Friday to Sunday May 13-15, 2022 by The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

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May 13-15, 2022

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Experts: Government’s info systems wide open to cyberattacks

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he cybersecurity in the government of Puerto Rico is in a vulnerable state, consulting companies told the House of Representatives Government Committee on Thursday, as officials urged improvements in the technological infrastructure. Government Committee Chairman Jesús Manuel Ortiz González held a hearing to evaluate security in information systems in government agencies after cyberattack events over the past month against AutoExpreso and the University of Puerto Rico. The STAR published a report in February from Fortinet that stated that Puerto Rico was the target of over 926 million attempted cyberattacks in 2021. “Puerto Rico’s cybersecurity is in a critical situation,” said NYC Cyber Law Group managing partner Paul McCulloch. “It’s not as bad as it sounds, because there are resources and tools available.” In a written statement, the information systems architect compiled some news headlines from the past three years to the present that report cyberattacks that occurred in agencies, as well as in banks and hospitals in Puerto Rico. Given these events, he asserted that the government’s infrastructure is still “exponentially” vulnerable to more cyberattacks. “When one reads these headlines, one must also keep in mind that these are the incidents that have made the news,” McCulloch said. “There are many other incidents that don’t make it to the newspapers for a number of reasons, including those that have been resolved behind the scenes, or those where the damage is so severe that it is in the public interest not to disclose it.” The expert indicated that in order to guarantee a solid foundation for cybersecurity in Puerto Rico, the government must adopt the regulatory framework of the National Institute of Standards and Technology of the United States Department of Commerce. Likewise, he detailed that tools should be implemented to share information, create a cybersecurity incident reporting portal, establish consultation mechanisms and provide that cybersecurity regulators have the ability to impose fines or other sanctions in instances of negligence. Meanwhile, the founders of the companies Bartizan Security and Sentinel Education emphasized that, in order to prevent future cybercrime, it is necessary to consider meritocracy and governance by those in positions charged with protecting the government’s cyber infrastructure. The objective must be based on depoliticizing the position of chief information officer and selecting competent people to maintain a secure infrastructure, they said.

“We have to ask ourselves more often, who are we going to put in this position [of cybersecurity official]?” said Jorge Andújar, founder of Sentinel Education and co-founder of Bartizan, in a statement. “It requires a professional person, and he is not someone we can easily find on LinkedIn.” “On the subject of cybersecurity, one of the main problems is governance. Who is in charge of what and how much time is spent on management so that it achieves adequate acceptance?” he added. “How often does this office change leaders? How do you measure the impact of whoever ran it?” The founder of Bartizan, José Arroyo, pointed out the lack of direction in the agencies when criticizing the fact that, 15 months [since Feb. 1, 2021] after the creation by the Puerto Rico Innovation and Technology Service of the Government Cybernetics Security Office, a variety of failures have been reported. Some of them are the lack of standardization, documentation, centralization, updated inventories, control governance, active monitoring, and that “each agency does what it understands is best.” Arroyo advocated the creation of more publicprivate partnerships in the field of cybersecurity, stating that nonprofit organizations such as Obsidis Consortia “have been serving the country for many years, and on many occasions with a significantly lower economic impact for the agency.” The co-founder of Bartizan, Frances Romero, stressed the importance of establishing robust mechanisms to allow administrative or law enforcement agencies to enforce existing laws on violations of privacy rights in the cyber world; set specific metrics on what is considered cyber security; and in the government operation, establish clear employer duties and duties of its personnel with due consequences when cybersecurity requirements are not met. “It is important to note that it is not possible for any government to completely prevent cyberattacks, and it is entirely possible that the entry of bad actors is not due to the actions or accidents of any user,” Romero said. “But the human factor is most likely what unleashes or enables the bad actor to gain access to government information systems, so establishing robust policies for users is essential for cybersecurity.” “If an agency dedicated to protecting the infrastructure of the State were established, this agency could be primarily responsible for establishing recurrent and updated education programs as a requirement for all government employees to know how to effectively identify and respond to cyber attacks,” he added.

The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

Governor’s sister willing to send reports to Gov’t Ethics Office if law requires By THE STAR STAFF

aridad Pierluisi Urrutia, the governor’s sister and director of his office at La Fortaleza, said Thursday she is willing to submit ethics reports to the Government Ethics Office if the law is changed. “We had already made this query to Ethics, because we wanted to be sure that we were doing things correctly and the reality is that the position that I occupy does not, it does not need to render anything ethical,” Pierluisi Urrutia told reporters. “Now, if the law changes, then of course it does [need to file reports with the Ethics Office]. If not, there is nothing wrong with doing that, the other way around.” The island House of Representatives intends to pass a bill to require the governor’s sister, and any future person who holds that position, to file reports with the Office of Government Ethics. The move comes after it was revealed

that the La Fortaleza official’s husband, Andrés Guillemard, may have been involved with a political action committee, Salvemos a Puerto Rico, that supported the governor’s primary campaign and which is at the center of an alleged scheme involving illegal donations. The governor has denied the allegation. Pierluisi stated that he would have to evaluate the measure before answering whether he would sign it into law. “Let’s see if what it does is prudent and reasonable,” he said. “One does not legislate for a particular person. Usually you legislate based on a situation and you have to justify it. In other words, what I can verify is that she has complied with all the demands and requirements made by the Office of Government Ethics. That is what I can say. If those requirements or those regulations change, if the law changes, well, I’m also sure that she will comply with that. That is what I can tell you.” Caridad Pierluisi Urrutia

San Juan mayor welcomes ‘routine’ Justice Dept. probe By THE STAR STAFF

San Juan Mayor Miguel Romero Lugo

an Juan Mayor Miguel Romero Lugo on Thursday said he welcomed what he described as “a routine investigation” into workings at the municipality. “As we have repeatedly said, we welcome any review that the relevant authorities want to make of the bidding procedures and awarding of contracts in the Municipality of San Juan,” Romero Lugo said in a press release. “The municipal government will gladly cooperate

with any evaluation that validates that the procedures have been handled in accordance with the law.” Justice Secretary Domingo Emanuelli Hernández confirmed Thursday that he had notified the Office of the Special Independent Prosecutor Panel that the Department of Justice’s Division of Public Integrity and Comptroller Affairs has launched a preliminary investigation into the mayor of San Juan and legislators Jorge Navarro Suárez and Juan Oscar Morales Rodríguez, among others.

Ex-senator sentenced to six months probation By THE STAR STAFF

ormer Popular Democratic Party (PDP) senator Maritere González López was sentenced on Thursday to six months of probation after the Office of the Special Independent Prosecutor Panel prosecuted her for the late filing of her financial reports with the Government Ethics Office. “Today a chapter of five years of many life lessons and unique and incalculable learning, which is indescribable with words, closes,” González López said in a written statement.

The former senator’s lawyer, Yuseph Lamboy, pointed out that “it is unfortunate that people who tried to advance their petty partisan political interests offered incorrect information to the media, with the sole intention of tarnishing the image of this public official.” “Mrs. González assumed the responsibility of filing late documents and will comply with the term imposed by the court.” Lamboy pointed out that “the less serious charges, related to negligence, do not carry as punishment an impediment for the former legislator to work for the Government of Puerto Rico or any municipal entity.”

Former senator Maritere González López

The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

Discover Puerto Rico earns favorable opinion in audit By THE STAR STAFF

n audit of Discover Puerto Rico’s financial statements for fiscal year (FY) 2021 earned a favorable opinion from auditors. The auditors did not issue any significant adverse findings in the destination marketing organization’s (DMO) management of funds to promote Puerto Rico as a tourist destination, officials said. The findings come amid criticisms that the entity is spending too much money and of the quality of its campaign. The audit, prepared by the firm RSM Puerto Rico, summarized that, in the FY 2021, Discover Puerto Rico had $47.4 million in revenue. That figure is $21.8 million more than the organization’s revenue for 2020. The increase responds to new funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act and an allocation from the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program. Expenses amounted to $35.3 million, a smaller figure partly because instabilities in the visitor economy due to the COVID-19 pandemic

An audit detailed that in fiscal 2021, 84% ($29.7 million) of Discover Puerto Rico’s expenses were directly related to marketing efforts and sales promotion in leisure travel, business, events and conventions. delayed some promotion investments. However, that surplus was integrated into the schedule of promotional investments for the current fiscal year that ends in June. “Since the creation of Discover Puerto Rico, all audited financial statements show that we have the appropriate internal controls to ensure a healthy administration of funds for the promotion of Puerto Rico

as a tourist destination,” said Fernando Rodríguez, Discover Puerto Rico’s chief financial office. “This is consistent with our policy of transparency, professionalism and commitment to our goal of bringing the visitor economy to its optimum level.” The document details that, in FY 2021, 84% ($29.7 million) of Discover Puerto Rico’s expenses were directly related to

marketing efforts and sales promotion in leisure travel, business, events and conventions. The highest expense was in advertisement, with an investment of $21.5 million. That investment publicity targeted the primary and secondary markets that, in the U.S., include cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Orlando, Florida, among others. In addition, Discover Puerto Rico’s international advertising focused on Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain and Germany. The audited financial report also details that the payroll amounted to $4.7 million, equivalent to 13% of total expenses. On average, DMOs invest much more, around 35% of their costs, in salaries and benefits for employees. “Discover Puerto Rico has remained an organization that prides itself on its efficiency by achieving great results with few resources,” Rodriguez said. “The great recovery achieved by the industry in recent months, after the difficulties brought by COVID-19, shows the benefits of concentrating as much of our resources as we can in promotional efforts.”

Feds inspect illegal construction in Salinas reserve By THE STAR STAFF

he FBI, along with the Special Investigation Bureau (NIE) and the island Department of Justice, conducted a visual inspection at Jobos Bay in Salinas on Thursday.

It was reported beforehand that commonwealth prosecutors who are conducting an investigation into illegal construction at the Jobos Bay National Estuarine Reserve were to be present at the inspection. The area became the site of controversy after it was revealed that mangroves were cut down and illegal construction was carried out in the wetlands reserve. Among the structures are campsites, buildings, swimming pools and fences. The deputy chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Puerto Rico, Héctor Ramírez Carbó, confirmed that the construction in the federal reserve was illegal. “It cannot be built,” he said. “And yet it was built. We have received some complaints and notifications to act and investigate and we are acting and investigating.” After an investigation by local authorities got underway, several campers abandoned the site and water was turned off to units that did not provide the required The deputy chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Puerto Rico confirmed that the construction in the federal reserve was illegal.

documentation. After the invasion of the reserve was revealed by Citizen Victory Movement Rep. Mariana Nogales Molinelli, the island House of Representatives held public hearings and visual inspections that revealed the clandestine development of the site.

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The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

Institute of Statistics presents updated child abuse profile By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

uerto Rico Institute of Statistics Executive Director Orville Disdier presented on Thursday the “Puerto Rico Child Abuse Profile: Interactive Report 2018-2022,” which consists of a new digital platform through which the institute’s statistics related to child abuse are organized and summarized, based on secondary data provided by various local agencies and by the federal government. Available statistics include the number of abused minors per year, the rates of abuse, the geographic distribution of abuse, the distribution and magnitude of the types of abuse, the relationship of the perpetrator to the abused minor, and a comparison of Puerto Rico with other U.S. jurisdictions. “Child abuse is a serious social problem

that negatively affects the health and physical, mental and emotional integrity of children and young people under 18 years of age,” Disdier said in a written statement. “To eradicate this problem, it is essential to have complete and accessible statistics that serve as a guide for evidence-based prevention and promotion programs. Specifically, this new profile provides the necessary information and statistics to start implementing solutions.” Disdier noted that the profile not only fills an information gap that has existed since the previous publication, which dates from 2015, but now the report is a digital and interactive one, in which the user can select between various years, categories and variables, and can even download data for further analysis. “These new data suggest that, in general terms, more than 5,000 minors are abused

annually and that currently the abuse rate can be estimated at 10 abused minors for every

1,000 minors under 18 years of age residing in Puerto Rico,” Disdier said.

Liam, Valentina were the top baby names in Puerto Rico last year By THE STAR STAFF

T Liam and Valentina topped the list of names chosen for newborns in Puerto Rico in 2021.

he Social Security Administration on Thursday announced the most popular baby names in Puerto Rico for 2021. Liam and Valentina topped the list. The five most popular names, in order, for boys and girls for 2021 in Puerto Rico were Liam, Thiago, Sebastián, Noah and Dylan for boys, and Valentina, Emma, Victoria, Amaia and Luna for girls. Acting Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi encouraged citizens to view the baby name

list at Social Security’s website, www.socialsecurity.gov, to see how Puerto Rico compares to the rest of the country, and while online, create a My Social Security account at www.socialsecurity.gov/ myaccount. My Social Security, launched 10 years ago this month, is a personalized electronic account that people can start using during their working years and continue to use while receiving Social Security benefits. Over the decade, more than 69 million people have registered and benefited

from the many secure and convenient self-service options. People who set up their My Social Security account also have access to other personalized services. They can apply for a replacement Social Security card online if they meet certain requirements. If they already receive Social Security benefits, they can start or change direct deposit information online, request a replacement SSA-1099 form, and if they need proof of their benefits, they can print or download a benefit verification letter from their account.

Traffic Safety Commission marks 50 years By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

n the occasion of the celebration of its 50th anniversary, the Traffic Safety Commission (CST by its Spanish initials) held various activities this week in an exhibition at the Plaza Las Américas in Hato rey, which include the inspection and correct installation of infant protective seats, CST Executive Director Luis Rodríguez Díaz said. The official highlighted the educational

component of the entity and the commitment it has to helping citizens avoid crashes on public roads and to strengthening the safety of pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, as well as drivers and passengers, including the smallest. The exhibit continues at Plaza las Américas today and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia said road safety is paramount in his government platform and emphasized the importance of promoting a safe environment on public roads.

“I congratulate the CST on its 50 years,” Pierluisi said. “Road safety is extremely important to all of us and that is why as a government, in a joint and continuous effort with the CST and law enforcement agencies, we are constantly developing strategies so that drivers are aware of the great responsibility they have when they are behind the wheel.” Rodríguez Díaz pointed out that since 1972 the CST “has advanced various educational efforts and made alliances with other agencies to fulfill the mission of preventing

deaths on the island’s highways. “Our responsibility to the people is to promote road safety and we are geared toward strengthening our programs to achieve the goal of zero deaths on public roads,” he said. The exhibition also includes simulations with “fatal vision” glasses that show how eyesight changes when alcoholic beverages are consumed or marijuana is used. Also shown is the testimony of a survivor of a crash in which a drunk driver was involved.

The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

Surfside condo collapse victims reach $997 million settlement By PATRICIA MAZZEI and LIVIA ALBECK-RIPKA

he said of victims’ families. “A billion dollars doesn’t get paid without some sense of accountability for amilies of the victims of the collapse of the this loss.” Champlain Towers South condominium in SurfIn all, the total amount recovered for both the side, Florida, that killed 98 people last year have victims’ families and the survivors could surpass reached a $997 million settlement to compensate $1.1 billion. them for their staggering losses of life. Hanzman said he would like to finalize the The settlement, revealed at a court hearing settlement before June 24 and compensate survivors Wednesday and still pending final approval, incluand victims’ families by the fall. des insurance companies, developers of an adjacent Susana Alvarez, 62, a survivor of the collapse, building and other defendants in the extensive civil said she and other unit owners have received no case. It comes six weeks before the anniversary of information about when they would actually receive the tragedy June 24. that money. “I’m shocked by this result — I think it’s fan“A lot of us need to buy homes; we’re literally tastic,” said Judge Michael Hanzman of the Circuit living with relatives,” she said, adding that she just A makeshift memorial near the site of the Champlain Towers South Court in Miami-Dade County. “This is a recovery that wanted to move on from that horrific day. collapse site before the remainder of the build was demolished in is far in excess of what I had anticipated.” “I’m alive, thank God,” she said. “We just want Surfside, Fla., July 1, 2021. Before Wednesday’s surprise announcement, to be at peace.” the judge had approved a far smaller settlement of Pablo Rodriguez, who lost his mother, Elena building’s maintenance. Under Florida law, they could $83 million to be split among condo unit owners for their have been sued for up to the value of their units. Blasser, 64, and grandmother, Elena Chavez, 88, in the property losses. No compensation had been determined At first, any settlement seemed unlikely. Some victims’ collapse, said that he had mixed emotions about the for the families of the dead, who would now receive the families argued that all the money recovered through the settlement. $997 million. “I think it’s the best result that we could hope for lawsuit should go to them, and none to the unit owners. “It represents a lot of money, but it’s never going Hanzman disagreed, saying unit owners had to rebuild given the situation,” Rodriguez said, although “there’s to bring back Jonah’s mom,” said Neil Handler, whose their lives from scratch after their steep economic losses. really no amount of money that makes everything right.” son was one of just a few people rescued alive from the The part of the building that did not collapse was deAlmost a year later, Rodriguez, 41, said the death of rubble. Jonah Handler’s mother, Stacie Fang, 54, was the molished in the days after the tragedy, with unit owners his loved ones still feels unreal, and haunting. first victim identified in the collapse. “That video of the building falling,” he said, “it still never able to return. “Nobody can deal with what I dealt with last Sunday wakes me up at night.” Hanzman approved that $83 million settlement on Mother’s Day — that’s not something any money is ever in March, with no guarantee that more money would going to replace for him,” Handler said of his son, who is follow for the victims’ families — and the possibility of Ruddy Her nández now 16 and suffered fractures to many bones in his back. a long, dragged-out trial that could last years, as many REAL ESTATE Lic. 9551 How the money will be divided among the relatives class-action cases do. Calle Rubí #27 Villa Blanca, Caguas of the 98 victims will be determined in the coming weeks. 787-436-4215 787-593-3846 The much larger settlement for the victims’ families VENTA VentaAPARTAMENTO Apartamento piso en marmol, parking renta $550.00. RIOPIEDRAS PIEDRAS RÍO The National Institute of Standards and Technology is still made public Wednesday came about after the developers SECTOR TORTUGO Pro- ISLA VERDE CORAL bajo techo. $795.000. Alquiler Casa ALQUILER CASA investigating what caused the 13-story, 135-unit building of the adjacent luxury building, Eighty Seven Park, and a piedad sin terminar, con BEACH Apto. de esquina ALQUILER APARTAMENTO Alquiler Apto CAGUAS VILLA BLANsolar de 417 mts, frente con vista espectaculares CAGUAS VILLA BLANCA CA C/Rubí 4H, 2B, S,C,C, to partially crumble in the middle of the night, a review slew of contractors and consultants who had been sued or al centro comunal precio en el piso #19, tiene balcón Ave. Garrido apto. de 2H, balcón, marq. ext. renta that could take years. $43,500 O.M.O. investigated by the victims’ lawyers signed on. The plaintiffs en forma de “L”. 2H,2B, 1B, S,C,C, balcón, Laundry $800.00. Arroyo ARROYO The differing compensation for victims’ families, had argued that construction work at Eighty Seven Park BO. BUENA VISTA SECT. VENTA COMERCIAL who lost loved ones, and survivors, who lost condo units, damaged Champlain Towers South — an accusation that ANCONES Prop. de dos niCAGUAS - PROFESSIONAL CENTER O D A / 1B S, C, A J3H veles R1erEBnivel led to significant friction between the groups and to raw, Eighty Seven Park’s developers and contractors denied. BLDG. tercer nivel. Ideal para oficinas C MARQ EXT. 2do Nivel 1H / médicas, de abogados ó contables. Equiemotional court testimony at a hearing in March that 1B S,C,C 322 MTS. $75K Lawyers said the settlement for the victims’ families padas, amplias y acogedoras facilidades. VentaTERRENO Terreno VENTA pitted the two sides against each other. could expand further, to about $1 billion, if they reach LLAME PARA CITA Tiene que verlas • Buen precio CIDRA-BO. CEIBA SECT. “We know we did not cause that collapse,” Oren an agreement with a remaining company. Among the MONTELLANO 1,925 mts CAGUAS topografía llana, facilidaHACIENDA SAN JOSÉ Cytrynbaum, a unit owner, said then. “A billion dollars, companies that agreed to settle are the engineers who des de agua y luz $58,000 COND. PUERTA DEL PARQUE if I were on the other side, would not bring those loved had inspected and begun to conduct work to address O.M.O. Excelente Pent House 3H, 2B,s,c, CIDRA-BO. CERTENEJAS ones back.” cocina nueva, 3 garajes para auto, serious structural flaws in Champlain Towers South before II, Finca de 3.10 Cuerdas laundry, fac. piscina, canchas tenis The funds for the $83 million for the unit owners will the collapse. Llanas y Semi-Llanas. Ideal y baloncesto, $279,000 O.M.O. para crianza de caballos o come from Champlain Towers South’s insurers and the sale The companies will not admit to wrongdoing as part desarrollo de residencias. of the land where the building stood at 8777 Collins Ave. of the settlement. But Judd Rosen, one of the lawyers for CAGUAS $150,000 O.M.O. URB, PARADIS VENTA VentaSOLAR Solar The nearly 2 acres of beachfront property are expected the families of the victims who did not own condo units, CAGUAS BO. LA BARRA Propiedad buena para to sell soon, after an auction, for at least $120 million. said the settlement numbers “speak for themselves.” Solar 454Mts. aprox. to- oficina llama para cita ADO pografía semi-llana. Tiene As part of their earlier settlement, the condo owners “It’s a step in the right direction towards bringing them $135,000 REBAJ permiso de ARPE de agua y Zonificación Comercial were released from any liability for negligence in the a sense of dignity and accountability for what happened,” luz. $40,000 O.M.O.

The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

Passenger lands small plane in Florida after pilot falls ill By CHRISTINE CHUNG

passenger without any flying experience safely landed a private plane on Tuesday at a Florida airport after the pilot had a medical issue, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The plane, a single-engine Cessna 208, landed around 12:30 p.m. at Palm Beach International Airport, the FAA said. The aircraft had departed from Marsh Harbour in the Bahamas an hour and a half earlier, according to Flight Aware, a flight tracking website. Only three people were on board, the pilot and two passengers, the FAA said. Their names were not released. At noon, about an hour into the flight, the pilot said he wasn’t feeling well and slumped against the controls, according to an FAA blog post. The plane went into a nose-dive and a sharp turn, forcing one of the passengers to take over during the flight and stabilize the plane. Air traffic control audio captured the minutes before the landing. “I’ve got a serious situation here,” the passenger said to a controller at a tower in Fort Pierce, Florida, according to audio archived on LiveATC.net. “My pilot has gone incoherent, and I have no idea how to fly the airplane.”

The passenger also said that he did not know where the plane was. “I see the coast of Florida in front of me, and I have no idea,” said the passenger, who was also struggling to turn on the navigation system. During a nearly 10-minute exchange, the air traffic controller, Christopher Flores, guided the passenger, then about 20 miles east of Boca Raton, telling him to hold the wings level, follow the coastline and attempt to slowly descend. Air traffic control at Palm Beach International Airport then took over. Robert Morgan, the air traffic controller who helped the passenger successfully land the plane in Palm Beach, described the experience in an interview with local news station WPBF. “I knew the plane was flying like any other plane, I just knew I had to keep him calm, point him to the runway and tell him how to reduce the power so he could descend to land,” Morgan said. Morgan, an experienced air-traffic controller and flight instructor, said in an interview released by the FAA that he had never flown a Cessna 208 aircraft before. A co-worker printed out images of the plane’s cockpit for him to consult. Morgan instructed the passenger on how to land and stop the plane. “Before I knew it, he said, ‘I’m on the ground, how do I turn this thing off?’ ” Morgan said to WPBF. He hugged the passenger

after his arrival on the tarmac. Becoming a private pilot with a single-engine class rating requires at least 40 hours of flight time, including at least 10 hours of solo flying and multiple takeoffs and landings, according to federal aviation laws. The owner of the Cessna 208 plane is a limited liability corporation registered in Delaware, according to records from the FAA, which is investigating. The corporation could not be reached for comment. After the emergency landing, one patient was transported to an area hospital, the Palm Beach County Fire Rescue told CBS. The passengers were not injured, the FAA said.

The passenger, who had no flying experience, landed a small private plane at Palm Beach International Airport after the pilot had a medical issue, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

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The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

Woman threw tantrum before fatally pushing voice coach, prosecutors say By JONAH E. BROMWICH

lessons from the coach about five years ago, and that Gustern, even at 87, had more energy than any of her students. She loved life, Jenness said, and “would never have said anything nasty to anyone.” “The fact that someone ran across the street to push her because they had to take it out on somebody is sad,” she said. “I doubt that she thought that she would kill her, but there are consequences. You can’t just have temper tantrums because the world doesn’t go your way.”

26-year-old woman accused of fatally shoving a beloved Broadway singing coach pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and assault charges earlier this week even as prosecutors described a pre-wedding celebration that devolved into a bizarre and deadly fit. The woman, Lauren Pazienza, was celebrating with her fiance on the night of March 10, exactly 100 days before their planned June wedding, shortly before she shoved the coach, Barbara Maier Gustern, 87, in an act that would ultimately kill her. The prosecutors, from the Manhattan district attorney’s office, said Pazienza had several glasses of wine and, after visiting a number of art galleries, took a meal purchased from a food cart into Manhattan’s Chelsea Park, a block from where the assault would then take place. When a Parks Department employee told Pazienza that she would have to leave the park because it was closing soon, she grew irate and shouted and cursed at him. She then turned and, for reasons unexplained, “threw her food on to her fiance and stormed out of the park,” said one of the prosecutors, Justin McNabney. The fiance, Naveen Pereira, told prosecutors that afterward he had headed toward the subway, planning to return to their shared apartment in Astoria. Pazienza, meanwhile, made her way down 28th Street and spotted Gustern. Pazienza, who is 5-foot-7, ran across the street, called the 4-foot-11 Gustern a “bitch” and pushed her, prosecutors said, causing her to hit her head either on the cement or a metal fence nearby. Gustern, bleeding profusely from the head, ran into a friend shortly afterward and told her that she had never been hit harder in her life. An ambulance was called to take her to Bellevue Hospital and by the time she arrived, she was unconscious. Five days later, she died from her injuries. After the attack, Pazienza called Pereira and asked him to meet. When they reunited nearby, prosecutors said, she did not mention it and started to argue with him, accusing him of ruining her night. He did not engage with her, and the two eventually headed back to Astoria — though not before Pazienza watched the ambulance arrive at Gustern’s apartment building to take her away. Before the couple went to bed, Pazienza turned to Pereira and told him she had pushed someone, prosecutors said. When he asked why, Pazienza said that the person “might have said something to her” but that she wasn’t sure. Two days later, Pazienza saw that the assault had been covered in the press and grew nervous, her fiance told officials. She showed him an article about it and

Lauren Pazienza was arraigned in Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday. later confessed to a cousin. Then she fled to her parents’ house on Long Island, where she deleted her social media accounts and took down her wedding website. She stopped using her cellphone, leaving it at her aunt’s house, prosecutors said. The following week, after the police visited her parents’ house, Pazienza, who had been hiding at her aunt’s, turned herself in. After unspooling those details Tuesday, McNabney called for Pazienza to be held without bail, arguing that she was a threat to others and a flight risk. If convicted, Pazienza could face up to 25 years in prison. McNabney said that his office was recommending a 15-year sentence. “We now know from the substance of the defendant’s confession and the victim’s own description of the incident that this was an intentional act,” he said. “There is no evidence whatsoever to support any inference that this was accidental or merely reckless.” Her lawyers, John Esposito and John Leventhal, argued that Pazienza had demonstrated that she would not flee by appearing in court, and said that the $500,000 bail set by a different judge this year and paid by her friends and family was more than enough to ensure her return to court. Esposito also argued that the manslaughter charge was a “stretch,” adding that Pazienza was “receiving counseling and addressing various issues.” But the judge, Felicia A. Mennin, was not convinced, and ordered Pazienza to be held without bail. Upon that order, a friend and student of Gustern’s who was sitting in the courtroom, Morgan Jenness, banged her fist on a court bench in approval. Outside the courtroom after, Jenness, 65, said that the order represented a “first step to justice.” Gustern was a well-known and well-respected vocal coach who had worked with Debbie Harry, the lead singer of Blondie, and Broadway singers, including the cast of the 2019 revival of “Oklahoma.” Jenness said that she had begun taking voice

Request for Proposal (RFP) or Contract for Repairs NOTICE is hereby given that Iglesia Bautista Bethel de PR, Inc., is soliciting responses for a Contract for Repairs The Iglesia Bautista Bethel de PR. Inc. seeks professional services from Construction firms to complete the necessary repairs of facilities damaged by Hurricane MarÍa. There are 3 facilities, there will be three separate contracts, one for each facility, contractors can request RFP on one facility or all 3. The facilities are located in Rio Grande, Toa Baja and Canóvanas. Each proposal will meet all submission requirements and will be independently evaluated and assigned a score for each evaluation criteria up to the maximum points. Specific criteria are published in the Request for Proposal. The Contract awarded as a result of this solicitation will be administered by the Client as a project under the FEMA Public Assistance Program. The anticipated contract will provide for a full range of services consistent with Federal Acquisition Regulation requirements and Federal construction requirements. The North American Industry Classification (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 23 6220. This announcement is open to all businesses regardless of size. Additional consideration will be given to certified Federal Small Businesses. Firms must be capable of immediately responding to and working on the project. The bid documents will only be made available in electronic format. No CD-ROMs or hardcopy documents will be distributed. Requests for RFP documents shall be submitted by email before 3:00 pm of May 13, 2022 to louflorence@bcpeabody.com There will be a mandatory site visit on May 26, 2022, for Toa Baja facility. Details are published in the Request for Proposal. There will be a mandatory site visit on June 1, 2022, for Canóvanas facility. Details are published in the Request for Proposal. There will be a mandatory site visit on June 8, 2022, for Rio Grande facility. Details are published in the Request for Proposal. DEADLINE: All proposals must be delivered by email before 4:00 pm on August 5, 2022. Any proposal delivered after this time may not be considered. The Church reserves the right to reject any or all proposals. DELIVERY ADDRESS: Please submit one original proposal lo the following email address: louflorence@bcpeabody.com Iglesia Bautista Bethel de PR, Inc., reserves the right to award the contract to the proposal that provides the best value according to the evaluation. Iglesia Bautista Bethel de PR, Inc., also reserves their right to cancel the request for proposal process, without any penalty. Respectfully, Ydsia Z. Reyes, (Church Representative)

The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

ATENCIÓN BARRIO CAÑABÓN El Alcalde del Municipio Autónomo de Caguas, Hon. William Miranda Torres, te invita a:

2022

By JESÚS JIMÉNEZ

SERVICIOS MUNICIPALES EN TU COMUNIDAD

Calendario diario • Mayo 2022 Jueves 19

Centro Comunal Urb. Jardines de Caguas

Viernes 20

Centro Comunal Sector La Unión

Feria de servicios municipales 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Permisos, obras públicas, reciclaje y saneamiento, ornato, conservación de edificios, empresarismo, turismo, orientación contributiva y servicios digitales, policía, vivienda, familia, oficina de la mujer, servicios al ciudadano, entre muchos otros.

Sábado 21

Complejo Recreacional Valle Tolima Idamaris Gardens

GRAN CIERRE

con Feria Comunitaria sábado, 21 de mayo 1:00 p.m. Artista invitado:

Además: • SANOS con servicios de medicina primaria. • Alianza Municipal de Servicios Integrados con su centro de gestión única de ofertas de empleos, preparación de resumes y adiestramiento. • Banco de Desarrollo Centro Oriental con orientación de préstamos de emergencias, nuevos negocios, entre otros. • Servicios que se brindarán solo los sábados (Solo residentes con ID): – Grooming básico, corte y limpieza de uñas para Mascotas por (límite de 25

Grupo La Nueva Generación

mascotas, por orden de llegada)

– Vacunación de Mascotas – Reciclaje de Artículos Electrónicos – Regalo de Árboles – Affidavits (Declaraciones Juradas) • Servicios Legales Asesoramiento, representación y educación legal gratis en asuntos civiles a personas o grupos que cualifiquen. (Solo viernes, 20 de mayo) • Pruebas Caseras y Vacunación COVID Pfizer y Moderna - Mientras duren.

Only a third of Americans were worried about the pandemic in April, new poll finds

Mercado Agrícola y Artesanal

HABRÁ ESTRICTO PROTOCOLO DE COVID: • Vacu ID o prueba negativa • Uso de mascarilla • Mantener distanciamiento

Información: caguas.gov.pr CENTRO Y CORAZÓN DE PUERTO RICO

bout 31% of American adults said in April that they were “very” or “somewhat worried” about contracting the coronavirus, according to a new Gallup poll released earlier this week indicating that about two-thirds were not as worried, even as new confirmed cases began to rise steadily across the United States. The survey was conducted between April 15 and April 23, at a time when new cases were increasing after plummeting from highs seen during the winter omicron surge. On April 15, the daily average of new confirmed cases reported across the country was 37,003, according to a New York Times database. By April 23, new cases had risen to a daily average of 46,545. Experts say that confirmed case numbers could be undercounted, with an increasing reliance on at-home tests, whose results are not always officially reported. The direction of case trends may be one factor in how Americans feel about the state of the pandemic. The data recorded in April was virtually similar to a poll recorded in mid-February, when 34% of American adults said they were “very” or “somewhat worried” about becoming ill with coronavirus. That earlier survey was conducted when the daily average was more than 100,000 cases per day, but falling steeply after omicron’s peak. A number of other factors likely play a role, including confidence after receiving a booster shot or having the virus. (Data released in April from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that about 60% of Americans — more than half of adults and three-quarters of children — have now been infected with the coronavirus.) “A lot of people have now had personal experiences of omicron, and they will have observed that it is mild in the great majority of cases, especially vaccinated and boosted,” said Dr. Bill Hanage, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Mohamed Younis, editor-in-chief of Gallup, said that another factor that could affect how Americans feel about the state of the pandemic is messaging from public officials who have relaxed safety measures, like mask orders on air travel, as they signal a new phase of living with the virus. “When you see those officials basically lowering the flag, using a less alarmist tone and telling people they can be a little less careful, we see that reflected in the data,” Younis said. He added that people could be letting their guard down as the world has learned more about the coronavirus, along with the help of vaccines and new available treatment options. “When you ask somebody if they’re worried they’ll get the virus, now that a lot of us have gotten the virus, I think it’s a very different kind of a question than it was back when we had no idea what this was like,” Younis said. The poll found other indications that Americans were less worried about the pandemic. Fewer Americans — about 32% of them, down from 41% in February — reported that they were more likely to avoid large crowds in April than in February. And fewer Americans said they were avoiding public places, about 21%, and small gatherings, about 15%, which were new lows for Gallup’s trends over the course of pandemic. New confirmed cases continue to rise across the country, up 52% over the past two weeks, as of Tuesday. But Younis said that, for now, he does not expect to see a rise in the level of worry about the pandemic when the next Gallup poll is conducted. “I wouldn’t expect it to go back up to where it was before,” he said. “That being said, it’s really important to remember that these are national numbers, and a lot of this has become such a local story.” Still, Hanage said, concern could change later in the year if there is another surge in cases. “Things are likely to be somewhat worse, especially in the fall and winter,” he said.

The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

Consumer prices are still climbing rapidly By JEANNA SMIALEK

he pressures that have kept inflation elevated for months remain strong, fresh data released earlier this week showed, a challenge for households that are trying to shoulder rising expenses and for the White House and Federal Reserve as they try to put the economy on a steadier path. Annual inflation moderated for the first time in months in April, but the consumer price index still increased 8.3%, an uncomfortably rapid pace. At the same time, a closely watched measure that subtracts food and fuel costs accelerated. Core inflation — which excludes costs for groceries and gas — picked up 0.6% in April from the prior month, faster than its 0.3% increase in March. That measure is particularly important for policymakers, who use it as a gauge to help determine where inflation is headed. While the letup in annual inflation may have given President Joe Biden and the Fed a dose of comfort, the overall picture remains worrying. Policymakers have a long way to go to bring price increases down to more normal and stable levels, and the newest data is likely to keep them focused on trying to slow an inflation rate that remains near its fastest pace in 40 years. “Inflation is too high — they need to bring it down,” said Laura Rosner-Warburton, senior economist at MacroPolicy Perspectives. “The re-acceleration in core inflation is unwelcome.” The report renewed fears among investors that the Fed could speed up plans to raise interest rates, which would further take steam out of the stock market. The S&P 500 fell 1.6%, extending a five-week slide that has taken it to the cusp of a so-called bear market — a drop of more than 20% from a recent peak. At the close of trading, the index was 18% below its January record high. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite, which has been in a bear market for months, fell 3.2%. Annual inflation may have peaked, having climbed by an even-quicker 8.5% in March. It slowed down in April partly because gas prices dropped, and partly because of a statistical quirk that will continue through the months ahead. Yearly price changes are being measured against elevated price readings from last spring, when inflation started to take off. The higher base makes annual increases look less severe. Still, even the White House greeted the new report with concern. “While it is heartening to see that annual inflation moderated in April, the fact remains that inflation is unacceptably high,” Biden said in a statement. “Inflation is a challenge for families across the country, and bringing it down is my top economic priority.” Economists do expect price increases to continue to ebb somewhat this year because they think that consumer demand will taper off and supply-chain stresses will ease. The crucial question is how much and how quickly that moderation might happen. Many analysts have been predicting a slowdown in price increases or even outright price cuts on many goods, but those forecasts look increasingly uncertain. Lockdowns in China and the war in Ukraine threaten to exacerbate supply shortages for semiconductor chips, commodities and other important products. “There are persistent issues in supply chains,” said Matthew Luzzetti, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank. “And the most recent developments have not been positive.”

Outdoor dining in Brooklyn, April 30, 2022. Inflation is still running at around the fastest rate in four decades, including steeper prices for services like restaurant meals. Part of the increase in core inflation in April owed to trends that should not last, most notably a big pop in airfares as travel demand surges following the latest wave of the coronavirus. Even so, Rosner-Warburton said she expected annual CPI inflation to remain at 5.1% at the end of the year, far above levels that prevailed before the pandemic. The Fed aims for 2% annual inflation on average, though it defines that goal using a related but different measure that tends to run slightly lower and comes out with more of a delay. That inflation index picked up 6.6% in the year through March, and April figures will be released later this month. The fact that high inflation is lasting so long is a problem for the central bank. After a full year of unusually swift increases, household and investor expectations for future price changes have been creeping higher, which could perpetuate inflation if households and businesses adjust their behavior, asking for bigger raises and charging more for goods and services. As such risks have mounted, the Fed has begun to lift interest rates to try to keep price increases from galloping out of control in a more lasting way. In March, Fed policymakers lifted their main policy interest rate for the first time since 2018, then

followed that up with the biggest increase since 2000 at their meeting last week. By making it more expensive to borrow money, officials hope to weaken spending and hiring, which could help supply to catch up with demand. As the economy returns to balance, inflation should come down. Central bankers are hoping that their policies will temper economic growth without pushing unemployment up or plunging the U.S. into a recession — engineering what they often call a “soft landing.” “I really want us to have that be the outcome, but I recognize that it’s not going to be easy to do,” Raphael Bostic, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said Monday. Officials have roundly acknowledged that letting the economy down gently will be difficult, and some have suggested that they would be willing to inflict economic pain if that is what it takes to tackle high inflation. If the economy gets to a point at which unemployment begins climbing, but inflation remains “unacceptably high,” Bostic said price increases would be “the threat that we have to take on board.”

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The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

Disney+ adds more subscribers than expected, weeks after Netflix’s count fell By BENJAMIN MULLIN

isney+ added 7.9 million subscribers in the most recent quarter for a total of 138 million worldwide, the company announced earlier this week, helping it avoid the streaming slowdown that has lately tanked the stock price of Netflix. Like most media companies, Disney’s stock has been pummeled after Netflix’s announcement last month that it had lost 200,000 subscribers in the first three months of the year and that it expected to lose 2 million more this quarter. After years of applauding media companies for losing billions on streaming, investors are now applying pressure to find a path to profitability. A scene from “Turning Red” on Disney+. The release of films like Pixar’s “Turning Red” helped Disney+ attract subscribers in the first quarter, which ended April 2. Shares of Disney were down about 3% in after-hours trading after the earnings announcement. Disney’s results are a bit of good news for CEO Bob Chapek, who has been dealing with a public relations crisis stemming from the company’s response to Florida school legislation that, among other things, restricts classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity. (Disney is the state’s largest private employer.) The company initially refrained from speaking out against the bill publicly but reversed itself after an internal revolt. Chapek then denounced the legislation, which earned him the ire of conservatives, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Last month, Republican lawmakers in Florida revoked a 1967 law that allowed Walt Disney World to function as its own quasi-government. In

the wake of the uproar, Geoff Morrell, who joined Disney in January as its most senior government relations and communications executive, resigned last month. Revenue at Disney increased 23% compared with last year, to $19.2 billion, but missed analyst expectations. Disney said it took a hit from a decision to pull some of its content back from other distributors in favor of its own channels, which meant a reduction of $1 billion in licensing revenue as part of a trade-off to grow its direct-to-consumer business. Disney reported earnings per share of $1.08, missing analyst expectations of $1.17. Disney’s theme parks unit came roaring back from a year ago, when the COVID-19 pandemic stunted in-person attendance. Revenue in the division doubled compared with the same period last year, with a new

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line-skipping system driving increases. As streaming services look for more subscribers, India is shaping up to be an important market. Deep-pocketed media companies are preparing to bid for rights to show cricket matches from the popular Indian Premier League. Disney has the rights to stream the matches on its Hotstar service, which it acquired in its 2019 megadeal with 21st Century Fox. Losing those rights could be a blow. However, Chapek has said that Disney can reach its subscriber targets even if it does not retain those rights. On a call after the earnings announcement, Chapek said that Disney would eventually become more aggressive about moving major live sports onto the ESPN+ streaming service. The cash generated by the lucrative portfolio of ESPN cable channels makes that untenable, so the company is taking a measured approach to sports streaming, Chapek said. “What we’re doing is sort of putting one foot on the dock, if you will, and one foot on the boat,” Chapek said. Chapek also responded to an analyst question about the lack of new Disney movies that have opened in the Chinese theatrical market, where the company has had an uneven record in recent years. Chapek said that Disney films were performing well without help from moviegoers in China, pointing to the success of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” “We’re pretty confident that even without China — if it were to be that we continue to have difficulties in getting titles in there — that it doesn’t really preclude our success,” Chapek said.

Puedes obtener una cubierta de seguro que puede ayudarte económicamente, si estuvieras hospitalizado o en gastos funebres. ¡TODO DESDE LA COMODIDAD DE SU HOGAR!

May 13-15, 2022

The San Juan Daily Star

Russia sees threat as Finland moves closer to joining NATO By SHASHANK BENGALI, STEVEN ERLANGER and IVAN NECHEPURENKO

s Russia’s grinding war pulverizes eastern Ukraine and eats away at the global economy, it is also creating unintended consequences for President Vladimir Putin, whose aggression is bringing more European nations closer to NATO’s fold and strengthening Western ties, the very thing the Russian leader had hoped to weaken. Finland’s leaders announced Thursday that their country should “apply for NATO membership without delay,” while Swedish leaders were expected to do the same within days. It is a remarkable shift by two nations on Russia’s doorstep that had long remained nonaligned militarily — but where public opinion has lurched strongly toward joining the alliance in the 11 weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine.

NATO, Swedish and Finnish flags. The Kremlin said that Finland’s membership in NATO was “definitely” a threat, and that it was prepared to “balance the situation” to ensure Russia’s security. NATO’s secretary-general promised Finland a “smooth and swift” accession process if it applied, but that could take a year or longer, leaving it and Sweden vulnerable to

Russian retaliation while not covered under the alliance’s collective defense pact. Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain sought Wednesday to fill that gap, committing Britain, one of Europe’s strongest militaries, to defending Finland and Sweden if attacked — even if they ended up not joining NATO. But the hardening of Western resolve

has not persuaded Russia to ease its assault, which has occupied large chunks of southern and eastern Ukraine. It could also help Putin — who has described NATO’s eastward expansion as one of the reasons he was compelled to send troops into Ukraine — reinforce his argument to Russians that it is the West, not Russia, that is driving the conflict. In other developments: — Ukrainian and Western officials say Russia is reportedly withdrawing forces from around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, where it has been losing territory. They say it may redirect troops to the southeast, where Russian troops are making greater progress. — The U.S. Congress is likely to approve $40 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine, the latest package of support intended to help Ukrainian forces bring the fight to the invading Russians.

More than 1,000 bodies have been found in Kyiv suburbs, UN says By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE

he bodies of more than 1,000 civilians have been recovered in areas north of Kyiv that were occupied by Russian forces, the United Nations human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, said Thursday, including several hundred who were summarily executed and others who were shot by snipers. “The figures will continue to increase,” Bachelet told a special session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, the second in two weeks, focusing on abuses uncovered by investigators in Bucha, Irpin and other suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, that were seized by Russia’s forces in the early stages of its invasion before its focus shifted east. Russia did not attend the meeting. It withdrew from the council shortly after the U.N. General Assembly voted last month to suspend its membership and snubbed the opportunity to address a special session. Gennady Gatilov, Russia’s ambassador in Geneva, instead released a statement dismissing the council’s debate as a “stunt” organized by the West to defame Russia.

Valentyna Nechyporenko, 77, at the grave of her 47-year-old son Ruslan in Bucha, Ukraine, April 18, 2022. China on Thursday complained of increasing politicization of the council but endorsed Ukraine’s sovereignty and urged a political resolution to the war. Belarus, a Kremlin ally that has said that the war has turned into a lucrative business for U.S. arms manufacturers, called for a speedy end to the fighting. The United Nations, meanwhile, es-

timates that thousands of civilians have been killed in Russia’s assault on the southeastern port city of Mariupol, Bachelet told the session, expressing shock at the scale of destruction and the “unimaginable horrors” inflicted on its residents. “A once flourishing city lies in ruins,” she said. Wounded and sick Ukrainian combatants in the Azovstal steel mill, the last

bastion of resistance to Russia in Mariupol, “must be allowed” to evacuate and receive medical care, she said. Emine Dzhaparova, Ukraine’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, addressed the U.N. council by video link from Kyiv. She accused Russia of trying to turn newly occupied areas around the city of Kherson — the first major Ukrainian city to fall to Russian forces — into a “people’s republic” satellite of Moscow and of killing Ukrainians who refused to cooperate with newly appointed Russia-backed authorities. On Wednesday, the Kremlin signaled that it could annex the strategically important region, a move that comes as its forces have stepped up repressive efforts amid a flurry of local protests. In addition to the killings and destruction, Dzhaparova spoke of “women raped in front of their children, children raped in front of their mothers.” The United Nations is investigating Russian troops’ sexual violence against women, girls, men and boys, Bachelet said. “Women and girls are the most frequently cited victims,” she said. “However, reports of men and boys being affected are starting to emerge.”

The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

Life in a Ukrainian unit: Diving for cover, waiting for Western weapons By ANDREW E. KRAMER

hrough binoculars, the Ukrainian soldiers can see the Russian position far in the distance. But the single artillery weapon they operate at a small, ragtag outpost on the southern steppe has insufficient range to strike it. These circumstances have imposed a numbingly grim routine on the Ukrainians, who are pounded daily by Russian artillery salvos while having no means to fight back. Every few hours, they dive into trenches to escape shells that streak out of the sky. “They have our position fixed, they know where we are,” said Sgt. Anatoly Vykhovanets. “It’s like we are in the palm of their hand.” As President Volodymyr Zelenskyy makes almost daily pleas to the West for heavier artillery, it is positions like the one here on the west bank of the Dnieper River that most illustrate how critical that weaponry is for Ukraine. Military analysts say the battle now is riding not so much on the skill or bravery of Ukrainian soldiers, but on the accuracy, quantity and striking power of long-range weapons. The artillery capability of the two armies near Pryvillia is so lopsided in Russia’s favor that Ukrainian officials have specifically highlighted the region to Western officials and member of the U.S. Congress in their appeals for more military support. In response, Western allies have been trying to rush artillery systems and associated equipment into Ukraine, and it is starting to arrive. But not as quickly as Ukrainian officials have wanted, especially in places like this small outpost in the south. The United States announced plans to send 90 M777 howitzers, a system capable of shooting 25 miles with pinpoint accuracy, but it was only this week that the first one in this region was fired in combat, according to a video the military provided to a Ukrainian news outlet. Other American weapons Ukraine is counting on include drones for spotting targets and correcting artillery fire and tracked armored vehicles used for towing howitzers into position even under fire. On Monday, President Joe Biden signed the LendLease Act, which would allow transfers of additional American weaponry to Ukraine, and on Tuesday night the House of Representatives approved a $40 billion aid package. But for now at the outpost of Ukraine’s 17th Tank Regiment, in a tree line between two fields, the most soldiers can do is try to survive. To do so, they appoint a listener around the clock. He stands, like a prairie dog on guard, in the center of the unit, listening for the distant boom of Russian outgoing artillery. The warning is “air!” Soldiers have about three seconds to dive into a trench before shells hit. The Ukrainian army does fire back from artillery operating to the rear of this position but has too few weapons to dislodge the Russian gun line.

soldiers operate a short-range, anti-tank artillery gun of little use against the Russian position that is out of range. But the soldiers still serve a purpose: They can stop a tank assault using their short-range anti-tank artillery weapon, preventing Russian advances — so long as they endure the daily barrages. So far, nobody in the unit has been wounded or killed. That leaves the front in stasis, following two months in which Ukrainian forces advanced about 40 miles in this area. Russia cannot capitalize on its artillery superiority to advance. Its tactic for attacking on the open plains is to hammer the opposing positions with artillery, then send armored vehicles forward on a maneuver called “reconnaissance to contact” aimed at overwhelming what remains of the defensive line. But because of Ukraine’s wealth of anti-armor missiles and weapons, Russia cannot advance and seize ground. A Ukrainian soldier at a short-range artillery poUkraine, meanwhile, also cannot advance, though sition in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine its tactics differ. The Ukrainian military relies on small monitors Russian movements in the distance on unit infantry with armored vehicles playing only supporFriday, May 6, 2022. ting roles. Though Ukraine could seize ground, it could not hold it or use it for logistical support for further adOccasionally, small units slip into this buffer zone to vances, as any new territory would remain under Russkirmish, and to call in artillery strikes on one another, sian bombardment. The planned Ukrainian advance in this area depends using sparse tree lines as cover. “There is no place to hide,” said the commander of a reconnaissance brigade on the arrival of the M777 howitzers and other longwho is deploying units into these fights. He asked to be range Western artillery that can hit the Russian artillery in the rear. Then, Ukrainian infantry might advance unidentified only by his nickname, Botsman. “It’s like looking down at a chess board,” he said. der the artillery umbrella of these longer range systems. Should more powerful artillery arrive, it could quic“Each side sees the other sides’ moves. It just depends kly tip the scales, said Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to on what striking force you have. Everything is seen. The Zelenskyy’s chief of staff. only question is, can you hit that spot?” In the fighting on the west bank of the Dnieper RiSoldiers on both sides call artillery guns that can do ver, Russia’s objective appears to be tying down Ukraijust that by a nickname, “the gods of war.” Ukraine entered the war at a disadvantage. Russia’s nian forces that might otherwise shift to the battle for the 203-millimeter Peony howitzers, for example, fire out to Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s goal, once it obtains artillery able to match about 24 miles while Ukraine’s 152-millimeter Geocent the range of Russian guns, is to move over the fields to guns fire 18 miles. (Soviet legacy artillery systems, used within striking range of two bridges and a dam crossing by both sides, are named for flowers; Carnation and Tuthe Dnieper River in an operation that could cut supply lip guns are also in play in the war.) That’s why Ukrainians so desperately wants the lines of the Russian forces, Arestovich, the presidential American howitzers; their 25-mile range while firing a adviser, said. “We would do it with pleasure,” said Col. Taras GPS-guided precision round would, in some places, tilt Styk, a commander in the 17th Tank Brigade. “But now the advantage slightly back to them. “The Russians have two advantages now, artillery we have nothing that can hit them.” and aviation,” said Mykhailo Zhirokhov, the author of a book about artillery combat in the war against Russianbacked separatists in eastern Ukraine, “Gods of Hybrid War.” “Ukraine needs artillery and anti-aircraft missiles. These are the critically important on the front.” The Ukrainian military has insufficient quantity of even medium-range artillery, such as weapons that might hit back at the Russian gun line harassing the Ukrainian unit about 9 miles away. The Russians are in a rock quarry, visible through binoculars as a gray smudge in the distance. Hundreds of craters pock the fields all around. The

The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

Outside the walls of a Salvadoran prison, ‘we’re all crying mothers’ By NATALIE KITROEFF and DANIELE VOLPE

19-year-old stumbled out of a police car and fell into the arms of his girlfriend, who stole a desperate kiss. His older sister, watching, cried out. Seconds later, the young man, Irvin Antonio Hernández, was gone, dragged into the prison across the street. The two women collapsed onto a nearby wooden bench next to strangers who understood better than anyone what had just happened. Their sons had all disappeared behind those same walls. Following a record-setting weekend of gang killings in March, the Salvadoran government declared a state of emergency and suspended civil liberties guaranteed in the constitution. The campaign of mass arrests that ensued led to the imprisonment of more than 25,000 people in about a month and a half. Many of those detained have been sent to a prison known as “El Penalito,” or “little prison,” a dilapidated building in the capital, San Salvador, that has become ground zero for perhaps the most aggressive police crackdown in the Central American country’s history. It is a first stop in what could be a long stay inside the country’s overcrowded prison system. Many inmates spend anywhere from days to weeks inside El Penalito before being transferred to a maximum-security facility. After the crackdown, relatives of those detained started to gather on the street outside, waiting to find out what would happen next. On a recent Thursday, dozens of mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and girlfriends crowded around rickety wooden tables facing the prison, hunched over handbags stuffed with the documents they hoped would prove their loved ones’ innocence — government identity cards, school records, work badges. Maria Elena Landaverde took vacation days and persuaded a friend to drive her at

Relatives of Jonathan González López, 21, outside a prison in San Salvador after he was arrested. the break of dawn to try to catch a glimpse of a boy who was picked up while bringing his family breakfast. Morena Guadalupe de Sandoval rushed over when her son called to say police officers had pulled him off a bus home from his janitor job in the city. Edith Amaya said she saw bruises on her son’s face before the cops took him away. “We want to see him one more time,” said de Sandoval, sobbing next to her own mother, who helped raise her son, Jonathan González López. “Here, we’re all crying mothers.” The question de Sandoval keeps asking herself is whether anyone cares. El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has conceded that innocents are being swept up in the crackdown, but insists they’re a small share of arrests. And the vast majority of Salvadorans — more than 80%, surveys show — support Bukele and approve of the government’s extreme measures. Hatred of the gangs runs so deep in El Salvador that many want them subdued by any means necessary. Local and international media have broadcast images of family members begging the police for information

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about their sons and screaming as they’re taken away. So far, nothing has turned the tide of public opinion against the campaign of mass arrests or the president leading it. For now, the women outside El Penalito are focused on keeping their sons fed. Bukele has bragged about rationing food to prisoners during the crackdown, so many families opt to buy their relatives meals from a government-authorized kitchen with a small outpost open outside the prison. There used to be just one meal provider for everyone, but after so many arrests in recent weeks, another outfit next door was allowed to begin serving food and supply other necessities like toothpaste and boxers. “It’s because of the whole monopoly thing,” said one of the women working in the original kitchen, who refused to give her name for fear of reprisals. Relatives of inmates had complained in the past about giving one business the exclusive right to provide breakfast, lunch and dinner, local media reported. The women outside the prison learn a lot from the employees at the two meal providers, who are often among the first to know when inmates are transferred out of their holding cells and into another prison. Family members get much less out of the prison itself, which staffs a small window to respond to questions but offers few answers. “We don’t know anything,” said de Sandoval. She held up a Burger King badge with a picture of her baby-faced son, Jonathan. “He doesn’t belong to any gang,” she insisted. Before his arrest, the 21-yearold worked at a different restaurant in the capital, his mother said, as a janitor. González’s girlfriend, sitting next to

de Sandoval, is now caring for their toddler without the help of his income. “What is she going to do?” de Sandoval asked. “We are poor. Who is going to help us?” It has been difficult to determine how the Salvadoran police have identified their targets, because the detentions have been so rapid and widespread. The government would not grant an interview with the head of the national police, but relatives of those arrested during the state of emergency said that many were targeted if they had past runins with the police. But relatives of those arrested during the state of emergency said that many were targeted if they had past run-ins with the police. Irvin Antonio Hernández was arrested when he ran outside after his little sister, who had toddled after the family dogs. Hernández, shirtless and shoeless, ended up in handcuffs. “The only thing they said was ‘kid, come over here,’” said Noemí Hernández, his older sister. “‘Put on shoes and a shirt and we’re going.’” Hernández was arrested several years ago, his mother said, when she says two gang members running from the cops ducked into their house. The boy was taken away, too, though she said her son had nothing to do with the gang. “He studied up until the ninth grade, and now he works,” she said, tears seeping through her mask. “He sells fruit and vegetables and has his own house.” Listening from the curb, Liliana Aquino erupted. “We the poor put him there!” she said, referring to the president. “But we the poor are suffering now.” In 2019, Aquino, 30, was disgusted with the political class in El Salvador and happily voted for the young Bukele. She called him “my president” and said people who worry about respecting the rights of gang members are absurd. “A gangster doesn’t respect anything, he doesn’t think of me,” she said. Her mother used to sell sandwiches at a local market, and ran herself into the ground trying to make money and also cover the extortion fees a gang charged. At the end of the year, Aquino said, the gangs demanded that her mother give them a Christmas bonus. “If you don’t pay, they kill you,” Aquino said. Even if you do pay, she said, you aren’t safe in El Salvador. Innocent bystanders get killed in crossfire from gang shootings all the time, she said.

The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

North Korea reports its first COVID outbreak By CHOE SANG-HUN

orth Korea on Thursday reported its first outbreak of the coronavirus, declaring a “maximum emergency” and ordering all cities and counties in the nation of 25 million to lock down to fight the spread. It was an abrupt change for a secretive country that had long insisted that it had no cases of the virus since it emerged in neighboring China more than two years ago. Outside experts had been skeptical, however, citing a lack of extensive COVID testing and the North’s threadbare public health system. The danger posed by an outbreak is greater in North Korea than in most other nations because most of its people remain unvaccinated. Outside health experts have long questioned the North’s ability to fight a large-scale outbreak although its regime is capable of imposing totalitarian control on residents’ movement. The outbreak, if not controlled quickly, could further strain the country’s economy, which had been already hit hard by years of United Nations sanctions and its decision two years ago to close its border with China, its only major trading partner, to prevent the spread of the virus. It could also affect efforts by the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un, to expand his nuclear arsenal “at the fastest possible speed,” analysts said. The COVID cases emerged after health officials Sunday tested people in an unidentified organization in Pyongyang, the capital, who showed symptoms such as fever, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said. They were confirmed to be infected with the BA.2 subvariant of the omicron variant of the virus, the news agency said. It did not reveal how many people were infected. Kim convened the Political Bureau of the ruling Workers’ Party on Thursday to discuss the crisis, the news agency said. “He called on all the cities and counties of the whole country to thoroughly lock down their areas” to help prevent the virus from spreading, the report said. He instructed them to keep working, but said that “each working unit, production unit and living unit” must be kept “from each other.” He also called for tightened vigilance along all of the country’s land and sea borders, and at its air and sea ports.

Employees spraying disinfectant on surfaces as part of preventative measures against the coronavirus at a children’s department store in Pyongyang, North Korea. The news agency did not reveal if officials knew how the virus had entered the country. After closing its borders from the rest of the world for two years, North Korea again began allowing cargo trains to bring in badly needed imports from China early this year. The North also held a huge nighttime military parade late last month in which the soldiers, members of the elite and tens of thousands of people who mobilized to watch the spectacle did not appear to wear masks. Signs of possible trouble began leaking out soon afterward. South Korean intelligence officials said last week that the North Korean authorities were ordering people on the streets to return home and stay there. Also last week, Park Jie-won, director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, said that the North had again banned cargo trains from China from entering his country. On Thursday, the North Korean news agency said, Kim called for national unity at a time of state emergency, telling his people that a “more dangerous enemy of us than the malicious virus are unscientific fear, lack of faith and weak will.” He urged his country to continue to push forward with the bold five-year economic development plan he unfurled during a Workers’ Party congress in January last year. Under that plan, North Koreans have been building residential districts in

the capital and greenhouse complexes in provinces. For Pyongyang to publicly admit to having COVID-19 cases, the public health situation had to have been serious, said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international relations at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. “The worsening coronavirus situation is a serious challenge for Kim Jong Un, not only in terms of limiting infections, deaths and food disruptions,” Easley said. “Kim has credited strict social controls and self-imposed international isolation with keeping North Korea safe from COVID. If those signature measures fail, it could be a blow to regime legitimacy.” The epidemic control measures that North Korea enforced Thursday could further restrict the traffic of people and goods

between towns and factories, and disrupt supplies and production, said Cheong Seong-chang, director of the Center for North Korean Studies at the Sejong Institute in South Korea. If North Korea fails to bring the outbreak under control, it “could face a serious food crisis and the kind of great confusion we have seen in China recently,” Cheong said, referring to the severe difficulties created by the draconian restrictions that China has imposed on major cities like Shanghai in recent weeks. Analysts questioned whether the COVID outbreak would affect Kim’s plan to restart nuclear tests. American and South Korean officials have warned in the past week that North Korea could resume such tests as soon as this month, possibly around the time that President Joe Biden is scheduled to meet with South Korea’s new president, Yoon Suk Yeol, in Seoul on May 21. They also wondered whether North Korea would change its policy of not accepting any pandemic-related humanitarian aid, including vaccine donations from world health organizations. South Korean officials have hoped that humanitarian shipments, including COVID-19 vaccines, could help restart the stalled dialogue between North Korea and the United States and allies. Easley, of Ewha Womans University, said North Koreans might be less interested in nuclear or missile tests when the most urgent threat involved the coronavirus rather than a foreign military. But, Cheong said, “If anything, the North Korean leadership will likely try to boost the morale of the people in the wake of the outbreak through nuclear or missile tests.”

The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVES

Do not delay the appointment of the UPR president any longer By JOSÉ M. SALDAÑA

t has been more than a week since the interviews with the candidates for the presidency of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) by the members of the institution’s governing board concluded. The candidates did their best to project their image and give their best answers to the questions they were asked. After each of the candidates had published an extensive plan or program of their vision for the UPR in which, in most cases, generalities, praises, grandiloquent and pompous words toward the institution abounded, it was necessary to carry out the interviews to truly assess the specific intentions and the potential ability to carry out the difficult task. From the information I have received, only one of the candidates stood out in those interviews. As I have mentioned in countless writings on the subject, the UPR (a state university) is immersed not only in a fiscal crisis of great magnitude in a bankrupt territory, but also for decades in an ideological crisis of equal magnitude because a climate of constant conflict has been created in it, of strikes and disturbances that threaten its viability as a relevant, creditable institution. We also know that there is in the institution great indifference, inefficiency and waste of resources not only fiscal, physical and human, but also in terms of a large number of academic programs that have not been updated in a long time, that do not have the relevance they had at the time they were created, but still persist. There are also duplicate programs in the different campuses with little or no demand from students who perceive that they have no relevance with respect to the world into which they must integrate upon graduation. In short, to be as prestigious as it was in the past, UPR has to be completely reviewed both administratively and academically. It will have to become more self-sufficient and relevant. That is the existential challenge that the Financial Oversight and Management Board has made clear to the current university administration. Now, the current temporary administration has done nothing in that direction and we do not anticipate that it will. The reason is simple: they prefer the nefarious but comfortable status of more of the same. In a recent article that I published entitled “The New President of the University,” I pointed out that given the current circumstances of the country and the institution, the most impor-

tant characteristics that in my opinion this person should have are: possessing and mastering managerial and administrative skills; being a good fundraiser; having a thorough knowledge of the current fiscal and ideological university problems; and more than anything, have a strong character, possess great courage and the necessary shell (carapacho) to make the unpopular decisions that will have to be made so as to lead the institution, without fearing criticism and consequences. In summary, the selection of a new president should not be viewed by the governing board as a prize for the completion of a university career. An environment of limitations, of great turmoil in the institutional climate and of constant conflict will test the character, or lack thereof, of this person. Intense and long hours of heavy and overwhelming work for seven days a week await the new president, without any recognition beyond that which his or her conscience offers through the satisfaction that comes with a job well done. Long interims in institutions are harmful. In the first place, they prevent important substantive decisions from being made because interim leadership lacks the necessary institutional support. Second, they lend themselves to agendas of internal sabotage of the organization being carried out by those who feel that a person with whom they disagree will be appointed. Thirdly, they lend themselves to the fact that, if there is more than one candidate for the position in question, smear campaigns based on harmful rumors are carried out against the leading candidate by the candidate least likely to be selected. This is precisely what is happening now in the race for the UPR presidency. Smear campaigns are being led by some who support the candidacy of UPR Río Piedras Campus Chancellor Luis Ferrao Delgado -- a candidate who has proven to be totally inadequate for the realities of an institution that is at the worst moment in its history. Like other members of the university community, I know that the former chancellor of the UPR Cayey Campus, Dr. Juan Varona Echeandía -- unfortunately convicted of misuse of public funds during the exercise of his chancellorship, for which he was dismissed from the institution for life -- is sending false, low-level and libelous messages through emails to several members of the governing board. Among those messages, Varona alleges that another candidate, Dr. Carlos Andújar Rojas, will be fined by the Ethics Office for a complaint filed there. This allegation made by Varona is a false and desperate attempt to support Ferrao’s candidacy for the presidency of the

institution, because there is no complaint against Andújar in the portal of the Ethics Office or its portal of ongoing research. It is alleged by members of the governing board that in another part of his communications, Varona, in an act of possible political file-keeping, sent a list of the names of officials, members of Andújar’s team at the UPR Arecibo Campus, with their respective political affiliations. This is to point out that Andújar should not be appointed because he appointed people of all political affiliations to administrative positions instead of limiting those appointments to pro-statehooders. This act of political file-keeping constitutes a violation of Article 167 of the Criminal Code of Puerto Rico (illegal collection of personal information). Here it is necessary to point out that Varona is one of the leaders of a New Progressive Party-affiliated organization called Fuerza Universitaria Estadista, which supports Ferrao and which, according to another of its leaders, was approached by Ferrao asking for partisan political support in his aspiration to be UPR president. The new president should be appointed as soon as possible because in addition to all these vicious campaigns and instances of low-handedness, we have been informed that there are people within the current central administration who are not doing anything to give the new president a healthy administrative organization, but quite the opposite. Whoever is responsible for the next decision to be made by the governing board will indicate if the university sinks or is saved. José M. Saldaña, DMD, MPH, is a former president of the University of Puerto Rico.

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The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

Gobernador anuncia someterá enmiendas al presupuesto que él presentó ante la Legislatura POR CYBERNEWS

A FORTALEZA – El gobernador Pedro Rafael Pierluisi Urrutia anunció que la delegación del Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP) en la Cámara de Representantes y el Senado presentarán el día de hoy viernes, ante la Asamblea Legislativa una Resolución de Presupuesto para el próximo año fiscal 2022-2023 que garantiza las pensiones a los retirados de Gobierno actuales y futuros, el pago de la deuda estructurada y la promoción de Puerto Rico como destino de inversión. “El presupuesto que hemos elaborado cuenta con los fondos para comenzar a hacerle justicia salarial a los servidores públicos; reclutar policías, bomberos y vigilantes de recursos naturales; invertir en la educación; mejorar los servicios de salud física y mental; seguir luchando contra la violencia de género; y combatir la pobreza. Las revisiones que le ha hecho la Junta de Control Fiscal (JCF) a nuestro presupuesto no afectaron la mayoría de las iniciativas que le presentamos desde febrero”, dijo Pierluisi Urrutia en un mensaje pregrabado.

En febrero pasado el gobernador presentó a la JCF un presupuesto consolidado de 28,785 millones de dólares para el próximo año fiscal. Sin embargo, y a pesar de que las proyecciones del Gobierno apuntan a que los recaudos superarán los estimados de la Junta, el ente fiscal insiste en reducir los gastos del Gobierno por 100 millones de dólares. “Para darte el gobierno de excelencia que tú y los tuyos quieren, tenemos que invertir aún más en nuestros servidores públicos, proveyéndoles salarios justos desde el principio del año fiscal, con particular atención a trabajadores sociales, oficiales de corrección, bomberos, paramédicos y personal del Instituto de Ciencias Forenses. Además, es momento de detener los recortes a los municipios, pues necesitamos que tengan los recursos para dar servicios esenciales y manejar los proyectos de reconstrucción. No vamos a claudicar en nuestra lucha”, reiteró el primer ejecutivo. Pierluisi adelantó que someterá enmiendas responsables al Plan Fiscal Certificado y presentará ante la JCF una certificación del Departamento de Hacien-

da que comprueba que los ingresos al fisco sobrepasarán los estimados y justifican el modesto incremento en el gasto público. “Después de todo, los fondos del pueblo son para el pueblo, no para acumularlos en las cuentas del Gobierno”, señaló. Otro punto vital que Pierluisi cuestionó a la JCF es por qué a pesar de que el Estado propuso una reducción significativa de contratos en el rango de servicios profesionales para obtener ahorros y así financiar los amentos salariales, la Junta se rehúsa a darle paso. “¿Quién puede oponerse a eliminar contratos en el Gobierno?”, preguntó Pierluisi al ente federal que también denegó fondos para programas como la Oficina de Enlace con la Comunidad Sorda y la Oficina de Protección y Defensa de Impedidos, ambos productos de leyes estatales, entre otros programas que requieren aumentos limitados para servirle bien la ciudadanía. Pierluisi Urrutia hizo un llamado a los legisladores de todas las delegaciones para defender a los servidores públicos, a los municipios y a la población con necesidades especiales porque dijo que, “estas causas las compartimos todos”.

Abogados de Wanda Vázquez se preparan para posibles acusaciones federales POR CYBERNEWS

AN JUAN – El licenciado Luis Plaza, abogado de defensa de la exgobernadora Wanda Vázquez Garced, aseguró que espera a que se le radiquen acusaciones contra la exmandataria sucesoral en el foro federal por irregularidades en su campaña. “Yo esperaría que haya algo, que venga algo y que sea algo bien técnico e interesante, contra ella. Lo esperaría porque, oye, el rum rum viene hace rato “, dijo el licenciado Luis Plaza en entrevista con Telenoticias. John Stanley Blackeman Ortiz, un supuesto colaborador y recaudador de la campaña primarista a la gobernación de Vázquez Garced, aceptaría un alegato de culpabilidad en el foro federal por financiamiento

ilegal de la campaña electoral. “Yo creo que en esta situación, las investigaciones aquí nadie sabe por donde van. Así que, en ese sentido, yo puedo decirle al pueblo de Puerto Rico que yo no he cometido ningún delito, que yo no he incurrido en ninguna conducta ilegal e incorrecta, como siempre se los he dicho”, dijo Vázquez Garced a Telenoticias. “Con ese señor que aparentaba ser el dueño de un banco, pues también me reuní como en unas gestiones oficiales”, dijo Vázquez Garced. ¿Hubo alguna solicitud de él en especial?, se le preguntó a la exgobernadora. “En ese momento no. Y yo no recuerdo ninguna… jamás”, respondió.

Adolescente de 15 años entre las cinco nuevas víctimas del COVID-19 según informe del DS POR CYBERNEWS

AN JUAN – El informe de COVID-19 del Departamento de Salud (DS) reportó el jueves sobre 1,121 casos positivos confirmados, 2,673 casos probables y cinco muertes. Las personas fallecidas fueron dos hombres,

un adolescente y dos mujeres de 15 a 88 años, de las regiones de Arecibo y Metropolitano. El monitoreo cubre el periodo del 26 de abril de 2022 al 10 de mayo de 2022. La tasa de positividad subió a 25.9 por ciento. Hay 263 adultos hospitalizados y de ellos, 36

están en intensivo. Mientras, 63 menores están hospitalizados y 2 están en intensivo. 23 adultos están en ventilador y un menor. Con una dosis hay al menos dos millones, 946 mil, 153 personas. Con las dosis completadas hay dos millones, 683 mil, 822 personas. El total de muertes atribuidas es de 4,245.

May 13-15, 2022

The San Juan Daily Star

A sci-fi writer returns to Earth: ‘The real story is the one facing us.’

The acclaimed science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson, in his home city of Davis, Calif., Nov. 24, 2021. By ALEXANDRA ALTER

ast fall, science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson was asked to predict what the world will look like in 2050. He was speaking at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, and the atmosphere at the summit — billed as the “last, best hope” to save the planet — was bleak. But Robinson, whose novel, “The Ministry for the Future,” lays out a path for humanity that narrowly averts a biosphere collapse, sounded a note of cautious optimism. Overcome with emotion at times, he raised the possibility of a near future marked by “human accomplishment and solidarity.” “It should not be a solitary daydream of a writer sitting in his garden, imagining there could be a better world,” Robinson told the crowd. It’s a hard time to be a utopian writer, or any sort of utopian. Disaster-filled dystopian stories abound in movies, television and fiction; news headlines verge on apocalyptic. Other masters of utopian speculative fiction — giants like Ursula K. Le Guin and Iain M. Banks — are gone, and few are filling the void. At the same time, utopian stories have never felt so necessary.

“You could probably name the most important utopian novels on the fingers of your hand,” Robinson said in an interview. “But they get remembered, and they shape people’s conception of what’s possible that could be good in the future.” At 70, Robinson — who is widely acclaimed as one of the most influential speculative fiction writers of his generation — stands as perhaps the last of the great utopians. It can be lonely work, he said. But lately, his writing has been having an impact in the real world, as biologists and climate scientists, tech entrepreneurs and CEOs of green technology startups have looked to his fiction as a possible road map for avoiding the worst outcomes of climate change. “There aren’t a lot of writers who have tried to take a literary approach to technical questions, and a technical approach to literary questions,” novelist Richard Powers said. In some ways, Robinson’s path as a science fiction writer has followed a strange trajectory. He made his name writing about humanity’s far-flung future, with visionary works about the colonization of Mars (“The Mars Trilogy”), interstellar, intergenerational voyages into deep space (“Aurora”), and humanity’s expansion into the far reaches

of the solar system (“2312”). But recently, he’s been circling closer to Earth, and to the current crisis of catastrophic warming. Futuristic stories about space exploration feel irrelevant to him now, Robinson said. He’s grown skeptical that humanity’s future lies in the stars, and dismissive of tech billionaires’ ambitions to explore space, even as he acknowledged, “I’m partially responsible for that fantasy.” In his more recent novels — works like “New York 2140,” an oddly uplifting climate change novel that takes place after New York City is partly submerged by rising tides, and “Red Moon,” set in a lunar city in 2047 — he has traveled back in time, toward the present. Two years ago, he published “The Ministry for the Future,” which opens in 2025 and unfolds over the next few decades, as the world reels from floods, heat waves, and mounting ecological disasters, and an international ministry is created to save the planet. “I decided that it was time to go directly at the topic of climate change,” Robinson said. “The real story is the one facing us in the next 30 years. It’s the most interesting story, but also the stakes are highest.” Robinson’s latest book, “The High Sierra: A Love Story,” is unlike any of his previous ones: It’s Robinson’s first major work of nonfiction, and the most personal thing he’s ever published. Over the book’s 560 pages, Robinson weaves together a geological, ecological and cultural history of California’s High Sierra mountains, with his own story of falling in love with the region as a young man in the 1970s and returning over the decades. Interspersed with dense chapters about granite composition, plate tectonics, glacier formation and the range’s flora and fauna — he describes marmots, the large, goofy-looking rodents that thrive there, as “great people” — Robinson recounts his adventures in the back country and reveals how they shaped him and his work. He includes snippets of poetry that he wrote while backpacking, describes experimenting with psychedelics in his 20s and recalls his relationships with his literary heroes — sci-fi writers like Le Guin and Joanna Russ, but also the Zen Buddhist poet Gary Snyder, who praised Robinson

for bringing “a whole new language” to his Sierra book. The book also offers a glimpse of how Robinson’s time in the wilderness instilled a reverence for the natural world that saturates his science fiction. Robinson often rooted his descriptions of Martian landscapes in his observations of the Sierra’s ethereal peaks, valleys and basins, sometimes repurposing notes from his hiking journals directly into his novels. When writing about space exploration, he drew on the sometimes otherworldly feeling that being in the mountains gave him — the exhilaration, isolation and sense of his own insignificance in a geological time frame. Being an in-demand, and somewhat reluctant, public intellectual has left Robinson struggling to find time to start a new novel. But he’s also been reassured by the enthusiastic response to his climate fiction, and has started to map out ideas for new work that builds on the story he told in “The Ministry for the Future,” he said. Writing utopian fiction is hard, Robinson said: It’s not easy to write a gripping story about the mechanisms that drive social progress. “Novels are really about what happens when things go wrong,” Robinson said. “If you propose plans for how things go right, it sounds like civics, it sounds like blueprints. A utopia’s architectural blueprints are, let me show you how the sewage system works so you don’t get cholera. Well, that doesn’t sound exciting.” But things can go horribly wrong on the road to utopia, as they do in “The Ministry for the Future,” which opens as a devastating heat wave in India kills millions of people. “As a utopia, it’s a very low bar,” Robinson said. “I mean, if we avoid the mass extinction event, we avoid everything dying, great, that’s utopia, given where we are now.” When Robinson is asked to forecast the future, as he often is, he usually hedges. He has argued that “we live in a big science fiction novel we are all writing together” — but he’s not sure if it’s going to be a utopian or dystopian one. “Nobody makes a successful prediction of the future,” he said. “Except for maybe by accident.”

The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

From the land of bold reds: 10 superb Spanish whites By ERIC ASIMOV

pain is overwhelmingly associated with red wines. Nonetheless, exceptions are easy to find. Albariños from Rías Baixas come to mind, and they have indeed become popular in the 30 years since Americans first became aware of them. Sherries are white wines, albeit fortified. Most cavas are white, too, though sparkling. Traditionally made white Riojas, like those from the great producer R. López de Heredia, can be among the most distinctive, singular wines in the world. On the whole, though, Spain brings to mind the world of red Riojas and Ribera del Dueros, Priorats and myriad others from the Mediterranean coast and the interior made of grapes like garnacha, monastrell and bobal. This is why I’ve been so intrigued over the past few years to taste such unusual and captivating white wines coming from every corner of Spain, from Galicia in the northwest to Catalonia in the northeast to Jerez in the south to the Canary Islands in the Atlantic. In early April I shopped in New York retail shops and came away with 10 fascinating Spanish whites that could come from nowhere else in the world. I won’t contend that they were easy to find. It helps for research to have Spanish restaurants with forward-looking wine lists, like Ernesto’s on the Lower East Side and Saint Julivert in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, and dedicated Spanish wine shops like Despaña Vinos y Mas. But the rewards of these wines are plentiful, even if, for now, you have to keep them in the back of your mind until you find yourself looking at a great Spanish wine list or stumbling upon a wine shop that has invested in Spain. What makes them so unusual? The grapes for a start. These bottles are made of albariño, palomino, treixadura, godello and garnacha blanca, among a few others. You may encounter them elsewhere, as in Spain’s Iberian neighbor Portugal, but not often beyond that. Most of all, though, it’s the combi-

A variety of Spanish white wines in New York, May 3, 2022. Eric Asimov writes that although Spain is overwhelmingly associated with red wines, he’s been intrigued over the last few years to taste such unusual and captivating white wines coming from every corner of Spain, from Galicia in the northwest to Catalonia in the northeast to Jerez in the south to the Canary Islands in the Atlantic. nation of searching for winemakers who are simultaneously looking backward and forward, conscientious farmers — just about all these wines are made from organic or biodynamically grown grapes or the equivalent — and Spain’s own singular wine culture. These 10 bottles are terrific examples of what I’m talking about, but plenty more are out there, including other cuvées from these producers. If you see whites from Goyo García Viadero, snap them up. Same with Partida Creus, MicroBio, Parés Baltà, Emilio Rojo, Comando G, Muchada-Léclapart and Recaredo. No doubt, plenty more could be added to this list. I’ll be interested to hear suggestions. My research is not remotely complete. Here are the 10 bottles, from least to most expensive. Callejuela Blanco de Hornillos 2019, 13%, $17 Pepe and Paco Blanco make excellent sherries from small parcels they farm in the Jerez region in Andalusia.

Recently, they began to make unfortified white wines like this one from palomino, the main sherry grape. You can taste the influence of the albariza soil along with the flor, the yeast that forms on the surface of fino sherry as it ages and provides its characteristic tang. This wine is pure, fresh and mineral, with that tinge of sherry. At $17, it’s an amazing value. (La Luz Selections/T. Edward Wines, New York) Zarate Rías Baixas Albariño 2020, 13%, $26 Eulogio Pomares, who makes the Zarate wines, thinks most albariños are intended for immediate consumption. He believes in making wines capable of aging. His technique? Using grapes from older vines farmed biodynamically, fermented naturally and aged on the lees; the residue of the yeast after fermentation is complete, which adds texture and character. This entry-level bottle may not last for years, but it’s definitely a cut above, bright, floral and stony. (The Rare Wine Co., Brisbane, California.) Cota 45 Ube Miraflores 2020, 12%, $31

I’m fascinated by the wines of Ramiro Ibañez of Cota 45, who is exploring the terroirs of Jerez through a series of unfortified wines made of palomino and other indigenous grapes. Jerez is of course best known for sherry, but Ibañez, the Blanco brothers and others have suggested an alternate regional history of multiple grapes with a focus on terroirs. Miraflores is a great introduction to the Cota 45 wines, savory and pure, highly suggestive of the best sherries yet different. As I said, I’m fascinated. (José Pastor Selections/Llaurador Wines, Fairfax, California.) Terroir Històric Priorat Blanc 2017, 13%, $35 Dominik Huber makes excellent Priorats and other Catalonian wines under the Terroir al Límit label. Terroir Históric, his second label, is dedicated to thirst-quenching, yet intriguing, wines that explore Huber’s conception of historic styles of the region. This bottle, a blend of garnacha blanca and macabeu that has been aged for six months in concrete, is tangy, herbal and surprisingly subtle. (European Cellars, Charlotte, North Carolina.) Laura Lorenzo Daterra Viticultores Manzaneda Gavela da Vila 2019, 12%, $35 Laura Lorenzo explores old vineyards and traditions largely in Galicia in northwestern Spain. Here’s another wine made from palomino: Though the grape is most known in Jerez and southern Spain, Lorenzo found an old vineyard on sandy granite soil. She fermented the wine in big old chestnut barrels with a brief skin maceration, so this is a mild orange cuvée, slightly tannic, fresh and alive. It has lingering flavors of dried fruits and flowers and an intriguing texture. (José Pastor Selections/Llaurador Wines) Nanclares y Prieto O Bocoi Vello de Silvia 2020, 12.5%, $37 This is a Rías Baixas albariño, although it’s not labeled that way. In addition to the wines they make from their own vines, the excellent producers Alberto Nan

Continues on page 22

WINE

AVISO PÚBLICO SOLICITUD DE DESLINDE DEL LÍMITE INTERIOR TIERRA ADENTRO DE LA ZONA MARÍTIMO TERRESTRE Este Aviso se publica a tenor con las disposiciones de la Ley Núm. 23 de 20 de junio de 1972, según enmendada, mejor conocida como la Ley Orgánica del Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales y el Reglamento Núm. 4860 de 29 de diciembre de 2009, Reglamento para el Aprovechamiento, Vigilancia, Conservación y Administración de la Aguas Territoriales, Terrenos Sumergidos Bajo Éstas y la Zona Marítimo Terrestre. La siguiente Solicitud de Deslinde del Límite Interior Tierra Adentro de la Zona Marítimo Terrestre ha sido radicada ante el Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales (DRNA). SOLICITUD NÚMERO: O-AG-CER02-PO-00034-11022022 PETICIONARIO: Agrim. Benigno Rodríguez Burgos DUEÑO: Bacardi Corporation LUGAR: PR.165, Km 6.2, Bo. Palmas, Cataño FECHA DE SOLICITUD: 11 de febrero de 2022 PROPÓSITO Deslinde de la Zona DEL DESLINDE: Marítimo -Terrestre Copia de esta Solicitud y otros documentos relacionados estarán disponibles al público mediante cita previa. La misma podrá ser solicitada de lunes a viernes de 8:00 a.m. a 3:30 p.m., en la Oficina de Secretaría, situada en el primer piso del Edificio de Agencias Ambientales, localizado en la carretera 8838, Km 6.3, Sector El Cinco, Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, o por correo a la siguiente dirección: DEPARTAMENTO DE RECURSOS NATURALES Y AMBIENTALES SAN JOSÉ INDUSTRIAL PARK, 1375 AVE PONCE DE LEÓN SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO 00926 Cualquier persona que desee una Vista Pública a la Solicitud antes mencionada, deberá presentar un escrito a tal efecto en el DRNA dentro de los treinta (30) días subsiguientes a la fecha de publicación de este Aviso. En el mismo, se hará constar en detalle los hechos en que funda sus derechos para intervenir. El Secretario del DRNA, a su discreción, podrá conceder la Vista Pública.

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From page 21 clares and Silvia Prieto supplement their production with grapes from other local farmers, as in this bottle. The grapes were foot-stomped, fermented with indigenous yeast and aged in traditional old chestnut barrels. The result is a subtle, textured wine with stony, floral flavors that linger long after you swallow. (José Pastor Selections/Llaurador Wines) Luis Anxo Rodríguez Vázquez Ribeiro A Teixa 2018, 12.5%, $45 Some of the most interesting white wines from Spain, like this bottle from Luis Anxo Rodríguez Vázquez, come from the Ribeiro region. Rodríguez farms tiny parcels throughout the region, focusing primarily on the treixadura grape and supplemented with other indigenous varieties. This bottle comes from a single vineyard on granite soils. It’s largely treixadura with smaller amounts of albariño and godello. It’s textured and minerally, with an attractive, almost grainy flavor that adds complexity. (José Pastor Selections/Llaurador Wines) La Perdida O Pando Orange 2020, 13%, $50 Nacho Gonzalez of La Perdida is a natural winemaker in the Valdeorras region of Galicia. He seeks out isolated, abandoned hillside vineyards — the name La Perdida means “the lost” — and farms them organically, bringing them back to health. This orange wine is made of godello grapes and fermented in clay amphora, where it ages with the skins for six months. It’s not particularly tannic, but the complex flavors of spices, flowers, herbs and

dried fruits are fascinating. (José Pastor Selections/Llaurador Wines) Envínate Vinos Atlánticos Palo Blanco 2020, 11.5%, $57 Evínate, a group of four friends, makes wonderful wines from different parts of Spain, with a particular focus on the Canary Islands. This wine is made of 100% lístan blanco, better known as palomino, grown in an ancient vineyard high up on Tenerife in the Canaries. It’s fascinating to compare this wine with the Callejuela Blanco, made of the same grape grown in the Jerez region, and the Laura Lorenzo palomino grown in Galicia. It has a completely different character with none of the sherry personality. Instead it has herbal, nutlike, mineral flavors that are subtle. Do not serve this wine too cold. (José Pastor Selections/Llaurador Wines) Do Ferreiro Rías Baixas Albariño Dous Ferrados 2018, 13.5%, $60 Gerardo Méndez of Do Ferreiro is another albariño master. For years, he concentrated on two cuvées, the straight-ahead bottle and one made from old vines that aged beautifully. Now, his son, Manuel, and daughter, Encarna, run Do Ferreiro, and those cuvées have been joined by a number of single-vineyard bottles like Dous Ferrados, a small, organically farmed plot on red slate soil. This wine is richer than either the Zarate or the Nanclares, with deep, floral, almost honeysuckle flavors. (De Maison Selections, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.)

The San Juan Daily Star

May 13-15, 2022

Phones do a number on our physical health By MELINDA WENNER MOYER

few years ago, my best friend texted me to confess that she was worried about her texting. Her hands and fingers ached throughout the day, and the pain worsened when she used her smartphone. Could our incessant texting about parenting and politics be the culprit? There isn’t much research yet on the effects that smartphone use can have on the body. “We don’t know a lot,” said Jessica B. Schwartz, a physical therapist based in New York and a spokesperson for the American Physical Therapy Association. But she and the doctors I spoke with said they were seeing more patients than ever with pain as well as joint and soft tissue ailments such as tendinitis in their fingers, thumbs, wrists, elbows, necks, shoulders and upper backs — and that mobile phones were most likely playing a part. When we text friends or browse the internet on our phones, we often use our muscles and joints in ways that strain them, Schwartz said. Looking down at our phones, as well as holding them in our hands with our wrists flexed as we scroll or text, require our joints and muscles to do things they did not evolve to do: stay in the same position for too long, hold too much weight and move repeatedly across a short range of motion. These positions and movements can put “undue forces” on joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments “that just aren’t used to being held in that position for so long,” said Dr. Renee Enriquez, a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Over time, these actions can cause inflammation, leading to pain and other problems, she said. Not all doctors are aware of these risks. When my friend saw her general practitioner about her hand pain, she underwent X-rays and blood tests and was told that she didn’t have arthritis. When she asked whether her smartphone could be causing the pain, her doctor said it was unlikely. She then saw another doctor, who ruled out carpal tunnel syndrome, and finally an orthopedic hand specialist, who laughed and said no when she asked — again — if her phone might be contributing to her pain. Yet Schwartz said that my friend’s symptoms were consistent with tendinitis — inflammation of the thick cords called tendons that attach muscle to bone — or tenosynovitis, inflammation of the lining of the sheath that

Health providers say they are seeing more patients than ever with pain and joint ailments in their hands, necks, shoulders and upper backs — and that mobile phones are most likely playing a part. surrounds the tendons. Studies have linked tenosynovitis of the thumb, which is called De Quervain’s tenosynovitis, to frequent smartphone use. Phone use could also worsen symptoms among people who already have arthritis. She told me that while so-called smartphone pinkie isn’t an established condition, using your pinkie to hold the weight of your phone could lead to problems. Signs of trouble ahead In addition to aches that could stem from inflammation in ligaments, joints, muscles, tendons and their sheaths, people can experience acute smartphone injuries. Dr. Jennifer Moriatis Wolf, an orthopedic hand surgeon at the University of Chicago Medicine, said that she had seen patients who sprained their thumbs because they gripped their phones so hard. Frequent phone use can also affect our nerves. When we hold our phones in front of us with our elbows bent, we compress the ulnar nerve, which runs from the neck to the hand. This constriction can cause numbness and weakness in the pinkie and ring fingers, Schwartz said. More generally, when any muscles, tendons or ligaments become inflamed through smartphone use, they can swell, which squeezes the nerves that run through them and leads to pain or numbness, Enriquez said. Mobile phone use could also exacerbate preexisting nerve issues, such as carpal tunnel syndrome,

Wolf added. Then there is the strain that smartphones can put on our eyes and the disruption that blue light can cause to our sleep cycles. “Text neck” is another term you might have heard. Consider what happens when you hunch over to look at your phone: Compared with holding your head upright, this bent-over position increases the force on your neck muscles and cervical spine by a factor of four or five, said Dr. Jason M. Cuéllar, an orthopedic spine specialist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and JFK North Hospital in West Palm Beach, Florida. This excess force, he said, can weaken the ligaments in the spinal column over time and cause pain. A 2017 study found a link between texting and sustained neck, shoulder and upper back pain, although other studies have not found a connection. The cervical spines of some young pa-

tients Cuéllar sees are also bent in abnormal ways. This could be related to frequent smartphone use, too, he said, and may increase the risk of back problems. “What we think that does is it leads to accelerated disc degeneration,” he said, referring to the deterioration of the spinal discs, small shock absorbers that sit between the vertebrae to help us move comfortably. “We’re seeing more younger people, in their 20s, often 30s, for cervical spine problems.” How to lessen the strain What should you do if your phone is causing you pain or if you’re worried it could eventually? Although my friend’s physicians pooh-poohed the idea that her phone had anything to do with her aching hands, she eventually got rid of her large smartphone and bought a smaller one to see if that would help. She also began using a voice-to-text option to reduce the strain on her fingers. Her pain quickly dissipated. Schwartz agreed that downsizing to a smaller, lighter phone could be a good idea if you have small hands and that the voice-totext tool can ease pain by reducing strain on your fingers. She and Enriquez recommended phone grips and stands like those made by PopSocket and Moft, too, which can take much of the strain of holding a phone off fingers and thumbs. Cuéllar said it could be helpful to use a stand that holds your phone at eye level, so you’re not straining your neck to see it. If you’re experiencing a lot of pain, it is a good idea to see a physical therapist or a doctor, such as an orthopedist or a physical medicine specialist, as they can recommend treatments and stretches, Schwartz said. “If you catch these things early, they don’t tend to become chronic,” she said. But if something causes you pain, the simplest solution is to stop doing it so much. In other words, Wolf said, “the best advice would be: Put down your phone.”

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May 13-15, 2022

Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets wins second MVP award By VICTOR MATHER

ikola Jokic, the Denver Nuggets center with the passing touch and shooting stroke of a guard, won the NBA’s Most Valuable Player Award for the second consecutive season. Jokic, 27, received 65 of 100 firstplace votes. Last season, he was the top choice of 91 of 101 voters from members of the news media and a fan vote. The 6-foot-11 Jokic stands out among big men with how he can score from inside and bang the boards, yet also hit from outside and find open teammates. He averaged 27.1 points per game during the regular season, the second most among centers, behind Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, who was the league’s overall scoring leader and finished second in the MVP voting with 26 first-place votes. Jokic was best among centers in assists, with 7.9 per game. His ability to palm the ball and execute passes, rebounds and floaters with one hand has been likened to a player in water polo, a game Jokic enjoyed as a child in Serbia, where the sport is phenomenally popular. His combination of skills has made him the focal point of the Nuggets’ sixth-ranked offense.

Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic became the first player in N.B.A. history with 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 500 assists in a season. Jokic’s statistics during the regular season were consistent with last season’s MVP figures, and he increased his defensive rebounding to 11 per game from eight. He ranked in the top 10 in points, assists and rebounds. He became the first player in NBA

history with 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 500 assists in a season. Only Wilt Chamberlain, Kevin Garnett and Oscar Robertson have come within 10% of those three figures in statistics for a single season. Jokic was a 19-year-old playing

for Mega Basket of Serbia in the Adriatic League when the Nuggets drafted him in the second round in 2014. Jusuf Nurkic and Gary Harris, Denver’s firstrounders that year through a trade with Chicago, drew the attention, while Jokic was considered a speculative pick. He came to the NBA in the 201516 season and finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting, averaging 10 points a game. By his fourth season, in 2018-19, he was averaging 20.1 points per game and had been named an AllStar. That season, he led the Nuggets to their first playoff berth in six years and their first playoff series win in 10. Denver made it to the conference finals in 2019-20. The loss of guard Jamal Murray for the 2021-22 season to a knee injury was a blow to the Nuggets, and as a sixth seed in the Western Conference playoffs, they lost in the first round to a hot Golden State team that was peaking at the right time, four games to one. The Nuggets’ future is always going to look bright with Jokic on the roster. He said last month that he expected to sign a supermax contract extension with the team. “If offer’s on the table of course I’m going to accept it,” Jokic said.

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May 13-15, 2022

Kyrie Irving wants the Nets, but do the Nets want him?

Nets guard Kyrie Irving during Game 4 of Brooklyn’s first-round playoff series against the Boston Celtics. By TANIA GANGULI

s the Brooklyn Nets’ disappointing season reached its end after they were swept by the Boston Celtics in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, Kyrie Irving made clear that he was committed to the Nets for the long term. But after a season in which Irving played only 29 of the 82 regular-season games because of his refusal to comply with a local vaccine ordinance, do the Nets want him back? That question loomed over the team’s season-ending news conference held earlier this week by general manager Sean Marks and coach Steve Nash. While Marks was reluctant to give a clear answer, that he didn’t immediately say “yes” spoke nearly as clearly as anything he could have said. The Nets haven’t decided yet if Irving can and should be part of their future. “I think we know what we’re looking for,” Marks said on Wednesday. “We’re looking for guys that want to come in here and be part of something bigger than themselves, play selfless, play team basketball, and be available. That goes not only for Kyrie but for everybody here.” That theme of availability persisted throughout Marks’ remarks, and has been challenging for the Nets’ star players. Irving and Kevin Durant signed with Brooklyn to great fanfare in 2019, but the Nets have yet to reap the benefits of adding two multiple-time All-Stars who had each won championships by themselves. Durant missed all of the 2019-20 season while recovering from an Achilles tendon injury he sustained in the 2019 NBA Finals with Golden State. Last season, they added James Harden through a

trade with Houston, creating what was supposed to be a formidable lineup. They lost to Milwaukee in the Eastern Conference semifinals last season despite 48 points in Game 7 from Durant, who hit a buzzer-beating 2-pointer to tie the game in regulation. His toe was on the 3-point arc — the shot was mere millimeters from being a game-winner. Rather than building on that, the Nets went backward this season. Irving declined to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, which meant he would not be able to play in games in Brooklyn or at Madison Square Garden for most of the season. The Nets initially decided they didn’t want a part-time player, and said Irving would not play until he was eligible for all of their games. They abruptly changed course in January and Irving began exclusively playing in road games outside New York and Toronto. On Wednesday afternoon, Marks declined to reconsider that decision, while again stressing the importance of a player’s availability. “When you have a player of Kyrie’s caliber, you try and figure out: How do we get him in the mix and how long can we get him in the mix for?” Marks said. “Because the team was built around saying, ‘Well, Kyrie and Kevin are going to be available.’” Irving’s absences made the Nets’ margins that much slimmer. Any time Durant or Harden were injured, that meant the team was down two starters instead of just one. As they dealt with coronavirusrelated absences, like many teams did, they had fewer players on whom to rely. “There were a variety of teams out there and the teams that are still playing to this day, they may not have had quite the extent of the excuses that we can come up with, but they had to navigate COVID as well, they had to navigate injuries,” Marks said. “And if I’m going to be brutally honest, they navigated it better than we did.” Harden tired of Irving’s absences and the challenges they posed. He was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers, who played in Game 6 of their second-round series against the Miami Heat on Thursday night. In the trade, the Nets acquired Ben Simmons, who didn’t play a game for them. Simmons had back surgery May 5 after an MRI showed a “herniation had expanded,” Marks said. In talking about the team’s big stars, Marks mostly spoke of Durant alone. He said Durant was a draw for other players around the league — that people wanted to play for him. He said Durant is the team’s best player development coach. He talked of wanting to involve Durant in personnel decisions, without asking him to actually make those decisions. “People think player empowerment means you

just let them do whatever they want to do,” Marks said. “That wasn’t the case when Steve was a player. That wasn’t the case when I was a player on any of the teams we’ve been on. That’s not the case here. I think involving players on key decisions at particular points in the season is the right way to do it. There’s nothing worse than having players surprised by something.” Whether Irving returns to the team is not just in the Nets’ hands. He has a player option for next season worth $36.5 million and is also eligible for an extension worth $200 million over five years. Should he decline his player option, he would become an unrestricted free agent. He showed his dynamism on the court in several games this season, scoring 50 points against the Charlotte Hornets in March and then 60 a week later against the Orlando Magic. But what use is that explosiveness if he isn’t playing? “I think there’s been far too much debate, discussion, scuttlebutt — whatever you want to call it — about distractions, and about things that really are outside of basketball,” Marks said. “Whereas we’d like to focus on doing some of the things that got us here in the first place.” Marks made that comment in his opening remarks during Wednesday’s news conference, before anyone had asked him about Irving. It fit, though, with the message he seemed to be sending throughout his news conference. It was a message to Irving about committing in a real way, not just contractually, to a team that could have used more of him this season.

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May 13-15, 2022

Bob Lanier, a dominant center of the 1970s and ’80s, dies at 73 By RICHARD SANDOMIR

ob Lanier, who as a center for the Detroit Pistons and Milwaukee Bucks in the 1970s and ’80s parlayed a deft left-handed hook shot, a soft midrange jumper and robust rebounding skills into a Hall of Fame career, died on Tuesday in Phoenix. He was 73. The NBA said he died after a short illness but provided no other details. Lanier, who stood 6-foot-11 and weighed about 250 pounds, excelled in an era of dominant centers like Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Nate Thurmond and Wes Unseld. “Guys didn’t change teams as much, so when you were facing the Bulls or the Bucks or New York, you had all these rivalries,” he told NBA.com in 2018. “Lanier against Jabbar! Jabbar against Willis Reed! And then Chamberlain and Artis Gilmore and Bill Walton! You had all these great big men, and the game was played from inside out.” He added: “It was a rougher game, a much more physical game that we played in the ’70s. You could steer people with elbows. They started cutting down on the number of fights by fining people more. Oh, it was a rough ’n’ tumble game.” As a Pistons rookie in the 1970-71 season, Lanier shared time at center with

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Lanier in his college years at St. Bonaventure, resting during a game against Marquette in 1969. A pair of his exceptionally large sneakers is in the collection of the Basketball Hall of Fame. Otto Moore. In his second season, as a full-time starter, he averaged 25.7 points and 14.2 rebounds a game, putting him in the league’s top 10 in both categories. “He understood the small nuances of the game,” Dave Bing, a Pistons teammate and fellow Hall of Famer, said in a video biography of Lanier shown on Fox Sports Detroit in 2012. “He could shoot the 18-to-20-footer as well as any guard. He had a hook shoot — nobody but Kareem had a hook shot like him. He could do anything he wanted to do.” Lanier wore what were believed to be size 22 sneakers. In 1989, however, a representative of Converse disputed that notion, saying that they were in fact size 18 1/2. Whatever their actual size, a pair of Lanier’s sneakers, bronzed, is in the collection of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. During nine full seasons with the Pistons, Lanier played in seven All-Star Games. He was elected Most Valuable Player of the 1974 All-Star Game, in which he led all scorers with 24 points. But the Pistons had only four winning seasons during his time with the team and never advanced very far in the playoffs. The roster was often in flux. Coaches came and went. Lanier dealt with knee injuries and other physical setbacks. “It was like a life unfulfilled,” he told Fox Sports Detroit.

In early 1980, with the Pistons’ record at 14-40, the team traded Lanier to the Milwaukee Bucks for a younger center, Kent Benson, and a first-round 1980 draft pick. Frustrated by the Pistons’ lack of success, Lanier had asked to be sent to a playoff contender. “I’m kind of relieved, but I’m kind of sad, too,” he told The Detroit Free Press. “I’ve got a lot of good memories of Detroit.” Lanier averaged 22.7 points and 11.8 rebounds a game with the Pistons. Robert Jerry Lanier Jr. was born on Sept. 10, 1948 in Buffalo, New York, to Robert and Nannie Lanier. Young Bob was 6-foot-5 by the time he was a sophomore in high school, and he played well enough there to be wooed by dozens of colleges. He chose St. Bonaventure University in upstate Allegany, New York. He was a sensation there, averaging 27.6 points and 15.7 rebounds over three seasons. In 1970, the Bonnies defeated Villanova to win the East Regional finals of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, sending them to the Final Four. But Lanier injured his knee during the game, forcing the Bonnies to face Jacksonville in the national semifinal game without him. St. Bonaventure lost, 91-83. “I didn’t even know at the time I tore my knee up,” Lanier told The Buffalo News in 2007. “But when I ran back down the court and tried to pivot, my

leg collapsed. I didn’t know at the time I had torn my MCL.” Lanier was still recuperating from knee surgery when the Pistons chose him No. 1 overall in the NBA draft; he was also chosen No. 1 by the New York (now Brooklyn) Nets of the American Basketball Association. He quickly signed with Detroit. Although he had statistically better years with the Pistons, Lanier enjoyed more team success with the Bucks (and also played in one more All-Star Game). Under coach Don Nelson, the Bucks won 60 games during the 1980-81 season, and they advanced to the Eastern Conference finals in 1982-83 and 198384. Lanier was also president of the players’ union, the National Basketball Players Association, and helped negotiate a collective bargaining agreement in 1983 that avoided a strike. Early in the 1983-84 season, his last as a player, Lanier became angry with Bill Laimbeer, the Pistons’ center, for riling him under the boards at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan. Lanier retaliated with a left hook that leveled Laimbeer and broke his nose. The act not only earned Lanier a $5,000 fine; it also delayed the retirement of his No. 16 jersey by the Pistons until 1993. The Bucks retired his number in late 1984. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992. In retirement, he owned a marketing firm and worked extensively with the NBA as a global ambassador and special assistant to David Stern, the league’s longtime commissioner, and Adam Silver, his successor. Lanier was also an assistant coach under Nelson with the Golden State Warriors during the 199495 season and replaced him as interim coach for the final 37 games of the season after Nelson’s resignation. Information on survivors was not immediately available. Lanier said that after he retired, he was less likely to be recognized by the public than when he was a player. After Shaquille O’Neal, one of the league’s most dominating centers, came along in the early 1990s, people figured he must have been O’Neal’s father, he told NBA. com in 2018. “‘You’re wearing them big shoes,’” he said people would tell him. “I just go along with it. ‘Yeah, I’m Shaq’s dad.’”

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May 13-15, 2022

Sudoku How to Play: Fill in the empty fields with the numbers from 1 through 9. Sudoku Rules: Every row must contain the numbers from 1 through 9 Every column must contain the numbers from 1 through 9 Every 3x3 square must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

Crossword

Answers on page 38

Wordsearch

GAMES

HOROSCOPE Aries

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May 13-15, 2022

(Mar 21-April 20)

Bolstered by an increase in confidence, you may decide to have another go at a project that you’ve only trifled with so far. With Mercury retrograde for three weeks, you shouldn’t expect it to be an immediate hit. It could take a lot longer to materialize than you anticipated. Still, getting others on board who share your enthusiasm, might make doing it so much more fun, Pisces.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

The Moon in your sign links with Jupiter and Mercury retro, so you may be trying hard to fit in with someone’s plans, even if there isn’t much chance of succeeding. Sometimes with the best will in the world, you have to admit defeat. And yet you could be fine with an unexpected invite that syncs perfectly with your schedule, and that makes your day special for all the right reasons.

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)

You may have an opportunity to up your inner game, or find that a vivid dream brings the creative breakthrough you’ve been hoping for. A powerful focus on a secluded sector might also bring a key issue into the open, and if so, this could be a turning point. If it’s overwhelming, it can be time to face it, and in doing so, find its hold over you gradually diminishes, Taurus.

An encounter could act as a catalyst to bigger and better things, Gemini. Someone you link up with can change your perspective on something, and encourage you to be more adventurous. There may be reasons why you feel like adopting a cautious approach, but this is an opportunity to expand your vision. Of course, it helps to be practical, but you can do more than you think. The opportunity to be in the spotlight may be yours. So, if you have something important to share, this is the time to do so. With powerful energies in the mix, your passionate feelings about an issue or subject could encourage others to support you. With charming Venus working her magic, you’ll be savvy in a sociable way, so you’ll easily impress those with influence, Cancer.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

Upbeat developments in your lifestyle zone may be on their way, but you can help things along by following any intuitive nudges. The days ahead might have a powerful impact, and playing your part could be crucial to enjoying a more abundant phase. Notice what gets you excited, and be ready to explore further. It may be that trusting your gut is the best thing to help yourself.

Although you may be busy with everyday tasks, your chart highlights an upbeat influence that could encourage you to make time for another regardless. In fact, going out of your way for this person might be something you’re happy to do, even if you have pressing issues on the go. They can be more appreciative of your attention than you know, and keen to return your kindness. Thinking of a move or expanding your current property? Whatever is on your mind, you may be looking for a fuller and happier family life. This might mean relocating, or working with what you have, to make it better. There could be one idea that you’ve considered that seems too way out or adventurous. If it won’t go away, perhaps it’s time to discuss it and see how others feel.

Aquarius

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

The Moon in Libra opposes Jupiter and Mercury retro, which can put you in two minds about something. Do you go forward in a blaze of enthusiasm, or hold back and see how things pan out first? This isn’t the time to water down your plans, and yet you may face delays and unexpected obstacles. If you want this badly enough, go for it, and take things one day at a time for now.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is how interested people are in something you do, that you might not have paid much attention to. This is a great time to showcase your skills, even if you doubt others will notice. Cue the coming Eclipse! Someone could see potential here that you can’t, and this may be the start of something big. It’s time to get your work out there, where it will be seen.

Virgo

Pisces

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

As Mercury continues to regress, you might find yourself treading water for a while. This may be a chance to take stock. If your plans are up in the air and nothing seems to be working out as it should, then focus on what you can do. You could feel that some things aren’t worth continuing, while others might hold such promise, that you’ll wonder why you never noticed before.

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

Ready for something fresh? As the Moon faces off with Uranus, a conversation could leave you excited about something you’d never considered, Pisces. If it has the potential to make a big difference to your life, then explore further. You might also be keen to invest in your spiritual development by taking up a course or class that reduces anxiety and enhances inner calm.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 37

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May 13-15, 2022

CARTOONS

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

For Better or for Worse

Herman

Ziggy

May 13-15, 2022

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