Monday Nov 16, 2020

Monday, November 16, 2020

San Juan The

Photo by Pedro Correa Henry

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DAILY

Star

Sophia Loren Makes Her Return to Film P20

The Party’s Over

Health Chief Guarantees More Law Enforcement with New Executive Order That Starts Today More Antigen Tests Carried Out at Toll Stations as Part of Surveillance Efforts to Stop COVID-19

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Non-Certified Elected Non-Stop Drama at the SEC; Work Resumes Today ... Governor Pierluisi Officially Begins Gov’t Transition Problems Too? P4 P4 NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 19

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Monday, November 16, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

GOOD MORNING

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November 16, 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.

DTOP: Digital ticketing system will end traffic ticketing errors

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he Department of Transportation and Public Works (DTOP by its Spanish acronym) announced Sunday that it is launching the Transparent (Electronic) Ticket System (STRAB) in order to end the incorrect issuing of traffic tickets.

The DTOP gave assurances that the cases of citizens going to renew their driver’s license or vehicle registration only to be charged for tickets that they did not incur will be a thing of the past.

Meanwhile, delays in entering tickets into the system did not allow citizens to benefit from a discount payment, as stipulated by the law, when tickets are paid in the first 15 or 30 days after the fine is received.

The STRAB not only benefits the thousands of drivers who are active in Puerto Rico, but also the agents of the Puerto Rico Police Bureau and the environment, the DTOP said in a written statement.

DTOP Secretary Carlos M. Contreras Aponte said “with the STRAB a portable terminal is being delivered to the Traffic officers of the Police Bureau, which immediately replaces the triple-page notebooks that they have been printing for decades, dramatically reducing the use of paper.”

“With this device the officer scans the driver’s license, either the physical or the virtual one, in the CESCO [Driver Services Center] Digital application, as well as the vehicle license plate,” said. “This minimizes physical contact and practically eliminates errors when entering citizen and vehicle information on the ticket.”

“Once the official issues the ticket on the device, the information goes directly to the CESCO Digital system,” the DTOP chief added. “Therefore, from that moment, the driver receives the ticket by way of the application in his cell phone, which allows him to review it and/or pay it without having to physically go to a CESCO or a Treasury Department collection office. In this way, you will have the option of benefiting from the 30 percent discount that applies when tickets are paid in the first 15 days after issuance, or 15 percent discount if you do it between the 16th and the 30th.”

Contreras Aponte also noted that “[t]he citizen will have in his Digital CESCO the evidence that he paid for that ticket, so he will not go through the bad experience of being charged again because he has lost the physical payment receipt.”

Puerto Rico Police Bureau Commissioner Henry Escalera said meanwhile that “with this new system and in the historical moment that we find ourselves, there are many benefits for our agents.”

Department of Transportation and Public Works Secretary Carlos Contreras “First, it will considerably reduce the time it takes for each intervention, since they will not have to handle paper notebooks or write by hand,” he said. “Likewise, the entire intervention can be carried out while maintaining physical distancing, since the information from both the vehicle’s license plate and the driver’s license can be scanned from the device. In addition, it will guarantee greater precision in the data, also minimizing disputes due to human errors when issuing a transit ticket.”

Escalera stressed that “with the STRAB, less time will be spent on interventions and ticket processing at the end of each day, so that our agents will be able to spend more time on the street in the service of our people.”

Glorimar Ripoll Balet, executive director of the Puerto Rico Innovation and Technology Service (PRITS), said “once again, through the use of technology, the government has modernized and digitized a historically inefficient process.”

“With the use of mobile devices that are part of the new Transparent Ticket System, our police officers will now have immediate access to citizen information, which results in a safer and more effective intervention in which to carry out their duties,” Ripoll Balet said. “At PRITS, the headquarters of innovation and technology of the Government of Puerto Rico, we have begun to receive our police officers for training in the use of the new system.”

“According to established public policy, at PRITS we have coordinated the execution of this interagency project to achieve the integration of technology in government management,” she said. “By integrating the various government information systems, we can provide transparency to citizens regarding their tickets, which will be reflected in the CESCO Digital mobile application.”

Contreras Aponte said traffic officers of the Puerto Rico Police Bureau have already begun to receive their training for the management of STRAB units. They are training in groups of 30 per day at PRITS facilities, he said, and it is expected that 100 percent of the more than 400 agents of that division will be trained in the coming weeks.

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Monday, November 16, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Stumbling blocks persist in general elections aftermath

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

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s the State Elections Commission (SEC) resumes its follow-up work from the Nov. 3 general elections today, stumbling blocks persist with no date set to begin the general scrutiny.

SEC Scrutiny Director Ferdinand Ocasio Vélez said late last week that no such date can be set because since 125 unopened containers were “found” last week with 46,003 ballots in them, “the numbers on electoral records do not add up.”

“As for the records that did not add up, they asked me for ballot containers for 53 tables, which is more or less 50 percent,” Ocasio Vélez said Friday. “The other tables either have not finished tallying records or have already finished adding them up and are in the process of verifying if the result can be uploaded.”

Results had yet to be uploaded to the SEC’s official website at press time Sunday.

As for the ballots associated with the 125 unopened containers, there are 8,927 state ballots, 11,491 legislative ballots, 12,738 municipal

ballots and 12,847 statehood plebiscite ballots. All of the ballots had been handled by the Absentee and Early Voting Administrative Board (JAVAA by its Spanish acronym).

In addition, San Juan Superior Court Judge Rebecca de León Ríos ordered a virtual hearing on Tuesday to respond to Citizens Victory Movement (CVM) Electoral Commissioner Olvin Valentín’s mandamus against the SEC. Valentín requested that the agency release the final lists from early and absentee voting requests broken down by precincts, the number of sent and received early voting ballots, a list of absentee voter requests from Oct. 1 until Oct. 4 and a list of voters who cast their vote early by any method.

The CVM electoral commissioner also requested the number of at-home and mail-in votes that were recorded, a list of returned mailin voting requests, the number of cases in which JAVAA authorized the pickup of at-home votes, a list of additional at-home voters, and a breakdown of every counted early vote by precinct in each method.

The hearing will be held via Zoom today at 2:30 p.m.

No one is certified as winner, yet transition meetings are starting today

By THE STAR STAFF

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ransition committee meetings for Puerto Rico’s incoming and outgoing governing administrations are slated to start today and they will be aired online to help the public take a look at what a potential Pedro Pierluisi administration would look like in 2021.

As a preamble to the hearings, officials from the incom-

ing New Progressive Party (NPP) administration and outgoing NPP administration met last week to discuss the rules that will govern the transition process.

Bayamón Mayor Ramón Luis Rivera Cruz, chairman of the Transition Committee of governor-elect Pedro R. Pierluisi, said the meeting included a discussion with Zulma Rosario Vega, former director of the Government Ethics Office, because for the first time, there will be a transition between

administrations from the same governing party.

“The purpose of this talk is to proactively deal with any concerns from the members on different ethical aspects,” he said.

Rivera Cruz added that “issues related to government ethics were addressed with Rosario, it being the first time that a transition process has taken place between administrations of our party.”

Likewise, he said the incoming governing committee has already received 100 percent of the reports from all government agencies and they will be published as they are presented in public hearings.

The official reiterated the incoming government committee’s interest in the hearings being accessible to the media and the general public. For that reason, they announced that the hearings can be accessed at www.transicion2020.pr.gov.

Scheduled to appear today at 9:30 a.m. are agency heads and officials from the Treasury Department, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority of Puerto Rico.

On Tuesday, officials from the Central Office for Recovery and Reconstruction, and from the Department of Housing are slated to testify about what they did during the past four years and what is left pending for the incoming government.

On Wednesday, the incoming government committee will meet with officials from the Department of Health, and on Thursday, with officials from the Department of Education and the Department of Public Safety.

This week’s hearings will culminate on Friday with the presentation from the Labor Department. Hearings then are slated to resume the following Tuesday, Nov. 24.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, November 16, 2020

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Health Dept. continues surveillance efforts to detect and prevent COVID-19 Agency conducts 2,500-plus antigen tests at toll stations in Salinas and Arecibo; updated executive order takes effect today

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

I

n an effort to strengthen the Municipal Case Investigation and Contact Tracing System, the island Department of Health continued conducting free antigen tests Sunday at both the Salinas and Arecibo toll stations to detect the coronavirus and prevent its spread in Puerto Rico.

Health Secretary Lorenzo González Feliciano said the importance of continuing such efforts is to detect more cases of the virus that causes COVID-19, connect them to the government’s contact tracing system and retrieve more information from people who had contact with others who had the virus.

“People are getting concerned, people are responding to these efforts that we’re doing around the island,” González Feliciano said. “We’re doing mass testing, we’re doing as much as we can and need to do to find that positive case and protect our population.”

As for the results in Salinas, at press time, the Health Department had con-

ducted more than 1,200 tests, with more than 40 people testing positive for the coronavirus. Meanwhile, in Arecibo, more than 1,500 antigen tests were conducted, although numbers on positive cases were unavailable at press time.

“When we did it back at the Buchanan toll [last week], people had to wait around three or four hours to be tested. Now the experience has been a 90-minute wait time both in Arecibo and Salinas; evidently, logistics have run dramatically different,” González Feliciano said, adding that the event has been “a learning experience” that he expects to continue every Sunday at a minimum of two toll stations.

Meanwhile, the updated executive order goes into effect today whereby the capacity of such authorized establishments as restaurants, retail stores, movie theaters and gyms is reduced to 30 percent. The Health secretary said the new order, like every other, was based “on scientific and economic efforts,” adding that he believes the agency’s efforts at communication and education have improved.

“What’s added here is the [Puerto Rico] National Guard [PRNG], reminding us that they are not the [Puerto Rico] Police [Bureau], the latter of which can make arrests,” González Feliciano said. “The PRNG will work as a partner entity with the Police, educating and acknowledging if there are any violations to report to the Police and,

The Health Dept. conducted 2,500-plus antigen tests at toll stations in Salinas and Arecibo. thereby, enforce the executive order.”

The Health chief emphasized that the island is looking at up to 500-600 COVID-19 cases in the aftermath of general elections earlier this month.

When the Star asked if the new order will prevent crowding behavior after reporter Jeremy Ortiz from Telemundo released videos of citizens at La Placita de Santurce without face coverings and not practicing physical distancing after the established curfew, González Feliciano said changes should be evident as the current order calls for municipal police officers to take action.

Furthermore, he said, the Health Department is hiring more personnel for the Investigations Office to augment enforcement.

“What we said in the past when we had a situation at Condado, we went there physically [to enforce the order]. If we have to go to La Placita, we will go there, there’s no doubt,” González Feliciano said. “If we don’t take this matter seriously, and we face a significant upturn [in COVID-19 cases], both our medical resources and the population will be harmed.”

As for a future shutdown, he said that even though there have been more than 550 people hospitalized due to COVID-19, hospital usage is still under the expected range with around 60-70 percent occupancy.

“At this moment, we have reasonable space that we can use at hospitals. We keep looking at the data,” he said. “One of the issues we want to address is how many COVID-19 patients are asymptomatic and how many of them need to go to a hospital. With this, we would have more in-depth data.”

Meanwhile, when the Star asked what’s been happening at island hospitals given public health workers’ claims of mismanagement with respect to COVID-19 safety protocols, González Feliciano said every complaint has been referred to the assistant secretary for regulation and accreditation of health facilities and that no complaint has been received that has raised great concerns.

When asked if the Health Department was determined to conduct unannounced hospital inspections, González Feliciano said such a move was under consideration.

Pierluisi to create scientific coalition to address COVID-19 pandemic

By THE STAR STAFF

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overnor-elect Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia announced on Sunday a plan to appoint a scientific coalition to reduce and stop the spread of the coronavirus using scientific data.

“I will create a Scientific Coalition that will provide advice to my team to shape our public policy, with a special focus on the current COVID-19 emergency. The Coalition will be made up of experts who will assist me during the transition process and to specify the strategies that will guide us toward the management and control of the virus,” Pierluisi said in a statement. “My team has anticipated that this has to be a coordinated effort, not only at the Puerto Rico level, but also with the U.S. government. We have already begun coordinating with members of President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, who are advising him on matters related to the federal Department of Health [and Human Services] and its Task Force on COVID-19, to ensure that we are integrated into any federal initiative for this fight and bring all the benefits of science, without

delay, to the Puerto Rican people.”

The news comes after Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced issued an updated executive order restricting business and public life as the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths surge. The order has been criticized because of the restrictions imposed on the business and tourism sectors, which are struggling to survive.

“Puerto Rico continues to be battered by the pandemic of the century, COVID-19. We have seen an increase in infections and hospitalizations, and experts tell us that the next few weeks are critical in managing the pandemic,” Pierluisi said. “So, we must responsibly unite as a people to combat it. We must recognize the sacrifices that our people and the economic sectors have had to make, and at the same time help them comply with the necessary measures to fight the virus.”

In view of the new executive order, he said each citizen is responsible for making the right decisions to protect himself or herself and others. Likewise, the government has the responsibility of ensuring that citizens comply with the public protection measures and with

restrictions on social and commercial activities.

“The restrictive measures seek to prevent the loss of life and the collapse of our health system. At the same time, we have to provide the conditions so that the people can provide for their families and mitigate the damage to our economy,” the governor-elect said. “Those sacrifices now will serve as a basis for returning to normality in the near future. Our aspiration must be to be able to reopen safely, using science and empirical data to safeguard the health of our people.”

The COVID-19 virus is entering a new phase as scientific and clinical developments are extremely dynamic and changing, Pierluisi noted.

“2020 has been the year to close, protect and learn. 2021 is going to be the year to return to normalcy using scientific achievements, better data, access to more and better tests, reliable tracking, effective treatments, and vaccines,” he said. “Our mission is to guide that return to normalcy, and we all have to be focused on moving toward our common goals.

“To achieve these goals, there is no time to waste and we have to start working immediately.

I have been in discussions with various healthcare professionals and statisticians, including trustees of the Science and Technology Trust, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and other world-renowned experts. Puerto Rico has the capacity to achieve these goals in 2021 and we are going to move toward them. My administration will seek to integrate science into decision-making for the benefit of all Puerto Ricans, beginning with the pandemic.”

The concrete and immediate goals of the coalition will be to establish strategies to analyze all available scientific data, propose specific recommendations to improve the systems for tracking and identifying sources of contagion, and create interoperability among all government sectors related to prevention and control of the pandemic, resume the possibility of establishing a hospital dedicated to COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, prepare for the acquisition, storage and distribution of vaccines, and any other initiative that is necessary during this emergency to safeguard the health of the Puerto Rico residents and return to normalcy as soon as possible, Pierluisi said.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, November 16, 2020

Group sports training guidelines to remain the same under new COVID-19 executive order

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

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ecreation and Sports Secretary Adriana Sánchez Parés said over the weekend that Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced is allowing group training to continue with six participants, maintaining the existing guideline under the latest pandemic emergency executive order that goes into effect today.

“Once the governor issued her message, given the concern of the sports sector, I contacted her to request that training with six participants be continued, without physical contact and with a coach, since we can attest to how the leagues and clubs have followed their COVID-19 prevention protocols,” Sánchez Parés said Saturday. “In

Recreation and Sports Secretary Adriana Sánchez Parés

the department, we have been constantly receiving their protocols and supervising [to make sure] that they are being carried out. Given this, the governor acceded to my request, indicating that as long as we remain in compliance, we could continue with the training as before.”

“We are aware that for our children and young people, being able to stay active in their sports training is extremely important for both their emotional and physical health,” the official added. “Especially when the emergency has forced them to take their education courses online.”

Sánchez Parés also announced that she will soon issue a new department memo with the rules applicable to physical training and recreational activities from today to Friday, Dec. 11.

New emergency preparedness website inaugurated

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

Á

ngel Crespo Ortiz, a consultant on issues of emergency preparedness, service and safety, has launched a new internet website, crespoadvisors.com.

Crespo said the web page can be quickly connected to all social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

He also announced the launch of his YouTube

channel, Crespo Advisors, which carries educational content and guidance on health and safety, and protection and prevention measures against all types of emergencies and disasters in the context of preparedness, response, mitigation and recovery. The link for the channel is https://www.youtube.com/channel/ UCRa-iYUjjk2Dd3HyHAyHZ3w.

“For some time I had analyzed the creation of this channel on YouTube, given the recent events that have impacted the world and the island, such as the passage of extreme hurricanes, the earthquakes in the south

and the COVID-19 pandemic,” Crespo said. “Four years ago I started my practice as a PR consultant and now I can reach more people on the island and other jurisdictions where we collaborate with the government and the private sector with important information that can save lives.”

The former Puerto Rico fire chief and former director of the State Agency for Emergency Management and Disaster Administration added that he will soon have guest experts in different disciplines related to safety, health and emergency management. In addition, the cyber platform seeks to become the most effective medium when any private or governmental entity needs its message to be heard for the good of the community.

Crespo made a public call for all citizens, businesses and organizations to update their emergency plan in the event of any situation that the island may face in the coming months.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, November 16, 2020

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‘It’s traumatizing’: Coronavirus deaths are climbing once again

By SARAH MERVOSH, J. DAVID GOODMAN and JULIE BOSMAN

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y the time that Doug Raysby’s wife was allowed to enter his hospital room, it was too late to be sure whether he even knew she was there. After a feverish fight with the coronavirus, he lay unconscious on the bed. His wife cried through an N95 mask, while a computer tablet flashed a video stream of his children saying goodbye.

For weeks, as coronavirus cases spiked across the United States, deaths rose far more slowly, staying significantly lower than in the early, deadliest weeks of the nation’s outbreak in the spring. New treatments, many hoped, might slow a new wave of funerals.

But now, signs are shifting: More than 1,000 Americans are dying of the coronavirus every day on average, a 50% increase in the past month. Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, Tennessee and Wisconsin have recorded more deaths over the past seven days than in any other week of the pandemic. Twice this past week, there have been more than 1,400 deaths reported in a single day.

“It’s getting bad, and it’s potentially going to get a lot worse,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, a public health researcher and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “The months ahead are looking quite horrifying.”

For families like Raysby’s, the pain of personal loss has combined with a sense of anger that the nation, exhausted after nine months of the pandemic, has grown inured to the death toll, even as its pace is quickening once more.

“Do you see this human being? Do you realize?” said Kathy James, the motherin-law of Raysby, a 57-year-old factory supervisor in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, who liked to hunt pheasants on the weekends.

In the weeks since Raysby died of the virus, James said she had wanted to wave a photo of him — a quiet, bespectacled man who once wooed her daughter with purple roses — at the world.

“Do you see Doug?” she said. “Because he should be alive and he should be with us right now.”

More than 244,000 people have died from the coronavirus in the United States,

Medical workers sanitize themselves before testing for the coronavirus at a mall in Omaha, Neb., Nov. 13, 2020. More than 1,000 Americans are dying of the coronavirus every day on average, a 50 percent increase in the last month. more than any other country, and experts say the pace of new deaths is likely to accelerate in the coming weeks.

Deaths lag several weeks behind infections, so the toll being recorded now reflects transmission that happened several weeks ago, before the country began logging more than 140,000 new cases per day and hospitalizations reached their highest levels of the pandemic. On Friday, public health officials reported more than 181,000 new cases across the country, more than ever before.

The country remains far below the death toll of the spring, when as many as 2,200 people were perishing each day, but some estimates suggest that the United States may soon be on track to reach or even exceed those levels.

From the Midwest to the Sun Belt, officials are bracing for a mounting death toll.

In Marathon County, Wisconsin, a sprawling community in the grip of a COVID-19 surge, a refrigerated morgue truck is now cooled and ready in case it is needed. The medical examiner’s office has stocked extra body bags. A smaller, walk-in cooler was also brought in.

Two hours southeast, in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, Dr. Adam Covach, the chief medical examiner, said the system had been strained by the uptick in deaths.

Funeral homes are exceedingly busy. Covach has looked at his own storage capacity and wondered: How soon could his office be overwhelmed?

“If things continue increasing at the rate they’re going, it’s going to start getting pretty scary pretty fast,” he said.

In El Paso, Texas, there have been so many coronavirus deaths in recent days that the county medical examiner parked five mobile morgue units — the size of trucks — outside its doors. Legacy Mortuary Service, a company that transports bodies from hospitals to funeral homes, is busier than ever, carrying 40 to 50 bodies most days now, its owner, Pilar Contreras, said.

German Alvarado said he had to wait nearly two weeks to hold a funeral for his father-in-law, Antonio Sierra Macias, a mechanic who died of the virus.

Alvarado said his wife and three children younger than 12 first showed symptoms, then he got it, too. By midOctober, Sierra Macias also fell sick and was admitted to a hospital, where he learned he had diabetes, in addition to high blood pressure.

Things seemed to be improving, but Sierra Macias took a turn for the worse.

He was 49.

Alvarado said it was difficult to contend with such loss even as people

around him seemed not to be taking the virus seriously, believing it was being overhyped or thinking, somehow, that it was not dangerous.

“It seems like people think the news are overthinking, overtalking,” said Alvarado, who said he was waiting for paperwork to send his father-in-law’s body for burial in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, where cemeteries are running out of room. “You don’t realize the situation until you live through it.”

The rising case numbers — and the threat of mounting deaths — have led some experts to call for a coordinated national shutdown for four to six weeks. Other experts have advocated for a combination of masks, increased testing, paid support for people in quarantine and targeted shutdowns focused on high-risk indoor spaces as a way to slow the toll.

“We can expect the case and death count to continue to rise exponentially unless we take serious measures to mitigate the virus,” said Dr. Howard Markel, a historian of epidemics at the University of Michigan. “All of this is terrible news.”

But with no announcements from the White House for new measures to respond to the outbreak, most of the country is open for business, even as a few governors began calling for new restrictions Friday.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico issued the most sweeping statewide mandate this fall, returning to a “stay at home” order Monday that will last two weeks. In Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown plans to put the state in a partial lockdown for two weeks starting Wednesday, shuttering gyms, halting restaurant dining and mandating that social gatherings have no more than six people.

A visibly angry Gov. Mark Gordon of Wyoming, speaking at a news conference, said that hospitals have set up tents because they are overrun, that patients from crowded facilities in South Dakota have been sent into Wyoming, and that misinformation about the virus was running rampant. He said he was considering a mask mandate and other restrictions after months of hesitation. People in Wyoming have been “knuckleheads” about the virus, he said.

“We’ve relied on people to be responsible and they’re being irresponsible,” Gordon said. “If I can’t rely on you, we’re going to have to do something else.”

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Monday, November 16, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Largely out of sight in Washington, Kamala Harris preps for White House

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in Wilmington, Del., this month. It is unclear when she might relinquish her Senate seat.

By MICHAEL CROWLEY

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t a chic cafe in the West End neighborhood of Washington, a young waiter knew that the incoming vice president lived “upstairs,” as he noted by gesturing to an upscale condominium building overhead, but said he had not actually seen her lately.

“The Secret Service sometimes stops me from taking out the trash, though,” he added, saying that agents closed off the building’s alley when their protectee came and went from its garage.

Around the corner, two black Suburbans with federal license plates were parked by the building’s entrance — the only visible clue to the nearby presence of the California senator and vice president-elect, Kamala Harris.

In the days since he prevailed in the election, President-elect Joe Biden has made several public remarks and released summaries of his calls with foreign leaders as reporters track his every public movement. But Harris has barely appeared on the public radar since her acceptance speech last Saturday in Wilmington, Delaware, where she declared “a new day for America.”

She shared a stage again with Biden in Wilmington two days later, after a coronavirus briefing they had attended together. Harris stood silently several feet away while Biden spoke, without giving remarks of her own.

It is not unprecedented for a vice president-elect to keep a low profile in an election’s aftermath. “You know, you’ve been fairly invisible since the election,” ABC News host George Stephanopoulos told Biden in an interview more than a month after his own election as Barack Obama’s vice president.

Biden replied by insisting he had “been in the room” for every one of Obama’s important transition meetings.

Because of social distancing restrictions related to the coronavirus, Harris has no such luxury, at least not in the physical sense.

After spending election week in Delaware, she has returned to the two-bedroom Washington condominium she bought after she was elected to the Senate in 2016.

From there, she is in regular touch with Biden, by text message or telephone, according to aides with the Biden-Harris transition team, and with other transition officials. Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff, also has a close relationship with the incoming first lady, Jill Biden; the two campaigned together in the race’s final weeks.

One focus of her time is the quantum leap Harris is soon to make from the legislative to the executive branch.

Whereas Biden will have virtually no learning curve upon returning to the White House after eight years as vice president, Harris has spent little, if any, substantive time at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. (A transition official could

not immediately say when she had last visited there.)

That process is made no easier by President Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the election results and authorize an official transition process in which Harris and her aides would have access to White House officials and documents. Harris has not been contacted by her departing counterpart, Vice President Mike Pence. Days after the 2016 election, Biden hosted Pence for nearly two hours at the official vice presidential compound at the U.S. Naval Observatory. “I told Mike, the vice president-elect, that I’m available to him 24/7,” Biden told reporters.

Biden-Harris transition officials declined to comment.

For now, Harris remains a senator. It is unclear when she might relinquish her seat. Obama stepped down from his Senate seat days after his 2008 election, but Biden, ever the sentimentalist, hung on to his until shortly before he was sworn in as vice president the following January, telling friends he wanted to take one last oath of office for the seat he had held for decades. (Biden also said he wanted to retain his vote in case it might be needed in a lame-duck Senate session.)

Like Biden, Harris also has her own staff to build — another task potentially made more challenging by her relative lack of Washington experience. While Biden, after nearly 50 years in the capital, has a network of hundreds of former Senate and White House aides, Harris has a smaller circle, though she is expected to hire several familiar faces from her Senate office and her 2020 campaign.

On social media, Harris has stayed rigorously on message, posting on Twitter several times about the coronavirus and her determination to work with Biden to contain it. “In just a few months, we will swear in a new president who is committed to getting the pandemic under control: @JoeBiden,” she tweeted Saturday morning.

Later in the day, Harris, who will become the first occupant of the White House who is of Indian heritage, also tweeted greetings for the beginning of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.

Harris has ventured out in the Washington area at least once since the election. On a rainy Veterans Day, wearing bluejeans and a black raincoat, she and Emhoff dropped by Georgetown’s Dog Tag Bakery, which was founded to help support veterans.

She has otherwise been out of sight at her condo building, about 1 mile from the White House, and twice that distance from the Naval Observatory complex she will soon call home. “No great thing created suddenly,” reads an inscription on the side of the building, a quote from the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus.

Mimicking a sad face, the server at the Bluestone Lane cafe on the building’s ground floor said he hoped she would visit again soon.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, November 16, 2020

9

Thousands rally in Washington as clashes erupt

By PRANSHU VERMA, ZOLAN KANNOYOUNGS, SABRINA TAVERNISE, ZACH MONTAGUE, ALLYSIN WALLER and MAGGIE HABERMAN

T

housands of supporters of President Donald Trump protesting the outcome of the election rallied in Washington on Saturday, earning a brief drive-by visit from the president himself, in a day of orderly demonstrations that devolved into violence as the night wore on.

Police made 20 arrests, including four on gun charges, as counterprotesters and Trump supporters clashed in the streets throughout the evening. One person was stabbed, but his condition was unknown late Saturday.

For most of the day, however, the crowds were under control, if boisterous, and many greeted the president with applause and cheers when he passed by in his motorcade, waving through the window as he headed to his private golf club in Sterling, Virginia. By early afternoon, demonstrators had fanned out for several blocks around Freedom Plaza.

On Twitter, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, offered an exaggerated assessment of the event, called the Million MAGA March, claiming that 1 million supporters had turned out.

Accounts on the ground suggested that her estimate was wildly inflated.

“It’s not like the Fourth of July or anything,” said a police officer who was stationed near Freedom Plaza at 13th and G Streets. He declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. “But yeah,” he added, “there’s a crowd down there.”

Even if short on numbers, the crowd was not lacking in enthusiasm for the president or outrage over the grievances he has raised over the past four years.

Zenaida Ochoa, 46, a Virginia resident originally from Arizona, said she had been “following Trump since I was a kid.”

“He’s not perfect,” said Ochoa, who added that she supported Trump partly because of his immigration policies.

Trump’s brief visit Saturday came one day after the last two states of the election were called.

President-elect Joe Biden won Georgia to finish with a total of 306 electoral votes — the same number that Trump won in 2016 and called a landslide — and Trump won North Carolina, for a total of 232 electoral votes.

Trump has refused to concede the race to Biden, and continues to falsely insist he would have won if not for what he has claimed were widespread voter irregularities. (In fact, top election officials across the country have said that there is no evidence that fraud or other irregularities played a role in the outcome.)

In addition to the Million MAGA March, demonstrations of the Trump faithful in Washington on Saturday included a Stop the Steal rally and a Women for Trump event.

Supporters of the president traveled from across the country to participate.

“I’m blown away,” said Rachel Williams, a county worker from Jasper, Alabama, who got in a car with three friends at 5:30 Friday morning to attend the march in Washington. “I’m encouraged that America is not going to just lie down.”

Williams said there had been no fraud in her county — she registers voters as part of her job — but voiced suspicion over the election results and suggested that there might have been fraud elsewhere. A group of federal, state and local election officials declared flatly this week that the election “was the most secure in American history” and that there was “no evidence” any voting systems were compromised.

By about noon, demonstrators began marching toward the Capitol, streaming down Pennsylvania Avenue for over an hour, rallying again in the area around the Capitol building and outside the Supreme Court.

“We want Trump to know that we love everything that he did, especially for Hispanic people,” said Anthony Cabassa, 33, who was clutching a flag that read “Defiant.”

“He woke us up,” said Cabassa, who had flown in from Los Angeles. “Whether you were on the left or on the right, he woke a lot of people up.”

Later in the day, as many Trump supporters began trickling toward Union Station, more than 40 men who identified themselves as members of the Proud Boys, an extremist organization, began to march back toward Freedom Plaza.

Supporters of President Donald Trump, with the Trump International Hotel in the background, gather for the “Million MAGA March” rally to protest the results of the presidential election, near Freedom Plaza in Washington on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2020.

The men, dressed in yellow and black, pumped their fists in the air and chanted “Trump 2020.”

Some wore ballistic vests.

As the night unfolded, videos on social media showed fistfights breaking out, the police trying to keep the groups apart by forming barricades with their bikes, and protesters massing near Freedom Plaza, where people lit small fires.

In the evening, at the P.J. Clarke’s restaurant near the White House, counterprotesters threw bottles and fireworks at a group of Trump supporters, a USA Today reporter said.

Shortly before 9 p.m., a group of Trump

Counterprotesters stand off with supporters of President Donald Trump, during a rally in support of the president, near Freedom Plaza in Washington on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2020.

supporters outside a hotel less than a mile from the White House said an altercation had broken out between Trump supporters and others they described as antifa. News reports indicated that a man had been stabbed, and the police officers on site shortly after the incident said they could not confirm how severe the injuries were.

Some Trump supporters, standing outside the Embassy Suites Hotel, said the two groups had converged on the corner of 10th Street and New York Avenue in northwest Washington.

They said the melee had broken up quickly after police intervened.

“You could feel the intensity,” said Damien Courtney, 24, a Trump supporter from Tennessee.

“It was nerve-racking.”

Blocks away, hundreds of Trump supporters carried a large “Blue Lives Matter” flag emblazoned with the words “Trump” and “Law and Order.” Moments of tension punctuated an otherwise largely peaceful demonstration.

Shortly before midnight, the group passed

by Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House, as other Trump supporters ripped multiple Black Lives Matters signs off a building before trampling on them. Police quickly dispersed the group, angering a number of Trump’s supporters, who shouted at the officers and called them “cowards.”

Tracey Gardner, 54, from upstate NewYork, said the nighttime demonstration was meant to send a message that Trump is “still our president.”

She believes Trump will win reelection, she said, adding that any loss could be blamed on the news media. “Fox News sold out,” she said, referring to the network’s decision to call Arizona for Biden the night of the election.

10

Monday, November 16, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Black Lives Matter meets QAnon as newest members of Congress arrive cal message, although Friday, she said it had apparently been lost on some of her Republican colleagues, who seemed unfamiliar with Taylor, the woman killed by eps.-elect Cori Bush, a progressive the police in Kentucky in a case that drew Democrat wearing a Breonna Tainternational attention and prompted huge ylor face mask, and Marjorie Taylor protests.

Greene, a QAnon-backing Republican whose entourage sported “Make Ameri“A few of my Republican colleagues have called me Breonna, assuming that’s ca Great Again” gear, arrived at freshman my name,” Bush wrote on Twitter. “It orientation in Washington within minutes hurts. But I’m glad they’ll come to know of each other Thursday, offering vastly diher name & story because of my presence fferent visions for their parties and for a new Congress. here. Breonna must be central to our work in Congress.”

The freshman class of the 117th Congress — featuring not only a surge of Despite Greene’s bombast on conservative women who upset centrist Twitter, the orientation this week was Democrats last week at the polls, but also somewhat subdued — families left at left-leaning insurgents who ousted estahome, minimal staff presence, socially blishment Democrats in primaries — is distanced seating and some members undergoing an unusual pandemic-era acparticipating remotely — as coronaviculturation on Capitol Hill. rus cases continued to spike across the “We’re going have to be able to work country. It also was the first of the tratogether,” Bush said of her Republican ditional transitions of power during the counterparts. “Hopefully, they’re willing to pandemic, as top lawmakers and staff listen to me. I’m willing to listen to them. wrestle with how to smoothly welcoI’m already seeing ‘Make America Great me newcomers to Washington without Again’ hats, but I have on my Breonna Tainadvertently creating a superspreader ylor. So we’re going to talk and hopefully event in the nation’s capital. this 117th, it will show the diversity.”

The number of welcome parties has Dozens of soon-to-be first-term lawbeen curtailed, though staff members makers began the biennial introduction to could be seen bustling through Statuary Congress this week, a process not unlike Hall on Friday to set up gold chairs, taorientation at a new school. With flashy bles and purple flower arrangements for a reception for newly elected Democrats hosted by Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. Dr. Brian P. Monahan, the Capitol’s attending physician, was on hand to outline the unique challenges of performing congressional duties during a pandemic and the necessary precautions required in the Capitol.

Hours later, after public backlash and private consternation among some Democratic aides, a spokesman for Pelosi said there would no longer be a group dinner and “the event has been modified to allow Members-elect to pick up their meals to go in a socially-distanced manner.”

And the incoming lawmakers were instructed to remain masked for the duration of the orientation, a crucial safety precaution that posed an added challenge for aides, officials and lawmakers themselves Representative-elect Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) arrives at the Hyatt Regency Capitol who were toiling to learn all the new faHill for new member orientation in Washington on Thursday, Nov. 12, 2020. ces. (At least one, Rep.-elect Nancy Mace

By LUKE BROADWATER and EMILY COCHRANE

R

badges as temporary identification instead of the member pins they will be issued in January, the members-elect picked up House-issued laptops and phones, sat through presentations on security, health protocols and setting up offices, and wandered through the virtually empty Capitol, snapping photographs with one another and of their new workplace.

It was a learning experience all around.

Greene, who was seen briefly removing her American flag mask upon checking in at orientation Thursday, declined to speak with reporters but said she had introduced herself to her new colleagues with a diatribe against the wearing of face coverings to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

“Our first session of New Member Orientation covered COVID in Congress,” she tweeted. “Masks, masks, masks …. I proudly told my freshman class that masks are oppressive. In GA, we work out, shop, go to restaurants, go to work, and school without masks. My body, my choice.”

She appended the hashtag “#FreeYourFace.”

The virus is surging in Georgia, where over the past week, there has been an average of 2,460 cases per day, an increase of 26% from two weeks earlier.

Bush’s mask bore her own politi-

of South Carolina, helpfully wore a mask emblazoned with her name.)

Rep.-elect Ashley Hinson, a Republican, participated remotely from her house in Marion, Iowa, after contracting a mild case of the coronavirus. She said she was sorry to miss out on meeting colleagues in person, but was keeping up with them through a text chain with about 14 or 15 members.

“I’m still learning everything I need to know,” she said. “They’re streaming everything. So it’s as if I’m there.”

Perhaps the most significant feature of the new class is the fact that Republican women have doubled their numbers, adding members like Hinson and Mace.

Of the 10 incumbent Democrats who lost their seats in swing districts in the election last week, eight were defeated by Republican women.

“It’s not just Democrat women that have the monopoly on breaking glass ceilings; Republican women have been doing it all their lives,” said Mace, the first woman to graduate from the Citadel, who last week defeated Rep. Joe Cunningham, a centrist Democrat, to become the first woman to represent her state in Congress. “It doesn’t matter what your political affiliation is. If you want women to have a seat at the table, if you want to be in office, we have to run in order to win.”

In addition to a surge of Republican women, the freshman class diversifies Congress’ ranks: Marilyn Strickland, D-Wash., is the first Black woman to represent her state in Congress and the first Korean American elected; Bush is the first Black woman to represent Missouri; and Mondaire Jones and Ritchie Torres, both Democrats of New York, are the first openly gay Black men to serve in Congress.

Additionally, at least seven new members of Congress — including Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, the youngest member of Congress in the modern era — do not have college degrees.

“I definitely feel the weight of responsibility,” said Cawthorn, who succeeded Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff. “I do realize that I’m 25 years old. I look forward to getting to learn a lot.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, November 16, 2020

11

Economic demands test Biden even before inauguration

By BEN CASSELMAN and JIM TANKERSLEY

P

resident-elect Joe Biden’s first economic test is coming months before Inauguration Day, as a slowing recovery and accelerating coronavirus infections give new urgency to talks on government aid to struggling households and businesses.

With a short window for action in the lame-duck congressional session, Biden must decide whether to push Democratic leaders to cut a quick deal on a package much smaller than they say is needed or to hold out hope for a larger one after he takes office.

A continued standoff over aid could set the stage for sluggish growth that persists long into Biden’s presidency. Republican and Democratic leaders remain far apart on the size and contents of a rescue package, though both sides say lawmakers should act quickly.

Biden has until now sided with top Democrats in Congress. A Biden transition adviser said Friday that he had begun to have conversations with lawmakers about what a lame-duck package should look like.

The shifting dynamics of both the pandemic and the recovery are complicating the debate. Even as it has slowed, the economy has proved more resilient than many experts expected early in the coronavirus outbreak, leading Republicans, in particular, to resist a big new dose of federal aid. But the recent surge in hospitalizations and deaths from the virus has increased the risk that the economy could slow further.

Last spring, economists were nearly unanimous in urging Congress to provide as much money as possible, as quickly as it could. Now, many conservative economists say a much smaller follow-up package would suffice. Even as progressives point to slowing job creation and soaring long-term unemployment rates to argue for trillions of dollars in aid, a growing number of liberal economists are urging Democrats to compromise and accept a smaller package to get money flowing quickly.

“A meaningful something is a lot better than nothing,” said Jason Furman, who was a top economic adviser to former President Barack Obama. “Preventing damage to the economy today puts it in a better position a year from now.”

Polls continue to show strong bipartisan support for more spending, including another round of direct payments to hou-

Leandra English, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, during a meeting with Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Elizabeth Warren (DMass.) on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Nov. 27, 2017. seholds. But it appears increasingly likely that if Congress reaches a deal by the end of the year, it will be for a package that is far smaller than the deal that Democrats and the White House were discussing before the election, which called for an outlay of more than $1.5 trillion.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, said relatively strong employment numbers for October showed that the economy was “really moving to get back on its feet” without much government aid.

Biden will almost certainly propose a broader stimulus effort, but unless Democrats take control of the Senate — which would require them to win two runoff elections in Georgia in January — his ability to push a deal through Congress will be limited.

Republicans have cited concerns about the record budget deficit in opposing another large round of government spending.

Prospects for a new relief bill have been further clouded by ambiguous economic readings that can support seemingly any policy preferences.

To those pushing for a smaller package, recent data suggest the economy is on firmer footing. The trillions of dollars that Congress provided in the spring largely succeeded in buoying the economy, and while progress has slowed, it has not stopped: Employers have added almost 3 million jobs in the last

three months, and the unemployment rate — nearly 15% in April — has fallen by more than half.

“We have an unemployment rate below 7% right now,” said Michael R. Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “That calls for a very different amount of stimulus than if the unemployment rate were in the range of 10%, which is where we all thought it would be.”

Many progressives, however, argue those aggregate figures obscure more severe harm beneath the surface. White-collar professionals, many of whom can work from home and have benefited from the strong stock market, have done relatively well during the pandemic, and some industries, like construction and automaking, have bounced back. But service businesses, like restaurants and hotels, are still suffering, with little chance of revival before a vaccine is widely available.

“Things have improved more quickly than I expected, but we still have an enormous gap,” said Heidi Shierholz, a Labor Department economist in the Obama administration who is the policy director for the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington. She said the economy still needed trillions of dollars of support over the next two years.

The need is particularly acute among historically disadvantaged groups that have

been hit hardest by the recession. The unemployment rate for Black Americans remains in the double digits, and hundreds of thousands of women are no longer working or seeking work, often because they must care for children who are home from school. More than 3.5 million Americans have been unemployed for more than six months.

“To say we don’t need as much aid is ridiculous,” said Olugbenga Ajilore, an economist at the Center for American Progress, a liberal group. “What that signals is all we care about is white men and no one else matters.”

Then, there is the pandemic itself.

Many epidemiologists warn that infection rates are likely to keep rising as people gather indoors and travel for the holidays. That could bring a wave of new layoffs as consumers pull back on activity and businesses face new restrictions.

Economists broadly agree that Congress should focus on aid to state and local governments, support for small businesses and an extension of the expanded unemployment benefit programs that are set to expire at the end of the year. Biden discussed a similar list of priorities on Thursday with the top congressional Democrats, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, according to a summary from the participants.

On Friday, a transition adviser to Biden, Jen Psaki, brushed aside several questions from reporters about the president-elect’s views on the size and timing of a stimulus package, other than to say that on Capitol Hill “there have been conversations started that he’s engaged with.”

“You should expect that he will continue to be engaged in those discussions,” Psaki said, “and certainly wants to see the American people receive the relief they need.”

The most important thing, many economists agree, is speed. Karen Dynan, a Harvard economist and a Treasury Department official in the Obama administration, said the better-than-expected economic data was no excuse to delay assistance. Rather, she said, it is evidence that the aid so far has been effective — and that as it fades, Congress needs to do more.

“We need to recognize that the economy has only done as well as it has because we had such aggressive fiscal stimulus early on,” she said.

12

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, November 16, 2020

China-led trade pact is signed, in challenge to U.S.

The leaders and trade ministers of the 15 countries in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership posing during the signature.

By KEITH BRADSHER and ANA SWANSON

A

fter eight years of talks, China and 14 other nations from Japan to New Zealand to Myanmar on Sunday formally signed one of the world’s largest regional free trade agreements, a pact designed by Beijing partly as a counterweight to U.S. influence in the region.

The pact, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, is limited in scope. Still, it carries considerable symbolic heft. The pact covers more of humanity — 2.2 billion people — than any previous regional free trade agreement and could help further cement China’s image as the dominant economic power in its neighborhood.

It also comes after a retreat by the United States from sweeping trade pacts that reshape global relationships. Nearly four years ago, President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a broader agreement than the RCEP that was widely seen as a Washington-led response to China’s growing sway in the AsiaPacific region. Joe Biden, the president-elect, has been noncommittal on whether he would join the TPP’s successor.

Because of the pandemic, the signing of the agreement Sunday was unusual, with separate ceremonies held in each of the 15 member countries all linked by video. Each country’s trade minister took turns signing a separate copy of the pact while his or her head of state or head of government stood nearby and watched.

Simultaneously broadcast on a split

screen, the different ceremonies offered a glimpse of each country’s political culture.

Vietnam, the host nation for the talks this year, and South Korea and Cambodia each had one or two small desktop flags next to their ministers. At the other extreme, China’s ceremony was conducted in front of a wall of five very large, bright red Chinese flags.

Premier Li Keqiang, China’s second-highest official after President Xi Jinping, oversaw the Beijing event. In a statement released by the state news media, he called the pact, “a victory of multilateralism and free trade.”

The RCEP encompasses the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

The pact will most likely formalize, rather than remake, business between the countries. The RCEP eliminates tariffs mainly for goods that already qualify for duty-free treatment under existing free trade agreements. It allows countries to keep tariffs for imports in sectors they regard as especially important or sensitive. The pact’s so-called rules of origin will set common standards for how much of a product must be produced within the region for the final product to qualify for duty-free treatment. These rules could make it simpler for companies to set up supply chains that span several different countries.

It has little impact on legal work, accounting or other services that cross borders, and does not venture far into the often-divisive issue of ensuring greater intellectual property protections. The RCEP also skirts broad issues like protecting independent labor unions and

the environment and limiting government subsidies to state-owned enterprises.

Most conspicuously, the pact does not include India, another regional giant. The New Delhi government pulled out of the negotiations in July. China had rebuffed India’s demands for a more ambitious pact that would have done far more to tie together the region’s economies, including trade in services as well as trade in goods.

He Weiwen, a former Commerce Ministry official in Beijing and prominent Chinese trade policy expert, said that Sunday’s pact nonetheless represented a big step forward.

“The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, due to its size, will certainly contribute to world free trade,” he said.

The RCEP’s lower trade barriers could encourage global companies trying to avoid Trump’s tariffs on Chinese-made goods to keep work in Asia rather than shift it to North America, said Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

“RCEP gives foreign companies enhanced flexibility in navigating between the two giants,” she said. “Lower tariffs within the region increases the value of operating within the Asian region, while the uniform rules of origin make it easier to pull production away from the Chinese mainland while retaining that access.”

The prospect of China’s forging closer economic ties with its neighbors has prompted concern in Washington. President Barack Obama’s response was the TPP, which had extensive provisions on services, intellectual property, independent labor unions and environmental protection. It also called for limits on state sponsorship of industries, serving as both a challenge to China and an enticement for Beijing to relax its grip on its economy, the world’s second largest.

The TPP did not include China but encompassed many of its biggest trading partners, like Japan and Australia, as well as Chinese neighbors like Vietnam and Malaysia.

After Trump pulled the United States out of that arrangement, the other 11 countries then went ahead with it on their own.

China has been eager to move into that vacuum. Still, it must navigate India’s ambitions. India’s relations with China have deteriorated considerably in recent months amid clashes between troops on their mountainous shared border.

Beijing had initially tried to sway New Delhi into joining the RCEP. However, In-

dian politicians were leery of lowering their country’s steep tariffs and admitting a further flood of Chinese manufactured goods. China ships $60 billion a year more in goods to India than it receives.

India sought more flexibility to increase tariffs if imports surged. It also sought tariff reductions for low-end, labor-intensive industrial goods for which production has already been moving out of China. But Beijing has been wary of letting high-employment industries like shoe and shirt manufacturing move out of China too quickly.

“As far as India is concerned, we did not join RCEP as it does not address the outstanding issues and concerns of India,” said Riva Ganguly Das, the secretary for Eastern relations at India’s Ministry of External Affairs, at a news briefing Thursday.

Still, Das stressed that India remains interested in deepening trade ties in Southeast Asia.

It is unclear how the United States will respond to the new trade pact. While Biden is set to assume office in January, trade and China have become fraught issues.

The TPP came under fire from both Republicans and Democrats for exposing U.S. businesses to foreign competition. It remains contentious, and Biden has not said whether he would rejoin the deal — renamed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership — once he enters office. But analysts say it is unlikely to be a high priority.

Biden has said he would wait to negotiate any new trade deals. He wants to focus his energy on the pandemic, the economic recovery and investing in American manufacturing and technology.

But to some trade experts, the signing of the RCEP shows that the rest of the world will not wait around for the United States. The European Union has also pursued trade negotiations at an aggressive pace. As other countries sign new deals, U.S. exporters may gradually lose ground.

“While the United States is currently focused on domestic concerns, including the need to fight the pandemic and rebuild its economy and infrastructure, I’m not sure the rest of the world is going to wait until America gets its house in order,” said Jennifer Hillman, a senior fellow for trade and international political economy at the Council on Foreign Relations. “I think there are going to have to be some responsive actions to what China is doing.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, November 16, 2020

13 Stocks

Stock investors cast wary eye on yield rally A

s Treasury yields rally to multi-month highs, some investors are gauging how a more sustained rise could impact equity markets.

Yields on the 10-year Treasury, which move inversely to bond prices, rose to a seven-month high of 0.97% in the past week on hopes that breakthroughs in the search for a COVID-19 vaccine would eventually translate to a boost in economic growth.

That’s still low, by historical standards: yields are a full point below their levels at the start of January and below their 5-year average of 2.05%, according to Refinitiv data. The Federal Reserve has pledged to keep interest rates near historic lows for years to come in its bid to support growth, and past rallies in yields have faded in recent years.

Expectations that a vaccine against the coronavirus could fuel a broad economic revival, however, have also spurred bets that yields could continue edging higher. That could potentially weaken the case for holding shares that have become expensive during the S&P 500’s 58% rally from its lows of the year.

“If growth turns out better than anybody thought, the bad news is that the Fed might not have as much control over the extended curve,” said Ralph Segall, chief investment officer at firm Segall, Bryant & Hamill. “That would probably cause stocks to pause.”

Analysts at Goldman Sachs this week forecast Treasury yields will hit 1.3% by the end of next year and 1.7% by 2022.

They also raised their forecast for the S&P to 4,100 by the middle of next year, a roughly 16% gain from recent levels.

For now, analysts believe yields have some way to go before they become an obstacle to further stock gains.

The benchmark S&P 500 has climbed by an average of 1.37% a month during rising rate environments when the yield 10-year Treasury remained at 3% or below, according to Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at research firm CFRA. The S&P 500 gained an average of 0.53% a month with yields above 3%, he said.

How quickly yields rise also matters, said Stephanie Link, chief investment strategist at Hightower Advisors.

A gradual increase as the economy improves allows companies time to roll over or refinance debt, while a sharp jump higher is more likely to shock the market, she said.

Technology stocks, which have led the market higher this year, could be the first sector to feel the weight of higher rates, said Segall.

Rates moving above 1.5% “would suggest that growth was better than anybody thought” and pull investors into more cyclical areas of the market while potentially dimming the allure of tech-related names, he said.

Investors next week will have their eyes on earnings reports and forecasts from U.S. retailers to gauge how consumer demand is faring in the worst public health crisis in decades.

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to a seven-month low last week, while consumer prices remained unchanged.

At the same time, Treasury yields are far from eclipsing the average 2.07% dividend yield of S&P 500 stocks.

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14

Monday, November 16, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

China’s new testing policy for travelers is problematic, experts say

An airline terminal in Beijing last week. A new travel policy will require travelers to provide a negative antibody test result before being allowed entry to China.

By KATHERINE J. WU

A

s cases of the coronavirus continue to climb worldwide, many countries are doubling down on testing policies that can grant or bar entry to travelers attempting to move across international borders.

But an unusual new testing policy, announced by China at the end of October, has health experts baffled.

It requires inbound travelers to present negative results from an antibody test — which can neither reliably rule out infections nor prove that a person is not transmitting the virus to others.

“I don’t understand why they would be doing this,” said Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease physician at the Medical University of South Carolina. “It seems like this is their method of security theater.”

The strange guidelines, experts said, seemed to reflect an outdated understanding of the ways in which the virus and the immune system interact. In the spring, several companies attempted to market antibody tests as potential diagnostics of active infection. Some (but not all) later tempered or walked back these advertisements as researchers gathered more information about the timing of the antibody response to the virus, which does not kick into gear until levels of the pathogen are waning.

“I thought we were past this stage,” said Elitza Theel, a clinical microbiologist and expert in antibody testing at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describe antibody positives as a generally poor proxy for the presence of active virus in the body.

Previous iterations of China’s policies stipulated that travelers would need to test negative only by a “nucleic acid test,” a tool that hunts for the coronavirus’s genetic material. Most available tests that meet this requirement rely on a laboratory technique called polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, which can home in on the virus even when it is present at very low levels in the body.

But as the coronavirus continued to spread in countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Russia, Chinese health officials became concerned that some foreign travelers might slip through the diagnostic cracks. The officials opted to pair PCR with a second test to help ensure “greater accuracy in COVID-19 screening,” a spokesperson for China’s embassy in the United States wrote in an email.

In theory, that could be a sound strategy, said Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona: “We’re fans of being able to check with two independent kinds of tests.” But the approach quickly

falls apart, he added, if officials select the wrong test as a safety net, as appears to be the case with China.

In addition to requiring negative nucleic acid test results, China now asks travelers to prove they have tested negative on an IgM antibody test, taken within 48 hours of boarding. These tests detect disease-fighting molecules called antibodies, in particular one called immunoglobulin M, or IgM, which is usually the first type of antibody roused against infectious invaders. IgM’s presence is ephemeral; eventually, two other types of antibodies that are much longer-lived, called IgG and IgA, take over.

But IgM antibodies are, at best, a lagging indicator of a viral infection, Bhattacharya said. Against the coronavirus, IgM antibodies seem to be particularly sluggish; it can take two weeks after the onset of symptoms, perhaps more, for many people to mount an IgM response that is reliably detectable by an antibody test.

Contagiousness, meanwhile, is thought to peak during the couple of days before and after people start feeling sick, after which levels of the virus dwindle.

It’s possible that an IgM test might turn positive as the virus is on its way out of the body, Theel said. But these products look for a delayed reaction to the virus, rather than the virus itself. As such, the absence of IgM does not guarantee a person is virus-free.

Many tests designed to detect IgM have bedeviled researchers with false positives, mistakenly identifying antibodies in people who actually lack them. “Some of these tests are kind of garbage,” Kuppalli said.

In the spring, faulty antibody tests flooded the market after being hastily greenlit by the Food and Drug Administration. Alarm about their poor accuracy prompted the agency to revoke clearance of several products. Test quality has improved substantially since then, but IgM remains difficult to accurately detect compared with other antibody types.

When asked whether these concerns would be addressed by China’s new testing policy, the embassy spokesperson said only that the IgM antibody test was capable of producing “stable” results. Combining nucleic acid tests and IgM antibody tests “has been put into practice in some countries on a trial basis, and is working well,” said the spokesperson, echoing earlier comments made at a news conference. The spokesperson did not respond to repeated requests for clarification or comment on which countries had implemented such protocols, or whether data existed to support the efficacy of the dual-test tactic.

Another concern, Theel said, is that IgM tests can also be very difficult to find. The new requirements could raise needlessly stressful barriers for people trying to make their way home, and waste time and money.

“That is a huge inconvenience, for a test that adds, in my opinion, minimal value,” she said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, November 16, 2020

15

It took a century to open a mosque in Athens. Then came the pandemic.

Muslims praying at the new mosque in Athens. Coronavirus restrictions quickly cut the number of worshipers permitted, then closed the site entirely.

By NIKI KITSANTONIS

T

he mosque that took more than a century to open, surviving legal, political and financial challenges, has closed in less than a week, a temporary victim of the coronavirus pandemic.

Athens, the Greek capital, had not had a dedicated, purpose-built Muslim place of worship since the expulsion of Ottoman forces in 1833, a gap that officials have long sought to fill. The first act of Parliament aimed at opening a mosque came in 1890, an effort that intensified in recent decades as the Muslim community has grown, now praying in dozens of unpermitted makeshift venues like basements, garages and parking lots.

In the face of objections from the powerful Orthodox Church and from nationalists who associate Islam with foreign occupation, plans repeatedly came to nothing over the years, leaving Athens as virtually the only European Union capital without a purpose-built place of worship for Muslims.

But in 2006 Parliament approved construction of a fully state-funded, state-run mosque in Athens — the only such arrangement in the European Union, Greek officials say. The opening, initially scheduled for 2010, finally arrived early this month after the project surmounted a mountain of red tape and legal challenges.

With the coronavirus spiking, though, restrictions immediately limited a building designed for around 350 worshippers to only 13 at a time. Then, the day after the mosque’s first Friday Prayer, Greece returned to a national lockdown, forcing it to

shut completely for now.

The closing heightened the bittersweet feelings many Muslims already had about the state-funded mosque — a squat, off-white building, conspicuously free of minarets, set on a sprawling former naval base in an industrial district near downtown Athens. Its 4.2-acre grounds include a park with a fountain and a playground.

“My feelings are split in two,” Mohammed Zaki, the mosque’s 55-year-old imam, said in the courtyard before an early-afternoon call to prayer on the day the new lockdown was announced. “On the one hand I feel incredible relief and happiness; finally we have a mosque we can pray in.”

But his joy, he said, was tempered both by the COVIDrelated restrictions and the fact that dozens of makeshift mosques in the capital were now likely to close.

“It’s a huge problem,” Zaki said. “We are not 10 or 20 people,” he said, referring to the roughly 200,000 Muslims from countries including Pakistan, Syria, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who live in Athens. “Where will all these people go?

“I hurt for those who come to pray and are turned away,” he added.

Some Muslims say the new mosque signals a welcome shift in Greek attitudes.

Muhammad Shabir Dhama, a 60-year-old restaurant owner from Pakistan, was positively beaming when interviewed on the mosque’s grounds on the day the lockdown was announced.

“I have no words,” he said, wearing prayer robes, a face mask and protective shoe coverings. “I’d like to say a big thank-you to the Greek government and to everyone

who helped make this happen.”

“Things have changed,” added Ehab El Sayed, who sits on the mosque’s managing board. “Greeks didn’t know what Islam was. They used to equate it with extremism and fanaticism.

They’ve realized that Islam is another strong, large religion, like Judaism and Christianity.”

Not all Athens Muslims are satisfied, however.

The head of the Muslim Association of Greece, Naim Elghandour, said the mosque’s small size and architecture are an affront. “It looks like a warehouse or an oversized kiosk,” he said. He also took issue with lettering on the building saying “Education and Religious Affairs Ministry.”

“They’re saying, ‘Muslim, you’re not equal,’ showing them it’s controlled by the state,” he said.

Elghandour had run a large unofficial mosque in the nearby port of Piraeus for decades, which was among those that closed recently. He said shutting such venues could mean potential radicalism went unchecked. It is “dangerous to close down mosques that are monitored by police, as people will gather to pray in other areas.”

Dunja Mijatovic, commissioner for human rights at the Council of Europe, a body that seeks to safeguard rights across the continent, welcomed the mosque’s opening.

“Moves like this are not only important signs of the respect of religious minorities but also significant contributions to more inclusive societies,” Mijatovic said. “Building bridges is much needed today, as extremism and attacks against freedom of thought, conscience and religion are unfortunately on the rise in Europe.”

Job Opportunity

16

Monday, November 16, 2020

Nigeria goes on offensive against youth protesting police brutality

By RUTH MACLEAN

N

igeria’s leaders have made a show of responding to the demands of a massive youth-led uprising over police brutality that recently brought the country to a standstill and captured global attention.

The government has commissioned panels of inquiry into police brutality, and the president promised to disband the notoriously abusive police unit known as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, or SARS. But at the same time, protesters say that the government is conducting a targeted campaign against people associated with the uprising in order to harass, impede and break up the movement — destroying any good faith the government had hoped to build.

“They are persecuting peaceful, and actually quite patriotic young people,” said Chidi Odinkalu, senior manager for Africa at the Open Society Justice Initiative.

Nigeria — Africa’s most populous nation — was turned upside down last month by an uprising that grew into the largest popular resistance the government has faced in years. The demonstrations began as an outcry

Protesters in Lagos last month. The demonstrations against police brutality had brought the country to a standstill.

against the SARS police unit, but evolved into a larger protest over bad governance.

The government has adopted a two-pronged strategy to try to put a stop to the uproar. It has tried to persuade people that it is listening to the protesters — commissioning panels of inquiry and announcing that SARS is being disbanded. But it is simultaneously using its power to repress and intimidate activists by throwing many people in jail, and harassing others in ways large and small.

One example of the government’s two-faced approach was on display last week in a packed hearing room in Lagos overlooking the ocean, where a panel was supposed to be holding a hearing on police brutality.

Two young activists had been invited to join the panel to represent the protesters. But the youth panelists boycotted the hearing because Nigeria’s Central Bank had just frozen a bank account belonging to one of them, claiming it was linked to terrorists. In recent weeks, at least 20 activists and organizations have had their accounts frozen by the Central Bank.

“How can I be asking as a citizen of my country for better government, for an end to police brutality,” said Bolatito Olorunrinu, one of the youth panelists, a 22-yearold student at Lagos State University, “and my government turns around to tag me a terrorist? It’s saddening.”

Warned of threats to their safety, some high-profile activists with the movement, known by the hashtag #EndSARS, have gone into hiding or left the country. There was a public outcry when Modupe Odele, a lawyer helping the protesters, said that her passport was confiscated at the airport. She says was prevented from traveling, but recently was given her passport back.

The country’s top police official said earlier this month that his officers had arrested more than 1,500 people during and after the protests suspected of taking part in violence.

The government has moved to use its authority to shut down the movement. Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city, banned demonstrations. Powerful state governors in the country’s north last week called for censorship of social media, which had played a decisive role in mobilizing the marches.

Abuses by Nigerian security forces are nothing new.

In the northeast, home to the terrorist group Boko Haram, women have been raped by soldiers and babies and chil-

dren locked up. In the capital, Abuja, and the nearby city of Kaduna, minority Shiite protesters have been killed.

But #EndSARS had attracted social media influencers, musicians, Nollywood actors and reality TV stars. The Lekki incident drew international condemnation, including from U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and Beyoncé.

“It’s one thing to shoot protesters in the relative backwaters of Kaduna,” said Odinkalu. “It’s another thing to shoot protesters under the clear gaze of upmarket Lagos. The political ramifications are higher.”

The Lekki shooting was one of the things the Lagos inquiry has been investigating, before it was boycotted over the frozen bank account. Adesina Ogunlana, a lawyer who appeared at the hearing and said that he represented the #EndSARS movement, compared the Lekki shootings to tinko, a kind of Nigerian sun-dried meat.

“Looks small. But when you put it in your mouth and chew, it gets bigger. Gets bigger. Gets bigger,” said Ogunlana, who carried a well-thumbed copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s “David and Goliath” to the hearings last week, and nibbled bitter kola to fortify himself.

Lekki was just one case of abuse, “but it involves the military, it involves the Lagos state government,” he said.

“And of course it involves thousands and thousands and thousands of young Nigerians.”

Now that the protests have ended the streets are pretty much back to normal.

In Surulere, an old suburb of Lagos, traffic jams have replaced the crowds of demonstrators flapping the national green and white flag. Hawkers are back outside the market, selling strings of mock coral beads and books promising the secrets to amassing great wealth. Residents are no longer terrified of venturing out lest they catch a bullet.

But in a country where mostly older, wealthy men govern a population with a median age of 18 and an average annual income of $2,200, now that the youth have discovered the power of their protest muscle, they say they very well might use it again.

“You never can tell what is going to trigger another protest,” said Ariyo-Dare Atoye, the convener of the Coalition in Defence of Nigerian Democracy and Constitution.

“People will have justification to do it again,” he said, because the government has been given enough time to respond to the issues.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, November 16, 2020

17

Sainted too soon? Vatican report casts John Paul II in harsh new light

By JASON HOROWITZ

A

t the funeral of Pope John Paul II at St. Peter’s Square, banners rose from the sea of mourners reading “Santo Subito,” or “Saint at Once.” He was a giant of the church in the 20th century, spanning the globe — inspiring generations of believers with his youthful magnetism, then aged infirmity — and, as the Polish pope, he helped bring down Communism over his more than 26-year reign.

Days after his death in 2005, cardinals eager to uphold his conservative policies had already begun discussing putting him on a fast track to sainthood while devotees in Rome and beyond clamored for his immediate canonization, drowning out notes of caution from survivors of sexual abuse and historians that St. John Paul II had persistently turned a blind eye to the crimes in his church.

Now, after more than a decade of doubts, his reputation has fallen under its darkest cloud yet, after the very Vatican that rushed to canonize him released an extraordinary report last week that laid at the saint’s feet the blame for the advancement of the disgraced former prelate Theodore E. McCarrick.

The investigation, commissioned by Pope Francis, who canonized John Paul in 2014, revealed how John Paul chose not to believe long-standing accusations of sexual abuse against McCarrick, including pedophilia, allowing him to climb the hierarchy’s ladder.

The findings detailed decades of bureaucratic obfuscation and lack of accountability by a host of top prelates and threatened to sully the white robes of three popes. But most of all, critics say, it provides searing proof that the church moved with reckless speed to canonize John Paul and now it is caught in its own wreckage.

“He was canonized too fast,” said Kathleen Cummings, author of “A Saint of Our Own” and head of a center on U.S. Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame. She said that given the “really damning evidence” in the report, had the church waited at least five years and not mere days to begin the canonization process, “it would probably not begin for John Paul II because of his complicity in the clergy sex abuse scandal.”

A reversal of the canonization, which historians struggle to recall ever happening, is implausible. Some historians say the McCarrick report is more likely to put back some brakes on a process that John Paul himself sped up.

But the report may complicate the canonization chances of others at the top of the church

hierarchy during the late 20th century and early 21st century, when the scourge of sex abuse exploded in the church.

The Vatican report shows that Pope Benedict XVI told McCarrick to keep a low profile when more allegations of abuse emerged in 2005. Francis, despite hearing rumors of the abuse from his top lieutenants, trusted that his predecessors had properly vetted the case and left it alone, the report found.

Francis has acknowledged his own failures in believing bishops over victims. He removed McCarrick from the priesthood and has in recent years instituted new church policies to increase accountability.

Many church experts consider those new rules corrections to the abuses and almost willful ignorance of church leaders that occurred under John Paul.

John Paul’s defenders say the report only demonstrated that McCarrick deceived the pope, as he did many others over his halfcentury rise to the highest ranks of the Catholic Church, and that it has no bearing on the heroic Christian virtue that made John Paul a saint.

John Paul had been “cynically deceived”

by McCarrick and other American bishops, Stanislaw Gadecki, head of the Polish bishops conference, said in a statement.

“Saints make errors of judgment. This was clearly an error of judgment,” said George Weigel, a biographer of John Paul and an official witness during his beatification process.

“McCarrick was a pathological liar. And pathological liars fool people, including saints.”

Weigel said that if perfection were a prerequisite for sainthood, St. Peter himself would not have made the cut. Indeed, infallibility, which is sometimes attributed to popes, is not a necessary saintly attribute, and history is full of saints who were not exactly saints during their lifetimes.

There has been a satanic priest, prostitutes, thieves and much else on the road to redemption and sainthood. In 1969, Pope Paul VI removed 93 saints from the church’s universal liturgical calendar, but mostly because they might not have existed, such as St. Christopher, who carried on his shoulders an infant who with each step grew heavier with the weight of the world.

But much is known about John Paul, and some critics are arguing that it is enough cause not to celebrate him.

Citing John Paul’s “calamitous, callous decision-making,” which it said put children around the world at risk, an editorial Friday in the National Catholic Reporter urged American

The coffin of Pope John Paul II is carried during his burial ceremony after a mass celebrating his life at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, April 8, 2005. The former pope was fast-tracked for canonization immediately after his death. bishops meeting next week for their annual conference to “discuss requesting that the Vatican formally suppress John Paul’s cult,” or cease celebrating him. “Abuse victims deserve no less.”

In May, reporters asked Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the promoter of the cause for John Paul’s sainthood, whether it would have been wiser to hold off on the canonization. Already by that time, a cloud had grown over John Paul’s relationship with McCarrick and his close ties to the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the Mexican founder of the wealthy and powerful religious order Legionaries of Christ, who was later found to have fathered several children and been a serial abuser.

“All questions were faced, even the ones you are talking about” concerning abuse, Oder said. He added that “John Paul II did not cover up any pedophile.”

But Oder, who did not return a request for comment after the report’s publication, also said at the time that the Vatican did not grant direct access to the archives to those investigating the case for John Paul’s canonization and that the Secretariat of State researched their questions and provided answers.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former official in the Secretariat of State who became the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States, in part prompted the report by publishing a remarkable letter in 2018 that accused Francis of having covered up McCarrick’s abuse.

To shield John Paul, who was actually in

power at the time of McCarrick’s promotions, Viganò argued that the ailing pontiff was too sick with Parkinson’s in 2000 to be held accountable.

But the Vatican investigation, which Viganò said did not interview him, says that John Paul was of sound mind when he personally made the decision to reject the accusations and appoint McCarrick.

John Paul first met McCarrick in 1976.

McCarrick, the report says, “was on a fishing trip in the Bahamas with teenagers from some of the Catholic families” when a telegram told him to come back immediately to help translate for Karol Jozef Wojtyla, a rising star in the church. McCarrick joked that Wojtyla, the future pope, had ruined his vacation, and they struck up a friendship.

A quarter-century later, McCarrick urged John Paul in a letter not to believe the accusations against him.

John Paul became “convinced of the truth” of McCarrick’s denial, the report notes, adding that Stanislaw Dziwisz, now a cardinal, recalled that John Paul also believed it would be “useful to nominate McCarrick to Washington because he has a good relationship with the White House.”

Those events, as well as others in the report, have led some historians to suggest that the church redirect its canonization energies away from the top of the hierarchy.

“You are pope,” Cummings said. “That should be good enough.”

18

Monday, November 16, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

This coronavirus surge does not have to be so horrific

By THE NYT EDITORIAL BOARD

I

n the spring, when the coronavirus was spreading across the planet, Americans took steps — slow and uneven as they might have been — to bring the first U.S. outbreaks under control. Houses of worship and nonessential businesses closed.

People resigned themselves to wearing masks in public. They worked from home if they could to reduce the risk to those who could not.

The federal government deployed resources to help people stay home. Major league sports suspended games. Broadway suspended plays. Families suspended vacations. Schools closed. Nursing homes and hospitals banned visitors. It was painful and in some cases devastating — and it was still not enough to stamp out the virus in America.

Still, those steps mattered a great deal.

Case counts came down in places where they had been up, like New York City and Seattle. Surges that followed in early summer were beaten back, if not wholly quelled. In time, even nursing homes saw some decline in cases. While the economy tumbled grievously, the bottom did not fall out. Newly expanded unemployment benefits, combined with some $500 billion in federal aid, enabled small businesses to close or reduce their payrolls without setting off a surge in poverty rates. Easy credit for big businesses and stimulus checks for nearly everyone else also helped.

Much more could and should have been done. An egre-

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gious lack of national leadership gave the virus too consistent an edge, and far too many lives and livelihoods were still lost as a result. But for all those avoidable losses, we also gained crucial understanding of how this virus works and of how it might be defeated.

At the moment, that lesson appears forgotten. The nation is entering its third, and potentially most dreadful, coronavirus surge. Earlier this month, the daily nationwide case count reached 100,000 for the first time. On Thursday it passed the 160,000 mark. Hospitalizations are at their highest point yet. Unlike previous surges, there is no epicenter. The virus is spreading everywhere.

Even communities that ought to know better are responding with a mix of apathy and magical thinking. In New York City, officials are preparing to once again close schools, while they leave bars and restaurants open for indoor service (albeit at reduced capacity). In Texas, the governor has dithered about closing or restricting businesses, even as case counts pass the 1 million mark.

Some people cling to the fact that while case counts are rising, death rates have so far remained low during this surge. That’s true. But it’s not that simple: Death isn’t the only bad outcome of contracting the coronavirus. Debilitating symptoms can last for months, and some doctors worry they may lead to permanent disability. Also, lower death rates are contingent on a high standard of care, which will be difficult to maintain across the country as case counts grow. In any case, death tolls are a lagging indicator. They tend to rise a few weeks after case counts do, which is what experts warn will happen later this month and next.

“It’s like we survived the Titanic,” says Dr. Umair Shah, health commissioner in Harris County, Texas.

“Now we’re looking at the tip of an iceberg and preten-

ding that the tip is the whole thing.”

Such wishful thinking and resignation are not difficult to understand. It seems cruel to close businesses and put people out of work again, especially when elected officials from both political parties have planned indoor election celebrations. It feels pointless to skip Thanksgiving when after a year of such sacrifices, the virus still appears to be winning. Why believe that anything can defeat the pandemic when so far — in the United States, at least — nothing has?

For most of the past year, the Trump administration has encouraged this mindset, with a steady beat of delusional pronouncements: that the virus will go away on its own; that changing weather or herd immunity will rescue the nation; that however the charts look, things are really not that bad. Never mind that 240,000 Americans are dead, with 1,000 more dying every day, and the staff of the administration itself is shot through with outbreaks. It can be difficult to fathom the end of this thing.

Still, there are clear reasons to be hopeful. Doctors and scientists know much more about how this coronavirus spreads and about how to treat the disease it causes. Drugs and longheralded vaccines are coming through the pipeline, and in two months the nation will have a new president — one who campaigned on a promise not to squander the sacrifices that have been made and instead prioritize fighting the pandemic.

President-elect Joe Biden has already put forth a plan chockfull of evidence-based initiatives. He has also assembled a team of professionals who possess the experience and expertise that could help clean up this mess.

If Americans want to get the current surge under control through this long, dark winter, they need to skip indoor gatherings, including for the holidays. They need to avoid nonessential travel. They must wear face masks in all public places. They all need to practice social distancing. They need to quarantine when they think they’ve been exposed to the virus and isolate if they get a positive test result, even if no symptoms emerge.

It’s also clear what state and local leaders need to do: Promote social distancing and mask-wearing, and consider mandating masks in communities where case counts are soaring.

Don’t wait to get contact tracing and quarantine programs up and running. Even if outbreaks are too widespread to find every case now, these programs can still help get localized clusters under control and will be crucial to keeping things in check once the current crisis abates. It makes little sense to close schools, especially when bars and restaurants remain open indoors. The latter have been consistently linked to case clusters across the country, while the former have not.

Closures will be painful. They will be downright catastrophic without the right economic support. Congress must set its partisan bickering aside and immediately pass a new stimulus bill for the good of the country and for the sake of its most vulnerable constituents.

These are not new revelations. They are derived from months of hard lessons backed by hard evidence — and those are the only things that can save us now.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, November 16, 2020

19

Trump reitera que ganó las elecciones y que Biden triunfó solo ante los “ojos de los medios de noticias falsas” Por THE STAR

E

l presidente de Estados Unidos, Donald J. Trump, reiteró este domingo que ganó las elecciones y que su opositor, Joe Biden, triunfó solo ante los medios de comunicación.

Trump dijo en su cuenta en la red social Twitter @realDonaldTrump que “él (Biden) solo ganó ante los ojos de los MEDIOS DE COMUNICACIÓN DE NOTICIAS FALSAS. ¡No concedo NADA! Tenemos un largo camino por delante. Esta fue una ELECCIÓN AMAÑADA”, dijo el candidato a presidente por el Partido Republicano en un tuit a eso de las 10:00 de la mañana, hora del este, u 11:00 de la mañana en Puerto Rico.

Twitter puso una advertencia en el tuit que dice: “este reclamo de fraude en las elecciones es cuestionado”.

La versión en inglés dice así: Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump “He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go. This was a RIGGED ELECTION!” This claim about election fraud is disputed (indica Twitter.

En un tuit previo de Trump dijo: @realDonaldTrump “Él (Biden) ganó porque la elección estaba AMAÑADA. NO HABÍA VIGILANTES DEL VOTO NI OBSERVADORES fueron permitidos”, sostuvo el Presidente de Estados Unidos.

Ferries del Caribe demanda en Tribunal Federal para que se le permita operar Por THE STAR

E

l presidente Ferries del Caribe, Néstor González, informó el sábado que radicaron una demanda en el Tribunal Federal contra el gobierno de Puerto Rico, por la cancelación ordenada del servicio.

“La cancelación de los viajes de Ferries del Caribe es una decisión caprichosa, ya que no se fundamenta en data científica que la sustente, pues las personas como quiera realizan sus viajes por vía aérea, en un sistema de transporte mucho más inseguro por la falta de distanciamiento físico, entre otras consideraciones. Reiteramos que las agencias concernidas ya habían aprobado los protocolos al punto de firmar un acuerdo”, manifestó González”en declaraciones escritas.

Según González, la situación obliga “recurrir al Tribunal Federal a través de la radicación de un “injunction”, con el propósito de que el Gobierno cese y desista de discriminar contra Ferries del Caribe

por el tipo de operación marítima para el transporte de pasajeros que realiza ya que a las líneas aéreas no se le ha aplicado la misma restricción”.

Expresó que el pasado mes de marzo, ante las Órdenes Ejecutivas emitidas por la Gobernadora de Puerto Rico producto de la pandemia del COVID-19, Ferries del Caribe se vio obligada a cesar las operaciones de transporte de pasajeros entre Puerto Rico y República Dominicana. “ Habiendo pasado 8 meses de no operar y producto del impacto riesgoso para esta costosa operación y para los 300 empleos directos y 500 indirectos que surgen de la misma, Ferries del Caribe desarrolló todos los protocolos necesarios para realizar su operación sin que de forma alguna se pueda poner en riesgo la salud y el bienestar de los pasajeros y tripulantess”, mencionó.

“Durante las últimas semanas el Secretario de Estado, las agencias federales, el Departamento de Salud, la Autoridad de los Puertos, la Compañía de Turismo y El Centro para la Prevención y Control de Enfermedades o CDC, por sus siglas en inglés, visitaron la embarcación y los predios del puerto para evaluar los protocolos establecidos. Producto de dichas visitas y de todas las agencias estar sumamente complacidas con la aplicación de los procesos, el Departamento de Salud del Gobierno de Puerto Rico, emitió su autorización para el recomienzo de la operación y estableció que el 8 de noviembre sería el primer viaje. A estos fines el Departamento de Salud firmó un acuerdo de colaboración con Ferries del Caribe el 6 de noviembre del 2020, con vigencia de un año, que permite a Ferries del Caribe operar durante la pandemia”, detalló.

No obstante, el 7 de noviembre, “sin que mediara ningún documento escrito y de forma abrupta, Ferries del Caribe recibió una llamada telefónica donde se le indicaba que la gobernadora Wanda Vázquez Garced, ordenó que se cancelara unilateralmente el acuerdo para transportar pasajeros y que esa cancelación era efectiva luego del 13 de noviembre. Cabe aclarar que el transporte de pasajeros que realiza Ferries del Caribe es parecido al de las líneas aéreas, donde se transporta al pasajero de punto A a punto B, en un corto periodo de tiempo y con la única ventaja o beneficio de que a bordo del ferry sí se puede guardar el distanciamiento físico requerido, mientras en un avión no. Los pasajeros que transporta Ferries del Caribe son los mismos que actualmente llegan todos los días por el Aeropuerto Luis Muñoz Marín, por lo que los viajes de Ferries del Caribe no conllevan ningún riesgo adicional para Puerto Rico. Todo lo contrario, Ferries del Caribe representa una alternativa más segura de viajar entre Puerto Rico y República Dominicana, limitando el riesgo de propagación del COVID-19”.

“Sin duda alguna, la cancelación por parte de la Gobernadora de un acuerdo firmado por ambas partes, en contradicción con lo determinado por las agencias concernientes, tanto federales como estatales, que de forma directa estuvieron involucradas en la revisión de los procesos, es una violación del debido proceso de ley que discrimina por el tipo de sistema de transporte, en este caso, transportación marítima de pasajeros. Eso es así, ya que los mismos pasajeros, al tener impedido utilizar el servicio de Ferries del Caribe, como quiera viajan a través de las líneas aéreas que operan entre ambos destinos”.

20

Monday, November 16, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Sophia Loren makes her return to film: ‘I’m a perfectionist’

By SIMON ABRAMS

W

hatever happened to Sophia Loren?

The question is prompted by “The Life Ahead,” the Netflix drama that premiered Friday and stars the Italian great who once practically defined international glamour. As it happens, her first feature since a TV movie 10 years ago combines her passion for film with the other great passion of her life, her family. Loren, now 86, has long prioritized them over her acting career, but with the new drama, she combines both loves: The movie’s co-writer and director is Edoardo Ponti, the younger of her two sons.

In “The Life Ahead,” Loren’s third collaboration with Ponti, she plays an Italian Holocaust survivor known as Madame Rosa who takes in and eventually bonds with a Senegalese orphan, Momo (Ibrahima Gueye).

The film’s message of tolerance drew her back to acting, but that need for a personal connection to her work has also made her choosy about projects, she said, speaking in rusty English. And while Loren, an Academy Award winner, has continued to influence contemporary pop culture (“Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo,” her take on the pop song “Zou Bisou”, was covered in “Mad Men,” a show she hadn’t seen), she said she didn’t feel pressured to chase every trend.

In a phone interview from her home in Geneva, Loren spoke about aging gracefully, taking direction from her son and some of her favorite roles. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Q: You started making fewer movies by 1980, seven years after the birth of Edoardo and 12 years after the birth of Carlo Jr., his brother. Why did you slow down?

A: At the time, I asked myself, “What do you want from life, Sophia?” I said, “I want a nice family,” which I had. “I want two children,” which I had. “But I never see them.” So I said to myself, “From now on, maybe I will slow down a little bit.” But I didn’t slow down just a little bit: I was simply not working anymore. Not because I didn’t love working; I wanted to know more about my family, because I was often living at the studio. I really surprised myself by saying, “Sophia, it’s better that you stop acting for now, and catch up later.” I stopped making films for a long time but was very happy because I saw my children grow up, get married and have their own children. [Carlo Ponti, her husband of 50 years, died in 2007.]

Q: What kind of scripts are you sent now?

A: I still get sent many scripts, but none spoke to me like “The Life Ahead” did. That’s why I didn’t work for almost 10 years. I wanted to find a role that really inspired and challenged me. Madame Rosa was that character, not only for her different and sometimes opposing emotions, but also for the message of tolerance, love and inclusion that the film expresses.

Q: You sometimes describe yourself as a “perfection-

An image provided by Edoardo Ponti, Sophia Loren at her home in Geneva, N.Y. The star, now 86, was looking for a personal connection to a script. ist,” and since “The Life Ahead” is your third collaboration with Edoardo: Has it gotten easier to take direction from your son?

A: I’m a perfectionist, but so is he. Edoardo gives me security. He also never gives up until I give him my very best. He doesn’t settle for anything less than that, and he knows exactly what buttons to push to get something out of me. When Edoardo says “This is it” after we film a scene, I know that my performance is exactly what he was waiting for. That’s a wonderful feeling for an actress, because you are sure of what you’re doing.

Q: What have directors like Vittorio De Sica taught you?

A: De Sica taught me to be true to myself and follow my instincts, not a trend. Easier said than done, but that’s important. I was 17 years old when I met De Sica. [She would work with him later in “The Gold of Naples,” 1954, the first of several collaborations.] To meet De Sica — he was a saint to me, the biggest director in the world. And he wanted to see me: “Ah, you are from Naples. I have something for you.” That’s how my

film career started, with Vittorio De Sica.

Q: Do you follow contemporary film or TV at all?

A: I mostly watch the news on television, but I did particularly like “The Crown.”

Q: In your memoir, “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,” you describe your acting career as a “remarkable season of Italian cinema that I had the privilege and the honor to experience firsthand.” Do contemporary Italian movies and filmmakers not interest you as much?

A: I don’t watch many films or series anymore, but I must say that the work of Matteo Garrone and Paolo Sorrentino is a pleasure to watch, and they both happen to be Neapolitan!

Q: You did some voice acting in 2011, playing the voice of Mama Topolino for the Italian dub of “Cars 2.”

What was that like?

A: I hadn’t seen many animated films, so I didn’t know what to expect from that role, but I must say that “Cars 2” is one of my grandchildren’s favorite films.

Q: Do you consider yourself a religious or spiritual person?

A: Of course I am. I don’t go to church, but I do believe in God. I pray at home.

Q: Is aging gracefully a conscious concern for you?

A: If you accept the aging process and live in the present, then you age gracefully.

Q: You’ve said that you greatly admire Daniel DayLewis, whom you starred with in “Nine.” Now that he has retired, who are your favorite contemporary actors or actresses?

A: I still like him a lot, regardless of if he works again or not! He is a great actor and always admirable. I also love Meryl Streep! She is a great actress.

Q: What advice would you give a young actress?

A: There is nothing that you can say. If you decide that you have to be an actress, because it’s something that you love, then you have to do what your mind teaches you, to put yourself in a situation where you only think about your life as an actress. Then you’ll see if you do or don’t get married. Life is not just one thing; it’s so many things, and sometimes so many things all together.

Q: Are there performances that you’re especially proud of?

A: My role in “Two Women” means a great deal to me [she won an Oscar in 1962 for this De Sica film in which she played a struggling single mother during World War II], but also the role I played in “A Special Day” [as a homemaker who becomes more compassionate after she learns that her neighbor is gay]. It all depends on the story, and on the perfection of great directors like De Sica. I loved working with him, as well as the films I made with Marcello Mastroianni.

Q: Do you want to continue acting?

A: If I like acting, why should I stop?

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, November 16, 2020

21

Billie Eilish’s Kiss-Off, and more new songs

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

P

— of “Ginger,” a bilingual come-on Wizkid shares with Burna Boy, on the full track from Wizkid’s new album, “Made in Lagos.” Then borrow some dance moves, if you can, from Nigerian American choreographer Izzy Odigie in the “official dance video,” which unfortunately shortens the track and squashes it down to mono sound. — JON PARELES Valerie June, ‘Stay,’ ‘Stay Meditation,’

op critics for The New York Times weigh in on notable new songs and videos.

Billie Eilish, ‘Therefore I Am’: There’s not much subtext to Billie Eilish’s “Therefore I Am.” It’s a direct brushoff — “I’m not your friend, or anything” — from someone who knows she’s in the public eye. The music revisits some of her favorite devices: a slowly pulsing beat, a skulking bass line, Billie Eilish revisits some of her favorite a vaudeville bounce to the chords, a switch musical devices on “Therefore I Am.” between whispery singing and deadpan rapping with a dismissive chuckle. It’s a relative- ‘You and I’: “Since the day we first met/I’ve ly minor addition to her catalog, but it has had not one regret,” Valerie June sings in “Stay,” but with a caveat: “I don’t know how attitude enough to get by. — JON PARELES Foo Fighters, ‘Shame Shame’: Foo long I’ll stay.” An orchestra assembles around Fighters, a band with rhythm at its core even her, but her ornery, sweet-and-sour voice dethough Dave Grohl has moved from drum- fuses any possibility of pomp. That’s just part mer to guitar-strumming frontman, discover one. “You and I” begins with voices and finfunk with “Shame Shame,” which backs the ger snaps, then gathers different ensembles: band’s rock guitars with a double-time beat rippling folk-rock guitars, a bustling big band and pizzicato strings. “Shame Shame” harks and swoopy synthesizers, melting into one back to glam-rock, as Grohl sings about ni- another as she marvels, “So much to discover hilistic despair — “I found a reason and bur- for you and I.” It’s not overstuffed; it’s profuse. ied it / beneath a mountain of emptiness” — JON PARELES Phoebe Bridgers and Maggie Rogers, — even as the melodies lift the song toward ‘Iris’: “if trump loses I will cover iris by the hope. — JON PARELES Lil Nas X, ‘Holiday’: It should be said, goo goo dolls,” Phoebe Bridgers tweeted first, that “Old Town Road” was novel, clever on Election Day — a tantalizing promise and direct. And then it should be said, sec- that certainly affected the future of Ameriond, that nothing Lil Nas X has made since can democracy. (Proceeds from the track on then has come close to that song’s vim, Bandcamp will go to Stacey Abrams’ Fair brightness or wit. His is the peculiar conun- Fight organization.) The cover may have bedrum of the viral phenomenon burdened gun as something of a lark, but Bridgers — a with the expectation of becoming something dual citizen in the realms of both absurdist more, and burdened further by the budget, meme humor and sincerely felt songwriting time and attention that such a goal requires. — brings trembling emotion to her rendiAnd so the further he progresses in his ca- tion of the ’90s-radio staple. Maggie Rogers reer, and the more professionals he works provides impassioned vocals on the second with, the less intuitive his music becomes. verse, but her voice best fits the song’s sparse “Holiday” is clunky, stilted and dull, almost arrangement when it’s braided in harmony provocatively unmusical. His sing-rapping with Bridgers, who transforms the song’s is labored, and the production — by Take A bombastic refrain into a kind of introvert’s Daytrip and Tay Keith — is almost apologeti- anthem: “I don’t want the world to see me, cally undemanding. To be fair, though, the ’cause I don’t think that they’d understand.” song is merely a pretext for the video, which — LINDSAY ZOLADZ Kelsea Ballerini featuring Shania is a hyperfuturist update of the Missy Elliott oeuvre. And the video is merely a pretext for Twain, ‘Hole in the Bottle’: When Kelsea the continued spotlight on Lil Nas X, a fun- Ballerini performed the rollicking “Hole in ny, inventive and refreshing public figure for the Bottle” at the CMA Awards this week, whom music is an inconvenience and, over she ended it with a winking activation of time, almost certainly an albatross. — JON the Shania Twain bat signal: “Let’s go, girls.”

A few days later, she released a new verCARAMANICA Wizkid featuring Burna Boy, ‘Ginger’: sion of the song featuring vocal contribuEnjoy the tricky, sinuous Afrobeats groove — tions from Twain herself. The elder star’s a loping bass line teased by filtered vocals, iconic twang is a welcome addition to the elusive guitar lines and dabs of percussion second verse, but the best part of this ver-

sion is their giggling ad-libs over the bridge, which conjure a certain ... authenticity to the song’s central theme (“Just look at that … hole in the bottle,” Twain remarks, completely cracking herself up.) What’s better than drinking wine alone? Splitting a bottle (or two …) with Shania Twain, of course! — LINDSAY ZOLADZ Chris Stapleton, ‘You Should Probably Leave’: A vintage-style soul backbeat and two-bar melody phrases carry the terse storytelling of Chris Stapleton’s “You Should Probably Leave” from his new album, “Starting Over.” The song lands precisely where country meets Southern soul: with grit, details, clarity and ache. Every syllable — precise in meaning, sung with ambivalence — supports a narrative that, spoiler alert, is bound to lead to regrets. — JON PARELES AC/DC, ‘Realize’: From Brian Johnson’s screechy vocals to the bludgeon and crunch of the guitar riffs, “Realize” is instantly recognizable as AC/DC, a band that has rarely swerved from the sound it established in the 1970s. Malcolm Young, the group’s founder, rhythm guitarist and songwriter, died in 2017, but the songs on the new album, “Power Up,” are still, as always, by Malcolm Young and Angus Young, AC/DC’s lead guitarist and Malcolm’s brother. (Malcolm’s nephew, Stevie Young, has taken his place in the band.) While Johnson exhorts, “Feel the chills up and down your spine / I’m gonna make you fly,” Brendan O’Brien’s production brings subtleties to the band’s wall of guitars, embedding trills, quick lead licks and wordless vocals within the all-important riffs. — JON PARELES Run the Jewels, ‘No Save Point’: “Haven’t seen the sun with the naked eye much, so the neon is my god and it shine on the numb,” El-P raps on the first verse of “No Save Point,” Run the Jewels’ contribution to the soundtrack for the hotly anticipated video game Cyberpunk 2077. (An animated El-P and Killer Mike make cameos in the game as “the Yankee and the Brave” — a nod to the opening track on their latest album, “RTJ4.”)

El-P’s vivid verse and bass-buzzing, blownboombox production fit the game’s dark, “Blade Runner”-esque aesthetic. But then, characteristically, Killer Mike swoops in to survey the larger socioeconomic forces at work in this digital dystopia: “I used to pray to God, but I think he took a vacation, ’cause now the state of Cali is run by these corporations.” Let’s hope it turns out to be science fiction. — LINDSAY ZOLADZ

Susan Alcorn Quintet, ‘Northeast Rising Sun’: As a young pedal steel guitarist in 1970s Houston, Susan Alcorn came up playing in country bands at honky-tonks. But she gravitated to uncharted territory, and in recent decades she has been known for ambient solo performances that conjure a sleepy sonic gloaming. Only recently has she composed music with a full ensemble in mind, and assembled a quintet with some of the finest improvisers around: guitarist Mary Halvorson, violinist Mark Feldman, bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Ryan Sawyer. On “Northeast Rising Sun,” which closes the group’s debut album, “Pedernal,” Alcorn adapts a melodic refrain used in Sufi devotional singing, improvising on the pedal steel guitar in bright and shapely slashes as the band follows the piece’s descending harmonies in a joyful downhill tumble. — GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO Charles Mingus, ‘Fables of Faubus’ (Live 1964): Congress was just weeks away from passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when Charles Mingus and his ensemble arrived in Bremen, Germany, during a tour of Europe that has gone down in history as one of the bassist and composer’s finest hours. They seem to have taken a special pleasure in offering this lengthy, gut-opening take on “Fables of Faubus,” Mingus’ musical rebuke of the segregationist Arkansas governor. Featuring saxophonist, flutist and bass clarinetist Eric Dolphy, tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan, trumpeter Johnny Coles, pianist Jaki Byard and drummer Dannie Richmond, the sextet mixes Ellingtonian harmonies and quotes from “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” into a halfhour exploration that’s heavy on rough, avantgarde improvising and passages of pregnant silence, all of which heighten the collective intensity. — GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO Emily Sprague, ‘Chasing Light’: Emily Sprague sings and plays guitar in the warmhearted indie-folk band Florist, but as a solo artist she records luminescent, synthesizer-driven ambient music that reflects the gentle wonders of the natural world. Her newly released album, “Hill, Flower, Fog,” provides a welcome bit of aural springtime for those bracing for a rough winter. The same goes for “Chasing Light,” a new composition she made for Moog to celebrate the release of the Moog One polyphonic synthesizer. Sprague deftly builds layers of billowing sonic radiance, crossing the playful eco-experimentation of Mort Garson’s cult classic “Plantasia” with the spiritual hypnotism of Laraaji. — LINDSAY ZOLADZ

22

Monday, November 16, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Holiday travel and safety: 5 things we know

The new XpresCheck Covid-19 testing facility at Boston Logan International Airport. The site is open for airport and airline employees, and will open to passengers in time for the holiday travel season in midNovember.

By ELAINE GLUSAC

T

o travel, or not to travel? That is the holiday question.

With the approach of Thanksgiving and the December holidays during a surge in coronavirus cases nationwide, the increased risks presented by travel — either contracting or spreading the virus — are challenging the industry during what is normally one of its busiest seasons.

Market research firm Destination Analysts found in a recent Coronavirus Travel Sentiment Index Study, a weekly survey of 1,200 Americans, that only 28% expected to travel for the holidays, including both Thanksgiving and Christmas. In the same survey, 53% said they had traveled for the holidays last year.

Little is certain in travel today, other than the necessity of wearing a mask and maintaining social distance, whenever possible. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “strongly recommends” that masks be worn on any public conveyance, including subways, buses, taxis, ride shares and airplanes.

Here are five more things we know about holiday travel.

Fewer fliers, potentially fuller planes Last Thanksgiving, Airlines for America, the industry trade group, expected 31.6 million travelers over the 12-day holiday period. This year, the group declined to provide an estimate.

The airline business continues to be depressed, with searches for Thanksgiving flights down 60% year over year, according to travel-planning site Kayak. Hopper, the airline booking app, said the average domestic round-trip ticket for Thanksgiving travel is $173, down 41% compared with last year. FlightAware, which tracks flight traffic, said commercial aviation remains at about half of 2019 volume. Those planes that are flying are filled to just 61% of capacity on average.

Still, scoring a seat without a neighbor sharing your armrest is getting harder, and travelers should prepare for more crowded planes. Southwest Airlines, which has held middle seats open during the pandemic, recently announced it would make all seats available for flights beginning Dec. 1.

“To date, demand has been so weak that blocking the middle seat hasn’t hurt us,” said Gary Kelly, the chief executive of the airline, in a recorded statement in October. He added that going into the holiday season,

“the value of selling the middle seats is significant and will provide additional key revenue for us.”

Among the four largest carriers in the United States, including American, Southwest and United, that leaves only Delta Air Lines committed to leaving its middle seats open during the holidays, now through Jan. 6.

In a third-quarter earnings call, Edward Bastian, Delta’s chief executive, said the airline expects business in December to be about a third of what it was in December 2019.

Many medical experts credit the airlines for using HEPA filters to scrub the air of germs on planes. A recent study by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found little evidence of in-flight transmission since mask mandates were implemented in spring and rated the risk of disease transmission on planes below that of grocery shopping or eating out.

But the risks of flying are not just at cruising altitude.

“You have to take into account all the steps of travel, getting to the airport, security lines, layovers,” said Dr. Henry Wu, the director of Emory TravelWell Center and an associate professor of infectious diseases at Emory University School of Medicine. “All of these things add to the potential exposure list.”

In addition to vigilant mask-wearing, he advises carrying hand sanitizer, choosing a window seat to avoid others passing in the aisles, wearing a face shield and avoiding eating or drinking, which requires you to lower your mask, if possible.

Outside of the plane, he added, “I want folks to internalize what is 6 feet, whether they’re walking to the gates or getting into elevators or on escalators.”

COVID-19 testing as a safe-travel passport Increasingly, airlines are touting testing for COVID-19 as a way to reassure travelers that flying is safe.

In a pilot program running Nov. 6 to Dec. 11, United Airlines will offer free rapid testing to passengers on select flights from Newark, New Jersey, to London, ensuring that everyone on board (except children under age 2) have tested negative before takeoff.

In October, United began offering COVID-19 testing at San Francisco International Airport to fliers bound for Hawaii, which requires negative test results in order to avoid quarantining for 14 days. American Airlines is also offering testing to Hawaii-bound travelers either in person or through an at-home kit.

Both the International Air Transport Association and Airlines for America are calling for preflight COVID-19 testing as an alternative to quarantine restrictions.

For destinations that require testing, such as Hawaii and Jamaica, the type of tests may vary along with the grace period for getting it before arrival, requiring travelers to research testing requirements carefully.

The San Juan Daily Star “When we can have some international agreement on the best strategy to test and when to test and which test to use, that will make the whole process easier for travelers, airlines and destinations,” said Lin Chen, the president of the International Society of Travel Medicine and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.

“Right now, we don’t have that standard.”

While roughly half of respondents with holiday travel plans told Destination Analysts that they would not undergo testing before their holiday travels, a third said they would.

“If you’re negative, that’s good news but it doesn’t mean you should relax your precautions,” Wu said.

“The results could be false or you could be incubating infection. And you could get infected during the trip itself.”

Preserving your bubble away from home Testing is one way families and friends might consider merging their bubbles for the holidays. But using them, like everything else travel-related these days, takes planning, including ensuring members of merging bubbles are following the same precautions leading up to the trip.

“You have to lower your risk, then test,” said Dr. Emily Landon, an associate professor of medicine and an infectious disease expert at the University of Chicago, who advises families to quarantine for up to 14 days before testing. “The tests are most sensitive five to eight days after exposure. And they’re not perfect. The faster they are, generally speaking, the least likely they are to be accurate.”

Molecular tests, also known as PCR tests, are considered most accurate and usually require at least a day or two to get the results, versus antigen tests, which are quick but less accurate.

Meeting at a neutral site, like a vacation home rental will decrease the chances of encountering other strangers while preserving your own bubble or your newly enlarged one. HomeToGo, a vacation rental search engine, said rental home bookings between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day are up 70% nationally compared with last year.

Bringing your own food to last during your stay is another way to minimize contact with strangers. Where possible, experts recommend dining outdoors, or even dividing up an outdoor patio into areas assigned to each family bubble. The CDC’s recommendations for holiday gatherings include keeping them small, socially distant, short and outside or well-ventilated.

When it comes to lodging, hotels are considered a safer option than staying at the home of a friend or relative. In addition to enhanced cleaning, hotels are relatively deserted. Across the country, average hotel occupancy is about half, with rates just shy of $100 a night, according to the hotel analysts STR Inc. Prepare to quarantine From strict statewide policies in New York and Connecticut to local restrictions in Chicago, many destinations require visitors or returning residents to quarantine. The CDC recommends checking state, ter-

Monday, November 16, 2020

ritorial, tribal and local health websites for current restrictions.

Many of the quarantine mandates rely on selfmonitoring. But breaking a quarantine order in New York can cost up to $10,000 in fines or up to 15 days in prison. As of Nov. 4, most out-of-state travelers may avoid New York’s 14-day quarantine requirement with negative COVID-19 results from a test taken within three days of arrival, a quarantine for three days after arrival, and receiving negative test results from another test taken on day four.

“You need to think about the entire trip,” said Jeremy Prout, the director of security solutions for the Americas at International SOS, a health and security services firm. “That includes the trip back, which might add a two-week quarantine.”

Be prepared for the risk of infection while traveling, which could result in a quarantine in the destination. Prout recommends travelers pack for a two-week trip, even if only a brief visit was planned.

Potential quarantines in a destination are another reason to ensure that, if you flew, your airline ticket has a flexible cancellation policy or waives change fees. Southwest does not charge fees for changing your ticket, and Delta is waiving change fees on most tickets purchased this year.

Avoid tickets like Basic Economy on United and American, which do not allow changes.

Driving offers more control In a survey of 16,000 Americans this summer, the consulting group Deloitte Digital found road trips and

23

TRAVEL

short-haul regional travel were preferred by 65% of respondents, a number it expects may increase during the holidays.

“The advantage of driving is the environment is much more controlled,” said Emory’s Wu. “Ideally, you’re driving with your immediate family you live with. If you’re picking up folks from other households, that increases the risk someone might be infected and you’re exposed. And it’s a small, tight environment.”

This fall, the American Automobile Association said visits to its trip-mapping service TripTik has doubled since spring. Like Google Maps and other digital services, the free website allows users to enter their destination and get routing options. In addition to directions, users can elect to have hotels, restaurants, gas stations and campgrounds appear throughout the map to help you plan your stops.

The AAA service — available online or through its app to members and nonmembers — also links to a useful map of the United States, showing state, county and citywide restrictions on things like mask-wearing, gathering sizes, dining limits and quarantine requirements.

The CDC recommends motorists pump gas using a sanitary wipe, sanitize their hands afterward and bring their own food to avoid indoor areas.

“Journey management planning is a big thing,” Prout, of International SOS, said. “You need to have your rest stops planned, your vehicle in good order and limit the time driving at night.”

Passengers standing on line at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York in late October. Be prepared for more crowded planes during the holidays.

24 LEGAL NOTICE IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE TENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT OF FLORIDA, IN AND FOR POLK COUNTY. In Re: Petition for Temporary Custody Of

SHERIANICK ZOE ROSADO REYES by

ANNIE CAST AING and JORGE ROSADO

and In Re: Petition for Temporary Custody of

KAMILA ANNIERICK ROSADO ORTIZ by

ANNIE CASTAING AND JORGE ROSADO

Case No.: 2020DR-000414.

SEC. 01. SECOND AMENDED NOTICE OF ACTION FOR TEMPORARY CUSTODY OF MINOR CHILD BY EXTENDED FAMILY.

To: Rose Marie Ortiz Urb. Bonneville Heights Calle Naranjito Numero 3 Caguas, Puerto Rico 00725

YOU ARE NOTIFIED that an action for Temporary Custody of Minor Children By extended family has been filed against you and that you are required to serve a copy of your written defenses, if any, to Petitioners, Annie Castaing and Jorge Rosado whose address is c/o Ira A. Serebrin, Esq. 2109 Combee Road, Lakeland, FL on or before December 14, 2020 and file the original with the Clerk of this Court, at Post Office Box Drawer CC-5 before service on Petitioner or immediately thereafter. If you fail to do so, a default may be entered against you for the relief demanded in the Petition. Copies of all court documents in this case, including orders, are available at the Clerk of the Circuit Court’s office. You may review these documents upon request. You must keep the Clerk of the Circuit Court’s office notified of your current address. (You may file Designation of Current Mailing and E-Mail Address, Florida Supreme Court Approved Family Law Form 12.915.)

Future papers in this lawsuit will be mailed or emailed to the addresses on record at the clerk’s office. Dated: 10/22/2020. STACY M. BUTTERFIELD, CLERK OF COURT. By: Debra R. Reed, Deputy Clerk.

LEGAL NOTICE IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO.

BOSCO IX OVERSEAS, LLC BY FRANKLIN CREDIT MANAGEMENT @

CORPORATION AS SERVICER Plaintiff, v.

BENJAMIN RODRIGUEZ RODRIGUEZ; WALESKA SANTIAGO AGUILAR;

Defendant CIVIL NO. 19-cv-1092 (PAD).

COLLECTION OF MONIES AND FORECLOSURE OF MORTGAGE. JURY TRIAL DEMANDED. NOTICE OF SALE.

TO: BENJAMIN RODRIGUEZ RODRIGUEZ; WALESKA SANTIAGO AGUILAR; AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC

WHEREAS: On July 29, 2020, this Court entered Judgment in favor of Plaintiff, against Defendants. On September 1st, 2020, this Court entered Order for Execution of Judgment. Pursuant to the Judgment, the Defendants were Ordered to pay Plaintiff the amount of $52,792.01 of principal of the said mortgage note, accrued interest at the annual rate of 7.125% which continues to accrue, plus fees, costs and any other amount expressly agreed upon in the mortgage deed, plus 10% for agreed upon attorneys’ fees in the amount of $7,300.00, plus all expenses and advances made by the plaintiff. WHEREAS: Pursuant to the terms of the aforementioned Judgment and the Order for Execution of Judgment thereof, the following property belonging to the Defendants will be sold at a public auction: RUSTIC: Portion of land located in Barrio Leguisamo, in the municipality of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, with a surface area of one rope, equivalent to 3,930.39 square meters. On the border: to the North, with a plot of land segregated from the main property, but according to the plan, with land belonging to María Selectre, de Aurora vda. de Rivera and a public plot; to the South, with the remainder of the main property; to the East, with the road (352) but according to the plan, with the public plot; and to the West, with a stream and land belonging to the main property, but according to the plan, with the remainder. The property is recorded at page 113 of volume 1224 of Mayagüez, property number 38163, Registry of the Property of Puerto Rico, Section of Mayagüez. The property is located at: RD 352 KM. 3.3 Bo. Leguisamo, Mayagüez, PR 00680. WHEREAS: The mortgage that encumbers the above described property is described as follows: MORTGAGE: For the amount of $73,000.00 with annual interest of 7.125%, in guarantee of a promissory note in favor of R&G Premier Bank of Puerto Rico or to order, due on

September 1, 2038. According to deed #158 executed in Mayaguez on August 21, 2008 before Christian M. Castillo Moreno.

Recorded pursuant to Law 216 of December 27, 2010, know as Property Registry Expediting Act on page 58 of volume 1530 in Mayaguez, 6th and last entry, dated December 11, 2012. WHEREAS: The property is subject to the following junior liens: Entry 2017-061803-MY01, dated June 2, 2017: Filed and pending: Foreclosure Notice issued on Civil Case #ISCI201700043(206) on the First instance Court, Mayaguez Part pursued

by Scotiabank de Puerto Rico (Petitioner) vs Benjamin Rodriguez Rodriguez, his wife Waleska Santiago Aguilar, and the community property regime instituted by both of them (Defendants). Petitioner requests payment of debt guaranteed by mortgage recorded on the 6th entry, amounting $73,000.00 reduced to $52,792.01, plus interests, and other amounts, or its settlement via public auction of the plot. Potential bidders are advised to verify the extent of preferential liens with the holders thereof. It shall be understood that each bidder accepts as sufficient the title and that prior and preferential liens to the one being foreclosed upon, including, but not limited to any property tax, liens (express, tacit, implied or legal), shall continue in effect it being understood further that the successful bidder accepts them and is subrogated in the responsibility for the same and that the price shall be applied toward their cancellation. The present property will be acquired free and clear of all junior liens. WHEREAS: For the purpose of the first judicial sale, the minimum bid agreed upon by the parties in the mortgage deed will be $73,000.00, for the property and no lower offers will be accepted. Should the first judicial sale of the above described property be unsuccessful, then the minimum bid for the property on the second judicial sale will be two-thirds the amount of the minimum bid for the first judicial sale, or $48,666.66.

The minimum bid for the third judicial sale, if the same is necessary, will be one-half of the minimum bid agreed upon the parties in the aforementioned mortgage deed, or $36,500.00.

(Known in the Spanish language as: “Ley del Registro de la Propiedad Inmobiliaria del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico”, 2015 Puerto Rico Laws Act 210 (H.B. 2479), Articule 104, as amended). WHEREAS: Said sale to be made by the appointed Special Master is subject to confirmation by the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico and the deed of

staredictos@thesanjuandailystar.com

Monday, November 16, 2020

conveyance and possession to the property will be executed and delivered only after such confirmation. The records of the case and of these proceedings may be examined by interested parties at the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court, Room 150 or 400 Federal Office Building, 150 Chardon Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico.

NOW THEREFORE, public notice is hereby given that the Special Master, pursuant to the provisions of the Judgment herein before referred to, will, on the 4th day of December 2020 at 10:30 am, in his offices located at Mayagüez Street #134, San Juan, Puerto Rico, in accordance with 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2001, will sell at public auction to the highest bidder, the property described herein, the proceeds of said sale to be applied in the manner and form provided by the Court’s Judgment.

Should the first judicial sale set hereinabove be unsuccessful, the second judicial sale of the property described in this Notice will be held on the 11th day of December 2020 at 10:30 am, in the Office of the Special Master located at the address indicated above. Should the second judicial sale set hereinabove be unsuccessful, the third judicial sale of the property described in this Notice will be held on the 18th day of December 2020 at 10:30 am, in the Office of the Special Master located at the address indicated above. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, this 9th day of October 2020. Victor Encarnacion Pichardo, Appointed Special Master. ****

LEGAL NOTICE

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

REINALDO GONZALEZ GARCIA DEMANDANTE VS

CARMEN ELISA AYALA ARAYON

DEMANDADA CIVIL NÚM.: GB2020RF00043.

SOBRE: DIVORCIO, RUPTURA IRREPARABLE. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO.

A: Carmen Elisa Arayón

Por la presente se le emplaza y se le notifica que la parte demandante, Reinaldo González García, ha presentado una demanda ante este Tribunal 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 demandada, deberá presentar ante este Tribunal original de su contestación a dicha demanda y notificar con copia de la misma a la parte demandante por conducto de la

(787) 743-3346

representación legal de dicha parte: Lic. Jaime F. Rodríguez Ortiz, Calle Carazo #10 (Bajos) Guaynabo, PR 00969, Tel. 787-642-0506, Email: jfrolaw@ gmail.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 sin más citarle ni oírle. Expedida bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal en Guaynabo, PR, hoy 6 de noviembre de 2020. LCDA LAURA L SANTA SÁNCHEZ, Sec Regional. Diamar T. González Barreto, Secretaria del Tribunal Confidencial II.

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante v.

MARY LUZ FORT MONTALVO

Demandado(a) Civil: BY2019CV03074. SALA: 701. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO (EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA POR LA VIA ORDINARIA).

NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: MARY LUZ FORT MONTALVO

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 13 de agosto de 2020, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 10 de NOVIEMBRE de 2020. En BAYAMON, Puerto Rico, el 10 de NOVIEMBRE de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria. F/MARIA E. COLLAZO, Sec Auxiliar.

to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala Superior de VEGA BAJA.

VACATION OWNERSHIP LENDING L.P. Demandante v.

LUIS ANTONIO RAMOS, AIDA LUZ BERMUDEZ GINEZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR RAMOS - BERMUDEZ; JOSE LUIS MEDINA RODRIGUEZ, IVELISSE AYALA BERMUDEZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR MEDINA - AYALA

Demandado(a) Civil: VB2019CV00554. Sobre: EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: LUIS ANTONIO RAMOS, AIDA LUZ BERMUDEZ GINEZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR RAMOS - BERMUDEZ; JOSE LUIS MEDINA RODRIGUEZ, IVELISSE AYALA BERMUDEZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR MEDINA - AYALA - PO BOX 555 GARROCHALES, PR 00652

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 23 de octubre de 2020, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido LEGAL NOTICE archivada en los autos de este Estado Libre Asociado de Puer- caso, con fecha de 10 de NOVIEMBRE de 2020. En VEGA

The San Juan Daily Star BAJA, Puerto Rico, el 10 de Trinta Maldonado, Sec Auxiliar.

NOVIEMBRE de 2020. LAURA LEGAL NOTICE I SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria.

MARITZA ROSARIO ROSA- Estado Libre Asociado de PuerRIO, Sec Auxiliar. to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de PriLEGAL NOT ICE mera Instancia Sala Superior de Estado Libre Asociado de Puer- GUAYNABO. to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL JOSE MANUEL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de PriLIZARDI O’NEILL mera Instancia Sala Superior de Demandante v.

GUAYNABO.

SUCESION ELEANOR SCHATZ QUINTERO TAMBIEN CONOCIDA COMO ELEANOR SCHATZ COMPUESTA POR CHRISTOPHER ANTHONY DE MELLO SCHATZ, MICHAEL SCOTT DE MELLO SCHATZ Y STEVEN JOSEPH DE MELLO SCHATZ Demandante v.

CITIBANK NA, JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE COMO POSIBLES TENEDORES CON INTERES

Demandado(a) Civil: Núm. GB2020CV00215.

SALA 201. Sobre: CANCELACION DE PAGARE HIPOTECARIO EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: CITIBANK NA, JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE COMO POSIBLES TENEDORES CON INTERES

Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 22 de septiembre de 2020, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 22 de septiembre de 2020. En GUAYNABO, Puerto Rico, el 22 de septiembre de 2020. Lcda. Laura I Santa Sanchez, Secretaria. F/Maireni

DORAL MORTGAGE CORPORATION, REP. BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO, JUAN DEL PUEBLO Y FULANO DE TAL

Demandado(a) Civil: Núm. GB2020CV00305.

SALA 201. Sobre: CANCELACION DE PAGARE HIPOTECARIO EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: JUAN DEL PUEBLO Y FULANO DE TAL

Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 25 de agosto de 2020, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 12 de noviembre de 2020. En GUAYNABO, Puerto Rico, el 12 de noviembre de 2020. Lcda. Laura I Santa Sanchez, Sec Reg II. F/Diamar Gonzalez Barreto, Sec Auxiliar.

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

LILLIAN RODRÍGUEZ SOTO Demandante VS.

HIGINIO RIVERA ROSA

Demandado CIVIL NUM. CY2020RF00052.

SOBRE: DIVORCIO - RUPTURA IRREPARABLE. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL

The San Juan Daily Star PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO.

A: HIGINIO RIVERA ROSA Urb. Mansiones de Monte Verde, Calle Coquí Dorado H33, Cayey Puerto Rico, 00736

Por la presente se le notifica a usted que se ha radicado en esta Secretaría la demanda de epígrafe. Se le emplaza y requiere para que notifique al licenciado: EMMANUEL VAZQUEZ TORRES, HC 01 BOX 6831, GUAYANILLA, PR 00656, Teléfono: (787) 378-1562, abogado de la parte demandante, con copia de la contestación a la Demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este edicto, que se publicará una vez en un periódico de circulación diaria general. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https:// unired.ramajudicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio. Se le apercibe que, si no contesta la demanda dentro del término antes indicado, radicando el original de la contestación ante el Tribunal correspondiente, y notificando con copia a la parte demandante, se le anotará la rebeldía y se le dictará Sentencia en su contra concediendo el remedio solicitado a favor de la parte demandante sin mas citarle ni oírle. EXPEDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el Sello del Tribunal, el 5 d noviembre de 2020. CARMEN ANA PEREIRA ORTIZ, Sec del Tribunal. IVELISSE GOMEZ FALCON, SubSecretaria.

Monday, November 16, 2020

RATORIA RECTIFICACION DE CABIDA DE FINCA SOLICITUD DE REANUDACION DE TRACTO Y OTROS EXTREMOS. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS..

A: MARITZA AYALA 815 East 152 Apt 11 C Bronx, New York 10455

to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala Superior de ARECIBO.

EDUARDO ROBLES CARRILLO Demandante v.

INFINITY HOME & CONSTRUCTION, CORP. Y OTROS

Demandado(a) Civil: Núm. BC2020CV00060.

Se le notifica a usted que se ha Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO radicado en esta Secretaría una ORDINARIO. NOTIFICACIÓN demanda de sentencia declara- DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. toria, rectificación de cabida de A: CARMEN MARTINEZ finca, solicitud de reanudación GUEVARA POR SI Y EN de tracto y otros extremos, en REPRESENTACION DE el caso de epígrafe, en la cual la parte demandante está soliLA SOCIEDAD LEGAL citando se declare con lugar la DE GANANCIALES misma con respecto a la rectiCOMPUESTA CON ficación de cabida, la reanudaEZEQUIEL GONZALEZ ción de tracto y otros extremos.

BENCON Este Tribunal ha ordenado que se le notifique a usted por edicto Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) que se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación EL SECRETARIO(A) que susgeneral. Se le emplaza y requie- cribe le notifica a usted que el re que dentro de los treinta (30) 9 de noviembre de 2020, este días siguientes a la publicación Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, de este edicto, excluyendo el día Sentencia Parcial o Resolución de la publicación de este edicto, en este caso, que ha sido debiconteste la demanda. Usted damente registrada y archivada deberá presentar su alegación en autos donde podrá usted responsiva a través del Sistema enterarse detalladamente de los Unificado de Administración y términos de la misma. Esta noManejo de Casos (SUMAC), al tificación se publicará una sola cual puede acceder utilizando vez en un periódico de circulala siguiente dirección electróni- ción general en la Isla de Puerca: https://unired.ramajudicial. to Rico, dentro de los 10 días pr/, salvo que se represente por siguientes a su notificación. Y, derecho propio, en cuyo caso siendo o representando usted deberá presentar su alegación una parte en el procedimiento responsiva en la secretaría sujeta a los términos de la Sendel tribunal. Si comparece por tencia, Sentencia Parcial o Rederecho propio y no radica por solución, de la cual puede esSUMAC debe enviar copia de la tablecerse recurso de revisión Contestación de la Demanda al o apelación dentro del término Lcdo. Héctor R. Díaz González, de 30 días contados a partir de hectorrafaeldiazgonzalezgmail. la publicación por edicto de esta com, Calle Guarionex, Núme- notificación, dirijo a usted esta ro 616, Bayamón, Puerto Rico notificación que se considerará LEGAL NOTICE 00957-3782; tel. (787) 379- hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE 6621; quien es abogado de la esta notificación ha sido archiPUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE parte demandante. Si dejare de vada en los autos de este caso, PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA hacerlo, podrá dictarse Sentencia en Rebeldía contra usted, con fecha de 9 de noviembre SUPERIOR DE TOA ALTA. el remedio so- de 2020. En ARECIBO, PuerCARLOS AYALA CRUZ concediéndose licitado en la moción, sin más to Rico, el 9 de noviembre de por sí y en representación citarle ni oírle. Este aviso se 2020. VIVIAN Y. FRESSE GONde RITA, JOSE PABLO, publicará una sola vez, dándose ZALEZ, Secretaria. F/BRUNILJOAQUINA, ROSENDO, cumplimiento así a lo dispuesto DA HERNANDEZ MENDEZ, en la Regla 4.6 de Procedimien- Sec Auxiliar.

LUZ MARIA, GREGORIA, ANDREA, LUIS FELIPE, LUZ DELIA, todos de apellidos AYALA CRUZ los cuales son componentes de la SUCN. PETRONA CRUZ NIEVES t/c/c PETRONA CRUZ y PETRA CRUZ NIEVES y de la SUCN. CIRILO AYALA NIEVES; y MYRTHA ORTIZ CASIANO

to Civil de Puerto Rico. Dentro de diez (10) días de haberse publicado el presente Edicto, se remitirá copia de la moción y del Edicto por correo certificado con acuse de recibo, a la última dirección de la codernandada MARITZA AYALA, cuya última dirección fisica y postal de ésta conocida es 815 East 152, Apt 11 C, Bronx, New York 10455.

EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello de este Tribunal, en Toa Alta, Puerto Rico, hoy 20 de octubre de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Sec Regional. Liriam Hernandez Otero, Sec Serv a Sala.

LEGAL NOTICE

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

BAUTISTA REO PR CORP.; Demandante v.

MMP REAL ESTATE CORPORATION;

Demandados CIVIL NÚM. KCD2008-1982 (508). SOBRE: COBRO DE DISUCN. ANDRES AYALA NERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HICRUZ compuesta por POTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINAMARITZA AYALA; y RIA. AVISO DE SUBASTA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRIMUNICIPIO DE TOA ALTA LEGAL NOTICE CA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS CIVIL NÚM. TA2020CV00438.

Estado Libre Asociado de PuerESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRISOBRE: SENTENCIA DECLAVS

CA EL PUEBLO DE PUERTO RICO. SS. YO, el(la) Alguacil que suscribe, por la presente anuncia y hace constar, que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia, expedido el 3 de febrero de 2020 por la Secretaría de este Tribunal, procederé a vender en pública subasta y al mejor postor, quien pagará el importe de la venta en dinero efectivo o en cheque certificado o de gerente, a la orden del Alguacil suscribiente, en moneda del curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América, el día 10 de diciembre de 2020, a la(s) 9:00 a.m., en mi oficina localizada en el Tribunal de San Juan, todo título, derecho o interés que corresponda a la parte demandada sobre el inmueble que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Apartamento comercial localizado en la planta baja de la Torre denominada A del Condominio Plaza Universidad 2000. Sometido al Régimen de Propiedad Horizontal, ubicado en la Calle Añasco del Municipio de San Juan, Puerto Rico. Es un espacio comercial de un solo nivel de forma rectangular y está localizado en la parte Oeste del Edificio, con un área total aproximada de 2,337.22 pies cuadrados, equivalentes a 217.1347 metros cuadrados. Sus lindes y distancias son las siguientes: por el NORTE, en una distancia de 50’ 2” con áreas comunes, estacionamiento y escalera; por el SUR, en una distancia de 50’ 2” con el local comercial #2; por el OESTE, en una distancia de 50’ 2 ½” con áreas comunes y estacionamiento y por el ESTE, en una distancia de 51’ 2 ½” con áreas comunes y estacionamiento. Este espacio es susceptible de división para uso comercial flexible. La puerta de entrada principal está en el lado Oeste y por ella se sale al exterior. Le corresponden los estacionamientos del 40 al 47. Este apartamento comercial tiene una participación en los elementos comunes generales de punto cero cero siete uno seis ocho dos por ciento (.0071682%) y una participación en los elementos comunes limitados de punto cero cero ocho seis tres dos dos por ciento (.0086322%). Inscrita al folio 146 del tomo 1630 de Río Piedras Norte, Registro de la Propiedad, Sección Segunda de San Juan, finca número 41,677, inscripción tercera. Dirección Física: Oficina 1, Cond. Plaza Universidad 2000, San Juan, Puerto Rico. La propiedad descrita anteriormente está afecta a los siguientes gravámenes: Por su procedencia está libre de cargas. Por sí afecta a: HIPOTECA constituida por MMP REAL ESTATES CORP., en garantía de un pagaré a favor de Doral Financial Corp., o a su orden, por la suma principal de $206,250.00, con interés al 7¼%, vencedero el 1ro de octubre de 2035, según consta de la escritura #114, otorgada en San

Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 30 de septiembre de 2005, ante el Notario Público Christian M. Castillo Moreno, inscrita al folio 146 del tomo 1630 de Río Piedras Norte, finca #41677, inscripción 3ra. HIPOTECA constituida por MMP REAL ESTATES CORP., en garantía de un pagaré a favor de Doral Bank, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $150,000.00, con interés al 2% sobre el Prime Rate, vencedero a la presentación, según consta de la escritura #29, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 27 de abril de 2006, ante el Notario Público Manuel I. Vallecillo, inscrita al folio 146 del tomo 1630 de Río Piedras Norte, finca #41677, inscripción 4ta. ANOTACIóN DE DEMANDA: Es objeto de esta anotación la hipoteca que surge de la inscripción 3ra por la suma de $206,250.00 a favor de Doral Financial Corporation, radicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, en el caso Civil Núm.

KCD2008-1982, sobre Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca por la Vía Ordinaria, seguido por Doral Bank vs. MMP Real Estate Corp., según Orden y Mandamiento fecha 11 de marzo de 2013, se solicita el pago de la deuda garantizada con la hipoteca que surge de la inscripción 3ra., reducida a $201,734.93, anotada al folio 149 del tomo 1630 el 27 de Río Piedras Norte, finca #41677, anotación A del 27 de mayo de 2015. ANOTACIóN DE DEMANDA: Es objeto de esta anotación la hipoteca que surge de la inscripción 3ra por la suma de $206,250.00 a favor de Doral Financial Corporation, en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, radicada en el caso Civil Núm. KCD20081982, sobre Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca por la Vía Ordinaria, seguido por Doral Bank vs. MMP Real Estate Corp., de fecha 30 de mayo de 2008, se solicita el pago de la deuda garantizada con la hipoteca que surge de la inscripción 3ra., reducida a $201,734.93, anotada al Sistema Karibe de Río Piedras Norte, finca #41677, inscripción 5ta. y última de 10 de mayo de 2017. Servirá como tipo mínimo para la primera subasta en ejecución de la Finca Número 41,677 antes descrita la suma de $206,250.00, conforme a lo estipulado en la escritura de Hipoteca número 114, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 30 de septiembre de 2005 ante el Notario Público Christian M. Castillo Moreno. De no adjudicarse la propiedad en la primera subasta, se celebrará una segunda subasta, en las mismas oficinas de este Alguacil, el día 17 de diciembre de 2020, a la(s) 9:00 a.m. El tipo mínimo para la segunda subasta será dos terceras partes (2/3) del tipo mínimo de la primera subasta, o sea, $137,500.00. De no adjudicarse la propiedad en la segunda subasta, se celebrará una tercera

25

subasta en las mismas oficinas de este Alguacil, el día 14 de enero de 2021, a la(s) 9:00 a.m.

El tipo mínimo para la tercera subasta será la mitad (1/2) del tipo mínimo que se pactara para la primera subasta, o sea, $103,125.00. Esta subasta se hará para satisfacer a la parte demandante, hasta donde alcance, el importe adeudado a BAUTISTA REO PR CORP. ascendente a la suma de $201,734.93 de principal, más intereses al tipo convenido del 7¼% anual, desde el primero de diciembre de 2007 hasta su total y completo pago, más la cantidad estipulada de $20,625.00 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado que la parte demandada se obligará a satisfacer como suma líquida y sin necesidad de nueva liquidación y aprobación por este Tribunal, más los cargos por demora. La venta en pública subasta de la propiedad descrita anteriormente se verificará libre de toda carga o gravamen posterior que afecte dicha propiedad. Se entiende que cualquier carga y/o gravamen anterior y/o preferente, si lo hubiera, al crédito que da base a esta ejecución, continuará subsistente, entendiéndose además, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría de este Tribunal durante horas laborables. El Alguacil procederá a otorgar la correspondiente escritura de venta judicial y se pondrá al comprador en posesión física del inmueble, de conformidad con las disposiciones de Ley. POR LA PRESENTE, se les notifica a los titulares de créditos y/o cargas registrales posteriores, si alguno, que se celebrará la SUBASTA en la fecha, hora y sitio anteriormente señalados, y se les invita a que concurran a dicha subasta, si les conviniere, o se les invita a satisfacer, antes del remate, el importe del crédito, sus intereses, otros cargos y las costas y honorarios de abogado asegurados, quedando entonces subrogados en los derechos del Acreedor ejecutante, siempre y cuando reúnan los requisitos y cualificaciones de Ley para que se pueda efectuar tal subrogación. Y PARA SU PUBLICACIÓN en el tablón de edictos de este Tribunal y en tres (3) lugares públicos del Municipio donde se celebrará la subasta señalada.

Además, en un periódico de circulación general en dos (2) ocasiones y mediante correo certificado a la última dirección conocida de la parte demandada. EXPEDIDO el presente EDICTO DE SUBASTA en San Juan, Puerto Rico, a 9 de noviembre de 2020. Pedro Hieye González, ALGUACIL, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE SAN JUAN.

LEGAL NOTICE

Sec Regional. Yariliz Cintron Colon, Sec Auxiliar.

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO LEGAL NOTICE DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO SALA DE VEGA BAJA. DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIORIENTAL BANK, BUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANDemandante, V., CIA SALA DE SAN GERMÁN.

JOHN EDUARD AVALO JULSRUD

Demandado CIVIL NUM.: VB2020CV00070.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: JOHN EDUARD AVALO JULSRUD

POR MEDIO del presente edicto se le notifica de la radicación de una demanda en cobro de dinero por la vía ordinaria en la que se alega que usted adeuda a la parte demandante, Oriental Bank, ciertas sumas de dinero, y las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado de este litigio.

El demandante, Oriental Bank, ha solicitado que se dicte sentencia en contra suya y que se le ordene pagar las cantidades reclamadas en la demanda.

POR EL PRESENTE EDICTO se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva a la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días de haber sido diligenciado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial.pr/ sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la Secretaría del Tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra, y conceder el remedio solicitado en la Demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El abogado de la parte demandante es: Jaime Ruiz Saldaña, RUA número 11673; Dirección: PMB 450, 400 Calle Calaf, San Juan, PR 00918-1314; Teléfono: (787) 7 59-68 97; Correo electrónico: legal@jrslawpr.com. Se le advierte que dentro de los diez (10) días siguientes a la publicación del presente edicto, se le estará enviando a usted por correo certificado con acuse de recibo, una copia del emplazamiento y de la demanda presentada al lugar de su última dirección conocida: Bo. Algarrobo, Carr.

Núm. 2 Km 42.8, Vega Baja, PR 00693. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal en Bayamon, Puerto Rico, hoy día 9 de septiembre de 2020. LCDA. LAURA l. SANTA SANCHEZ,

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante Vs.

MANUEL A. IRIZARRY RIVERA, MADLYN 1.

VELÁZQUEZ GUZMÁN Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Demandados CIVIL NÚM.: SG2019CV00888.

SALÓN: SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA } EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS } EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

A) MANUEL A. IRIZARRY RIVERA, MADLYN 1.

VELÁZQUEZ GUZMÁN Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

POR LA PRESENTE: Se le notifica que contra usted se ha presentado la Demanda sobre Cobro de Dinero de la cual se acompaña copia. Por la presente se le emplaza a usted y se le requiere para que dentro del término de TREINTA (30) días desde la fecha de la Publicación por Edicto de este Emplazamiento presente su contestación a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Germán, P. O. Box 223, San Germán, Puerto Rico 00683-0223 y notifique a la LCDA. GINA H. FERRER MEDINA, personalmente al Condominio Las Nereidas, Local 1-B, Calle Méndez Vigo esquina Amador Ramírez Silva, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico 00680; o por correo al Apartado 3779, Marina Station, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico 00681-3779, Teléfonos: (787) 832-9620 y (845) 345-3985, Abogada de la parte demandante, apercibiéndose que en caso de no hacerlo así podrá dictarse Sentencia en Rebeldía en contra suya, concediendo el remedio solicitado en la Demanda sin más citarle ni oírle. EXIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el Sello del Tribunal hoy 15 de octubre de 2020. Lic. Norma G Santana Irizarry, Sec Regional II. Wanda Rivera Ortiz, Sec Auxiliar del Tribunal I.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, November 16, 2020

LaMelo Ball is already a celebrity. He might be a basketball star, too.

By SOPAN DEB

O

n the brink of entering the NBA, LaMelo Ball is a most unusual prospect.

His name has been suggested as a potential No. 1 pick in Wednesday’s NBA draft, but he also could fall out of the top five in a class considered by executives to lack standout players. Like his brother Lonzo, who was selected with the No. 2 pick in 2017, LaMelo’s shooting form is unorthodox to the point of suspect. His size — 6 feet 7 inches and roughly 180 pounds — does not make him a natural fit at any position, at least not immediately. And nearly three years after he left the California high school where he first burst onto the national scene, there is still a very limited sample of tape showing Ball succeeding against the kind of competition he might face in the NBA. In some ways, though, Ball, 19, represents a new generation of basketball players who will be populating the NBA in the coming decade. As the youngest of three basketball-playing, reality showmaking brothers, he is already more famous than most professional athletes, with more Instagram followers than the majority of NBA players. His highlights had been viewed by millions on social media before he was old enough to drive a car. And all of that attention has come in spite of his having circumvented the NCAA entirely, perhaps proving that an American player can skip attending a leading program like Duke or North Carolina, earn significant money overseas and still be a top pick.

On that last point, he is not alone this year. James Wiseman, who played only three games at Memphis University, and Killian Hayes, an American-born point guard who grew up in France, are also projected to be lottery picks. It is possible, if not probable, that the majority of picks in the draft’s top 10 will have little to no connection to the NCAA system.

But Ball’s path goes far beyond what even the most hyped recent prospects, like Zion Williamson, have gone through. His personal life — and that of his two brothers Lonzo and LiAngelo — has been on display through an ongoing reality show, “Ball In The Family.” He has

grown up in the public eye, in front of an audience hungry for more.

Yet he is, so far, a celebrity not because of his on-court play but mostly because of his last name. What has defined Ball’s career — and the way he and his talents are perceived — is that name, and the others who possess it. And that may ultimately determine where he is drafted.

So what to make of this particular Ball as he gets ready to play in the league? Some teams will certainly be wary of the attention that follows his family.

Any team that takes on the LaMelo experience also will take on a relationship with LaVar Ball, the bombastic family patriarch with a craving for the spotlight.

Past experience has shown that this does not go well: LaVar was publicly critical of Luke Walton, the former Los Angeles Lakers coach, after Lonzo entered the league, one of many of his sons’ coaches LaVar has blasted over the years. But beyond some comments about LaMelo’s not being a good fit on the Golden State Warriors, one of the teams that has reportedly scouted him at a private workout, LaVar has actually been uncharacteristically quiet over the last year. And LaMelo seemed more than happy to brush off his father’s comments.

“I’m my own man, he’s his own man,” LaMelo told reporters recently.

“He has his opinions, I have mine. I feel like I can play on any team, and do good anywhere I go.”

LaMelo Ball’s nontraditional route to the league began at Chino Hills High School in California, where he played alongside his brothers, Lonzo (now 23 and playing for the New Orleans Pelicans) and LiAngelo (21, and playing in the NBA’s G League) to form one of the most fearsome teenage trios in the country.

LaMelo started high school a year early so LaVar could see his three sons share the court. In one 2017 game, LaMelo scored a whopping 92 points, raising the ire of the opposing coach.

Months later, LaVar’s ball apparel company, Big Baller Brand, unveiled its first pair of basketball sneakers, made available for $495, a price roundly mocked.

LaMelo Ball built his draft stock in a stint with Australia’s Illawarra Hawks, for whom he averaged 17 points, 7.6 rebounds and 6.8 assists in 12 games.

That August, LaMelo, still in high school, got his own signature shoe (this one for $395), a deal that threatened his NCAA eligibility.

For the Balls, though, nothing was out of bounds. LaVar and LaMelo once appeared on the wrestling program “Monday Night Raw.” Afterward, the WWE, which produced the show, had to issue an apology for the appearance because of LaMelo’s repeated use of a racial slur on live television.

Discussions about LaMelo’s NCAA eligibility ultimately didn’t matter. LaVar pulled LaMelo out of Chino Hills in the fall of 2017 because of a disagreement with the team’s coach. Soon after, LaMelo and LiAngelo, who withdrew from UCLA, made the surprising move of signing one-year contracts with PrienaiBirstonas Vytautas of the Lithuanian Basketball League.

At age 16, LaMelo was set to take on seasoned professionals. When the Ball family arrived in Lithuania early the next year, they were mobbed at the airport despite the fact that neither brother had any professional pedigree.

The run in Lithuania lasted four months. LaMelo struggled against more physically developed players. LaVar, predictably, clashed with the coach and pulled both of his sons from the league before the season ended, but not before creating an exhibition pro-am league to showcase his children. LaVar coached one of the games.

In the summer of 2018, LaMelo signed with the Junior Basketball Association, a semiprofessional league launched

by his father that targeted high school graduates who did not want to go to college. That fall, he opted to finish high school at the SPIRE Academy in Geneva, Ohio, a school focusing on athletic training. (Eventually, the JBA collapsed.)

Where LaMelo made his best impression was in Australia. Last year, he joined the Illawarra Hawks of the country’s National Basketball League, where he averaged 17 points, 7.6 rebounds and 6.8 assists in 12 games. But even as he struggled with long-range shooting — he made just 25 percent of his 3-pointers — and a foot injury ended his season, Ball did enough to raise his stock for the draft.

But how those numbers will translate to the NBA is an open question. There isn’t much of a blueprint for young stars coming out of the Australian league beyond Patty Mills, who starred in the league as a 22-year-old in 2012 and has had a productive NBA career.

Ball, though, wasn’t content with just having been a solid player in Australia.

Instead, he raised some eyebrows last spring when he attempted to buy his former team.

The talks eventually fizzled out.

It wasn’t a typical move for a teenager, but Ball isn’t a typical teenager. He has already lived on different continents, starred in his own reality show, worn his own signature sneaker and watched both of his brothers play professional basketball.

But once the youngest Ball steps on an NBA floor, he will need a lot more than his fame. He will need to produce.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, November 16, 2020

27

Miami Marlins hire Kim Ng, breaking a baseball gender barrier

By TYLER KEPNER

K

im Ng has long been viewed as the person who would break one of baseball’s most stubborn barriers.

Thirty years ago, Ng, 51, started work in the game as an intern for the Chicago White Sox, attempting to carve out a career in a sport dominated by men. She worked her way up, earning senior positions with the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers and, most recently, serving as Major League Baseball’s senior vice president of baseball operations.

On Friday, she became the first woman hired to run a major league team’s baseball operations when she was named general manager of the Miami Marlins.

“This challenge is one I don’t take lightly,” Ng said in a statement released by the team. “When I got into this business, it seemed unlikely a woman would lead a major league team, but I am dogged in the pursuit of my goals.”

The significance of Ng’s hiring extends beyond baseball, as she is the first woman to be a general manager in any of the major men’s sports leagues in North America.

The move, to many in baseball, was considered long overdue and comes at a time when several other women are moving up the ranks of the sport after years of resistance, and as women begin to populate the benches and boardrooms of professional football and basketball teams.

“I felt from 15 years ago that she was always the best candidate for the job, and for whatever reason, people weren’t prepared to make that move,” said Dan Evans, who in 1990 hired Ng as an intern for the Chicago White Sox. “So I congratulate the Marlins, because this is not just a baseball move, this is a generational move. Young women throughout the world view Kim differently today, and this gives them hope that that platform could be theirs someday.”

Ng (pronounced “ANG”) has a formidable résumé: After seven years with the White Sox, she spent 13 as an assistant general manager, first with the Yankees before leaving in 2002 to rejoin Evans, who was running the Dodgers. All of those teams reached the postseason during her tenure, but while Ng received interviews

Kim Ng was most recently a senior vice president for Major League Baseball. for at least four general manager openings, she was not chosen for the role until Friday.

Derek Jeter, the Marlins’ chief executive, was the Yankees’ star shortstop during Ng’s time as assistant general manager to Brian Cashman. Jeter cited her “wealth of knowledge and championship-level experience” in naming her as the top decisionmaker on his baseball operations staff. She will be responsible for, among other things, making trades, negotiating contracts, running the team’s draft and managing its moves in free agency.

“Kim’s appointment makes history in all of professional sports,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement, “and sets a significant example for the millions of women and girls who love baseball and softball.”

Women have owned franchises and other major sports in the past, and still do, but never had one held the position of GM. Once excluded from baseball, women are entering the industry more than ever. Forty percent of the professional employees at Major League Baseball’s central office are women (the highest percentage since 2008), and 21 women had on-field coaching or player development roles for organizations entering 2020 (up from only three in 2017), according to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.

Still, that institute’s latest report card gave Major League Baseball and its 30 teams a C grade for gender hiring. Of the roughly 500 vice president jobs among the 30 clubs, only 95 were held by women, according to the report, and only 19 were women of color — about 4 percent of all vice-president level positions.

The news of Ng’s hiring was cause for celebration Friday among the dozens of women in full-time baseball-operations jobs who share a text chain. Many in the group chat, which was created in the summer of 2019, look up to Ng as a role model.

The group’s founder, Jen Wolf, 33, a life-skills coordinator in the Cleveland Indians’ farm system, said she was star struck earlier in her career when she first met Ng at an annual industrywide conference. She later worked under Ng in Major League Baseball’s central office; it was a powerful experience, Wolf said, not only because she could learn directly from a role model but because she had another woman as a boss in baseball.

Wolf said her first thought upon hearing the news was happiness for her friend and mentor.

“And then my second thought was: it’s about time,” Wolf said. “Anyone with her résumé should have been hired years ago, so I’m very excited. I feel like males with a similar résumé would have been hired ages ago.”

Before this season, Rachel Balkovec, a Yankees’ minor-league instructor, was believed to be the first woman hired as a full-time hitting coach by a major-league organization. Rachel Folden, also a minor-league hitting instructor but with the Chicago Cubs, was the first female coach in that organization’s history. And in July, Alyssa Nakken of the San Francisco Giants became the first woman in major league history to coach on the field.

“The most important thing for me is that this is not a one-off in all of these roles,” Wolf said. “Just because Alyssa, Kim and both Rachels are the firsts, they should by no means be the last. They’re incredible women, but there are so many more amazing, incredible women that are ready for those roles as well.”

Ng was born in Indianapolis but grew up in Queens and graduated from Ridgewood High School in New Jersey. At the University of Chicago, she starred in softball and graduated with a degree in public policy. The White Sox internship soon led to a role as the team’s assistant director of baseball operations.

“Kim would come in every day and ask me a series of questions, and at lunch

ask more questions,” Evans said. “She had a thirst to learn why. She grew into her role so quickly, and the fun thing was to watch the evolution of people getting more and more comfortable with a female in the room. She had pressure that most other people don’t have: She had to prove herself all the time.”

Ng entered the game when top positions were often filled by former professional players, almost all of them white.

Those positions rarely go to former players anymore, as increasingly teams lean on decisions driven more heavily by data than scouting or on-field experience.

Ng’s hiring resonated throughout an industry that remains heavily male and white. At the beginning of the 2020 season, only four people of color led baseball operations departments: Ken Williams of the Chicago White Sox, Farhan Zaidi of the San Francisco Giants, Al Avila of the Detroit Tigers and the Marlins’ Michael Hill, whom Ng is replacing.

This stood in stark contrast to the field, where nearly 40 percent of this season’s opening day rosters were made up of players of color, according to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.

Latinos, the largest minority group in baseball, made up nearly 30 percent of major-league players, followed by Black (about 8 percent) and Asian (roughly 2 percent).

Ng is believed to be the second person of Asian descent to lead a team. Zaidi, the Dodgers’ GM from 2014 to 2018 and now the Giants’ president of baseball operations, was born in Canada to parents from Pakistan.

Jeter, who is biracial, became Miami’s chief executive when the ownership group he is a part of bought the Marlins in 2017. He has emphasized diversity in his remaking of the Marlins.

Jean Afterman, who succeeded Ng as the Yankees’ assistant general manager in 2001, said she believed Jeter has found a perfect person to run his team.

“To be a GM in Major League Baseball, you need intelligence, vision and experience,” Afterman said in a statement released by the Yankees. “These qualities of leadership, which Kim possesses in abundance, are gender-blind.”

28

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, November 16, 2020

The next generation of men’s tennis is making noise

By STUART MILLER

T

he ATP Finals invites the tour’s top eight players each year, but this exclusive club actually has a much more limited seating capacity.

Barring injuries, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, known as the Big Three, along with Andy Murray have usually taken up half the slots.

But in recent years, a group of young players, who could be called the next four, are making the pickings even smaller. Dominic Thiem is heading to his fifth ATP Finals; Alexander Zverev, the 2018 champion, will play for the fourth consecutive year; and the defending champion, Stefanos Tsitsipas, is back for his second straight year, as is Daniil Medvedev.

The question is no longer whether these players will become ATP Finals fixtures throughout this decade, but whether they are ready, after Thiem’s U.S. Open triumph this year, to take over from the players who have long been at the top.

The answer, tennis experts said, was mixed. Expect them to win majors, but Federer, and especially Nadal and Djokovic, will win even more. And by the time the Big Three finally fade, a new generation may be ready to challenge Thiem and company.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” said Patrick McEnroe, an ESPN analyst. “These four have solidified themselves as that next tier.

“They’re different from the guys who knocked on the door but weren’t fixtures in the Grand Slam semis and finals and at the ATP Finals, like Milos Raonic or Kei Nishikori.”

Yet like their predecessors, they remain in the shadow of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic.

“The Big Three are still playing at a higher level,” said Tim Henman, a BBC analyst, but the younger players “may just sneak away a couple of Slams in the next three or four years.”

Paul Annacone, a Tennis Channel analyst, went further, predicting that a member of the younger group would win at least one Grand Slam in 2021.

Henman and McEnroe said Thiem, the oldest and most accomplished,

Alexander Zverev won the ATP Finals in 2018 and is playing in the tournament for the fourth consecutive year. was slightly ahead of the others. In the ultimate measuring stick, Thiem is certainly ahead of the others, having beaten Federer three straight times, Djokovic four of the last six and Nadal three of the last six. The other three have combined for a 3-13 record against Nadal.

However, Zverev upset Nadal in the Paris Masters this month before losing to Medvedev in the finals, a preview of how the game’s balance of power could begin to shift.

Martina Navratilova, a Tennis Channel analyst and winner of 18 Grand Slams, said that while the next four group of younger players were “a cut above the rest,” that doesn’t mean they’ll be superstars.

For her, it’s not just about winning Grand Slams, it’s about the quality of play.

“The jury is still out,” she said. “You don’t say, ‘Here’s the special one.’ With Roger and Rafa, I just knew it the first

time I saw them play. For these guys to be good for the sport they need to reach that level.”

McEnroe said their careers might resemble those of Grand Slam winners like Lleyton Hewitt, Andy Roddick and Stan Wawrinka, who never crossed the all-time-great threshold.

Still, Ivan Lendl provides inspiration. Through 1984, Lendl, then a two-time winner of the year-end tournament (then the Grand Prix Masters), had a reputation for choking in the Grand Slams. He had won only one and lost six times in the semifinals or finals to Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg. But they were done by 1985, and Lendl captured five of the next nine Grand Slams, dominating the tour for five years.

The problem facing the younger players, Henman said, is that “they have to be patient, but also wary of the younger players coming up behind them.”

He and the other experts said Denis Shapavalov, Félix Auger-Aliassime, Andrey Rublev (about to make his ATP Finals debut) and Jannik Sinner have the potential to challenge today’s younger stars later in the decade. Taylor Fritz, Ugo Humbert and Alex de Minaur merit mention, too.

Henman said Sinner was most likely destined for greatness.

“He will be the one to break through,” Henman said. “He has the game and the attitude.”

If all eight players take turns at the top, the ATP Tour would resemble the women’s tour, in which 11 women have won the last 14 Grand Slams.

“The more the merrier, but you do need the superstars, the ones with name recognition, different personalities and different styles of play,” said Navratilova, whose rivalry with Chris Evert drove interest in the women’s game.

Annacone said the men’s tour had been spoiled.

“We love our legends,” he said, adding that developing new ones takes time. “The rivalries take a while to build, but if Zverev and Thiem play a few more five-setters in finals, they will become a significant draw.”

In the short term, McEnroe said, the sport fares best if the Big Three win more Grand Slams, but yield a few to the next generation, giving them a chance to develop those rivalries. But in the long run, he said, “What may be better for tennis is to have the younger generation — Shapavalov, Auger-Aliassime, Sinner — rise up and seize control of the game.”

JOSÉ BURGOS Técnico Generadores Gas Propano

787•607•3343

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, November 16, 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

(Mar 21-April 20)

Today’s New Moon in an intense zone aligns with Jupiter and Pluto, which could empower any plans and projects, and get them off to a dynamic start. If you are ready to make your move, then this is one of the better times to launch yourself into the world. With Mars now pushing forward, your can-do spirit will get stronger Aries, along with your determination to succeed.

Taurus

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, November 16, 2020

(April 21-May 21)

Ready for a shift in a key relationship? With a powerful lunar phase in Scorpio, discussing important matters might yield results, and could even be a turning point regarding a partnership or other bond. Whether formal or romantic, this is a great time to take on fresh challenges and to know that others are supporting you. You may begin to feel more assured of your destiny too.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

With help from today’s lunar phase in your money zone, you may be inspired to make your income go further by cutting back. There might be subscriptions you no longer use, or smaller items that could add up to a lot if you eliminate them. This can also be an opportunity to explore the potential for making additional income, as even a little may help pay the monthly bills.

Scorpio

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

Today’s New Moon in your sign is not only the best of the year, but the only one, and is an opportunity to think about how you would like the next twelve months to shape up. Consider which areas of life are most important to you, and what you might like to accomplish. Once you have made such decisions, then you can act to bring those very special dreams to life.

Gemini

If you feel a push to get your life in order over coming days, then do listen and take some action steps. The New Moon in your sector of work and wellness, can be a call to consider how healthier habits and better organization might transform your life. Once you make a start, the process of positive change can begin. Keep going with this Gemini, as you will soon realize the benefits.

(May 22-June 21)

Sagittarius

An intuitive nudge could inspire you to follow your heart. If inclined, then trust this inner knowing and see where it takes you. It may be encouraging you to release situations that are more of a hindrance than a help. You have likely known this for some time though, Archer. Although you might gain little in a financial sense, this can be a good investment for a happier future.

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

Today’s lunation in your leisure zone, encourages you to further your interest in a hobby or other interest. It’s a chance to go from beginner to a more proficient level, as your enjoyment will grow the more you learn. Where romance is concerned, follow any intuitive nudges to take some time out with your partner or significant other, as this can ramp-up the sparkle in a very positive way.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

The coming days can inspire you to bond more deeply with those you are closest to, and enjoy some family time. Making a point of doing so might set the stage for discussions, that could make life at home better for all.

With the New Moon aligning with a powerful influence, a move to another location related to a job or key opportunity, may lead to fresh developments, Leo.

Virgo

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

Exploring your local area could yield treasure, as you may discover activities that grab your attention and introduce you to new friends and opportunities. With a New Moon in this zone, it can also be one of the better times to start a project and gather information. Someone who shares an interest might become a romantic match Virgo, or perhaps a creative collaborator.

Today’s lunar phase can be a call to connect with like-minded people, and see what transpires. If there are no groups in your area that cater to an interest of yours, this might be your chance to act as a focal point and bring those kindred spirits together. If you have any special wishes or desires, the coming days could see you deciding to make one of them a reality.

Aquarius

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

This can be a good time to consider where you want to be in six months. If you have plans, then key influences might help you to make the most of them. Is there an opportunity for a promotion, or a chance for you to get moving on a personal ambition? If so, this could be one of the better times to take that bold step.

If a dream or intuitive nudge encourages it, so much the better.

Pisces

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

You may want more out of life, and you can get it by being bolder. Is there something you want to attempt, but have perhaps put off because it seems daunting? If so, the New Moon could give you the impetus to push ahead over coming days. Anything that expands your horizons might be good for you, and that includes learning something new and teaming up with inspiring friends.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

Monday, November 16, 2020

31

CARTOONS

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

BC

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

For Better or for Worse

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Ziggy

32

Monday, November 16, 2020

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