Tuesday Nov 3, 2020

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

San Juan The

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DAILY

Star

‘Bob Ross Experience’ Opens, Happy Trees and All

Go Vote!

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Zero Excuses: Missing Your Voter ID? There Are More Options Doubts on Process, Candidates?

We’ve Got You Covered

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200,000 Voters with Disabilities Remain Uncertain About Voting Access P4 NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 19

Whitefish Asks Court for Priority on Payments Owed by PREPA

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The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

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November 3, 2020

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

No excuses. Go out and vote!

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No voter ID? No problem! Here’s why

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

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San JuanDAILY Star The

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s Election Day finally arrives, citizens still have many doubts today about the voting that will take place from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. all over Puerto Rico.

In order to answer some concerns and to enable islanders to exercise their voting rights knowledgeably, the Star gathered information from verified sources to help support a safe and valid electoral process.

In order to stay safe amid the COVID-19 pandemic on Election Day, the State Elections Commission (SEC) reminds voters to wear a face mask, practice physical distancing while visiting the polling center and keep hands clean and sanitized.

Furthermore, if citizens are unable to find their voter ID, Puerto Rican Independence Party Electoral Commissioner Roberto Iván Aponte announced on social media that voters can go to a polling station with their driver’s license, Real ID or passport and they will be able to vote by hand.

As for expired drivers’ licenses, Transportation and Public Works Secretary Carlos Contreras Aponte said a via written statement that as some voters have been unable to renew theirs due to limitations posed by the coronavirus, “all driver’s licenses that expired in June, July, August, September, October and November of this year are VALID FOR VOTING TOMORROW.” “All categories of driver’s licenses and identification cards whose original expiration date corresponds to the months of June, July, August, September, October, November and December 2020 will have an automatic extension of six months from [the] original expiration date,” Contreras Aponte said.

Working? You can vote Meanwhile, Labor and Human Resources Secretary Carlos Rivera Santiago said “every employer must guarantee the right of their employees to exercise their right to vote in the general elections.”

According to Paragraph 17 of Article 5.1 of the Puerto Rico Electoral Code of 2020, every public or private employee who has to work on an election day has the right for two hours maximum with pay to go vote during working hours if they were unable to vote early and the conflict between their working hours and voting hours could not be anticipated.

Moreover, Rivera Santiago said, “the Puerto Rico Electoral Code of 2020 establishes penalties of up to $5,000 for employers who do not allow an employee capable of voting to exercise this right.”

Doubts on the process and candidates? We got you!

If voters still have doubts about who the candidates are who will appear on the ballots, log in to non-profit organization Espacios Abiertos’ website quienmerepresenta.org to learn who the candidates are that will appear on the ballot by entering your voter ID number.

As for their allocated polling station, voters can text the SEC at 787-338-1616, include their voter ID number and receive information on where to vote. Also, they can log on to ceepur.org to practice their vote, learn the rules to follow and make their vote count.

Meanwhile, if you were diagnosed positive for COVID-19 or are presenting any symptoms, community organization CON-Sentimiento said via social media that “the SEC wrote a safety protocol to address the issue and it must be enforced.”

“Your temperature will be taken, if it turns out to be 100.4 [degrees Fahrenheit] or 38 [degrees Celsius], you will be requested to return to your vehicle and the ‘Voters’ COVID-19 Protocol’ will commence,” CON-Sentimiento said. “If you had a positive result for COVID-19 from Oct. 19 to Nov. 2, bring your test results; automatically, the Voters’ COVID-19 Protocol will be activated.”

As the Star noted last Thursday, the SEC’s Voter’s COVID-19 Protocol states that the voter must wait in their vehicle, an electoral official brings a security folder with the ballots, marker, lamp and ink, and the voter will be able to cast their votes, put the ballots back in the folder and return them to the official.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

200,000 voters with disabilities still apprehensive as voting access remains uncertain; SEC says their right to vote is ensured

By PEDRO CORREA HENRY Twitter: @PCorreaHenry

A

fter dozens of complaints received from people with disabilities who have faced challenges voting ahead of today’s general elections, the rights group Protection and Advocacy of Voting Access (PAVA) will be present at various polling centers today to ensure some 200,000 citizens have access to their right to vote.

PAVA Interim Defender Gabriel Corchado Méndez said Monday at the State Elections Commission (SEC) Voting Operations Center that the agency could expose itself to serious federal lawsuits for breaches of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which seeks to promote, protect and count the votes of every person with a disability. Corchado Méndez said after doing oversight work in various municipalities that polling stations lacked appropriate parking spaces, accessible routes and proper voting booths for the disabled population.

“When we asked electoral officials who were working at the time where the vote-byphone system was or where the ballots in braille were, they didn’t have it,” Corchado Méndez said.

He requested that SEC Chairman Francisco Rosado Colomer meet with PAVA officials “so this won’t happen again in the general elections.”

Meanwhile, PAVA Director Gabriel Esterich said “the population with disabilities and people who are blind deserve their right to vote.” He emphasized that members of these populations also encountered obstacles to voting during the Puerto Rico Democratic Party Primary and in both rounds of the local primary elections.

“We went to Isabela, Sabana Grande, Las Piedras, Moca, San Juan, Trujillo Alto and Aguada, and we did not see the vote-by-phone system. We are not going to give up and we are going to be available to people with disabilities; we are not going to allow it,” Esterich said. “The SEC had the chance to comply. We do not know if the telephone vote [system] is there. The sys-

tem is being kept at the Permanent Registration Board; we need them at the polling centers.”

Esterich also called for electoral officials to open up the ballot containers at 9 a.m. sharp “to let every person with a disability vote like people who are enabled,” and so that the SEC is in compliance with the HAVA Act. Corchado Méndez said meanwhile that voters with disabilities could submit their complaints by calling the hotline 787-945-2116, which will connect callers to the agency’s election monitoring team.

He encouraged citizens to leave a voice message if they are unable to get through.

“The rights of people with disabilities must be fulfilled and that is our mission,” he said.

SEC: HAVA Act requirements are being met SEC Alternate Chairman Jessika Padilla Rivera told the Star that the agency was able to meet with PAVA twice a day before the elections to ensure the commission’s compliance with the HAVA Act, and that the SEC is “doing their best to attend to everyone.”

Regarding visually impaired and blind voters, Padilla Rivera said there will be some

440 braille ballots and 1,375 voting phones already installed at polling stations, as well as magnifiers to provide visual access. The SEC also has installed posters to identify “easy access polling centers” for the aforementioned populations, she said.

“If a voter can’t reach their polling station due to lack of physical access, electoral officials can activate the protocol to allow citizens to vote from their vehicles,” Padilla Rivera said.

“We want to address every concern from this population. We have addressed and solved every issue that has come up through PAVA. We want to be as inclusive as we can with our voters.”

For the deaf community, meanwhile, the SEC has released a series of videos, all done in sign language and available at its official website, to inform deaf voters how they can vote with confidence in the general elections.

“We got started 54 days before the general elections, and we have done the best we can to safeguard citizens’ right to vote,” Padilla Rivera said while offering assurances that the SEC is putting HAVA Act requirements into effect.

If she wins, Lúgaro has her cabinet all set up. Not everyone is on board

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

C

itizen Victory Movement (CVM) gubernatorial candidate Alexandra Lúgaro on Monday presented her cabinet nominees if she is elected.

The nominations were chosen through an initiative dubbed “The Cabinet,” a process in which the candidate, along with the public and experts in different disciplines, recruited the team of individuals who would lead the Puerto Rico government’s agencies in a Lúgaro administration beginning in January, she said.

“At the end of June of this year, I announced to the country an initiative never seen before in Puerto Rico, ‘El Gabinete.’ Since then, we have published the calls on our networks, we received hundreds of nominations from the public, we interviewed dozens of experts in a number of fields and we chose the first people who will be part of the Victoria Ciudadana Cabinet,” the candidate said. “When we choose a governor, we are also choosing the person who nominates the administrators of the various governmental agencies of Puerto Rico. Being an anti-corruption movement, we recognized the importance of the country knowing these leaders, their careers and their performance, before making a decision tomorrow [today].

Highlighting competence and preparation above any partisan line, we present our cabinet to the country.”

The nominees are: * Secretary of Health -- Dr. Sara Huertas.

Graduated from the University of Puerto Rico

(UPR) School of Medicine with a specialty in psychiatry, earned a master’s degree in public health from Columbia University in New York.

Community consultant at primary care centers and hospitals of the capital; co-founder of the Convergence for Mental Health, an organization of citizens, professionals and unions to advocate for access and quality of services; and co-founder of the Health Alliance for the People. * Deputy Secretary of Health -- Dr. Luis Avilés. Professor at the School of Public Health of the UPR Medical Sciences Campus, expert in biostatistics, who will be in charge of directing the transition toward universal health insurance and the establishment of a statistics center that will allow the proper handling of data in order to overcome the coronavirus pandemic. * Director of Medical Strategies to Face Pandemics -- Dr. Fernando Cabanillas. Hematologist, oncologist, and director and founder of the Cancer Center at Hospital Auxilio Mutuo. * Director of Policies and Programs for the Health Care of Addictions -- Dr. Carmen Albizu. Professor at the Graduate School of Public Health of the UPR Medical Sciences Campus. She has advised, consulted and made recommendations to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as part of the Advisory Council of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health. * Hospital Medical Director -- Dr. Lidy López. A UPR graduate with over 40 years of experience. * Secretary of Family -- Larry Emil Alicea.

Master’s degree in social work with a concentration on families and children from UPR, director of the Support Program for Victims of Sexual Abuse and Their Families at Albizu University. He was supervisor of the Specialized Investigations Unit of the Family Department in the Bayamón and Carolina regions. Presided over the Puerto Rico Association of Social Work Professionals and currently chairs the Latin America and Caribbean Region of the International Federation of Social Work. * Secretary of Transportation and Public Works -- Benjamín Colucci. Master of Science degree in civil engineering and doctorate in philosophy. Specializes in transportation in the areas of road infrastructure, public transportation, road safety, geometric design, traffic engineering and transportation. Director of the Transportation Technology Transfer Center. In 2018, the Federal Highway Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded him the Public Service Award in recognition of his outstanding work in education and training in the areas of transportation. * Secretary of Recreation and Sports -- Michelle González. Juris Doctor from UPR School of Law. She is a member of the executive board of the Puerto Rico Basketball Federation and is currently a guard for the national women’s basketball team, with which she has been a participant in the Basketball World Cup, Centrobasket, Central American Games, Pan American Games and soon, and the Olympics. She has stood out in the fight to eliminate the gap in compensation and opportunities between male and female athletes.

* Director of the Bureau for Emergency Management and Disaster Administration -- Nino Correa. The cabinet search initiative was flooded with requests that Correa remain in the position he currently occupies.

Lúgaro added that the selection of the people who will direct the departments of Labor and Human Resources, Education, and Justice will be made through a participatory process involving experts from the various relevant sectors.

The CVM gubernatorial candidate said the nominations for secretary of State and secretary of Agriculture are pending acceptance by Sen. Juan Dalmau and Eliezer Molina, respectively.

For his part, Dalmau, the Puerto Rican Independence Party candidate for governor, thanked his opponent for including him in her prospective cabinet, but noted that he aspires to be the next governor of the island. He also said in a radio interview that he had understood that the positions were to be filled by presenting resumes and after an interview process.

“I had understood that the announcement that was made by that group is that they were submitting a summary of people who were going to be evaluated on their merits, not pre-picked appointments, and I have not submitted any documents,” Dalmau said in a radio interview on WIAC 740 AM. “I thank the Citizen Victory Movement for recognizing my leadership, capabilities, history and character.

They are not the only ones. In the Univision [TV] debate, other candidates also recognized that leadership and track record, but I am a candidate for governor for the Independence Party.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

5

Union: State Dept. seeks to lock in trust employees

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

F

or the second time, the Puerto Rico State Department intends to lock in two trust employees of the current government administration, General Workers Union President Gerson L. Guzmán López charged Monday.

“Once again they return to the [same behavior], announcing the opening of internal calls for the positions of executive officer and deputy director of the Division of Examining Boards,” Guzmán López said. “These calls, even if they do not violate the provisions of the electoral ban, because they have the necessary dispensations, they have no justification because they can wait to comply with the mandate of that law.”

The union leader said the act of accommodating two officials who belong to and respond to the current administration, which has been char-

acterized by its refusal throughout the current four-year governmental term to improve the employment conditions of all personnel, has raised great indignation among employees of the State Department.

The union leader also questioned whether there is money to fill the aforementioned senior management positions, but not to provide salary justice to the other employees of the agency.

“In addition to constituting immorality, it constitutes an affront to the State Department workers who previously denounced and achieved the suspension of appointments of people to permanent positions of trust by the current administration during this electoral ban period,” Guzmán López said.

“Once again we reiterate our claim and call on the ethical sense of those who intend to govern the country with equity for all and not for the partisan political benefit of a privileged minority.”

General Workers Union President Gerson L. Guzmán López

Whitefish asks court to give administrative expense priority to payments owed by PREPA

By THE STAR STAFF

W

hitefish Energy Holdings (WEH) has asked the U.S. District Court to give administrative expense status to the payments the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) owes the Montana company.

The petition comes after the court approved giving administrative expense status to the payments that PREPA must pay the operator of its transmission and distribution system.

Whitefish told the court that in the aftermath of hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, it was the first contractor to come to Puerto Rico to repair the energy system and that it performed its job.

The firm has not been paid for at least three years even though its contract was validated by the Office of the Commonwealth Comptroller. PREPA owes Whitefish some $130 million out of about $300 million, according to the petition.

The document says Whitefish should be entitled to administrative expense priority because its contract was executed after PREPA filed for bankruptcy, the services were performed post-petition

and provided a benefit to PREPA. “There is no doubt that WEH has a valid and enforceable priority administrative claim for the amount it is owed,” the document reads.

The contract was cancelled amid a scandal that alleged that HBC Investments, a private equity firm whose partner donated to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign as well as to the National Republican Committee, helped the firm obtain the contract despite having little experience.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Court rules UPR retirement board to remain pension system’s trustee

By THE STAR STAFF

T

he Puerto Rico Appeals Court has ruled that the University of Puerto Rico’s (UPR) retirement board will remain the trustee of the university’s pension system after refusing to reconsider its ruling from last month.

The appeals court had ruled that the UPR’s retirement board was to be the trustee of the UPR Retirement System’s pension fund, taking over the role from the UPR governing board after finding that the board had been violating its fiduciary duties.

In response to that ruling over a month ago, the governing board filed a motion for reconsideration in an attempt to vacate the ruling.

“After examining with great care and consideration the arguments presented in the brief entitled Request for Reconsideration presented on October 16, 2020 and after considering all the allegations made, we resolve to declare the request for reconsideration is not applicable,” the court decided.

The appellate forum panel was made up of judges Olga Birriel Cardona, Ivette Ortiz Flores and Roberto Rodríguez Casillas.

“The Governing Board of the UPR must understand the political and social consensus that exists around the permanence of the UPR’s Defined Benefit Retirement System and its trust,” said Luis Vicenty, president of the UPR Retirement Board.

SBA offers loans to Tropical Storm Isais victims

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

A

dministrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Jovita Carranza said Monday that after the announcement of the presidential disaster declaration for several municipalities in Puerto Rico affected

by Tropical Storm Isaias from July 29 to July 31, 2020, businesses and residents in the area can now apply for low-interest disaster loans from the SBA. “The SBA is firmly committed to providing the residents of Puerto Rico with the most effective response possible to assist businesses, homeowners, and renters with federal disaster loans,” Carranza said in a written statement. “Getting businesses and communities up and running after a disaster is our highest priority.”

The disaster declaration covers the municipalities of Aguada, Hormigueros, Mayagüez and Rincón in Puerto Rico, which are eligible to receive disaster loans for physical and economic damages from the SBA. Small businesses and most private non-profit organizations in the following adjacent municipalities are eligible to apply only for SBA economic damage disaster loans: Aguadilla, Añasco, Cabo Rojo, Las Marías, Maricao, Moca, and San Germán.

Consistent with health precautions for COVID-19, the SBA will not establish a field presence to assist survivors.

However, the SBA will continue to provide customer service and will conduct outreach activities virtually with webinars, Skype calls, phone support, and stepby-step application assistance.

The SBA has opened a Virtual Disaster Loan Assistance Center/Virtual Business Recovery Center (VDLOC/VBRC) to help survivors apply online using the Electronic Loan Application through the SBA secure website at https://DisasterLoanAssistance.sba.gov/.

Virtual customer service representatives are available to help applicants complete the online application during VDLOC/VBRC daily hours from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET, by email at FOCE-Help@sba.gov and by phone at (800) 659-2955. These services are only available for the Puerto Rico disaster declaration as a result of Tropical Storm Isaias, July 29-31, 2020 and not for COVID-19-related assistance.

Survivors should contact the SBA Customer Service Center at (800) 659-2955 to schedule an appointment to complete their loan applications.

Requests for information on the SBA disaster loan program can be obtained by email: FOCE-Help@ sba.gov.

The SBA will conduct extensive outreach to ensure that everyone affected by the disaster has the opportunity to request assistance.

Businesses and private nonprofits of any size can borrow up to $2 million to repair or replace real estate, machinery and equipment, inventory and other business assets damaged or destroyed by the disaster. Applicants may be entitled to a loan amount increase up to 20 percent of their physical damages, as verified by the SBA for mitigation purposes.

Eligible mitigation improvements can include a safe room or storm shelter, sump pump, French drain, or retaining wall to help protect property and occupants from future damage caused by a similar disaster. For small businesses, small agricultural cooperatives, small aquaculture businesses, and most private nonprofits, the SBA offers economic damage disaster loans to help meet working capital needs caused by the disaster.

Disaster economic damage loan assistance is available regardless of whether the business suffered any physical property damage. Disaster loans of up to $200,000 are available for homeowners to repair or replace real property damaged or destroyed by the disaster.

Homeowners and renters are eligible for up to $40,000 to repair or replace personal property damaged or destroyed by the disaster. Interest rates are as low as 3 percent for businesses, 2.75 percent for nonprofits, and 1.25 percent for homeowners and renters with terms of up to 30 years.

The amount and terms of the loan are established by the SBA and are based on the financial situation of each applicant.

The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

7

Win or lose, Trump and Biden’s parties will plunge into uncertainty

By LISA LERER

F

ighting for his political survival from the second floor of his campaign bus last week, Sen. John Cornyn warned a small crowd of supporters that his party’s long-held dominance in this historically ruby-red state was at risk.

But while the three-term Texas Republican demonized Democrats at length, he didn’t spend much time talking up the obvious alternative: President Donald Trump, the leader of his party, the man at the top of his ticket Tuesday.

Asked whether Trump, the man who redefined Republicanism, was an asset to Cornyn’s reelection effort, the senator was suddenly short on words.

“Absolutely,” he said, stone-faced.

Cornyn’s gentle distancing from Trump foreshadows a far less genteel battle to come.

This year’s election seems likely to plunge both Republicans and Democrats into a period of disarray no matter who wins the White House. With moderates and progressives poised to battle each other on the left, and an array of forces looking to chart a postTrump future on the right (be it in 2021 or in four years), both parties appear destined for an ideological wilderness in the months ahead as each tries to sort out its identities and priorities.

The questions facing partisans on both sides are sweeping, and remain largely unresolved despite more than a year of a tumultuous presidential campaign. After Democrats cast their eyes backward several generations for a more moderate nominee, does a rising liberal wing represent their future? And what becomes of a Republican Party that has been redefined by the president’s populist approach, and politicians like Cornyn who have been in the long shadow of Trump for four years?

Traditionally, presidential elections provide clarity on how a party sees its political future. When Barack Obama won the White House in 2008, he reinvigorated a progressive public image of his increasingly diverse party.

Eight years earlier, George W. Bush remade Republicanism with a message of “compassionate conservatism.”

Today, with both presidential candidates content to make the race a referendum on Trump, questions about him have overshadowed the debates raging within both parties

over how to govern a country in the midst of a national crisis.

“Both sides have been content to make this election about a personality,” said Brad Todd, a Republican strategist and an author of a book about the conservative populist coalition that fueled Trump’s victory in 2016.

“Therefore, we’ve not had a lot of light shown on the ideological realignment that’s occurred in the country.”

The jockeying has already begun. If Biden wins, progressive Democrats are preparing to break their election-season truce, laying plans to push for liberals in key government posts, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts as Treasury secretary. If Biden loses, progressives will argue that he failed to embrace a liberal enough platform.

Ambitious Republicans, like former United Nations ambassador Nikki R. Haley, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, have begun appearing in Iowa, stops that they say are on behalf of their party’s embattled Senate candidate there but that have distinctly 2024 overtones.

“The party is headed toward a reckoning, whatever happens in November, because you still have large segments of the party establishment that are not at all reconciled with the president’s victory in 2016,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who is frequently mentioned as a possible 2024 contender. “These people are still very powerful in the Republican Party, and I think we’ll have a real fight for the future.”

The emerging dynamics are particularly stark across in Texas and other states in the Sun Belt, a fast-growing region that embodies the demographic trends that will eventually reshape the nation.

For Republicans like Cornyn, the battle lines are already being drawn. Four years ago, Trump mounted a hostile takeover of the Republican Party, winning the support of the party’s base with a message that shredded mainstream conservative ideology on issues like fiscal responsibility, foreign policy and trade.

A contingent of the party’s old guard is eager to cast the president as an aberration, a detour into nationalism, populism and conspiracy theories with no serious policy underpinning.

Former Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said he expected Trump to lose and that he hoped the defeat would refocus the party from “anger and resentment” to developing an inclusive message that could win in an increasingly diverse country.

If President Trump wins, ambitious Republicans eyeing 2024 will race to appeal to a party base that is fiercely loyal to him. If he loses, the party may face a reckoning over whether it needs a more inclusive message.

“Nothing focuses the mind like a big election loss,” said Flake, who was one of many Republicans to retire in 2018 and who has endorsed Biden for president. “The bigger the better when it comes to the president.”

He added, “Trumpism is a demographic cul-de-sac.”

Flake would like the party to resurrect its 2012 “autopsy,” an assessment commissioned by the Republican National Committee to explore why the party had lost its bid for the White House that year. The report urged the party to better embrace voters of color and women.

A co-chair of the project, Ari Fleischer, said there was no returning to the days of that message. Trump, he said, had accomplished the goal of the report, expanding the party — just in a different way.

Rather than engage women or voters of color, the president expanded Republican margins with white, working-class voters, said Fleischer, a former press secretary for Bush who has come to embrace Trump after leaving his ballot blank in 2016.

Sara Fagen, who was the White House political director for Bush, agreed: “Trumpism is cemented in,” she said. “The base of the party has changed; their priorities are different than where the Romneys and Bushes would have taken the country.”

Hawley argued that Republicans should embrace the populist energy of their voters by pursuing the breakup of big technology companies, voicing skepticism of free trade and making colleges more accountable for their high tuition costs.

“If the party is going to have a future, it’s got to become the party of working people,” he said.

Democrats face their own divides over whether to use the moment of national crisis to push for far-reaching structural changes on issues like health care, economic inequality and climate change.

Like Republicans in 2012, Democrats assembled their own task force to try to unify their party after the crowded party primary this year. The group came up with recommendations that were largely broader than what Biden championed in his primary bid but that stopped short of embracing key progressive policies like “Medicare for All,” the Green New Deal and a fracking ban.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., a cochair of the House Progressive Caucus and an ally of Sen. Bernie Sanders, said those plans were the “floor, not the ceiling” of what the liberal wing of the party plans to demand should Biden win. A White House victory, she argued, would give Biden a mandate to push for more sweeping overhauls.

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Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

‘It’s just crazy’ in Pennsylvania: Mail voting and the anxiety that followed

Marybeth Kuznik oversees elections in Armstrong County, Pa. Everybody should get to vote, she said, “but it’s just crazy.”

By TRIP GABRIEL

“H

ello, Elections.”

“Hello, Elections.”

“Hello, Elections.”

The rapid-fire calls were pouring in to Marybeth Kuznik, the one-woman Elections Department of Armstrong County, a few days before Election Day. “This is crazy,” she told an anxious caller. “Crazy, crazy, crazy. It’s a good thing because everybody should vote,” she added, “but it’s just crazy.”

Armstrong County, northeast of Pittsburgh, is one of Pennsylvania’s smaller counties with 44,829 registered voters. But it is a microcosm of the high tension, confusion and deep uncertainty that have accompanied the broad expansion of mail-in voting this year, during an election of passionate intensity.

With all Pennsylvania voters eligible for the first time to vote by mail, more than 3 million ballots were requested statewide — nearly half the total turnout from 2016. One in five voters in Armstrong County requested a mail-in ballot.

A complicated two-envelope ballot, uncertainty over the reliability of the Postal Service and a glitchy online system for tracking returned votes have caused Kuznik to be bombarded by callers. And, though to a lesser extent, she has also been visited by a stream of walk-ins at her small second-floor office in the county administration building, where an American flag was stuck into a dying

plant above her desk.

“All righty, let’s look you up, see what’s going on,” she told voters who called seeking assistance.

“Gotcha,” she said whenever she found a voter’s name in her Dell computer.

The state-run portal intended to track mail ballots was unreliable, Kuznik said. By using a database available only to election officials, she was able to reassure voters about the status of a ballot — in nearly all cases, it had been received.

Many callers were alarmed that they had not received a ballot. For some, it was because they had not checked a box on their application for a mail ballot for the primary, asking to receive a general-election mail ballot. “There was a little wee tiny box on there to check,” she told one voter.

“Don’t worry about it. Just go and vote.”

Sharon Kerr was upset that no ballot had been delivered to her home. It turned out she had entered a post office box for an address. “I can’t fix this today,” Kuznik told her, “but for right now, I’ll cancel that ballot that was sent out and I’ll get you another one.”

“God bless you, honey,” Kerr said. “I was worried that mine wouldn’t be counted, and we’ve got to do something.

I’m very, very upset with what we have. We need changes.”

Kuznik, whose job is nonpartisan, did not respond to that, nor to any other comments about candidates. President Donald Trump carried Armstrong County, whose population

is almost entirely white and working class, by a margin of more than 16,000 in 2016. Kittanning, the county seat on the Allegheny River, has a population of 4,000. The largest employers are a hospital, government and Walmart.

Many election analysts believe Pennsylvania is the knife’s edge on which the race is balanced, the closest of the three “blue wall” states where Joe Biden, if he sweeps them, has his most likely path to the White House. A New York Times/Siena College poll of Pennsylvania on Sunday showed Biden with a lead of 6 percentage points, and a margin of error of 2.4 points.

With more Republicans expected to vote on Election Day and Democrats favoring mail ballots in Pennsylvania, when to count and report results have become partisan flash points. Trump has demanded, without a basis in law, that the vote leader on election night be named the winner.

Democrats are braced for early returns from in-person voters to show a significant Trump lead, with the tide shifting bluer as mail ballots are reported.

Though counties have hired extra workers and in some cases bought machines to rapidly slit envelopes and extract ballots — which they cannot begin to do before 7 a.m. Tuesday — there are wide differences among counties, with some not expecting full results for days.

“No way,” was how Kuznik responded when asked whether Armstrong County would have all of its votes counted in the hours after polls close at 8 p.m. “We’ll go as quickly as we can, but we’re not going to rush it,” she said. “It’s not the Super Bowl. Nobody’s going to hoist a trophy on election night.”

The state’s largest cities, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, are aiming to report results of mail-in ballots Tuesday night, according to an aide to a top Democratic official briefed on statewide preparations. But many second-tier counties, including in the Philadelphia suburbs, will be slower. “Erie, Berks, Bucks, Delaware and Lackawanna are real problems,” the aide said. “Their reporting of mail-in votes could go into Wednesday, which will create a lot of election night anxiety.”

Erie County, a swing county that Trump won in 2016, is expecting about 50,000 mail ballots. Election Day results will be reported first, then starting at 11 p.m., the results from about 10,000 mail ballots will be released, said Carl Anderson III, chair of the Erie County Election Board.

“They’ll still be separating envelopes and ballots on Wednesday, probably Thursday,” he said.

He did not rule out the following Monday for a count of all ballots, including those received in the three days after Election Day that are postmarked by Nov. 3. The secretary of state has ordered counties to segregate ballots received in that window because of potential litigation that has already reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

In Armstrong County, the plan is to open mail ballots and flatten them out in a workroom behind Kuznik’s office. Workers escorted by sheriff’s deputies will carry the ballots to the public works garage, where the county keeps its scanners.

The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

9

Caregivers have witnessed the coronavirus’s pain. How will they vote?

By MATT STEVENS

A

t the Pennsylvania long-term care facility where Tisheia Frazier works, the coronavirus was a terror. During the most harrowing weeks of the pandemic in April and May, she said, four residents died in a matter of hours, and 70 people in an 180-bed unit died in less than a month.

Another caregiver, Ellen Glunt, recalled watching an older couple celebrate their 80th wedding anniversary. The wife held a wedding photo up to the glass window, as her ailing husband remained on the other side.

And then there is Bob Lohoefer, a nursing director in Philadelphia with almost 40 years of experience who has had flashbacks to the trauma rooms he worked in decades ago. At the height of the pandemic, he sat at his desk, a shield over his face, so frustrated by the government’s handling of the virus and his own organization’s bureaucracy that he thought to himself: “I don’t want to do this.”

Few groups have witnessed more of the virus’ horrors than caregivers — front-line workers who have grappled with the public health crisis while trying to help older people at risk of isolation, distress and, in some cases, death.

The deaths of almost 40% of all Americans killed by the coronavirus have been linked to nursing homes and similar facilities — indoor spaces crowded with vulnerable adults. The share is even higher in Pennsylvania, where deaths in nursing and personal-care facilities account for close to two-thirds of coronavirus deaths statewide.

In interviews ahead of the election with more than a dozen caregivers in Pennsylvania, one of the country’s most important battleground states, they described how their experiences are shaping their political outlooks. It has hardened some convictions and transformed some caretakers, otherwise apolitical, into activists. It has forced others to reassess their beliefs about American exceptionalism, the role of government in their lives and their industry, and their decision about whom to vote for in November.

“Nine months ago, I would have told you that I was 100% behind Trump,” Lohoefer, a lifelong Republican, said of the president. “But as a result of COVID, I’m not 100%sure where I stand now.”

In interviews, caregivers as well as patient advocates, medical professionals, facility managers and residents themselves said they had never experienced anything like the first

Bob Lohoefer outside Cathedral Village in Philadelphia. six months of the pandemic.

Maintenance workers were sent to hardware stores to buy disposable paint tarps that could be fashioned into gowns. Nurses pleaded with their bosses to let them lower their masks just so residents could recognize them; some forced their family members to go stay with relatives, terrified that they would bring the virus into their home. And some residents could not understand why they were suddenly cut off from their families and the world.

The chaos was so pervasive that it was nearly impossible, everyone said, to separate what was happening from the politics at play.

As caretakers endured day after exhausting day, state officials set forth new regulations to govern how nursing homes should work. And President Donald Trump delivered a drumbeat of dangerous claims — mocking masks, praising unproven treatments, speculating about bleach and about the virus disappearing.

Some residents became so dismayed by Trump’s conduct that they set up voter registration drives on their campuses; others held miniprotests near major roads, holding signs and soliciting honks from passing vehicles. A few front line workers began phone banking at home and writing to their state legislators.

And top officials at care facilities voiced deep frustration about how the virus response rapidly devolved from a public health issue to a partisan fight. They insisted that faster, clearer and better-coordinated government intervention could have saved lives.

“When you work in our business, you become accustomed to a certain level of bumbling,” said Jim Bernardo, the president of Presbyterian Senior Living, which cares for thousands of older people in Pennsylvania and beyond. “This rose to an entirely different level.”

Lohoefer voted for Trump in 2016. But he has been pushed to his limits. He recalled with derision how the government and his corporate office would send sudden, often conflicting mandates during the early days of the pandemic.

It was eyewear that sent Lohoefer over the edge. At one point, he said, he was told every worker needed goggles, so he ordered $1,100 worth of fitted goggles only to be told four days later that goggles should be replaced with face shields.

“We even went to the point where we bought colorful ones so people choose their color,” he vented six months after the episode.

Lohoefer’s views are complicated. He is a Republican who believes all Americans should be guaranteed good health care. He is a medical worker of a mixed mind on masks.

He is deeply skeptical about the effectiveness of Plexiglas barriers — and even more suspicious of the policymaking logic that made them so pervasive.

Overall, he thinks the reaction to the virus was “overkill,” but he also thinks Trump was wrong to suggest it was “nothing to worry about.”

“He did a terrible job,” Lohoefer said of Trump’s handling of the pandemic. “But everybody did a terrible job.”

As the virus spread across her facility,

Frazier, the caretaker who witnessed dozens of deaths, said she would see Trump on television without a mask and grow frustrated.

And although she has voted for Republicans and had been a fan of Trump’s when he was on reality television, she began to blame his cavalier response for her worsening situation at work.

“I can’t even tell this story without having a tear coming down my face,” she added. “How can you, as the leader of our country, stand in front of our thousands and not show emotion?”

Frazier began to cry as she recalled her final moments in April with a resident with whom she had built a rapport over several years.

During better times, the woman assumed the role of floor matriarch. She was “sassy,” and would tell you “exactly what she felt,” Frazier said. Sometimes, when she had a spare moment during her shift, Frazier would pop by and say “Hey, beautiful!” — and the woman would beam.

But as Frazier put it, the virus “took her smile away.” Restrictions kept the woman’s family away. She lost weight — almost “half her body size,” Frazier said. A grim thought crossed her mind: She might be one of the last people the woman would see before she died.

Eventually, hearing her friend’s cries for care became too much. Frazier couldn’t help herself. She broke the rules.

“I took my gloves off and held her hand without the gloves,” Frazier said. “I knew she would pass then, and I did not want her to pass without having human touch.”

Cathedral Village, a nursing facility in Philadelphia.

10

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

As the virus rages, some are convinced it’s too late to stop it In an interview later, Kirby said that he initially supported the mask mandate as a strategy to contain the virus and that, he congregation of Candlelight at age 90, he wears one whenever he is Christian Fellowship gathered out in public. around tables in the church sancBut the mask requirement resulted tuary one night last week to sip coffee in immense backlash, he said, in a part of and grapple with theological questions. the country where many people moved From down the hall came the laughter of to escape what they see as an overbeadozens of children at play. ring government.

With a potluck dinner, no masks With the weather cooling and and plenty of shared hugs, the night felt people moving their lives back indoors, like a throwback to the pre-pandemic era the virus has begun an autumn rampaexcept for a noticeable exception on the ge across the country far exceeding the stage: The lead pastor, Paul Van Noy, was peaks of months prior. On Friday, the naaddressing the congregation with the aid tion set a record of more than 98,000 inof supplemental oxygen, piped into his fections in a single day. Deaths have also nostrils from a small tank. started to slightly rise again.

About a month ago, Van Noy, 60, Hospital and government officials was discharged from a hospital in a have seen signs of pandemic fatigue, wheelchair after a COVID-19 infection with child sports leagues looking to resbrought him to the brink of death. But tart activities, friends celebrating birthwhile that scare ravaged his lungs and days and families making plans to gather rattled the church, it has done little to alonce again — perhaps for the upcoming ter the growing sentiment among many holidays. Gallup has tracked social dispeople in northern Idaho that the corotancing habits of Americans and seen slinavirus cannot be stopped and efforts ding numbers of people practicing social to contain it are doing more harm than distancing, from 92% in April to 72% in good.

September.

“I think we just open up and we just In Idaho, where many residents let it take its course,” said Nancy Hillcherish self-reliance, resistance to coroberg, 68, as church members mingled navirus mandates surfaced early in the after the service. “Just let it be done.” pandemic. Hot spots have in recent weeks developed all over the state, which is now averaging about 900 new cases each day, more than triple the numbers seen just six weeks ago.

In the eastern part of the state, the Rexburg metro area has been recording the most new cases per capita in the nation. In the north, Kootenai Health hospital has warned that the facility could exceed capacity and be forced to send patients to Seattle or Portland, Oregon — two areas where restrictions remain in place and the virus is more under control.

In Boise, an outbreak at the Idaho State Veterans Home has resulted in 26 active cases and two recent deaths among residents, along with 16 employees who have tested positive.

Gov. Brad Little has restored restricGovernors around the country, particularly Republican ones, are following the tions on large gatherings but has faced president’s lead in resisting new restrictions against a virus that has powerfully blowback from some fellow Republicans persisted despite lockdowns over the spring and summer. and resisted a mask mandate. Last week,

By MIKE BAKER

T

Amid a record spike of coronavirus cases and the final days of the presidential election, President Donald Trump and his administration have expressed increasing helplessness at containing the virus, focusing instead on improvements in survivability and trying to hold the economy together. While it is a theme welcomed by many of the president’s supporters, it has proved alarming to health officials, including those at the hospital that cared for Van Noy, who are encountering rising resistance to their calls for unity in combating a pandemic that has already claimed nearly 230,000 Americans and threatens to take many more.

In northern Idaho, which is facing record cases and hospitalizations, the local health board last month repealed a requirement that people wear masks in Kootenai County, where Candlelight Christian Fellowship is.

“I personally do not care whether anybody wears a mask or not,” Walt Kirby, a member of the board, said at a public hearing on the issue. “If they want to be dumb enough to walk around out there and expose themselves and others to this, that’s fine with me.

“I’m just sitting back and watching them catch it and die. Hopefully I’ll live through it.”

Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin joined with a group of lawmakers in posting a video calling for an end to all state and local emergency orders, vowing to ignore them in the future. In the video, McGeachin laid a gun on a Bible.

“The fact that a pandemic may or may not be occurring changes nothing about the meaning or intent of the state Constitution in the preservation of our inalienable rights,” the political leaders said in the video and accompanying letter.

In Twin Falls, where a rise in coronavirus patients has forced St. Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Center to redirect pediatric patients elsewhere and cancel elective surgeries, Dr. Adam Robison said he wished that efforts to control the virus were not seen through the lens of politics.

“We’re right at the cusp of not having any room anymore,” he said. “I’m getting awfully nervous right now, to be very frank.”

Van Noy, the Coeur d’Alene pastor who spent 18 days in a critical care unit, had expressed skepticism of masks before he got sick, did not require them in church and vowed to defy any order that he cancel in-person services. But he said that while his illness led doctors to at one point give him a 20% chance of survival, he has seen others in the congregation who have had only minor infections. So while he wanted people to be cautious to avoid spreading the virus, he said, he remained skeptical of government efforts to contain it.

“I’m not convinced that all of our efforts have had a great impact on the spread or lack thereof,” Van Noy said. “I do think that we’ve done a lot of harm to our economy, to the psyche of personages. I mean, we see depression. We see all kinds of issues that are developing because people have a sense of hopelessness.”

When he went to cast his ballot recently, Van Noy wore a pro-Trump mask to the polling site. As he arrived, he said, a poll worker told him he could not wear the mask because it amounted to inappropriate electioneering.

Van Noy removed the mask, and went inside to cast his ballot without one.

The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

11

Boarded-up windows and increased security: Retailers brace for the election

By MICHAEL CORKERY and SAPNA MAHERSHWARI

N

ordstrom, the high-end department store chain, said it planned to board up some of its 350 stores and hire extra security for Election Day on Tuesday.

Tiffany & Co., the luxury jeweler, said “windows of select stores in key cities will be boarded in anticipation of potential electionrelated activity.” Saks Fifth Avenue said it was “implementing additional security measures at certain locations in the event of civil unrest due to the current election.”

In Beverly Hills, California, police said they would take a “proactive approach” and close Rodeo Drive, a renowned strip of luxury retailers, on Tuesday and Wednesday, citing the likelihood of increased “protest activity.” Police, working with private security companies, said they would also be on “full alert” throughout Beverly Hills starting on Halloween and continuing into election week.

The nation is on edge as the bitter presidential contest finally nears an end, the latest flashpoint in a bruising year that has included the pandemic and widespread protests over social justice. Anxiety has been mounting for months that the election’s outcome could lead to civil unrest, no matter who wins. In the retail industry, many companies are not simply concerned about possible mayhem — they are planning for it.

In a show of just how volatile the situation seems to the industry, 120 representatives from 60 retail brands attended a video conference this week hosted by the National Retail Federation, which involved training for store employees on how to de-escalate tensions among customers, including those related to the election. The trade group also hired security consultants who have prepped retailers about which locations around the country are likely to be the most volatile when the polls close.

“I am 50-plus years old, and I didn’t think I would live to see this,” said Shane Fernett, who owns a contracting business in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and has been stocking up on plywood to board up his retail customers. “You read about this in thirdworld countries, not America.”

For the retail industry, 2020 has been filled with bankruptcies, store closures and plummeting sales as tens of millions of Ame-

ricans struggled with job losses because of the pandemic. Protests over police violence against Black citizens sent millions of people into the streets, demonstrations that in some cases devolved into the looting and burning of stores in a number of cities. Worries about unrest around the election have been fanned

by President Donald Trump, who has declined to say whether he would agree to a peaceful transfer of power if his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, is victorious.

Protests flared again this week after Walter Wallace Jr., a Black man with mental health issues who was carrying a knife, was killed by police in Philadelphia. That set off looting and clashes with police in parts of the city. Citing the civil unrest in Philadelphia, Walmart said Thursday that it was removing all of its firearms and ammunition from its sales floors across the country. On Friday, Walmart said it was returning guns to the sales floor, after determining that the incidents of unrest “have remained geographically isolated.”

This year, businesses have already sustained at least $1 billion in insured losses from looting and vandalism largely set off by the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May, according to one estimate cited by the Insurance Information Institute, an industry group.

It is on target to be the most costly period of civil unrest in history, likely surpassing damages during the 1992 riots in Los Angeles and many of the civil rights protests of the late 1960s.

The situation in 2020 has drawn comparisons to protests in the 1960s, but Derek Hyra, an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University, said that recent unrest had been more geographically widespread, affecting a wider swath of businesses.

Protecting properties from potential damage is not a simple decision. Retailers can risk alienating their customers by erecting plywood, particularly if the anticipated unrest does not materialize.

“You are sending a message when you do that,” Stephanie Martz, general counsel of the National Retail Federation, said. “You don’t want to necessarily engage in this kind of grim forecasting.”

Some companies aren’t taking chances — the iconic Macy’s location in Manhattan’s Herald Square was boarded up Friday. But

Pedestrians in a shopping area along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, July 29, 2020.

Stores in spots across the U.S. are making plans for how to deal with potential civil unrest stemming from the election on Tuesday. other large businesses are keeping their plans vague.

Target, with about 1,900 stores, said in a statement, “like many businesses, we’re taking precautionary steps to ensure safety at our stores, including giving our store leaders guidance on how to take care of their teams.”

A spokesman for CVS, which operates nearly 10,000 stores, said: “Our local leadership teams are empowered to take steps that they determine will best support the safety of our stores, employees and customers. This includes the option to board select store locations.”

Gap Inc., with more than 2,000 stores in North America, said it had “contingency plans set in place for any issues that may arise and will continue to monitor the situation carefully and closely next week.”

Behind the scenes, though, many businesses are making explicit preparations.

Tom Buiocchi, who runs an online platform called ServiceChannel that connects retailers with local contractors in cities across the country, said more than 500 stores had filled out work orders to board up or take other protective measures ahead of the election.

He said he had discussions this week with a group of luxury retailers who were reluctant about being the first ones to take any visible precautions. “No one wants to be the

only one boarding up in a community; it can be off brand,” Buiocchi said.

Some retailers have debated whether erecting boards would make them more of a target. Others are taking steps like purchasing different screws for the plywood than the ones they used in June, hoping to thwart looters with screw guns. The costs of boarding up businesses can range from a few hundred dollars to $31,000 for large department stores with display windows.

For the stores that stay open through election night and the uncertain days that could follow, their workers will again be thrust into a volatile situation. Already, retail employees are faced with the potential for violence in trying to ensure that customers wear masks to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Election week could pose more dangers.

The training offered by the retail federation was originally meant to help workers defuse tense situations around mask wearing by advising employees to make nonthreatening eye contact and speak with empathy, said Martz, the group’s top lawyer.

She acknowledged that there could be added danger for workers Tuesday night because police are likely to be stretched thin if there are protests. “People are so divided, and it is such a tinderbox,” Martz said.

12

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Get all you can from LinkedIn

Now that grabbing drinks with former colleagues or hobnobbing at work conferences is off the table, LinkedIn has been promoted from obligatory to essential.

By CHARLOTTE COWLES

A

rguably the least fun social media platform, LinkedIn used to be the online equivalent of a professional networking event — a stodgy affair that no one really wanted to hang around. But, for the foreseeable future, the pandemic has all but eradicated most other methods of sniffing out career opportunities. Now that grabbing drinks with former colleagues or hobnobbing at work conferences is off the table, LinkedIn has been promoted from obligatory to essential.

Since March, LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft, has introduced a number of tools to help its 706 million members connect to more than 14 million job postings and learn new skills for career development (these figures were reported in Microsoft’s fourth-quarter earnings call in July).

All of the new offerings are available to all of LinkedIn’s users and do not require a “premium” plan, which ranges from $29.99 to $119.95 per month.

Whether you’re looking for a new role or just trying to expand your professional network, here’s how to use the website to your full advantage.

— Update your profile regularly.

A well-tended LinkedIn profile is an important way to stay relevant.

“A lot of people only update their LinkedIn when they’re looking for jobs, so it’s not used to its full potential,” said Ashley Watkins, a job search coach and former corporate recruiter. “They wonder why no one’s reaching out to

them; it’s because they’re inactive. If your profile is stale, you almost don’t exist.”

In addition to featuring your job and skills, be sure to include a photo of yourself.

“Your picture should be professional-ish and represent you well,” said Tejal Wagadia, a corporate recruiter at StrongMind, a digital education company. “If appropriate, it’s nice to have a photo that shows your personality.” (Hers shows her drinking out of a coconut, which she described as “a good conversation starter.”)

Make sure your skills are accurate.

The “skills” section of your LinkedIn profile deserves special attention if you’re looking for work, as recruiters often hunt for candidates using skills as keywords.

“LinkedIn members who have at least five skills on their profile are 27 times more likely to be discovered by recruiters,” said Blake Barnes, who oversees the strategy and development of new tools and products at LinkedIn. LinkedIn offers a feature where current and former colleagues can “endorse” the skills you’ve listed, as well as quizzes you can take to “verify” them.

— Be active on the platform.

Regular engagement may not get you a job directly, but it can help open doors and get you on people’s radar.

“When you’re liking and commenting on other people’s content, and sharing articles you read and liked, you’re more visible,” Watkins said. “That gives other people more incentive to reach out to you.”

But don’t post about just anything — this isn’t Face-

book or Instagram. “Stick to your area of expertise,” Wagadia said. “And definitely avoid engaging in political or religious debates. It just leads to a mudslinging contest, and if a recruiter or hiring manager sees that, they’re going to question your judgment.”

— Make new connections — but be strategic.

“If you’re looking for a job at a certain company, start by doing an advanced search to find people you have something in common with at the company, and reach out to them,” said Michael Quinn, senior manager at Ernst & Young who specializes in helping organizations attract talent.

— Don’t be shy about needing a new job.

In June, LinkedIn introduced a feature called “Open to Work,” which allows users to display a badge on their profile photo that indicates they are looking for a new job. And according to the company’s data, it can give your profile a boost.

“We’ve seen that people are 40% more likely to get a message from a recruiter and 20% more likely to get a message from another member if they show that they are ‘Open to Work’ publicly,” Barnes said. (If you’d rather be discreet, members have the option to display the badge so that it’s only visible to recruiters outside your company.)

A silver lining of the pandemic is that it has stripped away some of the awkwardness around admitting you’ve lost your job. “That transparency didn’t really exist before COVID, and it’s now becoming a key part of our job-seeker ecosystem,” Barnes said.

— Anticipate new job postings and interviews.

Data collected in August showed that users are four times more likely to hear back from a job recruiter or hiring manager if they applied for a job posting within the first 10 minutes, according to LinkedIn. So it helps to be quick.

“We recommend setting up job alerts so that listings that meet your specific criteria will be sent to you as soon as they’re posted,” Barnes said.

In the meantime, the platform allows users to record practice interviews online and evaluate their performance.

The tool uses AI-powered feedback to assess how fast you’re talking, how many times you use filler words (“um” and “like”), and sensitive phrases to avoid.

— Be open to career transitions you may not have previously considered.

Linkedin’s most recent tool is Career Explorer, which rolled out last Thursday to steer members toward new roles that align with their skills but may be in a different industry or area they hadn’t previously considered.

To use it, members type in their current or most recent job and get a list of other job suggestions that require similar skills (along with a percentage of skills overlap, like a Venn diagram). For example, a food service worker could see that his or her peers often transition into customer service specialist roles, a rapidly growing sector that requires about 70% of the same skills, according to the tool. The tool also suggests open positions in your geographic area.

If there are certain jobs with overlapping skills but a few critical ones you don’t have, the tool will also provide links to LinkedIn courses that you can take to learn them.

The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

13 Stocks

Wall Street rebounds as focus shifts to White House race

W

all Street’s major indexes gained ground on Monday after suffering their worst week since March, as investors geared up for an event-packed week centered around the U.S. presidential election.

Market participants expect short-term trading turmoil and major long-term policy shifts related to taxes, government spending, trade and regulation depending on whether President Donald Trump or his Democratic challenger Joe Biden wins the White House race.

Biden is ahead in national opinion polls, but races are tight in battleground states that could tip the election to Trump. Analysts said the outcome most likely to shake equity markets in the near term would be no immediate winner at all on Tuesday night.

“Traders are trying to position themselves to the idea that just having a result will be good for the market,” said Rick Meckler, a partner at Cherry Lane Investments in New Vernon, New Jersey.

Investors betting on a Biden administration, which is expected to deliver a massive fiscal stimulus and promote green energy, have fueled a rally in solar stocks, industrials and small-cap names in recent weeks.

On the other hand, JP Morgan has listed Bank of America BAC.N, Wells Fargo WFC.N and Citigroup C.N in its “Trump basket” of stocks. The S&P banks index .SPXBK added 1.7%.

“No matter what happens tomorrow, it will be the impetus to get the stimulus done in coming weeks after the election is decided,” said Thomas Hayes, managing member at Great Hill Capital LLC in New York.

Energy .SPNY, materials .SPLRCM and industrials .SPLRCI enjoyed the sharpest percentage gains among major S&P sectors.

Value stocks, which tend to outperform growth coming out of a recession, also got a lift. The Russell 1000 value .RLV index rose about 2%, while the Russell 1000 growth .RLG index added about 0.5%.

The S&P 500 ended a turbulent week at near six-week lows on Friday after quarterly reports from technology mega-caps failed to impress and on surging coronavirus cases in the United States and Europe.

The CBOE volatility index .VIX, known as Wall Street’s fear gauge, inched lower on Monday after ratcheting up to near four-month highs last week.

Focus this week will also be on the Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting, the monthly jobs report and earnings from about a quarter of the S&P 500 companies. At 12:29 p.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 454.01 points, or 1.71% to 26,955.61, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 44.00 points, or 1.35% to 3,313.96 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC gained 48.06 points, or 0.44% to 10,959.65.

Clorox Co CLX.N gained 5% after reporting its strongest quarterly sales growth in more than two decades and raising its full-year revenue forecast.

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14

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Mount Everest empties as COVID-19 strikes tourism in Nepal

Wearing protective gear during the Pachali Bhairav festival in Kathmandu, Nepal, in October.

By BHADRA SHARMA and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

J

ust last year, Nepal attracted so many mountain climbers that a human traffic jam of hundreds of hikers in puffy jackets snarled a trail to the top of Mount Everest.

It was unmistakable proof of a tourism industry that had grown incredibly fast — too fast, some would say — and that had become a lifeline for the country. Last year the industry brought in more than $2 billion to Nepal, one of Asia’s poorest nations, and employed 1 million people, from porters to pilots.

The pandemic has stopped all of that.

The trails snaking through the Himalayas are deserted, including those leading up to Everest Base Camp.

Fewer than 150 climbers have arrived this fall season, immigration officials said, down from thousands last year.

Countless Sherpas and experienced mountain guides have been put out of work, leaving many to plant barley or graze yaks across the empty slopes to survive.

Many Nepalis fear that the combined effect of the coronavirus and the hammer blow to the economy could set this nation back for years.

“I often think I will die of hunger before corona kills me,” said Upendra Lama, an out-of-work mountain por-

ter who now relies on food handouts to provide for himself and his children. “How long will this go on?”

Although the whole world is asking similar questions, Nepal has few resources to help people cope.

COVID-19 cases are steadily rising, and with around 1,000 intensive-care beds for a population of 30 million, authorities have instructed people who get sick to stay home unless they slip into critical condition. An unknown number may die out of sight and undetected.

The economic wreckage is easier to see. Hotels and the teahouses clinging to the sides of mountains are boarded up. Restaurants, gear shops and even some of the most popular watering holes in the capital, Kathmandu, have closed for the foreseeable future, including the Tom and Jerry pub, which for decades served as a beacon for backpackers.

“There’s no hope in sight,” said the pub’s owner, Puskar Lal Shrestha.

Remittances from Nepalis working abroad have become another casualty. When times were good, millions sent back money from across Asia, especially from Persian Gulf countries. Last year, total remittances were almost $9 billion. Nepal relies on remittances more than just about any other country.

As the economy ails, hospitals are filling up. Doc-

tors say that the wealthy and the politically connected are monopolizing hospital beds, leaving the poor who get sick with nowhere to go.

“Our health system is weak, and the monitoring mechanism is even weaker,” said Dr. Rabindra Pandey, who works for Nepal Arogya Kendra, an independent organization of public health experts. “Well-connected and wealthy people can easily access private hospitals and afford their fees, but many of the poor are dying.”

With winter fast approaching and the Hindu festival season in full swing, public health experts warn that Nepal’s COVID-19 crisis is about to get worse. The country has reported around 175,000 infections, roughly the same rate per capita as India next door. And although its reported deaths remain fewer than 1,000, testing remains low and the consensus among Nepali doctors is that virus infections and deaths are many times higher.

The virus has reached its tentacles into rural areas and remote towns that just a few months ago had few or no reported cases. Government officials have been accused of exploiting the pandemic to make money. A parliamentary committee is looking into accusations that officials close to the prime minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, inflated prices of key medical supplies. The officials have denied the allegations.

Health experts say that many of Nepal’s infections have come from Nepali workers traveling back from India. India is now No. 2 in the world in terms of reported COVID-19 infections — around 8 million, right behind the United States.

Nepal lives in India’s shadow. Its economy, strategic affairs and overall health are constantly rearranged by what happens in its huge neighbor to the south.

Partly because of the boost from tourism, Nepal’s economy had been growing faster than India’s, at nearly 6% in 2019. Usually at this time of year, jet after jet would thread the mountain ranges by Kathmandu’s international airport and disgorge thousands of well-heeled tourists, including many Indians, eager to hike in the Annapurnas or up to Mount Everest base camp.

Last year, more than 1 million tourists visited. The average spent more than $50 a day.

Tourism officials expect that at least 800,000 people employed in the tourism industry will lose their jobs.

Among the first to go, officials said, will be the 50,000 or so high-altitude guides, Sherpas and others in the trekking ecosystem. Some have started protesting on the streets of Kathmandu, urging the government to give them loans to help feed their families and threatening to vandalize the tourism board’s office if they get no relief.

“Guides, once known as the real agents of tourism, have been left in the lurch,” said Prakash Rai, a climbing guide who participated in the recent protests. “We have no means to survive this crisis.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

15

Halloween stabbing attack in Quebec City leaves 2 dead

By DAN BILEFSKY

T

he police in Quebec City said Sunday that they had arrested a man dressed in medieval garb and brandishing a sword after a series of stabbings on Halloween night left two people dead and five others wounded.

The attacks occurred late Saturday in a historic district of Quebec City near the building that houses the provincial parliament.

“It has all the ingredients of a horror film, a man disguised who goes out on Halloween and kills people,” said Hadi Hassin, a local journalist who lives in the area.

“I go out every night in the district and will be spooked for a while.”

Police identified the suspected attacker as Carl Girouard, 24, and said he came from a suburb northwest of Montreal. Girouard, who appeared before a judge via video conference Sunday, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder.

The police chief of Quebec City, Robert Pigeon, said the suspect was not known to be associated with any terrorist organization, and the mayor suggested that mental illness might have been a factor.

Pigeon said the attack appeared to have been premeditated and motivated by personal reasons. He added that medical records showed that five years ago the suspect had threatened an act of violence.

Pigeon said the attacker had used a Japanese-style sword and had lunged at his victims, appearing to choose them randomly. He said the attacker had acted “with the intention of doing the most damage possible” and noted that officers were investigating 25 crime scenes.

Police identified the two people killed as François Duchesne, 56, and Suzanne Clermont, 61. Le Soleil, a Quebec City newspaper, said Clermont was a jovial hairdresser who enjoyed cooking for her neighbors.

The chief said that some of the five wounded people, who were all residents of Quebec City, had been severely cut but that their injuries did not appear to be life-threatening.

“All the citizens of our city are in mourning,” he added.

Maitreyi Pal-Singh, a medical student from New York who lives in the district where the attack took place, said she was walking home about 10:45 p.m. Saturday when she saw police cars circulating. She said she had stayed up all night with a neighbor and had locked herself in her apartment for the most part, venturing out periodically to look through a window near a stairway to try to determine what was happening.

“Police shut down my street,” she said. “It was terrifying — it was Halloween, and there were some kids dressed as Batman or Spider-Man trick-or-treating before everything was closed. You don’t expect something like this to happen in Canada and especially Quebec City.”

Régis Labeaume, Quebec City’s mayor, said the assault brought back bad memories of 2017, when a gunman

The attacks occurred late Saturday in a neighborhood near the Quebec provincial Parliament building. killed six people at a mosque in the city. He said that, like the shooting, the stabbing attack was an isolated episode and suggested that mental health issues appeared to be the root cause.

“I have a feeling of playing again in an old movie,” Labeaume said, referring to the mosque attack and calling for a nationwide debate on how to confront mental illness.

“This city is one of the safest in the world,” he added.

Quebec City, the province’s political center, with a population of more than a half-million, is a relatively sleepy, picturesque city that typically attracts throngs of tourists drawn by its famed ramparts, cobblestone lanes, centuries-old churches and cliffs overlooking the St. Lawrence River.

But it has been buffeted by the coronavirus pandemic, with restaurants and bars closed to guests. Hassin, the journalist, said that the historic district had been very quiet in recent weeks. He said that not many people had been on the streets or in disguise Saturday night and that Halloween parties had been canceled.

Police said they began searching for the attacker after receiving a call just before 10:30 p.m. Saturday. They discovered victims in several locations, including near the Château Frontenac hotel, an imposing building that is a landmark in the city.

Witnesses told Le Soleil that a victim found near the

hotel had been covered with blood.

Earlier, police advised residents to avoid the Parliament Hill neighborhood and to lock themselves inside as they searched for the attacker. During a two-hour hunt, dozens of armed officers, including some with dogs, combed the area. A man was arrested shortly before 1 a.m. Sunday near the city’s waterfront.

According to Radio Canada, a French-language broadcaster, the suspect was apprehended after a security guard at Quebec’s Old Port saw a man fitting the police description. Local news reports said that the suspect had been found crouching on the floor, barefoot, and that he had not resisted arrest.

Police said on Twitter at 4:20 a.m. that the situation was under control.

Nicholas Lescarbeau, who lives in the area where the rampage took place, said he was at home when worried friends called to check on him and warned him to remain inside. He said residents were deeply shaken. “This is a close-knit neighborhood, and we all know each other,” he said. “It is shocking what happened, but we are happy it is over.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and François Legault, the premier of Quebec, offered their condolences to the families of the victims. Legault wrote on Twitter, “Quebec is waking up after a night of horror.”

16

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Famed Iranian under #MeToo cloud faces art world repercussions

By FARNAZ FASSIHI and CATHERINE PORTER

A

famous and well-connected Iranian artist who has been accused by at least 13 women of sexual misconduct is starting to see signs of repercussions in the art world that once exalted him, both in Iran and Canada, where he has dual citizenship.

The artist, Aydin Aghdashloo, whose work has been auctioned and shown around the world, is the most prominent figure to be accused in Iran’s burgeoning #MeToo movement. He has denied wrongdoing and taken legal action against at least one of the women.

But their accounts, detailed in an Oct. 22 New York Times article, have been widely shared in Iran and generated more criticism of the artist. Aghdashloo’s Instagram account appears to have restricted comments since the Times article was published.

Through his lawyers, Aghdashloo has de-

manded a retraction of the article. The Times is standing by it.

A solo exhibition of Aghdashloo’s work that had been planned for a Saturday opening at the Dastan art gallery in Tehran was canceled by the artist’s representatives in late August, a few days after the first allegation surfaced on Iranian social media, Hormoz Hematian, the founder of the gallery, said this past week. Hematian also said the gallery has a zero-tolerance policy for sexual misconduct that extends to artists it showcases.

Tehran Auction, an important annual venue for Iran’s art where Aghdashloo’s work is prominently featured every year, said it was considering withdrawal of his two paintings set for showing at the auction tentatively planned for Dec. 11.

“I recommended to the team to pull the paintings out,” said Homa Taraji, head of international relations for Tehran Auction. “We do care about these allegations. Including him in

An oil-on-canvas triptych painting by Aydin Aghdashloo at the Tehran Art Auction last year.

the auction is going to create a negative perception about Tehran Auction and affect our work internationally.”

A documentary about Aghdashloo written and directed by his daughter, Tara, is also facing uncertainty. The film, described by the executive producer as part love letter, part confrontation between father and daughter, has been scheduled for release and screening at two festivals this year in Greece and Switzerland. But the film’s completion predated the allegations of sexual misconduct, said the executive producer, Mahyad Tousi, a Los Angelesbased writer and producer who has mentored Tara Aghdashloo.

“I believe women. Period. Ever since the allegations, my recommendation to Tara has been to find a way to include them,” Tousi said.

If the film is released as is, he said, “I would have to withdraw my name and affiliation with it.”

Representatives of Aghdashloo and his daughter did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

Aghdashloo’s supporters, including some of his former students, have taken to social media to reject the allegations and recount positive memories of their experience in his workshops. On Wednesday, his 80th birthday, they shared photographs of previous parties with Aghdashloo surrounded by female students and a birthday cake.

“I learned great lessons in life and art from you, happy birthday dear teacher,” Sanaz Barzegar, an artist, wrote on her Instagram page with a photo of Aghdashloo.

In Canada, a petition started by a handful of women in August has now garnered more than 800 signatures calling for the hugely popular biannual Iranian-Canadian Tirgan cultural festival, which drew 160,000 people last year, to announce publicly that it will no longer invite Aghdashloo.

The festival’s chief executive and board have remained noncommittal about the accusations.

“Our board decided this has nothing to do with Tirgan,” said the chief executive, Mehrdad Ariannejad. “We invite as many artists as we can to our gatherings and performances.

Are they going to ask all the organizations, all the museums around the world, all the people that have been in contact with Mr. Aghdashloo to come out and take a position?”

In 2017, an interview with Aghdashloo at the festival was posted to the Tirgan YouTube channel.

“I personally, definitely, condemn any violence against women. I’ve always supported women’s rights,” said Ariannejad, adding that he believed the accounts should be investigated by an independent judicial body before any conclusions are drawn. “You can’t go out and condemn this person,” he said.

Ariannejad also co-owns an art gallery with one of Aghdashloo’s former wives, Fay Athari, in the trendy Distillery District of Toronto. The Arta Gallery is known as the cultural heart of the city’s small Iranian community, hosting book launches, art shows and lectures.

In August, just as public accusations against Aghdashloo were coming out on Iranian social media, the gallery highlighted Aghdashloo works and publicized art workshops with him over three days, stating, “Are you ready for a workshop with a legend?”

The workshops were canceled because of concerns around COVID-19, Ariannejad said.

Found at the gallery, Athari said she had no comment, other than that she was “disappointed” by the Times article outlining the allegations against her former husband. Though divorced, they are regularly photographed in public together. She posted a photo of herself outside the gallery with him on her private Instagram account on Aug. 26.

Ariannejad said the gallery would not host Aghdashloo now, in the aftermath of the allegations. “We are not taking a position,” he said. “But we try to avoid the noise.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

17

In Russia’s idyllic wine country, dark tales of dreams dashed

By ANTON TROINAVSKI

R

ussia has no shortage of innovators, risk-takers and freethinking entrepreneurs. But their country is not built for them. Sooner or later, the state security apparatus makes its unwelcome appearance.

Visit the velvety slopes dipping down to Russia’s verdant Black Sea coast, and you will see that this applies even to wine.

Vladimir Prokhorov, bespectacled and profane, has been making wine from the grapes bulging off the vines for 30 years.

He has never been abroad, let alone to Portugal, but his Madeira is magical. His cellar is his shrine, where an icon of Jesus sits next to the thermometer, and where he and his wife never set foot when they are in a bad mood.

But the oak barrels — marked in chalk “2016 Muscat Hamburg,” “2016 Cahors” — now make a hollow sound when you tap them. The police showed up last summer at his winery in southern Russia and drained them all.

“I hate them,” Prokhorov said, referring to authorities, slamming his left fist into his right palm. “I hate them with a fierce loathing.”

On first glance, the rebirth of Russian fine winemaking, catering to well-off Russians’ more refined tastes, is a Putinera success story. But beyond the vines, a darker and very Russian tale of big dreams, dashed hopes, bureaucratic nightmares and police raids comes into view.

Many of Russia’s smallest and most innovative winemakers, with the informal approval of local officials, long operated without licenses, considering them prohibitively cumbersome and expensive. Then, about two years ago, federal authorities started cracking down, bringing the easy boom years of the country’s upstart vintners to an end.

Russia covers almost 7 million square miles of territory, most of it frozen yearround, and much of the soil yielding little except cloudberries, lingonberries and the odd mammoth tusk poking out of the thawing ground.

But then there is a sliver, from the Caucasus foothills to Crimea, where the softly undulating, deep-green land, glowing beneath the warm autumn sun, is reminis-

Vadim Berdyayev smells a sample from the small winery located in his garage in Anapa, Russia, Oct. 5, 2020. Despite bureaucratic nightmares and police raids, a verdant slice of southern Russia evokes Tuscany and produces surprisingly magical wine. cent of a Tuscan afternoon. The ancient Greeks made wine around here, and so did the czars, who brought in French expertise.

The Soviets collectivized the vineyards and turned winemaking into industrial-scale enterprises like that chateau of the proletariat, Kubanvinogradagroprom.

In wine-rich areas like the resort city of Anapa, there were once vending machines dispensing chilled riesling by the cupful. At home, in their basements, people finessed their own small-batch techniques.

Nowadays, the Black Sea coast is an oenophile’s dreamland, attracting people from across the country who want to try making their own wine in its rocky soil.

Most of the major European grape varieties, along with obscure Soviet-developed ones and indigenous types like Krasnostop Zolotovsky, are grown here.

To President Vladimir Putin, restoring the czarist-era glory days of Russian winemaking meshes with his mission to make Russia great again. Kremlin-allied oligarchs have poured millions of dollars into elite Russian vineyards, and one of Putin’s propaganda chiefs, television host Dmitri Kiselyov, became the head of the country’s winemaking association last year.

So it makes sense that a section of the annual agricultural fair in Russia’s

southern breadbasket region, Krasnodar Krai, is devoted to wine. But there was something odd in the cavernous convention hall in Krasnodar, the region’s main metropolis, when I visited the fair in early October: The men peddling their merlots and sauvignon blancs seemed very wary of journalists.

By way of explanation, Andrei Greshnov, a former Moscow banker, pointed to his bottles. There were no excise stamps,

typically required for alcohol sold in Russia.

Getting licensed for making and selling wine had long been too costly for small-scale producers like Greshnov. So he and dozens of others operated outside the law, with a wink and a nod from local officials, who saw them as part of the region’s identity and also drank their wines.

But in the last two years, Russia’s federal law enforcement authorities have intruded on these arrangements.

“We understood that these were green shoots that needed to be supported,” Emil Minasov, a senior official in the Krasnodar region’s Agriculture Ministry, said of the unlicensed winemakers. “They were able to strike deals with local administrations to be left alone. Now this has become impossible. They’ve been squeezed, to put it bluntly.”

Law enforcement officials say they are combating tax avoidance and counterfeit and unsanitary production, which are indeed problems in Russia. Recent changes in the law are supposed to make it easier for small wineries to be legal.

But Minasov calculates that wineries still need to produce at least 40,000 bottles a year just to cover the expense — $6,000 at a minimum — of getting licensed and, more problematically, of keeping up with the reams of building regulations and reporting requirements. He added that he believes small-scale wineries should not be required to be licensed at all, “but they don’t listen to us up above.”

18

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

Our most dangerous weeks are ahead

By CHARLES M. BLOW

T

he weeks following the election could very well be the most dangerous weeks in this country since the Civil War. If Donald Trump should lose, he may well not concede. And he will still be president, with all the power that bestows. His supporters will likely be seething, thinking that the election has been stolen.

These are seeds he has been sowing for months.

Trump will have command of the military, the Justice Department and part of the intelligence apparatus.

He already knows that the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance., is investigating his dodgy finances. Trump knows he could face charges as soon as he leaves office — and he won’t be federally pardoned.

He has tasted power and can’t imagine a world in which it was withdrawn from him. A loss would be a supremely embarrassing rebuke, the first sitting president not to win reelection in 28 years.

The pandemic will still be raging, but Trump, who has consistently downplayed it and tragically mismanaged it, will feel absolutely no obligation to contain it.

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President Trump could submit to a peaceful transfer of power. But no signs point in that direction.

He will be wounded, afraid and dangerous.

People are already preparing for hostility and violence.

The Washington Post reported in early October that “the Justice Department is planning to station officials in a command center at FBI headquarters to coordinate the federal response to any disturbances or other problems with voting that may arise across the country.”

Police departments across the country are preparing to confront unrest. Banks and apartment buildings are bracing for violence.

As The Washington Post reported Friday, “The National Guard Bureau has established a new unit made up mostly of military policemen that could be dispatched to help quell unrest in coming days.”

Stores are being boarded up. As The New York Times reported Friday: “In a show of just how volatile the situation seems to the industry, 120 representatives from 60 retail brands attended a video conference this week hosted by the National Retail Federation, which involved training for store employees on how to deescalate tensions among customers, including those related to the election. The trade group also hired security consultants who have prepped retailers about which locations around the country are likely to be the most volatile when the polls close.”

Facebook is even preparing for violence. As The Wall Street Journal reported last week, teams at the company “have planned for the possibility of trying to calm election-related conflict in the U.S. by deploying internal tools designed for what it calls

‘at-risk’ countries,” employing tactics they have “previously used in countries including Sri Lanka and Myanmar.”

This, like so much else during the Trump presidency, is unprecedented and outrageous. How is it that we are making so many preparations for a presidential election to descend into bedlam?

The Brookings Institution sees the prospect of violence being particularly high. As it pointed out Tuesday: “The broader pool of potential extremists has grown during COVID, with Americans at home and online, consuming vast quantities of propaganda and disinformation. So even if a relatively small percentage of people might actually mobilize to violence, the milieu from which they will emerge has metastasized significantly. The November election is increasingly perceived as a ‘winner-take-all’ contest, with no room for those who don’t identify with a specific side.”

And the appetite and acceptance for violence among the public is growing. As researchers wrote in Politico early last month, “Our research, which we’re reporting here for the first time, shows an upswing in the past few months in the number of Americans — both Democrats and Republicans — who said they think violence would be justified if their side loses the upcoming presidential election.”

All of the fears and preparation could well be for naught. We could have a clear winner, the country could peacefully accept it and Trump could submit to a peaceful transfer of power.

But no signs point in that direction.

Trump has openly resisted saying that he will guarantee a peaceful transfer of power, and he has repeatedly told his supporters that the only way he can lose is if the election is stolen from him.

He has signaled in every way possible that he plans to stay in power at all costs. On Saturday, he said the Supreme Court will help secure a victory for him if he’s not declared the winner on election night: “If we win, if we win on Tuesday or, thank you very much Supreme Court, shortly thereafter.” He may have been speaking sarcastically here, but the statement fits a pattern: Trump doesn’t care if he “wins” ugly or unfairly, a win is a win. He doesn’t care if it could rip this country apart because he has never cared about the health and stability of the nation.

Everyone in Trump World is a tool to be used by him, to further his ambitions, to fill his coffers, to stroke his ego, to protect his power.

Trump will watch his country burn and warm himself by the blaze.

The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

19

Anuncian asignación de $50 millones adicionales a programa de asistencia a la industria turística Por THE STAR

L

a gobernadora Wanda Vázquez Garced, el director ejecutivo de la Autoridad de Asesoría Financiera y Agencia Fiscal (AAFAF) Omar Marrero Díaz y el secretario del Departamento de Desarrollo Económico y Comercio (DDEC) y presidente de la Junta de Directores de la Compañía de Turismo, Manuel Laboy Rivera, anunciaron el lunes, que el gobierno asignó 50 millones de dólares adicionales al programa de asistencia para negocios de la industria turística impactados por la caída de ese sector debido a la pandemia de la COVID-19.

“El programa busca proveer apoyo operacional por la interrupción de negocios como resultado de la COVID-19. Además de las entidades elegibles en un principio, a través del programa expandido se distribuirán fondos adicionales a hoteles regulados y nuevos fondos a proyectos estratégicos con base en determinaciones de política pública”, expresó la primera ejecutiva en comunicación escrita.

Marrero Díaz indicó: “Ya hemos destinado ayudas para mitigar el impacto del coronavirus en la industria del turismo que es uno de los sectores económicos más afectados por el COVID-19. Este paquete de estímulo económico adicional servirá para mantener la competitividad de Puerto Rico como destino turístico durante y luego de la emergencia”.

En un principio el gobierno asignó 50 millones

de dólares del Fondo de Alivio de Coronavirus (CRF, por sus siglas en inglés) para ayudar a los negocios de la industria turística a cubrir sus gastos necesarios.

Esta industria se había visto afectada por los cierres causados por la COVID-19 ocurridos al comienzo de la temporada alta en el turismo. Con el desarrollo de la pandemia, la mayoría de los negocios y comercios turísticos no se ha podido estabilizar debido a la respuesta al COVID-19 que incluye restricciones para los turistas en la isla.

“Con esta asignación, el Gobierno de Puerto Rico ha destinado ayudas a la industria turística que suman $100 millones. Seguiremos trabajando para que este, así como otros sectores claves de la economía de Puerto Rico puedan tener las herramientas necesarias para sobrellevar este periodo y puedan levantarse y continuar operando como de costumbre”, añadió Marrero Díaz.

Por su parte, el secretario del DDEC, indicó: “Estamos comprometidos en apoyar al sector turístico con las ayudas disponibles en el gobierno y en el sector privado en el proceso de recuperación. Confiamos que dentro de la situación que afrontamos a nivel mundial y respetando las normas de salud pública, logremos reestablecer esta industria importante para el desarrollo económico de la Isla. Tenemos varios proyectos de alto impacto pendiente de inauguración y que serán grandes atractivos para los turistas, tanto locales como extranjeros”, indicó Laboy Rivera.

A su vez, la directora ejecutiva de la Compañía de Turismo de Puerto Rico, Carla Campos, expresó que, “desde la Compañía de Turismo nos enorgullece el trabajo realizado directamente con AAFAF en los últimos meses para crear el programa de asistencia al turismo del Fondo de Alivio de Coronavirus y viabilizar el desembolso de la primera fase de ayudas al sector de manera ágil junto al Departamento de Hacienda. Con estas ayudas, muchas empresas turísticas han logrado prepararse y subsistir ante un escenario complejo y sin precedentes. Recibimos con beneplácito esta segunda asignación y trabajaremos mano a mano con AAFAF y Hacienda para asegurarnos que el dinero llegue a empresas turísticas de toda la isla a la brevedad”.

Ocho positivos a COVID-19 en los Vaqueros de Bayamón Por THE STAR

E

l Baloncesto Superior Nacional confirmó el lunes que de 248 pruebas moleculares de COVID-19 realizadas durante la pretemporada y reportadas en la semana del 25 de octubre al 1 de noviembre, ocho dieron positivo.

Se confirmó también que los miembros pertenecen al equipo de los Vaqueros de Bayamón, quienes fueron aislados y se encuentran actualmente recibiendo seguimiento según establece la guía para la reanudación de actividades de la liga de Baloncesto Superior Nacional.

En cumplimiento con el punto 6 (c) de la etapa de Preparación durante la Fase de la reanudación que establece que una persona que dé positivo deberá esperar 14 días y tener dos pruebas negativas de PCR antes de reintegrarse, se ha recalen-

darizado el primer juego de los Vaqueros de Bayamón frente a los Brujos de Guayama previamente pautado para celebrarse el 10 de noviembre a las 9:00 p.m.

Este juego fue intercambiado por Indios de Mayagüez vs. Brujos de Guayama, previamente pautado para celebrarse el lunes, 16 de noviembre a las 9:00 p.m.

Reflejado el cambio, ambas jornadas quedaron configuradas de la siguiente manera: - Martes, 10 de noviembre 6:00 p.m. – Capitanes vs. Atléticos 9:00 p.m. – Indios vs. Brujos - Lunes, 16 de noviembre 6:00 p.m. – Mets vs. Atléticos 9:00 p.m. – Brujos vs. Vaqueros El primer juego de los Vaqueros será el 13 de noviembre a las 6:00 de la tarde frente a los Indios.

20

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Johnny Depp loses court case against newspaper that called him a ‘wife beater’

Johnny Depp arriving at the Royal Courts of Justice in London in July.

By ALEX MARSHALL

J

ohnny Depp on Monday lost his court case against a British newspaper that called him a “wife beater” and claimed there was “overwhelming evidence” that he had assaulted actress Amber Heard repeatedly during their marriage.

Andrew Nicol, the British judge who heard the case, issued his ruling online Monday, 96 days after the hearing into the accusations closed.

“The claimant has not succeeded in his action for libel,” the judge wrote, dismissing the case, saying that the defendants had shown that what they published was “substantially true.”

The assaults “must have been terrifying,” the judge wrote regarding incidents in March 2015 in Australia, in which Heard said that Depp assaulted her several times, including smashing a telephone beside her face. “I accept that Mr. Depp put her in fear of her life,” the judge wrote.

When the case was heard in July, it often seemed as if it were occurring solely to generate lurid newspaper headlines and movie-world gossip. Countless unsavory details of Depp and Heard’s marriage were aired.

But it was actually a libel case in which Depp, 57, was suing News Group

Newspapers, the publishers of The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper, and Dan Wootton, that newspaper’s executive editor, over a 2018 article that said there was “overwhelming evidence” that Depp had assaulted Heard.

The article called Depp a “wife beater” and urged author J.K. Rowling to intervene and have Depp removed from the “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” movie series, based on her book.

The newspaper’s legal team argued that the accusations in the article were “accurate and true.” Heard, 34, testified on the newspaper’s behalf and said in pretrial documents that Depp had assaulted her on 14 occasions during their relationship starting before they were married.

Depp denied all of the claims, but the judge found that most of them did occur.

Depp is also suing Heard for defamation in the United States over an opinion article that she wrote for The Washington Post under the headline “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.” Depp said the article led to his being dropped from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie franchise.

It was not immediately clear whether the British judge’s ruling would have any implications for that case.

During the trial in Britain, the pair’s relationship was portrayed as tumultuous and filled with outbursts of violence. They met in 2011 while making “The Rum Diary,” a movie based on the book by Hunter S. Thompson, and married in February 2015. Heard filed for divorce just over a year later. She also obtained a temporary restraining order against the actor after accusing him of hitting her.

Heard later withdrew the claim, and in January 2017 the pair agreed to a $7 million divorce settlement. “There was never any intent of physical or emotional harm,” they said in a statement at the time.

During the trial, Heard said that the first time Depp assaulted her was in 2013, before their marriage. On that occasion, she said, he hit her three times after a discussion about one of his tattoos. The tattoo originally read “Winona forever,” in reference to Winona Ryder, Depp’s former partner, but he had it changed to read “Wino forever.”

“It felt like my eye popped out,” Heard said of the third strike, saying that it knocked her off balance and to the floor.

Sasha Wass, a lawyer representing the newspaper, told the court in her closing argument that Depp’s violence had come about because of a dislike of Heard’s independence, as well as his alcohol and drug use. Wass said that Depp had used so many substances that “he may not even have been aware of the extent of his violence and terrifying behavior.”

The judge agreed with most of that characterization, repeatedly highlighting Depp’s jealously and saying that his drug use impaired his memory.

During the trial, Depp’s team said that Heard was actually the abuser, provoking arguments and, in one case in an argument in Australia, throwing a vodka bottle at him, severing his fingertip. Heard testified that Depp had severed his own fingertip in the argument while smashing a phone next to her head.

In his ruling, the judge devoted 17 pages to discussing that fight. He pointed out that after sustaining the injury, Depp had admitted painting graffiti with his own blood on the walls of a house the couple was renting while he was filming a “Pi-

rates of the Caribbean” movie. “It is a sign of the depth of his rage,” the judge wrote.

“What exactly caused the injury is uncertain,” he said, but added, “it may well be that Mr. Depp accidentally cut his finger on a piece of broken glass.”

Depp’s team also portrayed the accusations as a hoax that Heard had constructed as an insurance policy in case the marriage broke down. “She was, according to this scenario, nothing more than a gold-digger,” Nicol wrote in his ruling. “I do not accept this characterization of Ms. Heard,” he added, pointing out she had claimed to have given all of her $7 million divorce settlement to charity.

“Her donation is hardly the act one would expect of a gold-digger,” the judge said.

Heard acknowledged having once hit Depp, but told the court that she had been trying to protect her sister, whom she thought the actor was about to push down some stairs. “I will never forget it, because it was the first time after all these years that I actually struck him back,” Heard said.

During the trial, Heard said that she could not understand Depp’s defense, or why anyone would accept it. “Johnny was twice my size and beat me up for five years,” she testified. “It seemed preposterous to me that he could or would ever think that his claims of victimhood were real or would work.”

After the ruling was issued Monday, The Sun said in a statement, “Domestic abuse victims must never be silenced, and we thank the judge for his careful consideration and thank Amber Heard for her courage in giving evidence to the court.”

Depp’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jennifer Robinson, a lawyer for Heard, said the actress was “unable to comment on the case due to the ongoing U.S. proceedings.” But Elaine Charlson Bredehoft, Heard’s American lawyer, said in a statement that the judgment was “not a surprise.”

“We are committed to obtaining justice for Amber Heard in the U.S. Court and defending Ms. Heard’s right to free speech,” Bredehoft said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

21

‘Bob Ross Experience’ opens in Indiana, happy trees and all

By SARAH BAHR

L

exi Vann was losing her race with Bob Ross.

The 19-year-old from Carmel, Indiana, sporting a bushy brown Bob wig that defied the stiff Halloween afternoon breeze, dipped her brush into a pool of purple paint and began tracing the outline of a mountain range, taking her cue from an episode of “The Joy of Painting” on a screen set up on the lawn.

But Ross, whose curly perm and soothing voice were at odds with his breakneck pace, finished his work, titled “Sunset Aglow,” five minutes ahead of her. “As soon as he started going with the trees, I was lost,” Vann said, her cheeks flushed.

She was among the more than 100 fans of the PBS painter who made the trek — in her case 50 miles, but others came from as far away as Arizona — for the sold-out opening day of the “Bob Ross Experience,” a $1.2 million permanent exhibit and painting workshop series in the city where the beloved television host filmed his show from 1983 to 1994, and inspired generations of fans with his yes-you-can positivity.

Their pilgrimage brought them to Ross’ former broadcast studio, painting workshop and temporary art gallery sheltered in a collection of historic buildings that are now part of the Minnetrista museum and gardens.

Fans dressed as the painter sampled ice tea — a signature that he sipped between takes — and tried to recreate “Gray Mountain,” a vibrant landscape from 1992, in a workshop led by a certified Ross instructor. Revelers meandered along a winding boulevard in a costume parade, with winners receiving Bob Ross bobbleheads, complete with miniature brush and bucket.

“This is fantastic,” Brett Estes, the Best Bob winner said, outfitted in a Bob wig (from a costume shop), beard (real) and light blue button-down. His brushes were tucked in the front pocket.

But the crown jewel awaited fans inside Ross’ studio, the former public television station WIPB, inside the Lucius L. Ball House (the family gave the country the iconic glass kitchen jar).

Fifteen masked visitors per hour, with timed tickets, could pose with Ross’ easel, palette and the set of brushes he used to create what he called his “happy little trees.”

“We made it as close as possible to how it appeared when he filmed here”

while still accommodating visitors, George Buss, vice president of visitor experience at Minnetrista, said.

The Experience — offered Wednesday through Sunday — is akin to an Easter egg hunt. Items that belonged to Ross, like the brushes he used on the show, are safely behind acrylic. But everything else is fair game to touch. “We really wanted people to be immersed in the space,” Buss said. “We have little discoverables everywhere, and we know people will find new things each time they visit.”

Ross lovers can slip on a vintage J.C. Penney shirt like the ones he wore on the show or flip through a stack of his fan mail.

And they can pore over shelves full of Ross essentials like a jar of Vicks VapoRub, which he used to clear his sinuses to ensure a smooth, velvety voice, and the hair pick he kept in his back pocket to fluff out his perm.

But the ultimate Ross Zen awaits fans in the far corner of the studio, where a painting of a misty mountain rests on an easel, one of some 30,000 (including copies) that the artist boasted of producing in a 1991 interview with The New York Times.

(Ross died in 1995, at age 52, of complications from lymphoma; his works — if you can find one — have been offered for up to $55,000 on eBay.) An episode of “The Joy of Painting” plays on the camera monitor — and visitors who step in front of the easel will find themselves standing in Ross’ shoes. The experience can be overwhelming, leaving some visitors in tears.

Jessica Jenkins, vice president of collections and storytelling at Minnetrista, said that while critics saddle Ross with a reputation for kitsch, she’s thrilled to finally see him getting the recognition he deserves. The Smithsonian Museum of American History acquired four Bob Ross paintings and a selection of memorabilia last year, and while the museum has not announced its time frame for exhibiting them, the Bob Ross Experience currently displays six of the 26 paintings in the Minnetrista collection.

“Lots of people don’t view Bob as a real artist, which is upsetting because he made it simple on purpose for TV,” Jenkins said. She walked over to a Ross seascape — a gift from Ross’ widow — on the wall in the Ball home. “This is vastly more than what he did on television,” she said. “These are the ones he took his time on; the ones

Fans of Bob Ross try their hands at recreating “Sunset Aglow” from a 1993 episode of “The Joy of Painting,” screened on the lawn near his former studio during the opening of the “Bob Ross Experience” in Muncie, Ind., Oct. 31, 2020. he did for him.”

Also on view is an exhibit of 29 Bob Ross paintings that have never been publicly displayed in Oakhurst, a historic Ball home nearby. A majority are loans from Muncie residents, who tell how they acquired the paintings from Ross’ demonstrations in local malls or as gifts from the painter himself.

So how did America’s television painter end up in a college town in the middle of the country? Before the early 1980s, it’s doubtful that Ross, who was born in Florida, could have placed Muncie on a map.

But from 1983 until 1994, the painter visited the Midwest city four times a year to tape his show.

(He had filmed the first season of “The Joy of Painting” in a Washington, D.C., suburb, but the audio and video quality were poor. Ross, who traveled the Midwest teaching painting workshops, wanted to expand his audience beyond the East Coast.

So when he advertised on Muncie’s public television station and his classes sold out, he suspected he had something special on his hands — and struck a deal to film the series here.)

And the community has long been in-

vested in preserving his legacy. Minnetrista has been planning the $1.2 million project since 2018. It received a $250,000 grant from the Indiana Tourism Council, as well as support from Bob Ross Inc., the company that owns “The Joy of Painting” and the Bob Ross name, among other patrons.

(One of them is Twitch, the streaming service that attracted 5.6 million viewers when it livestreamed an all-episode marathon of “The Joy of Painting” in 2015.)

Organizers hope to open the second stage of the project, which includes the renovation of the second floor of the L.L. Ball home and the opening of a permanent painting workshop and gallery space there, next fall.

Jenkins acknowledges that the middle of a pandemic may seem like a strange time to kick off an interactive exhibition like this one, but she says everyone could use a dose of Ross’ calm and positivity right now.

“My biggest fear in getting into this project was that I’d find out he wasn’t the person I thought he was,” Jenkins said. “But the Bob Ross you see on TV is completely sincere. He put everyone else first constantly. I was like, ‘Oh, thank God, he was not a jerk.’”

22

The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Prepping your pet for a walk down the aisle? Hire a concierge

By JENNY BLOCK

O

n her way to the wedding at Holiday Acres Christmas Tree Farm in Manvel, Texas, on Nov. 10, 2018, Madison Logan Edwards picked up Ruger, a 9-month-old golden retriever. “I had to pick him up a little early,” she said. “Because of his personality profile, I knew he’d be hyper. So I took him to the dog park and then brushed him out and got him all ready.”

Not all ready for her own ceremony, though. She was preparing Ruger for a client’s wedding. Edwards, 27, is owner of Pawsh Weddings, a Houston business that provides wedding-day pet planning and attendants.

Ruger was a model member of the wedding party, decked out in a black bow tie and a bandanna that read, “Here comes the love of our life.” “Ruger got through the processional,” Edwards said, “and as the pet parents were exchanging vows, the officiant said, ‘Do you take so and so to be your lawfully wedded husband. And Ruger barks.”

Those are the moments she lives for.

Edwards says she was at the wedding to ensure there were no incidents, at least none because of Ruger.

The idea of a wedding-day pet planner and attendant might seem outrageous to some, or at least nothing more than a fad du jour. But Edwards says not so. “We may be a new kind of wedding vendor,” she said, “but for most millennial couples, bringing their dog to their wedding is a new tradition, not a trend.”

She wishes she had been able to find a wedding pet planner and attendant to watch over her two dogs Russell, a black Labrador, and Butterscotch, a golden retriever, at her own wedding in 2017. With everything else to wrangle, including a three-week-long honeymoon in the Caribbean, she needed someone to help get her dogs to the wedding and attend to them during and after.

Edwards saw the lack of such services as an opportunity to create Pawsh Weddings while doing much of the prep work and planning for her own wedding. “I actually launched the website and Instagram while out of the country in the middle of our honeymoon and started booking weddings the second we returned,” she said. “Demand was

The demand for pet attendants at weddings is growing, said Madison Logan Edwards, the owner of Pawsh Weddings, a wedding-day pet planning and attendants service in Houston. there. We just needed the supply.”

Becky Moriarty Davis and Greg Davis of Houston, who were married at McGovern Centennial Gardens in Houston, knew they wanted to include their 6-year-old female pit bull, Birdie, and their 2-year-old golden retriever, Watson, in their wedding.

“We also knew how hectic the day of the wedding could be since coordinating the wedding party alone was an overwhelming task,” Becky Davis said. “We decided to hire Pawsh so we could focus on our day and have peace of mind that our pooches were in good hands.”

Davis was pleased with how the day turned out. “They were so attentive to the dogs and kept them entertained during the inevitable down times,” she said.

“While we were taking pictures, they made sure the dogs were paying attention and looked good in the shots. They even worked with our shy flower girl and ring bearer to get them more confident with walking the dogs down the aisle.

And in the end, the dogs were probably the happiest of all of us.”

Edwards is far from being alone in the industry. She hosts a monthly Zoom call for others in the business around the country, with owners of companies like Pawfect For You, FairyTail Wedding Pet Care and Doggy Social. They are also a part of a Facebook

group, Wedding Planning For Pet Parents, devoted to wedding day pet care. There are countless others around the world, including Wedding Dog Sitter in Italy, Pawfect Occasions in England and Wedding Paws in Australia.

Edwards sees the industry as growing — so much so that she was able to quit her full-time job as a coordinator for the nonprofit Collaborative for Children in July 2019. She expects to be busier than ever once the challenges of COVID-19 are gone.

“Millennials are cohabitating,” she said, “so we have pets already. A wedding wouldn’t be complete without them.”

Annabel Cookson started Pawfect Occasions in Penwortham, England, two years ago. She previously ran a professional dogwalking business and was asked several times by clients to attend their weddings with their dogs. “I loved being part of their special day,” she said.

Cookson loves being a dog chaperone. “I often get emotional, seeing the happiness in the room and having dog cuddles all day long,” she said.

If you’re wondering exactly what a pet attendant does, well, the answer is basically everything — that is, everything that has to do with your pet. Hiring a wedding-pet planner and attendant doesn’t come cheap, however. Pawsh Weddings, which works

with all pets including cats, rats, birds, reptiles, chinchillas and guinea pigs, offers packages from $200 (for the first dog) for two hours of pet attendant services to $950 (for the first dog) and includes six hours of services.

Pet attendants will typically begin watching your dog as soon as you arrive at the venue or bring the dog there, depending on the package. They also explore the ceremony site with your pet; supervise potty breaks and clean up; give your dog a quick grooming session, or even a bath; walk your dog down the aisle if you like; sit with your dog during the ceremony; and pose your dog for photos. Some offer formal wear, like bow ties and bandannas, flower crowns and floral leashes, and tuxes and tutus.

Edwards also offers prewedding consultations that include coordinating with other wedding vendors, profiling your pet’s personality and planning for the wedding in terms of all things pet. And she comes prepared, with items like a pet first-aid kit, emergency collar and leash, doggy seat belt, filtered water, hypoallergenic wipes and even a lint roller.

Tamarah Smith, a wedding coordinator and the owner of the Houston-based company Tammy’s Table, said that she loves having dogs at wedding ceremonies but that they do tend to add a bit of chaos to the mix. “It’s nice to know that your pet is well taken care of so you can focus on simply getting married, or in my case simply getting my couples down the aisle.” Her advice to anyone wanting to include a pet is simple: “Have a plan of action regarding pet care.”

Edwards also has what she calls a DIY option. It’s a package that includes a virtual consult with all of her prewedding services, including a customized Pinterest board. The couple can then hire a pet sitter or assign a friend or family member for the wedding. “It’s not the same as having a pet attendant who does this for a living,” she said. “But it’s way less stressful than having nothing.”

Why Pawsh Weddings and others like it are so in demand is simple, Edwards says.

“Dogs are people too. They may not be humans. But they are people too by every definition. They just happen to be furry and bark. If everyone acted like dogs the world would be a better place.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

23

This addiction treatment works. Why is it so underused?

By ABBY GOODNOUGH

S

teven Kelty had been addicted to crack cocaine for 32 years when he tried a different kind of treatment last year, one so basic that he was skeptical.

He would come to a clinic twice a week to provide a urine sample, and if it was free of drugs, he would get to draw a slip of paper out of a fishbowl. Half contained encouraging messages — typically, “Good job!” — but the other half were vouchers for prizes worth between $1 and $100.

“I’ve been to a lot of rehabs, and there were no incentives except for the idea of being clean after you finished,” said Kelty, 61, of Winfield, Pennsylvania. “Some of us need something to motivate us — even if it’s a small thing — to live a better life.”

The treatment is called contingency management, because the rewards are contingent on staying abstinent. A number of clinical trials have found it highly effective in getting people addicted to stimulants like cocaine and methamphetamine to stay in treatment and stop using. But outside the research arena and the Department of Veterans Affairs, where Kelty is a patient, it is nearly impossible to find programs that offer such treatment — even as overdose deaths involving meth, in particular, have soared. There were more than 16,500 such deaths last year, according to preliminary data, more than twice as many as in 2016.

Early data suggests that overdoses have increased even more during the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced most treatment programs to move online.

Researchers say that one of the biggest obstacles to contingency management is a moral objection to the idea of rewarding someone for staying off drugs. That is one reason publicly funded programs like Medicaid, which provides health coverage for the poor, do not cover the treatment.

Some treatment providers are also wary of giving prizes that they say patients could sell or trade for drugs. Greg Delaney, a pastor and the outreach coordinator at Woodhaven, a residential treatment center in Ohio, said, “Until you’re at the point where you can say, ‘I can make a good decision with this $50,’ it’s counterproductive.”

Two medications used to treat opioid addiction, methadone and buprenorphine, have been viewed with similar suspicion because they are opioids themselves, even though re-

search shows they substantially reduce the risk of death and help people stay in treatment. But the federal government has started aggressively promoting such treatment for opioid addiction, and has heavily invested in expanding access to it.

There are no medicines proven to suppress the cravings that come with addiction to meth and cocaine. Instead, there are a raft of behavioral interventions, some of which have little evidence of effectiveness.

“The most common treatment is to do whatever the hell you feel like,” said Michael McDonell, an associate professor at Washington State University who has conducted a number of studies on contingency management.

“We had two statewide meetings about meth recently, and at one, a colleague said, ‘Why aren’t we just doing contingency management?

Why would we spend all this money on interventions that won’t work?’ ” The fact that no public or private insurer will pay for contingency management, except in a few pilot programs, is a major challenge to expanding it; the biggest obstacle is that offering motivational rewards to patients has been interpreted as violating the federal antikickback statute. A group of treatment experts recently asked the Department of Health and Human Services to waive the statute for two years as it pertains to contingency management, but the agency refused, saying programs that provide rewards need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Congress recently told states that they could start spending federal “opioid response” grants on treatment for stimulant addiction, but the agency that distributes the grants allows only $75 per patient, per year, for contingency management.

“The biggest question is, How do we get the payers on board with this?,” said Eric Gastfriend, the chief executive of DynamiCare Health, a technology company in Boston. The company has worked with BrightView and other treatment programs to provide contingency management through a phone app that patients can use to share saliva test results with providers in real time, via video. For rewards, patients can earn up to $600 over the course of a year through DynamiCare, on a debit card that blocks cash withdrawals and purchases at liquor stores and bars based on merchant category codes.

“I was hesitant to try it — like, hey, is this legal?” said Dr. Shawn Ryan, the chief medical officer and president of BrightView Health,

Stephen Goldschmidt draws a slip of paper from a bowl as part of his contingency management treatment at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center on March 4, 2020. an addiction treatment provider with locations throughout Ohio, which started using contingency management last year. But the results have been striking, he said, adding, “I’m talking about significant improvements in attendance to therapy sessions, significant reductions in drug and alcohol use.”

Federal officials say that they want to expand access to contingency management for stimulant addiction, but that finding an effective medication for it would be better.

“If we were paying for it, that would help,” Dr. Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said of contingency management for meth addiction. “But we badly need medications to help strengthen the response to behavioral interventions. This is a highly, highly addictive drug.”

One patient at BrightView Health, Jodi Waxler-Malloy, 47, of Toledo, Ohio, tried contingency management treatment after participating in more than a dozen treatment programs for cocaine, heroin and meth addiction since her early 20s.

BrightView restarted her on buprenorphine for her heroin addiction and set her up with the DynamiCare app and debit card as an incentive to stay off meth. DynamiCare would add between $1 and $25 to her debit card whenever she went to BrightView for a doctor appointment or therapy, though she never knew the amount ahead of time.

“Nothing’s for free, so at first I said, ‘Yeah,

yeah,’ ” Waxler-Malloy said. “But the next day, I looked at the app on my phone and they’d given me $25 for detoxing. Wow, really? I went back the next day and I got $5 more.”

Waxler-Malloy said the monetary rewards helped her get through the first month of sobriety in particular, a period when her housing was precarious, her cravings were intense and she needed to save whatever money she earned waitressing for rent at a sober living house that she was waiting to move into.

“It was enough to buy cigarettes or grab something to eat,” she said. “Maybe I was going to the appointments and meetings for the wrong reason at that time, but it helped me in the long run — helped me meet people, have a support group.”

Contingency management has been used the most by the Department of Veterans Affairs, where 110 clinics and hospitals have employed it since 2011 to try to help more than 5,100 veterans stay off drugs.

One problem with contingency management, evidence suggests, is that people have less success staying abstinent after the treatment ends. For that reason, Richard Rawson, a researcher at the University of Vermont who has studied meth addiction for decades, believes it should be used indefinitely, just as medications for opioid addiction often are.

“Unfortunately, addiction is a chronic brain disease and treatments need to be designed to accommodate this reality,” he said.

24 demandante es el Lcdo. Gerardo M. Ortiz Torres, cuya direcESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO ción física y postal es: Cond. El DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- Centro I, Suite 801, 500 Muñoz NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA Rivera Ave., San Juan, Puerto SALA SUPERIOR DE FAJAR- Rico 00918; cuyo número de DO. teléfono es (787) 946-5268, el facsímile (787) 946-0062 y su AMERICAS LEADING correo electrónico es: gerarFINANCE LLC do@bellverlaw.com. Expedido Demandante, v. bajo mi firma y sello de este NANET DE JESÚS Tribunal, en Fajardo, Puerto CIRINO, SU ESPOSO Rico, hoy día 21 de octubre de FULANO DE TAL Y LA 2020. Wanda I. Segui Reyes, Secretaria Regional. Ana Celis SOCIEDAD LEGAL Marquez, Sec Auxiliar.

DE GANANCIALES

LEGAL NOTICE

COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Demandados CIVIL NÚM.: FA2020CV00210.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA Y EJECUCIÓN DE GRAVAMEN MOBILIARIO (REPOSESIÓN DE VEHÍCULO). EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. DE AMERICA EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO SS.

A: Nanet De Jesús Cirino, su esposo Fulano De Tal y la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales compuesta por Ambos, María Cirino Osorio

Quedan emplazados y notificados que en este Tribunal se ha radicado Demanda sobre cobro de dinero por la vía ordinaria en la que se alega que los demandados, Nanet De Jesús Cirino, su esposo Fulano De Tal y la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales compuesta por Ambos, María Cirino Osorio, le adeudan solidariamente al Americas Leading Finance, LLC, la suma de principal de $12,097.66, más los intereses que continúen acumulando, las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado según pactados.

Además, solicitamos de este Honorable Tribunal que autorice la reposesión y/o embargo del Vehículo. Se les advierte que este edicto se publicará en un periódico de circulación general una sola vez y que, si no comparecen a contestar dicha Demanda dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación del Edicto, 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, se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará Sentencia concediendo el remedio así solicitado sin más citarles ni oírles. El abogado de la parte

@

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE COMERIO

AGORI, INC., Demandante v.

FULANO DE TAL Y MENGANO DEL CUAL

Demandados CIVIL NÚM.: CR2020CV00179.

SOBRE: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R. SS.

A: FULANO DE TAL Y MENGANO DEL CUAL, o sea las personas desconocidas que puedan ser tenedores del pagare extraviado.

POR MEDIO del presente edicto se le notifica de la presentación de una Demanda en su contra . Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través de 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 secretaria 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. La parte demandante alega que por escritura número 32 de hipoteca, otorgada 13 de septiembre de 1994 ante el Notario Público Luis A. Rivera Bonano, en garantía de un pagaré hipotecario a la orden del Portador, por la suma principal de $200 ,000.00, el dueño de la propiedad más adelante descrita reconoció haber saldado el mismo: URBANA: Solar radicado en el #43 de la

calle Georgetti de la municipalidad de Comería, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de 2,564.76 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, con solar perteneciente a Agori, Inc., hoy, antes Sixto Pontón; por el SUR, con solares pertenecientes a Perfecto Rodríguez y Etervina Santiago ; por el OESTE, con calle Georgetti y por el ESTE, con el Río La Plata. ORIGEN: Se forma por agrupación de las siguientes fincas: (a) #3075, inscrita al folio 117 del tomo 66 de Comería; (b) #1357, inscrita al folio 254 del tomo 71 de Comería ; y (c) #1460, inscrita al folio 253 del tomo 85 de Comería. Inscrita al folio 182 del tomo 14 7 de Comería, finca número 9, 704, Registro de la Propiedad, Sección de Barranquitas. El original del pagaré hipotecario antes mencionado se ha extraviado o la posesión la ostenta los demandados de epígrafe, sin que la parte demandante lo haya podido localizar a pesar de las gestiones realizadas, por lo cual no lo tiene para la cancelación correspondiente en el Registro de la Propiedad y por ello comparece a este Honorable Tribunal solicitando su cancelación. Que se incluye a Fulano De Tal y a Mengano Del Cual como posibles tenedores desconocidos del pagaré hipotecario extraviado. POR EL PRESENTE EDICTO, se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la Demanda dentro del término de treinta (30) días de la publicación de este edicto notificándole con copia de dicha contestación al Ledo. Luis G. Parrilla Hernández, PO Box 195168 San Juan, PR 00919- 5168 y/o 221 Avenida Ponce De León, Piso 5, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico 00917; sin más citarle ni oírle. Expedido bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal de Comería, Puerto Rico, hoy 27 de octubre de 2020. Elizabeth Gonzalez Rivera, Sec del Tribunal. Virgen J Hernandez Hernandez, SubSecretaria.

Monserrate Franqui Quijano, t/c/c María Franqui Quijano, t/c/c María Monserrate Franqui, t/c/c María M. Franqui; Centro de Recaudación de Ingresos Municipales; y a los Estados Unidos de América

DEMANDADOS CIVIL NUM.: AR2020CV00802.

SOBRE : Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca por la Vía Ordinaria. MANDAMIENTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. Por Cuanto: Se ha dictado en el presente caso la siguiente Orden: ORDEN. Examinada la demanda radicada por la parte demandante, la solicitud de interpelación contenida en la misma y examinados los autos del caso, el Tribunal le imparte su aprobación y en su virtud acepta la Demanda en el caso de epígrafe, así como la interpelación judicial de la parte demandante los herederos del codemandado conforme dispone el Artículo 959 del Código Civil, 31 L.P.R.A. sec.. 2787.

Se Ordena a los herederos del causante : herederos conocidos a María Monserrate Franqui Quijano, t/c/c María Franqui Quijano, t/c/c María Monserrate Franqui, t/c/c María M. Franqui, Richard Cruz, Raúl Cruz, Axel Cruz y Sutano de Tal como posible heredero desconocido, a que dentro de termino legal de 30 días contados a partir de la fecha de la notificación de la presente Orden, acepten o repudien participación que les corresponda en la herencia del causante Guillermo Cruz Soto.

Se le Apercibe a los herederos antes mencionados: (a) Que de no expresarse dentro del término de 30 días en torno a su aceptación o repudiación de herencia la misma se tendrá por aceptada ; (b) Que luego LEGAL NOTICE del transcurso del término de ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO 30 días contados a partir de la DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- fecha de la notificación de la NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA presente Orden , se presumirá SALA DE ARECIBO. que han aceptado la herencia del causante y por consiguienReverse Mortgage te, responden por la cargas de Solutions, Inc. dicha herencia conforme dispoDEMANDANTE vs. ne el Artículo 957 del Código Sucesión de Guillermo Civil, 31 L.P.R.A. sec. 2785. Se Cruz Soto compuesta por Ordena a la parte demandante María Monserrate Franqui a que, en vista de que la sucesión del causante Guillermo Quijano, t/c/c María Soto incluyen como hereFranqui Quijano, t/c/c Cruz deros a María Monserrate FranMaría Monserrate Franqui, qui Quijano, t/c/c María Franqui t/c/c María M. Franqui, Quijano, t/c/c María Monserrate Richard Cruz, Raúl Cruz, Franqui, t/c/c María M. Franqui, Axel Cruz y Sutano de Tal Richard Cruz, Raúl Cruz, Axel Cruz y Sutano de Tal como como posibles herederos posible heredero desconocido, desconocidos; María proceda a notificar la presente

staredictos@thesanjuandailystar.com

(787) 743-3346

Tuesday, November 3, 2020 Orden mediante un edicto a esos efectos una sola vez en un periódico de circulación diaria general de la Isla de Puerto Rico. DADA en Camuy, Puerto Rico, hoy día 27 de octubre de 2020. Fdo. Yadira Saavedra Perez, Juez. Por Cuanto: Se le advierte a que dentro del término legal de 30 días contados a partir de la fecha de notificación de la presente Orden , acepten o repudien la participación que les corresponda en la herencia del causante Guillermo Cruz Soto. Por Orden del Honorable Juez de Primera Instancia de este Tribunal, expido el presente Mandamiento, bajo mi firma y sello oficial, en Camuy, Puerto Rico hoy día 28 de octubre de 2020. VIVIAN Y. FRESSE GONZÁLEZ, Sec Regional.

Yolanda Rivera Colon, Sec Auxiliar.

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

Reverse Mortgage Solutions, Inc. DEMANDANTE vs.

Sucesión de Guillermo Cruz Soto compuesta por María Monserrate Franqui Quijano, t/c/c María Franqui Quijano, t/c/c María Monserrate Franqui, t/c/c María M. Franqui, Richard Cruz, Raúl Cruz, Axel Cruz y Sutano de Tal como posibles herederos desconocidos; María Monserrate Franqui Quijano, t/c/c María Franqui Quijano, t/c/c María Monserrate Franqui, t/c/c María M. Franqui; Centro de Recaudación de Ingresos Municipales; y a los Estados Unidos de América

DEMANDADOS CIVIL NUM.: AR2020CV00802.

SOBRE: Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca por la Vía Ordinaria. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

Á: . María Monserrate Franqui Quijano, t/c/c María Franqui Quijano, t/c/c María Monserrate Franqui, t/c/c María M. Franqui, Richard Cruz, Axel Cruz y Sutano de Tal como posibles herederos desconocidos de la Sucesión de

Guillermo Cruz Soto; María Monserrate Franqui Quijano, t/c/c María Franqui Quijano, t/c/c María Monserrate Franqui, t/c/c María M. Franqui

POR LA PRESENTE, se les emplaza y se les notifica que se ha presentado en la Secretaria de este Tribunal la Demanda del caso del epígrafe solicitando la ejecución de hipoteca y el cobro de dinero relacionado al pagaré suscrito a favor de Urban Financial Group, o a su orden , por la suma principal de $246,000.00, con intereses computados sobre la misma desde su fecha hasta su total y completo pago a razón de la tasa de interés de 5.560% anual, la cual será ajustada mensualmente , obligándose además al pago de costas, gastos y desembolsos del litigio, más honorarios de abogados en una suma de $24 ,600.00 , equivalente al 10% de la suma principal original. Este pagaré fue suscrito bajo el affidávit número 1,463 ante el notario Femando E. Doval Santiago .

Lo anterior surge de la hipoteca constituida mediante la escritura número 287 otorgada el 4 de noviembre de 2010, ante el mismo notario público , inscrita inscrita al folio 5 del tomo 395 de Camuy del Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección II de Arecibo. La Hipoteca Revertida grava la propiedad que se describe a continuación: RUSTICA: Predio radicado en El Barrio Membrillo Sector Bajuras de Camuy, Puerto Rico, con una cabida de mil doscientos cuarenta y nueve punto treinta y tres sesenta y nueve metros cuadrados (1,249.3369 m.c.).

En lindes por el NORTE, con camino municipal; al SUR, con el predio número tres del plano de inscripción; al ESTE, Félix Rosario; y al OESTE, con camino municipal. Es el remanente de esta finca luego de segregación , según consta de la escritura número 14, otorgada en Quebradillas , de Puerto Rico, otorgada el 18 de mayo de 1989, ante la notario Evenilda Rodriguez de Juliá, e inscrita al folio 110 vuelto del tomo 238 de Camuy, inscripción 2da. Finca número 12,611, inscrita al folio 238 del tomo 110 de Camuy. Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección II de Arecibo . Se apercibe y advierte a ustedes como personas desconocidas , que deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC) , al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.jamajudicial. pr , salvo que se represente por derecho propio , en cuyo caso

The San Juan Daily Star deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal. De no contestar la demanda radicando el original de la contestación ante la secretaria del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Arecibo , y notificar copia de la contestación de esta a la parte demandante por conducto de su abogada , GLS LEGAL SERVICES, LLC, Atención: Lcda. Genevieve López Stipes, Dirección: P.O. Box 367308, San Juan, P.R. 009367308 , Teléfono : 787-758-6550 , dentro de los próximos 60 días a partir de la publicación de este emplazamiento por edicto, que será publicado una sola vez en un periódico de circulación diaria general en la isla de Puerto Rico, se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia , concediendo el remedio solicitando en la Demanda sin más citarle ni oírle . Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal hoy 28 de octubre de 2020. VIVIAN Y. FRESSE GONZÁLEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. YOLANDA RIVERA COLON, Sec Auxiliar.

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

ORIENTAL BANK Demandante vs.

EMMANUEL BONILLA TRAVERSO

Demandados Caso Civil Núm.

DO2020CV00021. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. NOTIFICACION DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: EMMANUEL BONILLA TRAVERSO

(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 20 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 archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 27 de OCTUBRE de 2020. En TOA ALTA, Puerto Rico, el 27 de OCTUBRE de 2020.

CC: LCDO. JAIME RUIZ SALDAÑAPMB 450, 400 CALLE CALAF, SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO, 00918-1314 LCDA. LAURA l. SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria Regional.

LIRIAM M. HERNANDEZ OTERO, Sec Auxiliar.

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante v.

EL SECRETARIO DE LA VIVIENDA Y DESARROLLO URBANO T/C/C SECRETARY OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT OF WASHINGTON (HUD) POR SÍ Y EN REPRESENTACION DE ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA; THE MORTGAGE LOAN CO. INC.; MIGUEL ÁNGEL BURGOS RIVERA, DENNISSE RAMOS MARTINEZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS; FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL PAGARÉ

Demandado(a) Civil: Núm. CA2020CV00177 (406). Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO POR LA VÍA JUDICIAL. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: THE MORTGAGE LOAN CO. INC; MIGUEL ÁNGEL BURGOS RIVERA, DENNISSE RAMOS MARTINEZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS; FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL PAGARÉ

(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 27 de OCTUBRE de 2020, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debi-

The San Juan Daily Star damente 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 28 de OCTUBRE de 2020. En CAROLINA, Puerto Rico, el 28 de octubre de 2020. MARILYN APONTE RODRIGUEZ, Secretaria. JANNETTE RAMIREZ BERNARD. Secretaria Auxiliar.

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

FIRSTBANK PUERTO RICO Demandante Vs.

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

da en esa misma fecha ante el Notario José Herminio Santiago, y consta inscrita al folio 270 del tomo 191 de Naguabo, Registro de la Propiedad, Sección de Humacao e inscrita en virtud de las disposiciones de la Ley para la Agilización del Registro de la Propiedad, Ley 216 de 27 de diciembre de 2010. Por la presente se les emplaza y requiere para que notifique a la Leda. Maritza Guzmán Matos, PMB 767, Avenida Luis Vigoreaux, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico 00966, teléfono (787) 7583276, abogada de la parte demandante, con copia de vuestra contestación a la demanda radicada en este caso contra ustedes, dentro de un término de treinta (30) días contados a partir de la publicación de este Edicto. Por la presente se les apercibe de que de no comparecer a formular alegaciones dentro de treinta (30) días contados a partir de la fecha de la publicación de este Edicto, se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará Sentencia de acuerdo con lo solicitado en la demanda, sin más citarle ni oirle. Expedido bajo mi tirma y sello de este Tribunal, en Humacao, Puerto Rico, a 29 de octubre de 2020.

Dominga Gomez Fuster, Secretaria Regional. Marisol Davila Ortiz, Secretaria Auxiliar.

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

FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION (FDIC) y BANCO POPULAR DE ARACELIS GARCIA CRUZ PUERTO RICO como EN REP. K.P.L. sucesores en derecho Demandante V. de R-G PREMIER BANK THAIS Y. LOPEZ ROJAS / OF PUERTO RICO; JOHN KRISD J. PEREIRA LOPEZ DOE y RICHARD ROE, Demandado(a) como posibles tenedores Civil Num: FA2020RF00053. del pagaré Sobre: CUSTODIA. NOTIFI-

Demandados CIVIL NUM. HU2020CV00982.

SOBRE: CANCELACION DE HIPOTECA PRESENTADA POR PAGARÉ HIPOTECARIO EXTRAVIADO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: JOHN DOE; RICHARD ROE, posibles tenedores de pagaré extraviado descrito más adelante

Por la presente se le notifica que se ha radicado una Demanda donde se solicita se cancele el siguiente pagaré, el cual está extraviado, así como la hipoteca que garantiza su pago: a. pagaré a favor de R-G Premier Bank of Puerto Rico, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $65,600.00, más intereses a una tasa de 8-1/8% anual sobre el balance adl)Udado, vencedero a la presentación, suscrito el día 24 de septiembre de 1996 y garantizado por hipoteca constituida mediante la escritura número 283 otorga-

CACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: THAIS Y. LOPEZ ROJAS

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que 27 de julio 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 28 de octubre de 2020. En FAJARDO, Puerto Rico, el 28 de octubre de 2020. WANDA I. SEGUI REYEZ, Secretaria.

MORAIMA SALICETI SOLIS, Sec Auxiliar.

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

ARACELIS GARCIA CRUZ EN REP. K.P.L. Demandante V.

THAIS Y. LOPEZ ROJAS / KRISD J. PEREIRA LOPEZ

Demandado(a) Civil Num: FA2020RF00053.

Sobre: CUSTODIA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: KRISD J. PEREIRA LOPEZ

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que 27 de julio 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 28 de octubre de 2020. En FAJARDO, Puerto Rico, el 28 de octubre de 2020. WANDA I. SEGUI REYEZ, Secretaria.

MORAIMA SALICETI SOLIS, Sec Auxiliar.

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

J.H. DISTRIBUTORS, INC., representado por JOSE HUMBERTO QUILES BURGOS, t/c/c JOSE H. QUILES BURGOS Demandante V.

BANCO POPULAR de PR, como sucesor en Interes de MONEY HOUSE, INC.; JOHN DOE & RICHARD

ROE

Demandado(a) Civil: CY2020CV00029. SALA 301. Sobre: CANCELACION DE PAGARE EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: JOHN DOE & RICHARD ROE

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que 28 de julio 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 octubre de 2020. En CAGUAS , Puerto Rico, el 22 de octubre de 2020. CARMEN ANA PEREIRA ORTIZ, Secretaria. DHARMA TORRES BRUNO, Sec Auxiliar.

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

ORIENTAL BANK, Demandante, v.

TAISHA N. MANGUAL HERNANDEZ,

Demandados CIVIL NUM.: RG2020CV00063.

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

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) 759-6897; 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. Guzmán Arriba, Carr. 186 KM 12.9, Rio Grande, PR 00745; PO Box 20000, Canóvanas, PR 007290042. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal en Fajardo , Puerto Rico, hoy día 03 de agosto de 2020. WANDA l.

SEGUI REYES, Secretario(a).

Jeniffer Carrasquillo González, Sub-Secretario(a).

LEGAL NOT ICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE CIALES.

ORIENTAL BANK

25

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) 759-6897; 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: Comunidad Juan Otero, 118 Calle Pitirre, Morovis, PR 00687; Bo. Cuchillas, 118 Pare JJ Claverol, Morovis, PR 00687. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal en Ciales, Puerto Rico, hoy día 03 de agosto de 2020.

Vivivan Y Fresse Gonzalez, Sec Regional. Carmen M. Burgos Ortiz, Sub-Secretaria.

San Juan Star The

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Demandante, V.

GLORIA L. MEDINA SANTANA

Demandada CIVIL NUM.: CI2020CV00027.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMEA: TAISHA N. MANGUAL RICA EL PRESIDENTE DE HERNANDEZ LOS EE. UU. EL ESTADO LIPOR MEDIO del presente edic- BRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO to se le notifica de la radicación RICO. SS. de una demanda en cobro de A: GLORIA L. dinero por la vía ordinaria en la MEDINA SANTANA que se alega que usted adeuda POR MEDIO del presente edica la parte demandante, Oriental to se le notifica de la radicación Bank, ciertas sumas de dinero, de una demanda en cobro de y las costas, gastos y honoradinero por la vía ordinaria en la rios de abogado de este litigio. que se alega que usted adeuda El demandante, Oriental Bank, a la parte demandante, Oriental ha solicitado que se dicte senBank, ciertas sumas de dinero, tencia en contra suya y que se y las costas, gastos y honorale ordene pagar las cantidades rios de abogado de este litigio. reclamadas en la demanda.

El demandante, Oriental Bank, POR EL PRESENTE EDICTO ha solicitado que se dicte sense le emplaza para que pretencia en contra suya y que se sente al tribunal su alegación

Porque estamos conscientes de la importancia de estas publicaciones, ponemos especial atención en los detalles y cumplimos con todas las regulaciones establecidas por los Tribunales en Puerto Rico.

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26

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

The New York City Marathon was canceled. Runners ran the course anyway.

By TALYA MINSBERG

T

he New York City Marathon began Oct. 17, technically at least.

As one of many marathons to offer a virtual form after being canceled by the coronavirus pandemic, runners could sign up to complete a 26.2-mile route of their choosing within a two-week span.

More than 28,000 runners from 130 countries and all 50 states signed up for the race, according to New York Road Runners, the organization that puts on the annual marathon. About 21 percent of those runners were based in the New York metropolitan area.

On Sunday, the day that would have been the 50th running of the New York City Marathon, many New York runners tackled the beloved route separately.

Although they could not run across the VerrazzanoNarrows Bridge, site of the customary start, they could follow the course down Fourth Avenue and Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn, over the Queensboro Bridge, through Manhattan and the Bronx, and hurl their bodies over the “finish line” in Central Park.

There were no aid stations and the roads were not closed to traffic.

Some runners did not wait for Sunday to run. Julio Martínez was ebullient describing his return to the course last weekend. He logged much of the 26.2 miles by following the route with his partner, Charin Chansetthakul.

“The nice thing about the marathon is that you get to see parts of the city you know but haven’t seen in a while,” Martínez, a longtime New Yorker who lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, said. They hadn’t seen much of Manhattan since March. “It’s our beautiful city again.”

Martínez and Chansetthakul said their aid stations were bodegas and their cheerleaders were strangers on the street who recognized their effort. The finish line was as sweet as usual, if emotional, in a new way.

Even without the race banners lining city streets and ubiquitous advertisements on subway cars, taxis and billboards, New Yorkers knew the significance of the weekend, perhaps even more so this year. And many took note. They put up signs, cheered for runners in homemade marathon race bibs and wrote encouraging words with chalk on the sidewalk.

As she ran the marathon route, Trephene Andrea Wilf said a police car started honking, the officers yelling, “Go get it, guys!” over the loudspeaker. She replied, “Hey, want to be our private escort?”

“You feel the spirit of the marathon along the course, and then you feel the loss,” Wilf said, recalling pulling off the course and crying. “I could also associate the points where I’d see a friend on the course or cheer station where someone would have called out my name.”

But the finish? “It was the exact same feeling” as all her previous races, she said. “It was amazing. When I came in from Columbus Circle into the park? I just started crying. The exact same emotions.”

Martínez echoed the sentiment. “Once you finish,

Kristina Nungaray running through Fort Greene, Brooklyn, early Sunday morning. you realize what we’ve been through,” he said. Both Martínez and Chansetthakul said they had COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, in the spring.

They celebrated their marathon with drinks outdoors with friends on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

“You put everything in perspective and you say, ‘After all this time, we were able to do this again and the city was available to us.’”

Kristina Nungaray, who started the race in Brooklyn on Sunday morning, was singularly focused on reaching the finish line in what would be her first marathon.

“Running for me in 2020 has been like this primal scream I needed to get out,” Nungaray said last week from her home in Jersey City. “When those unknowns become a little too oppressive, I would get out and run.”

Two days after she signed up for the virtual marathon, she received a call from her family in Texas. Her father had COVID-19.

During a run, she came to terms with the fact that

her father might not survive. And it was after a run through Jersey City that she got a call. A nurse offered to read text messages to her father aloud. “Essentially that is how we said goodbye, via text message,” she said through tears.

After going to the funeral and quarantining upon her return, she started running again.

“It was one of those things that helped me breathe better,” she said. “And there was something in the back of my mind that reminded me, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re registered foar this marathon.’”

She has felt a pull to do a marathon in tribute to her father, in recognition of her city, in pursuit of herself.

“I signed up for this race to push me out of my comfort zone once upon a time ago,” Nungaray said.

“And now I’m doing this race to move forward and reconnect me to my comfort zone.”

She has close to 30,000 runners right next to her, virtually at least, and a city of more than 8 million cheering her on, perhaps at a distance.

The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

27

What these athletes learned from their pandemic pauses

By MATTHEW FUTTERMAN, JULIET MACUR, TALYA MINSBERG and JAMES WAGNER

T

he coronavirus pandemic had been blanketing countries and devastating populations for months by the time the American sports landscape was touched in mid-March. As positive cases were confirmed in professional athletes, leagues shut down completely, postponed entire seasons and, in the case of the Olympic and the Paralympic Games, delayed culminating events until 2021.

Almost seven months have passed since then, a time in which more than 229,000 people in the United States have died from the virus, 9 million Americans have tested positive, and the world has been irrevocably altered. In that landscape, sports took a back seat by necessity, and the virus charted a wholly new course for athletes whose lives are normally defined by the parameters of the competitive calendar.

Since May, four of them have given The New York Times an intimate look at their journeys in periodic installments.

Interviews have been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

‘It tried so hard to break me and, you know what? It didn’t.’

— Sunisa Lee, gymnast An Olympic team hopeful, Lee, 17, had been prepping to compete in the 2020 Tokyo Games. The pandemic threw those plans off course and brought heartbreaking tragedy to her family, as a beloved aunt and uncle died of COVID-19, just 13 days apart.

What’s helped me get through this year is remembering that it’s been a weird time for everybody. Now I think pretty much everybody on the national team is back training like usual. I’ve been able to do all my skills, but getting through my routines is hard because I need more endurance after taking so much time off.

The biggest thing that’s changed since last year is that there are so many new girls trying for the Olympic team now. It’s crazy how many new girls there are! They’re ones who didn’t qualify for 2020 because they were a year too young, but now qualify for 2021 because the rules changed to let girls turning 16 next year compete. Personally, I feel like it’s unfair, and I’m sure

a lot of the other older girls agree with me. It puts a lot more pressure on us older gymnasts, but we do have a lot of experience, and that means a lot.

We haven’t had a national team camp in a long, long time, and I miss it because I miss seeing my friends there.

When we’re there, the national team coaches select us for future meets after seeing what each of us can do. But now we have to show the coaches on video instead of showing them in person, and I don’t like it. I’d rather perform live and in person, because I actually like getting nervous. I like the adrenaline. If the Olympic trials will happen without fans, that’s really not going to be much fun for me, because I love performing.

Outside of gymnastics, I was hoping this would be a regular year for me, and it would’ve been if the Olympics would’ve happened last summer.

I would have gone to a regular school and would have been a regular senior in high school, with me getting ready for college. There would be no stress, but lots of fun, like going to senior tailgates.

They had one senior tailgate this year that I would’ve gone to, but didn’t, because, yep, I had practice. It would’ve been a great last year of high school if the pandemic didn’t happen and I wasn’t still training for Tokyo.

I guess I’m sad about senior year being so different, but it’s not like that big of a deal, really. To me, the Olympics has been such a big goal for me for so long, and it always comes with a lot of sacrifices. I just have to go with the flow and remind myself to not get too upset about anything that’s out of my control.

For a long time this year, I was depressed that the Olympics were so far, far off, but I’m excited for 2021 now. I’ve been training so hard, and a memory popped up on my phone the other day of us winning the team final at worlds last year. It’s crazy because that seemed like just yesterday! So in some ways, this year has gone by so, so slowly. In other ways, it has gone by so, so fast.

Of course it’s my nightmare that the Olympics won’t happen after all and that I trained a whole extra year for nothing. But I’ve convinced myself that they are going to happen. I have to believe that I’m training for Tokyo. I have to envision it. A couple of months ago, I decided to focus on being more positive, and I think it definitely helps me if

“But now we have to show the coaches on video instead of showing them in person, and I don’t like it. I’d rather perform live and in person because I actually like getting nervous. I like the adrenaline.

I really have a bad day — or a bad year.

It helps to remind yourself that things don’t stay bad forever. So 2021 has to be better than 2020. I just know it will be.

‘I’ve got to keep moving’ — Rudy Garcia-Tolson, paralympic swimmer, runner and triathlete Rudy Garcia-Tolson, 32, had retired from competition after winning a medal five times in previous Paralympics, most recently in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. The pandemic inspired him to try to swim in another Games, a decision that drove him on a cross-country search for safe places to train.

The fires in California made for a nasty few weeks. Where I live, near Riverside, is about 50 miles from the El Dorado Fire, and the Bobcat Fire was about 20 miles away. It was two weeks of brown skies and ashes on the car and that smell. I couldn’t even walk my dog without a mask.

Fortunately, in Malibu, where I train at David Duchovny’s house, the air was much better. It’s near the beach, and there was a coastal breeze. So it was nowhere near as bad. I didn’t really miss any days.

I’m swimming five days a week now, Tuesday through Saturday. I’m up to 6,000 yards a day. In late September, I did five freestyle sets of 200 yards. I did one every three minutes. I did the

first one in 2 minutes 38 seconds and descended, dropping with each one all the way down to 2:22. When I did that set, I knew I was starting to feel good.

The last few weeks I have been experiencing more intensely the challenge training by myself. It’s been two months of me doing this all on my own. It’s getting a little harder to do the self-talking, to put all the effort in on every last set.

It’s not like that when you have people around pushing you.

It’s the hardest part about coming back from scratch and building myself back up. It would be so easy to take the day off and go easy.

I will start looking for a competition in November or December. That will be Step 1, to compete and dive off the starting blocks. I haven’t dived off the starting blocks since Rio. Hopefully I can meet the national team standard for my event, and then I can talk to the national team coaches about training at the Olympic Training Center sometime in the new year.

One big difference will be the altitude. They are at 5,000 feet in Colorado. The first week is going to suck, but after that, I should be good.

I need to go 2:38 in the 200-meter individual medley. That is my main event. That is a speed I am familiar with.

Continues on page 28

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The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

From page 27 Before Rio, that was a time I consistently hit for three or four months. Then I went 2:33.8.

My other event is the 100-meter breast stroke. My breast stroke comes together a little further down the line.

The men’s team has a lot of young guys. Some of them have only competed once or twice internationally, at the Pan Am or the World Championships.

There is a big difference between those events and the Paralympics.

Right now, though, I just need to prove myself.

‘I’m going to remember that we were able to come together as a league.’

—Breanna Stewart, Seattle Storm forward A champion and league Most Valuable Player in 2018, Stewart, 26, was excited to return to the WNBA after rehabbing a ruptured Achilles tendon.

She won another title in the league’s bubble in Florida this year even as she and other players promoted racial justice, voting rights and the Black Lives Matter movement.

It doesn’t feel real yet. Being in the bubble and everything makes it feel more crazy. I mean we took care of business, and that’s what we wanted to do. Anytime we play, we want to sweep them, but what’s more motivation to win than getting out of the bubble?

I think it’s just kind of a testament to everything that I went through last year.

Being able to be back where I was, being able to play at such a high level and make an impact? I’m really proud of what I’ve been able to do, and it shows.

Not a lot of people come back from an Achilles injury and have the same impact, and I was still able to have a huge impact.

It’s the mindset and just the work ethic. I was in rehab as many days as I could be and continued to put the pressure on myself because I was the only one that was going to get me back to this place. I put in the time. It’s a lot of tedious stuff and it’s just about being patient and doing the right thing. I’m 26 years old, I have a lot of playing days left and I want to make sure I make the most of them and I want to put myself in a position to be able to do that.

It was kind of weird leaving. I took a 6 a.m. flight back to Seattle, and it was like, ‘OK, bye.’ There wasn’t much more to it. We celebrated that night.

And then people took their flights, people got to go home. I landed back in Seattle, and my mom picked me up and we went back home. I think that’s what

“It’s been two months of me doing this all on my own. It’s getting a little harder to do the self-talking, to put all the effort in on every last set,” Garcia-Tolson said. “It’s not like that when you have people around pushing you.” it needed to be. We had a virtual Zoom celebration with our fans, which was cool. But, you know, we all know you can’t replicate things on Zoom. Whenever I see anybody, they say congratulations, which is nice.

I think the one thing I’ll miss is safety. You got to have a conversation with people and not be worried about where they’ve been or who they’ve been around or the possibility of having COVID-19. Our bubble was super, super secure and that was nice.

Looking back on this time, I’ll think of the important messages that we were able to highlight. I’ll think about what happened during quarantine from, like, March to June when we basically were not going anywhere. Everybody was in their house and, like I said, appreciating the little things in life. I’ll think about Breonna Taylor. I think that she still hasn’t achieved justice, even if there was a settlement. And we need to continue to be better.

I’m going to remember that we were able to come together as a league, all of the players representing more than just us. It’s going to be a historic season because we really amplified the message

and that was priority No. 1, and then we played basketball.

‘I embraced everything about this year.’

— Kyle Lewis, Seattle Mariners center fielder Lewis, 25, was about to begin his much anticipated first full season in the major leagues when MLB suspended the end of spring training. After a standout performance during a truncated 60game regular season, Lewis is in prime position to claim the American League Rookie of the Year Award.

After the season ended, I went to Arizona for a little bit and hung out with some of my teammates there. Then I went to Los Angeles for a little bit. Been doing a little bit of travel. And then I went back home. It’s good to be home in Atlanta. I’m not scared of traveling. I just wear my mask and stay out of the way. Now I’ll be back home and won’t be on flights too much. I’m trying to be safe with it but still live my life.

This year, my life has changed a lot.

I’ve gotten a whole lot more requests coming through my phone now. I need to be much more organized with the way that I spend my time now know-

ing the importance of spending time the right way. A lot more business that I have to attend to. Personal, family, financial — all aspects.

Overall, what I take away from this year is the importance of understanding who you are and the person you want to show up as every day and the organization that’s required to be able to do that. The mental clarity that you need to be able to do that on a consistent basis.

With success comes responsibility and the understanding that to be consistent in who you are and the way that you go about your life requires a higher level of organization. So that’s what I’ve been learning and that’s what I’ve been continuing to pay a lot of attention to.

I’m also proud of carrying myself the right way and being able to get great feedback as far as the way that I carried myself. Being able to, day in and day out, be respected as a solid human and an inspiration to the younger generations — that’s something I don’t take lightly.

I embraced everything about this year. I believe in everything being connected. The highs and lows, they’re just opportunities in different forms. You’re always moving forward in life. You don’t play as well sometimes or sometimes you let your temper get the better of you, but ultimately those are all just opportunities and situations where, if you pay attention to them, you can get a lot out of them. I don’t try to forget anything.

This year was very challenging from a standpoint of wanting to be able to help with situations that we would consider to be bigger than baseball but then also having the obligation of playing. With it being my first year, and me wanting to establish myself as a major league player, at the same time feeling the responsibility to not turn a blind eye to the things that are going around us and in our communities. That definitely was hard mentally to understand where I stood and that balance of things.

JOSÉ BURGOS Técnico Generadores Gas Propano

787•607•3343

The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 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)

Go with the urge to display initiative and get ahead in the world. You’re prepared for challenges and ready to get rid of some hang-ups that could reverse your progress if they were to continue. It is time to release yourself from the past’s hold on you. You feel excited about the future. Embrace change without hesitation.

Taurus

(April 21-May 21)

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

(June 22-July 23)

The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Making plans for the future comes naturally to you but as you move forward flexibility is key. It isn’t a good idea to have everything arranged so strictly that there is little or no room for manoeuvre. Once you’ve committed to some arrangements it won’t be easy to get out of them, if you change your mind.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

A colleague or neighbour is celebrating a special achievement. As well as being pleased with them, their success has inspired you.

Now you can see what other people can do, you are determined you can do it too. An older relative’s encouragement will give you a much-needed boost, both in an emotional and financial sense.

Scorpio

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

There’s a heavy atmosphere around you.

Changes are likely and you aren’t certain you are going to like these. Although at first, they might seem painful, the outcome could prove surprisingly positive. This is your chance to develop fresh ideas and experiment with new possibilities. Unconventional methods will yield positive results.

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

A shift in policy in the workplace will be received with enthusiasm. The message coming from those above is that safety is a priority for all employees and the actions they are taking will support this. In these circumstances decisions are made on facts and as facts change down the line, decisions will be revised.

It’s a crucial time for making decisions. You will take responsibility for mistakes you have made and you want to get it right this time.

You recognise problems have been due to some wrong approaches and although it is incredibly difficult, you will want to ensure people aren’t adversely affected by new procedures. Friends, family and colleagues look on you with the respect you deserve.

Cancer

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

You’ve always tried to be sensitive to your family’s needs. Additional work or domestic responsibilities are putting you under pressure. This could cause you to overlook a child or partner’s strange behaviour. If they are keeping their distance emotionally, you should not ignore this.

You need to find out why.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

A reflective mood prompts you to take stock of your life and its treasures. You have been through many challenges and changes but you have learned that focusing on what you don’t have does not help. Instead you are counting your many blessings. The more positive your outlook, the faster you will achieve your goals.

A chance to work from home will be welcomed. When your employer sees how much you can accomplish without the usual distractions around you, they will be grateful. It can be difficult to get a balance between home and work and where the work stops and family begins but you are working on it. Seeing your family smile makes life easier and makes you happier.

Aquarius

Virgo

Pisces

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

Whether you are looking for a new job, home or relationship, imagine yourself achieving the things you desire. Keep your thoughts positive and you won’t be disappointed with the result. Activities over the next few days will figure heavily in your future. You are setting the pace for things to come in both career and leisure activities.

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

A project or assignment that didn’t work out wasn’t all for nothing. You have learned a lot from the experience. Mistakes are learning opportunities. Instead of telling yourself you will never succeed in certain aims, be willing to try and try again and one day you will succeed. Practice does make perfect.

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

People will try to persuade you against acting on your plans. Once you have made a decision, don’t let the opposition sway you. Dig in your heels and remember your ideals. An elderly relative or senior colleague will be at the centre of a commotion and your patience will be put to the test.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

Tuesday, November 3, 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

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

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