Wednesday Jun 3, 2020

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

San Juan The

50¢

DAILY

Star

Makeup and a Mask: It’s All About the Eyes P22

New Civil Code Reactions Didn’t Stop with Vázquez’s Signature

Two Dead in San Juan Bay Plane Crash

P3

Reality Check: PREPA Has 400 Fewer Employees Than at Time of Hurricane Maria P5

Expected and Unexpected Comments on Historic P4 Bill Signed by a Nonelected Governor

NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 19

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Wednesday, June 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

GOOD MORNING

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June 3, 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.

Two dead, one survivor as plane crashes in San Juan Bay

Today’s

Weather Day

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By JOSÉ A. SÁNCHEZ FOURNIER @SanchezFournier Special to The Star

78ºF

Precip 10%

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Mostly Sunny

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Wind: Humidity: UV Index: Sunrise: Sunset:

Trio went out for a short flight to check upgraded radio communication system

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wo airplane technicians died and a pilot remains hospitalized after a small commercial airplane crashed in the shallow waters of the San Antonio Channel in San Juan Bay late Tuesday afternoon.

The plane, a Piper Aztec Pa-23-250 with the Blue Waters charter company, apparently suffered engine problems shortly after taking off from nearby Isla Grande Airport for a short flight to test an upgraded onboard radio system. On the way down, the aircraft hit the aluminum mast of a 30-plus-foot sailboat anchored in the channel. The plane then hit the water and submerged.

From E 16 mph 63% 10 of 10 5:47 AM Local Time 6:58 PM Local Time

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That area of the San Antonio Channel has an approximate depth of around 30 feet.

According to reports, a few bystanders and later police personnel aided a man who went down with the plane and survived the crash. Police later identified the man as the pilot of the downed aircraft. His name was not immediately made public by the police. He was taken in stable condition to Centro Médico in Río Piedras. The pilot informed the authorities that another two people were with him when the Piper went down.

They were not identified, but according to police they were technicians who had just finished upgrading the radio communication system in the aircraft.

The police along with rescue personnel from the Emergency Management and Disaster Administration Bureau were able to retrieve the two bodies from the submerged plane.

The Piper Aztec is known as a successful design for its builder, Piper Aircraft, and for over half a century has been very popular as a personal and small commercial vehicle whose relatively affordable maintenance cost and low minimum controllable velocity made it a bestseller.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Unexpected opposition to, and agreement with, new CIvil Code from religious figures and LBGTT+ activists

By JOSÉ A. SÁNCHEZ FOURNIER @SanchezFournier Special to The Star

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eactions to Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced’s signing the Civil Code bill into law on Monday were quick, varied and at times unexpected.

For one, pastor René Pereira claimed that the new Civil Code left all sides unsatisfied, be they progressive, liberal, conservative or traditional. He believes that instead of signing it into law, Vázquez should have returned it to the Legislature for further discussion or, if that option did not meet with success, vetoed it.

“I think this code is not approved of by anyone. I think that even the LBTTQ community itself, feminist groups and a large part of the religious sector, we believe that it is not a good code,” Pereira said in a radio interview. “Everyone, including the Bar Association, asked the governor not to sign that code. Unfortunately, the governor did not listen.”

“This is a code that I call a bipolar code …,” he added. “When you want to be well, as they say out there with God and with the devil at the same time, you end up not being well with either one or the other. It was about convincing everyone and what came out of it is a code that has neither head nor foot.”

The opposite point was argued by the governor on Monday night, during the live televised press conference from La Fortaleza where she signed the document originally authored under the gaze of conservative Rep. María Milagros Charbonier of the New Progressive Party.

Vázquez, who was secretary of Justice before assuming the governorship by constitutional decree following the resignation of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló Nevares in last August, said she received many emails claiming that the proposed bill curtailed previously acquired rights fought for by minority groups for decades.

During the conference, she said that she carefully studied the Civil Code bill and found those opinions to be without merit and based on a lack of knowledge about the language in the proposal.

“Since it [the bill] was first proposed I said I would study it carefully, profoundly and without prejudice,” Vázquez said.

“After considering the opinions for and against, I find that it protects our rights.”

Pereira said he hopes the document will be reviewed and necessary amendments made. He indicated that he participated in the public hearings that

Charbonier carried out and that they favored certain clauses that were included but later eliminated in the Senate.

“In the Senate is where they put in clauses and removed the protections of religious freedom that were important to us in the religious sector,” he said.

Conflicting opinions among LGBTT+ activists In a separate interview, LGBTTIQ community activist Cecilia La Luz claimed that the new Civil Code does not discriminate against her community and that it only seeks to integrate amendments so that the appropriate language is included, given the various sexual identities that exist In Puerto Rico.

“There has been a lot of misinformation and repetition that the Code discriminates,” La Luz said during an interview with WAKQ Radio. “The code is not really discriminatory against LGBTTQ people.

Are we clear? In my case and that of other colleagues, the language must be amended so that it is inclusive and the sexual diversity that exists in Puerto Rico is recognized. That she [the governor] understood, and what we are going to do now is work on those amendments that must be carried out to present them.”

“It does not discriminate,” reiterated the activist. “The fact that the language is modified, that it is inclusive, does not mean that it lacks the protections that have been approved. There are colleagues who

talk about certain protections of gender identity and sexual orientation that do not necessarily have to be in that code because there are laws that are in force.”

La Luz’s opinion on the new Civil Code is at odds with that of noted LBGTT+ rights activist Pedro Julio Serrano.

“Many times, the governor said she would never sign a bill that would curtail or take back the rights of any group, but that is precisely what she did,” Serrano said during an interview on channel 4’s news program NotiCentro. “This new Civil Codes debilitates the rights of those in civil unions -- be they LBGTT+ or straight couples -- and it certainly has a confused and contradictory language that will end up in court battles to decide on the constitutionality of some articles contained within this new Code that in some areas disavows rights that it recognizes in other areas.”

PR Bar Association asks for a yearlong implementation phase Meanwhile, leading members of the Puerto Rico Bar Association pointed out faults in the approval process that the bill went through in the Legislature and that for a drastic change in law such as the new Civil Code brings in relation to the old one, the government should factor in a yearlong transition period so that local attorneys can get up to date with the new code.

As it stands, the new Civil Code will

become applicable law 180 days from last Monday, when the governor signed it into law. That time can also be used to introduce further amendments to the new law.

“It was an antiquated Civil Code, from 1930. It contained provisions that impeded the social and economic development of a modern society,” said attorney José Javier Lamas, chairman of the Civil Rights Commission of the Puerto Rico Bar Association. “But it has been replaced by a Code that, although it includes important advancements, nonetheless falls short of the aspirations of Puerto Ricans.”

Attorney Daisy Calcaño López, the current first vice president of the Puerto Rico Bar Association, said that during an examination of the transcripts for the March 4 and April 11 daily legislative sessions she found dozens of amendments to the text of the bill that were never discussed in open hearings.

“The House of Representatives approved around 80 amendments to the original bill, without discussing them in public hearings,” Calcaño López said. “In the Senate, they incorporated more than 66 other amendments to their version of the bill, without listening to the people.

The new Civil Code was exposed to 146 amendments that never went through public hearings. In contrast, the current Civil Code was modified 60 times in 90 years.”

John McPhaul collaborated in the story.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

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PR senators react to killing of George Floyd

By THE STAR STAFF

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enate President Thomas Rivera Schatz and Puerto Rican Independence Party Sen. Juan Dalmau Ramírez on Tuesday condemned the killing of George Floyd last week at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, comparing it to the racism caused by the island’s colonial status.

Rivera Schatz, more specifically, said incidents of racism and abuse occurred in other countries and rejected groups that are trying to use the killing of Floyd to promote anti-statehood sentiments.

“In the case of the United States, racism does not seem to want to be eradicated … but that is not a problem only for the United States,” Rivera Schatz said. “… I have observed it in Venezuela where a white ruler is causing white people to go hungry … and he is accused of drug trafficking. In the same way in Cuba, the deceased Cuban dictator and assassin, Fidel Castro, had a patriotic speech about liberties and social advancement and one of his exbodyguards revealed the fortune he was [enjoying] and the life of luxury that Mr. Castro gave himself while other Cubans jumped into a raft to look for an opportunity for a better life.”

“In the United States, as in Puerto Rico, causes like these where a black man lost his life at the hands of several policemen who deserve the rejection of the whole world, are sometimes used as a spearhead

by people who have other agendas such as politics, disassociating, attacking and poisoning to see if they ignite a spark that way,” the Senate president said.

“They tried to do it with the Civil Code, they threatened that they would sink the island if it was signed … and there is no right that has been undermined. … Now they have the opportunity to go to court.”

Rivera Schatz added that racism and discrimination “are bad wherever they come from.”

The Senate leader said the images that are being seen worldwide of the killing of Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin, who was arrested and charged with murder late last week, are “undeniable and detestable.”

“The arrogance and evil of that criminal and the three [fellow police officers] who accompanied him did not give room for mercy and culminated in the death of Mr. Floyd,” Rivera Schatz said during his initial turn in Tuesday’s Senate session. “Sad for the unrest, the loss of a life. I have heard and observed through media images the outrage, anger … that these images have caused. In fact, the criminal charges made against that officer are insufficient. On a personal level, I think that this criminal, knowing that he was being recorded, wanted to show how he hurt and wounded a black man.”

Dalmau Ramírez said the “social explosion” experienced in the United States due to Floyd’s killing “has shaken the most intimate fiber of every human

being who fights racism.”

He compared this fact to the colonial situation in Puerto Rico, including this week’s determination of the United States Supreme Court upholding the appointments of members of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico.

“The decision taken by the Supreme Court of the United States reaffirms the plenary power of Congress to impose a new local government on us in the hands of an oversight board that nobody elected in Puerto Rico,” Dalmau Ramírez said. “In Puerto Rico, as in the United States, there is a social explosion; it lives the racism of colonial power.”

PREPA has 400 fewer employees than at the time of Hurricane Maria

By THE STAR STAFF

P

uerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) Executive Director José Ortiz said Tuesday in a public hearing that the public agency has 400 fewer employees to respond to emergencies during the hurricane season.

In response to questions from Rep. Víctor Parés Otero, Ortiz said that just before PREPA’s closure due to the coronavirus pandemic, two warden academy classes graduated. That put the total number of employees of the public corporation at about 5,600 employees, 400 fewer than the number who worked during the emergency of Hurricane Maria. This decreased workforce, Ortiz said, will work with brigades from the mainland United States in case of an emergency.

He gave assurances that if the electrical system were impacted by a phenomenon such as Hurricane Maria, it could be put back into operation in a period of just over two and a half months, due to the preparations that PREPA has made.

“If an event similar to Maria came today, I don’t see families beyond two and a half months without energy,” Ortiz said. “I believe that everyone can be [supplied with electricity again] within that period and not almost a year.”

The statements were made before the Economic Development, Planning, Telecommunications, Public-Private Alliances

and Energy Committee, chaired by Parés Otero, who held a public hearing to find out what PREPA’s contingency plan is for the hurricane season, which is shaping up to be extremely active. Ortiz noted that after the passage of hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, the public corporation has an inventory of $138.5 million in materials that were distributed among its 27 warehouses to ensure supplies in the event that the system is affected by the passage of an atmospheric event.

To this is added an inventory of around $98 million for the

generation side.

In addition, regarding the section of the transmission system that is located in the island’s central mountain municipalities, he said it was improved with the installation of towers that can withstand winds of 170 miles per hour. This was one of the most affected areas during the passage of Maria and it is where the cables that carry the energy from the generating plants in the south to the north of the island pass through.

Ortiz also said PREPA has established agreements with the American Public Power Authority and the New York Power Authority, which would be activated if additional brigades were necessary after the passage of a major storm or hurricane.

The official added that the main problem with the electrical service system is encroaching vegetation, and therefore a $50 million pruning program will begin. The plan is to establish an office that will be in charge of carrying out this work in a preventive way, since previously this type of event was responsible for 40 percent of blackouts. Currently these types of events have decreased to 25 percent, Ortiz said, noting as an advantage the fact that with the presence of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on the island, “if we need an effort from FEMA, we have it immediately because they live here too.”

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The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Bill co-authored by resident commissioner would augment funding for water management

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

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bill filed by Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón earlier this year, the Puerto Rico WaterSMART Grants Eligibility Act (H.R. 6050), would make the island an eligible jurisdiction to apply for WaterSMART and Drought Resiliency Project grants from the Office of Recovery of the United States Department of the Interior.

The legislation was filed in order to provide access to additional resources to improve water management in Puerto Rico.

The WaterSMART Grant program provides funds for water and energy efficiency projects, as well as for the development of water marketing strategies. The Drought Resiliency Project Grants program seeks to increase resilience in times of drought and in the face of climate change through the financing of projects focused on flexibility in water management during periods of low water supply. Both programs require 50 percent of the costs to come from nonfederal entities.

“For years, Puerto Rico has faced problems of conservation and efficiency in water management. According to the 2019 fiscal plan of the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and

Sewer Authority, 59 percent of the water they produce -- which is equivalent to over 299 million gallons per day -- is lost in the distribution process. Likewise, our island is extremely vulnerable to periods of drought,” the resident commissioner said in a written statement. “Gaining Puerto Rico access to the WaterSMART and Drought Resiliency Project grants would provide us with additional tools and resources to mitigate these problems and make improvements to our water infrastructure.”

González Colón noted that the WaterSMART Grants program provides federal funds for projects under three categories: Water and Energy Efficiency Grants, Small-Scale Water Efficiency Grants and Subsidies for Water Marketing Strategy.

She added that under the Water and Energy Efficiency Grants program, projects are financed that generate measurable water savings and support broader benefits of water reliability.

Small-Scale Water Efficiency Grants support projects focused on water conservation and use efficiency and mitigating conflicts in identified high-risk areas that may face water efficiency problems in the future.

Meanwhile, Water Marketing Strategy Grants offer funding opportunities for the

development of marketing strategies to establish or expand water markets or water marketing activities among potential buyers and sellers.

“State, tribal, water district or other organizations with authority to distribute water or energy are eligible to apply for funds under the WaterSMART Grant program and the Drought Resiliency Project,” González Colón said. “Originally, applicants must also have been located in one of the 17 western states of the United States or the territories identified in the Reclamation Act of 1902, which excludes Puerto Rico.”

However, she noted that last year Con-

gress approved language that allows Alaska and Hawaii to join the 17 western states of the nation eligible for these programs, leaving Puerto Rico as the only territory and the only non-contiguous jurisdiction of the United States where these grants for water efficiency and conservation projects are not available.

H.R. 6050, which was introduced in Congress on March 2, seeks to correct this exclusion.

Reps. Don Young (R-Alaska), Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (D-Northern Mariana Islands), Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-American Samoa), Tulsi Gabbard (DHawaii) and Ed Case (D-Hawaii) joined as co-authors of the measure.

Insurers say they’re ready for hurricane season

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

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uerto Rico Association of Insurance Companies (ACODESE by its Spanish acronym) Executive Director Iraelia Pernas said Tuesday that the insurers the organization represents are prepared with their respective contingency plans to respond to any emergency that arises during the hurricane season that began on Monday.

Pernas said that as part of the preparation and drafting of Law 244 of 2018, a new Article, No. 3.331, was added to the Insurance Code that establishes the duty of every insurer to present to the insurance commissioner an emergency plan in the event of a catastrophe or other emergency.

“All ACODESE partner insurers have complied with this requirement,” Pernas said in a written statement. “Before the amendment, insurers had their Disaster Plan, but certifica-

tion from a disaster recovery specialist was not required. With the enactment of Law 244, it is mandatory to send it to the regulator and it must be certified.”

Pernas noted that the plan is intended to ensure the continuity of insurance services in the event of a catastrophic event. It covers situations confronted after Hurricane Maria and must be certified by a professional expert in business continuity planning or disaster recovery.

If there are no changes in the previously certified plan, it will not be necessary to require an annual certification, but rather to submit a certification that the plan has not undergone changes.

“Either way, the Plan has to be reviewed by a continuity planning expert at least every five years,” Pernas said. “It must be presented on or before March 31 of each year.”

The emergency plan includes: 1. Description of the strategic processes

for the continuity of services and operations after a catastrophic event or emergency 2. Processes for the activation of emergency adjusters and/or the use of adjusters from other states or foreign countries, including the required work permits and necessary training in claims adjustment 3. Emergency telephone lines for assistance and information services 4. Temporary facilities or localities to operate and attend to claims.

“We are definitely better prepared to deal with any situation with greater rigor and agility,” Pernas said. “It is essential that consumers, whether they are home or business owners, evaluate their insurance coverage to be properly protected in the event of a hurricane.”

The ACODESE executive director added that all policyholders should consult with an authorized representative or producer to verify their insurance details and make any necessary changes.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

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Monster or machine? A profile of the Coronavirus at 6 months

By ALAN BURDICK

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virus, at heart, is information, a packet of data that benefits from being shared.

The information at stake is genetic: instructions to make more virus. Unlike a truly living organism, a virus cannot replicate on its own; it cannot move, grow, persist or perpetuate.

It needs a host. The viral code breaks into a living cell, hijacks the genetic machinery and instructs it to produce new code — new virus.

President Donald Trump has characterized the response to the pandemic as a “medical war,” and described the virus behind it as, by turns, “genius,” a “hidden enemy” and “a monster.” It would be more accurate to say that we find ourselves at odds with a microscopic photocopy machine. Not even that: an assembly manual for a photocopier, model SARS-CoV-2.

For at least six months now, the virus has replicated among us. The toll has been devastating. Officially, more than 6 million people worldwide have been infected so far, and 370,000 have died. (The actual numbers are certainly higher.) The United States, which has seen the largest share of cases and casualties, recently surpassed 100,000 deaths, one-quarter the number of all Americans who died in World War II. Businesses are shuttered — in 10 weeks, some 40 million Americans have lost their jobs — and food

Teams of scientists, working across national boundaries, are racing to understand the virus’s weaknesses, develop treatments and vaccine candidates, and to accurately forecast its next moves. banks are overrun. The virus has fueled widespread frustration and exposed our deepest faults: of color, class and privilege, between the deliverers and the delivered to.

Still, summer — summer! — has all but arrived. We step out to look, breathe, vent. The pause is illusory. Cases are falling in New York, the epicenter in the United States, but firmly rising in Wisconsin,Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, North and South Carolina, and other states. China, where the pandemic originated, and South Korea saw recent resurgences. Health officials fear another major wave of infections in the fall, and a possible wave train beyond.

“We are really early in this disease,” Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, told The New York Times recently. “If this were a baseball game, it would be the second inning.”

There may be trillions of species of virus in the world. They infect bacteria, mostly, but also abalone, bats, beans, beetles, blackberries, cassavas, cats, dogs, hermit crabs, mosquitoes, potatoes, pangolins, ticks and the Tasmanian devil. They give birds cancer and turn bananas black. Of the trillions, a few hundred thousand kinds of viruses are known, and fewer than 7,000 have names. Only about 250, including SARS-CoV-2, have the mechanics to infect us.

In our information age, we have grown familiar with computer viruses and with memes going viral; now here is the real thing to remind us what the metaphor means. A mere wisp of data has grounded more than half of the world’s commercial airplanes, sharply reduced global carbon emissions and doubled the stock price of Zoom. It has infiltrated our language — “social distancing,” “immunocompromised shoppers” — and our dreams.

It has postponed sports, political conventions, and the premieres of the next Spider-Man, Black Widow, Wonder Woman and James Bond films. Because of the virus, the U.S. Supreme Court renders rulings by telephone, and wild boars roam the empty streets of Barcelona, Spain.

It also has prompted a collaborative response unlike any our species has seen. Teams of scientists, working across national

boundaries, are racing to understand the virus’s weaknesses, develop treatments and vaccine candidates, and to accurately forecast its next moves. Medical workers are risking their lives to tend to the sick. Those of us at home do what we can: share instructions for how to make a surgical mask from a pillowcase; sing and cheer from windows and doorsteps; send condolences; offer hope.

“We’re mounting a reaction against the virus that is truly unprecedented,” said Dr. Melanie Ott, director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology in San Francisco.

So far the match is deadlocked. We gather, analyze, disseminate, probe: What is this thing? What must be done? When can life return to normal? And we hide while the latest iteration of an ancient biochemical cipher ticks on, advancing itself at our expense.

A Fearsome Envelope Who knows when viruses first came about. Perhaps, as one theory holds, they began as free-living microbes that, through natural selection, were stripped down and became parasites.

Maybe they began as genetic cogs within microbes, then gained the ability to venture out and invade other cells. Or maybe viruses came first, shuttling and replicating in the primordial protein soup, gaining shades of complexity — enzymes, outer membranes — that gave rise to cells and, eventually, us. They are sacks of code — double- or single-stranded, DNA or RNA — and sometimes called capsid-encoding organisms, or CEOs. As viruses go, SARS-CoV-2 is big — its genome is more than twice the size of that of the average flu virus and about one-half larger than Ebola’s. But it is still tiny: 10,000 times smaller than a millimeter, barely one-thousandth the width of a human hair, smaller even than the wavelength of light from a germicidal lamp.

If a person were the size of Earth, the virus would be the size of a person. Picture a human lung cell as a cramped office just big enough for a desk, a chair and a copy machine. SARS-CoV-2 is an oily envelope stuck to the door.

Continues on page 8

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Wednesday, June 3, 2020

From page 7 It was formally identified on Jan. 7 by scientists in China.

For weeks beforehand, a mysterious respiratory ailment had been circulating in the city of Wuhan. Health officials were worried that it might be a reappearance of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, an alarming viral illness that emerged abruptly in 2002, infected more than 8,000 people and killed nearly 800 in the next several months, then was quarantined into oblivion.

The scientists had gathered fluid samples from three patients and, with nucleic-acid extractors and other tools, compared the genome of the pathogen with that of known ones. A transmission electron microscope revealed the culprit: spherical, with “quite distinctive spikes” reminiscent of a crown or the corona of the sun. It was a coronavirus, and a novel one.

In later colorized images, the virus resembles small garish orbs of lint or the papery eggs of certain spiders, adhering by the dozens to much larger cells. Recently a visual team, working closely with researchers, created “the most accurate model of the SARS-CoV-2 viral particle currently available”: a barbed, multicolored globe with the texture of fine moss, like something out of Dr. Seuss, or a sunken naval mine draped in algae and sponges.

Once upon a time, our pathogens were crudely named: Spanish flu, Asian flu, yellow fever, Black Death. Now we have H1N1, MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome), HIV — strings of letters as streamlined as the viruses themselves, codes for codes.

The new coronavirus was temporarily named 2019-nCoV. On Feb. 11, the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses officially renamed it SARS-CoV-2, to indicate that it was very closely related to the SARS virus, another coronavirus.

Before the emergence of the original SARS, the study of coronaviruses was a professional backwater. “There has been such a deluge of attention on we coronavirologists,” said Susan R. Weiss, a virologist at the University of Pennsylvania. “It is quite in contrast to previously being mostly ignored.”

There are hundreds of kinds of coronaviruses. Two, SARSCoV and MERS-CoV, can be deadly; four cause one-third of common colds. Many infect animals with which humans associate, including camels, cats, chickens and bats. All are RNA viruses.

Our coronavirus, like the others, is a string of roughly 30,000 biochemical building blocks called nucleotides enclosed in a membrane of both protein and lipid.

“I’ve always been impressed by coronaviruses,” said Anthony Fehr, a virologist at the University of Kansas. “They are extremely complex in the way that they get around and start to take over a cell. They make more genes and more proteins than most other RNA viruses, which gives them more options to shut down the host cell.”

The core code of SARS-CoV-2 contains genes for as many as 29 proteins: the instructions to replicate the code. One protein, S, provides the spikes on the surface of the virus and unlocks the door to the target cell. The others, on entry, separate and attend to their tasks: turning off the cell’s alarm system; commandeering the copier to make new viral proteins; folding viral envelopes, and helping new viruses bubble out of the cell by the thousands.

“I usually picture it as an entity that comes into the cell and then it falls apart,” Ott of the Gladstone Institute said. “It has to fall apart to build some mini-factories in the cell to reproduce itself, and has to come together as an entity at the end to infect other cells.”

For medical researchers, these proteins are key to understanding why the virus is so successful, and how it might be neutralized.

For instance, to break into a cell, the S protein binds to a receptor

called angiotensin converting enzyme 2, or ACE2, like a hand on a doorknob. The S protein on this coronavirus is nearly identical in structure to the one in the first SARS — “SARS Classic” — but some data suggests that it binds to the target enzyme far more strongly. Some researchers think this may partly explain why the new virus infects humans so efficiently.

Every pathogen evolves along a path between impact and stealth. Too mild and the illness does not spread from person to person; too visible and the carrier, unwell and aware, stays home or is avoided — and the illness does not spread. “SARS infected 8,000 people, and was contained quickly, in part because it didn’t spread before symptoms appeared,” Weiss noted.

By comparison, SARS-CoV-2 seems to have achieved an admirable balance. “No aspect of the virus is extraordinary,” said Dr. Pardis Sabeti, a computational geneticist at the Broad Institute who helped sequence the Ebola virus in 2014. “It’s the combination of things that makes it extraordinary.”

SARS Classic settled quickly into human lung cells, causing a person to cough but also announcing its presence. In contrast, its successor tends to colonize first the nose and throat, sometimes causing few initial symptoms. Some cells there are thought to be rich in the surface enzyme ACE2 — the doorknob that SARSCoV-2 turns so readily. The virus replicates quietly, and quietly spreads: One study found that a person carrying SARS-CoV-2 is most contagious two to three days before they are aware that they might be ill.

From there, the virus can move into the lungs. The delicate

The San Juan Daily Star alveoli, which gather oxygen essential to the body, become inflamed and struggle to do their job. The texture of the lungs turns from airy froth to gummy marshmallow. The patient may develop pneumonia; some, drowning internally and desperate for oxygen, go into acute respiratory distress and require a ventilator.

The virus can settle in still further: damaging the muscular walls of the heart; attacking the lining of the blood vessels and generating clots; inducing strokes, seizures and inflammation of the brain; and damaging the kidneys. Often the greatest damage is inflicted not by the virus but by the body’s attempt to fight it off with a dangerous “cytokine storm” of immune system molecules.

The result is an illness with a perplexing array of faces. A dry cough and a low fever at the outset, sometimes. Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, sometimes. Maybe you lose your sense of smell or taste. Maybe your toes become red and inflamed, as if you had frostbite. For some patients it feels like a heart attack, or it causes delusion or disorientation.

Often it feels like nothing at all; according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 35% of people who contract the virus experience few to no symptoms, although they can continue to spread it. “The virus acts like no pathogen humanity has ever seen,” the journal Science notes.

More to the point, the pathogen has gone largely unseen.

“It has these perfect properties to spread throughout the entire human population,” Fehr said. “If we didn’t know what a virus was” — and didn’t take proper precautions — “this virus would infect virtually every human on the planet. It still might do that.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

9

Military confronts protesters in nation’s capital

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

T

ens of thousands of protesters began another week of demonstrations and disturbances on Monday night, returning to the streets of cities around the country despite curfew orders, threats of arrest and the words of the brother of George Floyd, who made an emotional plea for the destruction to end.

The protesters were driven from parks, interstates and government buildings by growing numbers of law enforcement officers in riot gear, whose response to the demonstrations has been criticized in dozens of confrontations.

— In Washington, President Donald Trump threatened to call in the military to end protests around the country and then ventured outside the White House grounds to pose for photographs at a nearby church.

His walk came after riot police and National Guard troops used tear gas and flash grenades to clear a path through a peaceful protest in a city park.

— In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the city would be put under a curfew from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., one day after protesters lit fires at Union Square and several high-end boutiques in SoHo were looted. When the violence continued on Monday night, Tuesday’s curfew was moved up to 8 p.m.

— The driver of an SUV sped through a line of law enforcement officers in riot gear in Buffalo, New York, injuring two of them in an episode that was caught on video. One of the injured was a Buffalo police officer, and the other was a member of the New York State Police, according to Mark Poloncarz, the Erie County executive, who said that both officers were in stable condition. The driver and the passengers in the SUV were taken into custody.

— In Philadelphia, an armored vehicle bearing the insignia of the Pennsylvania State Police fired tear gas into hundreds of protesters who had gathered near downtown.

Demonstrators sought refuge along a highway embankment after they had breached the roadway. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is slated to visit the city on Tuesday to address the unrest.

— In Dallas, protesters were arrested and charged with obstruction of a highway for marching on the Margaret Hunt Hill

Bridge. Clay Jenkins, the Dallas County Judge, allowed peaceful protests to continue on the county courthouse property past a citywide 7 p.m. curfew. He cautioned that protesters would likely be arrested by Dallas police officers if they left the property. “I support peaceful protest and radical transformation,” he said.

— In Minneapolis, Terrence Floyd became the first member of George Floyd’s family to visit the place where his brother lived his last conscious moments and told a crowd that what he had seen in recent days troubled him. “If I’m not over here wilding out, if I’m not over here blowing up stuff, if I’m not over here messing up my community, then what are y’all doing? What are y’all doing?” he said.

About 15 minutes after curfew, a peaceful crowd gathered at the spot saw flashing lights in the distance and ran toward them, saying they wouldn’t back down from the police, and barricaded the nearby streets.

— The mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, fired the city’s police chief after the owner of a local barbecue restaurant was killed when

police officers and National Guard troops shot toward protesters. The mayor, Greg Fischer, said he had fired the chief after learning that officers’ body cameras were not activated during the shooting.

— A white bar owner in Omaha, Nebraska, who fatally shot a young black man amid rioting acted in self-defense, a prosecutor said on Monday, announcing that no charges would be filed. The bar owner, Jake Gardner, shot James Scurlock, 22, on Saturday night, in an area of downtown Omaha where businesses had been vandalized. The announcement prompted many employers in Omaha, which is already under a curfew, to send people home early for fear of renewed violence.

— A vigil in Puerto Rico brought hundreds of people to Loíza, the island’s largest black community, before a 7 p.m. curfew in place to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. “We share the grief of all the African American community,” said one of the protesters, Andrés Santos, 41. “We share the rage.”

— In Chicago, the Justice Department

A helicopter monitored protesters above Washington.

arrested a man it accused of traveling across state lines to start riots, loot and attack law enforcement officers. The man, Matthew Lee Rupert, 28, was arrested after he visited Minneapolis and, according to the complaint, posted a video of himself on social media in which he could be seen setting fire to a store, looting another store and distributing explosives to others and encouraging them to attack police officers.

— In Austin, Texas, the police chief said that an African American protester who was shot in the head by officers was in critical condition at a hospital, one of a handful of cases in the city of protesters being injured by non-lethal rounds.

— Seattle issued its third night of curfews Monday night, and the city’s suburbs prepared for the possibility that further unrest could spread. The Washington cities of Bellevue, Redmond, Issaquah, Lynnwood, Tukwila and Renton were among those that were to begin curfews Monday night. The National Guard arrived in Bellevue as crews cleaned up from looting and vandalism the day before.

10

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Biden lashes into Trump for fanning ‘the flames of hate’

Former Vice President Joe Biden the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, speaks with community leaders at Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Del.

By KATIE GLUECK

J

oe Biden on Tuesday excoriated President Donald Trump’s stewardship of a nation convulsed in crisis over issues of race and police brutality, likening Trump’s language to that of Southern racists of the 1960s and accusing him of sullying the highest ideals of America.

“Donald Trump has turned this country into a battlefield riven by old resentments and fresh fears,” Biden said, speaking against a backdrop of American flags at Philadelphia’s City Hall. “Is this who we want to be? Is this what we want to pass on to our children and grandchildren? Fear, anger, finger pointing, rather than the pursuit of happiness? Incompetence and anxiety, self-absorption, selfishness?”

The country, Biden said, is “crying out for leadership.”

Biden’s remarks, which were by turns optimistic about America’s potential and somber about the depth of the country’s challenges, come as his team moves urgently to draw sharper contrasts between the presumptive Democratic nominee and Trump on traits of character, empathy and steadiness.

In the past several days alone, Trump has lectured governors, called protesters “terrorists,” spent time in an underground bunker, sought to deploy the military and visited a church for photographs while protesters were dispersed with tear gas to clear his path.

In his remarks, which lasted around 20 minutes, Biden

both rebuked his opponent and addressed the broader problems gripping the nation, saying directly — in a way that he did not always emphasize during the primary — that defeating Trump would not be enough to heal the nation’s centuries-old divisions and hatreds.

“We’re a nation in pain,” Biden said. “We must not let our pain destroy us. We’re a nation enraged, but we cannot let our rage consume us. We’re a nation that’s exhausted, but we will not allow our exhaustion defeat us. As president, it’s my commitment to all of you is to lead on these issues and to listen, because I truly believe in my heart of hearts, we can overcome.”

Traveling to Philadelphia from his home in Wilmington, Delaware, to address the civil unrest consuming the nation, Biden called the presidency “a very big job” and said no one would get everything right, including him.

“But I promise you this,” he added. “I won’t fan the flames of hate. I will seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued our country — not use them for political gain.”

It was his first public trip out of state since the coronavirus shuttered the campaign trail in March, and his third public appearance in three days.

How Biden handles the coming weeks could define his candidacy for the final five months of the presidential contest — and there is an increasing sense of urgency among his allies to see him leading from the ground.

“This is a moment in our nation’s history that is as uni-

que as if we had the 1918 pandemic and the 1929 stock market crash and the 1968 riots all happen at the same time,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. “There’s a limit to how much leadership you can show without seeing people, hearing from people, connecting with people. Joe Biden has always been at his best when people can feel and see his empathy.”

The former vice president, 77, is cautiously re-emerging onto the public landscape at one of the most volatile, highstakes moments in a generation.

The killing of George Floyd, a black man who died last week after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly 9 minutes, has sparked an outpouring of grief and anger across the country. Peaceful demonstrations during the day have turned chaotic at night as images of U.S. cities, under curfew and on fire, blanket the airwaves.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus rages on, with more than 100,000 Americans dead, and more than 40 million people who have filed for unemployment.

“We can be forgiven for believing the president is more interested in power than in principle,” Biden said. “More interested in serving the passions of his base than the needs of the people in his care. For that’s what the presidency is: the duty to care.”

Biden, who spent much of the spring campaigning virtually, made a public Memorial Day appearance last week to pay his respects to Delaware’s war dead. He emerged again for a Sunday walk around Wilmington, visiting the site of demonstrations and meeting with store owners, said Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., who accompanied him. That was followed Monday by an in-person meeting with faith and community leaders at a historic black church.

Such activity “shows you his heart and his understanding of the urgency of this moment,” Coons said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he went to Minneapolis.”

A leader, Coons added, “takes some risks to hear people and to respect them.”

Yet polling shows that Biden still has work to do in communicating that image to the nation.

A Washington Post-ABC poll over the weekend found Biden with a 10 percentage point lead over Trump — but Trump bested Biden on the question of who is a strong leader.

Fifty percent of those surveyed said they held that view of Trump and 49% said they did not, while 43% said they saw Biden as a strong leader and 49% did not.

The activity that Biden has pursued so far, when many Americans are still under lockdown and health risks remain, stops well short of traditional rallies, live news conferences and other events that often drive television coverage, and his advisers have been openly frustrated about the lack of airtime he has received, although his Tuesday speech received widespread attention and coverage.

He is expected to intensify his public appearances over the next month — though the pace is not yet clear — with his early forays in Delaware offering a model. And during his meeting with community and faith leaders Monday, he promised that in coming weeks he would be making “very serious national speeches about where I think we have to go, what we have to do.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

11

Coronavirus to shave trillions from the economy over 10 years

By EMILY COCHRANE

T

he Congressional Budget Office projected Monday that the coronavirus pandemic would inflict a serious long-term blow to the United States economy, taking 3% off the gross domestic product 10 years from now.

Without adjusting for inflation, the budget agency said, the pandemic would cost nearly $16 trillion over the next 10 years. Adjusting for inflation, that number would still total $7.9 trillion. The estimates were an official tally of the damage the crisis has wrought, reflecting expectations of dampened consumer spending and business investment in the years ahead.

The estimate, requested by Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is likely to become wrapped in the continuing debate in the Senate over another coronavirus relief package, as Republicans urge restraint while Democrats push for another large round of spending.

Much of the diminished output would come from the energy and transportation sectors, which will grow more slowly as Americans pull back on travel.

Phillip L. Swagel, the director of the budget office, cautioned that “an unusually high degree of uncertainty surrounds these economic projections” because it remained unknown how the pandemic would unfold during the remainder of the year, or how social distancing and future relief measures enacted by the federal government might affect growth.

“If future federal policies differ from those underlying CBO’s economic projections — for example, if lawmakers enact additional pandemic-related legislation — then economic outcomes will necessarily differ from those presented here,” Swagel wrote in a letter to Schumer and Sanders.

The two senators had asked the budget office Wednesday to examine the effect of the pandemic on the economy over the past few months as Democrats press for another quick and substantial round of federal coronavirus aid to spur a recovery.

Last month, the House passed a $3 trillion stimulus package as an opening offer in anticipated negotiations with the Senate. Senate Republicans rejected its price tag and scope, arguing that it contained provisions unrelated to relief for families and businesses grappling with the health and economic toll of the pandemic.

Lawmakers have begun discussing a number of proposals, including toughening liability protections for businesses, providing aid to states and watering down unemployment benefits approved in the $2.2 trillion stimulus package. But some Republicans have begun pushing back at the idea of more fede-

Phillip L. Swagel, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, in February at the Capitol. ral spending, raising the specter of the ballooning national debt.

In a joint statement, Schumer and Sanders said the budget office’s estimate undercut Republican arguments that Congress should wait to approve another relief package, as well as President Donald Trump’s call to include tax cuts in the next measure.

“In order to avoid the risk of another Great Depression, the Senate must act with a fierce sense of urgency to make sure that everyone in America has the income they need to feed their families and put a roof over their heads,” the senators said. “The American people cannot afford to wait another month for the Senate to pass legislation. They need our help now.”

Later, on the Senate floor, Schumer called on the chamber to address before the end of the month not only coronavirus relief measures, but police violence, arguing that lawmakers should not “spend time on fringe conspiracy theories, not spend time on putting right-wing judges who have shown no sympathy to civil rights and racial justice and harmony on the floor of the Senate.”

But Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority

leader, gave little indication that the Senate would soon enter negotiations on another relief package.

Instead, he announced Monday, he hoped that the Senate would take up a measure that would soften the terms of a federal loan program intended to help small businesses during the pandemic.

The House approved the measure Friday, 417-1.

The legislation would give companies more time and flexibility to use the money, altering the Paycheck Protection Program to allow small businesses 24 weeks instead of eight weeks to spend the loan funds.

“These events only compound what has already been a historically challenging time for our country,” McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor. “As our nation continues to combat and contain the coronavirus, the Senate will continue to lead the response.”

As he spoke, protesters began to gather outside the Capitol. They told reporters that the government — and lawmakers of both parties — had failed to support them. As police officers stood between the building and the hundreds gathered there Monday, at least one protester offered a police officer a mask. It was not accepted.

12

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Stocks

Wall Street closes up on signs of economic rebound

A

late-session rally pushed Wall Street to solid gains on Tuesday as market participants looked past widespread social unrest and pandemic worries to focus instead on easing lockdown restrictions and signs of economic recovery.

Tech shares, along with cyclical stocks like industrials and financials, gave the biggest lift to all three major stock indexes.

The Nasdaq, the S&P 500 and the Dow have been approaching their all-time closing highs in recent weeks and are now about 2%, 9% and 13%, respectively, below record closing levels.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq have closed in positive territory in six of the last seven sessions.

“Technicals are pushing the market higher and the market’s not paying attention to the potential problems that the protests could have on local economies,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.

Nationwide, violent protests over the death of a black man at the hands of law enforcement officers continued unabated, even as President Donald Trump vowed to unleash the military on the demonstrators.

“If the violence continues it might worsen the coronavirus’ impact on businesses,” Cardillo added. “A lot of stores would close; there’d be curfews; people wouldn’t be able to shop and that would further hurt the economy.”

But the green shoots of economic rebound driven in no small part by massive stimulus packages from Capitol Hill and the U.S. Federal Reserve has helped fuel investor optimism.

Market participants now await Friday’s crucial jobs report from the Labor Department for a clearer picture of the extent of economic damage wrought by mandated lockdowns. The report is expected to show the unemployment rate surging to a historic 19.7%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 267.63 points, or 1.05%, to 25,742.65, the S&P 500 gained 25.09 points, or 0.82%, to 3,080.82 and the Nasdaq Composite added 56.33 points, or 0.59%, to 9,608.38.

All 11 major sectors in the S&P 500 ended the session in the black, with energy and materials enjoying the largest percentage gains.

The ARCA Airline index, whose constituents have been hit particularly hard by COVID-19-related restrictions, was up 3.8% boosted by a slow but steady increase in commercial air traffic.

Southwest Airlines Co rose 2.6% after extending buyout and paid leaves to employees in what its chief executive called an effort to “ensure survival.”

Shares of Slack Technologies Inc advanced 3.2% after Cowen initiated coverage of the workspace communication platform with an “outperform” rating.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

13

As protests engulf the United States, China revels in the unrest

By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ

T

he cartoon shows the Statue of Liberty cracking into pieces, a police officer breaking through its copper robe. A man’s head lies on the ground in front of the White House, its facade splattered with blood.

“Beneath human rights,” says the title of the cartoon, which was published by People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, and circulated widely on social media sites this week.

As protests over police violence engulf hundreds of cities in the United States, China is reveling in the moment, seizing on the unrest to tout the strength of its authoritarian system and to portray the turmoil as yet another sign of American hypocrisy and decline. It is a narrative that conveniently ignores many of the country’s own problems, including its history of ethnic discrimination, its record on human rights and its efforts to suppress protests in Hong Kong.

Chinese officials are trolling their American counterparts with protest slogans like “Black lives matter” and “I can’t breathe.”

The state-run media is featuring stories about the “double standards” of the United States for supporting the Hong Kong demonstrators. Prominent Chinese commentators are arguing that American-style democracy is a sham, pointing to the country’s bungled response to the coronavirus pandemic and ongoing racial tensions.

“This situation in the U.S. will make more Chinese people support the Chinese government in its efforts to denounce and counter America,” Song Guoyou, a scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai, said in an interview. “The moral ground of the United States is indeed greatly weakened.”

The propaganda push is the latest skirmish in a longstanding power struggle between China and the United States, with tensions between the two countries at their lowest point in decades.

President Donald Trump has accused Beijing of covering up the coronavirus outbreak that began in the Chinese city of Wuhan, saying China should be held responsible for deaths in the United States and around the world. He has also threatened to punish China for moving to adopt a broad new security law in Hong Kong by curtailing the city’s special relationship with the United States.

Now, the protests in the United States are giving Xi and the Communist Party’s propagandists a natural line of counter attack.

Chinese social media sites are rife with video clips of tense standoffs between the police and protesters in the aftermath of the death last week of George Floyd, after he was pinned to the ground by a white Minneapolis police officer who has since been charged with murder. Television shows feature videos of National Guard troops patrolling city streets, as broadcasters describe the long history of discrimination against minorities in the United States. Social media sites are portraying America as unruly and chaotic: “This is not Syria, this is the U.S.!” read a caption on one popular site.

Global Times, a nationalistic newspaper controlled by the party, called on the U.S. government to “stand with the Minnesota people.” Its editor, in a tweet, pointedly called out Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who had said “we stand by the people of

Protesters being detained by the police in Minneapolis on Sunday.

Hong Kong” in his condemnation of Beijing’s move to impose national security rules.

“The violent protests in the streets of urban America are further discrediting the U.S. in the eyes of ordinary Chinese,” said Susan Shirk, chair of the U.C. San Diego 21st Century China Center. “The propaganda depicts American politicians as hypocrites living in glass houses while throwing stones at China.”

Shirk said that as the reputation of the United States suffers in China fewer people might be willing to voice support for American ideals, such as free markets and civil liberties.

“Even without the propaganda, Chinese people nowadays find little to admire in the U.S.,” she said. “As the U.S. model is tarnished, the voice of Chinese liberals is silenced.”

While Chinese officials have gleefully joined the global chorus of criticism aimed at the United States, the unrest has put them in an awkward position.

China’s government has long maintained strict limits on free speech and activism, and authorities often resort to aggressive tactics to quash unrest. The police in Hong Kong, where the government is backed by Beijing, have been accused of using excessive force as it has sought to rein in anti-government protests that have convulsed the semiautonomous territory over the past year.

With the comparisons to Hong Kong unmistakable, many mainland commentators have stopped short of endorsing the tactics used by American protesters, instead denouncing racism in the United States in general terms and rehashing protest slogans.

“The chronic racial wound in the United States is now smarting again,” said a recent report by Xinhua, the state-run

news agency.

The Chinese government, in its first official statement on Trump’s move against Beijing’s national security rules, directly called out the United States for hypocrisy. A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, Zhao Lijian, noted on Monday how American officials have portrayed protesters in their own country as “thugs” but glorified Hong Kong protesters as “heroes.”

Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, echoed the party line on Tuesday, accusing the United States of having “double standards.”

“When it comes to their country’s security, they attach great importance,” she said at a regular news briefing. “When it comes to my country’s security, especially regarding Hong Kong’s current situation, they’ve put on tinted glasses.”

Nationalism has been in full force in recent days on the Chinese internet, with many people taking to Weibo, a popular microblogging platform, to denounce the “arrogance” of the United States and Trump. Hashtags about the American protests, including the decision to deploy the National Guard in some cities, are among the most popular topics on the site.

Some worry that the propaganda campaign may further inflame tensions between the two countries. He Weifang, an outspoken law professor in Beijing, said that even some critics of the government are becoming more sympathetic to the official line.

“Any Chinese with a brain,” he said, “would not simply look at it as China being so successful and the U.S. being a failure.”

But, he added, “with the terrible compression of space for free speech, many people’s heads are gradually broken.”

14

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Trump and Putin discuss Russia’s attendance at G-7, but allies are wary

Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump at the G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan.

By MICHAEL CROWLEY

P

resident Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia spoke by telephone Monday, two days after Trump said he would invite Putin to attend a Group of Seven summit in the United States in September, the latest instance of a renewed round of personal diplomacy between the two leaders this year.

Hours after the Kremlin first described the call on its website, the White House released a statement saying that the men had discussed “the latest efforts to defeat the coronavirus pandemic and reopen global economies” and “progress toward convening the G7.” A largely similar Kremlin readout said Trump had initiated the call, and a senior White House official said Trump had extended a personal invitation to Putin to attend the gathering, which the president will host.

Russia was expelled in 2014 from what was known as the Group of Eight after Putin annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Trump has supported reentry but even as he reached out to Putin, key U.S. allies reiterated that Russia was an outlaw nation that should be denied readmittance into the group of industrialized nations, whose members are the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Japan.

Speaking to reporters Monday, a spokesman for the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, said Britain opposed

allowing Russia back into the group because his government had “yet to see evidence of changed behavior which would justify readmittance,” according to Reuters.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada agreed, saying that Russia’s “continued disrespect and flaunting of international rules and norms is why it remains outside of the G-7, and it will continue to remain out.”

But neither man would say whether his country would boycott the planned gathering, originally scheduled for June but postponed because of the coronavirus, if Putin attended as a guest observer.

With the Justice Department’s Russia investigation well behind him, Trump has recently accelerated his personal diplomacy with Putin. They have spoken several times this spring about global oil prices, exchanged shipments of medical supplies and released an unusual joint statement commemorating Russian-American cooperation in the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Many Trump administration officials remain wary of Moscow, and overall relations between the two countries remain fraught. The United States angered the Kremlin last month by announcing its withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty, a Cold War arms control agreement, and last week the National Security Agency openly accused Russia of computer hacking around the world.

But Trump continues to speak in positive tones. “Our relationship with Russia has come a long way in the last few

months,” he said May 21.

Trump has often spoken of readmitting Russia to the G-7, but the idea has failed to gain traction with the alliance’s other members, although President Emmanuel Macron of France said in 2019 that the move could be “appropriate” if Russia were to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where it has supported a pro-Moscow separatist movement.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Saturday, Trump proposed a meeting of the bloc in September that in addition to Russia would also be attended by South Korea, Australia and India.

“I don’t feel that as a G-7 it properly represents what’s going on in the world,” Trump said, according to a pool report of his remarks. “It’s a very outdated group of countries.”

It was unclear from Trump’s remarks whether he was renewing his call for Russia’s formal admission to the group and also suggesting that other nations be added to its ranks.

But a senior administration official, speaking on background Monday, indicated that he was proposing they attend as onetime guests.

“As president of the G-7, the United States can invite additional countries to participate in the annual summit meetings,” the official said. “Any permanent expansion of the G-7 would require agreement of all members.”

The official also said the goal was “to include a more diverse gathering of countries that better represents the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

That was a different emphasis than one provided to reporters Saturday by the White House’s director of strategic communications, Alyssa Farah, who said China would be the focus of such a gathering.

Trump floated his new plan Saturday evening, hours after Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany dealt a seemingly fatal blow to an earlier proposal that he host the summit in the Washington area in June, despite the continued threat of the coronavirus. The president’s idea had drawn lukewarm support from other member states even before a spokesman for Merkel said that the German leader, who has cool relations with Trump, would not confirm her attendance at such a gathering.

“Trump’s gambit on readmitting Russia to the G-8 is merely a ploy to divert attention from the embarrassing news that Angela Merkel, America’s most important European ally in fighting the pandemic and a resurgent Russia, doesn’t want to participate in a photo-op summit in D.C.,” said Andrew S. Weiss, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Trump has floated this idea, which he surely knows is a total nonstarter, multiple times in the past to change the subject from pressing issues where the U.S. is totally isolated or at odds with our closest allies such as trade, climate change and Iran,” Weiss added.

As for the cause of its expulsion from the G-8 — the annexation of Crimea — Trump has long shown little sympathy for the Ukrainian government’s outrage, suggesting in mid-2016 that Crimea is rightfully Russian territory.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

15

New Ebola outbreak in Congo, already hit by measles and Coronavirus

By RUTH MACLEAN

A

fresh outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus has flared up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country that was already contending with the world’s largest measles epidemic, as well as the coronavirus.

Congo’s health ministry said that the new Ebola outbreak has killed four people, and infected at least two more, in Mbandaka, a city of 1.2 million people on the country’s western side. A fifth person died Monday, according to UNICEF, the United Nations agency for children.

Less than two months ago, Congo was about to declare an official end to an Ebola epidemic on the eastern side of the country that had lasted nearly two years and killed more than 2,275 people. Then, with just two days to go, a new case was found, and the outbreak could not be declared over. But officials say it is in its final stages.

It is unclear how Ebola emerged in Mbandaka, which is about 750 miles west of the nearly-vanquished outbreak on the country’s eastern edge. Congo (formerly known as Zaire) is the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa, and has been under travel restrictions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Reported cases of coronavirus have so far been mostly in the capital, Kinshasa, also in the country’s west. Congo has reported 3,049 cases of coronavirus, including 71 deaths, but testing is limited, so it is impossible to know the true scale of the outbreak.

More than 350,000 people have been infected with measles in the country since January 2019, and over 6,500 have died.

Dr. Matshidiso Rebecca Moeti, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa, wrote on Twitter that although the new outbreak of Ebola posed a challenge, the WHO, along with Congo’s health ministry and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was ready to tackle it.

“With each experience we respond faster ​and​ more effectively,” Moeti wrote.

The five people who died included a 15-year-old girl, according to UNICEF. Two other patients were

An Ebola treatment center in Mangima, Democratic Republic of the Congo. being treated in the isolation unit of a city hospital.

Ebola causes fever, bleeding, weakness and abdominal pain, and kills about half of those it infects. It is transmitted through contact with sick or dead people or animals, and is named for the Ebola River, in Congo, where it was first identified, in 1976.

The largest known outbreak of Ebola erupted in 2014 in the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and killed more than 11,000 people. But since then, researchers have developed vaccines and treatment methods that can limit transmission of the disease.

This is not the first time that Ebola has hit Mbandaka, an equatorial port city on the Congo River. An outbreak in May 2018 resulted in at least 54 cases and 33 deaths in the area. But the WHO delivered more

than 7,500 doses of an Ebola vaccine to Congo, and the outbreak in Mbandaka was quickly brought under control. It was declared over on July 24 of that year.

In eastern Congo, ongoing violence and insecurity that has forced people to flee their homes has also made it difficult to end the epidemic. By comparison, the western Équateur Province, where the new Ebola cases have emerged, is relatively safe and stable.

There have been many outbreaks of Ebola in Congo over many years, and most have been resolved relatively quickly.

The government imposed travel restrictions between the country’s provinces in response to the coronavirus outbreak, which may now also help limit the spread of Ebola from Mbandaka.

16

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Netanyahu’s annexation plans meet surprise opponent: Israeli settlers

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a visit to the West Bank’s Jordan Valley.

By DAVID M. HALBFINGER and ADAM RASGON

H

aving crushed his political opponents and won a new term, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cleared a path to fulfilling his most polarizing campaign promise: annexing occupied West Bank territory, the long-held dream of right-wing Jewish settlers.

Yet with a month until he says he will apply Israeli sovereignty over large stretches of land the Palestinians have counted on for a future state, Netanyahu is suddenly facing stiff resistance, including a surprising rebellion in the ranks of the settler leaders who have been agitating for annexation for years.

Netanyahu’s plan, they argue, would open the door for a Palestinian state while ending any expansion of Israeli settlements in much of the West Bank, killing the religiousZionist project to achieve dominion over the entire biblical homeland of the Jews.

“It’s either or,” Bezalel Smotrich, a firebrand lawmaker who has led the push for annexation, said in an interview. “Either the settlements have a future, or the Palestinian state does — but not both.”

The unexpectedly fierce opposition, coupled with mixed signals from the Trump administration, is raising questions about whether Netanyahu will follow through on his annexation pledges after all.

On the left, supporters of a two-state solution have been sounding the alarm for months, saying that unilateral annexation by Israel — which would be condemned by most of the world as a violation of international law

— would break its commitments to the Palestinians under prior peace agreements and destroy any hope of a conflictending deal.

Current and former Israeli military officials have begun to weigh in, too, warning that annexation could ignite a new wave of violence in the West Bank and force King Abdullah II of Jordan to adopt a hard-line stance against Israel, endangering the two nations’ peace treaty.

But it is the emerging opposition among settlers that potentially poses the most disruptive obstacle.

Netanyahu promised annexation in three successive election campaigns over the last year. In January, his promise won the backing of the Trump administration, whose peace plan allows Israel to keep up to 30% of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley as well as all existing Jewish settlements, which most of the world considers illegal.

There is pressure on Netanyahu to act swiftly. The American presidential election in November could replace Trump with former Vice President Joe Biden, who has spoken out against unilateral annexation.

That makes the next several months a window of opportunity that could slam shut, said Oded Revivi, the mayor of the Efrat settlement. “Eat it now, before the ice cream melts,” he said.

But the loudest voices in the settlements — including influential activists, mayors and community leaders — argue that Netanyahu’s vision for annexation amounts to no less than the death knell for religious Zionism.

Citing a yet-to-be published map of the annexation plan Netanyahu is drafting with the Trump administration, these critics say it leaves too many Jewish settlements as

disconnected enclaves that would be barred from expanding. And they say it would further isolate them from the rest of Israel, giving the Palestinians control of roads that could turn a 35-minute commute to Jerusalem into a roundabout desert trek of two hours or more.

The result will be the evisceration of the settlements, they argue. “No one will want to live in an enclave, no one will want to build a home in an enclave and no one will be able to sell their home in an enclave,” said Yochai Damri, chairman of the South Hebron Hills Regional Council.

Netanyahu only began pushing annexation last year as a way to shore up right-wing support during three hardfought reelection contests against Benny Gantz, a centrist former army chief who campaigned on a promise to oppose any unilateral moves.

But Netanyahu’s continued push to expand Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank, even when he is on trial for corruption, has led to speculation that he wants to cement his legacy. Annexing the Jordan Valley, on the eastern edge of the West Bank abutting Jordan, would give Israel a permanent eastern border for the first time. In his coalition agreement for a unity government with Gantz, Netanyahu won the right to proceed with annexation as soon as July 1.

The Trump administration’s peace plan envisions Israel retaining control over the Jordan Valley and existing settlements in the West Bank while allowing the Palestinians to work toward some form of limited sovereignty elsewhere. But the Palestinians could only achieve that provided they disarm Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, accept overriding Israeli security control, recognize Israel as a Jewish state, give up on the goal of having a capital in East Jerusalem and agree to a range of other conditions few believe they would ever accept.

Some annexation proponents argue that those conditions preclude the possibility of a Palestinian state, so settlers should not fear the Trump plan. Revivi, for one, said he did not believe the Palestinians would turn “from wolves into sheep.” Still, he said he hoped they would meet the American conditions for statehood, “because I want to see a better reality.”

But Smotrich and his fellow hard-liners believe that a new administration in the United States could abandon those requirements.

“Very quickly, all those conditions will be forgotten,” Smotrich said. “You will quickly lose control, and what will basically happen is a state like Gaza will be established.”

Smotrich said he would prefer the status quo over a plan that even contemplates allowing for a Palestinian state at the expense of expanding Jewish settlements.

“I don’t want shortcuts that harm my ability to put facts on the ground and that weaken the settlements,” he said. “If the sovereignty map is favorable, I will accept it with open arms. If not, I prefer to go without it. I will persevere, work hard, set up settlements and fight with the Palestinians for another 20 years.

“And in 20 years,” he continued, “the American government will give me sovereignty over all of the territory, because there will be settlements on all of the territory.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

17

You can’t be the ‘president of law and order’ if you thrive on chaos

By JAMELLE BOUIE

E

verything has hit at once.

The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 100,000 people in the United States and put the stark inequality of American life on full display. The economic fallout has put millions of Americans out of work. And the brutal, on-camera killing of George Floyd, an AfricanAmerican man, by a Minneapolis police officer has sparked mass protests in cities across the country. Tens of thousands of Americans have marched, and are marching, against police brutality and the political system that allows it to thrive.

Everywhere there are scenes of a society at the breaking point: of angry protesters and destructive demonstrations; of police forces that have unleashed nearly unrestrained violence on those in the streets, in an apparent effort to prove the point of their most militant critics; of governors calling the National Guard to try to regain control of their cities.

The sheer scale and reach of the unrest — the extent to which it seems to represent a crisis of legitimacy as much as a reaction to police violence — has invited comparisons to 1968, the year in which much of America was rocked by protests and riots of even greater scale and destruction.

And as The New York Times reports, President Donald Trump’s advisers are among those making the comparison: Some in the president’s circle see the escalations as a political boon, much in the way Richard M. Nixon won the presidency on a law-and-order platform after the 1968 riots.

One adviser to Mr. Trump, who insisted on anonymity to describe private conversations, said images of widespread destruction could be helpful to the law-and-order message that Mr. Trump has projected since his 2016 campaign.

The immediate reason to discount a political analogy between then and now — between Nixon and Trump — is that Trump isn’t a challenger to the incumbent president; he is the incumbent. And whereas Nixon’s “law and order” was a contrast with and rebuke to Lyndon Johnson and the Democratic Party, a Trump attempt to play the hits and recapitulate that campaign would only be an attack on his own tenure. You can’t promise “law and order” when disorder is happening on your watch.

There are other unavoidable problems with any attempt by Trump to adopt Nixon’s 1968 campaign for his own purposes. As former vice president to Dwight Eisenhower — who led the nation at a time when the white American majority felt culturally and economically secure — Nixon could credibly claim to represent stability in the face of chaos, a steady hand in an uncertain time. Trump can do no such thing. He built his entire political persona around discord and disruption. Having promised to throw the system into disarray, Trump could not then sell himself as an avatar of order and control. He can sell himself as an avatar of violence — as he did when he ordered federal law enforcement to attack peaceful protesters for the sake

President Trump walking to St. John’s Church, which was damaged during protests in Washington. of a photo op, after promising to use military force against protesters — but there’s no evidence that most Americans want that kind of “leadership.”

Nor could he present himself as a steadfast authority in the way that Nixon did throughout that campaign. In the face of unrest, Trump has all but abdicated leadership, retreating to a presidential bunker while he orders the nation’s governors to repress demonstrations. “You have to dominate or you’ll look like a bunch of jerks, you have to arrest and try people,” Trump said in a Situation Room phone call with the governors. “It’s a movement, if you don’t put it down it will get worse and worse. The only time it’s successful is when you’re weak and most of you are weak.”

When he did attempt to speak to the nation, through Twitter of course, it was to promise violent retribution against protesters. “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen,” he said, adding that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” a phrase first used in 1967 by Walter Headley, the chief of police in Miami, also in reference to stopping protests and civil unrest.

A “law-and-order” campaign just isn’t available to Trump. If there is anyone who occupies a similar position to Nixon in this campaign, it’s Joe Biden, the vice president to a still-popular former president who is running as the candidate of normalcy and stability.

The simple truth is that comparisons to 1968 should be made sparingly. Yes, we have mass civil unrest, but it’s impossible at this stage to say how it will play out in November and you can’t simply plot the circumstances of a half-century ago onto the present. There are too many differences. There is no Vietnam War or disintegrating Democratic coalition. Our unrest is happening against a backdrop of deprivation and deep inequality, not the relative prosperity of the late 1960s. And while Trump benefits from a devoted coalition, it remains a vocal minority, not a “silent majority.”

The protests are different too, encompassing a large, diverse cross-section of America. In turn, there appears to be greater sympathy for the protesters and their grievances, so much so that most public officials outside of the president and his closest allies have shown some understanding of the anger and discontent even as they oppose riots and disorder.

All of this gets to a larger point. History can be incredibly useful for analyzing and understanding the present — that is, in fact, the aim of much of my writing. But we shouldn’t forget that our circumstances are not theirs, and our future cannot be divined from the events of the past. We simply do not know what comes next, nor can we predict the events that — as we have seen with the pandemic and the killing of George Floyd — can move an entire nation from one path to the other.

As we try to understand the forces at work in this country, we should do so with profound humility about the limits of what we can know and what we can foresee.

We should remember that the past, like the present, was contingent; that events that seem inevitable could have gone a different way; that those who lived through them were, like us, unable to see how things would unfold. We should be aware of the past — we should understand the processes that produced our world — but it shouldn’t be a substitute for thinking. We are not them, and now is not then.

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18

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

Crisis in the liberal city

People protesting the death of George Floyd marched in New York City on Saturday.

By ROSS DOUTHAT

T

he polarization of American life, the withdrawal of liberal and conservative Americans from one another, has generated a poisonous distillation on both sides. In separating into geographic-distinct enclaves, into heartland and metropole, our factions have become steadily worse versions of themselves — deprived of the leaven of perspective, hardening into self-caricature, losing the democratic capacities that a more diverse and fluid political atmosphere can teach.

The poisoning on the right helped give us the Trump presidency, which speaks to the alienation of conservative America from the corridors of wealth and power — the sense across rural and exurban America that our great cities are alien, their inhabitants dangerous, their elites grasping and malign — without speaking effectively to anybody else.

President Donald Trump’s administration is Washingtonbased performance art for Americans who know the capital primarily as a television backdrop, a festival of lib-owning and deep-state bashing — and as of Monday night, bizarre tear-gasand-the-Bible photo ops — that doesn’t even try to master the government it notionally runs. His reeling, staggering style of governance — once blackly comic, now deadly serious and disastrous — reflects not just the incapacity of its leader but also the insularity of his coalition, which doesn’t encompass enough of

America’s diversity to claim a real democratic mandate or include enough of the administrative talent that it would need to competently rule.

But the riots engulfing America’s cities aren’t just a testament to Trump’s mix of provocation and abdication. They also reveal how the Democratic coalition’s distillation into a metropolitan formation, a liberalism of the “global city,” has created deep pressures inside the liberal coalition, fissures that can widen with the right cascade of shocks.

The coalition of the liberal city is a high-low coalition, an alliance of highly educated urbanites, service workers and the underclass, inhabiting the same geography but very different social spaces, sharing a common political opponent but lacking a common way of life. The weaknesses of the conservative coalition are reversed for liberals. Instead of uniformity, there is Balkanization.

Instead of chauvinism against outsiders there is suspicion against neighbors. Instead of a pious Christianity that’s too often distant from the stranger and the orphan, there is a pious liberalism that depends on the cheap labor of immigrants and the surveillance and harassment of the poor.

Above all, the liberal city lacks a middle — the ballast of a substantial middle class, the mediating institutions of old-fashioned machine politics, the cement of shared religious and cultural institutions. Instead, its mediating institutions are the cops, the public schools and welfare bureaucracy, and the professional-activist

class. None of these groups have broad legitimacy. The cops are distrusted from below and from above — increasingly regarded by the cosmopolitan class as distasteful mercenaries, a necessary evil to protect gentrification’s gains. The schools and welfare system are stagnant yet resilient, constantly resisting attempted reinventions by elites whose own families rarely use them. The activists portray themselves as spokesmen for their race or class, but their main task appears to be running consciousness-raising sessions to salve the uneasy consciences of white elites.

In place of any broad legitimacy, the liberal city relies for public order on wealth and entertainment, surveillance and prison sentences, pot and video games, elite guilt and lower-class forbearance.

This is a decadent-but-sustainable arrangement under normal circumstances, but the coronavirus has exposed its weak points. Take away schools, pools, sports and movies and suddenly the infotainment complex is reduced to Zoom and Netflix and claustrophobia sets in. Tell people to wear masks and the surveillance camera doesn’t seem like such a threat. Close the colleges and suddenly the activist cohort and its more radical pupils are set idle. Put cops to work enforcing social distancing and their authoritarian temptations are magnified … and then all you need is a particularly brazen injustice to light the spark.

Now that it’s been lit, the liberal coalition’s claim to represent order against Trumpian chaos or political competence against right-wing fecklessness is burning day by day. And the torching of its credibility has happened fastest among the white and woke. As public officials, white progressives lack both credibility with aggrieved protesters and full control over their own overzealous cops. As supposed custodians of public health, they’ve proven unable to sustain social distancing requirements when it’s someone other than disreputable conservatives challenging them.

And as ostensible champions of facts and reason, they’ve been as quick as any Southern sheriff in the 1960s to blame outside agitators, false flags and even foreigners for their own misgovernment.

But worse than progressive officials are the young white radicals, anarchists and antifa and would-be Tyler Durdens, who have decided that the suffering of black communities is an excellent justification for a frenzy of white-on-white (or, sometimes, white-on-immigrant-owned-business) crime. One of the most striking trends of the last few years, the studies showing that white liberals are increasingly angrier about racism than the average black American, has reached its consummation in the spectacle of peaceful black protesters remonstrating with white kids who just want to loot, burn and fight.

Perhaps the logic of polarization will eventually help restore stability. Perhaps whatever flailing or cruel response Trump eventually gets goaded into will reunite the liberal cities against the right-wing president. Perhaps we can return to a world where Nike mouths radical slogans but nobody loots their stores.

But we’ve seen what happens when you pull back that surface, and we know what’s underneath: the grinning skull beneath the liberal city’s skin.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

19

Exigen renuncia de administrador de la Industria y Deporte Hípico Por THE STAR

L

os miembros del Comité de Reforma Hípica solicitaron este martes la renuncia inmediata de José Maymó, administrador de la Administración de la Industria y Deporte Hípico (AIDH) por supuestamente incumplir en el desembolso de sobre $155 mil adeudados por más de dos años a los criadores de caballo de Puerto Rico, sin incluir los dineros asignados a los dueños de caballos, según lo expresó el director del Comité y presidente de la Asociación de Criadores de Caballos Purasangre de Puerto Rico, Eduardo Maldonado.

“Todo ha sido una mentira, una falta de respeto a la industria hípica. Desde el primer día en el 2017, el Administrador de la AIDH ha incurrido en tácticas de retraso para darnos lo que nos corresponde con los dineros del Fondo de Crianza y Mejoramientos. En febrero anunció con mucha fanfarria el desembolso de unos $924 mil de ese fondo y todavía quedan por dar $150 correspondientes al Bono de Nacimiento. Ha pasado más de tres meses y no ha dado ese dinero que tanta falta hacer a esta industria que genera unos 8 mil empleos y que está sufriendo los efectos de la pandemia del COVID-19”, señaló Maldonado en comunicación escrita.

“El Administrador de la AIDH nos ha mentido mucho sobre este bono. Primero nos dijo en el 2019 que los dineros estaban congelados por la Junta de Control Fiscal.

Eso fue falso, la propia Junta nos confirmó que el dinero estaba disponible y que ellos no tenían ningún reparo y así lo habían dejado saber. Luego vino el asunto de que

la Oficina de gerencia y Presupuesto tenía aguantado el dinero, otra mentira. Ahora es que no se pueden reunir para autorizar un desembolso que se debió haber dado hace más de dos años atrás. Sin embargo, la Junta de Libertad Bajo Palabra si se puede reunir, pero la AIDH no lo puede hacer para ayudar a su matrícula en tiempos de crisis sin precedentes”, añadió Maldonado.

Mencionó que en febrero 16 de 2020 la AIDH anunció el desembolso, luego de tres años de espera, de 924,000 dólares provenientes del Fondo de Crianza y Mejoramiento a aquellos dueños de ejemplares de carreras que adquirieron productos nativos en las subastas de potros celebradas por los criadores comerciales durante los años 2017 al 2019, según cumplan con los requisitos establecidos en el reglamento.

Añadió que la AIDH también informó que los fondos a los criadores relacionados a los nacimientos en sus potreros, así como por el número de productos vendidos en sus subastas, para los años 2015 y 2016, están incluidos en el desembolso.

Explicó que el pedido fue apoyado por los demás miembros del Comité el cual incluye a Luis Orraca, quien preside la Confederación Hípica de Puerto Rico, Ángel Molinari, presidente de la Asociación de Entrenadores de Caballo de Puerto Rico, el licenciado Charles Cuprill, propietario de caballos y Roberto Ortiz, presidente de la Puerto Rico Horse Owners Association.

El Fondo de Crianza y Mejoramiento fue creado por el artículo 31 de la “Ley de la Industria y el Deporte Hípico de Puerto Rico”, con el propósito de fomentar la

crianza y la adquisición de ejemplares purasangre y para el mejoramiento del hipismo en general.

Señaló que la deuda de $155 mil de la AIDH con los criadores proviene de los años 2016 y 2017. El desembolso de estos dineros se había aprobado en la Resolución Caso Número JH 17-17; tres años atrás.

Scuba Dogs Society busca estudiantes y capitanes para estudio de microplásticos Por THE STAR

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omo parte de los estudios científicos que lleva a cabo Scuba Dogs Society (SDS), la organización abrió un registro de voluntarios para estudiantes y personas que deseen certificarse como capitanes o coordinadores del proyecto de monitoreo de microplásticos en los cuerpos de agua, informó la directora ejecutiva Ana Trujillo.

Trujillo explicó que se buscan estudiantes que cursen los últimos dos años de escuela superior en nueve municipios: Isabela, Camuy, Arecibo, San Juan, Loíza, Fajardo, Humacao, Ponce y Cabo Rojo. La fecha límite del registro es este jueves, 4 de junio hasta la medianoche. Para solicitar debe acceder a: Registro: oportunidad de investigación para estudiantes con tema de microplásticos.

“El estudio ofrecerá a los estudiantes la experiencia de investigación, desarrollo de propuesta para ferias científicas, horas de contacto verde y servicio comunitario”, explicó la bióloga marina.

Dijo que, igualmente, SDS busca capitanes que puedan coordinar la iniciativa de monitoreo de microplásticos en los cuerpos de agua de los nueve municipios antes mencionados. El único requisito es ser mayor de 18 años. Los adultos interesados pueden solicitar accediendo el Registro para capitanes de microplásticos (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZ_ MJ9fS3Q7KxCz6ZNU9Lmnxq5WAb8bcbbE2zbqnt2lniWMQ/viewform) en o antes del jueves, 4 de junio.

Los voluntarios seleccionados recibirán capacitación sobre el tema que iniciará con un conversatorio sobre los océanos el próximo lunes, 8 de junio. Además, obtendrán una certificación sobre las metodologías de toma y procesamiento de muestras para identificación y cuantificación de microplásticos mediante un taller virtual del 9 al 11 de junio. El conversatorio y el taller forman parte de las actividades que SDS celebrará durante la Semana de los Océanos decretada por la Organización Naciones Unidas para la próxima semana.

Trujillo indicó que este proyecto cuenta con el

apoyo de Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales (Drna) y el programa de donativo legislativos. Durante el estudio se observarán todas las medidas de distanciamiento físico recomendadas por las autoridades.

Para más información, tanto los estudiantes como los capitanes pueden escribir un correo electrónico a la dirección: atodacosta@scubadogssociety.org, visitar el sitio web: ScubaDogsSociety.org o las redes sociales de la organización.

Sobre Scuba Dogs Society (SDS): es una organización 501(c)3 sin fines de lucro que se dedica a la protección ambiental en Puerto Rico desde el año 1993, cuando se le conocía como Fundación Enrique Martí Coll. En el 2007, se introdujo su actual nombre. Ha sido puntual para lograr cambios de comportamiento social sobre la protección de los recursos mediante proyectos como la Limpieza Internacional de Costas. A través de la acción, educamos y comprometemos a la comunidad para convivir en armonía con nuestro entorno social-ecológico.

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Wednesday, June 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

The Metropolitan Opera cancels all Fall performances

By MICHAEL COOPER

T

he Metropolitan Opera said Monday that the coronavirus pandemic would force the company to cancel its fall season, thrusting the Met into one of the gravest crises in its 137-year history and leaving many of its artists, who have not been paid since March, in dire financial straits.

The announcement by the Met, the nation’s largest performing arts organization, is sure to be watched closely by other presenters who are trying to gauge when it might be safe to invite audiences back for live performances, and how to survive in the meantime.

The company, which last performed live March 11, now hopes to return with a gala on New Year’s Eve after its longest interruption in more than a century. It is a gap that is projected to cost the company close to $100 million in lost revenue, a figure that will be partly offset by lower costs and emergency fundraising efforts.

“It’s transparently obvious that social distancing and grand opera cannot go together,” Peter Gelb, the company’s general manager, said in an interview. “It’s not just the audience; it’s the health of the company. You cannot put a symphony orchestra inside a pit, and performers and a chorus in intimate proximity on the stage of the Met.” And even if all that were possible, he added, it would be impractical to perform for the 400 or 500 people who could sit at safe distances in the Met’s gilded 3,800-seat auditorium. “How do you get them in?” he said. “How do you get them out?”

The cancellation poses a major threat to the company.

“The Met’s financial position was somewhat fragile before the pandemic,” Gelb said. “This has increased the economic risks significantly. On the other hand, it has become a rallying cry to the Met, and to its supporters, of the urgent need to address it and come up with solutions. Because nobody wants the Met to fail.”

Gelb added that he was already thinking about how a post-pandemic Met might change. “The future of the Met is going to be very different,” he said.

The months of cancellations will be especially hard on the company’s employees, including the members of its world-renowned orchestra and chorus, who have not been paid since March, when the company furloughed them but agreed to keep paying for their health benefits. Most have gone on unemployment, and several members of the company said that some of their colleagues have had to give up their homes.

All were hoping to be back at work by the time the additional $600-a-week unemployment benefit that Congress approved as part of its pandemic relief package is set to expire, at the end of July.

“The real scare for us now is what happens after that,” said Ned Hanlon, a chorister who is the chairman of the Met’s American Guild of Musical Artists committee, which negotiates with the company on behalf of its choristers, stage directors, dancers and others.

The chorus recently set up an emergency relief fund to help artists struggling to make ends meet at a time when usual sources of extra income, such as singing in churches or

The cancellation of the fall season at the Metropolitan Opera, the nation’s largest performing arts organization, is sure to be closely watched by other presenters trying to chart a way back to live events.

taking freelance work, have dried up as well. “I don’t know how we get through those next few months,” Hanlon said.

The virus has already claimed lives at the Met: Vincent J. Lionti, a violist in the orchestra, died of it, as did Joel Revzen, an assistant conductor.

Gelb said the loss of the beginning of the 2020-21 season — including over three months of performances, several Live in HD cinema transmissions and its lucrative opening night fundraising gala — is projected to cost the company $54 million, on top of the tens of millions that were lost this spring. He added that people who have already bought tickets for the canceled performances could exchange them for other performances, donate the money or get full refunds.

The Met has struggled at the box office in recent years while maintaining an annual budget of over $300 million.

But the pandemic struck at a moment when several big artistic and box-office hits — including new productions of the Gershwins’ “Porgy and Bess” and Philip Glass’ “Akhnaten” — had put the company on track for one of its most successful seasons in years.

The company has an endowment valued at $270 million, down from close to $300 million before the pandemic — a fraction of the size of the funds at institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The opera has bonded debt; relies on a letter of credit that is backed in part by the enormous Chagall murals that hang in its lobby; and has been chided at times by ratings agencies for not keeping enough cash on hand. Now it is fighting for its financial life.

The Met still enjoys strong philanthropic support, and it has raised $60 million over the past two months, as part of an emergency campaign. Marc A. Scorca, the president of Opera America, an industry organization, noted that one of opera’s perceived weaknesses — that it does not get enough box-office revenue to come close to covering expenses, making it reliant on donors — could help it weather the current waves of cancellations.

“It has always been a disadvantage of opera that so little of its income comes from box office,” he said. “But in comparison to sectors like the theater, some of these opera companies are less fragile — provided that they can hold on to the philanthropy.”

The Met’s digital outreach — a necessity at a moment when live performances have been restricted — has been strong. The company has been streaming free operas from its extensive video catalog each night, an endeavor that has helped it attract 20,000 new donors. And Gelb said the At-Home Gala it streamed in April, with live performances filmed on smartphones from the homes of opera stars around the world, was watched by 750,000 people and raised $1.5 million in small donations and another $1.5 million from large sponsors.

But Gelb said that the Met will have to think and act differently in the future if it is to survive. “It’s really going to ultimately require an economic reset of the Met,” he said, declining to elaborate.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

21

How ‘Phantom of the Opera’ survived the pandemic

By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER and SU-HYUN LEE

“T

he Phantom of the Opera” has garnered plenty of superlatives over the years, including the longest-running show in Broadway history. But in recent months, it has also laid claim to a more unlikely title: pathbreaking musical of the COVID-19 era.

As theaters around the globe were abruptly shuttered by the pandemic, with no clear path to reopening in sight, the world tour of “Phantom” has been soldiering on in Seoul, South Korea, playing eight shows a week. And it has been drawing robust audiences to its 1,600-seat theater, even after an outbreak in the ensemble led to a mandatory three-week shutdown in April.

The musical, with its 126-member company and hundreds of costumes and props, is believed to be the only large-scale English-language production running anywhere in the world. And it has remained open not through social-distancing measures — a virtual impossibility in the theater, either logistically or financially, many say — but an approach grounded in strict hygiene.

And it is one that its composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber, is arguing can show the way for the rest of the industry, a point he is hoping to demonstrate to the world, as he prepares to turn the Palladium, one of seven theaters he owns in London, into a laboratory for lessons learned in Seoul.

“I don’t think we should just be sitting on our hands and saying, ‘It’s all doom and gloom, we can’t do anything,’” he said in an interview last week. “We have got to make the theaters as safe for everybody as we possibly can,” he said. And South Korea, he said, shows that it can work.

That the show, at the Blue Square cultural complex in central Seoul, has gone on is a testament not just to the protocols in the theater, but to South Korea’s rigorous system of test, trace and quarantine, which has kept the virus largely under control.

It was also a matter of sheer timing and luck, though it did not seem that way at first.

When the tour’s previous stop in Busan, South Korea’s second biggest city, wrapped up in mid-February, the country was emerging as the latest epicenter of the pandemic.

Banners for “Phantom of the Opera” hang outside the Seoul theater where its run has recently been extended.

The company mostly went home for a break to Britain, Italy, North America, Australia and elsewhere. Serin Kasif, vice president of Lloyd Webber’s company, the Really Useful Group, and the producer of the tour, said she was fielding daily messages from company members anxious about whether to return.

On March 2, when Kasif flew to Seoul to begin preparations to open there, South Korea had the second-highest number of confirmed cases, and the pandemic had not yet fully hit Britain.

She contrasted the “overwhelming sense of fear” that developed in London with what she had experienced in Seoul, with its clear governmental directives and local partners who had lived through previous epidemics like SARS. “When I was speaking to our Korean partners, in lead-up to the decision to continue, one said, ‘The word “unprecedented” keeps getting used, but it’s not unprecedented here,’” she explained.

“Amazingly,” Kasif said, the entire company returned to Seoul. Matt Leisy, a Northwestern University graduate who plays Raoul, said that when he went home to New York during the break, friends were “freaking out” at the idea that he might go back to Korea. But he said he was reassured by the producers’ constant communication about safety protocols, as well as their videos of daily life in Seoul.

“It was quite scary leading up to us coming back,” he said. “Who knew we’d end up being in the safest place in the world?”

The protocols, which are mandated by the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are strict, but they are not particularly space-age. Before entering the theater, audience members are sprayed with a light mist of disinfectant. Thermal sensors take each person’s temperature, and everyone fills out a questionnaire about symptoms and recent places they have visited, so they can be notified of any exposures they may have had through the country’s contracttracing app.

There are hand-sanitizing stations throughout, and ubiquitous signs and announcements reminding everyone that masks must be worn at all times. And in contrast to movie theaters, where alternating rows or seats are left empty, no seats are blocked off (though the first row was removed).

Backstage, there is a similar drill: no embracing, no handshakes, no unessential physical contact. Reusable water bottles are forbidden, along with sharing food. Wigs, props and costumes are regularly sprayed or wiped with antibacterial cloths. Everyone must wear a mask, except for actors when they are being made up or go onstage, and some members of the orchestra.

The run, which has been extended until August (after the touring production

of “War Horse” set to follow in the same theater canceled), has not been without its bumps. In late March, about two weeks after the show opened, one of the show’s ballerinas said she was not feeling well. She was tested, and the result — positive — was back by 9 a.m. the next morning.

Authorities moved swiftly to lock down the theater and check if all guidelines were being followed. A mobile testing unit was installed on the roof of the apartment building where the cast and nonlocal crew live, and everyone was immediately tested both for active virus and antibodies. (A male ensemble member also tested positive but remained asymptomatic.)

All 76 members of the touring company were quarantined for 15 days in their apartments. The local employees were also tested, and quarantined at home. (A local production of “Dracula: The Musical” also decided to suspend performances in this period, in response to the outbreak at “Phantom,” according to local news reports.)

In keeping with local policies, the more than 8,000 people who had seen “Phantom” received text messages through the country’s tracing app, informing them of the outbreak.

But a public announcement also made it clear that all protocols had been followed.

Kasif suggested the fact that the virus had not spread more widely in the company was proof, at least “anecdotally,” as she put it, that the protocols work.

“The ballerinas are a very close ensemble,” she said. “They share a dressing room, warm up together, perform together, warm down together. They happen to be very good friends socially. So if the guidelines weren’t working, on paper they all should have had coronavirus.”

The show reopened April 23, and ticket sales have been about 70-85% full since, Kasif said. Even last Thursday, when a spike in cases in the country led authorities to close all public museums, galleries and entertainment venues across greater Seoul until June 15, the seats were mostly full, according to a reporter who attended. (Publicists for the show declined to provide box office information.)

Private venues, like the Blue Square, were allowed to remain open, and “Phantom” continues to operate “in accordance with KCDC guidelines and instructions,” Kasif said in a statement.

FASHION The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, March June 4, 2020 Wednesday, 3, 2020 20 22

The TheSan SanJuan JuanDaily DailyStar Star

Makeup and the mask. It’s about the eyes.

By CRYSTAL MARTIN

A

s a makeup artist, Keita Moore has become an observer of faces. Months ago, in the early stages of the pandemic, he saw very little makeup when he ran out on the occasional errand. Lately, though, he has noticed that the faces are changing, slowly. Masks are plentiful, as are filled-in brows and lashes coated in mascara.

“So many people are doing this,” Moore said. “It’s fun to get dressed and get cute, even if it’s just to get groceries.”

Dismissing makeup as frivolity would be easier than ever now. Our professional and social lives are scaled down, and we’ve withdrawn inside. Collectively we’ve gone back to basics, and makeup is plainly nonessential.

But it is also a cultural artifact, reflecting the aesthetics and ethos of the era. What will our faces show as we live through months or years of the pandemic?

Nick Barose, a makeup artist, looked back and found makeup’s future. At the beginning of his lockdown in March, he organized his Brooklyn apartment “to make it more homey, since I’d actually be home,” he said.

That’s when he discovered reference materials — books, images, magazine tear sheets — he had used as he learned to do makeup. He was drawn to avant-garde beauty editorials of the 1980s, with images of Old Hollywood stars like Marilyn Monroe. The nostalgia boosted his mood.

“You can listen to ’80s music, put on ’80s makeup and fantasize about a life that’s not yours,” Barose said.

Makeup, he predicts, will take two distinct courses as the pandemic plays out. The first will be practical and edited, emphasizing long-wear products and natural brows and lashes. But for some, makeup will be an escape.

“Our reality is so uncertain that I can see people getting experimental,” he said. “It’s a scary time, so it’s a time when you want to dream more, too.”

Make Foundation Transfer-Proof Because much of the face is covered, foundation should be used sparingly, if at all. Instead, blend concealer under the eyes and on any uneven spots above the nose.

If you use foundation, a light application on the exposed areas is all you need.

“Most women choose foundation for the look,” said Keanda Snagg, a makeup artist, meaning that they’re going for color match and finish and are usually not as concerned about performance. Now is the time to consider a formula’s staying power, too. Snagg suggests Fenty Pro Filt’r Hydrating Longwear Foundation, $35.

Moore swears by Premiere Products Blue Marble Selr Spray, $14, a cult favorite setting spray, to keep makeup in place. “A lot of drag queens use it when they perform onstage,” he said. “It makes your makeup absolutely transfer-

It’s all about the eye makeup when wearing a mask.

proof. You could lie down on a pillow and there’d be no foundation on it after you got up.”

Erin Parsons, another makeup artist, predicts that foundation formulas will evolve to focus on skin care.

“Masks will shift how we think about foundation,” Parsons said. “When you take them off, your skin is irritated and

red. I keep thinking the next generation of foundation will be soothing and protecting.”

Emphasize Brows and Lashes The new basic face is filled-in brows and amplified lashes. “If there’s one thing we should learn now, it’s how to properly fill in your brows,” Moore said. Eyebrow pencils give users more control of color density (and most people go too dark on brows), so he prefers them to powders, which can be blotchy.

“People tend to fill in too much at the inner part of the brows,” he said. “Focus on the tail because that’s where most brows are sparse. Brush your brows up and outward and fill in only where you need more hair.”

Pick a pencil with an angled flat tip, like the Lip Bar Hi-Brow Gel + Pencil, $14. This shape helps you mimic the look and direction of hair growth.

The Lashify at-home lash extension kit, $145, creates a lash look that’s a step up from a coat of mascara. The system contains individual lashes, so your result is customizable. “You can just add a couple lashes to the outer end of your lashes for more drama,” Moore said.

Introduce Color With Eyeliner As our time in masks wears on, makeup artists expect we’ll transition to eye makeup that’s simple yet expressive.

Eyeliner is the best tool for these times because it’s uncomplicated. A bright color is interesting and fun without requiring the layering and dimension of eye shadow.

“My favorite is winged eyeliner in any bright color — pink, blue, burgundy — anything that’s not black,” Snagg said. She likes NYX Epic Wear Liquid Liner, $10, a waterproof formula. (“You could jump in a pool and it wouldn’t budge,” she said.)

An eyeliner newbie can start with a simple line along the lashes and, with practice, work up to a wing. Snagg’s winged liner technique: Draw a triangle at the outer corner of the eye. Then, using gentle strokes, create a line that connects that triangle to the inner corner of your eye.

Embrace the Freedom of Masks During his lockdown, Barose made himself up in the style of celebrities representing different eras, like Grace Jones, Donyale Luna and Elizabeth Taylor. “Because I’m being someone else, I feel more free to do things I’ve never done,” he said. “A mask covering your face is similar. It’s a superhero effect because you’re incognito.”

If you favor subdued or minimal makeup, this can be a time to explore, to try new textures and materials. “After a period of minimal makeup, I could see a resurgence of the ‘Euphoria’ makeup — people trying things that are a little weird because they’re not as exposed,” Parsons said.

For example, earlier this year, she used a prosthetic adhesive to affix tiny dried flowers she found on Amazon to the ends of lashes. “People have been asking me about it all the time,” she said. “It’s so easy to do. It’s cute, and it makes you happy.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

23

It is not whether you were exposed to the virus. It is how much.

By APOORVA MANDAVILLI

W

hen experts recommend wearing masks, staying at least 6 feet away from others, washing your hands frequently and avoiding crowded spaces, what they are really saying is: Try to minimize the amount of virus you encounter.

A few viral particles cannot make you sick — the immune system would vanquish the intruders before they could. But how much virus is needed for an infection to take root? What is the minimum effective dose?

A precise answer is impossible, because it is difficult to capture the moment of infection. Scientists are studying ferrets, hamsters and mice for clues but, of course, it would not be ethical for scientists to expose people to different doses of the coronavirus, as they do with milder cold viruses.

“The truth is, we really just don’t know,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University in New York. “I don’t think we can make anything better than an educated guess.”

Common respiratory viruses, like influenza and other coronaviruses, should offer some insight. But researchers have found little consistency.

For severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, also a coronavirus, the estimated infective dose is just a few hundred particles. For Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, the infective dose is much higher, on the order of thousands of particles.

The new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, is more similar to the SARS virus and, therefore, the infectious dose may be hundreds of particles, Rasmussen said.

But the virus has a habit of defying predictions.

Generally, people who harbor high levels of pathogens — whether from influenza, HIV or SARS — tend to have more severe symptoms and are more likely to pass on the pathogens to others.

But in the case of the new coronavirus, people who have no symptoms seem to have viral loads — that is, the amount of virus in their bodies — just as high as those who are seriously ill, according to some studies.

And coronavirus patients are most infectious two to three days before symptoms begin, less so after the illness really hits.

Some people are generous transmitters of the coronavirus; others are stingy. So-called superspreaders seem to be particularly gifted in transmitting it, although it is unclear whether that is because of their biology or their behavior.

On the receiving end, the shape of a person’s nostrils and the amount of nose hair and mucus present — as well as the distribution of certain cellular receptors in the airway that the virus needs to latch on to — can all influence how much virus it takes to become infected.

A higher dose is clearly worse, though, and that may explain why some young health care workers have fallen victim even though the virus usually targets older people.

The crucial dose may also vary depending on whether it is ingested or inhaled.

People may take in virus by touching a contaminated

Harry Henri, a research assistant, works with blood samples from coronavirus patients in New York. surface and then putting their hands on their nose or mouth.

But “this isn’t thought to be the main way the virus spreads,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That form of transmission may require millions more copies of the virus to cause an infection, compared to inhalation.

Coughing, sneezing, singing, talking and even heavy breathing can result in the expulsion of thousands of large and small respiratory droplets carrying the virus.

“It’s clear that one doesn’t have to be sick and coughing and sneezing for transmission to occur,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, a viral immunologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Larger droplets are heavy and float down quickly — unless there is a breeze or an air-conditioning blast — and cannot penetrate surgical masks. But droplets less than 5 microns in diameter, called aerosols, can linger in the air for hours.

“They travel farther, last longer and have the potential of more spread than the large droplets,” Barouch said.

Three factors seem to be particularly important for aerosol transmission: proximity to the infected person, air flow and timing.

A windowless public bathroom with high foot traffic is riskier than a bathroom with a window, or a bathroom that is rarely used. A short outdoor conversation with a masked neighbor is much safer than either of those scenarios.

Recently, Dutch researchers used a special spray nozzle to simulate the expulsion of saliva droplets and then tracked their movement. The scientists found that just cracking open a door or window can banish aerosols.

“Even the smallest breeze will do something,” said Daniel Bonn, a physicist at the University of Amsterdam who led the study.

Observations from two hospitals in Wuhan, China, published in April in the journal Nature, determined much the same thing: More aerosolized particles were found in unventilated toilet areas than in airier patient rooms or crowded public areas.

This makes intuitive sense, experts said. But they noted that aerosols, because they are smaller than 5 microns, would also contain much less, perhaps millions-fold less, virus than droplets of 500 microns.

“It really takes a lot of these single-digit size droplets to change the risk for you,” said Dr. Joshua Rabinowitz, a quantitative biologist at Princeton University.

Apart from avoiding crowded indoor spaces, the most effective thing people can do is wear masks, all of the experts said. Even if masks do not fully shield you from droplets loaded with virus, they can cut down the amount you receive, and perhaps bring it below the infectious dose.

“This is not a virus for which hand washing seems like it will be enough,” Rabinowitz said. “We have to limit crowds, we have to wear masks.”

24

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Going viral, or not, in the Milky Way

By DENNIS OVERBYE

L

ast weekend the American space program resumed one of its most cherished and iconic traditions: launching astronauts into space from its own soil and with its own rockets, after a decade of hitching rides to the International Space Station with the Russians.

The event was celebrated as the beginning of a new era in spaceflight, with talk of moon colonies, Mars voyages, space tourism, interplanetary capitalism and the cool new SpaceX spacesuits. “We are proving out a business model, a publicprivate partnership business model that ultimately will enable us to go to the moon, this time sustainably,” Jim Bridenstine, NASA’s administrator, said at a news conference on May 26.

But this triumphant talk shared the headlines with more disquieting news about our vulnerabilities back on Earth. In the week before the launch, the death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 100,000 in the United States, and the frustrations generated by the pandemic — abrupt and widespread unemployment, glaring social inequity — surely helped fuel the riots that roiled many cities over the weekend.

It was hard not to see it as an ominous signal, reinforcing a message some thinkers say has been sent by the universe regarding our cosmic destiny as a species. In 1998, Robin Hanson, now an economics professor at George Mason University, posed a vexing question: If the universe is such a garden of possibility, as astrobiologists and cosmologists proclaim, why amid billions of worlds and after billions of years is there no

evidence of anybody out there to greet us?

Where are the alien ham radio operators beaming scientific secrets or extraterrestrial poetry? Why no mysterious engineering projects out among the stars? Where’s our invitation from the Galactic Council? As the great physicist Enrico Fermi once asked, “Where is everybody?”

Maybe the Great Filter got them, Hanson proposed. The Great Filter is a civilization-scale event or circumstance that would prevent a species from colonizing space or ever meeting other species — perhaps of even continuing to exist.

Could microbes derail our plans for outer space? Authorities as diverse as Dr. Anthony Fauci and Tom Hanks have assured us the present pandemic is not The End, but it’s hard to not view it as a rehearsal.

Martin Rees, aka Lord Rees of Ludlow, a cosmologist at Cambridge University and co-founder of the Center for the Study of Existential Risk, detailed some of the ways we might die in his book “Our Final Hour: A Scientist’s Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind’s Future In This Century — On Earth and Beyond.” When the coronavirus began to wreak havoc in China, I emailed Rees to ask if this was what the Great Filter might look like.

“These global pandemics present an intractable problem,” he wrote back. “Obviously, if we understand viruses better, we can develop vaccines.” But, he added, “The downside is that it entails also an increase in the spread of ‘dangerous knowledge’ that would enable mavericks to make viruses more virulent and transmissible than they naturally are.”

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Part of the message of Rees’ book, and others like it, is that we have grown too big and interconnected for our own good, too smart for our pants. As a result, we are pushing on the most ominous term in the famous Drake Equation, which astronomers use to estimate the number of technological civilizations in the galaxy: the average lifetime of a technological society.

How long can a high-tech society survive? No matter how likely it may be for planets to form, for those planets to seed life, and for that life to be intelligent, if the resulting civilizations don’t last long enough, they will never overlap in time and space. Each civilization could bloom and then fade by itself, never knowing a neighbor. If that isn’t a recipe for cosmic loneliness, I don’t know what is.

Rees, in a more recent note, pointed out that thinking about the long-term future has evolved since 1961 when Drake first presented his equation. Among other things, artificial intelligence, just a gleam in a few dreamers’ eyes back then, has become a big deal. Deep-learning networks are becoming embedded in science, politics and society — to what end, we have only begun to debate. They are the future.

“A ‘civilization’, in the sense of a collectivity of intelligent technologically adept beings, may exist for only a few millenniums,” Rees wrote. “But their legacy could be some kind of ‘brains’ that could persist for a billion years.” And they could be thinking deep thoughts that we can’t comprehend.

“They are the entities that a SETI search is most likely to reveal (if it reveals anything),” he wrote.

If humanity survives to keep searching and exploring, that is. That is hardly guaranteed; we are all here, the virus included, just for a while.

A lifetime wandering the halls of science has made it pretty obvious, to me anyway, that nature has no particular preference for humans — or democracy, for that matter. (Dinosaurs might have been justified in thinking they were the apple of the cosmic eye, but you can’t find one now to ask how that felt.) We are on our own; we can’t count on help from anybody but ourselves.

But I can’t help hoping, despite the immaculate mathematical rigor employed by thinkers like Hanson and others, that we can still beat the odds. We have bloomed but not faded— yet. Call it the Great Reset, or a cosmic wakeup call.

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The San Juan Daily Star sita en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de BaESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO yamón, Bayamón, Puerto Rico, DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- procederé a vender en Pública NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA Subasta , al mejor postor, la proSALA DE BAYAMÓN. piedad inmueble que más adeFinance of America lante se describe y cuya venta en pública subasta se ordenó Reverse, LLC por la vía ordinaria mediante DEMANDANTE VS. Sucesión de Reinaldo Sentencia dictada en el caso de epígrafe, la cual se notificó y arMorales Vargas t/c/c chivó en autos el día 30 de eneReynaldo Morales Vargas ro de 2019 . Los autos y todos compuesta por Carlos los documentos correspondienRubén Morales Morales, tes al procedimiento incoado, estarán de manifiesto en la SeLuz Morales Morales, cretaría durante horas laboraJosé Javier Morales bles. Que en caso de no produMorales, Reynaldo cir remate ni adjudicación en la Morales Morales t/c/c primera subasta a celebrarse, se Reynaldo De Jesús celebrará una segunda subasta para la venta de la susodicha Morales Morales, Fulano de Tal y Sutano propiedad, el día 23 de junio de 2020, a las 11:15 de la mañana, de Tal como posibles y en caso de no producir remate herederos de nombres ni adjudicación , se celebrará desconocidos; Centro una tercera subasta el día 30 de junio de 2020, a las 11:15 de la de Recaudaciones mañana, mi oficina sita en el luMunicipales; y a los gar antes indicado. Que en cumEstados Unidos de plimiento de un Mandamiento de América.

Ejecución de Sentencia que ha DEMANDADOS sido liberado por la Secretaría CIVIL NÚM.: DCD2017-0753. del Tribunal de Primera InstanSALON NÚM: 505. SOBRE: cia, Sala Superior de Bayamón , Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de en el caso de epígrafe con fecha Hipoteca por la Vía Ordinaria. de 10 de abril de 2019, procedeEDICTO DE SUBASTA. ré a vender en pública subasta y Al: Público en General al mejor postor , todo derecho, A: SUCESIÓN DE título e interés que tenga la parte REINALDO MORALES demandada de epígrafe en el inmueble de su propiedad ubicaVARGAS T/C/C en A-11 2 St. Panorama EstaREYNALDO MORALES do tes Dev. Bayamón, Puerto Rico, VARGAS COMPUESTA 00957, y que se describe a conPOR CARLOS RUBÉN tinuación: URBANA: Solar radiMORALES MORALES, cado en la Urbanización Panorama, situado en el Barrio Cerro LUZ MORALES MORALES, JOSÉ JAVIER Gordo de la Municipalidad de Bayamón, Puerto Rico, que se MORALES MORALES, describe en el Plano de InscripREYNALDO MORALES ción de la Urbanización con el número, área y colindancias que MORALES T/C/C REYNALDO DE JESÚS se relacionan a continuación: MORALES MORALES, Número del solar: A-once (A-11), área del solar: cuatrocientos FULANO DE TAL Y treinta y nueve punto cero doce SUTANO DE TAL COMO metros cuadrados (435.012 POSIBLES HEREDEROS m.c). En lindes por el NORTE, en una distancia de treinta meDE NOMBRES tros (30.00 m.), con el solar núDESCONOCIDOS; mero doce (12) del Bloque A; por CENTRO DE el SUR, en una distancia de RECAUDACIONES treinta metros (30.00 m.), con el MUNICIPALES; Y A LOS solar número diez (10) del BloESTADOS UNIDOS DE que A; por el ESTE, en una distancia de doce punto quinientos AMÉRICA. Yo, MARIBEL LANZAR VELAZ- setenta y tres metros (12.573 QUEZ, Alguacil del Tribunal de m.), con la Calle número dos (2) Primera Instancia, Sala de Ba- de dicha Urbanización; y por el yamón, a los demandados, OESTE, en una distancia de dieacreedores y al público en gene- ciséis punto seiscientos noventa ral con interés sobre la propie- y cinco metros (16.695 m.), con dad que más adelante se descri- área para futuro desarrollo. En be, y al público en general, por la este solar enclava una casa de presente CERTIFICO, ANUN- concreto para residencia de una CIO y HAGO CONSTAR: Que el familia. Finca número 65,051, día 16 de junio de 2020, a las inscrita al folio 21 del tomo 1469 11:15 de la mañana, mi oficina, de Bayamón Sur, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sec-

LEGAL NOTICE

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Wednesday, June 3, 2020 ción I de Bayamón. La subasta se llevará a cabo para satisfacer, hasta donde alcance, el importe de las cantidades adeudadas a la parte demandante conforme a la sentencia dictada a su favor, a saber: $285,600.29, incluyendo intereses y otros gastos acumulados hasta el 30 de junio de 2017, y los cuales continúan acumulándose a razón del 5.6% por ciento anual, hasta su completo pago; más la cantidad de $45,000.00, equivalente al 10% de la suma principal original pactada, estipulada para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado; más recargos acumulados hasta la fecha en que se pague la deuda; más cualquiera suma de dinero por concepto de contribuciones, primas de seguro hipotecario y riesgo, así como cualesquiera otras sumas pactadas en la escritura de hipoteca, todas cuyas sumas están líquidas y exigibles. La hipoteca a ejecutarse en el caso de epígrafe fue constituida mediante la escritura número 145, otorgada el día 14 de marzo de 2012, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, ante el Notario Público Maris G. Chevere Mourino y consta inscrita al folio 202 del tomo 1924 de Bayamón Sur, Puerto Rico, finca número 65,051, Registro de la Propiedad de Bayamón Sur, Sección I de Bayamón. Que la cantidad mínima de licitación en la primera subasta del inmueble antes descrito será la suma de $450,000.00 según se establece en la escritura de hipoteca antes relacionada. En caso de que el inmueble a ser subastado no fuera adjudicado en su primera subasta se ordena la celebración de una segunda subasta de dicho inmueble, en la cual, la cantidad mínima será una equivalente a 2/3 parte de aquella, o sea la suma de $300,000.00; desierta también la segunda subasta de dicho inmueble, se ordena la celebración de una tercera subasta en la cual, la cantidad mínima será la mitad del precio pactado para la primera subasta, es decir la suma de $225,000.00. La propiedad se adjudicará al mejor postor, quien deberá satisfacer el importe de su oferta en moneda legal y corriente de los Estados Unidos de América en el momento de la adjudicación, entiéndase efectivo, giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, y que las cargas y gravámenes preferentes, si los hubiese, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes, entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. La propiedad no está sujeta a gravámenes ante-

riores y/o preferentes según surge de las constancias del Registro de la Propiedad en un estudio de título efectuado a la finca antes descrita. Por la presente se notifica a los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante o acreedores de cargos o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca del actor y a los dueños, poseedores, tenedores de o interesados en títulos transmisibles por endoso o al portador garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito del actor que se celebrarán las subastas en las fechas, horas y sitios señalados para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les conviniere o se les invita a satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, otros cargos y las costas y honorarios de abogado asegurados quedando subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. Una vez efectuada la venta de dicha propiedad, el Alguacil procederá a otorgar la escritura de traspaso al licitador victorioso en subasta, quien podrá ser la parte demandante , cuya oferta podrá aplicarse a la extinción parcial o total de la obligación reconocida por la sentencia dictada en este caso.

La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Si el producto de la venta fuere insuficiente para satisfacer la cantidad reclamada, se procederá a la ejecución de la sentencia en contra de la parte demandada por el remanente de las sumas no satisfechas, mediante embargo y venta en ejecución de cualesquiera otros bienes propiedad de la parte demandada en cantidad suficiente para dejar cubierta y totalmente satisfecha a la parte demandante cualquier deficiencia o parte insoluta de la sentencia dictada a su favor según dispuesto en la sentencia dictada en este caso. Se dispone, conforme con la sentencia dictada en este caso que, una vez efectuada la subasta y vendido el bien inmueble , los adjudicatarios sean puestos en posesión del mismo dentro del término de veinte (20) días por el Alguacil de este Honorable Tribunal y los actuales poseedores lanzados del referido inmueble. De ser ello necesario, el Alguacil podrá diligenciar el Acta de Subasta que se expida en horas laborales, de día, los 5 días de la semana y podrá romper cualquier cerradura o candado que dé acceso al inmueble objeto de este desalojo. Y para la concurrencia de licitadores y para el público en general, se publicará este Edicto de acuerdo con la ley,

(787) 743-3346

25 mediante edicto, en un periódico de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, una vez por semana, por espacio de dos (2) semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones , y para su fijación en tres (3) lugares públicos del municipio en que ha de celebrarse la venta , tales como la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía, y se le notificará además a la parte demandada vía correo certificado con acuse de recibo a la última dirección conocida. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente Edicto de Subasta para conocimiento y comparecencia de los licitadores, bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, en Bayamon, Puerto Rico, a 24 de febrero de 2020.

SRA. MARIBEL LANZAR VELAQUEZ, Alguacil, Placa 735. ****

LEGAL NOTICE

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO, COMO AGENTE DE SERVICIO DE PENTAGON FEDERAL CREDIT UNION (PFCU) (PENFED) Demandante

RAMON ENRIQUE BURGOS GARAY, MARELIS JUDITH MENDOZA GUEVARA Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS, FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS

Demandado(a) Civil: Núm. BY2019CV04699.

SALA: 505. Sobre: SUSTITUCION DE PAGARE EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: RAMON ENRIQUE BURGOS GARAY, MARELIS JUDITH MENDOZA GUEVARA Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS; FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 13 de mayo de 2020, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución

en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se 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 18 de mayo de 2020. En BAYAMON, Puerto Rico, el 18 de mayo de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretario(a). F/ MILITZA MERCADO RIVERA, Secretaria Auxiliar.

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

THERESA PADRÓ Demandante VS

OSVALDO VÁZQUEZ

Demandado CIVIL NUMERO: SJ2020RF00388 (704). SOBRE: DIVORCIO, RUPTURA IRREPARABLE. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

A: OSVALDO VÁZQUEZ

POR LA PRESENTE se le NOTIFICA Y EMPLAZA que ante este tribunal se ha radicado una acción en el caso de epígrafe mediante la cual la demande, Theresa Padró, solicita el divorcio por la causal de Ruptura Irreparable. Usted tiene treinta (30) días para contestar la presente demanda contados a partir de la publicaron del presente edito. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaria del tribunal notificándole con copia a la abogada de la parte demandante Lcda.

Adrin I Perez Garcia, Calderon

Mujica #72, Canovanas, Puerto Rico 00729-3226, facsímil (787) 256-5296, adrinperezgarcia@gmail.com. Se le advierte que si no contesta la demanda dentro del termino antes mencionado el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente.

EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y sello del Tribunal, hoy día 12 de mayo de 2020. Griselda Rodriguez Collado, Secretaria.

Malliam Collazo Huertas, Sec Auxiliar.

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

MARIE CARMEN COLON MELENDEZ Demandante V.

HECTOR JAVIER MORENO JACOME

Demandado(a) Civil Núm. CG2020RF00055.

SALA 504. Sobre: DIVORCIO, RUPTURA IRREPARABLE. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO

A: HECTOR JAVIER MORENO JACOME

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican Ja sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 2 0 de mayo de 2020 , este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en Ja 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 Ja publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 1 de junio de 2020. En Caguas, , Puerto Rico, el 1 de junio de 2020.

CARMEN A. PEREIRA ORTIZ, Secretaria Regional. SHEILA ROLDAN RODRIGUEZ, Secretario(a) Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTAIDO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE SAN JUAN.

INGRID YARIE HERNANDEZ RIVERA Demanaante Vs.

WANDY RODERIX GOMEZ MARTE

Demandado CIVIL NUM. SJ2020RF00425.

SALÓN: SOBRE: DIVORCIO (RUPTURA IRREPARABLE).

EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO DEL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

A: WANDY RODERIX GOMEZ MARTE 214 Sumpter Street Apartrment #1-B, Brooklyn NY 11233.

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y se le notifica que una demanda ha sido presentada en su contra, la cual obra en el expediente del Honorable Tribunal de Primera Instancia de San Juan en el caso de epígrafe, y se le requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto, Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), el cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http:// unired.ramaiudicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría deI tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido termino, el tribunal podra dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente.

VAZQUEZ & ASSOCIATES LAW OFFICES LCDA. ROSA L. VAZQUEZ LOPEZ RUA 17843 COL 18853 379 Calle Cesar González Hato Rey, San Juan, PR 00918 Tel (787) 766-0949 / Fax {787) 771-2425 Email: vazquezyasociadospr@ gmail.com Se le apercibe que de no hacerlo, se podrá dictar Sentencia en rebeldía concediendo el remedio solicitado en la !demanda, sin citarle ni oírle más.

EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA Y EL SELLO DEL TRIBUNAL , en San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy día 27 de mayo de 2020.

Griselda Rodriguez Collado, Secretariaa. Carmen J. Castro Serrano, Secretario(a) Auxiliar.

26

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

An MLB rookie works on his timing

By KURT STREETER The New York Times

K

yle Lewis’ major league debut was the stuff of dreams.

In the fifth inning of a home game against the Cincinnati Reds in September, Lewis, a Seattle Mariners rookie, stood firmly in the batter’s box and pulverized an offering from Trevor Bauer, one of baseball’s best pitchers, for a home run.

Lewis, 24, went on to become the second player in Major League Baseball history to hit a home run in each of his first three games. Then he became the only player to homer in six of his initial 10.

This season, the rebuilding Mariners expected much from their 6-foot-4 outfielder, a first-round pick in 2016 and a promising African American talent in a game that struggles to attract homegrown black players. Though he played in only 18 games for the team late last season, he was on track to be a full-time starter in 2020 and provide a powerful spark for one of MLB’s youngest teams.

The pandemic put the start of Lewis’ first full major league campaign in limbo.

Now, with baseball’s owners and its players’ union at loggerheads over returning to Since Georgia relaxed stay-at-home orders at the end of April, Lewis has ventured out to stay in shape. “I do a private lift three times the field, it is unclear when Lewis will be a week at a facility nearby,” he said. able to resume a budding career believed to have All-Star potential.

We’re just like everybody else. Nobody I can do, prove my worth and things like me, being the status in the league that I am This interview has been condensed at, a rookie, the decision is out of my con- has been through this before, so everyone that. and edited for clarity. trol. I’m resigned to that. is trying to figure it out from scratch. The The expectation was that the Mariners KYLE LEWIS: Instead of playing for the My main concern if we come back teammates I’m in touch with the most are would have 10 African Americans on the Mariners, I’m in a suburb outside Atlanta, would be for the health of my family, being Evan White and Justin Dunn, my two best 40-man team for opening day. One-fourth living alone in a townhouse about 15 minu- able to interact with them in a way that I friends on our team. We were in the minors of the whole roster. That is such a unique tes from my parents. Sometimes I’m even feel doesn’t expose them to anything. Then together. We talk all the time, just to check thing. You don’t see that in baseball these training at my high school, which is across there’s the coaching staff, which comprises in and make predictions about when we’ll days, and it’s something we think about the street from their home. When spring a lot of people who are older. What about be coming back. They’re in different cities, quite often as a group. It’s something we training ended, I stayed in Arizona at first, our interactions with them? Those are but we play a lot of video games, connec- don’t take for granted at all. We want to rein a house with a few teammates. Like ever- things I would be concerned about. I think ted over the internet. ally carry that torch, or at least represent it yone else, nobody was sure what was next, the personal concern about me getting sick I’m actually learning some things by well, represent the community well and be but then it became obvious things weren’t is a risk that would have been accepted if playing “MLB the Show” against Justin, be- a pillar moving forward so hopefully we get changing any time soon. So, here I am. we accept coming back to play. I would try cause he’s a pitcher. We’ll play, and he’ll more, get the numbers of African AmeriThe mental side of baseball, and life, to sanitize a lot, for sure. show me the way a pitcher thinks. Like, the cans up in baseball. has been a priority for me for a while, and Things opened up here in Georgia. I’m nuances of how a curveball comes off the From time to time I watch a highlight it’s really helping me now. I meditate and able to do one-on-one things, get all the hand versus the way a change-up comes video of my start last year, just to kind of visualize. I read a lot about how the bra- baseball-related physical work in. I do a off the hand, how that makes the hitter’s stay motivated in the right way. Hits, home in works, about focus and quieting things private lift three times a week at a facility eye perceive it a certain way. I’m not with runs, doubles, singles, a couple of nice catdown internally. My thing right now is to be nearby. Then there’s running, sprint work. my team, but I’m still learning. I’m always ches. But for me now it’s extra motivation present, stay on point physically and men- Me and my trainer started doing long toss learning. to create more of those moments. Those tally, enjoy my house and this period while to get my arm back. I work on my hitting a How would I have handled this three are things that are beautiful, and me being it lasts, and then, if they call us back to play, lot. Batting practice and soft toss. Right now years ago? Mentally, yeah, it would have able to look back now, being home and enjoy that for as long as that lasts. we are just trying to make sure I get my ti- been a tough time. Just because I would being away from that environment and I pay close attention to what’s going on ming down. When I’m hitting, I’m good. I have been so anxious to get back and play, being able to look back at it on TV, it’s just, with the negotiations over us returning. But love hitting. Hitting, that’s home for me. anxious to prove myself and show off what wow. It creates the desire to do more.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

27

Stands full of fan-submitted cardboard cutouts. What could go wrong?

By VICTOR MATHER

A

fter a few setbacks, the National Rugby League in Australia got underway over the weekend. Like most sporting events at the moment, no fans were on hand. But there was cardboard.

For about $20 each, fans could send in photographs of themselves that would be turned into cardboard cutouts to fill the seats at the games. It would almost be as if they were there. What could possibly go wrong?

Never underestimate the ability of pranksters to throw a wrench into the most innocent of plans. Viewers on TV could not help but notice some odd faces in the crowd.

Most notoriously, enjoying the Penrith Panthers-Newcastle Knights game Sunday was a cutout of Harold Shipman, a British doctor who killed more than 200 of his patients over two decades. (The real Shipman killed himself in prison in 2004.)

At an earlier game involving Sydney Roosters and South Sydney Rabbitohs, a cutout was seen of Dominic Cummings, an adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain who has drawn fire for traveling in defiance of lockdown restrictions. Again, pranksters were suspected, because it seemed unlikely that Cummings is a Rabbitohs fan.

Shipman and Cummings apparently weren’t controversial enough for Matty Johns, a former player who hosts a program on Fox Sports. He presented a photoshopped picture of the cardboard cutouts, adding Hitler to the mix. After heavy criticism, Johns and Fox apologized.

Still, despite the hiccups, rugby league’s return was widely hailed as a success, with praise for tweaks to the rules that sped up the game.

One Team, 16 Players Testing Positive As players returning to action are tested for the coronavirus, it has not been surprising that a few positive tests have turned up here and there.

Vasco da Gama, a top-division team in Rio de Janeiro, may have a bigger problem.

It announced that 16 players of 43 who had been initially tested had tested positive for the virus. They will be isolated, and there will be further testing of the people who live with them.

Training was scheduled to start Monday.

Leagues expect to see some positive tests, and they believe that isolation of the

Cardboard “fans” enjoyed a rugby league game in Australia on Sunday. affected players will be a workable solution. But when a good chunk of a team has the virus, the problem becomes more severe.

Brazil had hoped to start playing state championship games as soon as two weeks from now. Will Vasco really be able to participate?

British Sports Return Britain chose Monday as the day that sports could return, and several did.

Among them was pigeon racing: A 4,000bird race started at 10 a.m., British time.

Horse racing, dog racing and snooker also started up.

Jockeys wore masks at the racetracks.

“In this heat today, riding in the mask, it is very warm, and after pulling up I pulled it down a little just to get a few breaths in,” a rider, Jimmy Sullivan, told the BBC. “It

wasn’t too bad, though. It’s manageable, and it’s the sort of thing that in a week you won’t even notice it.”

You might think sports organizers and owners would be delighted by the restart and the revenue it is expected to generate. But at least one soccer club chairman forcefully declared that his sport’s comeback was happening too quickly.

Lee Hoos, chief executive of secondtier soccer team Queens Park Rangers, reacted with passion to the announcement that the league would aim for a restart June 20.

“We are vehemently opposed to this schedule,” he said Monday. “The players haven’t even returned to full-contact training at this moment, and yet they are now expected to be in a position to play at a competitive level in just three weeks’ time.

“I am not a lone voice on this matter; we are absolutely appalled.”

28

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

As protests spur posts from athletes, NBA players take to the streets

By SOPAN DEB

A

broad range of athletes and sports figures have issued statements on social media condemning the killing of George Floyd and other police violence against African Americans.

But several NBA players have gone even further. They’ve jumped off the sidelines to join the sprawling protests that have leapt up all over the country, which lines up with an image the NBA has gone to great lengths to cultivate for itself in recent years: that of a socially conscious league that has fought against injustice for decades stretching back to the days of Bill Russell.

This comes with risk for the players: Some of the protests have turned violent and many demonstrators are not wearing masks or maintaining social distancing in accordance with coronavirus pandemic precautions.

Yet very few issues have sparked the outrage of figures in and around the NBA like that of police brutality and the killing of black people, an issue that has touched many black communities in the United States and one that NBA stars, who play in a predominantly black league, have been keen to speak on for several years.

Jaylen Brown, the 23-year-old rising star for the Celtics, said it took him 15 hours to drive from Boston to Atlanta to take part in protests. Brown, who went to high school in Georgia, invited others to join him over the weekend, posting a message on Twitter that said, “Atlanta don’t meet me there beat me there come walk with me bring your own signs.” He added in an Instagram story, “First and foremost, I’m a black man and I’m a member of this community … We’re raising awareness for some of the injustices that we’ve been seeing.”

Malcolm Brogdon, a 27-year-old guard for the Indiana Pacers, also demonstrated in Atlanta this weekend.

“I’ve got a grandfather that marched next to Dr. King in the ’60s, and he was amazing,” Brogdon said to a crowd through a bullhorn. “He would be proud to see us all here.”

And Enes Kanter, the outspoken Celtics center, woke up Saturday at his manager’s

Demonstrators protesting police brutality on Sunday outside Barclays Center, home of the Nets. home in Chicago — where he stays during the summer — and made a 20-hour, crosscountry drive to join a protest in Boston.

Kanter, while wearing his jersey, appeared with throngs of Black Lives Matter demonstrators in Boston Common, chanting “I can’t breathe.” His teammate, Marcus Smart, was nearby protesting as well.

“It was a crazy drive,” Kanter said Monday. “It felt terrible. My back was hurting. My shoulder was hurting. But you know what? The results were something good, so it was worth going.”

The league’s activism has been selective, the NBA’s critics note. It began the season in October with an international incident after a Houston Rockets executive expressed support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, causing a protracted debate over whether league executives and players caved to China’s anger over it.

The NBA also has a rule banning players from kneeling during the national anthem, the very issue that has been a headache for the NFL because of Colin Kaepernick. That dispute resurfaced after NFL commissioner Roger Goodell issued

a statement Saturday that some players on social media found lacking self-awareness.

But on the subject of the relationship between African American communities and law enforcement, NBA figures have been much more eager to weigh in and do more — some even feeling a sense of profound obligation to express what they see as grievous injustice.

In response to Floyd’s death, coaches and players have lined up to provide statements, as have teams, some in blunt terms. The Washington Wizards released a statement from its players that said — in capital letters — “WE WILL NO LONGER TOLERATE THE ASSASSINATION OF PEOPLE OF COLOR IN THIS COUNTRY,” adding, “WE WILL NO LONGER ACCEPT THE ABUSE OF POWER FROM LAW ENFORCEMENT.” In a message to league employees Sunday, Commissioner Adam Silver said, “Racism, police brutality and racial injustice remain part of everyday life in America and cannot be ignored,” adding, “We will work hand-in-hand to create programs and build partnerships in every NBA community that

address racial inequity and bring people together.”

These statements were notable because specific mentions of law enforcement were conspicuously missing from many corporate statements released last week.

In a typical season, NBA players would be able to express themselves at actual games, like in 2014, when many players wore “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirts during warm-ups, a reference to Eric Garner, a black man who died in Staten Island after an officer used a chokehold. Or in 2012, when members of the Miami Heat posted pictures of the team wearing hoodies in response to the death of Trayvon Martin.

But NBA teams are not together currently. The league is aiming to return to play in late July. In the meantime, many in the basketball community, like LeBron James, have responded by either spotlighting the protests or gone even further by joining them.

The scale at which the deaths of Floyd, Breonna Taylor — a black emergency room technician who was shot in her own apartment by the Louisville, Ky. police following the execution of a “no knock warrant” in March — and Ahmaud Arbery — a 25-year-old black man who was pursued by armed white residents in February before being killed — touched a nerve among players and some team executives was on display this weekend.

On Sunday, Maxi Kleber, Dwight Powell, Justin Jackson and Jalen Brunson of the Dallas Mavericks, as well as team owner Mark Cuban, attended a vigil at the Dallas Police Headquarters.

“This is our community. Our country. Both are hurting. I wanted to be there to listen,” Cuban said in an email. “To understand better the pain the African American community is going through.”

The activism in response to Floyd’s death has not just been limited to NBA players and owners.

Several WNBA teams have released statements as well. Natasha Cloud, the Washington Mystics guard, posted an op-ed for the Players Tribune on Saturday titled, “Your Silence Is a Knee on My Neck.” Karima Christmas-Kelly, a forward for the Minnesota Lynx, posted an Instagram video Monday from a demonstration at the intersection where Floyd was killed.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, June 3, 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

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

(Mar 21-April 20)

Exaggerating your importance will result in embarrassment. The last thing you want is to be ridiculed for bragging. Give credit where it is due. Although you might have signed off on a project, the hard work was performed by a team of dedicated assistants. Entering a partnership purely for personal convenience is a mistake. Unless you have genuine respect and affection for the person in question, you should stay out of their orbit. It’s better to be alone and happy than together and miserable.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

Clinging too tightly to family traditions will inhibit your own growth. Give yourself permission to establish new ways of observing holidays, earning money and organising your home. Moving in another direction will renew your zest for living. Express your inner artist. Beware of emotional eating.

If you’re upset, find a healthier way of feeling better. Visit a public garden if it’s now open, go to a local park or treat yourself to a movie marathon on a streaming service. Satisfying your love of beauty will make you glow.

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)

Extreme beliefs can cause narrow-mindedness. There’s nothing wrong with having strong convictions, but this doesn’t license you to write off people who disagree with you. Everybody has a right to their own opinion. Treating colleagues will respect will pave the way to some big breakthroughs.

Don’t give a minor ache or pain too much attention. Your natural state is healthy. A diet of nutritious food will boost your energy and increase your strength. It also helps to take daily exercise, even if it’s just a brisk walk at lunch.

Arguments over taxes or an inheritance could drain your energy. Rather than anticipating a big struggle, spend a few minutes imagining everything working to your advantage. Do this every day at the same time. This will greatly improve your chances for a successful outcome. An impulsive decision will be regrettable. Whether you have a deep urge to buy a luxury item or want to confess a crush, you should wait a few days before obeying this compulsion. Patience pays off.

Don’t give a business partner the benefit of the doubt. By putting down the terms of your deal in a contract, there will be little room for argument about how a job should be performed. Have this paperwork reviewed by a legal professional.

The prospect of relocating fills you with dread. You’d rather stay put. Take this opportunity to explore your options. If you really must move, picture yourself finding a dream home that fulfils all your desires. This change could be an improvement.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

Overindulging in food and drink can cause physical distress. You’ll fare much better by sticking to a diet that is mainly comprised of fresh produce, whole grains and lean protein. Give yourself a handsome reward for giving your body premium fuel. Beware of wasting valuable time on social media. Instead of spending hours scrolling down a screen, concentrate on important job that must be dispatched. Once you’re finished, you can catch up on what everyone else is doing. You won’t have missed much.

Virgo

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

Taking emotional and financial risks will backfire. It’s best to play it safe. If you’re seeking adventure, take an experimental approach to a creative project. Working with unfamiliar materials will excite your imagination. Visit an art supply store; the colours and textures will inspire you.

Holding on to your money can be difficult when you give it more importance than it deserves. Cash is a helpful tool, but it’s not a reflection of your personal worth. Resist the temptation to buy a status symbol you don’t really want.

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

A person who is recovering from an illness is in a bad mood.

Deliver them some light reading material. If they’re able to eat snacks, drop off ones they’ll enjoy. Your thoughtful gesture will be greatly appreciated. There’s a feeling in the air that things are changing and will never be the same again.

Whilst you welcome new opportunities you may feel that letting go of the past might be too big an ask just now. Important decisions need time and attention and there is no real need for you to rush into anything.

When setting a work deadline, give yourself more time than you expect to perform a job. Then you won’t be in a tight spot if an emergency arises. Best of all, customer, client or patient will be delighted when you deliver results ahead of schedule. You’re susceptible to other people’s opinions. Before making a big decision, take yourself off to a quiet corner where you can hear yourself think. Your intuition will tell you what’s best for you.

Don’t question it.

Pretending to have more experience than you possess will be cause for regret. Admit your ignorance in certain areas. Your honesty will be appreciated, whether you’re applying for a job or bidding on a contract. Don’t worry; you’ll get the training you need. Stop worrying about what other people will think if you cut back on your responsibilities. You have a right to enjoy more of your leisure time. Having more opportunities to cuddle your partner or make art will make your spirits soar.

Aquarius

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

There’s nothing wrong with being idealistic, but it does help to know how to implement your ideas. If you’re not sure how to get a charitable organisation, law or ordinance off the ground, talk to a friend who has experience with such ventures. You might have to change some opinions that fly in the face of reason. Be open to accepting reliable facts and figures. Your willingness to listen to reason will win the respect of both your peers and superiors.

Pisces

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

Taking friends for granted is a serious mistake. If a loved one is unable to help you, remember all the times they came to your rescue. By giving them credit for all the generosity they’ve shown in the past, your relationship will get stronger. Beware of getting romantically involved with someone strictly out of physical desire. Although you might be enjoying the distant chase, your potential partner will be hurt by your lack of affection. Hold out for true love.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

Wednesday, June 3, 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

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

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