Thursday Nov 12, 2020

Thursday, November 12, 2020

San Juan The

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Another Confusing Day of Ballot Counting P5 PRNG Adj. General: If Everything Goes Well, COVID-19 Vaccine Will Be in PR by December

DAILY

Star

‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Starts New Debate About Sexism in Chess P21

PDP Chooses House, Senate Leaders

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NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 19

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Thursday, November 12, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

GOOD MORNING

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November 12, 2020

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

COVID-19 vaccine could roll out in Puerto Rico before the end of the year

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uerto Rico National Guard Adj. Gen. José Reyes said Wednesday that if everything goes well in the development of the vaccine to prevent COVID-19, the first stage of vaccination could begin before the end of the year.

“In the case of us in the Department of Defense, we have the logistics part, everything that [involves] the inventory, transportation of that vaccine,” Reyes said in an interview on “Pegaos en la Mañana” on Radio Isla 1320 AM. “Pfizer is already in phase 3; it is the last phase of the clinical study.”

“Currently Pfizer is conducting this clinical study with about 42,000 people, of which 35,000 in midSeptember were given the second vaccination dose,”

From E 12 mph 89% 4 of 10 6:28 AM Local Time 5:47 PM Local Time

he said. “That vaccine that is being developed takes two doses. The first and the second within that first month.”

“A decision also made by the federal government was to give Pfizer the green light in the production of this vaccine,” Reyes added. “We are talking about this first phase of about 100 million vaccines” with an investment of $12 billion.

The U.S. Army major general noted that if everything goes well in the development of the vaccine, then before the end of the year “the distribution of these 100 million [doses] through 54 states and territories can begin.”

Reyes said that in the first distribution phase, Puerto Rico would receive close to a million doses of the vaccine. The vaccination process would begin in December.

INDEX Local 3 Mainland 7 Business 11 International 14 Viewpoint 18 Noticias en Español 19 Entertainment 20

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

PDP chooses Legislature leaders

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

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fter Popular Democratic Party (PDP) President Carlos Delgado Altieri had invalidated on Monday a previous legislative conference, PDP leaders reunited Wednesday at their headquarters in Puerta de Tierra to vote for the next leaders of both legislative chambers.

At-large senator-elect José Luis Dalmau unanimously became the Senate president, earning the confidence of the party’s full delegation to the upper chamber.

“I appreciate that trust, and that trust I am going to return to the people of Puerto Rico,” said Dalmau as he recognized his colleagues “for rescuing senatorial districts” by bringing them back to the PDP. The Senate president added that “we have to compose a very diverse Senate” as every constituent party, including the New Progressive Party, Puerto Rican Independence Party, Citizens Victory Movement, Dignity Project, and independent senator-elect José Vargas Vidot will have representation in the upper chamber.

“There’s the possibility that the Senate might have five spokespeople, that if we include the majority, we might have six spokespeople; this is a great challenge which has the parliamentary right expressed in the Puerto Rico Senate,” Dalmau said as he invited other parties to open themselves up for dialogue.

As for senator-elect Juan Zaragoza, who had been mentioned as being interested in leading the Senate, Dalmau said no voting session was needed as the former Treasury secretary agreed to support Dalmau after conversations between the two following the primary elections.

Meanwhile, Zaragoza said that “what prevailed during

the process was the desire to carry the message that the Senate and the PDP delegation are united.”

As for becoming the Senate vice president if current senator Anibal José Torres is not re-elected, Zaragoza said he would be up for other leadership roles “if the group agrees with it.”

As for the House, at press time, although media outlets reported that Hernández was elected by a 14-12 vote over representative-elect Jesús Manuel Ortiz as House speaker, PDP spokesperson José Cruz said that “all information about the voting session that has been released is false.”

“The PDP Secretary-General left the meeting because he is finding out about all the information and asked us to tell the media that, at the moment, all information about the voting session is not correct,” said Cruz.

The tight voting session has come amid a controversy that began last Friday when in a caucus Hernández claimed victory as House speaker along with José “Conny” Varela and Lydia Méndez as vice presidents. Afterward, Ortiz said “it wasn’t the time to hand out positions” given the absence of other legislators at the caucus.

Before Wednesday’s meeting, San Juan District 2 representative-elect Luis Raúl Torres arrived at PDP headquarters saying he was going to vote for Ortiz because “he represents what the people voted for.”

“As for him, and the majority of young leaders who are entering the House, he represents that new vision,” Torres said. “The difference that Jesús Manuel Ortiz established over [Rafael] ‘Tatito’ Hernández is that he combines youth and public experience.”

When a member of the press asked if he was changing his vote from Hernández to Ortiz, Torres replied that the premise was wrong as “no one was able to vote in that [Friday] session.”

At-large senator-elect José Luis Dalmau unanimously became the Senate president, earning the confidence of the party’s full delegation to the upper chamber. (Pedro Correa Henry) “Tatito gathered his 16 supporters, and I was on Zoom, and they pushed me out from Zoom, he called me through my phone, and some nominations began. They nominated Tatito as speaker, they nominated the other one as vice speaker, they nominated another one, and what they said was: ‘Is there another candidate? No? [Elected] unanimously,’” he said. “There was no roll call for that voting session; it wasn’t a direct voting session. I was not supporting one, and then supporting the other. That is false.”

Meanwhile, Torres told reporters that it was still premature to vote for the House speaker and Senate president, noting that they should wait for the final certification from the State Elections Commission (SEC).

“No one here is elected. We are still in vote counting at the [Roberto Clemente] Coliseum, and some seats have narrow margins. My contest has only a 160-vote difference [from New Progressive Party District 3 candidate Ricardo ‘Chino’ Rey Ocasio],” Torres said. “But the governing board made a choice that, to prevent this controversy, we had to call this session; the possibly elected candidates were called, [and] we must vote now and those [votes] will be counted.”

According to the most recent results from the SEC, the PDP has just 26 seats, the minimum required for a parliamentary majority.

Culebra residents to sue SEC over disappearance of early ballots

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

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ttorney Frank Torres Viada announced Wednesday that Culebra residents are going to sue the State Elections Commission related to the disappearance of a

ballot container, or briefcase, with 20 early voting ballots.

“This is a group of plaintiffs who exercised their right to vote through the mechanism of early voting at home and those votes were deposited in a briefcase in Culebra, sealed and sent to the State Elections Commission, as has been publicly disclosed,” Torres Viada said in a radio interview.

“Given the disorganization of the vote count, as admitted by the chairman of the State Elections Commission, since this briefcase appears to be lost, the votes of those voters have not been able to be counted,” the attorney said.

“What this group of voters is requesting is that the Puerto Rico [Superior] court order the Commission, in protection of their fundamental constitutional right to vote, to take all the necessary steps to guarantee that this briefcase appears, that those votes can be counted, awarded and that they may be part of the general scrutiny and the count that is scheduled for the Municipality of Culebra as well as for other municipalities in Puerto Rico,” Torres Viada added.

“And in the alternative that the briefcase does not appear and remains lost, then that an adequate mechanism is provided so that these voters can vote again.”

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

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SEC begins counting ballots from unopened containers as disorganization, uncertainty persist

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

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lectoral officers on Wednesday began counting early vote ballots from the unopened containers that the State Elections Commission (SEC) found Monday in vaults at Roberto Clemente Coliseum.

Around 60 tables were set up on the main floor where electoral officers from each political party were installed to oversee the contents. Each official wore garments with colors associated with their affiliated party, while some used face masks with specific colors, such as lime green or turquoise.

Earlier in the morning, SEC Chairman Francisco Rosado Colomer said on radio outlets that 3,000 to 4,000 ballots were found, although spokesperson Griselle López told reporters that “there’s no official number available.”

“We now have electoral officers counting out every ballot that we’re finding inside the containers,” López said. “We can’t give an exact number yet.”

New Progressive Party (NPP) gubernatorial candidate Pedro Pierluisi’s electoral representative, Edwin Mundo, told members of the press that, out of the 182 ballot containers that were found, 125 actually contained ballots. The rest were empty, he said.

“No ballot container was lost; they were consolidated,” Mundo said. “I’ve always said that this is like a cake. You could slice the cake into 40 pieces, but it’s still one cake. As for the 126th container, there was one container that had a counting machine inside, [but] it wasn’t one filled with ballots, so I don’t count that.”

Meanwhile, Mundo said more ballots could pop up at the commission, which is still waiting for mail-in votes.

“If a ballot comes with a postmark after Nov. 3, it will be discarded,” he said. “If they have a postmark from or before Nov. 3, they will be counted.”

Mundo said “my people informed me that there were 6,646 ballots; only six of them are municipal ballots from San Juan.”

“San Juan is long over. You have to know how to lose,” he said, referring to the Citizens Victory Movement’s insistence that its candidate Manuel Natal Albelo still has a chance to overtake the NPP’s Miguel Romero in the San Juan mayor’s race. “The more [votes] they count, the more advantage Romero will have. The ones who lost must raise their hands and start [preparing their campaign] for four years from now,” he said.

“Manuel had a very good campaign, for it being his first one.”

When the Star asked Mundo if it was appropriate for the NPP candidates to claim victory when the SEC hasn’t yet certified any candidate, Mundo replied that the SEC released a preliminary certification 72 hours after the electoral event so the candidate can appoint a transition committee, as Article 10.8 of the Electoral Code states.

It was pointed out that such a determination was taken from the 2011 Electoral Code, as Article 10.8 of the current code states that “when partial or preliminary results in an election cast a 100-vote, or 0.5 percent difference or less of the total of awarded votes for the seat, the Commission issues a vote recount in the [voting stations] that make up the geo-electoral demarcation of the candidacy affected by this narrow result.”

Mundo responded that “the recall is part of the process, and scrutiny is part of the process, and everyone has to be notified that they have rights.”

However, as reporters corroborated the numbers provided

by Pierluisi’s electoral representative, Puerto Rican Independence Party Electoral Commissioner Roberto Iván Aponte said “he wouldn’t dare to give any numbers” as some containers

had early voting requests.

“I’m not going to predict any numbers. I’ve always said to listen to either the SEC chairman or the SEC associate chairman [Jessika Dory Padilla Rivera],” he said, emphasizing that neither politicians nor electoral commissioners have official numbers available.

Aponte added that “a final certification is what will prevail after the general scrutiny.”

Meanwhile, although NPP Electoral Commissioner Héctor Joaquín Sánchez said he wasn’t going to commit to saying how many ballots remained to be counted, he estimated that there were fewer than 10,000 ballots left.

“I was the only party [electoral commissioner] that advocated to continue the ballot count,” Sánchez said. “If we didn’t stop it, we would have been in another place.”

PREPA asks US District Court to nullify contract with oil supplier in effort to recover nearly $4 billion

By THE STAR STAFF

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he Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) wants the U.S. District Court to declare that its contracts with oil supplier Vitol SA (VSA) are null and void from the date of their signing, so the authority can recover $3.9 billion it has paid to the firm.

The latest petition filed this week is part of a suit filed by PREPA against VSA that began in the local courts in 2009 and is now in federal court.

PREPA sued VSA in 2009 in commonwealth court to recover payments it made to VSA and to Vitol Inc. (VIC), which is part of VSA, under six fuel supply contracts that PREPA says were obtained in violation of Act 458 of 2000, the island’s anti-corruption law. The case was sent to the U.S. District Court last year.

Local anti-corruption laws ban PREPA from hiring contractors previously con-

victed of certain crimes or with their subsidiaries, rendering such contracts null from the start. Act 458 requires bidders for PREPA contracts to reveal if they are targets of investigations and whether they have prior convictions.

Vitol told PREPA that it was not being investigated despite knowing as early as April 2004 that the United Nations was investigating the oil supplier for paying kickbacks to Iraqi officials in exchange for oil contracts under the U.N. Oil-for-Food

Programme. VSA was charged with having paid the Iraqi government about $13 million in bribes in exchange for the oil contracts. In November 2005, VSA also learned the New York district attorney was probing its alleged criminal conduct.

PREPA saysVitol hid the investigations from the utility, ordering employees not to comment on the probes to the press or within the industry.

Vitol officials also never notified PREPA of VSA’s conviction. After learning of the conviction in 2009, PREPA suspended Vitol from its Registry of Bidders.

“By then, PREPA already had paid billions of dollars to a disqualified entity at a time when Puerto Rico was in financial crisis and could least afford the improper expenditure of public funds,” the filing said.

PREPA is seeking not only the nullification of the contract but the return of billions in payments.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

Gov't bond insurer raises claims payment percentages

By THE STAR STAFF

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he company that insures bonds from the Puerto Rico Highways and Transportation Authority (HTA) and the Puerto Rico Convention Center District Authority has increased certain insurance costs.

Financial Guaranty Insurance Co. (FGIC) said earlier this week it will pay increased aggregate cash amounts related to the policies covering some of the authorities’ bonds.

The FGIC says its 2013 rehabilitation plan defines the timing and amount of payments from FGIC on account of its policies covering the bonds. Consistent with the rehabilitation plan, FGIC recently announced that the New York State Department of Financial Services approved an increase in FGIC’s claims payment percentage to 44.5 percent from 43.5 percent.

“Accordingly, FGIC will pay increased aggregate cash amounts related to the FGIC Policies,” several filings sent to the markets this week state.

The company insures bonds for the Puerto Rico Convention Center District Authority.

In the Electronic Municipal Market Access filing, the HTA said FGIC announced an increase to 44.5 percent from 43.5 percent on its claims payment percentage as approved by the New York State Department of Financial Services.

The expected distribution date is Nov. 16, according to the filing.

Separately, the Convention Center District Authority also announced the same upward adjustment in FGIC’s claims payment percentage, and the notice filed, by trustee Bank of New York Mellon, indicates that the expected distribution date is also Nov. 16.

In further compliance with the plan, the Puerto Rico Fiscal Agency and Financial

Advisory Authority understands that FGIC will transfer to the island’s fiscal agent the DPO, or days payable outstanding, Accretion Payment Amount, the statement says.

Bond insurance, also known as “financial guaranty insurance,” is a type of insurance whereby an insurance company guarantees scheduled payments of interest and principal on a bond or other security in the event of a payment default by the issuer of the bond or security. It is a form of “credit enhancement” that generally results in the rating of the insured security being the higher of the claims-paying rating of the insurer or the rating the bond would have without insurance.

The insurer is paid a premium by the issuer or owner of the security to be insured.

The premium may be paid as a lump sum or in installments. The premium charged for insurance on a bond is a measure of the perceived risk of failure of the issuer. It can also be a function of the interest savings realized by an issuer from employing bond insurance or the increased value of the security realized by an owner who purchased bond insurance.

UPR president requests investigation into Klumb House fire

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

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uerto Rico has lost a historic architectural jewel, University of Puerto Rico (UPR) President Jorge Haddock said Wednesday as he requested an investigation by the Department of Public Safety to find out the causes of a fire in the Klumb House, a center of instruction for the UPR School of Architecture on the university’s flagship Río Piedras Campus in San Juan.

Haddock stressed that the Klumb House is an architectural work of great importance for UPR and the island for its value as a historical heritage and contribution to the educational training of students.

“Our plans have always been the conservation and restoration of the Klumb House for the benefit of the university community and of all Puerto Ricans,” the UPR president said. “The structure suffered damage as a result of Hurricane Maria, and upon my arrival in 2018, I established a work plan to accelerate the

development of infrastructure projects at the UPR.” The process required by the Federal Emergency Management Agency had been completed and was awaiting the allocation of funds, Haddock said.

“In addition, the Klumb House is listed on the list of priority projects to receive new income through our philanthropy plan,” he said. “Despite the magnitude of the damage caused by the fire, we will be conducting a responsible and thorough evaluation, with the support of experts from our institution, to determine the possibility of restoring the structure, which served as a classroom for the students of the School of Architecture of the Río Piedras Campus.”

The UPR president said he also contacted the director of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, Carlos Ruiz, to request the collaboration of specialists in conservation and restoration.

“I appreciate his immediate [involvement] and support in this process,” Haddock said.

The Henry Klumb House was a significant example of modern movement architecture in the Caribbean. Renowned German-born architect Henry Klumb, a former student and chief draftsman of Frank Lloyd Wright, designed the home for himself after he settled in Puerto Rico in 1944. Following Klumb’s death in 1984, the site was purchased by the University of Puerto Rico and used sporadically for several years. (World Monuments Fund)

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

7

Who are contenders for Biden’s cabinet?

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

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resident-elect Joe Biden has signaled his intention to draw from a diverse cross section of America in building his Cabinet. Unlike President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, which is more white and male than any in nearly 40 years, Biden’s list of likely top advisers promises to reflect 21st-century sensibilities.

“Across the board — from our classrooms to our courtrooms to the president’s Cabinet — we have to make sure that our leadership and our institutions actually look like America,” Biden wrote in an op-ed last summer.

In naming the group, Biden must appease progressives within his own party while gaining support from Republicans who may still control the Senate. Biden is likely to include Republicans in his Cabinet as he attempts to engineer a working relationship between the parties.

Biden’s transition team, led by former Sen. Ted Kaufman of Delaware, a longtime confidant, already has been working on a list of candidates.

These are names that have emerged as possible picks for posts.

— Agriculture Department Heidi Heitkamp: A former North Dakota senator who served on the Agriculture Committee, Heitkamp is a strong advocate for rural issues. She has criticized the Trump administration’s trade policies, which led to tariffs on soybean exports to China.

Amy Klobuchar: A Minnesota senator, former prosecutor in Minneapolis and candidate for the Democratic nomination, Klobuchar, who was at one point in contention for Biden’s running mate, has advocated increasing support for agricultural commodities, disaster programs and federal crop insurance.

(Klobuchar has also been mentioned as a possible attorney general.)

— CIA Tom Donilon: Donilon, who served as national security adviser under President Barack Obama, has been tied to Biden since 1987, when he worked on his first presidential campaign.

A lawyer, he also oversaw the transition planning for the ClintonKaine campaign in 2016.

Avril Haines: A former deputy CIA director and former deputy national security adviser, Haines has held several posts at Columbia University since leaving the Obama administration.

(Haines has also been mentioned as a candidate for director of national intelligence.)

Mike Morell: Morell is a former foreign service officer who served as both CIA deputy director and twice as its acting director.

He is now in private business, chairing the geopolitical risk practice at Beacon Global Strategies, a consulting firm in Washington.

— Defense Department Tammy Duckworth: A former Army lieutenant colonel who lost both legs when her helicopter came under fire in Iraq in 2004, Duckworth, a senator from Illinois, was an assistant secretary of veterans affairs during the Obama administration. She was among women considered as Biden’s running mate. If appointed, she would become the first Thai American Cabinet member in addition to the first woman in the role of defense secretary. (Duckworth has also been mentioned as a potential secretary of veterans affairs.)

Michèle A. Flournoy: Flournoy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense, is regarded as the leading choice for this job.

Flournoy, who would be the first woman in this role, has advised Biden’s campaign on defense issues and is regarded as highly

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has said that he wants a cabinet that reflects 21st-century sensibilities. qualified. Her industry ties — she serves on the board of the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton — could annoy progressives.

Jeh Johnson: Johnson is a former secretary of homeland security who previously served as general counsel at the Pentagon.

He would be the first Black secretary of defense. His membership on the board of the defense contractor Lockheed Martin could be a sticking point for progressives. (Johnson has also been mentioned as a candidate for attorney general and director of national intelligence.)

— Director of National Intelligence Susan M. Gordon: Gordon was a principal deputy director of national intelligence in the Trump administration, a post from which she resigned in 2019 after the president did not promote her to director of national intelligence. Gordon began her intelligence career nearly 40 years ago as an analyst at the CIA, rising to senior executive positions at the agency. (Gordon has also been mentioned as a possible CIA director.)

Lisa Monaco: The top adviser on homeland security to Obama, Monaco has had a long and varied government career. At the Justice Department, she was an assistant attorney general for national security and served as chief of staff to former FBI director Robert Mueller. She has long-standing ties to Biden, having worked during the 1990s on his Senate Judiciary Committee staff, where she helped craft the Violence Against Women Act. — Education Department Lily Eskelsen García: A former teacher and former president of the National Education Association, a labor union, Eskelsen García ran for Congress in Utah in 1998 and campaigned for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race.

Randi Weingarten: Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, is a former Brooklyn public high school teacher who previously served as president of the United Federation ofTeachers.

— Energy Department Jay Inslee: After failing to gain traction in his presidential bid — in which climate change was his primary focus — Inslee was easily reelected to a third term as Washington’s governor.

Environmental activists are promoting his name, pointing to his plan to close U.S. coal plants by 2030 and reach net-zero emissions by

2045. (Inslee has also been promoted for appointment as secretary of the interior or head of the Environmental Protection Agency.)

Ernest Moniz: A nuclear physicist, Moniz served in the Obama administration as energy secretary, a job that largely involves managing the country’s nuclear arsenal. He played a critical role in negotiating technical details of the Iran nuclear deal. Since leaving the administration, he has been chief executive of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which works to prevent nuclear, biological and cyber attacks.

Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall: Sherwood-Randall is a professor at Georgia Tech who served in the Obama administration as deputy secretary of energy, where she managed the National Nuclear Security Administration and 17 federal laboratories.

She also served as a White House adviser on weapons of mass destruction and arms control. During the Clinton administration, she worked as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia.

— Health and Human Services Department Mandy Cohen: As the secretary of North Carolina’s Health and Human Services Department, Cohen is known for her ambitious effort to transform the way the state pays for health care. A physician, Cohen served as the chief operating officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the Obama administration.

David Kessler: A former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Kessler, a physician, was credited with tackling the tobacco industry and helping speed approval of more than a dozen drugs to treat HIV. In doing so, he worked closely with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert.

Michelle Lujan Grisham: Grisham, the governor of New Mexico and a former member of Congress, also previously served as Cabinet secretary for New Mexico’s departments of health and aging. Grisham, who was among those considered for Biden’s running mate, was recently appointed as one of five co-chairs of Biden’s transition team. (Grisham also has been mentioned as a possible interior secretary.)

Vivek Murthy: One of Biden’s top advisers on the coronavirus, Murthy is a former surgeon general and an outspoken advocate of more stringent gun control.

— Homeland Security Department Val Demings: Demings, a member of Congress from Florida, is a former Orlando police chief with a 27-year career in law enforcement. She was among the women considered by the Biden team as a running mate.

Alejandro Mayorkas: A Cuban American lawyer, Mayorkas was responsible for running Citizenship and Immigration Services at the department under Obama. He also served as a federal prosecutor in central California. Under Obama, Mayorkas was regarded as instrumental in negotiating a memorandum of understanding with Cuba.

— Housing and Urban Development Department Karen Bass: Bass, a longtime member of Congress from California, chairs the Congressional Black Caucus. A community organizer before she entered politics, she is well-versed on the housing challenges facing her South Los Angeles district. She was among the women Biden considered as his running mate.

(A physician assistant by training, Bass has also been mentioned as a potential secretary of health and human services.)

Continues on page 8

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Thursday, November 12, 2020

From page 7 Alvin Brown: A former mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, Brown was an adviser to Andrew Cuomo during his tenure as secretary of housing and urban development, worked on the Clinton-Gore transition team, and served at the Commerce Department during the Clinton administration.

Maurice Jones: Jones, a top deputy at the department during the Obama administration, currently runs the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a financial institution that makes loans and provides grants to assist underserved communities. Jones also served as Virginia’s secretary of commerce under Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

Keisha Lance Bottoms: The mayor of Atlanta, Bottoms has been a campaign surrogate for Biden and was among the women he considered as a running mate. Bottoms has made affordable housing a priority, proposing a $1 billion public-private initiative to improve access to housing in Atlanta.

DianeYentel:Yentel leads the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a Washington-based nonprofit group that successfully opposed many ofTrump’s proposed cuts to federal housing programs.

— Interior Department Steve Bullock: The governor of Montana, Bullock recently lost a close Senate race to Steve Daines, a Republican incumbent.

Bullock has been active in environmental issues: In 2014, he signed an executive order creating a habitat for sage grouse, and as state attorney general he wrote an opinion guaranteeing access to public lands.

Deb Haaland: Indigenous groups are promoting New Mexico Rep. Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe. The Interior Department presides over millions of acres held in trust as tribal land. Haaland serves as vice chairwoman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Martin Heinrich:Yet another New Mexico resident mentioned for the interior job, Sen. Heinrich, an avid outdoorsman, has promoted the idea of developing a national outdoor recreation plan using federal lands.

Tom Udall: A New Mexico senator who decided not to run for a third term, Udall has fought to protect federal property from oil and gas drilling and has promoted the designation of wilderness areas in New Mexico. If Udall is picked, he will be keeping up a family tradition: His father, Stewart Udall, served as interior secretary during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

— Justice Department Xavier Becerra: Becerra has developed a progressive track record as a California state official and during his career in Congress.

He succeeded Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as California attorney general and is now widely viewed as a possible heir to her Senate seat.

Doug Jones: Following his unlikely Senate win in a special election in deep-red Alabama in 2017, Jones, a former federal prosecutor, was unable to hold on to his seat this year. He is widely admired within the party for pulling off that upset, as well as for his impeccable civil rights record. He is white, though, and some of Biden’s supporters may want the Justice Department in the hands of a Black or Latino attorney general.

Tom Perez: The Democratic Party chairman, Perez has a long career in government, notably as secretary of labor and, earlier, as assistant attorney general for civil rights. In that role, he led a federal investigation of Trayvon Martin’s killing in Sanford, Florida, brought a lawsuit against Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio for a

pattern of abuses against Latinos, and enforced civil rights laws for gay and transgender people. (Perez has also been mentioned as a candidate for labor secretary.)

SallyYates:Yates, a former U.S. attorney in Atlanta and deputy attorney general, briefly held the role of acting attorney general during the early weeks of the Trump administration. Her tenure lasted 10 days; she was fired for insubordination by Trump when she advised him that the Justice Department could not defend his ban on travel to the United States by citizens of several Muslimmajority countries.

— Labor Department Seth Harris: Harris, a former deputy labor secretary who served as acting secretary in 2013, also advised the Obama administration on legislation before the Senate. A lawyer, he is a fellow at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Andy Levin: The Michigan congressman is a former labor organizer for the Service Employees International Union and later the AFL-CIO, where he was assistant director of organizing. He also worked as a staff lawyer in the Labor Department.

Bernie Sanders: The Vermont senator is interested in serving as labor secretary, according to a person close to him, and his camp and Biden’s team have been seriously discussing the possibility since he withdrew from the presidential race in April. There is no deal, and it is still unclear what role Sanders would play in a Biden administration.

Julie Su: Su is the secretary of California’s Labor and Workforce Development Agency and a former California labor commissioner.

She is an expert on workers’ rights and a past recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant.

— National Security Adviser Antony Blinken: An aide to Biden on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Blinken has served as Biden’s top foreign affairs adviser. He served as deputy secretary of state during the Obama administration, as well as deputy national security adviser. More recently, he has been managing director of the Penn Biden Center, an international policy center at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also been a contributing opinion writer for the The New York Times.

— State Department William J. Burns: Burns, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is a retired foreign service officer and former ambassador to Russia and Jordan. A former deputy secretary of state and special assistant to secretaries Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright, he is also a contributing writer at The Atlantic.

Chris Coons: A leading member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Coons hails from Biden’s home state and is one of his closest friends. Coons would most likely be easily confirmed because of his collegial relations with Senate Republicans. One

Raphael Bostic

The San Juan Daily Star downside: Coons could be invaluable to Biden as a steward of his agenda on Capitol Hill.

Susan Rice: A former national security adviser, Rice was among the small group of women Biden considered for his running mate. Rice is a former assistant secretary of state and United Nations ambassador, and she is viewed as a leading expert on Africa.

— Transportation Department Eric Garcetti: The Los Angeles mayor has promoted the use of public transportation during his administration, purchasing a clean-air bus fleet and proposing fare-free bus and train rides. He has also released a plan to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.

— Treasury Department Raphael Bostic:The first African American and the first openly gay man to lead a regional Federal Reserve bank, Bostic is president of the Atlanta Fed. He previously worked as an economist for the Federal Reserve and served as a board member at Freddie Mac. Bostic is known for his argument that systemic racism damages the overall economy. No Black person has ever filled the job of Treasury secretary.

Lael Brainard: A member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and a former undersecretary at theTreasury Department, Brainard has voted against regulatory rollbacks and has warned that the economic risks caused by the coronavirus are not over. She has also urged the Fed to focus on climate change and its impact on the economy. Brainard is regarded as a moderate, and she has been criticized from the left for her reluctance to take a hard line on currency manipulation while at the Treasury.

Sarah Bloom Raskin: A former deputy Treasury secretary and a former member of the Fed’s Board of Governors, Raskin also previously served as Maryland’s commissioner of financial regulation. She is a lawyer and a visiting professor at Duke University.

Elizabeth Warren: A favorite of progressive groups, the Massachusetts senator, presidential candidate and former Obama adviser has spent her career advocating for pro-consumer financial reforms and stronger banking regulation. She spearheaded the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal watchdog agency, and was among those considered as Biden’s running mate. Given her progressive positions, Warren’s confirmation might not be assured in a Senate controlled by Republicans.

Janet L. Yellen: Well known because of her high-profile service as chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018, Yellen was also president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton. She is a labor economist who believes that government regulation and intervention are required to ensure that markets run efficiently.

— Veterans Affairs Department Pete Buttigieg: Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and a Democratic presidential candidate, is a former Navy officer who served in Afghanistan. As one of only two candidates for the Democratic nomination with military experience, Buttigieg, who is gay, was endorsed by a progressive group of veterans, VoteVets. (Buttigieg has also been mentioned as ambassador to the United Nations.)

Robert A. McDonald: A former veterans affairs secretary during the Obama administration, McDonald could be making a return to his old job. An Army veteran and a former chief executive of Procter & Gamble, during his administration he placed an emphasis on reducing homelessness among veterans.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

9

Election officials nationwide find no evidence of fraud

By NICK CORASANITI, REID J. EPSTEIN and JIM RUTENBERG

E

lection officials in dozens of states representing both political parties said that there was no evidence that fraud or other irregularities played a role in the outcome of the presidential race, amounting to a forceful rebuke of President Donald Trump’s portrait of a fraudulent election.

Over the last several days, the president, members of his administration, congressional Republicans and right wing allies have put forth the false claim that the election was stolen from Trump and have refused to accept results that showed Joe Biden as the winner.

But top election officials across the country said in interviews and statements that the process had been a remarkable success despite record turnout and the complications of a dangerous pandemic.

“There’s a great human capacity for inventing things that aren’t true about elections,” said Frank LaRose, a Republican who serves as

Frank LaRose, a Republican who serves as Ohio’s secretary of state, at an election command center in Columbus, Ohio, Nov. 3, 2020. LaRose reported no serious irregularities with voting in last week’s election.

Ohio’s secretary of state. “The conspiracy theories and rumors and all those things run rampant.

For some reason, elections breed that type of mythology.”

Steve Simon, a Democrat who is Minnesota’s secretary of state, said: “I don’t know of a single case where someone argued that a vote counted when it shouldn’t have or didn’t count when it should. There was no fraud.”

“Kansas did not experience any widespread, systematic issues with voter fraud, intimidation, irregularities or voting problems,” a spokeswoman for Scott Schwab, the Republican secretary of state in Kansas, said in an email Tuesday. “We are very pleased with how the election has gone up to this point.”

The NewYorkTimes contacted the offices of the top election officials in every state on Monday and Tuesday to ask whether they suspected or had evidence of illegal voting. Officials in 45 states responded directly to The Times. For four of the remaining states, The Times spoke to other statewide officials or found public comments Continues on page 10

¡Aquí para iluminar a Puerto Rico! lumapr.com lumapr.com lumapuertorico

10

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

From page 9 from secretaries of state; none reported any major voting issues.

Statewide officials in Texas did not respond to repeated inquiries. But a spokeswoman for the top elections official in Harris County, the largest county in Texas with a population greater than many states, said that there were only a few minor issues and that “we had a very seamless election.”

On Tuesday, the Republican lieutenant governor in Texas, Dan Patrick, announced a $1 million fund to reward reports of voter fraud.

Some states described small problems common to all elections, which they said they were addressing: a few instances of illegal or double voting, some technical glitches and some minor errors in math. Officials in all states are conducting their own review of the voting — a standard component of the certification process.

What emerged in The Times’ reporting was how, beyond the president, Republicans in many states were engaged in a widespread effort to delegitimize the nation’s voting system.

Some Republicans have even turned to lashing members of their own party who, in their eyes, did not show sufficient dedication to rooting out fraud. In Georgia, where Biden is leading, the two Republican senators from Georgia, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, both of whom are in a runoff to gain reelection, have called for the resignation of the Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger. “The secretary of state has failed to deliver honest and transparent elections,” the senators said in a statement.

In Washington, the losing Republican candidate for governor, Loren Culp, has disputed the Republican secretary of state’s determination that the election there was free of fraud. The secretary of state, Kim Wyman, has in turn challenged Culp, trailing by 14 percentage points in the results, to produce evidence. “It’s just throwing grass at the fence at this point,” she said in an interview, “See what sticks.”

Democrats have more frequently been the target of criticism. Last week, the Republican leadership of the Pennsylvania state legislature called on Kathy Boockvar, the Democratic secretary of state, to step down. In Wisconsin, the Republican speaker of the Assembly announced he would form committees to investigate voter fraud in the wake of Biden’s narrow victory in the state, though there is no evidence of any.

Republican lawmakers in Michigan on Saturday voted to issue subpoenas for documents in search of “election irregularities.”

Indeed, Republicans in all three “blue wall” states have initiated “investigations” or called for audits — which is redundant given the certification work already underway. Democrats say this is simply a way to undermine confidence in the results.

On Monday, the Trump campaign accelerated their legal efforts, filing a lawsuit

The president and his allies have baselessly claimed that rampant voter fraud stole victory from him. Election officials across the nation say that just didn’t happen. in the seven Pennsylvania counties where the president lost that claimed mail voting created an unfair, “two-tiered” system during the election — though the system is also in place in counties the president won.The campaign also announced plans to file another suit in Michigan.

The president has kept up a barrage of Twitter posts with false claims about improprieties in Nevada and Pennsylvania, predicting he’d prevail in Georgia, where he is behind, and said Wisconsin “needs a little time statutorily,” though he offered no explanation for what he meant.

Nellie Gorbea, the Democratic secretary of state in Rhode Island, said the amount of attention on the election would make illegal voting extremely difficult. “It would be nearly impossible to do voter fraud in this election because of the number of people tuned in,” she said.

Voting fraud in the United States is extremely rare. The irregularities that do occur are often inconsequential, isolated in nature, and unlikely to alter the outcome of an election. The most significant episode of election fraud over the past several years involved an alleged effort to manipulate ballots to benefit a Republican candidate for Congress in North Carolina, Mark Harris, in 2018. The scheme forced a new election and an operative who worked for Harris, L. McCrae Dowless, is under indictment. Harris was not charged with wrongdoing, and denied any role.

In the case of the 2020 election, Biden’s margins in the blue wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are all in the tens of thousands. Even in Georgia, where Biden leads by more than 11,000 votes, it would be hard to uncover enough voting irregularities to change who won. ‘‘We have not seen any evidence of fraud or foul play in the actual administration of the election,’’ said Jake Rollow, a spokesman for Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic secretary of state in Michigan. “What we have seen is that it was smooth, transparent, secure and accurate.’’

Still, Trump has been fixated on voter fraud since 2016, when he falsely claimed that vote stealing had cost him the popular vote, which

he lost by roughly 3 million. In the election’s aftermath, he formed a voting fraud commission that disbanded with no findings amid charges of secrecy, bias and overreach.

Trump’s attack on the election system this year has relied on either outright fabrication or gross exaggeration involving the sorts of small problems that typically come up in elections.

In Ohio, for instance, LaRose said that while it was not unusual to discover a handful of improprieties in a statewide election, systemic fraud has not happened.

“In the past, I’ve referred people to local prosecutors and the attorney general for noncitizens voting,” he said. “It’s like tens or dozens of people, not hundreds. There’s no acceptable level of voter fraud and we take every one of those cases seriously.”

The tension over voting has been most palpable in Georgia. The Trump campaign and the two Republican senators have complained about transparency, which Raffensperger, the secretary of state, called “laughable.”

“We were literally putting releases of results up at a minimum hourly,” he said in a statement. “I and my office have been holding daily or twice-daily briefings for the press to walk them through all the numbers. So that particular charge is laughable.”

He added that while there were likely small instances of fraud, he did not expect it to be significant enough to affect the outcome.

The absence of any major findings of fraud or irregularities, and the willingness of even Republican election officials to attest to smooth operations, have also undercutTrump’s legal efforts.

In Michigan, the Trump campaign has sued, saying that their poll watchers were not given access to properly observe ballot counting in Detroit. But election officials in the city deny that, saying there were dozens of poll watchers from both campaigns inside the main counting center there.

Last week, a judge denied a Trump campaign bid to halt counting based on complaints about observers, dismissing key

evidence as “vague” and as “hearsay.”

The accusations of fraud from the president and his allies were noticeably absent from states whereTrump and his fellow Republicans did well.

In South Carolina, for instance, the Republican incumbent, Sen. Lindsey Graham, won relatively easily over Jaime Harrison, despite the fact that polls showed a tight race there. The South Carolina Election Board chairman John W. Wells said late Monday, “I have not heard of any” substantive allegations of fraud in the state, though he added he would await a final determination in the certification and protest process.

Asked if Graham was concerned about results in his state, a spokesman said the senator has “discussed states where the margins are close” but invited South Carolina voters to step forward with any “evidence of fraud or irregularities.”

Graham, a close ally of Trump, has taken up the president’s cause. He asked the Department of Justice to investigate claims made in an affidavit theTrump campaign shared with him from a Postal Service worker in Erie, Pennsylvania. The worker made allegations of impropriety at the local postal branch based largely on a conversation he said he overheard.

Late Tuesday, the credibility of that affidavit came into question after the House Oversight Committee reported on Twitter that the worker recanted his story in discussions with the Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General. The worker later denied he recanted in an online video.

One of the secretaries of state who did not respond to requests for comment about the election in his state was Corey Stapleton of Montana, an outgoing Republican. But Stapleton did post a message implicitly addressing the president’s ongoing fraud claims. “I have supported you, Mr. President,” he wrote. “But that time is now over! Tip your hat, bite your lip, and congratulate @JoeBiden.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

11

Shocked by Trump’s loss, QAnon struggles to keep the faith

By KEVIN ROOSE

L

ast weekend, as jubilant Democrats danced in the streets to celebrate the election of Joe Biden as the country’s 46th president, QAnon believers were on their computers trying to make sense of it all.

“Biden will NEVER be president,” wrote one QAnon believer, still firmly stuck in the denial stage of grief.

“Trump knows what he is doing,” wrote a member of a QAnon forum, well on his way to bargaining. “He is letting the Dems, technocrats and media publicly hang themselves.”

Some QAnon believers, however, were already inching toward acceptance.

“We’re losing,” one tweeted. “Not sure I trust the plan anymore. Not sure there even is a plan.”

These are trying times for believers in QAnon, the baseless conspiracy theory that falsely claims the existence of a satanic pedophile cult run by top Democrats. For years, they had been assured that President Donald Trump would win reelection in a landslide and spend his second term vanquishing the deep state and bringing the cabal’s leaders to justice. Q, the pseudonymous message board user whose cryptic posts have fueled the movement for more than three years, told them to “trust the plan.”

But since Trump’s defeat, Q has gone dark. No posts from the account bearing Q’s tripcode, or digital user name, have appeared on 8kun, the website where all of Q’s posts appear.

And overall QAnon-related activity on the site has slowed to a trickle. (On a recent day, there were fewer new posts on one of 8kun’s QAnon boards than on its board for adult-diaper fetishists.)

There are also signs of infighting among QAnon’s inner circle. Ron Watkins, an 8kun administrator who some believed was Q himself, announced on Election Day that he was stepping down from the site, citing “extensive battles” over censorship and the site’s future. His father, Jim Watkins, a professed QAnon believer who owns 8kun, has been singing hymns on his livestream and posting debunked claims about voter fraud, but has not given any indication of when Q might return.

Q’s sudden disappearance has been jarring for QAnon believers, who have come to depend on the account’s posts, or “drops,” for updates and reassurance.

“They feel really defeated by the deep state, even if they’re not admitting it in public,” said Fredrick Brennan, the founder of 8chan, 8kun’s predecessor site. Brennan, who has left the site and become a vocal critic of Watkins, said QAnon believers had bought into the idea that Trump was fully in control, even as the polls showed he had a slim chance of winning.

“They were not expecting him to lose, and they were not expecting Fox News to call it,” he said. “It was really psychologically damaging.”

Over the past few months, QAnon followers have been barred from most major social media platforms, deflating the movement’s momentum and depriving it of its most effective organizing tools. Large Facebook groups and YouTube channels with hundreds of thousands of subscribers disappeared overnight, and some of QAnon’s most prominent promoters have been reduced to peddling conspiracy theories on fringe websites.

QAnon supporters at a rally for President Trump in Portland, Ore., in September.

The crackdowns have hurt QAnon’s grifter class — the self-appointed leaders who make a living selling Q merchandise, writing QAnon-themed books and organizing offline Q events.

But they also disconnected rank-and-file believers from the communities where they gathered to discuss the news, decode the latest drops and plan for the future.

“QAnon believers were hoping for direction if Trump lost, and not only are they unable to hook into Q, there have also been moves by platform companies to remove other sources of entertainment and leadership,” said Joan Donovan, the research director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center.

Election Day was not a total loss for QAnon. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, two Republicans who have praised the conspiracy theory, won their House elections and will be sworn in next year.

But Trump, the central heroic figure in QAnon’s fantasy, will not. And without an enabler in the White House, it remains to be seen whether the movement’s days are numbered.

“QAnon believers are used to having Q’s predictions not come true,” said William Partin, a research analyst at the nonprofit Data & Society who has studied the QAnon movement.

“Sometimes people get disappointed and quit. Others try to adjust the overall narrative to make the setback part of some larger plan.

But it’s very difficult to do that kind of adjustment with something as large as losing the presidential election.”

Some QAnon watchers I spoke with speculated that during a Biden presidency, some of the movement’s most prominent influencers would quietly peel off into adjacent conspiracy theory

communities — stirring up fears about child sex trafficking as part of the Save Our Children movement, for example, or sowing distrust in a COVID-19 vaccine.

QAnon supporters also could throw themselves behind more mainstream conservative efforts to dispute the election’s results. Already, some QAnon influencers have been promoting Stop the Steal rallies in states where Trump and his supporters have made baseless claims of voter fraud.

In some ways, QAnon believers are well positioned to help Trump recast himself as the victim of a Democratic coup. They are experienced and savvy content generators, with an appetite for far-fetched conspiracy theories and delayed gratification. They are also part of a hyperpartisan audience accustomed to questioning official narratives. A Morning Consult survey conducted over the weekend found that 7 out of 10 Republicans now doubt that the 2020 election was “free and fair.”

So far, no plan has emerged for what QAnon believers will do when Trump’s presidency does, in fact, come to an end, especially if Q is no longer there to steer them to a new theory.

On a podcast Friday, two prominent QAnon influencers, known by their online handles InTheMatrixxx and Shady Groove, urged their fellow believers not to give up hope. The election will be proven fraudulent, they agreed, and Q’s prediction of a Trump victory will look even more prescient in hindsight.

“We’re winning, folks,” InTheMatrixxx said.

Shady Groove agreed.

“This is not what you thought winning would look like,” he said. “But trust me.”

12

Thursday, November 12, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Biden is expected to keep scrutiny of tech front and center The Biden campaign wouldn’t comment about specific cases or investigations. But a spokesman for it, Matt Hill, said Biden would take an aggressive stance toward the industry.

“Many technology giants and their executives have not only abused their power but misled the American people, damaged our democracy and evaded any form of responsibility,” Hill said. “That ends with a President Biden.”

Biden’s clearest position on internet policy has been his call to revoke a legal shield known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That safe harbor has protected Google, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter from lawsuits for hosting or removing harmful or misleading content. He hasn’t elaborated on how he would revoke the shield, a 1996 law that the tech industry will fight vigorously to defend.

Also near the top of Biden’s agenda, A San Francisco billboard from the presidential campaign of Sen. Elizabeth Warren his advisers have said, will be the extension (D-Mass.) on May 31, 2019. Progressives like Warren and Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) of broadband internet service to low-income and rural households, which has become an have argued that the tech giants should be broken up. urgent need during the pandemic as schools have shifted online. Billions in federal

By CECILIA KAND, DAVID McCABE and White House. Biden is expected to take on funding could come from legislation or JACK NICAS the Silicon Valley giants on misinformation, the Federal Communications Commission, privacy and antitrust, in a sharp departure which hollowed out several regulations he tech industry had it easy under from the polices pursued while he was vice during the Trump administration.

The FCC would also be poised to President Barack Obama. Regulators president under Obama. brought no major charges, executives “The foundations of the concerns reinstall so-called net neutrality, a rule that rotated in and out of the administration, and about digital platforms were developing prevented telecommunications companies efforts to strengthen privacy laws fizzled out. during the Obama years, and yet the major from blocking or slowing internet traffic.

Hundreds of informal tech advisers, The industry will have it much harder tech issues from the Obama era are still under President-elect Joe Biden. with us and unresolved,” said Chris Lewis, some of them current or former telecom Bipartisan support to restrain its president of the consumer advocacy group and tech employees, have offered opinions, power has grown sharply during the Trump Public Knowledge. “The genie is out of white papers and strategies for Biden’s administration and shows no signs of going the bottle, and the issues the public needs campaign and possible presidency. Many of the top advisers have been proponents of away as Democrats regain control of the resolved are piling up without resolution.”

On the campaign trail, Biden rarely strong legislation to limit the power of the spoke about technology policy at length. But tech companies.

Leading Biden’s team of tech advisers he has criticized social media companies, like Facebook, that have allowed is Bruce Reed, his chief of staff when he was disinformation to flourish on their sites, and vice president. Reed served in recent years as he has expressed concern over power held general counsel for Common Sense Media, by a handful of companies in tech and other a child advocacy nonprofit in San Francisco that has lobbied for tech privacy and safety industries.

A Biden administration is expected laws. Reed was instrumental in the creation to pursue the antitrust lawsuit filed against of California’s privacy law in 2018.

Another top aide working on tech Google last month, people with knowledge of his campaign said. It may also introduce issues is Stef Feldman, a longtime member more antitrust cases against Facebook and of Biden’s staff who led the campaign’s possibly Amazon and Apple, which the policy efforts. This year, she told Politico that Trump administration has investigated for among the issues she was tracking closely was “disparities in children’s ability to more than a year.

T

engage in remote learning due to a lack of access to technology” during the pandemic.

Biden will need to navigate a split in the Democratic Party over how aggressively to approach the tech companies. Progressives like Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island have argued that the giants should be broken up, and those lawmakers will probably fight for regulators who feel similarly. Moderates in the party have shown a reluctance to break up the companies.

Many conservatives support the antitrust investigations being led by the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission. But they are likely to resist many of Biden’s tech policies, like online speech and privacy legislation that interferes in free markets. And with neither party controlling a large majority in the Senate, their opposition means that legislation could easily hit gridlock.

Biden will also face fierce pushback from the industry. In recent years, technology companies have expanded their lobbying, with Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google spending $53.6 million on it last year — more than Wall Street, pharmaceutical and energy firms.

“Tremendous political influence will be brought to bear on a Biden White House by the tech lobby and its allies,” said Jeffrey Chester, head of the Center for Digital Democracy, a privacy advocacy group.

“However, it’s night and day in terms of how tech is viewed now and during the Obama years.”

Current and former tech executives and lobbyists, as well as former regulators, said that while the industry expected a Biden administration to be tough on the companies, particularly in antitrust areas, it would welcome a change from the unpredictable Trump administration.

“The Trump administration was a showbiz, and as a result no one knew what to expect,” said Tom Wheeler, a Democrat who was FCC chairman under Obama.

“Silicon Valley will at least be pleased with stability knowing there is a plan, rather than a whim-of-the-moment policy creation.”

Bruce Sewell, Apple’s general counsel and its chief of government affairs from 2009-17, said, “If you’re in Silicon Valley and you’re the head of one of these companies, you’re probably saying, ‘Biden’s not going to be easier on us — but at least it’s back to the devil that we know.’”

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

13 Stocks

Nasdaq jumps as technology stocks back in favor

W

all Street’s main indexes advanced on Wednesday as signs of a working COVID-19 vaccine raised hopes of a faster-than-expected economic rebound, with technology stocks bouncing back from steep losses this week as coronavirus cases spiraled.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq advanced 1.9%, while megacaps Netflix Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Apple Inc, the socalled stay-at-home winners, also gained between 1.3% and 2.7%.

The tech index climbed 2.4%, the most among major S&P sectors, followed by the consumer discretionary index.

The S&P growth stock index outperformed the value index, which includes banks and energy stocks, in a reversal of Tuesday’s trend.

Encouraging data from a late-stage vaccine earlier this week prompted a rotation away from technology names, and lifted demand for stocks sensitive to economic outlook, as well as value stocks including industrials and healthcare that have lagged broader market.

“We will see this tug of war between the virus and the vaccine and between growth and cyclicals for months, until there’s a more definitive timeline for mass distribution of the vaccine,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment strategist at Inverness Counsel in New York.

Meanwhile, the top U.S. infectious disease specialist urged caution until a vaccine can be approved and distributed, as California and several states across the U.S. Midwest tightened restrictions.

Markets, which also got a boost after Democrat Joe Biden was projected the winner of the U.S. election, have shrugged off legal challenges from President Donald Trump as no evidence of problems with votes have been produced.

The Democratic Party retained control of the U.S. House of Representatives with a lower majority, the Associated Press reported, but investors are more focused on Senate races in January that could determine if major Democratic priorities such as a large coronavirus aid bill would be passed. At 12:39 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 75.31 points or 0.26% to 29,496.23, the S&P 500 gained 31.01 points or 0.88% to 3,576.56 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 217.40 points or 1.88% to 11,771.25.

Lyft Inc jumped 2.7% after the ride-hailing app said it was working on a new service to take a slice of the burgeoning food-delivery market, as it works to make up for a drop in quarterly revenue.

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14

Thursday, November 12, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

In Brazil’s halt of Chinese vaccine trial, critics see politics

By SUI-LEE LONDOÑO

WEE

and

ERNESTO

B

razil halted a late-stage trial of a Chinese vaccine Monday that had been considered a global frontrunner in the race to develop a protective shot for the coronavirus, after a “serious adverse” reaction in a participant.

The decision provoked a political firestorm Tuesday after President Jair Bolsonaro, who has been critical of China and spoken dismissively of its vaccine, CoronaVac, called the suspension a political victory.

Instituto Butantan, the Brazilian institute assisting with the CoronaVac trial, called the suspension unwarranted, arguing that it had been triggered by the death of a trial participant, but that the death was unrelated to the vaccine.

A police report obtained by The New York Times says the participant’s death, which occurred Oct. 29, is being investigated as a suicide. A senior government official for the State of São Paulo, which runs Instituto Butantan, said that fact led health experts at the institute to conclude that it did not raise red flags about the safety of the vaccine.

São Paulo state, the largest in Brazil, is led by Gov. João Doria, a political rival of Bolsonaro who has criticized the president’s cavalier handling of the pandemic.

Gustavo Mendes, director of pharmaceuticals at Anvisa, Brazil’s health regulatory agency, said in an interview Tuesday that regulators have yet to conclude that the volunteer’s death was unrelated to the vaccine.

“It was a precautionary measure,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s being politicized.”

He added: “Halting a study until there is more information is what is expected of a regulatory agency.”

CoronaVac, which is being developed by the Chinese company Sinovac, is one of 11 experimental vaccines, produced by some of the world’s foremost pharmaceutical companies, currently in Phase 3 trials. As the world grapples with another major wave of coronavirus infections, the race for a vaccine has intensified and been made all the more

A volunteer received a vaccine produced by the Chinese company Sinovac in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in August. competitive by fractious geopolitics. On the same day that Brazil suspended the Sinovac trial, the American company Pfizer announced that an early analysis of its coronavirus vaccine trials suggested that its drug was more than 90% effective in preventing the virus that causes COVID-19.

Sinovac’s drug was seen in China as a leading candidate. But in Beijing’s push to get a Chinese vaccine to be the first on the global market, officials stretched the definition of “emergency use.” They have permitted tens of thousands of people to receive the Sinovac vaccine and two other locally made vaccines, despite having not yet concluded Phase 3 trials.

Adverse effects are not unusual in Phase 3 trials. AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson both paused their trials after several volunteers fell seriously ill, resuming them six weeks later, in October, after concluding that the illnesses were not related to the vaccines.

In a statement issued Tuesday, Sinovac said Instituto Butantan had deemed the “serious event” not related to the vaccine.

The company said it was “confident in the safety” of its vaccine.

The Chinese vaccine study has inflamed a political rivalry between Bolsonaro and Doria, who is widely expected to run for president in 2022.

If the vaccine is approved, it would be manufactured by the institute.

Bolsonaro had voiced skepticism about the Chinese vaccine previously, and Tuesday he gloated about the setback in a message on Facebook.

“This is the vaccine Doria wanted everyone in São Paulo to take,” the president wrote. “Yet another victory for Bolsonaro.”

Last month Bolsonaro reacted angrily when he learned the Health Ministry intended to buy 46 million doses of the vaccine.

“I ordered that it be canceled,” he said. “It appears no country in the world is interested in that Chinese vaccine.”

Doria’s party, the Brazilian Social Democracy Party, said in a statement that the race to develop a vaccine “is not a political contest and cannot be treated like one.”

Sinovac has said previously that more than 10,000 people in Beijing have been injected with its vaccine. Separately, it said that nearly all its employees — around 3,000 in total — and their families had taken it. Vaccine experts said it was important to conclude the third and final phase of human testing before making the drug available.

Phase 3 trials involve tens of thousands of people and may detect uncommon but

potentially severe side effects.

The company began Phase 3 trials in Brazil and in Indonesia in August, and in Turkey in September, testing its vaccine in about 27,000 people. Sinovac said it had hoped to complete the trials by the end of the year, but the suspension of the trial in Brazil could affect the process in other countries, potentially derailing that timeline.

The Indonesian state-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma, which is conducting trials for Sinovac, said that it had no plans to cancel its trials, according to Iin Susanti, head of Bio Farma’s business planning and strategy division.

The suspended Brazilian trial is a reminder of the formidable challenges facing Chinese vaccine companies when they go abroad. Few of the companies have experience operating overseas, much less navigating potential political minefields. All of them had to test their vaccines in places with active outbreaks because the virus had largely been stamped out in China.

In Brazil, the trials have been politically fraught as supporters of Bolsonaro, who has downplayed the threat and blamed China for the pandemic, have criticized them.

Professor Raina MacIntyre, who heads the biosecurity program at the Kirby Institute of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said serious side effects in a vaccine trial were “extremely rare” but added, “We can expect to see this scenario happen again with different vaccines. If you’ve got 45,000 people in a trial, it’s quite likely that one person will have a serious health event in that time.”

MacIntyre said that the pause would allow a safety monitoring board to investigate.

How long the suspension will last is unclear. MacIntyre said that if the event had occurred in a volunteer given a placebo, it could take a few days. But if not, it could take weeks or even months.

Vaccine experts have said that they considered data from Sinovac’s earlystage trials to be promising. Results from the company’s Phase 1 trials showed no adverse effects, and Phase 2 trials showed 90% protection against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

15

China targets Hong Kong’s lawmakers as it squelches dissent

By AUSTIN RAMZY, TIFFANY MAY and ELAINE YU

of the People’s Republic of China” will also be ousted, it added.

The Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong, Beijing’s top emissary in the city, said the rules would ensure that politicians “fulfill their constitutional responsibility of loyalty to the country.”

C

hina has moved to tame one of Hong Kong’s few remaining avenues for dissent and democratic ideals, as it effectively expelled four elected opposition lawmakers from office, prompting vows to resign from their allies.

The departures will reshape the city’s political landscape, which has been upended since China imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong this summer that gave authorities broad powers to crack down on any resistance. They mark the intensification of a campaign that has put Hong Kong’s global reputation as a bastion for laissez-faire regulation, freedom of speech and rule of law in jeopardy.

The targeting of the democratically elected lawmakers comes at a time when democratic ideals, and the countries that have traditionally championed them, have been plunged into uncertainty.

U.S. officials have protested Hong Kong’s treatment and imposed sanctions on the territory and some of its leaders. But the tumultuous presidential election, in which President Donald Trump has refused to accept the results of the vote, and the devastating spread of the coronavirus have weakened Washington’s standing on such issues.

In Hong Kong, Beijing-backed authorities have arrested pro-democracy leaders and activists as they resolved to bring Hong Kong to heel and put an end to the protests that engulfed the semi-autonomous Chinese territory for much of last year. They have challenged Hong Kong’s independent court system and put pressure on news outlets that strike a defiant tone.

Their target Wednesday was Hong Kong’s legislature, the Legislative Council, where a group of pro-democracy lawmakers have argued that Beijing’s campaign threatens to erode Hong Kong’s status as a global, open city.

Beijing officials moved Wednesday to silence those voices, outlining broad powers that they had granted to their hand-picked representatives in the Hong Kong government to remove lawmakers from office.

City officials then ejected Dennis Kwok, Kwok Ka-ki, Kenneth Leung and Alvin Yeung from the Legislative Council. Hours after their removal, the remaining 15 members of their bloc said they were stepping down in solidarity.

“Together we stand!” lawmakers in the pro-democracy camp chanted as they held hands in a conference room in the Legislative Council building. One of the legislators, Wu Chi-wai, told reporters that they would tender their resignations in protest Thursday.

“Under authoritarianism, the road to democracy will be extremely long and arduous, but we will absolutely not be defeated by its pressures,” Wu said. “We will inevitably find new paths.”

The lawmakers said they believed that the legislature is now so compromised by the government’s power to stamp out opposition that they must work outside the system.

“Many people will consider today a dark day. It is hard for me to say it isn’t,” said Kwok Ka-ki, one of the four lawmakers who was removed. “As long as our resolve to fight for freedom, equality and justice remains unchanged, one day we will see the return of the core values we cherish.”

Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed government appeared to welcome the resignations, which will give it much freer rein to pursue its agenda. Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, dismissed suggestions that the absence of the opposition lawmakers would tarnish the legislature if it pushed through policies favored

AVISO VISTA PÚBLICA

Four lawmakers, from left, Dennis Kwok, Kenneth Leung, Kwok Ka-ki and Alvin Yeung, were ousted from the Hong Kong Legislative Council on Wednesday.

by Beijing’s supporters.

“Of course we want the Legislative Council to pass the bills that we propose. We feel all the more excited when they can be passed in an efficient manner,” she said. “As the executive branch, we work in the hopes that the council will support and pass our bills.”

Hong Kong has never been a standard-bearer for democratic ideals. Its top leader, the chief executive, is appointed in a process controlled by Beijing. Half of the Legislative Council’s 70 members are selected by groups called functional constituencies that represent various industries and other establishment groups.

But the council, nicknamed LegCo, had been one of the most visible signs that Hong Kong remained distinct from mainland China, where the Communist Party dominates government and dissent is rapidly silenced. Many of the seats are elected directly by the public, helping to give the pro-democracy camp a sizable minority and a forum to express its views to the establishment.

The council has also stood as a symbol of the “one country, two systems” legal framework that was designed to preserve democratic freedoms in the former British colony after it returned to Chinese rule in 1997. That framework allowed Hong Kong to protect economic freedoms and personal liberties while remaining part of China. It even called for eventual universal suffrage, a major goal of pro-democracy supporters.

The framework is now under attack. Chinese officials have challenged the independence of Hong Kong’s judiciary. The city’s press freedoms have come under pressure, including the arrest in August of Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy media tycoon. The national security law, which China imposed on Hong Kong this summer, gave authorities broad power to target protest and dissent.

On Wednesday, Chinese officials described a new measure designed to keep the Legislative Council in line. The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislative body, said that lawmakers who support Hong Kong independence, refuse to recognize the country’s sovereignty over the city, seek out foreign or external forces to interfere with domestic affairs, or engage in acts that endanger national security will face immediate disqualification.

Lawmakers who fail to meet the statutory requirements for upholding the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s local constitution, and swearing “allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

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Ϯ ĚĞ ĚŝĐŝĞŵďƌĞ ĚĞ ϮϬϮϬ ϭ͗ϯϬ Ɖ͘ŵ͘

ƵĞŹŽ ĚĞ ůĂ WƌŽƉŝĞĚĂĚ͗ Asociación ĂůŝĮĐĂĐŝſŶ͗ EŽ ĂůŝĮĐĂĚŽ WƵĞƌƚŽƌƌŝƋƵĞŹĂ ĚĞ ůŽƐ ĚǀĞŶƟƐƚĂƐ ĚĞů ůĂƐŝĮĐĂĐŝſŶ͗ ^ƵĞůŽ hƌďĂŶŽ ;^hͿ ^ĠƉƟŵŽ şĂ͕ ŽƌƉ͘ ŝƌĞĐĐŝſŶ ĚĞ ůĂ ĂĐĐŝſŶ ƉƌŽƉƵĞƐƚĂ͗ ĂƌƌĞƚĞƌĂ WZͲϵϬϰ͕ WĂƌĐĞůĂ ϭϬϳͲ ͕ ŽŵƵŶŝĚĂĚ ZƵƌĂů DĂƌƚŽƌĞůů Ž͘ >ŝŵŽŶĞƐ͕ zĂďƵĐŽĂ ^Ğ ŝŶƚĞƌĞƐĂ ĚŝƐĐƵƟƌ͕ ƉĞƌŽ ƐŝŶ ůŝŵŝƚĂƌƐĞ Ă͕ ůĂ ƐŽůŝĐŝƚƵĚ ƉĂƌĂ ůĂ ĐŽŶƐƚƌƵĐĐŝſŶ ĚĞ ƵŶĂ /ŐůĞƐŝĂ ĞŶ ůĂ ĚŝƌĞĐĐŝſŶ ŝŶĚŝĐĂĚĂ͘ ŽŶĨŽƌŵĞ Ăů DĂƉĂ ĚĞ ŽŶŝĮĐĂĐŝſŶ ĚĞů DƵŶŝĐŝƉŝŽ ĚĞ zĂďƵĐŽĂ͕ ĐŽŶ ǀŝŐĞŶĐŝĂ ĚĞů ϭϳ ĚĞ ĚŝĐŝĞŵďƌĞ ĚĞ ϮϬϬϱ͕ Ğů ƉƌĞĚŝŽ ŶŽ ĞƐƚĄ ĐĂůŝĮĐĂĚŽ͘ dŽŵĂŶĚŽ ĞŶ ĐŽŶƐŝĚĞƌĂĐŝſŶ ƋƵĞ Ğů ĄƌĞĂ ĞdžŚŝďĞ ƵŶ ĐŽŵƉŽƌƚĂŵŝĞŶƚŽ ƉƌĞĚŽŵŝŶĂŶƚĞŵĞŶƚĞ ƌĞƐŝĚĞŶĐŝĂů͕ ƐĞ ĞǀĂůƵĂƌĄ ůĂ ƐŽůŝĐŝƚƵĚ ƵƟůŝnjĂŶĚŽ ůŽƐ ƉĂƌĄŵĞƚƌŽƐ ƌĞŐůĂŵĞŶƚĂƌŝŽƐ ĚĞ ƵŶ ŝƐƚƌŝƚŽ ZͲ/͕ Ğů ĐƵĂů ĐŽŶƚĞŵƉůĂ Ğů ƵƐŽ ĚĞ /ŶƐƟƚƵĐŝſŶ ZĞůŝŐŝŽƐĂ ǀşĂ ĞdžĐĞƉĐŝſŶ͕ ĐŽŶĨŽƌŵĞ Ă ůĂ ^ĞĐĐŝſŶ ϲ͘ϭ͘Ϯ͘ϯ ĚĞů ZĞŐůĂŵĞŶƚŽ ŽŶũƵŶƚŽ ǀŝŐĞŶƚĞ͘ >Ă ƉĂƌƚĞ ƉƌŽƉŽŶĞŶƚĞ ƚĞŶĚƌĄ ƋƵĞ ũƵƐƟĮĐĂƌ ƐƵ ƐŽůŝĐŝƚƵĚ ƉĂƌĂ ůĂ ĐŽŶĐĞƐŝſŶ ĚĞ ůĂƐ ǀĂƌŝĂĐŝŽŶĞƐ͘ ^Ğ ĐŽŶǀŽĐĂ Ğ ŝŶǀŝƚĂ Ăů ƉƷďůŝĐŽ ĞŶ ŐĞŶĞƌĂů Ă ĐŽŵƉĂƌĞĐĞƌ LJ ƉĂƌƟĐŝƉĂƌ Ă ůĂ ǀŝƐƚĂ ƉƷďůŝĐĂ Ă ĐĞůĞďƌĂƌƐĞ ŵĞĚŝĂŶƚĞ Ğů ŵĠƚŽĚŽ ĂůƚĞƌŶŽ ;͞ǀŝƌƚƵĂů͟Ϳ͕ ŶŽ ŽďƐƚĂŶƚĞ͕ ĐŽŶ ĂĐĐĞƐŽ Ăů ƉƷďůŝĐŽ ŐĞŶĞƌĂů͕ ĂĚĞŵĄƐ ĚĞ ůĂƐ ƉĂƌƚĞƐ ƌĞĐŽŶŽĐŝĚĂƐ͘ Ɛ ŵĂŶĚĂƚŽƌŝŽ ƋƵĞ Ğů WƌŽƉŽŶĞŶƚĞ LJͬŽ ĚƵĞŹŽ ĚĞ ůĂ ƉƌŽƉŝĞĚĂĚ Ž ƐƵ ƌĞƉƌĞƐĞŶƚĂŶƚĞ ĂƵƚŽƌŝnjĂĚŽ ĂƐŝƐƚĂ Ă ůĂ ǀŝƐƚĂ ƉƷďůŝĐĂ͕ ĚĞ ŶŽ ĂƐŝƐƟƌ ƐĞ ƉƌŽĐĞĚĞƌĄ Ăů ĂƌĐŚŝǀŽ ĚĞ ůĂ ƐŽůŝĐŝƚƵĚ͘ Ŷ Ğů ĐĂƐŽ ĚĞ ŽƚƌĂƐ ƉĂƌƚĞƐ LJĂ ƌĞĐŽŶŽĐŝĚĂƐ ĞŶ Ğů ƉƌŽĐĞĚŝŵŝĞŶƚŽ͕ ůĂ ŶŽ ĐŽŵƉĂƌĞĐĞŶĐŝĂ Ă ůĂ ǀŝƐƚĂ ƉƷďůŝĐĂ ƐĞƌĄ ĐŽŶƐŝĚĞƌĂĚĂ ĐŽŵŽ ĨĂůƚĂ ĚĞ ŝŶƚĞƌĠƐ ĞŶ Ğů ĐĂƐŽ͘ ^Ğ ĂĚǀŝĞƌƚĞ ƋƵĞ ůĂƐ ƉĂƌƚĞƐ͕ ŝŶĐůƵLJĞŶĚŽ ĐŽƌƉŽƌĂĐŝŽŶĞƐ LJ ƐŽĐŝĞĚĂĚĞƐ͕ ƉŽĚƌĄŶ͕ ƉĞƌŽ ŶŽ ĞƐƚĄŶ ŽďůŝŐĂĚĂƐ͕ Ă ĐŽŵƉĂƌĞĐĞƌ ĂƐŝƐƟĚĂƐ ƉŽƌ ĂďŽŐĂĚŽ͘ ^ĂůǀŽ ũƵƐƚĂ ĐĂƵƐĂ͕ ůĂ ǀŝƐƚĂ ŶŽ ƉŽĚƌĄ ƐĞƌ ƚƌĂŶƐĨĞƌŝĚĂ͘ ƵĂůƋƵŝĞƌ ƐŽůŝĐŝƚƵĚ ĚĞ ƚƌĂŶƐĨĞƌĞŶĐŝĂ ĚĞ ǀŝƐƚĂ ƚĞŶĚƌĄ ƵŶ ĐĂƌŐŽ ĚĞ ΨϭϬϬ͘ϬϬ͕ LJ ĚĞďĞƌĄ ƐĞƌ ƉƌĞƐĞŶƚĂĚĂ ĐŽŶ ŶŽ ŵĞŶŽƐ ĚĞ ĐŝŶĐŽ ;ϱͿ ĚşĂƐ ĚĞ ĂŶƚĞůĂĐŝſŶ Ă ůĂ ĨĞĐŚĂ ĚĞ ůĂ ŵŝƐŵĂ Ă ƚƌĂǀĠƐ ĚĞů ^ŝƐƚĞŵĂ hŶŝĮĐĂĚŽ ĚĞ /ŶĨŽƌŵĂĐŝſŶ ;͞^ŝŶŐůĞ ƵƐŝŶĞƐƐ WŽƌƚĂů͟Ϳ ĚĞ ůĂ K'WĞ͕ ĞdžƉƌĞƐĂŶĚŽ ůĂƐ ƌĂnjŽŶĞƐ ƋƵĞ ũƵƐƟĮĐĂŶ ůĂ ƐŽůŝĐŝƚƵĚ͘ ĞďĞƌĄ ĂĚĞŵĄƐ ĐƵďƌŝƌ ůŽƐ ĐŽƐƚŽƐ ƋƵĞ ĐŽŶůůĞǀĞ ůĂ ŶŽƟĮĐĂĐŝſŶ ĚĞ ůĂ ƚƌĂŶƐĨĞƌĞŶĐŝĂ LJ ĂŶƵŶĐŝĂƌ Ğů ŶƵĞǀŽ ƐĞŹĂůĂŵŝĞŶƚŽ ŵĞĚŝĂŶƚĞ ůĂ ƉƵďůŝĐĂĐŝſŶ ĚĞ ƵŶ ŶƵĞǀŽ ĂǀŝƐŽ ĚĞ ƉƌĞŶƐĂ͘ ů ƉĞƟĐŝŽŶĂƌŝŽ ĚĞ ůĂ ƚƌĂŶƐĨĞƌĞŶĐŝĂ ĚĞ ůĂ ǀŝƐƚĂ ŶŽƟĮĐĂƌĄ LJ ĞŶǀŝĂƌĄ ĐŽƉŝĂ ĚĞ ůĂ ƐŽůŝĐŝƚƵĚ ƐŝŵƵůƚĄŶĞĂŵĞŶƚĞ Ă ůĂƐ ŽƚƌĂƐ ƉĂƌƚĞƐ LJĂ ƌĞĐŽŶŽĐŝĚĂƐ ĞŶ Ğů ƉƌŽĐĞƐŽ LJ ĐĞƌƟĮĐĂƌĄ Ğů ĐƵŵƉůŝŵŝĞŶƚŽ ĐŽŶ ůŽ ĂƋƵş ĞdžƉƵĞƐƚŽ ĞŶ ůĂ ƉƌŽƉŝĂ ƐŽůŝĐŝƚƵĚ ĚĞ ƚƌĂƐĨĞƌĞŶĐŝĂ͘ ů ZĞŐůĂŵĞŶƚŽ ŽŶũƵŶƚŽ͕ ĨĂĐƵůƚĂ Ăů KĮĐŝĂů džĂŵŝŶĂĚŽƌ Ă ŝŵƉŽŶĞƌ ƵŶĂ ŵƵůƚĂ ĚĞ ΨϱϬϬ͘ϬϬ Ă ƚŽĚĂ ƉĞƌƐŽŶĂ ƋƵĞ ŽďƐĞƌǀĞ ƵŶĂ ĐŽŶĚƵĐƚĂ ŝƌƌĞƐƉĞƚƵŽƐĂ ĚƵƌĂŶƚĞ ůĂ ǀŝƐƚĂ͕ ŝŶƚĞŶĐŝŽŶĂůŵĞŶƚĞ ŝŶƚĞƌƌƵŵƉĂ Ž ĚŝůĂƚĞ ůŽƐ ƉƌŽĐĞĚŝŵŝĞŶƚŽƐ ƐŝŶ ĐĂƵƐĂ ũƵƐƟĮĐĂĚĂ͘ ů ĞdžƉĞĚŝĞŶƚĞ ĚŝŐŝƚĂů ĚĞ ůĂ ƐŽůŝĐŝƚƵĚ͕ ĂƐş ĐŽŵŽ ůĂ KƌĚĞŶ ĚŵŝŶŝƐƚƌĂƟǀĂ K'WĞ ϮϬϮϬͲϭϯ͕ ĞƐƚĄ ĚŝƐƉŽŶŝďůĞ ƉĂƌĂ ŝŶƐƉĞĐĐŝſŶ ƉƌĞǀŝĂ ƐŽůŝĐŝƚƵĚ Ă ƚƌĂǀĠƐ ĚĞů ^ŝŶŐůĞ ƵƐŝŶĞƐƐ WŽƌƚĂů͘ ƵĂůƋƵŝĞƌ ƉĞƌƐŽŶĂ ƉŽĚƌĄ ƌĞƋƵĞƌŝƌ ĐŽƉŝĂ ĚĞů ĞdžƉĞĚŝĞŶƚĞ ŵĞĚŝĂŶƚĞ ƐŽůŝĐŝƚƵĚ Ă ƚƌĂǀĠƐ ĚĞ ůĂ ƉĄŐŝŶĂ ǁǁǁ͘ŽŐƉĞ͘Ɖƌ͘ŐŽǀ LJ ƉĂŐŽ ĐŽƌƌĞƐƉŽŶĚŝĞŶƚĞ͘ WŽĚƌĄ͕ ĂĚĞŵĄƐ͕ ŚĂĐŝĞŶĚŽ ƌĞĨĞƌĞŶĐŝĂ Ăů ŶƷŵĞƌŽ ĚĞ ƐŽůŝĐŝƚƵĚ͕ ƉƌĞƐĞŶƚĂƌ ƉŽƌ ĞƐĐƌŝƚŽ ƐƵƐ ĐŽŵĞŶƚĂƌŝŽƐ Ă ƚƌĂǀĠƐ ĚĞ ŶŽƟĮĐĂĐŝŽŶΛ ĚĚĞĐ͘Ɖƌ͘ŐŽǀ͘ ĞďŝĚŽ Ă ůĂ ĞŵĞƌŐĞŶĐŝĂ ĐĂƵƐĂĚĂ ƉŽƌ ůĂ ƉĂŶĚĞŵŝĂ ĚĞů ŽǀŝĚͲϭϵ Ğů ^ĞƌǀŝĐŝŽ Ăů ůŝĞŶƚĞ ĚĞ ůĂ K'WĞ ƚĂŶƚŽ ĞŶ ƐƵ KĮĐŝŶĂ ĞŶƚƌĂů ĞŶ ^ĂŶ :ƵĂŶ ĐŽŵŽ KĮĐŝŶĂƐ ZĞŐŝŽŶĂůĞƐ͕ ƐĞƌĄ ůŝŵŝƚĂĚŽ LJ ŵĞĚŝĂŶƚĞ ĐŽŽƌĚŝŶĂĐŝſŶ Ăů ƌĞƐƉĞĐƚŽ͘

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Thursday, November 12, 2020

Macron and Kurz flex anti-terror muscles for domestic audience

By ADAM NOSSITER

P

resident Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of Austria stood side by side Tuesday to talk terrorism at the Élysée Palace, but the moment was as much about domestic politics for each leader as about terrorist threats.

France and Austria both have been attacked recently: Vienna last week with the deadly shooting of four people by an Islamic State sympathizer, and France with the stabbing deaths of three in Nice and the beheading of a teacher in the Paris suburbs.

And Macron in particular has been looking for allies in the face of hostility in the Muslim world to the broad crackdown his government has launched in response.

The French president, facing a reelection campaign in 2022 in which his opponent is likely to be far right leader Marine Le Pen, has every interest in flexing his anti-terrorism muscles in public, even to the point of appearing with Kurz, who until last year governed in a coalition with Le Pen’s allies on Austria’s far right.

“Given the level of emotion that has been created, he has the feeling he’s got to prove to the French he’s doing his utmost,” said Dominique Moïsi, special adviser on geopolitics at the Institut Montaigne think tank in Paris, speaking about Macron. “Even going beyond his political zone of comfort” by appearing with Kurz.

And Kurz, now in a coalition with the Greens and in a quest for broader respectability, gains from being seen in public shoulder-to-shoulder with a member in good standing of the core group of European Union leaders.

Police patrol the area after an attack that left four people dead and 23 wounded, in central Vienna on Nov. 4, 2020.

The meeting of the two leaders Tuesday was followed by a Europe-wide video conference on terrorism with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands, the European Council president, Charles Michel, and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.

The meeting produced some tough talk about reinforcing borders and stepping up cross-border policing, but it was more about symbol than substance for the French and Austrian leaders, according to some who have studied the two men.

Macron’s political standing, damaged by his government’s handling of the coronavirus epidemic, is now benefiting from public outrage and nationalism in the wake of the killings. He is also seeing a lift from what French commentators and politicians have suggested is anger over undue focus by foreign observers on the country’s treatment of its Muslim population.

“Macron is clearly keeping up the momentum. Being tough on terrorism never hurt anyone,” said François Heisbourg, a French defense analyst, though “honestly I don’t think most French people have heard of Kurz.”

In the view of analysts, the political implications of Tuesday’s meeting were clear.

“In a way it’s a direct answer to Marine Le Pen,” said Moïsi of the Institut Montaigne. “He’s already in the campaign, and he’s only got one opponent. He’s proving to those who vote for her, you don’t have to vote for her, you can vote for me. It’s a political tactic in the immediate, and a global strategy in the longer term.”

Kurz had similar domestic goals in mind, aware of having to take a tough line to mobilize voters who might defect to the far-right Freedom Party, with which he governed in a previous coalition.

“For Kurz this alliance with Macron is useful in three ways,” said Christoph Hofinger, director of the SORA institute, a social research group in Vienna. “He can show that he has European recognition, he can show that he is being tough on political Islam, and the whole thing distracts from the embarrassing missed warnings ahead of the recent attack in Vienna.”

He added: “It is less about persuading Macron of anything than about giving the impression of being a leading voice in Europe.”

Macron was careful to touch on themes dear to Le Pen’s party, in brief remarks Tuesday after his meeting with Kurz and the other European leaders. “This menace weighs on all the countries of Europe,” he said, emphasizing to reporters that the Continent’s external border, outside the so-called Schengen Zone that encompasses most of the countries of Europe, needed to be tightened.

“Security weakness at the border is a risk to all our

member states,” Macron said. “There has to be a refoundation of the Schengen Zone,” he added, “so that it becomes a safe space.”

Macron insisted that “we have to look lucidly at the link between illegal immigration and terrorism,” a nod to apparent illegal entry into Italy by boat by the suspect in the Nice killings.

Kurz chimed right in Tuesday. “We can’t live in liberty without protecting our exterior frontiers,” the Austrian chancellor said. “We’re being confronted by a permanent menace.”

Merkel was the only leader who sounded a softening note.

“This is not a fight between Islam and Christianity,” the German chancellor said. “It’s about defending our model of a democratic society.”

Before Macron spoke, Le Pen’s National Rally party issued a statement Tuesday calling for the abandonment of the Schengen Zone and the reestablishment of national borders — for years a French far-right rallying cry. This would do away with a signature achievement of the European Union, border-free travel. Macron hasn’t gone that far, although last week he announced a doubling of French border guards.

Le Pen’s party professed bemusement at Macron’s remarks.

“He doesn’t understand the threat we are facing,” said Philippe Olivier, a close aide to the far right leader, in an interview after Macron spoke.

“We are at war, and in the face of a war we implement a law of war,” Olivier said, adding that Macron’s pledges to rethink the Schengen Area and to regulate hate speech on social networks were useless in the fight against terrorism.

Macron touched on another theme dear to the far right, the abuse of demands for asylum. “There’s been a distortion in calls for the right to asylum,” the French president said Tuesday.

“We’ve seen more and more people asking for asylum. This is being used by traffickers,” he said.

Olivier said that Macron’s denunciation of the “misuse” of Europe’s asylum system was contradicted by his support for the new European Commission-backed plan for migrants, which offers countries financial incentives to take in refugees, but also aims to speed deportation.

For now, Macron can absorb these jabs from the far right, even as he lobbies, with some success, to make the problem of terrorism an EU-wide one.

A policy document set to be approved this week by EU interior ministers lays out areas where the EU should step up the fight against extremism, including compelling social media companies to remove extremist content, improving existing intelligence-sharing platforms and bolstering cooperation with third countries on the movements of extremists.

The San Juan Daily Star

Judge is shot and killed in her office at Manila’s City Hall

By JASON GUTIERREZ and MIKE IVES

according to a New York Times database.

M a nila’s m ay o r, Fr a n ci s c o judge in the Philippine capital Domagoso, said in a statement Wednesday was fatally shot Wednesday in that at the time of the shooting, Abadilla her office at Manila’s city hall, was speaking with Rebato in her authorities said, in a burst of violence that chambers about his performance, “which was notable even for a country where seems unfavorable.” shootings are prevalent.

Rebato had be en sick with In a statement, the mayor’s office COVID-19, the disease caused by the identified the judge, who was shot coronavirus, and had been planning to Wednesday afternoon in her fifth-floor submit his resignation, the mayor said, office, as Maria Theresa Abadilla, 44, of citing a legal researcher who witnessed the city’s Regional Trial Court. his conversation with the judge.

Abadilla was taken to a hospital Rebato “was seen feeling uneasy after the shooting and proclaimed dead and shuddering” while being questioned on arrival, according to Maj. Jhun Bay by Abadilla, the mayor’s statement of the Manila police and two doctors at said. He then shot her in the head and the emergency department of Medical “apparently” killed himself with his Center Manila. service firearm, it said.

Amador Rebato, a 42-year-old Capt. Henry Navarro of the Manila attorney and chief clerk at the court, was police homicide division, which took in Abadilla’s office when witnesses heard over the case, said Rebato had been a gunshot ring out, the mayor’s office said, accompanied to the meeting by a sister adding that Rebato was now a suspect who was also a lawyer. in the case. The clerk shot himself after “Rebato had been sick of COVID shooting Abadilla, the police said; local and suffered depression after recovering,” reports said that he, too, had died. the officer told reporters. “As a result, he A possible motive was unclear. missed work deadlines. He was planning So was the way in which the gunman to resign, which was why he went to apparently smuggled a weapon into a speak with Abadilla.” building that has been under heightened The officer said there was no heated security during the coronavirus pandemic, argument, although disagreements were which has led to nearly 400,000 cases heard and Rebato’s hands were shaking. in the Philippines — the second-highest “Fifteen minutes into the meeting, he total in Southeast Asia behind Indonesia, took the gun that was inside a bag on his lap and shot Abadilla in the head,” he said.

“He shot himself after.”

Abadilla is the eighth judge in the country to be killed during the Duterte administration, according to a database maintained by Rappler, a Philippine news site.

She is one of 51 people killed in the legal profession, including judges, prosecutors and lawyers, according Judge Maria Theresa Abadilla was found shot in her fifthto the database. floor office in Manila’s city hall on Wednesday.

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The San Juan Daily Star

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

The Republican party is attacking Democracy

By JESSE WEGMAN

I

t turns out there was a coordinated attack on the 2020 election after all. It began several years ago and accelerated in the last several months. Now that Election Day has passed, it has launched into overdrive.

Its weapons are baseless insinuation and evidencefree charges, deployed solely to sow chaos and undermine the results of a free and fair election — one that produced a clear winner and an even clearer loser.

But the most dangerous attackers of American democracy aren’t the Russians or the Chinese. They are the leaders of the Republican Party.

In the face of a commanding national triumph by President-elect Joe Biden — not just an Electoral College victory but a popular-vote margin that is approaching 5 million — President Donald Trump and top Republicans are behaving like spoiled children refusing to let go of their toys.

“President Trump is 100% within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, even as he celebrated Republican pickups in the House of Representatives. Apparently, the same ballots that may be fraudulent at the presidential level are fine a

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few lines farther down, where Republicans are winning more of them.

Attorney General Bill Barr, who has repeated the president’s lies that absentee ballots were a source of widespread voter fraud, authorized the Justice Department to look into “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities. In response, the department official who oversees voter-fraud investigations stepped down.

The rot pervades the administration. The Trumpappointed head of the General Services Administration, Emily W. Murphy, has yet to recognize Biden as the winner of the election and the president-elect, preventing him from accessing millions of dollars in funds, nationalsecurity tools and other essential resources to begin the long and complex task of presidential transition.

It is now one full week after Election Day 2020. Joe Biden has prevailed in the Electoral College by a margin that, if current leads hold, will be identical to Donald Trump’s in 2016. When the counting is complete, his popular-vote margin could be twice as big as Hillary Clinton’s.

And yet with painfully few exceptions, Republicans are silent. No congratulations to Biden and his running mate, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. No concessions.

No acknowledgment that any world exists beyond their fantasy one in which only Republicans may rule. Instead we hear endless droning about “voting irregularities” or “fraud” or whatever euphemism Republicans have agreed on this year to describe Black and brown people voting in large numbers.

By the way, for a party that professes to care so much about election integrity, Republicans have an odd way of showing it. Democrats have tried to pass multiple measures enhancing election security in recent years, some with bipartisan support. Mitch McConnell keeps blocking them, or being stingy with funding.

Of course any election irregularities should be

brought to light, if they exist. But what Republicans have brought forth instead is a slurry of unverified allegations and flat-out bogus claims racing around social media, and filing lawsuits that would be sanctionable under normal circumstances. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said, “Philadelphia elections are as crooked as a snake,” without offering any evidence. The new generation of Republican leaders preach and preen about how only “legal” votes should be counted, as though they have discovered some long-lost secret rather than a mundane fact about all elections.

The truth is that Republicans have conditioned themselves to refuse to accept that they could lose despite, or precisely because of, all the built-in structural advantages they currently enjoy, like the Senate and the Electoral College.

Speaking of those advantages, do you hear any Democrats saying that the Senate was “stolen,” even though their minority has consistently represented many millions more Americans than the Republicans’ majority? Instead, after a disappointing election night, they regrouped and said, we have to get out the vote and win those two runoffs in Georgia. That’s what you do in a democracy.

But the bigger picture here is the decadelong descent of the Republican Party which now prefers conspiracy theories over facts, magical thinking over science, and delegitimizing its political opponents over substantive and responsible governance. Just a few recent examples: The racist birther slurs that Trump spearheaded against Obama; the reflexive opposition to everything Obama tried to do, even before he took office; the blanket denial of his appointment of federal judges, culminating in the theft of a Supreme Court vacancy that arose nearly a year before he left office; and finally, the seating of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee only days before an election that he lost fair and square.

Republicans have been working tirelessly to make voting harder for many years, and especially this year, for precisely this reason. They knew that Trump was unpopular and that Biden would probably win if more people voted. When voter suppression failed, they had only two options: accept their fate like serious and responsible people do, or claim that any loss they suffered was by definition the result of fraud.

Once again, they picked door number two. This is the problem with getting comfortable with the perks of minority rule, as Republicans have over the past several decades. It’s not just that you can ignore what most Americans want. It’s that you genuinely believe that there’s no way your opponent can win — much less by an absolute majority — without cheating.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

19

ACAA cierra oficina regional de Carolina por caso positivo a COVID-19 Por THE STAR

L

a Administración de Compensaciones por Accidentes de Automóviles (ACAA) suspendió el miércoles, los trabajos en la oficina regional de Carolina por un caso de COVID-19.

La directora ejecutiva, Margarita Nolasco, ordenó el cierre inmediato de dichas instalaciones en cumplimiento con los protocolos aplicables. Se procederá a coordinar las pruebas de COVID-19 a

los empleados con el Departamento de Salud.

“Hemos sido responsivos y tan pronto se determinó el caso positivo hemos decretado el cierre y activamos el protocolo aplicable”, señaló la funcionaria en comunicación escrita.

La oficina regional permanecerá cerrada hasta que se complete todo el proceso de desinfección y los empleados se realicen la prueba. Los servicios de ACAA continuarán ofreciéndose en las restantes regiones.

Activan protocolo de COVID-19 en municipio de Quebradillas Por THE STAR

L

a Oficina de Sistema Municipal de Rastreo del Municipio de Quebradillas activó el miércoles, el protocolo de COVID debido a un caso positivo entre los empleados municipales.

El caso fue identificado como parte de los esfuerzos de prevención que lleva a cabo la administración municipal a través de la Oficina de Rastreo, quien mensualmente realiza rondas de pruebas diagnósticas a los empleados, informaron la epidemióloga municipal, Natalia Ruíz, así como la secretaria de apoyo gerencial, Yamaris Fuentes, de Quebradillas.

“En las rondas de pruebas que realizamos, desde verano y que se hacen todos los meses, a nuestros empleados identificamos un caso positivo. De inmediato se activó el protocolo y como medida de prevención se enviaron a los empleados que tuvieron contacto directo con el caso positivo a aislamiento”, explicó Ruíz en comunicación escrita.

“También, se desinfectaron varias oficinas municipales y se continúan realizando y administrando las pruebas a los empleados municipales”, añadió.

El personal municipal mantiene un plan de prevención que incluye la desinfección y sanitización de dependencias municipales, así como áreas comunes en todo el pueblo. De igual forma se mantiene alerta ante nuevas herramientas que surgen para implementar como parte del plan de trabajo.

Por su parte, la secretaria de apoyo gerencial municipal, Yamaris Fuentes confirmó: “es importante resaltar que ninguno de los servicios municipales está afectado. Los servicios se ofrecen de manera ininterrumpida y enmarcados en las medidas de salubridad y seguridad recomendadas.

Cabe destacar que nuestro municipio es muy activo en el manejo de este tema. Desde que inició la

pandemia comenzamos la distribución de “kits” de prevención para los residentes y agencias estatales y municipales, se entregaron termómetros infrarrojos, se entregaron compras, así como otras ayudas y servicios enfocados en minimizar la propagación de contagios”.

Fuentes aseguró que mensualmente se realizan pruebas a los empleados lo que contribuye a monitorear de manera constante la salud de estos, lo que redunda en identificar los casos positivos a tiempo y minimizar los contagios. Según el Dashboard del Departamento de Salud, en Quebradillas

hay acumulados 322 casos de los cuales 58 están activos, cero hospitalizados y cero fallecidos.

La epidemióloga Ruíz recordó que continúan los esfuerzos de educación para orientar a los ciudadanos e hizo un llamado para que personas que entiendan pueden tener síntomas asociados con el COVID se comuniquen al Centro de Llamadas. Las personas que deseen comunicarse pueden hacerlo de lunes a viernes en horario de 8 de la mañana a 4:30 de la tarde al 939-438-7367. Los sábados puede llamar al 939-438-7581 de 9 de la mañana a 12 del mediodía.

20

Thursday, November 12, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Go ahead, binge old movies and jam out to ’90s hits

By JENNY GROSS

D

r. Libby Torchia’s pandemic breaking point came one morning in May, when she and her boss got into an argument over whether staff members should wear masks at the Columbus, Ohio, clinic where they worked. (“We should!” Torchia, 32, a veterinarian, said.)

Her colleagues knew just how to comfort her: Blast the Spice Girls hit song “Wannabe.” From the surgical suite where they were about to spay a dog, they broke into a dance party.

“It really helped to bring my focus back, and made me feel a lot happier and just kind of let go of all of the conflict,” Torchia said.

Some people swear by silent breakfasts. Others recommend breathing exercises. For another group of people, the ultimate coping mechanism for political angst and the pandemic is escaping into a world of yesteryear — listening to 1990s hits, watching old films and playing 16-bit video games.

When everything has turned upside down, why not go back to a time when the world seemed simpler?

It’s not just Spice Girls and Fleetwood Mac that are having moments. “Jurassic Park” (1993), “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” (1980), “Hocus Pocus” (1993) and “The Goonies” (1985) have hit box office charts over the past few months, pulling in thousands of dollars in ticket sales, especially at drive-in screens The Spice Girls at the MTV Music Awards Radio City Music Hall on Sept. 4, 1997. The group won the Best Dance where social distancing is easier.

Video category that year for their video “Wannabe.”

“Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (1982) dominated an evening’s conversation on Twitter after Jennifer reenacted it in a virtual table reading. getting lost in the plot of an old, favorite TV show or movie can Aniston, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and other celebrities These throwbacks have not had much competition, last anywhere from a few minutes to a day. admittedly, as many major movie studios have delayed releases “It changes the narrative you’re constantly telling yourself, until next year or later. But people are harking back to old reminding yourself you do have people who love and care for favorites not just because there is nothing else to watch or do. you even if you haven’t had a hug in a while,” Harris said.

These films and songs offer solace and predictability in a time Harris found that he, too, sought familiarity, especially at when each week seems to bring unpleasant surprises. the beginning of the pandemic. Each morning, for a half-hour Research shows that conjuring nostalgia by watching old before work, he would mix music on his computer — something movies or taking up old hobbies is an effective way to cope with he had not done in decades. stress and anxiety. It can lift moods, boost confidence and inspire “We need to be distracted from time to time,” he said. a sense of optimism, said Dr. Wing Yee Cheung, an associate Distraction has been key for Anna Townsend, a recruiter professor in psychology at the University of Winchester in living in Athens, Georgia. Overwhelmed with anxiety about the England who studies nostalgia. coronavirus, protests in Atlanta, the election and her husband’s “We feel that we have lost footing at the present time, recent job loss, she decided to watch less TV news and more and we gain some comfort by taking a step back and revisiting vintage comedies. She said she has seen about 40 movies since something that reminds us of a time that we used to feel more March, including “Casper” (1995), “The Addams Family” (1991), connected with other people,” Cheung said. “It gives you energy “Halloweentown” (1998), “Dumb and Dumber” (1994) and to cope with what is going on now and move forward.”

“Hocus Pocus.”

Torchia, who now works at a different veterinary clinic, “It’s something to numb your mind a little bit,” said that during the pandemic, she has spent hours listening to Townsend, 31, said. “You can just spend one hour and 45 the Spice Girls and Britney Spears, favorites from elementary minutes zoning out.” and middle school, because they remind her of times when she Chris Mazurek, who lives outside Melbourne, Australia, felt more hopeful and less isolated from her family. She has also which until last month had one of the world’s longest and most watched about 10 classic Disney movies, including “Mulan” severe lockdowns, said that in July, when it looked as if there was (both the 1998 version and the 2020 remake), and on election no end in sight to the lockdown, he started listening to the Foo night she watched the romantic comedy “Easy A” (2010) to calm Fighters album “There Is Nothing Left to Lose.” her as the results started rolling in.

The 1999 album brought him back to his high school days Dr. Lasana Harris, an assistant professor of psychology at and motivated him to reconnect over Facebook with several high University College London, said the psychological benefits of school friends with whom he had not been in touch in a decade.

Job Opportunity

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

21

How ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ started a new debate about sexism in chess

By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN

J

udit Polgar might be the one woman in the world who knows how Beth, the heroine of the hit Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit,” really feels. Like Beth, Polgar, who is from Hungary, stood out during her career because she regularly beat the world’s top players, including Garry Kasparov, in 2002, when he was ranked No. 1.

Polgar, the only woman to ever be ranked in the Top 10 or to play for the overall world championship, retired from competitive chess in 2014. Watching the series, which she described as an “incredible performance,” gave her a sense of déjà vu, particularly in the later episodes.

But there was one respect in which she could not identify with Beth’s experience: how the male competitors treated her.

“They were too nice to her,” Polgar said. When Polgar was proving herself and rising in the world rankings, the men often made disparaging comments about her ability and sometimes jokes, which they thought were funny but were actually hurtful, she said.

And no one ever resigned to her, as Shapkin did to Beth in Episode 7 by gallantly holding her hand near his lips.

“There were opponents who refused to shake hands,” she recalled. “There was one who hit his head on the board after he lost.”

Not every woman has had negative experiences. Irina Krush, who won her eighth U.S. Women’s Championship last month, said she felt as if the chess community and men in particular were supportive of her when she was an up-andcoming player. She said of the series, “The spirit of what they are showing conforms to my experience.”

Whether what happens to Beth is typical or not, the popularity of “The Queen’s Gambit” has inspired anew a debate about inequality and sexism in chess and what, if anything, can be done about them.

Though chess would seem like one area where men and women should be able to compete on equal footing, historically, few women have been able to do so. Among the more than 1,700 regular grandmasters worldwide, only 37, including Polgar and Krush, are women. Currently, only one woman, Hou Yifan of China, ranks in the Top 100, at No. 88, and she has been playing

infrequently, even before the pandemic.

The superiority of men in the game is so well established that the best female players have freely acknowledged it. In a recent issue of Mint, in an article titled “Why Women Lose at Chess,” Koneru Humpy, an Indian player currently ranked No. 3 among women, said men are just better players. “It’s proven,” she said. “You have to accept it.”

The dearth of women at the top of the game is one reason that there are separate tournaments for women, including a world championship; the World Chess Federation even created titles for women, such as women grandmaster.

Having such institutionalized, secondclass status might seem like a bad idea, but not according to Anastasiya Karlovich, a grandmaster who was the press officer for the World Chess Federation for several years. She said the women’s titles permit more female players to earn a living as professionals, thereby increasing their participation in the game.

Karlovich said the Netflix show has helped her indirectly: It has made the parents of her chess students look at her differently.

“They have more respect for me. They understand better the life of a player,” she said.

While some men have speculated that the reason there are so few top female players is because they are not wired for it — Kasparov once said that it is not in their nature — women think the overriding reason is cultural expectations and bias.

Polgar said society and even parents can undermine their daughters’ efforts to improve, although, in her case, her parents, in particular her father, did the opposite: They started teaching her chess when she was of kindergarten age. Polgar also had two older sisters, Susan, who became a grandmaster and women’s world champion, and Sofia, who became an international master, to blaze the way and support her.

Elizabeth Spiegel is an expert, a level just below master, and has taught chess for two decades at Intermediate School 318, a public middle school in Brooklyn, New York, that has won dozens of national championships. She believes that cultural stereotypes definitely affect how people learn and play chess. She noted that boys

In a photo provided by Eric Rosen, Jennifer Shahade in an undated photo.

Shahade, the women’s program director at the U.S. Chess Federation, said teenage girls tend to stop playing chess because there are so few of them. tend to be overconfident, but that is more of a strength than a flaw in chess. On the other hand, during class, when girls answer her questions, they often begin, “I think I am wrong, but …”

Krush said the cultural cleaving between boys and girls happens at a young age. Scrolling through lists of the top players in the United States who are 7, 8 and 9, Krush pointed out that there are only a handful of girls in the Top 10.

That creates and reinforces another problem that discourages women’s participation: too few social contacts.

Jennifer Shahade, a two-time U.S. women’s champion who has written two books about women in chess (“Chess Bitch” and “Play Like a Girl!”) and is the women’s program director at the U.S. Chess Federation, said teenage girls tend to stop playing chess because there are so few of them and they want the social support. That Beth is a loner is likely an important reason she does not quit playing in tournaments.

Shahade said she actually did quit for a while, at about age 12, even though she came from a chess family. Her father, Mike, was a master, and her brother, Greg, became an international master.

“I was self-conscious,” Shahade said.

“My brother was supertalented and had become a master so early and so easily. I was a much slower learner.”

Shahade, who grew up admiring Polgar, said it was “totally inspiring” to see Beth’s story unfold. Like Beth, who loses all her games to Benny the first time they play speed chess, she prefers slow, or classical, chess.

Of 74,000 members in total, the U.S. Chess Federation said it has about 10,500 female members. Shahade wants to increase that number, as well as their participation. To that end, she and the federation started an online chess club in April to keep female players engaged during the pandemic. In the last few weeks, there have been between 80 and 140 participants, with quite a few older players. The last meeting also had a special guest: Kasparov, who has become a big booster of women’s chess since his retirement from competition in 2005. He was also a consultant on the Netflix series.

To keep the momentum going, Shahade is launching a new online group called the “Madwoman’s Book Club.” The title refers to a pejorative name used for the queen in the 15th and 16th centuries after it became the most powerful piece on the board. The first meeting, this Friday, already has 100 people signed up.

The subject of the discussion should come as no surprise: “The Queen’s Gambit,”

by Walter Tevis, the book on which the Netflix series is based.

22

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

‘The dark and the wicked’ review: Home, but not alone

By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

“D

o you smell him?,” a little girl whispers in Bryan Bertino’s ingenious chiller

“The Dark and the Wicked,” and the whole movie seems to freeze. As he showed in his masterly 2008 debut, “The Strangers,” Bertino understands the power in simplicity and the horror

Marin Ireland in “The Dark and the Wicked.”

in a hush. Not for him a screeching soundtrack and screaming ghouls; instead, he subtly coaxes terror from familiar situations and everyday objects. A self-directed light switch here, an errant vegetable knife there — in his films, even our own mirror image can turn traitorous.

The setting is an isolated sheep farm in rural Texas, where a comatose patriarch lies gasping his last. Yet his estranged adult children, Louise (a riveting Marin Ireland) and Michael (Michael Abbott Jr.), returning to say goodbye, are more concerned about their mother (Julie OliverTouchstone). Her disturbing diary entries and collection of crucifixes — the iconography of a religion she doesn’t believe in — evidence her belief that an evil entity is trying to harm her husband. It’s not long before the siblings begin to share her fears.

Ambiguous and allusive, “The

Dark and the Wicked” feels saturated in helpless misery and nerve-clanging dread. Electric jump-scares and bursts of violence are all the more shocking for their brevity, while sidelong, slightly elevated camera angles suggest the gaze of a lurking, malevolent presence.

Pitiless in its intent, and hopeless in its sense of sorrowful dereliction, “The Dark and the Wicked” fully earns its horrifically distressing final scenes.

Written and filmed on the director’s family farm, it depicts a shiveringly bleak rural homeland, abandoned to faith and neglected by its young — who learn too late they’ve been gone too long.

‘The Dark and the Wicked’: Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on iTunes, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.

‘Let him go’ review: From grief to terror

By GLENN KENNY

A

high point of the mostly meh 2013 Superman movie “Man of Steel” was the presence of Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as the title character’s earth parents. These stars showed a mature chemistry that one would have wanted to experience in a mature motion picture.

As it turns out, Costner and the screenwriter-director of “Let Him Go,” Thomas Bezucha (adapting a novel by Larry Watson), seem to have thought similarly. In this drama set in the 1960s, Lane and Costner (one of the movie’s executive producers) play Margaret and George Blackledge. George is a former sheriff, now a horse farmer — although we learn that Margaret is the real rider. They live with their son James (Ryan Bruce), their daughterin-law Lorna (Kayli Carter) and their infant grandson in what looks like reasonable contentment. But soon

their son dies in an accident.

In the next scene, George and Margaret are dressed solemnly. For a funeral, we presume. But Bezucha pulls a nice bit of misdirection here.

They are, rather, attending their former daughter-in-law’s wedding.

Margaret learns that Lorna’s new husband, Donnie (Will Brittain), is a domestic abuser. Before Margaret can do anything about it, Donnie has spirited Lorna and her child out of town.

Margaret is determined to track them.

With uncommon stealth, “Let Him Go” morphs from a drama about loss and grief into a terrifying thriller.

Lesley Manville, as a monstrous matriarch, turns up the heat. Jeffrey Donovan as one of her menacing sons is also outstanding. But the movie never loses sight of its character dynamics, beautifully acted by Costner and Lane. And it shows how this couple, whose back story is revealed only in judiciously placed flashbacks, sticks

to its own wedding vows.

‘Let Him Go’: Rated R for violence

and language. Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes. In theaters.

Diane Lane and Kevin Costner in “Let Him Go.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

23

An explanation for some COVID deaths may not be holding up

By GINA KOLATA

M

edical researchers are raising significant doubts about whether an agent of the human immune system causes some coronavirus patients to end up in the hospital with injured lungs and other organs, struggling to breathe.

What remains is a continuing mystery about what causes certain people to die from COVID-19, and how best to prevent that.

A hypothesis that emerged early in the pandemic involves cytokine storms, an immune system response that is often invoked to explain severe viral infections, and to many doctors it seemed to make perfect sense: Patients who died from COVID were found to sometimes have little or no virus in their bodies. Their immune systems got rid of it. But in doing so, the hypothesis went, their body’s defenses went rogue, spewing out powerful compounds — cytokines and other drivers of inflammation — that fatally damaged tissues and organs in a storm.

But in a number of recent studies, some researchers say, an agent suspected of causing the storms might not be the culprit or that such storms might not happen in the way doctors believed.

Not everyone agrees.

Dr. Randy Cron, a professor of pediatrics and medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who has long studied cytokine storms, said some hospitalized COVID-19 patients did experience these immune overreactions. But he agrees they are not identical to the reactions seen in other disorders, and much remains to be learned.

The storm idea has so far centered on one cytokine, interleukin-6, or il-6. The belief that it might be the culprit in certain COVID deaths began with reports from China early in the course of the pandemic. Doctors there said a patient who fared poorly had high levels of il-6. The doctors tried using drugs that block il-6, and the patient recovered. Similar reports followed there and in Italy.

A number of drugs that block il-6 are on the market to treat rheumatoid arthritis.

They also can stop severe immune reactions in other situations, such as a cytokine release syndrome that can occur with some

cancer treatments and with adult onset Still’s disease, a rare form of inflammatory arthritis. But, said Dr. John Stone, a professor of medicine at Harvard University, “these are not infections.”

Nonetheless, anti-il-6 drugs quickly became a standard of care at many hospitals treating COVID patients. The idea that they were quelling cytokine storms became widely accepted.

“It is so easy to have your brain remember the cases that worked really well and ignore those that didn’t work well,” said Dr. Bruce Walker, an immunologist who is director of the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard and was not involved in the new studies.

Now rigorous studies are failing to find that anti-il-6 drugs are effective. Other studies are finding that il-6 levels are not even highly elevated in COVID patients compared with levels in other critically ill patients.

Three such studies, two published in JAMA Internal Medicine and one in The New England Journal of Medicine, found no evidence that a commonly used il-6 inhibitor — tocilizumab, a rheumatoid arthritis treatment — reduced the death rates in severely ill coronavirus patients. Roche, which makes tocilizumab, did its own tests in COVID patients and reported that its drug was not helpful.

One issue is with the very term, cytokine storm.

“It has no definition,” said Dr. Carolyn Calfee, an intensive care medicine specialist at the University of California, San Francisco.

It is colorful and captured the imagination of doctors and much of the public, but with no definition there are no diagnostic criteria to show that such a thing is taking place.

And even if there is, il-6 might be a bystander rather than a driver. Hundreds of cytokines are released when the immune system goes into action. They drive and suppress one another in complex feedback loops.

“You take this thing like spaghetti that is connected in so many different ways,” Walker said. It is optimistic, he added, to think il-6 “will be the answer to everything.”

Until recently, there were no system-

Medical staff tended to a Covid patient in the intensive care unit of a Houston hospital. Though treatment with drugs that fight one type of cytokine has become standard, the evidence mounts that they are not effective. atic studies asking if il-6 levels really were unusually high in COVID patients.

It turns out that they often are not, recent research suggests.

Dr. Jonathan Parr, an infectious disease specialist at the University of North Carolina, checked il-6 levels in his medical center’s COVID patients early in the pandemic.

They were difficult to interpret but generally were well below those seen in other inflammatory syndromes, like sepsis, where they are 27 times higher.

Dr. William Fischer, a pulmonary and critical care physician at the University of North Carolina, said the idea of a cytokine storm “comes up in every severe viral infection.” Examples include AIDS, Ebola, flu, Lassa fever, SARS and MERS, he said.

But, he said, “it can be difficult to tease apart what drives pathology — whether it’s just the virus or both the virus and the very immune response that is needed to clear the virus.”

“The next step should be a randomized clinical trial,” in which patients are randomly assigned to receive the experimental treatment or not. Instead, Fischer said, trials, if they started at all, tended to begin after tens of thousands of patients had already

gotten the drugs, which muddied the ability to prove safety and effectiveness.

So if not for this cytokine storm, what could be injuring the patients?

Inflammation from a variety of immune system overreactions may play a role, researchers said. One piece of evidence is that the steroid dexamethasone, which broadly suppresses the immune system, can reduce the death rate.

But il-6 is not the only possible driver of a damaging immune response, Stone said. Other inflammatory chemicals such as ferritin appear and so does CRP, a protein that is a sign of inflammation.

Many COVID patients also have blood clots, which themselves might be damaging lungs and other organs.

Walker cites another possibility. He was an author of a study that found that the virus can destroy germinal centers, places in lymph nodes where antibodies are produced. The result can be fewer antibodies and less effective ones.

And it still remains possible that administering anti-il-6 drugs may help if done earlier or later during a patient’s illness.

“We need randomized clinical trials to answer these hard questions,” Stone said.

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

MARÍA REBECA DE JESÚS MORALES, por sí y en representación de sus hijas menores de edad S. del C.C. y V.B.P.; su compañero consensual JAIME MARTÍNEZ BENITEZ; SANTA MORALES GONZÁLEZ Demandantes v.

LIDZAIDA RAMOS SANTIAGO, 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Sec del Tribunal.

Subsecretario.

LIDZAIDA RAMOS SANTIAGO, LEGAL NOTICE Subsecretario.

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

JESÚS MORALES, por sí y en representación de sus hijas menores de edad S. del C.C. y V.B.P.; su compañero consensual JAIME MARTÍNEZ BENITEZ; SANTA MORALES GONZÁLEZ

MARILU FRANCO ORTIZ, Demandantes v. su esposo JOHN DOE y MARILU FRANCO ORTIZ, la SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE su esposo JOHN DOE y BIENES GANANCIALES la SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE compuesta por ellos, y BIENES GANANCIALES en representación de su compuesta por ellos, y hijo menor de edad LATIF en representación de su ANTONIO CALDERÓN hijo menor de edad LATIF FRANCO; COMPAÑÍA/ ANTONIO CALDERÓN PERSONA / ENTIDAD FRANCO; COMPAÑÍA/ / SOCIEDAD “X” h/n/c PERSONA / ENTIDAD COLEGIO SAN ANTONIO; / SOCIEDAD “X” h/n/c ET ALS. COLEGIO SAN ANTONIO; Demandadas ET ALS. CIVIL NUM.: SJ2020CV0376 (806). SOBRE: DAÑOS Y PERJUICIOS. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: JANE DOE y la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales compuesta por esta y Perencejo Roe

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para presente su alegación responsiva dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este edicto, radicando la misma a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración y de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio , en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaria del Tribunal. Este caso trata sobre una Demanda por Daños y Perjuicios por la suma total de en la cual se solicita compensación por la suma no menor de $2,037,000 .00 más costas , gastos y honorarios de abogado.

Se le apercibe que de no hacerlo , se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado en la demanda , sin más citarle ni oírle. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal , en San Juan, P.R., hoy día 5 de noviembre de 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Sec del Tribunal.

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Demandadas CIVIL NUM.: SJ2020CV0376 (806). SOBRE: DAÑOS Y PERJUICIOS. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: FULANO DE TAL y la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales compuesta por este y Marlene Feliu

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para presente su alegación responsiva dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este edicto, radicando la misma a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración y de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio , en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaria del Tribunal. Este caso trata sobre una Demanda por Daños y Perjuicios por la suma total de en la cual se solicita compensación por la suma no menor de $2,037,000 .00 más costas , gastos y honorarios de abogado.

Se le apercibe que de no hacerlo , se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado en la demanda , sin más citarle ni oírle. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal , en San Juan, P.R., hoy día 5 de noviembre de

MARÍA REBECA DE JESÚS MORALES, por sí y en representación de sus hijas menores de edad S. del C.C. y V.B.P.; su compañero consensual JAIME MARTÍNEZ BENITEZ; SANTA MORALES GONZÁLEZ Demandantes v.

MARILU FRANCO ORTIZ, su esposo JOHN DOE y la SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES compuesta por ellos, y en representación de su hijo menor de edad LATIF ANTONIO CALDERÓN FRANCO; COMPAÑÍA/ PERSONA / ENTIDAD / SOCIEDAD “X” h/n/c COLEGIO SAN ANTONIO; ET ALS.

Demandadas CIVIL NUM.: SJ2020CV0376 (806). SOBRE: DAÑOS Y PERJUICIOS. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: COMPAÑÍA ASEGURADORA A,B,C

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para presente su alegación responsiva dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este edicto, radicando la misma a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración y de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio , en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaria del Tribunal. Este caso trata sobre una Demanda por Daños y Perjuicios por la suma total de en la cual se solicita compensación por la suma no menor de $2,037,000 .00 más costas , gastos y honorarios de abogado.

Se le apercibe que de no hacerlo , se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado en la demanda , sin más citarle ni oírle. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal , en San Juan, P.R., hoy día 5 de noviembre de 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ

staredictos@thesanjuandailystar.com

Thursday, November 12, 2020

COLLADO, Sec del Tribunal. COLLADO, Sec del Tribunal. P.R., hoy día 5 de noviembre de LIDZAIDA RAMOS SANTIAGO, LIDZAIDA RAMOS SANTIAGO, 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Sec del Tribunal.

Subsecretario.

Subsecretario.

LIDZAIDA RAMOS SANTIAGO, LEGAL NOTICE LEGAL NOTICE Subsecretario.

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

JESÚS MORALES, por sí y en representación de sus hijas menores de edad S. del C.C. y V.B.P.; su compañero consensual JAIME MARTÍNEZ BENITEZ; SANTA MORALES GONZÁLEZ Demandantes v.

MARILU FRANCO ORTIZ, su esposo JOHN DOE y la SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES compuesta por ellos, y en representación de su hijo menor de edad LATIF ANTONIO CALDERÓN FRANCO; COMPAÑÍA/ PERSONA / ENTIDAD / SOCIEDAD “X” h/n/c COLEGIO SAN ANTONIO; ET ALS.

Demandadas CIVIL NUM.: SJ2020CV0376 (806). SOBRE: DAÑOS Y PERJUICIOS. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

JESÚS MORALES, por sí y en representación de sus hijas menores de edad S. del C.C. y V.B.P.; su compañero consensual JAIME MARTÍNEZ BENITEZ; SANTA MORALES GONZÁLEZ Demandantes v.

(787) 743-3346

TENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal , en San Juan, P.R., hoy día 5 de noviembre de 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Sec del Tribunal.

LIDZAIDA RAMOS SANTIAGO, Subsecretario.

Se le apercibe que de no hacerlo , se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado en la demanda , sin más citarle ni oírle. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal , en San Juan, P.R., hoy día 5 de noviembre de LEGAL NOTICE 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE COLLADO, Sec del Tribunal.

PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE LIDZAIDA RAMOS SANTIAGO, PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE Subsecretario.

SAN JUAN.

MARÍA REBECA DE JESÚS MORALES, por sí y en representación de sus hijas menores de edad S. del C.C. y V.B.P.; su compañero consensual JAIME MARTÍNEZ BENITEZ; SANTA MORALES GONZÁLEZ

MARILU FRANCO ORTIZ, Demandantes v. su esposo JOHN DOE y la SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE MARILU FRANCO ORTIZ, Demandantes v. su esposo JOHN DOE y BIENES GANANCIALES MARILU FRANCO ORTIZ, la SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE compuesta por ellos, y su esposo JOHN DOE y en representación de su BIENES GANANCIALES la SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE compuesta por ellos, y hijo menor de edad LATIF en representación de su BIENES GANANCIALES ANTONIO CALDERÓN compuesta por ellos, y FRANCO; COMPAÑÍA/ hijo menor de edad LATIF en representación de su ANTONIO CALDERÓN PERSONA / ENTIDAD FRANCO; COMPAÑÍA/ hijo menor de edad LATIF / SOCIEDAD “X” h/n/c ANTONIO CALDERÓN PERSONA / ENTIDAD COLEGIO SAN ANTONIO; FRANCO; COMPAÑÍA/ / SOCIEDAD “X” h/n/c ET ALS. PERSONA / ENTIDAD COLEGIO SAN ANTONIO; Demandadas / SOCIEDAD “X” h/n/c ET ALS. CIVIL NUM.: SJ2020CV0376 COLEGIO SAN ANTONIO; Demandadas (806). SOBRE: DAÑOS Y PERJUICIOS. EMPLAZAMIENTO CIVIL NUM.: SJ2020CV0376 ET ALS. POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: COMPAÑÍA/ PERSONA A: MENGANA DE CUAL / ENTIDAD / SOCIEDAD y la Sociedad Legal de PERSONAS D, E Y F Gananciales compuesta POR LA PRESENTE se le em- por esta y José Caraballo plaza y requiere para presente su alegación responsiva dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este edicto, radicando la misma a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración y de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio , en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaria del Tribunal. Este caso trata sobre una Demanda por Daños y Perjuicios por la suma total de en la cual se solicita compensación por la suma no menor de $2,037,000 .00 más costas , gastos y honorarios de abogado.

Se le apercibe que de no hacerlo , se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado en la demanda , sin más citarle ni oírle. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal , en San Juan, P.R., hoy día 5 de noviembre de 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ

MARÍA REBECA DE JESÚS MORALES, por sí y en representación de sus hijas menores de edad S. del C.C. y V.B.P.; su compañero consensual JAIME MARTÍNEZ BENITEZ; SANTA MORALES GONZÁLEZ

The San Juan Daily Star

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para presente su alegación responsiva dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este edicto, radicando la misma a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración y de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio , en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaria del Tribunal. Este caso trata sobre una Demanda por Daños y Perjuicios por la suma total de en la cual se solicita compensación por la suma no menor de $2,037,000 .00 más costas , gastos y honorarios de abogado.

Se le apercibe que de no hacerlo , se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado en la demanda , sin más citarle ni oírle. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal , en San Juan,

(806). SOBRE: DAÑOS Y PERJUICIOS. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: PERENCEJO ROE y la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales compuesta por este y Jane Doe

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para presente su alegación responsiva dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este edicto, radicando la misma a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración y de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio , en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaria del Tribunal. Este caso trata sobre una Demanda por Daños y Perjuicios por la suma total de en la cual se solicita compensación por la suma no menor de $2,037,000 .00 más costas , gastos y honorarios de abogado.

Se le apercibe que de no hacerlo , se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado en la demanda , sin más citarle ni oírle. EX-

Demandadas CIVIL NUM.: SJ2020CV0376 (806). SOBRE: DAÑOS Y PERJUICIOS. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: JOHN DOE y la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales compuesta entre este y Marilú Franco Ortiz en representación del menor Latif Antonio Calderón Franco

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para presente su alegación responsiva dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este edicto, radicando la misma a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración y de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio , en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaria del Tribunal. Este caso trata sobre una Demanda por Daños y Perjuicios por la suma total de en la cual se solicita compensación por la suma no menor de $2,037,000 .00 más costas , gastos y honorarios de abogado.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE CAGUAS SALAS DE FAMILIA Y MENORES.

JUAN RAMÓN QUIÑONS MANZO Demandante Vs.

IVONNE GUERRA ENCARNACIÓN

Demandada CIVIL NUMERO: CG2020RF00603. SALA: 503.

SOBRE: DIVORCIO RI. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA PRESIDENTE DE LOS E.E.U.U. ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R. S.S.

A: IVONNE GUERRA ENCARNACIÓN

Por la presente se le emplaza y se le notifica que la parte demandante ha presentado ante este Tribunal una Demanda en la cual se solicita el siguiente remedio en su contra: Divorcio por Ruptura Irreparable. Dentro del término de treinta (30) días desde la publicación del presente edicto usted, la parte demandada, deberá presentar ante este Tribunal original de su contestación a dicha demanda y notificar con copia de la misma al Lcdo.

Jaime F. Rodríguez Ortíz, cuya dirección es la siguiente: Calle Carazo #10 (Bajos) Guaynabo, Puerto Rico 00969. Su teléfono es el 787-642-0506. c/ e: jfrolawgmail.com Se le apercibe que de no hacerlo, se le anotará la rebeldía y se podrá dictar sentencia en su contra, concediendo los remedios solicitados o cualquier otro si el Tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente, Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal en Caguas, Puerto Rico, hoy 26 de octubre de 2020. Carmen Ana Pereira Ortiz, Secretaria. Ivelisse Gomez Falcon, SubSecretaria.

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO PARTE DEMANDANTE vs.

DORAL FINANCIAL CORPORATION POR CONDUCTO DE SU AGENTE RESIDENTE; FEDERAL DEPOSIT

The San Juan Daily Star

INSURANCE CORPORATION {FDIC) COMO SÍNDICO DE DORAL BANK; DORAL MORTGAGE CORPORATION T/C/C DORAL MORTGAGE, LLC., POR CONDUCTO DE SU AGENTE RESIDENTE CT CORPORATION SYSTEM; WORLD FINANCIAL CORPORATION H/N/C WORLD MORTGAGE BANKERS; IVELISSE MARTÍNEZ FIGUEROA, FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL PAGARÉ

PARTE DEMANDADA CIVIL NÚM. FA2020CV00508.

SOBRE: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO POR LA VÍA JUDICIAL. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS E.E.U.U. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. EDICTO.

A: FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION (FDIC) COMO SÍNDICO DE DORAL BANK a las siguientes direcciones: FDIC SAN JUAN FIELD. OFFICE, 235 CALLE FEDERICO COSTA, STE 335, SAN JUAN, PR 00918-1341, 350 5TH AVE STE 1200, NEW YORK NY 10118-1201 Y 1601 BRYAN ST., DALLAS TX 752013401.

IVELISSE MARTÍNEZ FIGUEROA a sus últimas direcciones conocidas: URB JOSE H RAMIREZ, CS CALLE 2, RIO GRANDE, PR 00745-3130, URB PARQ DEL RIO, 124 VÍA DEL PARQUE, TRUJILLO ALTO, PR 00976-6070 Y URB. PARQUE DEL RIO, PBS BUZÓN 124 ENCANTADA, TRUJILLO ALTO, PR 00976.

FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL PAGARÉ.

Queda usted notificado que en este Tribunal se ha radicado demanda sobre cancelación de pagaré extraviado por la vía judicial. El 22 de noviembre de 2003, Ivelisse Martínez Figueroa (soltera) constituyó hipoteca en San Juan Puerto Rico, mediante la Escritura núm. 1453 autorizada por la notaria Teresita D. Navarro

García en garantía de un pagaré bajo el testimonio número 18,473 por la suma de $80,000.00, a favor de Doral Mortgage intereses al 6.875% anual, vencedero el 1ro de diciembre de 2033. El 1 de junio de 2005, la señora Martínez Figueroa otorgó hipoteca en garantía de un segundo pagaré bajo el testimonio número 2,821 por la suma de $15,000.00 a favor de Doral Bank, devengando intereses al 8.45% anual y vencimiento el 1ro de junio de 2015, según la Escritura núm. 395 ante el notario Rey J. De León Colón.

Ambas transacciones sobre la siguiente propiedad: URBANA: Solar marcado con el número 5 de la manzana C del Plano preparado por la Corporación de Renovación Urbana y Vivienda de Puerto Rico para su proyecto de solares denominado Urbanización José H. Ramírez, radicado en el Barrio Guzmán Abajo del término municipal de Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, con una cabida de 259.92 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, con la calle B, distancia de 12.00 metros; por el SUR, con Carretera Estatal número 3, distancia de 12.00 metros; por el ESTE, con el solar número 6, distancia de 21.66 metros y por OESTE, con el solar núm. 4, distancia de 21.66. Enclava una casa con un área total de construcción de 590 pies cuadrados en .9375 de pie cuadrado. La propiedad consta inscrita al folio 35 del tomo 185 de Río Grande, Finca 9024. Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección III. Las escrituras de hipoteca constan inscritas como asiento abreviado en el Tomo Karibe de Río Grande, Finca 9024.

Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección III. Inscripción quinta y sexta, respectivamente.

La parte demandada deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal Se le advierte que, si no contesta la demanda, radicando el original de la ! contestación en este Tribunal y enviando copia de la contestación a la abogada de la Parte Demandante, Lcda. Belma Alonso García, cuya dirección es: PO Box 3922, Guaynabo, PR 009703922, teléfono y Fax: (787) 7891826, correo electrónico: oficinabelmaalonso@gmail.com, dentro del término de treinta (30) días de la publicación de este edicto, excluyéndose el día de la publicación, se le anotará la rebeldía y se le dictará Sentencia en su contra, concediendo el remedio solicitado sin más citarle ni oírle.

EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal, hoy 30 de octubre de 2020 en Fajardo, Puerto Rico.

Wanda I Segui Reyes, Secretaria Regional. Ivelisse Serrano Garcia, SubSecretaria.

Thursday, November 12, 2020 LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE PONCE.

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO PARTE DEMANDANTE vs.

DORAL FINANCIAL CORPORATION H/N/C H.F. MORTGAGE BANKERS POR CONDUCTO DE SU AGENTE RESIDENTE, FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION {FDIC) COMO SÍNDICO DE DORAL BANK, DORAL MORTGAGE CORPORATION T/C/C DORAL MORTGAGE, LLC., POR CONDUCTO DE SU AGENTE RESIDENTE CT CORPORATION SYSTEM, ORIENTAL BANK T/C/C ORIENTAL BANK AND TRUST COMO SUCESOR EN DERECHO DE SOUTHERN MORTGAGE, INC. T/C/C SOUTHERN MORTGAGE CORPORATION, BLANCA IRIS QUIÑONES ECHEVARRÍA, FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL PAGARÉ

PARTE DEMANDADA CIVIL NÚM. PO2020CV01520.

SOBRE: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO POR LA VÍA JUDICIAL. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTED E LOS E.E.U.U. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. EDICTO.

A: FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION (FDIC) COMO SÍNDICO DE DORAL BANK a las siguientes direcciones: FDIC SAN JUAN FIELD OFFICE, 235 CALLE FEDERICO COSTA, STE 335, SAN JUAN, PR 00918-1341, 350 STH AVE STE 1200, NEW YORK, NY 10118-1201 y 1601 BRYAN ST., DALLAS TX 75201-3401, BLANCA IRIS QUIÑONES ECHEVARRÍA a las siguientes direcciones: URB. ALTURAS DEL ALBA, L13 CALLE CIELO, VILLALBA PR 00766, 609 AVE TITO CASTRO STE 102, PMB 541, PONCE, PR 00716-0200; FULANO y ·MENGANO

DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL PAGARE.

llo del Tribunal, hoy 31 de octubre de 2020, en Ponce, Puerto Rico.

LUZ MAYRA CARABALLO GARCIA, Secretaria Regional. GLORIBEE MORALES MORENO, Queda usted notificado que en Sec Aux del Tribunal I. este Tribunal se ha radicado Demanda sobre Cancelación LEGAL NOTICE de Pagaré Extraviado por la vía Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto judicial. El 19 de mayo de 1999, Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE Blanca Iris Quiñones EchevaJUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera rría, constituyó una hipoteca en Instancia Sala Superior de CAPonce, Puerto Rico, conforme a GUAS. la Escritura núm. 83, autorizada BANCO POPULAR DE por el notario Féliix Llorens Santini en garantía de un pagaré por PUERTO RICO la suma de $62,400.00 a favor Demandante v. de Doral Financia! Corporation JOSE R. RIOS TORRES haciendo negocios como H.F. Demandado(a) Mortgage Bankers, o a su orden, Civil: Núm. CG2019CV03700. con intereses al 7% anual y ven- Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. cedero el 1ro de junio de 2029, NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA sobre la siguiente propiedad: POR EDICTO. URBANA: Solar marcado con el A: JOSE R. RIOS TORRES #L-13 del Bloque de la Urbaniza(Nombre de las partes a las que se ción Alturas del Alba, radicado en le notifican la sentencia por edicto) el Barrio Villalba del término mu- EL SECRETARIO(A) que susnicipal de Villalba, Puerto Rico, cribe le notifica a usted que el 4 que se describe en el plano de de NOVIEMBRE de 2020, este inscripción de la urbanización Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, con el #99-65 - B- 923PPI Caso Sentencia Parcial o Resolución 96-65-C-770-PPUR, con una en este caso, que ha sido debicabida de 307.96 metros cua- damente registrada y archivada drados, equivalentes a 0.0783 en autos donde podrá usted cuerdas. En linderos: NORTE, en enterarse detalladamente de los 25.86 metros, con el solar L-14; términos de la misma. Esta notiSUR, en 24.59 metros, con el ficación se publicará una sola vez solar L-12; ESTE, en 12.25 me- en un periódico de circulación tros, con la calle #8; OESTE, en general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, 12.298 metros, con la Urbaniza- dentro de los 10 días siguientes ción Las Alondras. Esta afectado a su notificación. Y, siendo o repor una servidumbre telefónica presentando usted una parte en de 5 pies de ancho a lo largo de el procedimiento sujeta a los térsu colindancia Este con la calle minos de la Sentencia, Sentencia #8 y a una servidumbre eléctrica Parcial o Resolución, de la cual de 5 pies de ancho por 30 pies puede establecerse recurso de de largo en su colindancia Nor- revisión o apelación dentro del te, en común con el solar #L-14. término de 30 días contados a La propiedad consta inscrita al partir de la publicación por edicto folio 50 del tomo 143 de Villal- de esta notificación, dirijo a usted ba, Finca 6730. Registro de la esta notificación que se considePropiedad de Ponce, Sección I. rará hecha en la fecha de la puLa escritura de hipoteca consta blicación de este edicto. Copia inscrita al folio 52 del tomo 143 de esta notificación ha sido archide Villalba, Finca 6730. Registro vada en los autos de este caso, de la Propiedad de Ponce, Sec- con fecha de 5 de noviembre de ción I. Inscripción segunda. La 2020. En CAGUAS, Puerto Rico, parte demandada deberá pre- el 5 de noviembre de 2020. F/ sentar su alegación responsiva CARMEN ANA PEREIRA ORTIZ, a través del Sistema Unificado Secretaria. F/CYNTHIA GARCIA de Administración y Manejo de DEL VALLE, Secretaria Auxiliar.

Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede LEGAL NOTICE acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://uni- ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE red.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE represente por derecho propio, PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUen cuyo caso deberá presentar PERIOR DE sAN JUAN. su alegación responsiva en la MIDFIRST BANK secretaría del Tribunal Se le adDemandante vs. vierte que, si no contesta la deLILLIAN ORTIZ CLAUDIO manda, radicando el original de t/c/c LILLIAN ORTIZ la contestación en este Tribunal y enviando copia de la contesLUGO tación a la abogada de la parte Demandada demandante, Lcda. Belma Alon- CIVIL NÚM: SJ2019CV00869. so García, cuya dirección es: PO SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Box 3922, Guaynabo PR 00970- Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. 3922, Teléfono y Fax: (787) 789- EDICTO DE SUBASTA. 1826, correo electrónico: oficinaA: LILLIAN ORTIZ belmaalonso@gmail.com, dentro CLAUDIO t/c/c LILLIAN del término de treinta (30) días ORTIZ LUGO Y AL de la publicación de este edicto, excluyéndose el día de la publi- PUBLICO EN GENERAL: cación, se le anotará la rebeldía El que suscribe, Alguacil del Triy se le dictará Sentencia en su bunal de Primera Instancia, Sala contra, concediendo el remedio de San Juan, y al Público en Gesolicitado sin más citarle ni oírle. neral hago constar que, en cumEXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el se- plimiento de la Sentencia dictada

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con fecha de 4 de junio de 2019, notificada por edicto el 13 de junio de 2019, de la Orden de Ejecución de Sentencia emitida el 13 de agosto 2019 y el Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia expedido el 12 de septiembre 2019, procederé a vender y venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor la propiedad que se describe a continuación: URBANA: PROPIEDAD HORIZONTAL: Apartamento residencial de forma irregular, localizado en la segunda planta del CONDOMINIO MIRADORES DE VENUS, sito en la Calle Piedras Negras de la Urbanización Venus Gardens Norte, radicada en el Barrio Sabana Llana Sur del término municipal de Río Piedras antes, hoy San Juan, Puerto Rico, el cual se describe en la escritura matriz de Dedicación al Régimen de Propiedad Horizontal con el número, área y colindancias que se relacionan a continuación: APARTAMENTO NÚMERO DOS MIL DOSCIENTOS SEIS (2,206), ÁREA DEL SOLAR: MIL CIENTO OCHENTA PUNTO OCHENTA Y CINCO (1,180.85) PIES CUADRADOS, equivalentes a CIENTO NUEVE METROS CUADRADOS CON SETENTA CENTÉSIMAS DE OTRO (109.70 mc). EN LINDES: por el NORTE, en veintidós pies seis y media pulgadas (22’6 1/2”) equivalentes a seis metros con ochenta y siete centésimas (6.87) partes de otro con espacio exterior, por el SUR, en dieciocho pies con diez y media pulgadas 18’ 10 ½”), equivalentes a cinco metros con setenta y cinco centésimas (5.75) con espacio exterior; por el ESTE, en sesenta pies nueve pulgadas (60’9”), equivalentes a dieciocho metros con cincuenta y dos centésimas (18.52) partes de otro con el apartamento número cuatro (4), que da al área de pasillo del condominio, el cual lleva al área de las escaleras que brindan acceso al apartamento; por el OESTE, en sesenta pies nueve pulgadas (60’9”)”, equivalentes a dieciocho metros con cincuenta y dos centésimas partes (18.52) con espacio exterior. Tiene su puerta de entrada y salida por el lado Este.

Consta de tres (3) habitaciones, dos (2) baños, lavandería, cocina, comedor, sala y balcón. Le corresponde a este apartamento dos (2) espacios de estacionamientos identificados con los números nueve (9) y diez (10). A este apartamento le corresponde una participación en los elementos comunes del Condominio de cero punto cero cinco siete cero por ciento (0.05570%). Esta propiedad por su procedencia se encuentra afecta a servidumbre de paso a favor de la propiedad de Zorahayda Ramírez de Arellano, servidumbre de paso a favor del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico cedida a la Autoridad de Acueductos y Alcantarillados de Puerto Rico, servidumbre a favor de la Puerto Rico Telephone Company, servidumbre a favor del Municipio de San Juan, servidumbre a favor de la Autori-

dad de Fuentes Fluviales de Puerto Rico, servidumbre a favor de la Autoridad de Acueductos y Alcantarillados de Puerto Rico, servidumbre predial de paso combinada de agua y sanitaria a favor de Autoridad de Acueductos y Alcantarillados de Puerto Rico, servidumbre a favor de la Puerto Rico Telephone Company, y por sí está afecta a Hipoteca, por la suma principal de CIENTO DIECINUEVE MIL SETECIENTOS DOLARES ($119,700.00), a favor de Citibank, N.A. El balance actual de dicha hipoteca habrá de ser pagado con cargo al préstamo que se constituye en la presente escritura y la hipoteca será subsiguientemente cancelada. Consta inscrita al folio número doscientos veinticuatro (224) del tomo número novecientos ochenta y seis (986) Ágora de Sabana Llana, finca número treinta y tres mil cuatrocientos sesenta y tres (33,463), en el Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección Quinta de San Juan. La dirección física de la propiedad es: Apartamento núm. 2206, Calle Piedras Negras, Condominio Miradores de Venus 700, San Juan 00926. El producto de la subasta se destinará a satisfacer al demandante hasta donde alcance, la suma de $116,093.81 por concepto de principal, más intereses a razón de 4.750% anual a partir del 1 de abril de 2017 más cargos por demora equivalentes al 4% de todos los pagos atrasados más de 15 días de la fecha de vencimiento, y los créditos adelantados hechos de acuerdo con el pagaré hipotecario y la escritura de hipoteca. Adeuda, además, la cantidad de tres pagos adicionales de $13,017.30 por concepto de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, cuyas sumas están vencidas, líquidas y exigibles. La venta en pública subasta de la referida propiedad se verificará libre de toda carga o gravamen POSTERIOR que afecte la mencionada finca, a cuyo efecto se notifica y se hace saber la fecha, hora y sitio de la PRIMERA, SEGUNDA y TERCERA subasta, si esto fuera necesario, a los efectos de que cualquier personas o personas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha subasta. La PRIMERA subasta se llevará a efecto el día 7 de diciembre de 2020 a las 11:30 de la mañana, en la sala del referido Alguacil, sita en el edificio que ocupa el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan. Que el precio mínimo fijado para la PRIMERA subasta es de $130,173.00. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una SEGUNDA subasta la misma se llevará a efecto el día 14 de diciembre de 2020 a las 11:30 de la mañana, en la sala en la oficina antes mencionada del Alguacil que suscribe. El precio mínimo para la SEGUNDA subasta será de $86,782.00 equivalente a dos terceras (2/3) partes del tipo mínimo estipulado para la PRIMERA subasta. Si no se produce remate ni adjudicación en le

PRIMERA ni en la SEGUNDA subasta, se celebrará una TERCERA el día 11 de ENERO de 2021 a las 11:30 de la mañana, en la oficina antes mencionada del alguacil que suscribe. El precio mínimo fijado para esta TERCERA subasta es la mitad de la suma pactada para la PRIMERA subasta a saber $65,086.50. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titulación del inmueble y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistente. Entendiéndose que el rematante lo acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de estos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se notifica Hipoteca preferente a favor de Citibank, N.A. por la suma principal de $119,700.00. Intereses: 6% anual. Vencimiento: 1ro de abril de 2020. Tasación: $119,700.00. En virtud de la escritura núm. 263 del 28 de marzo de 2005, otorgada en San Juan, ante el Notario Mario A. Quiles Rosado, según inscripción 5ª, al folio 141 del tomo 987 de Sabana Llana. Se les advierte a los licitadores que la adjudicación se hará el mejor postor, quien deberá consignar el importe de su oferta en el acto mismo de la adjudicación, en moneda curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América, entiéndase en efectivo, cheque certificado o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal. Tome conocimiento la parte demandada y toda aquella persona o personas que tengan interés inscrito con posterioridad a la inscripción del gravamen que se está ejecutando; y para conocimiento de los licitadores y el público en general, se publicará dos (2) veces en un periódico de circulación diaria en la Isla de Puerto Rico y se fijará, además, en los lugares públicos correspondientes. Una vez efectuada la venta de dicha propiedad, el Alguacil procederá a poner al licitador victorioso en posesión física de la propiedad dentro del plazo de veinte (20) días contados a partir de la venta en pública Subasta. Además, el Alguacil procederá a darle posesión del material al adjudicatario, en los casos que fuere necesario, proceda el lanzamiento del demandado o terceras personas de la propiedad subastada y forzar puertas o ventanas, romper cerraduras, candados, cortar cadenas y tomar cualquier otra medida propia. De igual forma, el Alguacil sacará cualquier propiedad mueble o personal de los demandados o de terceras personas que se encuentren en la mencionada propiedad. Además, los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la secretaría del tribunal durante las horas laborables. EXPIDO, el presente EDICTO, en San Juan, Puerto Rico, a 6 de NOVIEMBRE de 2020. PEDRO HIEYE GONZALEZ, Alguacil, Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan.

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Thursday, November 12, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

As owner of the Mets, Steven Cohen is ‘doing it for the fans’

By TYLER KEPNER

T

he greatest frustration for a die-hard fan is to believe you care more than the owner of your favorite team.

You splurge for tickets and hang on every pitch. You treasure the memories and plot for the future. Your loyalty is unshakable, as permanent as height or shoe size. All you ask is that the folks in charge also bleed in team colors.

In baseball, caring tends to mean spending. It is a harsh calculation in most places, but not in New York, where people understand the basic rule: stuff costs a lot. If you are not prepared to spend, you should probably leave town.

Steven Cohen paid $2.475 billion last week to buy the New York Mets from the Wilpon family, who spent 18 years as principal owners without finding the right combination of funds, drive and vision to win the World Series — or win over the fans. In Cohen, who grew up taking the train from Great Neck on Long Island to Shea Stadium to watch the Mets from the upper deck with his buddies, the fans have one of their own in charge.

He just happens to run a hedge fund, Point72 Asset Management, and have an estimated net worth of more than $14 billion.

“I’m essentially doing it for the fans,” Cohen said Tuesday. “When I really thought about this, I could make millions of people happy, and what an incredible opportunity that is. That’s how I’m thinking about this. I’m not trying to make money here. I have my business at Point 72 and I make money over there. So here, it’s really about building something great, building something for the fans, winning.

I just find this an amazing opportunity.”

Cohen and his new team president, former Mets general manager Sandy Alderson, spoke for 45 minutes each in a news conference by video conferencing that heralded a new day in the often-tortured history of the team. It was startlingly smooth, pitch-perfect messaging from a team rarely known to consistently articulate its principles.

The Mets missed the playoffs in 15 of the past 18 seasons, including the past four, after the Wilpons bought out Nelson Doubleday’s half-stake of the franchi-

se in August 2002. They have not won a championship since 1986. Cohen, 64, is tired of waiting.

“Only one team wins the World Series every year, so that’s a pretty high bar,” he said. “But if I don’t win a World Series in the next three to five years — I’d like to make it sooner — then obviously I would consider that slightly disappointing.”

Alderson, 72, helped build the Mets’ last pennant winner in 2015. He left three years later while fighting cancer and then advised the team he first ran, the Oakland Athletics. The chance to preside over the Mets’ baseball and business operations intrigued him, he said, because of Cohen, and the “immense possibilities” he represents for a tattered brand.

“The Mets are a storied franchise, if you will,” Alderson said. “Some of the stories have been good. Some of them have been bad. If we want to be an iconic franchise, which I think we are capable of doing, we have to write more good stories than bad, and occasionally we have to write a really epic story.

That’s what excites me about these next few months and years, because I think we have the chance to do that.”

Alderson, who served in the U.S. Steven Cohen addressed the news media — via Zoom — for the first time Marine Corps and earned a law degree since being approved as the new owner of the Mets. from Harvard, has long chafed at the Mets’ reputation for comedic chaos and ployees, reversing the 5 percent to 30 Alderson said manager Luis Rojas unforced errors. Former general manager percent pay cuts implemented in March. would “very likely” return for a second Steve Phillips likes to say that to run the He also established a relief fund for sea- season. The team is seeking both a presiMets is to see the pile of manure in your sonal employees who work at Citi Field. dent of baseball operations and a general path but step in it anyway.

Those gestures cost Cohen about manager to replace the fired Brodie Van In Cohen, Alderson said, he found an $9.5 million, he said last week — or less Wagenen, and already, Alderson said, owner who could restore respectability than the Mets would have spent on Brad the jobs are attracting more and better and shed the well-earned label for slapsHand, an All-Star reliever for the Cleve- candidates than they could have before. tick. On Tuesday’s call, Alderson read land Indians who went unclaimed by Free agents, naturally, will find a gefrom a memo he prepared for Cohen every team on waivers last week. Had nerous owner more alluring, and teams outlining his mission.

Cohen been in place, Alderson said, the hoping to unload salaries will be eager “First page, second paragraph,” AlMets might have made the $10 million to talk trade. Cohen said he would trust derson said. “A vision for new ownerclaim. ship: to create an iconic major league Alderson’s new staff to make the right de“Now, is that a good deal?” Alderson franchise respected for its success — said. “I don’t know. It’s probably overpaying cisions, and pledged that the Mets would competitive and financial success — and a little bit, who knows? But today, given not spend like “drunken sailors.” But he how it achieves that success, and for its what we want to achieve, it’s not about left no doubt of his goal: restoring pride commitment to fans and community.” how much less we can get somebody for. to his favorite team.

Respect should flow not merely from “I’m not in this to be mediocre,” It’s more about getting that somebody. winning, Alderson said, but from the way Now, I don’t want to create the impression Cohen said. “That’s just not my thing. I a team operates. As an initial goodwill that we’re going to go out and sign a bunch want something great, and I know the gesture last week, Cohen restored the of players. But we now can emphasize the fans want something great. That’s my pre-pandemic salaries of all Mets emgoal and that’s what I’m going to do.” acquisition rather than the cost.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

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The Dolphins appear to be relevant. How about that?

By MIKE TANIER

T

he Miami Dolphins were arguably the NFL’s least relevant team from the turn of the 21st century until two Sundays ago.

They were never truly great during that span but were rarely terrible enough to be comically entertaining, either. They produced few stars or personalities and fewer memorable moments. The Dolphins of the last two decades appeared to exist solely to provide a place holder in the AFC East standings to visibly illustrate the chasm between the New England Patriots and the New York Jets.

All of that was beginning to change when rookie quarterback Tua Tagovailoa made his highly anticipated debut as a starter Nov. 1 against the Los Angeles Rams.

The Dolphins have won two straight games with Tagovailoa leading their offense and are now enjoying their first four-game winning streak since 2016.

Tagovailoa has been solid but unspectacular in his first two starts. His two-touchdown performance in Sunday’s 34-31 victory over the Arizona Cardinals was encouraging, but he did little in his first start except hold the steering wheel and sit in his defense’s lap while it forced four turnovers.

Tagovailoa makes the Dolphins interesting, but it’s second-year head coach Brian Flores who is making the team competitive.

The Dolphins spent the 15 seasons between the slow collapse of the Jimmy Johnson and Dave Wannstedt eras and Flores’ arrival operating at cross purposes. The organization cycled through head coaches (Nick Saban, Cam Cameron, Tony Sparano, Joe Philbin, Adam Gase and some temps) and personnel executives (Randy Mueller, Bill Parcells and his lieutenants, Dennis Hickey and Dan Marino for three not-so-memorable weeks) to a syncopated rhythm that sometimes resulted in head coaches working for general managers who did not hire them while trying to win with quarterbacks whom neither selected.

By the time one regime swept away the previous regime’s decisions, a third regime was often poised to exert itself.

The years of friction and indecision trapped the team in a holding pattern. The Dolphins finished between 6-10 and 8-8 10 times since 2006, reaching the playoffs

The Dolphins have won two straight games with Tua Tagovailoa as their starting quarterback and are now enjoying their first four-game winning streak since 2016. just twice and only winning the AFC East in 2008, when Tom Brady’s ACL injury forced the Patriots to take a gap year.

Chris Grier became general manager in 2016 and hired Flores after consolidating control over football operations in 2019.

Grier was a Parcells protégé who spent 20 years climbing the Dolphins organizational chart, and Flores had worked his way up from a Patriots scouting assistant to Bill Belichick’s de facto defensive coordinator.

Yet despite their résumés, there was reason to be skeptical of the Grier/Flores administration: Grier was a lifer in an organization that appeared to need fresh voices, and Belichick’s disciples have a well-earned reputation for inheriting all of their mentor’s dictatorial grouchiness but none of his wisdom.

Sure enough, the Dolphins began the 2019 season with seven straight losses, the first four by a combined margin of 163-26.

There appeared to be a silver lining, though: The Dolphins were positioning themselves to select Tagovailoa, who helped the University of Alabama win the national championship in 2017, threw 43 touchdown passes while leading them back to the title game after the 2018 season and was considered a can’t-miss prospect by most experts.

Tagovailoa suffered a severe hip injury last November, causing his draft stock to dip. Flores began leading the Dolphins to occasional victories at about the same time. Enjoying just enough success to sabotage their future draft opportunities would be very on brand for the Dolphins, but Flores was rewarded for his late-season effort to salvage the team’s dignity when a healthy Tagovailoa remained on the board until the fifth overall pick in the draft in April.

Celebrity journeyman-for-hire Ryan Fitzpatrick started the first six games of this season while Tagovailoa completed his NFL orientation. Fitzpatrick then sparked a minor controversy by complaining about his demotion, which came before he could earn his customary annual benching after a multi-interception meltdown. Flores appears to have changed quarterbacks at the proper time, however: Tagovailoa looks as prepared as any rookie, and there have been no signs of any locker room division.

Flores projects a very different image from other recent Belichick protégés.

Detroit Lions coach Matt Patricia, who upstaged Belichick in the mid-2010s by strutting along the sideline with a pencil behind his ear like Kevin Smith directing “Jay and Silent Bob Take the SATs,” has developed a reputation for alienating

star players by enforcing petty rules.

Bill O’Brien, famous for his in-yourface approach with Brady (who was already a superstar when O’Brien began coaching him), spent six years demolishing the Houston Texans roster and front office before getting fired in October. Flores, by contrast, appears to practice the process-driven, detail-oriented, even-tempered approach that Belichick and the Patriots have long preached.

The Dolphins are not close to being Super Bowl contenders yet. There are two rookies starting on their offensive line, their defense is bulwarked by Patriots castoffs, and Tagovailoa will inevitably experience some growing pains. But the youngsters are developing, and the veterans are playing fundamentally sound football.

Furthermore, Grier stockpiled extra firstand second-round picks in 2021 by trading offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil to the Texans during one of O’Brien’s generous moods, so the Dolphins should enjoy a talent infusion next year.

The Dolphins now appear to have both a franchise quarterback and the type of “winning culture” that inspires NFL insiders to compose refrigerator magnet poetry. It’s not much, but after 20 years of directionless mediocrity, it’s finally a start.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

What’s different about a November Masters?

By BRENDAN PORATH and ALAN BLINDER

T

he Masters does set-your-watch-toit formality better than any sporting event. From the prominent green jacket ceremony to the mundane paint on sewer covers, every detail of the tournament is coordinated and beholden to a familiar presentation. This is how the youngest of the men’s golf major championships achieved such rapid brand strength and popularity.

Augusta National is a powerful club full of powerful people but the coronavirus pandemic had little regard for its traditions and certainly not its tournament schedule.

The watches and calendars were all reset in March as golf, and the rest of the sports world, went on hold. A plan for a rescheduled Masters in November was put in place, but like so much in 2020, it will be far different from the Masters we’ve come to expect each April.

No patrons, no roars The most conspicuous difference in the 2020 Masters will be the quiet, spectator-less grounds throughout the week.

It’s been a norm in golf and other sports for months but the Masters has a special relationship to its live audience, whose members are called “patrons,” per club tradition.

An Augusta National course without patrons will look odd, but less gallery traffic is expected to open up different camera angles that TV viewers do not normally see. Quantifying a crowd’s impact on a golf tournament is a challenge, particularly on the back nine holes where Augusta’s famed roars have provided the soundtrack to the Masters’ most memorable finishes.

“The crowds are so big there, you try to just get involved in playing your game and not paying that much attention to the crowds,” said Tommy Aaron, who won in 1973. “But they’re there, and if you’re going well, they can give you a boost.”

“And if you’re going badly,” he added, “it can seem to be magnified.”

Earlier this summer, Tiger Woods said players were “making more birdies” during spectator-less PGA tournaments on account of “not having to deal with the amount of distractions” created by the crowds. That could provide a stark advantage, and lower scores, over the 2019 Masters, where crowds swarmed around the final group of Woods, Francesco Molinari

Some hints of autumn color could be seen as Tiger Woods teed off on the 18th hole during a practice round at Augusta National on Monday. and Tony Finau. Molinari’s tenuous grip on the lead evaporated as the round progressed, and there were even some cheers down in Amen Corner when his tee shot on 12 went into Rae’s Creek.

Cheering poor shots is verboten at the Masters and described as “most distressing” in a printed note from Bobby Jones, one of the founders, at the front of the Masters Spectator Guide. This year, Augusta National won’t have to enforce it.

Fewer azaleas, more fall foliage The timing of the tournament in November lends itself to different playing conditions and, for connoisseurs of Augusta National’s flora, a different landscape marked more by dogwoods and maples.

The ropes and grandstands are absent this year, replaced by dark painted lines to keep the handful of people at the course out of play. And some hints of autumn color surface around the course.

Take the 12th hole, the heart of Amen Corner and in the view of many the most celebrated hole at Augusta. A right-hander at the tee box this week can glimpse reds and yellows not ordinarily seen during the Masters. The bridges over Rae’s Creek are lightly framed with fall’s hues.

Yet Phil Mickelson, a three-time Masters champion, said he had hardly noticed the colors as he played the course.

“I really don’t see much outside of the holes,” Mickelson said.

TV viewers, presumably not facing the distraction that will face Mickelson, can set aside azalea-gazing this year and keep closer tabs on the trees and how they shape the architecture of the course. Some shots, players suggested, may be more tempting because they are more visible because of

the lack of leaves or, in some spots, spectators.

“It’s weird because you can see almost every hole when you’re standing on the No. 1 tee, you can look out and see everything,” Brooks Koepka said Tuesday. “I’m not used to that.”

The weather (sort of) For all the concerns about a frigid Masters, temperatures should approximate April with forecasts of highs in the upper 70s and lows in the 60s throughout the weekend. Warming up for a round in benign early morning temperatures should come as a relief to the fused back of the 44-year-old defending champion.

Instead, thunderstorms will likely be a far greater threat than the temperature.

Players said the course appeared to be playing longer and that chipping around the greens could be impacted if rain rolls across Augusta. But turfgrass experts said the greens, notoriously speedy, tricky and maintained to the point of obsession, should play similarly to April.

“That place is as different as any other course in the world,” said Gerald Henry, a turfgrass management professor at the University of Georgia. “The pressures that I’d explain that are happening at your local golf course just don’t exist out there — and that’s intentional, obviously.”

A split tee start The small Masters field of between 90 and 100 golfers generally affords the tournament significant flexibility when it comes to scheduling tee times: They do not need to start players right at sunrise and they can send the entire field off the No. 1 tee.

With limited daylight in November, the Masters will use a two-tee start for the

first two rounds. Players will begin on No. 1 and No. 10 tees in early and late morning waves both today and on Friday. The tournament used the rare two-tee start for the final round last year, when it raced to beat afternoon thunderstorms that had been forecast.

Football looms The Masters typically occupies a weekend in April that’s free and clear from the NCAA basketball tournaments and after Major League Baseball’s opening day. In November, the tournament was scheduled around and with football in mind. Executives from Augusta National, its television partner, CBS, the NFL, and the Southeastern Conference all worked together on this weekend’s scheduling.

Saturday’s television coverage schedule runs from 1 to 5 p.m. Eastern and Sunday’s coverage runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Eastern, with CBS subsequently broadcasting three late afternoon NFL games. The planned Sunday conclusion will be remarkably close to the atypical finish time last year, when Woods putted out to win his fifth Masters just after 2:30 p.m., as thunderstorms approached Augusta.

Football will make another intrusion of sorts, as ESPN’s popular “College GameDay” will broadcast live Saturday morning from Augusta National’s Par-3 course.

While ESPN is a rights partner carrying the first two rounds of the tournament, the union of Augusta National’s gentle chirps and GameDay’s jocular broadcast, is a break in tone. “When exploring ways to showcase a fall Masters, we were drawn to the concept of hosting College GameDay at Augusta National to introduce the tournament to a new audience and provide even more anticipation and excitement to the event,” said Fred Ridley, Augusta National’s chairman.

The decision harkened back to the earliest days of the club and tournament, when Jones and fellow founder Clifford Roberts pursued various promotional and innovative strategies trying to bring the tournament to a wider audience. Roberts often pushed for enhanced technologies to be used in television coverage, such as broadcasting in color, more cameras on the course, including a behind-the-tee view, and the use of visual aids like course maps. With an unprecedented set of circumstances, innovation may trump tradition at the Masters once again.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

29

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

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

Crossword

Answers on page 30

Wordsearch

GAMES

HOROSCOPE Aries

30

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

(Mar 21-April 20)

You could be too quick to jump to conclusions before others have had a chance to get in a few words. No matter what the situation be ready to listen to the facts before you judge.

An overcharge of metal or physical energy will make you hyperactive. Pursue activities you’ve always been interested in.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

Even if your money situation is healthy, don’t go overboard on our spending. An annual expense is due. You might feel as if you are caught out at the same time every year when you never seem to plan for this expenditure and it always leaves you struggling for a while.

This time, be prepared.

Taurus

(April 21-May 21)

Scorpio

A close friend has something on their mind.

They have been hiding this well but now you sense their anxiety. You might wish they had confided in you earlier but now you realise what is bothering them you will offer your support and do all you can to help them.

You need to find outlet for a surge of mental or physical energy. Channel this into a project involving young people or children. Failing this a light form of exercise will help you feel better. A friend who advised you wrongly recently will offer an apology. You respect their willingness to admit to their mistake and will forgive them instantly.

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

Your talent and bright ideas are impressing those who matter. If a team effort has been struggling a grey cloud will lift and this will all be thanks to your imaginative suggestions.

You feel relief at how cooperative some people who haven’t been too helpful of late, are starting to be.

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

Your mind is brimming with fresh ideas.

You’re itching to get started on something new but there are a number of projects yet to be completed. This isn’t a good time to launch anything of importance in the way of business or financial affairs. Make it your intention instead to finish what has already been started.

Keep your thoughts to yourself when someone voices dreams and hopes that sound farfetched and unrealistic. It isn’t as if you aren’t imaginative. You have a fair few dreams of your own and some unexpected developments later in the day will feel like a dream come true.

Shoddy workmanship never suited you before and even if there’s a hint of change in the air, it’s still sensible to take your time. Don’t rush anything because other people are pushing you to get results. Distractions early on make it hard for you to concentrate. Later there will be less going on and it will be easier for you to focus.

Leo

Aquarius

(July 24-Aug 23)

You love to be pampered and your partner or someone close wants to treat you to something special. A surprise gift will lift your spirits.

Simple things like home cooked meals and a walk under the stars will give you the greatest pleasure. Positive comments on a social media site will be good for your ego.

Virgo

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

A job or family issue has been taking up a lot of your time. At last the end is in sight. This will free up some space in your life for something new. You’ve been itching to get started on a creative project. What’s stopping you from getting this going now?

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

You can be persuasive when you want to be.

Draw on this useful aspect of your nature to convince others of the feasibility of your plans. Someone will be quick to point out the weak areas. Be ready for this by discussing the practical aspects of this project and the many strong points they have overlooked.

Pisces

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

Someone you are working with is making too many mistakes for you to ignore. You don’t like to make waves but you can foresee future problems if this situation isn’t dealt with decisively. It would be preferable for you to leave other people to get on with what they need to do without you but sometimes you have to step in and help.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

Thursday, November 12, 2020

31

CARTOONS

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

BC

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

For Better or for Worse

The San Juan Daily Star

Ziggy

32

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, November 12, 2020

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