, Puerto Rico EL SECRETARIO(A) que sus- siguiente dirección electrónica de esta notificación, dirijo a usted 00923 https://unired.ramajudiciai.pr cribe le notifica a usted que el esta notificación que se consiPOR LA PRESENTE se le 12 de junio de 2020 este Tri- salvo que se represente por derará hecha en la fecha de la emplaza y requiere para que bunal ha dictado Sentencia, derecho propio, en cuyo caso publicación de este edicto. Copia conteste la demanda dentro de Sentencia Parcial o Resolución deberá presentar su alegación de esta notificación ha sido archilos treinta (30) días siguientes en este caso, que ha sido debi- responsiva a la secretarla del vada en los autos de este caso, a la publicación de este Edicto. damente registrada y archivada tribunal. Si usted deja de pre- con fecha de 24 de JUNIO de Usted deberá presentar su aleen autos donde podrá usted sentar su alegación responsiva 2020. En FAJARDO, Puerto Rico, gación responsiva a través del enterarse detalladamente de dentro del referido término, el A 24 de JUNIO de 2020. WANSistema Unificado de Manejo y los términos de la misma. Esta tribunal podrá dictar sentencia DA I SEGUI REYES, Secretaria Administración de Casos (SUnotificación se publicará una en rebeldía en su contra y con- Regional. F/AMARILIS MARMAC), la cual puede acceder sola vez en un periódico de ceder el remedio solicita o en la QUEZ MARQUEZ, Secretario(a) utilizando la siguiente direccirculación general en la isla demanda, o cualquier otro, si Auxiliar. ción electrónica: https://unired. de Puerto Rico, dentro de los el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su ramajudiciaLpr, salvo que se LEGAL NOTICE lo días siguientes a su notifica- sana discreción, entiende que represente por derecho propio, ción. Y, siendo o representando procede.

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO en cuyo caso deberá presentar Lcdo. Héctor E. Pabón Vega usted una parte en el procediDE PUERTO RICO Tribunal Nombre del (de la) abogado de la su alegación responsiva en la miento sujeta a los términos parte demandante, o de la parte, si General de Justicia TRIBUsecretaría del tribunal. Si usted de la Sentencia, Sentencia no tiene representación legal NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA deja de presentar su alegación 8620 Parcial o Resolución, de la cual SALA SUPERIOR DE CAROresponsiva dentro del referido puede establecerse recurso de Número ante el Tribunal Supremo, LINA. si es abogado(a) término, el tribunal podrá dicrevisión o apelación dentro del BAUTISTA CAYMAN P.O. Box 21411, San Juan, Puerto tar sentencia en rebeldía en término de 30 días contados a Rico 00928-1411 ASSET COMPANY su contra y conceder el remepartir de la publicación por edicDirección Demandante Vs. dio solicitado en la demanda o Teléfono 787-282-6734 to de esta notificación, dirijo a cualquier otro sin más citarle ni SUCESION RAFAEL usted esta notificación que se Número de teléfono; número de fax hpabonvega@gmall.com oírle, si el tribunal en el ejerciMARCANO HERNADNEZ considerará hecha en la fecha Correo electrónico cio de su sana discreción, lo T/C/C Y OTROS de la publicación de este edicEXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y seentiende procedente. El sisteDemandado(s) to. Copia de esta notificación llo del Tribunal, hoy 22 de junio ma SUMAC notificará copia al CIVIL NÚM. CA2019CV00122. ha sido archivada en los autos de 2020. Griselda Rodriguez abogado de la parte demanSALA: 404. SOBRE:COBRO de este caso, con fecha de 22 Collado, Sec Regional. Carmen dante, el Lcdo. José F. Aguilar DE DINERO Y EJECUCION de junio de 2020. En Caquas, J. Castro Serrano, Sec Auxiliar Vélez cuya dirección es: P.O. DE HIPOTECA POR LA VIA Puerto Rico, 22 de junio de del Tribunal.

Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto ORDINARIA. NOTIFICACIÓN 2020. CARMEN ANA PEREIRA Rico 00936-85 18, teléfono DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. ORTIZ, Secretaria. JESSENIA LEGAL NOTICE (787) 993-3731 a la dirección PEDRAZA, Secretaria Auxiliar.

A: SUCESION jose.aguilar@orf-law.com y a ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO RAFAEL MARCANO la dirección notificaciones@orfLEGAL NOTICE DE PUERTO RICO Tribunal HERNANDEZ T/C/C law.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO General de Justicia TRIBUESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO RAFAEL HERNANDEZ MI FIRMA y el sello del TribuDE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA nal, en , San Juan, Puerto Rico, MARCANO COMPUESTA SALA SUPERIOR DE FAJARNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA hoy día 22 de junio de 2020. En DO. POR IRIVING MARCANO SALA DE SAN JUAN. San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 22 de ORIENTAL BANK DAVILA; PEGGY Verónica junio de 2020. Griselda RodriDemandante Vs. MARCANO DAVILA Y Escalera Quiñones guez Collado, Sec General. MJ. JOHN DOE & (Demandante) vs.

CANDIDA MARCANO Ocasio Rosario, Sec Auxiliar de RICHARD ROE Pedro Pablo RODRIGUEZ. DIRECCION Sala.

Demandado(s) Mendoza Contreras CONOCIDA: VISTA MAR CIVIL NÚM. FA2019CV01152.

LEGAL NOT ICE (Demandado) 675 AVE PONTEZUELA, SOBRE: CANCELCACION DE NÚMERO: Estado Libre Asociado de Puer- CIVIL CAROLINA PR 00983 PAGARE EXTRAVIADO. NOto Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL SJ2020RF00500. SOBRE: DI-

LEGAL NOTICE

@

staredictos1@outlook.com

(787) 743-3346

25 EL SECRETARIO que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 19 de JUNIO de 2020, este tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recursos de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 24 de JUNIO de 2020.

En CAROLINA, Puerto Rico, A 24 de JUNIO de 2020. LCDA. MARILYN APONTE RODRIGUEZ, Secretaria Regional.

MARICRUZ APONTE ALICEA, Secretario(a) Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO Tribunal General de Justicia TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE CAROLINA.

BAUTISTA CAYMAN ASSET COMPANY Demandante Vs.

SUCESION RAFAEL MARCANO HERNADNEZ T/C/C Y OTROS

Demandado(s) CIVIL NÚM. CA2019CV00122.

SALA: 404. SOBRE:COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA POR LA VIA ORDINARIA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: FULANO DE TAL Y MENGANO DE TAL POR SER HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESION DE RAFAEL MARCANO HERNANDEZ T/C/C RAFAEL HERNANDEZ MARCANO.

EL SECRETARIO que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 19 de JUNIO de 2020, este tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta

notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recursos de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 24 de JUNIO de 2020.

En CAROLINA, Puerto Rico, A 24 de JUNIO de 2020. LCDA. MARILYN APONTE RODRIGUEZ, Secretaria Regional. MARICRUZ APONTE ALICEA, Secretario(a) Auxiliar.

notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 17 de JUNIO de 2020.

En CAROLINA, Puerto Rico, A 17 de JUNIO de 2020. MARILYN APONTE RODRIGUEZ, Secretaria Regional. KEILA GARCIA SOLIS, Secretario(a) Auxiliar.

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

SCOTIABANK DE PUERTO RICO Demandante v.

SUCESION DE JOSE ANTONIO HERNANDEZ MEDINA, también conocido como JOSE ANTONIO HERNANDEZ COMPUESTA POR SUS HIJOS JOSE LEGAL NOTICE LUIS HERNANDEZ ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO RESTO, CARMEN DE PUERTO RICO Tribunal ELSIE HERNANDEZ General de Justicia TRIBUCORDERO, DAMARIS NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE CARO- HERNANDEZ CORDERO LINA. Y JOSE HERNANDEZ ISLAND PORTFOLIO CORDERO Y FULANO Y SERVICES, LLC, COMO SUTANO DE TAL; ELSIE AGENTE DE JEFFERSON CORDERO ACEVEDO, CAPITAL SYSTEMS también conocido Demandante Vs. como ELSIE CORDERO HECTOR DE HERNANDEZ; HERNANDEZ PINERO JOSE HERNANDEZ Demandado(s) CORDERO, NINETTE CIVIL NÚM. CN2019CV00239.

SOBRE:COBRO DE DINERO, MARRERO COSME Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE REGLA 60. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. BIENES GANANCIALES A: HECTOR COMPUESTA POR HERNANDEZ PINERO AMBOS EL SECRETARIO que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 14 de JUNIO de 2019, este tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recursos de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta

Demandados

CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM)

el 25 de junio de 2020, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 25 de junio de 2020. En BAYAMON, Puerto Rico, el 25 de junio de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria. F/ MILITZA MERCADO RIVERA, Sec Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE GOBIERNO DE PUERTO RICO. NOMBRE COMERCIAL PARA REGISTRAR. AVISO. A QUIEN PUEDA INTERESAR: De acuerdo con las disposiciones de la Ley Núm. 75 del 23 de septiembre de 1992, según enmendada, mejor conocida como la Ley de Nombres Comerciales del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico y la Sección 24 del Reglamento promulgado bajo la ley citada anteriormente, el siguiente nombre comercial ha sido presentado en el Departamento de Estado de Puerto Rico para su archivo y registro.

Demandado(a) Civil: Núm. SJ2019CV02729.

SALA 505. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. Número de Expediente: A: José Luis Hernández 232026-99-1. Propietario: MIRACLE AUTO CARE LLC. DiResto, Carmen Elsie rección: Urb Industrial San ElviHernández Cordero, ra carr 189 km 2.6, CAGUAS, Damaris Hernández 00725. Actividad EmpreCordero, Elsie Cordero PR sarial: Venta y distribución Acevedo, también de productos de calidad para conocida como Elsie cuidado y limpieza de automóCordero de Hernández, viles. Renuncia a elementos no José Hernández Cordero, registrables: NOTIFICACIÓN: Ninette Marrero Cosme Cualquier oposición a este rey la Sociedad Legal de gistro deberá presentarse en el Departamento de Estado de Bienes Gananciales Puerto Rico dentro de los treinCompuesta por Ambos ta (30) días siguientes a la puEL SECRETARIO(A) que sus- blicación de este aviso. cribe le notifica a usted que

MIRACLE AUTO CARE, THE DETAILING ALCHEMISTS

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

Despite virus spike, NBA is ‘very comfortable’ with Florida plan

By MARC STEIN

D

espite what Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, described as an “increased” level of concern over a significant rise of coronavirus cases in Florida, the league moved forward on several fronts late last week by formalizing its plans to restart the 2019-20 season at Walt Disney World near Orlando.

The league and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) jointly announced Friday that they had officially finalized their agreement to revive the season with 22 teams next month, and the NBA revealed the 88-game schedule leading into the playoffs.

The league and the union also announced that, out of 302 players tested by their teams Tuesday, 16 were positive for the coronavirus. During a conference call with reporters Friday afternoon, Silver said the two organizations “ultimately believe it will be safer on our campus than off it.”

“My ultimate conclusion is that we can’t outrun the virus and that this is what we’re going to be living with for the foreseeable future, which is why we designed the campus the way we did,” Silver said. “While it’s not impermeable, we are in essence protected from cases around us — at least, that’s the model. For those reasons, we’re still very comfortable being in Orlando.”

Hours after Florida announced a singleday record of nearly 9,000 new coronavirus cases in the state — up from 5,511 last Wednesday — Silver said that the league had “no choice but to learn to live with this virus” and that no options for rebooting the season “are risk-free right now.”

Any player who tested positive this week must remain in isolation until they record two consecutive negative coronavirus tests at least 24 hours apart. Michele Roberts, executive director of the NBPA, said of the positive results that “one would have been concerning,” but she also expressed relief that there had not been more cases among the players.

“I’ve been holding my breath for the last few weeks,” Roberts said.

“None of the 16 were seriously ill in any way and that was also a big relief for us,” Silver said.

Players who test positive also must undergo cardiac screening and receive clearance from a physician before resuming basketball activities, according to the NBA’s 113 pages of health and safety protocols governing the planned restart.

Malcolm Brogdon of the Indiana Pacers

Adam Silver in February, when the N.B.A. had a very different plan. and Sacramento Kings players Jabari Parker and Alex Len announced this week that they were among the 16 positive tests. Other players reported by various news media outlets to have tested positive include Sacramento’s Buddy Hield (as reported by The Athletic), Miami Heat’s Derrick Jones Jr. (The Miami Herald) and two unnamed members of the Phoenix Suns (The Arizona Republic).

Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets remained in his native Serbia this week rather than rejoin the team after he, too, tested positive. Jokic, though, was not among the 302 players tested this week, which included only players from the 22 teams involved in the season restart who are currently available for testing in their home markets.

Silver acknowledged that a “significant spread” of the coronavirus once teams were on campus in Florida “may lead us to stopping” again. But Silver said they had not yet determined what would constitute a “significant spread.”

The 22 teams participating in the NBA’s restart are scheduled to report to the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex at Walt Disney World starting July 7. Until then, testing of players is scheduled to continue every other day until teams leave for Florida; part of

the reason teams are spending two weeks in their home markets is to help with identifying coronavirus cases and getting those players isolated before all 22 teams convene.

The defending champion Toronto Raptors are already in Florida, training at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, to avoid the travel restrictions involved in crossing the United States-Canada border.

As the NBA released its first batch of test results, Florida on Friday reported 1,051 new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Orange County, home to Disney World. Coronavirus cases have risen steadily all month in Florida since the NBA and the players’ association ratified the return-to-play plan at the Disney complex June 4 and 5.

The NBA’s positive test rate Tuesday was 5.3 percent, but the league did not announce results for coaches and team staff members who were tested. Teams will be allowed to bring up to 17 players to Disney World in traveling parties capped at 37 people, with a mandatory quarantine of 36 to 48 hours upon arrival until two consecutive negative tests are recorded. Testing, Silver said, is scheduled daily thereafter.

Beyond the health concerns, Oklahoma City’s Chris Paul, the NBPA president,

expressed confidence in the league’s pledge to support players in their efforts to further the Black Lives Matter movement when play restarts.

“We all understand how powerful our voice is,” Paul said. “It’s never a ‘Shut up and dribble’ situation. You’re going to continue to hear us and see us.”

Silver said the NBA “may be the most uniquely qualified organization in the world to affect change” in the quest for social justice and racial equality, given that some of the league’s players, including Paul, are among the most famous Black personalities in the country.

Still, the league, its players and major media partners like Disney all have considerable financial motivation, both this season and especially beyond, to get the game back on the court.

Silver conceded that the league’s return, especially amid Florida’s rising coronavirus crisis, was “definitely not business as usual.”

Yet he insisted that the NBA “must adapt” and would try to show the public “how we can balance public health and economic necessity.”

“We can’t sit on the sidelines indefinitely,” Silver said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

27

The first pick in the NHL draft goes to … TBD

By ANDREW KNOLL

T

he NHL last Friday held the first part of its draft lottery, an annual ritual of pro sports leagues meant to lay out an order of business for the rest of the draft process. The night’s primary revelation, however, was that this year’s draft order is still as incomplete as the season itself.

Even the one thing the draft order was supposed to finalize — the destination of the consensus No. 1 pick Alexis Lafrenière — remains unknown after the NHL revealed seven teams that will select in the second through eighth spots, but held up a card bearing the NHL shield as a placeholder for the franchise that will win the first overall pick in another draft lottery.

Phase 2 of the league’s selection process will be held between the qualifying and first rounds of the playoffs, with no date set yet.

“It’s a little strange when they flip it over and you have to process that there’s a secondary lottery that’s going to take place, or a ‘Phase 2,’ and not necessarily knowing the exact teams,” said Rob Blake, the general manager of the Los Angeles Kings, the franchise that will select second overall. “Everything has kind of taken a different path since the pause and you maneuver your way around it.”

The No. 1 pick will be selected from among the eight teams that do not advance past the qualifying round of the playoffs, or the teams that acquire those picks via trade, with each pick from a losing team representing a 12.5 percent chance at the top overall selection.

The Ottawa Senators will select third overall, having acquired the pick in a trade with the San Jose Sharks, and fifth with their own pick. The New Jersey Devils will pick seventh but also own two picks of potential play-in losers, Arizona and Vancouver. The Detroit Red Wings, who had the league’s worst record, hold the fourth pick.

The Anaheim Ducks (sixth) and Buffalo Sabres (eighth) round out the portion of the draft order that was completed Friday.

In a season that has seen play suspended, players test positive for the coronavirus and the league being creative in planning the summertime start of the playoffs from two hub cities still yet to be determined, it came as no surprise that the NHL draft and draft lottery have also been subject to unusual circumstances.

The draft itself will be a fall event and the combine appears to be on course to

Alexis Lafrenière, the prospective No. 1 pick in the 2020 N.H.L. draft was named the most valuable player of the Under-20 World Junior Championships in January. not take place at all. When the draft does happen, there is an excellent chance it will be held remotely, as the NFL, WNBA and MLB have already done this spring.

It will be headlined by Lafrenière, an 18-year-old wing who cemented his status as the top prospect by winning his second straight player of the year honor in the Canadian junior system, a feat matched only by the three-time Stanley Cup champion Sidney Crosby. Lafrenière played for the same club, Oceanic Rimouski, as Crosby did.

Lafrenière excelled most prominently at the Under-20 World Junior Championships in January, scoring 10 points in five games and leading Canada to a gold medal. He was named MVP of the tournament.

He headlines a deep 2020 draft class that is bracing for the unique and sometimes confusing circumstances wrought by the pandemic.

Jamie Drysdale, who is expected to be the first defenseman selected, said: “I’m not going to lie, it’s a bit weird. I’ve played with some older guys and heard what they had to say about their draft day. Obviously

this is going to be different. Everyone’s just waiting on when the draft is going to be, but for now it’s just a matter of preparing myself for anything.”

Forward Cole Perfetti, a projected top10 pick, said he had to recalibrate his expectations for the moment that he longed for since growing up in Whitby, Ontario.

“You dream of having a draft day the same as every other pick: walking up on stage, getting the jersey and taking your photo,” Perfetti said. “Those are experiences and memories that we’re not going to get, but we’re going to get different ones.”

Quinton Byfield, a 6-foot-4-inch and 215-pound center projected by many as the draft’s second pick, had planned to buy a striking suit and wear one of his signature bow ties — he has a collection of dozens — but said he was unsure if he would display such sartorial flair from his living room.

Byfield, whose father is from Jamaica and whose mother is Canadian, could become the highest selected Black player in league history. Columbus defenseman Seth

Jones currently holds the distinction, having been selected fourth in the 2013 draft.

“If I got drafted that high, being the highest player drafted with Black heritage, that would definitely be special, making a mark in history like that,” Byfield said.

Beyond the dizzying format changes and unforeseen delays to the NHL season, the process of evaluating prospects was thrown into flux after the NCAA, amateur leagues in North America and professional leagues in Europe canceled their seasons.

The Under-18 World Junior Championships, which had been scheduled for April 16-26, were also canceled, a loss that Blake, the Kings general manager, particularly lamented.

“That’s where the collection of these players get to play peer versus peer and you get to watch it,” he said, “and see the difference from the beginning of the year to the end of the year what they’d done.”

Martin Madden, the assistant general manager for the Anaheim Ducks, said that his staff members tried hard to keep their number of viewings for each prospect at the same level it would have been for a full season. That meant deep video dives and conducting remote interviews with players as his scouts prepared as if the original June draft date would be kept.

Around the league, interviews with prospects are being conducted by videoconference, a departure from the rigid schedule at the annual combine, where interviews are usually timed to last around 15 minutes or can include many players in groups. Without a standardized length and with an unlimited number of participants — including executives, coaches and scouts — the process this year is allowing both team officials and players to get more profound looks at one another.

“The whole process of teams doing Zoom interviews with prospects was an opportunity for teams to really get to know players beyond what they’ve been able to do in the past,” said player agent Allan Walsh.

Some felt that the unusual circumstances would have a distinct impact on evaluating players and, ultimately, where prospects were selected. Walsh said the steep development curve of prospects meant they may have made serious strides between the suspension of play in March and the draft this fall. How fast a player may have developed is just one of the many unknowns the NHL is facing in a year that’s cloudier than usual.

28

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

Her Olympic dream on hold, teen gymnast faces other trials

By JULIET MACUR

T

he alarm on Sunisa Lee’s cellphone rang last Monday. She had set it many months ago as a joyful reminder of her departure to St. Louis for the Olympic gymnastics trials, which had been scheduled to start on June 25, when she would be a favorite to make the U.S. team for Tokyo 2020.

But with the trials and the Olympics postponed until next year because of the coronavirus pandemic, the alarm couldn’t have been more deflating. Already, the past three months have been some of the most trying in Lee’s young life.

Lee, 17, had been ecstatic that her gym, Midwest Gymnastics, was set to open on June 1 after being closed for nearly three months. But a week before she was to return, the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis ignited passionate protests in the area. Though the largest of them happened about 20 minutes away from Lee’s home in St. Paul, Minn., her neighborhood grocery store and Target were looted, and she and her family decided to stay indoors.

Around the same time, one of Lee’s aunts and the aunt’s husband, died within 13 days of each other. Then, only two weeks after returning to training full time, Lee twisted her left ankle on a fall from the uneven bars, relegating her to nearly the same monotonous routine she had under quarantine — mostly strength and conditioning training — until her ankle heals.

Even with all the tumult, Lee likely will reset the alarm on her phone for next year.

When it rings to signal the Olympic trials she wants to be ready in both body and spirit.

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

Sunisa Lee: The days right before I went back to the gym were supposed to be happy ones, but the protests in Minneapolis were really crazy for everyone here. I didn’t go to the protests, but I understand where the anger is coming from and why people are trying to push for change. There weren’t any protests in our neighborhood, but one day we did have people throwing things in our yard. It was hard for me to even think about going back to the gym while all of these things were going on.

“It was hard for me to even think about going back to the gym while all of these things were going on,” Lee said.

I heard that a lot of Hmong-owned businesses were looted and that was hard to handle. One of the officers there for George Floyd’s death was Hmong. So that was extra upsetting because it kind of made me feel like you’re a bad person because you’re Hmong. As a proud Hmong American, I’m trying to spread positivity about Hmong people and tell people what it’s like to be Hmong, and I felt like this was a big blow to our reputation.

When my aunt died of the coronavirus, it was very, very hard on me and my family. I knew the coronavirus was a real thing, but it really hit home when my aunt died, and it was really hard to watch my mom go through that with her sister. My aunt was in her 60s, and she was one of my favorite aunts because she was so loving and caring and was always supportive of me. She wanted the best for me, and I appreciated that. My mom would always take me to her and my uncle when I was injured. They

would give me herbs and give me massages, or wrap my injured ankle to have the swelling go down. My uncle was a shaman, a Hmong healer.

When my gym finally reopened, I was so excited, but it wasn’t like everything went back to normal. It was really fun to see my friends again, but we can’t hug each other and have to say 6 feet away from each other. We have to train in smaller groups and don’t get to see our friends as much.

We have to wear a mask going into the gym and then when we go to the bathroom or take a break. We wash our hands and use sanitizer before and after every event.

The other difference was that the training was so hard! My gosh, after the first day I was so sore that I could barely walk the next day and for a week after that. Training on the equipment is very different than working out on your own at home. I definitely didn’t think it would be as painful as it has been.

The toughest part was going back on the uneven bars. I feel like most of my events came back to me pretty fast, except the bars. For me, I know that people always expect me to be perfect, so when I’m not perfect, it’s really frustrating. I’m really hard on myself and want things to work out right away. It’s difficult to find the balance if your swing is off. With the other events, I can adjust to things, but if my air awareness is off on bars, everything gets really messed up. I was really upset when I hurt my ankle on bars because now I can’t do them for another few weeks. It’s basically the same injury I had last year going into national championships.

I feel like the energy in the world this year has been so negative. I try to remind myself that I’ll come back from my ankle injury better than ever. I’m looking forward to going to national team camp soon, but that might not be until September. I just want this year to be over. I’m so ready for 2021.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

Sudoku

29

How to Play:

Fill in the empty fields with the numbers from 1 through 9.

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

Crossword

Answers on page 30

Wordsearch

GAMES

HOROSCOPE Aries

30

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

(Mar 21-April 20)

You’re bursting with energy. Channel this upsurge into realising a lifelong goal. Lifting weights, taking an online exercise class or using a home treadmill are among possibilities.

Any physical activity will improve your health and lift your spirits. Don’t hesitate to lean on a well-connected friend who can give you access to an exclusive organisation. With a recommendation from this superstar, your stature will rise. In times to come it will be easier to land high profile professional assignments and work with respected experts.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

Watching a formal event or ceremony from times gone by makes you feel connected to the past. It doesn’t matter if you’re lighting a candle in someone’s honour or contributing a favourite story to a memory book. Keeping history alive makes you feel better about the passage of time. Working remotely as part of a team will lighten your workload. Don’t hesitate to ask those around you to relieve you of some tasks. There’s no reason you should continue doing the work of two, or even more people.

Taurus

(April 21-May 21)

Scorpio

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

Someone who has been singing your praises will offer you a job but it will be a while before you can access a position that involves various duties that appeal to your sharp intellect. Performing this work will not be boring. It will be best to keep this news under wraps for the short-term future. There are still things you should wrap up with your current employer. Leaving on a positive note is imperative. That can’t happen if people are gossiping about your imminent departure. Play your cards close to the chest.

You’ll be praised for your originality. People are craving something new. Rather than trying to blend in with the crowd, set yourself apart from it. Any bold entrepreneur should be more than happy to offer you a position in their organisation. Working as a free agent is distinctly possible. Your advanced energy and enterprise will make a big difference in your local community and neighbourhood. Don’t hesitate to encourage others to join you. Someone with your unusual and varied skillset is worth their weight in gold.

Be assertive about pushing a plan to better the lifestyles of those around you. Your willingness to take the lead and put pressure on slow moving officials who seem reluctant to get behind your plans will energise those around you. If your confidence falters, lean on your romantic partner for support.

They’ll remind you of all the wonderful qualities you will bring to this company. Show your appreciation with a beautiful token of your appreciation.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

Taking a risk will pay off handsomely. Although you enjoy comfortable routines, it’s important to push yourself to try new things. This could involve anything from taking an online course, writing a book or expanding your skill set.

Be willing to look like a beginner. Teaming up with an experienced expert will advance your professional prospects. When people realise you’re working with someone who has an extensive track record, they’ll entrust you with challenging, but exciting responsibilities.

Virgo

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

Instead of pouring all your energy into issues outside the home, you’ll spend more time looking for ways enhance and streamline your domestic environment. Also, having a satisfying love life will improve your health. Don’t be surprised when it becomes much easier to deal with complex concerns and time-consuming tasks. Your stamina is directly related to your happiness. If you’re single, enjoy sensual pleasures like scented baths, lotions and potions.

They can be fun too.

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

Show your appreciation for anyone who has brought stability into your life. Thanks to their gentle influence, you developed skills and talents that would have been otherwise neglected. Thanks to their encouragement, you took up a hobby that shaped your outlook. Channel your energy into a physically demanding project. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing work in your garden, packing boxes or cleaning a messy area. Staying in motion will release any anxiety that has built up in your system. You’ll easily drift off to sleep.

Pursuing the object of your desire by phone and Facebook will be fun. You love the thrill of the chase. Someone who isn’t afraid to mercilessly tease you gets your pulse pounding. The road to this romance will be rocky, but that’s better than being bored to death. Take a logical approach to community affairs. Resorting to personal remarks will make it impossible to reach a compromise. Stay focused on the problem and be willing to entertain different suggestions for fixing it.

Careful use of your financial resources will make you feel more secure. Although you’ve always been good at attracting abundance, you have no intention of purely surviving from one payday to the next. As a result, you often have the cash for the occasional indulgence. Upgrading your bathroom or kitchen will greatly increase the value of your investment. If you don’t own your home, think about buying a property that needs a great deal of work.

Aquarius

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

Are you wary about taking on an additional responsibility?

Don’t be. Doing more work will deepen your appreciation of life. Instead of neglecting your nearest and dearest, you’ll start setting aside time in your schedule for enjoyable domestic activities and meaningful discussions. Don’t waste any time returning a message. Acting on a spur of the moment offer will result in tremendous savings. You can get an even deeper discount if you mention this offer to friends.

Tap into that extensive social network of yours.

Pisces

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

Going after a moneymaking position will bring structure to your days. Create a schedule that allows you to devote your most energetic hours to sending out sales proposals, meeting with prospective investors or going on interviews.

Your persistence will pay off. Financial assistance from a government programme will be welcome. Don’t let the prospect of filling out an extensive application deter you from chasing this fund. If you’re not sure how to fill out certain fields, call the agency in question for help.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

Monday, June 29, 2020

31

CARTOONS

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

BC

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

For Better or for Worse

The San Juan Daily Star

Ziggy

32

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, June 29, 2020

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