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November 6-8, 2020

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Dispute Over Pissarro Painting Looted by Nazis Back in Court P20

Rivera Lassén:

‘I Will Work for a More Inclusive Country ’ NPP Rep. Alonso Is Latest to Face Corruption Charges; Others Might Be in Trouble Too

P4

Too Soon?

Vázquez and Pierluisi Citizen Victory Movement’s Newly Elected At-Large Senator Opens Up for The Star on Her Plans, Vision Are Working on and More P3 Transition P5 NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 19

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November 6-8, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

GOOD MORNING

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November 6-8, 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.

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Ana Irma Rivera Lassén: The people’s voice ‘should be inclusive and diverse’

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fter years advocating for human and cultural rights, she is a step closer to reaching the Capitol to work for a different legislative assembly.

Citizen Victory Movement (CVM) President Ana Irma Rivera Lassén is to become one of Puerto Rico’s 11 at-large senators-elect and the first black and open LGBTQIAP+ member of the upper chamber.

Rivera Lassén spoke with the Star about her aspirations to work for “a more inclusive country every day,” break away from strict bipartisanship and advocate for a government where public hearings, consensus and transparency are the norm.

“The results from the latest elections sent a message from every voter that they want a different Legislature, not a dictatorship from the majority party suppressing other members of the chamber,” she said. “It has proven that a bipartisan dictatorship is getting torn apart.”

Meanwhile, as the CVM president is to be the first black and openly lesbian member of the Senate, she said that one of her goals is to “rescue our public institutions,” which she added was the fundamental reason for organizing the movement that is about to have two seats in the Senate and the House.

“The interesting thing is that I give a human rights, gender and anti-racist perspective to everything I do, and I believe that any issue that is going to be worked on in the Legislature has to have that perspective,” Rivera Lassén said. “I say this because it is not about working on issues separately, but when you work with education, you notice how erasure and discrimination prevails. Inclusion must be intersectional.”

As for bringing intersectionality to the Capitol, she said that in order to recognize problems, it is important to accept them, put names to them and start working toward better representation.

“Many people come to me because they feel good speaking from their experiences and viewpoints to feel represented properly,” Rivera Lassén said. “We put everything in a closet. I’m visibly black, but people don’t recognize themselves from racial diversity, I’m a woman, but people are incapable of recognizing issues due to their gender, and I’m openly a member of the LGBTQIAP+ community; it’s important to speak face-to-face about the issues we face with these

identities to understand and erase discrimination.”

Meanwhile, Rivera Lassén said, there’s a lot of work ahead.

The CVM senator-elect said her agenda is focused on reviewing the recently approved Civil Code because, she said, its language leaves things open for discrimination against minorities, working on a new Electoral Code, amending the current Labor Reform to “bring back acquired rights for the people” and bringing the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority Network (PREPANet) back to public administration to “provide broader bandwidth, narrow the island’s digital breach and give both students and teachers from the Department of Education access to the internet.”

“There’s capability, but there’s no will. What the government has done is that, instead of providing the service capacity at the hands of Puerto Ricans, it gave the broadband service to private entities that purchase and sell it back to the people,” Rivera Lassén said. “We’re talking about access to information and communication technology, which is a human right.

Access to the internet is not an option anymore, it’s a necessity.”

Meanwhile, more than working on essential services such as education, healthcare and housing, Rivera Lassén said CVM’s goal in the Legislature is to stand strong against the Financial Oversight and Management Board and work for a forensic audit of the island’s public debt.

“We want to know who the people and the entities responsible for bringing us into this crisis were, to hold them accountable,” she said. “The current government under the oversight board has not faced this and pretends the people of Puerto Rico have to pay for something that we don’t even understand how we got there in the first place.”

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The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

US Attorney Muldrow: Tell the truth ‘if the FBI knocks at your door’ Federal grand jury indicts NPP Rep. Néstor Alonso for corruption scheme; feds claim there are more cases under investigation

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

W

ith the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) marking its 150th anniversary, and two days after the 2020 general elections, with the New Progressive Party (NPP) projected to win La Fortaleza and return its delegate to the U.S. Congress, Puerto Rico District U.S Attorney W. Stephen Muldrow announced Thursday that a federal grand jury returned a nine-count indictment Wednesday against NPP Rep. Néstor Alonso for corruption.

“If people have information on these crimes, it’s better that you call us now,” Muldrow said. “If the FBI knocks at your door, answer the door and tell us the truth.”

The indictment charges the legislator with theft of federal funds, bribery and kickbacks, and honest service wire fraud. Muldrow said that in the first quarter of 2018, Alonso authorized several biweekly salary adjustments to Person A from $760.02 to $1,446.52.

Furthermore, in May 2018, Person A’s salary was increased to some $2,043.08. Nonetheless, due to an across-the-board budget cut, Person A’s biweekly salary was reduced to $1,417.00.

“However, starting October 2019, Person A’s biweekly, net government salary was again increased to approximately $2,270.68

by Alonso,” Muldrow said, adding that it remained at that level until July of this year, when the subject left Alonso’s legislative office.

Muldrow also said that “from each check of her inflated salary, it was agreed that Person A would kickback Alonso half of the total amount of the pay raise, split between each pay day.”

The indictment alleged that methods such as transferring money using mobile phone app ATH Móvil, making withdrawals around the time Alonso received his directly deposited paycheck, paying in cash and even payments through the legislator’s Home Depot account were used.

“The defendant designed a plan to defraud the government and the citizens who elected him,” Muldrow said. “This was not an error of judgment; this was a deliberate bribery attempt and a clear violation of the law.”

As for the FBI not arresting Alonso before Election Day, Muldrow said DOJ rules forbid the authorities from taking action immediately before an electoral event. Likewise, he emphasized that the investigation began in early August, from which he said it has developed swiftly. “[In the indictment] [y]ou’ll see there were some videos that were recorded in May or June that presented the scheme, which wasn’t under the FBI’s control,” he said.

When a reporter asked if the advancements in the case were due to tips from former NPP Rep. María Milagros Charbonier, Muldrow said “no.”

Meanwhile, Muldrow told the press that his office has received complaints from the island’s general elections, but he preferred not to say if any of them has raised concerns

There’s more. Puerto Rico District U.S Attorney W. Stephen Muldrow also said that his office has received complaints from the island’s general elections, but he preferred not to say if any of them has raised concerns about the event’s validity. about the event’s validity.

What’s next for Alonso’s seat?

As for what will happen with Alonso’s atlarge seat in the House of Representatives, as he was re-elected with 60,375 votes at press time, political analyst Carlos Díaz Olivo said on Telenoticias that, according to the Puerto Rico Constitution, the House speaker will be in charge of the appointment “at the proposal of the political party to which the representative whose seat was vacated belonged, with a candidate selected in the same way as his predecessor.”

However, analyst Luis Pabón Roca said that even though that is the norm constitutionally, there must be a revision in this case because Alonso has not been sworn into his seat for the upcoming term.

“Does the Constitution refer to what he has left until December or for the seat he was supposed to take in January?” Pabón Roca asked. “Will the Constitution apply here?”

Earlier in the day, both House Speaker Carlos Méndez Núñez and projected NPP governor-elect Pedro Pierluisi called on Alonso to resign immediately.

Delgado Altieri declines to accept defeat

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

P

opular Democratic Party candidate for governor Carlos “Charlie” Delgado Altieri spoke Thursday without conceding victories or defeats in the electoral process.

“I do not concede victory to [New Progessive Party gubernatorial candidate] Pedro Pierluisi because he granted himself the victory,” Delgado Altieri said at a press conference. “We are going to wait for the votes to be counted and then we award victories.”

As for a recount, Delgado Altieri said he will wait for the vote counting process to be

completed to decide what strategy to take.

“We will be making decisions,” he said in reference to a request for a recount. “I do not rule it out.”

Regarding the complaint he issued last night about the discovery of ballot containers with materials and alleged votes, the Isabela mayor said “there are ballots in there and I am asking that immediate action be taken because it is a matter of high priority.”

“There are around 250 ballots per [container], which are significant numbers,” he said.

Delgado Atieri added that he called a legislative conference of those who have been elected to the island Senate Delgado denounced Wednesday night the finding of and House of Representatives. briefcases that allegedly contained ballots.

The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

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Gubernatorial election results not yet official, but Pierluisi and Vázquez are starting transition

By THE STAR STAFF

A

lthough there is no final certification stating he is the new governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Pierluisi and Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced announced Thursday the start of the transition process that will allow Pierluisi to take office in January.

Besides the transition process,Vázquez said the conversations centered on stopping the spread of COVID-19 and the status of the plans the government must submit to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) detailing the use of some $13 billion in FEMA funds that will be distributed between the Education Department and the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA).

PREPA Restructuring Officer Fernando Padilla recently said the utility’s plan is expected to be delivered to FEMA by Dec. 7, or 12 days ahead of the Dec. 19 deadline.

“We already have had two preliminary certificates and he is 15,000 votes ahead [of Popular Democratic Party opponent Carlos Delgado Altieri],” Vázquez said. “So we wanted to start the process.”

Pierlusi, who was governor for four days before the Supreme Court ruled that he was in the position illegally, said the current situation is very different from the summer of 2019.

“The people spoke and I was the one who got the most votes,” he said.

The transition committees must be constituted four days after an election. Pierluisi said Bayamón Mayor Ramón Luis Rivera will head his transition committee but he will appoint the rest of the committee later. Vázquez’s transition committee will be in the hands of Secretary of State Raúl Márquez Hernández. They also include Puerto Rico Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority Executive Director Omar Marrero, Ports Authority Director Joel Pizá and Assistant La Fortaleza Chief of Staff Lillian Sánchez.

Asked about why they decided to hold a meeting without the State Elections Commission certificate, Pierluisi said “there is no time to lose.”

“I clearly prevailed, and that is not going to change when the count is completed,” he said.

More than 95 percent of the votes have been counted.

Pierluisi said that for him the most pressing issue is the status of the projects funded by federal Community Development Block Grant funds and FEMA funds because he wants to hasten them. Pierluisi has been critical of the slowness in the distribution of federal funds to complete infrastructure damaged by the 2017 hurricane season.

Education is another pressing issue because since March, all classes have been online.

“We know many students do not have access to the internet or do not have laptops and I am worried about that,” he said.

Vázquez said she believes that the Education Department has been working to have students go back to the schools in January. The agency also gave incentives for children to return to schools.

Pierluisi also said he will file legislation to declare a state of emergency to stop gender violence.

Questioned about remarks made by Delgado Altieri to the effect that he will not concede victory or accept defeat until the last vote is counted, Pierluisi said “[e]ach one acts as he believes he should.”

“I understand that you want to wait for the final certification to be current, but usually one does not wait for the final certification,” Pierluisi said. “He is reluctant to accept the inevitable.”

Pierluisi said that even if the Legislature is in the hands of the opposition party and appears reluctant to confirm his nominees, he nonetheless wants to evaluate all candidates for cabinet positions. Any current agency head that wishes to remain in the position will be evaluated along with other candidates.

“A Legislature controlled by the Popular Democratic Party will not stop me from bringing in talented new people,” he said.

Later in the day as the counting of votes continued, it was reported that Pierluisi’s New Progressive Party will be controlling the Senate.

“I hope we can work together in a divided government,” he said. “My style is diplomatic.”

Asked if he would appoint Vázquez as secretary of State, Pierluisi hesitated and noted that she has already reached the highest position in government.Vázquez said she needed a rest.

Regarding the changes in the island’s municipalities, Vázquez said she was surprised that voters voted out many mayors who worked very hard and performed well in their towns. She noted that Ponce Mayor María “Mayita” Meléndez was the first to file her reconstruction plan.

The two said they did not speak about the vacancy on the Supreme Court, but Pierluisi said Vázquez has the authority to appoint a new justice until Dec. 31.

Both officials called for the resignation of Rep. Néstor Alonso from his current seat in the House, to which he was re-elected, after he was arrested Thursday on corruption charges. If he does not resign, the House should expel him, Pierluisi said.

Regarding the management of the results of the “Yes or No” statehood vote, Pierluisi said the government is supposed to submit a transition plan and that Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón is slated to submit statehood legislation in Congress.

Dorado mayor asks Pierluisi to keep PRASA chief

By THE STAR STAFF

D

orado Mayor Carlos López called upon Pedro Pierluisi, who has the majority of the votes counted so far to become governor, to keep Doriel Pagán Crespo and her team at the helm of the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA).

“This board has operated well. Although I belong to a different party, I support keeping the team at PRASA,” López said, calling Pagán “a committed” public servant who works with everybody regardless of political colors.

Pagán was named to the position by outgoing Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced.

Pierluisi, who has been preliminarily certified as governor, said publicly that all agency heads working underVázquez’s administration who wish to work for him must let him know.

However, they will be evaluated along with other candidates for positions.

López made his remarks at a news conference in which Pagán announced a project to rebuild the sanitary system in the municipality of Dorado.

“The work aims to improve environmental compliance and increase the capacity of the existing sanitary system, which will allow the connection of new developments in the Municipality of Dorado,” she said. “A new trunk

will be built at the Dorado Sanitary Sewer Plant, a pumping and pre-treatment station at the entrance of the plant. In addition, the project includes the construction of sanitary laterals that will allow the elimination of two pumping stations.”

The construction cost for the project is $23 million with an estimated total investment of $ 32.6 million, Pagán said.

The funding comes from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency funds.

The improvements will benefit 21,108 clients. The design includes plant changes to relocate pretreatment units to a new closed building to reduce foul odors. Pagán also made

a point of emphasizing that the project will eliminate capacity problems in the Quintas de Dorado urbanization.

PRASA’s chief Doriel Pagán Crespo

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The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

Corozal mayor-elect begins transition

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

T

Newly elected mayor of Corozal, Luis “Luiggi” García.

he newly elected mayor of Corozal, Luis “Luiggi” García, announced on Thursday the beginning of the government transition in that town and said he already has priorities in his work plan for the benefit of the municipality.

García, who prevailed over the Popular Democratic Party incumbent, Mayor Sergio Luis Torres, represents the first victory for a New Progressive Party candidate for mayor in Corozal since 2012.

“I accept with humility and full responsibility the favor of the Corozaleño people,” the pro-statehood leader said in a written statement. “I will work tirelessly for our people to progress and have a better quality of life for all. My nearly 17 years of experience as a businessman and the energy of my youth will be put at the service of our people.”

The mayor-elect said he has already designed what will be his work plan and is preparing for the transi-

tion process with the current mayor and municipal officials. He hopes it will be a transparent process and that the people have direct participation so that they know the details of the change of command. He asked the mayor not to grant contracts or obligations in the municipality’s accounts during the next two months of his administration that affect the budget for the rest of the fiscal year.

“We are already working on identifying our team that will lead the transition; we trust it will be a high-level process and that our fellow citizens know, firsthand, all the details of managing [the municipality’s] finances,” García said. “My work plan will also be disclosed so that there is real [care taken to promote] participation.”

Meanwhile, the mayor-elect stressed the urgency of the road work that needs to be done in Corozal as well as revitalizing the town center to promote the development of small and midsize businesses.

Agriculture, sports and security will also be matters that he will handle once he takes charge as mayor in January, he said.

Single Permit workshop scheduled for next Tuesday

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

W

ith the aim that all small and midsize entrepreneurs know the details of the Single Permit, which consolidates and incorporates permitting procedures into a single application, experts in the area of business permits regulation from the Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC by its Spanish acronym), along with leading executives and entrepreneurs from the United Retailers Association (CUD by its Spanish acronym) and the Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce (CCPR by its Spanish initials),

will conduct the virtual workshop Filing the Single Permit at the Single Business Portal (SBP), Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 2 p.m. via FB Live.

The New Joint Regulation of 2019 incorporates new changes to current permit applications.

One of the most relevant changes is the incorporation of the Unique Permit, which consolidates and incorporates procedures in a single application.

Prior to the regulation taking effect, an entrepreneur needed to carry out between five and seven procedures for individual permits to start his business. With the Single Permit, he or she would request several permits in a single process.

“With the virtual workshop, we hope that our entrepreneurs know everything about the Unique Permit from beginning to end, as well as the latest changes that have been incorporated at the request of our association,” said CUD President Jesús E. Vázquez Rivera.

“In this way, we will adjust the processes to the reality of our 5,000 partners, representing more than 15,000 businesses in Puerto Rico.”

Participating in the virtual workshop, as the main speaker, will be attorney Rosalía Cruz Niemiec, director of professional regulation and interim director of DDEC’s Permits Management Office. Alicia Lamboy Mombille, former president of the CCPR and president of its Com-

mittee on Environment, Infrastructure and Permits, will be invited to the conference reaction panel.

Vázquez Rivera and CUD Economic Development Adviser Rubén Ayala will also share reactions.

Among the topics to be discussed in the workshop are the status of the current regulation, to whom the Single Permit applies, and the operation of the SBP platform.

Those entrepreneurs interested in participating in the virtual workshop can connect to fb.com/cudpuertorico or on the Facebook page of the United Retailers Association. The workshop is free of charge.

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November 6-8, 2020

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With the presidency hanging in the balance, counting continued, and Biden’s lead in Nevada grew

BY THE NEW YORK TIMES

W

ith the presidency hanging in the balance, attention shifted Thursday to a handful of states that remained too close to call but where, on balance, Joe Biden seemed to have an advantage. President Donald Trump’s campaign pressed ahead with lawsuits challenging the validity of the count in several states, and protests erupted in cities and outside some elections offices.

It was a tense day, as supporters of both candidates were riveted by the slow vote counts underway in several states. Biden needed 17 more electoral votes to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win, while Trump needed 56 more. As results trickled in from several states, Biden increased his lead in Nevada and slowly eroded Trump’s leads in Georgia and Pennsylvania while Trump made up some ground in Arizona, where Biden was ahead.

Both campaigns tried to project optimism, and ask for patience.

“The story of today is going to be a very positive story for the vice president but also one where folks are going to need to stay patient and stay calm,” Biden’s campaign manager, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, said during a press briefing Thursday. “The counting is happening; it’s going to take time.”

Trump’s campaign team said that it would likely be filing additional legal actions. Bill Stepien, the campaign manager, accused people of prematurely writing Trump off at various junctures since the 2016 presidential primaries.

“Donald Trump is alive and well,” he said.

On Wednesday, Biden had stopped short of declaring victory, as Trump did prematurely on election night, and sought to strike a conciliatory note when he addressed the nation.

But he also had something of a warning for the Trump team.

“Power can’t be taken or asserted,” he said. “It flows from the people. And it’s their will that determines who will be the president of the United States, and their will alone.”

Trump issued a written statement on Thursday afternoon through his campaign in which he made baseless claims that there could be fraud in the late votes, writing that “if you count the illegal and late votes, they can steal the election from us!” The statement, which was written in all capital letters, resembled one of his tweets — but by issuing it through the campaign, the president avoided getting a warning label from Twitter, which has flagged many of his recent tweets as potentially misleading.

With Trump’s political path growing more

Zhanon Morales, 30, rallied to support the ongoing ballot count taking place inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. precarious, his team increasingly turned to the courts, filing lawsuits in several states and demanding a recount in Wisconsin.

The Trump campaign’s bid to stave off defeat stretched to the Supreme Court, where the campaign intervened in a case challenging Pennsylvania’s plan to count ballots received for up to three days after Election Day. In some states the campaign showed a willingness to take legal action to fight over even small batches of votes.

In a fraught moment for supporters of both candidates, the tensions occasionally started to spill into the streets.

Calling on election officials to “count every vote,” protesters marched through the streets of several American cities on Wednesday, with protests in Minneapolis, Seattle, Phoenix, Philadelphia, New York City and Portland, Oregon.

At the same time, supporters of Trump descended on vote-counting facilities in several contested states. In Phoenix, about 150 pro-Trump protesters, some of them armed, gathered outside the county recorder’s office where a closely watched count of votes that could help determine the outcome of the election was being conducted.

And in Detroit, another group of proTrump poll watchers gathered earlier in the day outside a ballot-counting center, demanding that officials “stop the count” of ballots after the Trump campaign filed suit to halt the count in Michigan.

But inside, the democratic process continued to play out as election workers — socially distanced and wearing masks — went about their job: counting the votes.

— MICHAEL COOPER, MAGGIE HABERMAN, KATIE GLUECK, THOMAS KAPLAN, MARK LANDLER and MARC SANTORA Georgia: Biden Closes In On Trump, With a Final Result Expected Thursday ATLANTA — President Donald Trump’s lead in Georgia over Joe Biden shrank to about 14,000 votes Thursday afternoon, as election workers scrambled to tally the last 60,000 absentee ballots.

“I am prayerful that we can get to a resolution by the end of the day,” Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s statewide voting system implementatwon manager, said at a news conference at the state Capitol.

He said the state would also have to process an unknown number of overseas, military and provisional ballots. It was unclear how many of those were still outstanding.

“The election is not over just on the absentee ballots,” Sterling said.

Trump’s lead over Biden has dwindled to 0.3%. If the race ends with a margin of less than half a percentage point, contestants can ask for a recount.

A lawsuit filed by the Trump campaign and the state Republican Party challenging the Georgia returns was dismissed on Thursday by a superior court judge. The lawsuit had alleged that absentee ballots that arrived after the

election night deadline were wrongly counted in Savannah. State GOP officials said they planned to file up to a dozen suits.

Many of the votes left to be counted are in counties that lean Democratic, including suburbs of Atlanta and the county that includes Savannah.

— RICHARD FAUSSET Jon Ossoff’s Campaign Is ‘Confident’ Georgia Senate Race Is Headed for a Runoff as Perdue Hovers Near 50% Democrats’ sputtering hopes of reclaiming the Senate are on the edge of getting a boost, as Sen. David Perdue, the Republican incumbent in Georgia, could be forced into a runoff with his Democratic challenger if his vote share falls any lower as the state’s final votes are counted.

As of Thursday morning, with an estimated 95% of the votes counted, Perdue had just under 50% of the vote against Jon Ossoff, who had 47.7%. Under Georgia law, if Perdue finishes below 50%, he’ll face Ossoff in a one-on-one vote in January.

The Ossoff campaign said Thursday that the race was on track to require a runoff. “The votes are still being counted, but we are confident that Jon Ossoff’s historic performance in Georgia has forced Sen. David Perdue to continue defending his indefensible record of unemployment, disease, and corruption,” Ossoff’s campaign manager, Ellen Foster, said in a statement.

Perdue’s campaign manager, Ben Fry, said in a statement that if “overtime is required when all of the votes have been counted, we’re ready, and we will win.”

There will already be one runoff election in Georgia: Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a Republican, will face the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat.

If Democrats were able to win both seats, and if Joe Biden wins the presidency, they would have the 50 senators needed to usher through judicial and cabinet appointments, and enact a Democratic agenda. If Republicans maintain control, they could exert their power to block the priorities of a Biden administration.

If President Donald Trump prevails, the Democrats would need to achieve the enormously difficult feat of winning both Georgia seats and the North Carolina seat held by Sen. Thom Tillis, who is nearly 2 percentage points ahead of his Democratic challenger, Cal Cunningham, with 94% of the votes tallied. The extra seat would be required because the vice president casts the tie-breaking vote in the Senate. Tillis has already declared victory.

Continues on page 8

8 From page 7 Though Democrats flipped Republicanheld seats in Colorado and Arizona, they lost one in Alabama and failed to capture seats in several other states in which they invested enormous sums of money.

But a second Georgia runoff would extend their hopes through January, and focus the nation’s attention squarely on the Peach State.

Georgia election officials are expected to release additional vote totals Thursday morning.

— DANIEL VICTOR Nevada: Biden Widens His Advantage in a Surprising Battleground Joe Biden widened his slender lead over President Donald Trump in Nevada on Thursday from about 8,000 votes to about 12,000 votes as another tranche of ballots were counted, election officials announced.

Biden now leads Trump by 1 percentage point.

Nevada has six electoral votes and its entire Election Day vote has been counted; the late mail and provisional ballots that remain lean Democratic. About 13% of the state’s votes have yet to be tabulated.

A key question is whether Trump can close Biden’s current lead of 8 percentage points in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas and most of Nevada’s population. In 2016, Hillary Clinton carried that county by 10.7 percentage points.

The Trump campaign has already identified Nevada, which allows any losing candidate to request a recount, as one of the battleground states where it plans to use the courts and procedural maneuvers to stave off defeat in the Electoral College. Less than 24 hours before Election Day, a Nevada judge rejected a lawsuit filed by Republicans who had tried to stop early vote counting in Clark County.

Nevada’s attorney general, Aaron Ford,

The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

a Democrat, told CNN late Wednesday that the state was prepared to rebuff the Trump campaign’s offensive.

“We think it’s pretty impenetrable when it comes to legal challenge against us,” Ford said.

— MIKE IVES, JENNIFER MEDINA and DAVID L. PHILLIPS Pennsylvania: Biden Chips Away at Trump’s Lead With Votes Still Left To Tally PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania Democrats are growing increasingly confident that when all the votes are counted, Joe Biden will have a significant lead of more than 100,000 votes.

At a news conference Thursday morning in Philadelphia, Sharif Street, a state senator and vice chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, said that the party thinks Biden could win by as much as 190,000 votes in the state, driven in large part by the number of votes still being counted in Philadelphia.

City election officials have not provided an update as to when they will finish counting ballots, but the collar counties around Philadelphia, including Bucks County and Montgomery County, are getting closer to a full count.

Workers spent the night tallying a backlog of more than 1 million absentee and mail-in votes, and state officials said they expected a clearer picture to emerge with the release of more results. Biden trailed Trump by about 115,000 votes as of 12:30 p.m. Eastern Thursday.

Winning Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes would clinch the election for Biden, who used his Scranton roots in an appeal to win back the once-blue state that broke for Trump in 2016. Trump has aggressively challenged voting procedures in the state and is suing to halt the counting of ballots that were cast before the deadline, among other legal challenges.

Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, condemned the legal maneuvers.

“Our election officials at the state and local level should be free to do their jobs without intimidation or attacks,” Wolf said in a statement. “These attempts to subvert the democratic process are disgraceful.”

Biden is expected to gain significant ground in Philadelphia and its suburbs, where vote counters were working around the clock to sort through hundreds of thousands of uncounted votes. A number of ballots also remain in more conservative counties, giving the Trump campaign hope.

If the race comes down to the wire, the fate of thousands of provisional ballots set to be counted next week might also be in play.

Many voters who requested mail-in ballots but decided to vote in person instead and did not bring their mail ballots with them to be “spoiled,” or rendered unusable, were given provisional ballots, said Bethany Hallam, a member of the elections board of Allegheny County. At least one Republican lawsuit was filed to throw out certain provisional ballots, and Hallam expects more are coming.

Trump “sent his entire legal team to Pennsylvania to try to invalidate legal votes in whatever way possible,” Hallam said.

On Thursday, the Trump campaign held a brief news conference outside the Convention Center, celebrating a court order that allowed for their observers to more closely watch the ballot counting in Philadelphia.

City officials quickly filed an appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which resulted in a brief pause in the count in Philadelphia.

But it was quickly resumed. The state Supreme Court has not issued a decision as to whether they would accept or deny the appeal.

— NICK CORASANITI, TRIP GABRIEL and DANIEL VICTOR

Arizona: Biden’s Lead Narrows, and More Results Will Come Thursday Joe Biden has maintained a steady but slightly narrowing lead in Arizona vote tallies after Election Day, with Latino voters lining up behind the former vice president in a state that President Donald Trump won by 3.5 percentage points in 2016.

As of early Thursday, Biden led Trump in Arizona by 68,400 votes, or less than 3 percentage points. In the votes so far from Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, Biden leads by 5 percentage points, with about 5% of the total vote still outstanding.

More results from the state are expected to be released Thursday night.

Even Biden’s narrow edge underscored a profound political shift in Arizona, a longtime Republican bastion that has lurched left in recent years, fueled by rapidly evolving demographics and a growing contingent of young Latino voters who favor liberal policies.

The count was delayed in the early hours of Thursday, as dozens of Trump supporters demonstrated outside the Maricopa County election office where the votes were being counted.

In one of the brightest spots for Democrats so far, former astronaut Mark Kelly defeated the state’s Republican senator, Martha McSally, in a special election, making Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema the first pair of Democrats to represent Arizona in the Senate since the 1950s.

Winning Arizona would give Biden an additional path to victory that wouldn’t require Pennsylvania, where final results aren’t expected Thursday. If Biden won Arizona and held on to a tight lead in Nevada, he could lose Pennsylvania and still reach the 270 electoral votes needed for the presidency.

— JENNIFER MEDINA and DANIEL VICTOR

The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

9

Police ‘kettle’ and arrest nearly 60 protesters in Manhattan

By ED SHANAHAN

I

n a reprise of the violent street altercations that erupted at times in New York over the summer, a day of peaceful demonstrations in Manhattan on Wednesday turned into clashes between protesters and the police after night fell, leading to nearly 60 arrests.

The protests and subsequent confrontations came as the city and much of the rest of the United States remained on edge amid the presidential election’s uncertain outcome and with the Police Department prepared to quell any potential unrest.

At around 8:30 p.m. in the West Village, a phalanx of officers moved on a group of several hundred people who had gathered earlier outside the New York Public Library in midtown before marching to Washington Square Park.

The protesters had briefly shut down traffic in the neighborhood while chanting slogans like “every city, every town, burn the precincts to the ground” as they passed boutique restaurants where patrons were enjoying dinner on an unseasonably warm evening.

Employing the law enforcement tactic known as kettling, the officers pushed protesters out of the street and sought to contain them on sidewalks. At one point, as a few dozen demonstrators walked down an empty side street near the park, police on bicycles raced past them and blocked them at the next cross street.

As the protesters banged against signposts and shouted at the police to move, more officers in riot gear joined the fray. Yet another group of police, their bright blue and black helmets bobbing beneath the lights from apartments above, approached from behind.

With the protesters surrounded, dozens of officers in riot gear moved in, encircling the group and pushing protesters to the ground as they made arrests.

“Why are you in riot gear, we don’t see no riot here,” protesters who had not been hemmed in screamed.

Smoke, flashing red and blue police lights and the sound of yelling filled the streets as offi-

cers, some of them grabbing their targets in rough fashion, tried to break up the crowd. A recorded message that the gathering was unlawfully blocking traffic blared from a speaker.

At least three people were detained for setting trash-can fires, the police said; others were arrested because they had blocked subway entrances, the police said. Still others who were taken into custody had thrown garbage and eggs, the police said.

At least 58 people were arrested in connection with the protests, said a senior law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the cases publicly.

“We appreciate and value the importance of freedom of speech,” the Police Department said in a statement posted on Twitter, adding that those who were arrested had “attempted to hijack a peaceful protest.”

The scene in the West Village contrasted sharply with the near-giddy mood that had carried the protesters along earlier as they called to “defund the police,” have every vote counted and end racial injustice.

As the confrontation unfolded, Chloe Hartstein recorded the arrest of a friend while standing across from a row of officers clad in riot gear.

Hartstein said that her friend, whom she identified as a member of the activist group Street Riders NYC, had been walking on Sixth Avenue with dozens of other people when officers surrounded the group near Ninth Street and put him in the back of a police van.

“They didn’t give a reason for his arrest,” she said. “They just took him.”

A second confrontation occurred around 9:30 p.m. near Union Square Park and involved a separate group that had marched through the Manhattan streets, flanked at all times by officers on bicycles, after gathering outside the Plaza Hotel.

The crowd was milling around near the intersection of 14th Street and Third Avenue when officers rushed in. One demonstrator, Bahlya Yansane, 29, said it appeared that an officer had fallen off or dropped his bike after jousting

repeatedly with a protester who had been trying to force the officer onto the sidewalk.

Throngs of officers raced into and separated the crowd, arresting several people and wrestling some to the ground, he said.

“I’m shook up right now,” said Yansane, who noted that he had been attending street protests in the city since May. Beyond the trash fires, there was no evidence of the property damage that some business owners were clearly anticipating when they boarded up their storefronts against the kind of looting and rioting that broke out briefly in June in New York amid protests after the police killing of George Floyd.

This week, police officials, on guard for violent unrest, had used trucks and barricades to create a “frozen zone” around President Donald Trump’s showpiece property in midtown, Trump Tower, while dispatching officers to each of the more than 1,200 polling stations in the city on Tuesday.

Terence Monahan, the chief of department and the police force’s top uniformed official,

said at a news conference this week that officers were “fully prepared” to keep the city safe in the event of unrest.

“My message to anyone who wants to cause violence and destruction is don’t even try it,” he said.

Police officials sounded confident that officers would handle any unrest differently than they did over the summer, when they appeared to be caught off guard by what turned into huge protests. Thousands of officers were pulled onto patrol, many for the first time in years, with little or no training in how to handle large crowds.

Police officials said they had conducted an internal review of the department’s handling of the protests and had introduced changes that included training rank-and-file officers as well as senior leaders in disorder control.

“We hold the line, we don’t react on our own,” said Juanita Holmes, who was appointed last week as chief of patrol, a job in which she oversees the department’s largest and most visible arm. “We don’t just arbitrarily arrest people, even if they throw a bottle.”

A protester is taken into custody near Union Square in Manhattan on Wednesday as the police moved to break up a crowd.

10

November 6-8, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Tears, hugs and fresh clothes: New Jersey prisoners rejoice at release the afternoon, so he waited on the roadside for a ride.

“I’m so glad to get out — I just thank God,” said Campbell, dressed in a freshly issued pair of jeans and a white shirt.

The released prisoners were easy to renton McPherson took a long sip spot: Each carried a white mesh laundry of fresh air, borrowed a stranger’s bag filled with manila envelopes that held phone to call his mother and walked their prison health records, state ID cards across a busy highway Wednesday toward and leaflets about addiction treatment proa train station, his back turned away from a grams and re-entry services. hulking state prison for what he hoped was The uncle of a 32-year-old man who the last time. was leaving New Jersey State Prison in After five years, the 35-year-old father Trenton after more than a decade passed of two was free. around his cellphone so the half-dozen men “I tell him this is his last chance,” his waiting to take a train toward home could mother, Christine Guidas, said after wrapcreate PIN codes for the bank debit cards ping him in a hug outside a McDonald’s in that held the balance of their commissary Trenton. accounts.

“Look! I’m bigger than you,” his The men spoke of people they knew 15-year-old son — who was 10 when Mr. who had contracted the virus, and the locMcPherson was convicted of second-dekdown measures in place since March that gree robbery — teased from the back of a kept them inside small rooms with a bunk black minivan. mate for as many as 23 hours a day.

He was, by at least four inches.

Campbell said a man in his unit died McPherson was one of 2,258 inmates of COVID-19, one of at least 52 virus-relareleased on Wednesday from prisons and ted inmate fatalities in New Jersey prisons. halfway houses across New Jersey in one of He said he had worried about getting the the largest-ever single-day reductions of any virus, and in June he was quarantined for state’s prison population. seven days with a fever of 100.7.

Only prisoners within a year of comDeborah Walker said she could not sleep Tuesday night, anxious about the two-hour drive to Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton, New Jersey, and her reunion with Shameka Henry, 32, a young woman she considers her daughter.

Walker began to cry as she embraced Henry, who cried, too.

Then Henry, who was serving time for burglary and assault, changed into fresh clothes and a pair of Timberland boots that Walker had brought, and made quick work of her prison garb: She stuffed the uniform into a plastic bag and tossed it into a dumpster across the parking lot.

Opponents of the bill, which was the first legislative initiative of its kind in the country, said they were worried about releasing so many inmates at once and potentially creating a public safety risk.

Assemblyman Jon M. Bramnick, the Republican minority leader, said he oppoShakiyah McClinton runs toward her sister outside the Edna Mahan Correctional sed the bill because it included people conFacility for Women in Clinton, N.J., Nov. 4, 2020. More than 2,000 inmates were victed of certain violent crimes. freed to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in the state’s prison system.

Reed Gusciora, the mayor of Trenton,

By TRACEY TULLY, NATE SCHWEBER, KEVIN ARMSTRONG, HAHNA YOON, JONAH MARKOWITZ and MICHELLE GUSTAFSON

B

pleting sentences for crimes other than murder and sexual assault are eligible to be released up to eight months early.

Over the coming months, another 1,167 prisoners will be freed to reduce the risks of the coronavirus in crowded lockups where social distancing is next to impossible. In all, the releases will result in a roughly 35% reduction in New Jersey’s prison population since the start of the pandemic.

The initiative grew out of legislation signed into law last month and comes at a moment of intense national debate over transforming a criminal justice system that imprisons people of color in disproportionate numbers.

But politics and criminal justice policy were far from the minds of most people waiting in crowds to spot their loved ones walking out of prison gates, or off buses and trains, into their arms.

Outside Northern State Prison in Newark, a line of cars stretched along the road early on Wednesday.

Allan Campbell, a 41-year-old Passaic County man imprisoned for a parole violation, was released around 7 a.m. His mother, who had traveled to Newark from Paterson, had expected him to be let out in

where killings have more than doubled since last year, has said he was concerned that many of the people returning home early will be unable to find jobs and will return to the patterns that put them behind bars in the first place.

Prisoners in all state lockups are tested regularly for the virus, and the infection rate is now less than 1% after surging in the spring. But the legislation, which enables prisoners to earn credit for time served during the health crisis, is binding, and even those who had contracted the virus had to be released if they were eligible.

Dr. Mark Wade, the director of the Department of Health and Human Wellness in Newark, said he called the state on Tuesday to ask for enough rapid COVID-19 tests so that each of the 160 people who were expected to arrive in Newark after being released from prison could be assessed.

Not only did the state send the tests, Wade said, but it provided workers to administer them.

Anyone who did test positive would be taken to a hotel to quarantine, he said.

Volunteers from an array of social justice organizations and re-entry groups fanned out to greet people at major train stations across the state.

At the New Jersey Transit station in Somerville, two volunteers lined up sweaters, coats, masks and bottles of hand sanitizer near a large sign that read, “Welcome Home.”

“Would you like a doughnut?” Catherine Lent, a volunteer with American Reentry Initiative, asked a woman who was headed to Camden and still wearing her correctional facility ID badge clipped to her prison-issued sweatpants.

“Oh, my God!” said the woman, Ronnelle Boyce. “Yes!” Boyce, 37, tried on coats and gloves and claimed a roller suitcase to carry the new clothing.

“I just chose the wrong path before,” Boyce, who was imprisoned for aggravated assault, said before running off to catch a train. “I’m not going back. This is all a blessing!”

After the train left with a dozen newly released women on board, a denim jacket, issued by the New Jersey Department of Corrections, still hung on a railing. A halffull cup of coffee sat beneath it.

The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

11

Fox News helped fuel Trump’s rise. Now it’s reporting on a possible fall.

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM and JOHN KOBLIN

P

resident Donald Trump and Fox News have a complicated relationship. Election Day did not help.

The cable news channel that kick-started Trump’s political career was suddenly in the position of signaling its potential end. The network’s early call of Arizona on Tuesday night for Joe Biden infuriated Trump and his aides, who reached out publicly and behind the scenes to Fox News executives about the call.

The network held firm — even as two of its biggest stars, Laura Ingraham and Jeanine Pirro, attended Trump’s defiant early-morning speech in the East Room of the White House.

The election-night split screen underscored the fine line that Fox News anchors and opinion hosts have been walking. By Wednesday afternoon, Fox News was the closest of any major network to calling the presidential race for Biden — not the outcome that many fans of its pro-Trump programming may have wanted.

Fox News was also the only major cable network to carry a news conference Wednesday held by the president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who was making baseless claims of election fraud. But the channel promptly cut away to announce a major development: It projected a win in Michigan for Biden, placing him at the doorstep of the presidency, according to Fox’s projections.

And shortly after Bret Baier, the network’s chief political anchor, emphasized to viewers Wednesday that Trump’s threatened litigation could throw the race into doubt — even if Biden was projected to win 270 electoral votes — Fox News’ politics editor, Chris Stirewalt, threw cold water on some of the Trump campaign’s baseless claims.

“Lawsuits, schmawsuits,” Stirewalt said. “We haven’t seen any evidence yet that there’s anything wrong.”

Fox News has long occupied an unusual position in the Trump orbit. The network is home to some of the president’s most vociferous defenders, including Sean Hannity, Ingraham, and the hosts of “Fox & Friends.” But Trump frequently takes potshots at its news division and polling operation.

“Fox has changed a lot,” Trump said Tuesday morning on “Fox & Friends.” “Somebody said, ‘What’s the biggest difference between this and four years ago?’ I say, ‘Fox.’” The president is a vociferous viewer and constant critic, praising preferred hosts by first name at rallies (“Jeanine!” “Tucker!”) and dialing up the network’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott, to complain about coverage.

He has hired (and fired) former network personnel; belittled its hosts while also agreeing to interviews; and relied on Hannity’s political advice while bashing news anchors like Chris Wallace and Shepard Smith, who left the network for CNBC. In the wake of Tuesday’s Arizona call, a mixed view

Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum anchored Fox News’s election coverage, which drew the highest Election Day prime-time viewership totals in cable news history, according to Nielsen. of Fox News had spread to some of Trump’s allies. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican who rose to fame on the strength of Fox News guest appearances, bashed the network for what he deemed an insufficiently swift projection of a Trump win in his home state.

“For Fox to be so resistant to calling Florida and yet jumping the gun on Arizona, I just thought was inexplicable,” DeSantis told reporters in Tallahassee on Wednesday. “I don’t think that that was done without some type of motive, whether it’s ratings, whether it’s something else.”

In fact, members of Fox News’ decision desk said repeatedly that the network’s polling team — which reports to the news division and is sequestered on election night — was merely adhering to a rigorous analysis. The network’s data team, led by Arnon Mishkin, relies on a proprietary model that draws on data from The Associated Press.

Still, some Fox News personalities speculated whether Arizona would remain in Biden’s column. “There may be some tightening there,” Baier said Wednesday, summarizing arguments from the Trump campaign, while Bill Hemmer used an interactive map to conjure ways Trump could eke out a win in Pennsylvania.

But when Hemmer asked if the network might consider reversing the Arizona call, Stirewalt laughed. “Not that I see,” he said.

Wallace also offered a grim prognosis for the president. “It’s real simple math now,” he said, shortly after Fox News projected that Biden would win Wisconsin.

Pointing to Biden’s advantages in Nevada and Michigan, he said: “If he just holds on to his lead in those two states, he’s the 46th president of the United States.” (Fox News would call Michigan just over an hour later.)

Hannity did not appear on Fox News on election night, but he returned on Wednesday evening, echoing some of the president’s talking points about the integrity of the vote count. He stopped short, though, of Trump’s baseless claim of outright “fraud.”

“Do you trust what happened in this election?”

Hannity asked viewers. “Do you believe these election results are accurate? Do you believe this was a free and fair election? I have a lot of questions.”

Hannity had few specific arguments, tossing in a reference to “dead people,” and at times his monologue sounded like a regular episode of his program, not a postelection special. His lead-in, Tucker Carlson, also spoke ominously about the vote results while avoiding an outright embrace of Trump’s baseless claims about winning states that had yet to be called.

“Many Americans will never again accept the results of a presidential election,” Carlson said at one point.

Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s elder son and the executive chairman of Fox News’ parent company, was asked on a Tuesday earnings call if a prospective Biden victory might rein in the channel’s ratings success.

He pointed out that Fox News had dominated cable news rivals through “different administrations and different political cycles.”

Murdoch added: “We fully expect to be No. 1.”

12

The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

The shape(s) of a crisis

By ELLA KOEZE

S

ix months after the first coronavirus shutdowns went into effect across the United States, unemployment data is painting a picture of how quickly — or not — the economy is recovering from pandemic job losses.

Before the coronavirus spread widely, about 6 million people were unemployed in the United States. Soon after the pandemic hit, that number swelled rapidly. The unemployment rate in April was the highest it had been since the Great Depression.

But while the most recent jobs report showed continued gains, there are still about twice as many people out of work now than before the pandemic.

Looking beyond the overall number can provide a view of the dynamics shifting beneath the surface. Comparing the number of workers who were temporarily laid off to the total who were permanently let go each month, for example, reveals the potentially lasting consequences of the crisis.

Early in the pandemic, employers thought the virus’ effect on business would be short-lived and that they would be able to bring back their workers within a few months. Now, despite consistent monthly gains in jobs, the number of job losses that are permanent is increasing as the virus shows few signs of going away soon.

The official number of unemployed people tells only part of the story. The government uses an arguably narrow definition of unemployment for its statistics, counting only those who are temporarily laid off or who have looked for work in the past four weeks. People who are not wor-

king and haven’t actively sought work in the last month, even if they want jobs, are considered out of the labor force and are not counted.

The trajectory for the group of people who are out of the labor force but still want a job was very similar to that of workers who are officially classified as unemployed — swelling numbers in April and a slow decline since. But once again, looking within categories reveals more concerning trends.

Within the category of people who are not in the labor force but want a job, there is a group of just over 1 million

people who say the reason they are not currently seeking work is because of family or transportation issues — a number that has fallen only slightly since the crisis began.

With a large number of schools switching to remote learning and many child care programs shut down, some parents have had to make a choice between working a job and caring for children. Others may not want to go back to work in person

for fear of endangering someone at home who is at a high risk for complications from the virus.

Typically, the number for this group varies throughout the year, often rising when children are out of school. That was the case this year, too — though at an unusually high level. And if the number stays elevated through the fall, it will be another sign of the challenges of getting

people back to work as the virus continues to circulate.

Economists sometimes discuss recoveries in terms of line graphs that look like letters — V or W or K — depending on how quick and sustained they are. Whether they resemble letters or vaselike shapes, recoveries are often more multifaceted than a single form can fully depict.

Taken together, these indicators offer more nuanced shapes for visualizing the recovery, one that is not uniform and that is continuing to evolve. While the total number of unemployed is slowly shrinking, a growing number of people are becoming permanently unemployed. And the tally of people who aren’t looking for work because of family or transportation issues is staying much more consistent.

None of these shapes are inevitable.

While it is unclear if Congress will pass another stimulus package anytime soon, more federal help could increase the speed of the recovery. Reducing community spread of the virus — whether via a vaccine or mitigation measures — and providing more options for child care could help bring people back into the labor force.

Not all areas of the economy were hit equally hard. The construction sector was down just over 1 million jobs in April from where it had been in February and has gained back all but roughly 400,000 of those jobs. The leisure and hospitality industry, on the other hand, lost over 8 million jobs in the same time and is still close to 4 million jobs below prepandemic levels.

Jobs numbers could worsen, especially if cases rise significantly, or restaurants or other types of businesses are forced to shut their doors as the weather gets colder.

The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

13 Stocks

Wall Street draws comfort from divided Congress, eyes move to Fed U .S. stocks jumped on Thursday as bets on Republicans retaining control of the Senate eased worries of major policy changes that could hurt corporate America under a Joe Biden White House, even as the presidential election hung in balance.

With counting continuing in the battleground states still to be declared, investors were abandoning cautious positioning that many took ahead of the election, driving all of Wall Street’s main indexes up by around 2%.

Analysts predicted the fraught nature of the vote would hamper any moves by Congress to deliver more fiscal stimulus amd put pressure on the U.S. Federal Reserve to nod to pumping more funds into the financial system, supporting more buying of stocks.

“Whoever emerges as President is unlikely to have a supportive Congress willing to write the President blank fiscal cheques,” said Albert Edwards, global strategist at Societe Generale.

“That means only one thing: more Fed intervention to sustain markets.”

The Fed is set to issue a statement later, after a two-day meeting delayed for the election, and is widely expected to repeat its pledge to do whatever it can to help an economy ravaged by the coronavirus crisis.

Biden was edging closer to victory on Thursday after winning Michigan and Wisconsin, but his Democratic party appeared unlikely to win the Senate, potentially making it difficult to tighten regulation on Big Tech and raise corporate taxes.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq, packed “stay-at-home” corporate winners under this year’s lockdowns, gained 2.4% and was within striking distance of it Sept. 2 record closing high.

The Philadelphia SE semiconductor index surged 3.9% to hit its own all-time high, while technology and communication services led gainers among S&P indexes.

Buying was spread across sectors, however, and the VIX volatility index, which has risen in recent months as investors feared the vote might spark falls in shares, retreated to its lowest in three weeks.

At 12:12 p.m. EST the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.76% at 28,336.67, and the S&P 500 1.99% at 3,512.06.

The materials index also hit a record high, boosted by a 6% rise in shares of U.S.-German industrial gas producer Linde.

Qualcomm Inc surged 13% after the chipmaker forecast fiscal first-quarter revenue above estimates as it predicted solid growth in 5G smart phones sales next year.

“Out of all the choices that could have happened this election season, this seems to be the one that the market is most okay with,” said Kenny Polcari, Managing Partner at Kace Capital Advisors in Florida, also playing down any concerns over the growing list of legal challenges to the presidential vote.

“The Trump camp is going to come out and say that they are not at the moment accepting the result and that they are going to challenge it. But the market is not really concerned ... it is up by another 500 points.”

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14

November 6-8, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Norway’s Supreme Court hears rights challenge to Arctic oil drilling

Most of the licenses environmental groups are fighting were granted in the Barents Sea.

By HENRIK PRYSER LIBELL and ISABELLA KWAI

T

he Norwegian Constitution declares that all citizens have the right to a healthy environment. But Norway’s economy is built around an oil and gas industry that accounts for more than half of national exports.

Now the country’s Supreme Court is being asked to confront this apparent paradox, as it hears a challenge by environmental groups seeking to invalidate licenses for new oil exploration in the Arctic on constitutional grounds.

The case, which began on Wednesday before a bench of 16 Supreme Court judges — a procedure reserved for the most significant issues — is the first climate-change litigation to be brought under the constitution’s environmental provisions, which were passed in 2014, and experts said it was unclear how the judges would rule.

It is also among the highest-profile cases in a series of climate-change lawsuits brought by activists in Europe and elsewhere — one that Norwegian news outlets have described as “the case of the century.”

A victory for the environmental groups, said Hans Petter Graver, a law professor at the University of Oslo, could force

Norway to phase out activities like oil exploration, a cornerstone of its economy.

The litigants, who include Greenpeace and Young Friends of the Earth Norway, say they are also suing on behalf of future generations, arguing that approving oil exploration violates human rights conventions because of its contribution to increased carbon emissions.

A major cause of climate change is the burning of oil and other fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide — a powerful greenhouse gas — into the atmosphere, where it acts like a blanket, trapping the sun’s heat and driving global warming.

The lawsuit “is our generation’s best shot to make sure a significant amount of carbon dioxide stays buried under the ground and never gets burned,” said Andreas Randoy, deputy head of Young Friends of the Earth Norway, adding that a victory would mean “the beginning of the end of the oil age.”

“The government knows that oil and gas contributes to creating a climate crisis,” said Frode Pleym, leader of Greenpeace Norway. “Still, it is giving license to explore for oil.”

The Norwegian government has said that it fulfilled its constitutional duty by compensating for negative effects on the environment in other areas, and that an expansive interpretation of the constitution’s environmental provisions would “change the relationship between state powers in a fundamental manner,” and potentially erode democracy.

Two lower courts have declined to invalidate the exploration well licenses issued by the government, though one ruled that environmental damage could include the effect of climate change emissions domestically.

Companies were awarded licenses in 2016 to conduct exploratory drilling in the South and Southeast Barents Sea, an area on the Norwegian continental shelf spanning about 77 acres where oil and gas fields have recently been built.

Parliament approved opening the area for exploration three years earlier.

The environmental groups argue that the oil-exploration plans were not fully researched before being approved.

They have also pointed to a previously unknown expert report throwing doubt on the economic benefit of drilling in the Barents Sea, which was commissioned by the government in

2013 but not passed onto the Parliament before its vote.

The case builds on an emerging wave of climate change litigation from environmentalists in Europe and elsewhere.

Last year, the Netherlands became the one of the first nations required by its courts to act over climate change: Its Supreme Court ordered the government to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25% from 1990 levels by the end of 2020.

But the case is especially pertinent in Norway because of its position on the forefront of the international race for oil in the Arctic, even as it has implemented ambitious emission reductions goals.

Across the Norwegian continental shelf, there are about 89 petroleum fields, according to the government. Only two of them are in the Barents Sea, a lucrative area that the government has increasingly opened for exploration in recent years, estimating it holds half of the shelf’s undiscovered resources, but that the World Wildlife Fund has called “one of Europe’s last large, clean and relatively undisturbed marine ecosystems.”

While the lawsuit specifically concerns the licenses approved for exploration in 2016, the government has continued requesting such licenses — saying it would open more of the Barents Sea for oil and gas exploration in June.

“The Arctic is in crisis largely because of existing emissions,” said Gail Whiteman, the founder of Arctic Basecamp in Davos. “Any new drilling goes again a science-based approach to climate change and is at grave odds with Norway’s image as a leading green economy.”

The use of human rights in climate change litigation was a “recent phenomenon” pushed forward by groups who felt that they had run out of other options to force action, said Ole W. Pedersen, a professor of environmental and energy law at Newcastle Law School in England. “It’s a last resort.”

The crux of the case would be how much discretion the courts would allow the government, said Esmeralda Colombo, a fellow at the Center on Climate and Energy Transformation at the University of Bergen. In general, Norway’s Supreme Court has leaned in favor of environmental protection, she said, adding that claimants won a small victory in the last ruling when judges ordered the government to share in paying the costs of the case.

The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

15

A new front opens in the Russia-Ukraine conflict: Borscht

By MARIA VARENIKOVA and ANDREW E. KRAMER

T

he roadside cafe is called Borscht, advertised with a gigantic beetroot red sign, leaving little doubt what people around here like to eat.

The fields are planted with beets. The town is named Borshchiv, which means “belonging to borscht.” It is just one of a dozen cities and villages in Ukraine named for borscht.

Given this clear commitment to borscht, Ukrainians wonder why the soup is commonly assumed to be Russian, a national dish of their archenemy.

Now a Ukrainian chef supported by the Ministry of Culture and Parliament is trying to set the record straight with an application to the United Nations’ cultural body, UNESCO, to list borscht as an intangible part of Ukraine’s cultural heritage.

“They can think whatever they like, but borscht is a Ukrainian soup,” said Olha Habro, a grandmother and wellpracticed maker of borscht in Borshchiv.

Like the food fight between the Arabs and Israelis over who owns hummus, the dispute sadly divides two neighboring cultures over traditions that might have united them. Borscht is enjoyed in both Ukraine and Russia.

This conflict, though, comes with a twist. Even some Russian culinary historians and authoritative Soviet-era reference books on food place the origin of borscht in Ukraine. But after the Soviet Union broke up, Russia seemed to stake more of its own claim to the soup.

A year ago, the Russian government posted in English on its Twitter account a recipe proclaiming that “borscht is one of Russia’s most famous and beloved dishes.”

For the chef, Ievgen Klopotenko, it was the last straw. He had already been upset, he said, when friends told him that stores and restaurants in Europe and the United States market borscht as a Russian soup.

“A lot of things were taken away from Ukraine, but they will not take our borscht,” he said. “I understood we have to defend what is ours.”

He went to battle, creating a nongovernmental organization to assert Ukraine’s sovereignty over borscht. The group spent months painstakingly gathering evidence that the dish originated in Ukraine and planned cultural events celebrating it, including taking a giant caldron around the country to cook borscht at festivals.

Ukraine plans to submit the UNESCO application in March. Parliament has passed a resolution in support.

To win recognition from the U.N. cultural body, the Ukrainians do not have to show that borscht is exclusive to their country, only that it is tightly entwined with their culture in such things as wedding and funeral traditions. And they must show that the soup is consumed widely. Town names also count.

The borscht dispute highlights deeper grievances between Ukraine and Russia.

Ukrainians see the Russian government, in addition to pursuing a military intervention in their country, as trying to appropriate the entire cultural heritage of the eastern Slavic

world for Moscow, on such issues as leadership in the Orthodox Church and historical claims to Crimea.

In Western countries, borscht came to be viewed as Russian in part because of the tendency for many decades to conflate Russia, which was only one of the Soviet republics, with all things Soviet.

At home, many Soviet cookbooks identified borscht as Ukrainian, including an authoritative study of ethnic cooking published in 1978, “National Cuisines of Our People,” which listed six recipes, all from regions of Ukraine.

Even the Soviet classic cookbook, “The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food,” first published in 1939 under Josef Stalin, does not describe borscht as Russian. It has only one recipe for the soup indicating a national origin, and that is for “Ukrainian borscht.” The others are specialized versions with mushrooms or low in fat, of unspecified origin.

To be fair, Russia also has a dozen villages and towns named for borscht, each with its own recipe, and the soup is on the menu at any restaurant serving Russian cuisine. Nobody disputes that Russians today eat plenty of borscht.

But it is a relatively modern addition to the Russian menu, said Olga Syutkina, a Russian culinary historian and author of “The True History of Russian Cuisine.”

It spread widely in central Russia starting in the late 18th century, she said, in part because the soup was easily made in

large batches and served by the tsarist military. Later, it became a staple in cafeterias in Soviet factories.

“The association with the Soviet epoch creates the illusion that borscht is an inalienable part of the Russian menu,” Syutkina said.

Adding to the confusion, Russians seeking to lay claim to borscht’s origins sometimes cite an entirely different soup that was made in medieval times in Russia from wild hogweed grass and a light beer made from fermented bread. It, too, was called borscht and is mentioned in a 16th-century Moscow book of advice about home life, “Homemaker.”

In rural Ukraine, gardens yield all the ingredients. For the winter, Ukrainians preserve sour sorrel leaves in canning jars as a base for green borscht, a version without beets. For funeral wakes, vegetarian borscht is on the menu.

More typically, it is a meaty broth, sometimes so rich a quarter-inch or so of glistening, liquid fat shimmers on the surface.

Last month Russia seemed to back down — a rarity these days — on any claim of a direct sphere of influence over the soup.

“Borscht is a national food of many countries, including Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Moldova and Lithuania,” the Russian Embassy in Washington posted on Twitter. “Choose your favorite.”

Olha Habro, 76, serves borscht in Borshchiv, Ukraine, Oct. 22, 2020. A Ukrainian chef supported by the Ministry of Culture and Parliament is trying to set the record straight with an application to the United Nation’s cultural body, UNESCO, to list borscht as an intangible part of Ukraine’s cultural heritage.

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November 6-8, 2020

Having made peace abroad, Ethiopia’s leader goes to war at home

Police officers in Mekelle, a city in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, in February.

By DECLAN WALSH and SIMON MARKS

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arely a year ago Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia was globally acclaimed as a peacemaker, a youthful African leader awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after just 18 months in power for introducing democratic reforms after decades of repression and for signing a peace deal with neighboring Eritrea.

On Wednesday Abiy presented a radically different face when he announced a sweeping military operation against one of his own regions. He issued a bellicose declaration that sent waves of alarm across the region and stoked fears that Ethiopia — Africa’s second-most populous country — was suddenly sliding toward a destructive civil war.

Abiy made his move against the region, Tigray, early Wednesday as the world’s attention was focused on vote counting in the U.S. presidential election. Soon after Tigray’s internet and phone links went down, Abiy announced that he was deploying the military and imposing a state of emergency in the region, effectively isolating it from the rest of Ethiopia.

Abiy said his hand had been forced by Tigrayan leaders who brazenly defied his authority for months, accusing them of “crossing the last red line.” He said he had ordered the Ethiopian army “to carry out their mission to save the country and the region.”

But analysts and diplomats warned that Abiy’s attempt to consolidate his power constituted a high-stakes gamble that, if it goes wrong, risks plunging Ethiopia — an emerging regional powerhouse and the fulcrum of the Horn of Africa — into a period of

uncertainty and violent tumult with potentially catastrophic outcomes “Abiy has just made the worst strategic blunder of his career,” Rashid Abdi, a Horn of Africa analyst based in Kenya, said on Twitter. A war in Tigray, a region with tens of thousands of men under arms and a long history of battle against Eritrea, could have “devastating consequences across the entire subregion,” he added.

Several other analysts warned that Ethiopia risked being sundered like Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and the concern spread to the United Nations, which expressed “alarm” and pleaded for an immediate de-escalation. The U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia made a similar plea.

Abiy announced the operation on Facebook just before 2 a.m. Wednesday, an hour after internet and phone links to the region went down, according to NetBlocks, an organization that tracks internet services.

Abiy accused the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which governs the region, of orchestrating a militia assault a few hours earlier on a major Ethiopian army base, with the goal of seizing artillery and other weapons.

Hours later, Abiy’s spokesperson confirmed that the army had started military operations in Tigray, where the government quickly declared a six-month state of emergency that gave it sweeping powers to suspend political and civil rights.

For the rest of the day, it was hard to know what was going on in Tigray, which borders Eritrea and accounts for about 6% of Ethiopia’s estimated 110 million people.

Tigray’s regional authorities closed the region’s airspace and restricted road movements, local television reported. They also called on Ethiopian army generals and troops “to repudiate against dictatorship” — an apparent call for a mutiny against Abiy.

Reports emerged of heavy fighting. A Western official reported exchanges of heavy gunfire at three locations in Tigray, leading to dozens of casualties on both sides.

The official, whose account was confirmed Wednesday night by Abiy in televised remarks, spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose militarily sensitive information.

In the capital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s deputy foreign minister, Redwan Hussein, told reporters that the military operation was intended to target Tigray’s political leaders, not its citizens.

“The conflict is with a very small group with narrow vested interests which is hellbent on destabilizing the national order,” Redwan said.

Despite Abiy’s claims that he responded to a surprise attack on the army base, analysts said there had been signs for days of an operation against Tigray, including unusual troop movements and disputes over budget transfers and military appointments inside the region.

The tensions escalated from September when Tigray openly defied Abiy by holding elections that had been canceled in the rest of Ethiopia because of the coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday the region’s president, Debretsion Gebremichael, warned that Abiy was planning an attack to punish Tigray for its defiance.

The confrontation is also tied to wider regional rivalries and historical currents.

A senior Western official, who spoke anonymously in deference to diplomatic sensitivities, said Abiy was believed to have coordinated his assault on Tigray with Isaias Afwerki, the autocratic leader of Eritrea and an implacable enemy of Ethiopia for several decades until he signed the 2018 peace deal with Abiy.

Now Abiy and Afwerki have a shared hostility toward Tigray, albeit for different reasons, analysts said.

Afwerki’s Eritrean soldiers fought a bitter war against soldiers from Tigray in the late 1990s as part of Eritrea’s border conflict with Ethiopia. And for Abiy, Tigray represents a security threat and an obstinate political foe.

The Tigray People’s Liberation Front dominated Ethiopia for almost three decades after it ousted the country’s longtime dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam, in 1991. The group was the main force behind Meles Zenawi, who came from Tigray and ruled Ethiopia from 1991 until his death in 2012.

Although Tigray accounts for just about 6% of Ethiopia’s estimated 110 million people, it acquired outsize political clout and prosperity. Even now, Tigray boasts some of Ethiopia’s best roads and telecommunications, not to mention well-equipped security forces.

But the party’s influence waned sharply after Abiy came to power in 2018, and its leaders’ complaints about being sidelined snowballed into a powerful grievance.

Last year, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front split from Abiy’s governing coalition. In June, the speaker of the upper house of Parliament, who is from Tigray, resigned in protest when the federal government postponed elections, citing the pandemic.

The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

17

Kosovo president resigns to face war crimes case in the Netherlands

By ISABELLA KWAI

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he president of Kosovo, a guerrilla leader during Kosovo’s fight for independence against Serbia, resigned on Thursday to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity at a special international court in the Netherlands.

President Hashim Thaci said at a news conference in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, that

he was stepping down to protect the office of the presidency.

Thaci, the former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, was indicted in June by the special court in The Hague on 10 counts of war crimes. Prosecutors accused him and other former independence fighters of being “criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders.”

He said earlier this year that he would resign as president if the charges were con-

firmed. At his news conference Thursday, he said that this had now happened.

The court in The Hague had no immediate comment but said it would provide more information later Thursday.

More than 13,000 people died in the Kosovo War, among them more than 2,000 Serbs, Roma and Kosovar Albanians killed in NATO bombing or by fighters like the Kosovo Liberation Army, according to figures from the

Humanitarian Law Center.

The charges against the president were brought after Kosovo’s Parliament set up the special court in the Netherlands in 2015 to determine whether guerrilla fighters had committed war crimes.

Though Kosovo won its sovereignty in 1999, Serbia has refused to recognize Kosovo’s independence and negotiations for a peace deal have flailed.

North Korea tells its people to stop smoking. Can Kim Jong Un quit, too?

By CHOE SANG-HUN

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orth Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament adopted a law this week introducing smoking bans in public places, such as theaters, schools and hospitals. But the country’s latest anti-smoking campaign, which includes penalties for violators, faces a challenge: North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, is a regular smoker.

For years, North Korea has urged its people to quit smoking, posting no-smoking signs on public buildings and starting a national anti-smoking website. And for years, Kim has continued to puff away, despite a family history of smoking-related illnesses.

The new “tobacco-prohibition law,” unanimously adopted by the Supreme People’s Assembly on Wednesday, “stipulates the rules which all the institutions, organizations and citizens must follow in protecting the lives and health of the people and providing more cultured and hygienic living environments,” said the North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Thursday.

According to South Korean and U.S. officials who have met Kim, no one in the country, except for perhaps his wife, Ri Sol-ju, can tell him to quit. The totalitarian “Supreme Leader” of the isolated nation is considered faultless and above the law. People are taught to treat him as godlike.

On North Korean state media, Kim can often be seen taking a drag of his cigarette while inspecting factories, talking with missile engineers, riding the subway and even visiting schools and children’s hospitals.

In 2017, North Korea’s state-run Central TV carried footage of Kim strolling yards away from a liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile.

He appeared to be casually holding a cigarette,

leading some commentators to wonder whether much higher, as men take to smoking in their book “Rage,” when the American nuclear envoy, teens as a source of entertainment in a place Andy Kim, met Kim in 2018 in Pyongyang, he Kim’s habit could cause a nuclear disaster.

Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, is still with few alternatives. North Korea claims that saw the North Korean leader light up and told him it was bad for his health. Kim’s top aide, widely revered among North Koreans as the no women smoke.

A common joke among North Korean Kim Yong Chol, and his sister, Kim Yo Jong, founder of their country. When he was alive, he often appeared in public holding a cigarette. men, according to defectors, is that it is pos- both froze. No one in North Korea ever spoke Since taking power in 2011, Kim has tried sible to go “one day without eating, but no days to their leader that way, except for one person. to resemble his grandfather in his looks, wear- without smoking.” Packs of cigarettes are used According to Woodward, quoting Andy Kim, Ri acknowledged that was right: “I’ve told my ing short hair and a Mao suit. Outside analysts to bribe North Korean officials, they say.

The lifelong smoker, Kim Jong Il, stopped husband about the dangers of smoking,” she said. have speculated that Kim also gained weight And in July, two months after North Korea to copy his grandfather’s build, as part of a smoking after a stroke, but was said to have resumed before he died, according to South announced that it was expanding its no-smoking propaganda strategy. zone policies, Central TV showed Kim inspectThe Kim rulers in North Korea have had Korean officials.

His son, too, has found it hard to kick ing a new general hospital under construction a history of cardiovascular diseases that South in Pyongyang.

Korean intelligence officials have attributed the habit.

He was smoking.

According to Bob Woodward’s recent to heavy smoking, drinking and obesity. Kim Il Sung died in 1994 of heart failure. His son and successor, Kim Jong Il, suffered a stroke in 2008 and died of cardiac arrest in 2011. Kim Jong Un himself has been plagued by rumors of poor health, including diabetes, cardiovascular trouble and ankle pains caused by his weight.

Kim Jong Un was already drinking and smoking when he was in his teens, according to a Japanese sushi chef, Kenji Fujimoto, who served the Kim family in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, and later recounted his experiences in memoirs and interviews.

Kim Jong Il, introduced the first antismoking campaign in North Korea. He famously said, “the three greatest fools of the 21st century are those who can’t use the computer, can’t sing and can’t quit smoking.”

“The cigarette is like a gun pointed at your heart!” said one of the anti-smoking slogans North Korea adopted under Kim Jong Il. More than 46% of adult men in North Korea were smokers in 2017, according to the Outside a supermarket in central Pyongyang, North Korea, in 2018. More than World Health Organization. But defectors from 46 percent of adult men in North Korea were smokers in 2017, according to the the country said that the percentage could be World Health Organization.

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November 6-8, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

We waited in vain for a repudiation that never came

By JAMELLE BOUIE

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he liberal hope for the 2020 presidential election was a decisive repudiation of Donald Trump and the Republican Party. This is no longer on the table. A Joe Biden win, if it happens, will be as narrow an Electoral College win as Trump’s was in 2016. Biden won the national popular vote — which matters for popular legitimacy, even if it doesn’t weigh on the outcome — but Trump outperformed his job approval, winning more total votes than any Republican presidential nominee in history.

In spite of everything, the president expanded his support, most likely saving the Republican Senate majority in the process. A Trump loss is still possible — perhaps even probable, since Biden holds a lead in states totaling 270 electoral votes — but there’s every reason to think Trumpism will survive as a viable strategy for winning national elections.

And what is Trumpism? It is a performance, or rather, a series of performances.

It is a performance of nationalism, one that triangulates between open chauvinism in favor of the dominant ethnic group and narrow appeals to

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Former US Vice President Joe Biden and US President Donald Trump. inclusion, with the promise of material gain for anyone who joins his coalition. It is a performance, on the same score, of success, projecting an image of wealth and power and urging the public to embrace it as its own — a version of “The Apprentice” in which the contestants are the American people. It is also the performance of an aggressive and aggrieved masculinity centered on the bullying and domination of others.

Even without policy to match the populist persona — the Trump administration has been as generous to the wealthy and connected as it has been stingy with the poor and the working class — Trumpism appeals to tens of millions of voters, from the large majority of white Americans to many people in traditionally Democratic constituencies.

That, if anything, is the surprise of this election.

Although it is still too early to make any definitive statement about the shape of the electorate (broad white support for Trump notwithstanding), it is clear that the president made modest inroads with Black and Hispanic voters, especially men. This is most apparent in the states of Florida, Georgia and Texas, where Trump outperformed his 2016 totals in several areas where Hispanic voters make up a majority.

We don’t yet know why Trump made those gains — although the aforementioned performances, which figured prominently in his outreach to those groups, may have something to do with it — but this shift is a useful reminder that politics does not move along a linear path. For all of our data, the political world is still a fundamentally unpredictable place.

A decade ago, for example, Democrats believed that demographic change — the shift from a “majority white” country to a “majority minority” one — would give the party an almost unbreakable lock on national politics; that a growing population of Asian and Hispanic Americans would inevitably redound to liberal benefit. At the time, I wrote that this was unlikely, that while it was a seductive theory, there was not much evidence to support the vision of an enduring Democratic majority. Racial and ethnic identity, I argued, were too fluid, and there was no guarantee that future members of those groups would think of themselves as “minorities” in the way that has been historically true of Black Americans. Changing conditions — greater assimilation and upward mobility — could make them as volatile in partisan politics as European ethnic groups were in the 20th century.

If the Hispanic shift is as large as it appears to be, then we are living in that reality. What I didn’t expect is that it would come heralded by a Republican like Trump. But this only speaks to the diversity, ideological and otherwise, of the Hispanic electorate, which is as varied in racial background and national origin as most other groups of Americans. To extend an earlier analogy, it is probably as useful to speak of “Hispanics” in 2020 as it was to speak of “Europeans” in 1950. The category is just too broad, obscuring (in electoral politics, at least) far more than it illuminates.

Again, it is too early to say that there’s been a permanent realignment, although some trends — like the rising partisan significance of gender and education — are clear. It’s true, though, that the possibilities for change and transformation are wide open. Perhaps a future Republican, one with the same or similar fame and charisma, will build a real majority from the foundation laid over the last four years. Perhaps a future Democrat will turn the party’s consistent voting majority into a greater share of electoral votes and congressional seats. Perhaps we see neither and are in for another decade of fierce partisan competition between two equal and evenly-matched sides.

The 2020 election, in other words, will have an outcome. But it won’t be conclusive. It will be an uncertain result for an uncertain time in American life. Political trench warfare will continue. Total victory, whether in politics or anywhere else, is not on the immediate horizon. The future remains unwritten and is perhaps even more unknowable than before.

The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

19

Comerciantes y Gobierno anuncian más alternativas para unas ventas navideñas seguras Por THE STAR

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a secretaria del Departamento de Asuntos del Consumidor (DACO), Carmen Salgado, y el presidente de la Asociación de Comercio Al Detal (ACDET), Iván Báez, firmaron el jueves, un memorando de entendimiento para el manejo efectivo, coordinado y seguro de las Ventas del Madrugador y de la época navideña 2020, tomando nuevos factores en consideración debido a la pandemia del COVID-19.

“La realidad en la Isla ha cambiado drásticamente a causa de la pandemia. El comercio ha sido seriamente afectado, sin embargo hemos flexibilizado y ajustado la dinámica de las tradicionales ventas del madrugador para añadir más opciones de ventas especiales a través del internet, así como horarios y días extendidos durante el mes de noviembre para evitar la aglomeración de personas en las tiendas en un solo día. Nos complace que hayamos firmado nuevamente el acuerdo de colaboración con el DACO, teniendo como prioridad la salud y seguridad de consumidores y empleados”, expresó Iván Báez, presidente de ACDET en comunicación escrita.

“El acuerdo que hemos formalizado por los pasados seis (6) años, ha sido muy exitoso y en esta ocasión lo ampliamos, buscando brindar al consumidor

una experiencia de compras más segura, con opciones de menor contacto, para que el cliente quede satisfecho con su experiencia de compras durante la ya conocida “Venta del Madrugador”.

En este mes de noviembre muchos de los comercios ofrecerán varios eventos de ventas especiales tanto “online” como presenciales, además de la tradicional venta después del Día de Acción de Gracias.

Cada comercio anunciará sus eventos especiales y deberá orientar a los clientes de las medidas cautelares en cumplimiento con la Orden Ejecutiva vigente para evitar los contagios”, agregó.

El equipo del DACO, liderado por su secretaria, Carmen Salgado, se ha reunido con los principales comercios para velar por los derechos del consumidor, garantizar la seguridad a los consumidores y apoyar a los comercios, de modo que se cumpla con las expectativas de servicio y disponibilidad de mercancía, según los reglamentos vigentes.

“Exhortamos a los consumidores a que se mantengan informados de las alternativas que los comercios harán disponible, para que puedan aprovechar las tan esperadas ventas especiales de la época navideña. En el DACO hemos estado trabajando de cerca con los comercios, y orientando a nuestros inspectores para asegurarnos de que se provea una experiencia de ventas segura, con distanciamiento y justa para los ciudadanos, a la vez que apoyamos a que la economía se recupere de esta gran crisis. Como todos los años, los inspectores del DACO estarán en la calle velando por el cumplimiento de nuestra reglamentación y los asuntos que hemos acordado en este memorando de entendimiento con ACDET”, expresó Salgado.

“El objetivo central es lograr que los ciudadanos disfruten de la época festiva y de las esperadas ventas, a la vez que evitamos los contagios y estimulamos el cumplimiento por parte de los comerciantes con nuestra reglamentación”, añadió la secretaria.

Industriales llevarán a cabo foro virtual de la industria de salud Por THE STAR

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a Asociación de Industriales de Puerto Rico (AIPR) llevará a cabo un Foro Virtual donde tocaremos temas críticos del relacionados al cuidado de la salud especialmente en estos tiempos de pandemia.

Entre los temas a cubrir habrá un panel de expertos hablando de la importancia de atraer manufactura de regreso a suelo americano para asegurar la cadena de suplido de productos esenciales para atender la emergencia creada por la pandemia del COVID-19. Luego del éxito del evento celebrado el año pasado estamos seguros de que la oferta educativa de este foro será de gran impacto para los participantes y la AIPR, anunció Carlos M. Rodríguez, presidente AIPR. El Comité de Salud de la AIPR celebrará el Foro de la Industria de Salud o “Health Industry Forum” el viernes 13 de noviembre de 8:30 de la mañana a 1:30 de la tarde a través de una plataforma especial de la AIPR. Oradores internacionales de alto calibre, líderes de la industria regulada y de empresas de cuidado de salud tanto de la isla como de Estados Unidos estarán a cargo de presentar los temas de este importante evento.

La presidenta del Comité de Salud de la AIPR Rosa Hernández Toledo destacó que Puerto Rico está enfrentando grandes cambios y transformaciones que requieren todo nuestro enfoque y conocimiento para llevar a cabo las iniciativas que sean necesarias para adaptarnos

a los nuevos tiempos, especialmente aquellas que impactan la salud pública y el desarrollo económico de nuestro país. A esos efectos hemos desarrollado una gran agenda global que responde a los retos que tenemos en estos momentos, incluyendo la pandemia del Covid y la oportunidad de atraer nuevamente la manufactura farmacéutica a Puerto Rico.

Este evento provee una mirada amplia acerca de nuevas corrientes que pudieran contribuir al continuo esfuerzo de robustecer el segmento de la salud de Puerto Rico y una oportunidad única para que nuestros participantes puedan exponerse a innovadores conocimientos a nivel global.

Una de las presentaciones de gran impacto que tendremos en la actividad es un panel con oradores de Europa, Estados Unidos y Centro América donde contaremos con la participación de la Dra. Antonia Coello, destacada médico puertorriqueña y administradora de salud pública, el Dr. Juan Alonso Echanove, experto en epidemiología de Europa, y Teresa Tono Ramírez, Directora de Investigación de la Organización para la Excelencia de Salud de Colombia quienes discutirán la perspectiva global internacional del COVID 19.

Como parte de la agenda del foro Andrew McKenchnie, cabildero de la empresa Peck Madigan Jones presentará la perspectiva federal de los programas de cuidado de salud y el tema de la resiliencia entre los líderes de organizaciones en momentos críticos será discutido

por Stephen Shedletzky de Simon Sinek, Inc. Por otro lado, tendremos un panel que discutirá la importancia de Puerto Rico como un “Hub” de Manufactura en el área de las ciencias destacando los sectores farmacéuticos y de dispositivos médicos. Otra de las presentaciones estará a cargo de Maria Fernanda Levis, CEO de Impactivo Consulting con el tema de: Innovación con Telemedicina y el Acceso de Pacientes.

Como cierre contaremos con una presentación que logró ovación de pie en la actividad del año pasado Nuevamente tendremos grupos ganadores de la competencia de Enactus: presentando una perspectiva refrescante del cuidado público de salud, indicó Orlando González, líder del Foro de Salud de la AIPR. Para información y reservaciones favor de comunicarse al (787) 638-0034 o acceda a https://bit. ly/34UeDxv

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November 6-8, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Dispute over Pissarro painting looted by Nazis is back in court

By SARAH BAHR

W

hen Léone Meyer discovered in 2012 that a painting Nazi looters had stolen from her father was in the collection of an American museum, her first instinct was to demand its return.

But Meyer, who lives in Paris, and the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma struck an agreement in 2016: The 1886 painting, “La Bergère Rentrant des Moutons,” or “Shepherdess Bringing In Sheep,” by Camille Pissarro, would be displayed at a museum in France for five years, then would rotate every three years between the university and one or more French institutions of Meyer’s choosing. Meyer, who is 80, also agreed that, during her lifetime or in her will, she would give the painting to an art institution in France.

In 2018, Meyer, a Holocaust survivor who owns the painting, tried to donate it to the Musée d’Orsay, where it has been on display since 2017, for its permanent collection.

But the museum refused, telling Meyer it did not want to assume the cost and risk of transporting the painting to America every three years, which would have been required under the terms of the settlement. (Meyer had insured the painting while it was on temporary display.) Ron Soffer, a lawyer for Meyer, said that any other French institution she offered it to would presumably do the same.

Meyer is now seeking to prevent it from being dis-

Camille Pissarro’s “La Bergère Rentrant des Moutons,” or “Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep,” is back in the news.

The painting, looted by Nazis in World War II, belongs to a woman in France who shares it with an American museum, but is seeking to change the arrangement. played at the University of Oklahoma, where it is scheduled to return in July. She has also filed a lawsuit in France seeking permanent ownership without any rotation.

But the university disagrees that the French museum’s refusal to accept the work — and the possibility that the painting could remain in America indefinitely — is grounds for voiding the original deal.

Meyer “now inexplicably seeks to break” a settlement that “was heralded as a first-of-its-kind U.S.-France interna-

tional art sharing agreement,” the university’s president, Joseph Harroz Jr., and the University of Oklahoma Foundation president and chief executive, Guy Patton, said in a statement last Thursday.

The university has acknowledged that the painting was stolen by the Nazis from Meyer’s father, but said in the previous court proceedings that it did not want to return the work because of procedural rules and the statute of limitations.

It also produced evidence that the previous owners, the Weitzenhoffer family, who bequeathed it to the university in 2000, having bought it at a New York gallery, had acted in good faith.

But Meyer’s lawyer said a ruling by France’s highest court in July determined that the possessors of stolen art must return the work to the rightful owner free of charge, regardless of how they came to possess it.

Soffer said Meyer had offered a compromise of a partner exhibition between the university and the Musée d’Orsay, in which the French museum would loan the university other work, such as a painting by Renoir. But the university’s position is that the deal is done.

“For all the good faith that the OU Foundation and the University of Oklahoma have extended to Meyer, it is disappointing that she is actively working to renege on the agreement,” the statement said. “We are ready to challenge this unwarranted threat in U.S. and French courts.”

The case is scheduled to be heard by a French court in January.

‘Jeopardy!’ greats who battled for top title get a new game show

By JULIA JACOBS

J

ust when television executives seemed to have exhausted all options for getting the three most famous “Jeopardy!” contestants back on television, they managed to find another way.

This time, it’s through a different quiz show entirely, one that doesn’t make its contestants turn their answers into questions.

The three “Jeopardy!” stars who in January battled for the title of “Greatest of All Time” — Ken Jennings, James Holzhauer and Brad Rutter — will take turns appearing on an ABC revival of “The Chase,” a new version of a quiz show that airs in Britain, the network announced Monday.

An earlier American version of the quiz show aired on Game Show Network from 2013-15, on which Holzhauer faced off as a contestant against Mark Labbett — known as “the beast” — in 2014. He performed so well that he was asked to audition to be a colleague of Labbett’s, The Atlantic reported last year. (He auditioned but was not asked to be on the show, Holzhauer said in an email.)

The new show, which does not yet have a premiere date, will be hosted by Sara Haines, a co-host of ABC’s “The View.”

“The Chase” pits three competitors against a trivia powerhouse known as the Chaser — a role that will be filled

by Jennings, Holzhauer and Rutter on a rotating basis. The Chaser is tasked with getting in the contestants’ way as they try to make money while answering up to 166 quiz questions during an hourlong episode.

During one portion of the game, contestants and the Chaser are asked the same multiple-choice questions, racing toward the end of a giant game board with each correct answer. The Chaser, who starts a few positions behind, aims to catch up to the contestants, serving as a sort of know-it-all antagonist (a role all three men should be used to playing).

The new show is aimed to build on the ratings success ABC enjoyed earlier this year when the three men battled it out for the ultimate “Jeopardy!” title. Jennings, who had captivated “Jeopardy!” fans with a 74-game winning streak in 2004, came out on top, adding $1 million to the $3.4 million that he had already made on the show. Jennings is now a consulting producer on

“Jeopardy!,” which started its 37th season in September.

Holzhauer’s astounding 32-game streak in 2019, during which he became known for betting big and winning eye-popping single-game amounts, is what set the stage for a faceoff among him, Jennings and Rutter.

Rutter was on the show when contestants weren’t permitted to win more than five consecutive games, preventing him from winning more during the regular season. But he has won more money on the show than Jennings if you include all of the winnings he amassed during special tournaments. (Rutter did not win a match during the “GOAT” tournament, and Holzhauer often rubbed it in with snarky comments about his performance on social media.)

Still, the contestants celebrated the new deal Monday, with Jennings tweeting, “The boys are back,” and Holzhauer joking about the dearth of new movies to catch up on from the slow pandemic months.

The first three episodes of the “Greatest of All Time” tournament raked in an average of 14.9 million viewers each, according to Nielsen data. The tournament aired for a second time in May.

The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

21

A conductor becomes a virtual-concert jet-setter

By STEVE SMITH

O

n a recent afternoon at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center here, a scaled-down contingent of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra played its first concert program since March.

The premiere of “i am a white person who _____ Black people,” a brooding contemplation for strings and percussion by Daniel Bernard Roumain, gave way to the serene Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, a buoyant Mozart divertimento and “Delights & Dances,” a frolicsome modern concerto grosso by Michael Abels, showcasing four young Black and Latino string players.

An audience almost entirely restricted to symphony employees, stagehands, camera operators and Roumain responded with enthusiastic applause, though the sound barely registered in an almost empty theater.

But the sheer joy the musicians felt in performing together again was palpable, with Xian Zhang, the orchestra’s music director since 2016, molding the program’s disparate moods from the podium with precision and oversize energy.

“I’m glad you came out on Thursday, because on Monday, it didn’t sound like that,” Zhang, 47, confided a few days later, speaking in a video call from her home in Short Hills, New Jersey. “It was nobody’s fault, just social distancing. It felt much draggier, much heavier.”

At a rehearsal Monday, the ensemble’s first real-world gathering since March, she explained, it took some time for the players to grow accustomed to sitting at an unusual distance from one another. By Thursday, happily, the orchestra’s sheen had been restored.

Thursday’s performance, along with another program Friday, were being recorded as the initial offerings in a six-concert virtual orchestral season that begins Nov. 19, part of a broader online initiative the New Jersey Symphony is pursuing in lieu of in-person engagements for as long as coronavirus prohibitions remain in place. Such broadcasts have helped orchestras maintain ties to their audiences during a season rife with restrictions and threatened livelihoods.

Like everyone in the classical music world, Zhang has had to contend with postponed bookings, including high-profile engagements with the Santa Fe Opera and

Xian Zhang, the New Jersey Symphony’s music director, in Summit, N.J., Oct. 31, 2020. Streamed concerts with the Detroit Symphony are in line with Zhang’s efforts to expand the orchestral repertory. the Chicago and Cincinnati symphonies.

But lately, through a combination of her rising profile and serendipities of location and timing, she has become something of a virtual-concert jet-setter. In late September, Zhang conducted the Seattle Symphony in a livestream from an empty Benaroya Hall. Just over a week later, she made her debut with the Houston Symphony in front of 200 or so in Jones Hall and a digital audience.

Flying has not been onerous, Zhang said, but travel restrictions have necessitated precise calculation. Because Texas was on an advisory list, Zhang conducted the last concert of her Houston engagement on a Sunday afternoon, and then flew out that night — “just in time to begin my 14-day self-quarantine, so that I could start rehearsing with New Jersey,” she said. “Things like that, you really have to plan.”

This week, Zhang will undertake an especially fortuitous assignment with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, filling in at short notice for a conductor who was prevented from traveling. One concert there, on Thurs-

day, features a new orchestral arrangement of “Primal Message,” originally a string quintet by the violist and composer Nokuthula Ngwenyama. Friday’s program includes the world premiere of “For Marcos Balter,” a piece for violin and orchestra by Tyshawn Sorey, featuring the dynamic violinist Jennifer Koh. That work, co-commissioned by the New Jersey Symphony, was originally intended to have been introduced in Newark, Sorey’s hometown.

All of these engagements have helped burnish Zhang’s already estimable reputation. Born in Dandong, China, near the North Korean border, and trained at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, she initially pursued a career as a pianist until a mentor deputized her to conduct a performance of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” at the age of 20. She came to stateside attention when she shared first prize in the 2002 Maazel/Vilar Conductors’ Competition. She became an assistant conductor at the New York Philharmonic in 2004, and was appointed associate conductor there a year later.

Working across the river from her old stamping grounds has presented both challenges and opportunities. “The advantage is for the NJSO to consistently have top-level musicians to play in our orchestra and a talent pool of soloists and artists of the highest caliber to work here,” she explained in an email.

Proximity to New York City, the country’s high-culture capital, can also mean a struggle for attention that goes more easily

to the Philharmonic or Carnegie Hall. But, Zhang said, the New Jersey Symphony has set itself apart by championing composers native to or based in the state, like Sorey, Paquito D’Rivera and Sarah Kirkland Snider, and by its commitment to reflecting New Jersey’s diversity onstage and in its programming. Zhang is quick to point out that the orchestra was the first major American ensemble to engage a Black music director, Henry Lewis, who served from 1968 to 1976.

The programs Zhang has led around the world over the last three seasons leaned heavily on standards. This, she said, was “a good thing for a conductor of my status and age: You want to be asked to start with standard repertoire, because it means you have some status in the zone.”

But in this unprecedented season, she has showcased works by composers of color and women, a more accurate representation of her pursuits in New Jersey, where she aspires to raise the amount of music played by composers of color from 15% per season to as much as 30%.

Zhang opened her Seattle concert with “Mother and Child,” a movement from William Grant Still’s Suite for Violin and Piano adapted by the composer for string orchestra. For her Houston program, booked long before the pandemic and then altered to suit restrictions, she retained her intended opener: “Within Her Arms” by Anna Clyne. That the Detroit concerts already featured pieces

by Ngwenyama and Sorey suited her mission ideally.

22

The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

Elite wine group suspends master sommeliers

By JULIA MOSKIN

S

even members of the Court of Master Sommeliers, Americas, an elite body of wine professionals, have been suspended from all court activities, and another has resigned after a New York Times report last week on the group’s longtime pattern of sexual harassment and conflicts of interest.

The men suspended — Greg Harrington, Eric Entrikin, Robert Bath, Matt Stamp, Matthew Citriglia, Drew Hendricks and Fred Dame, a co-founder of the organization — will be subject to an external investigation, a representative for the court said. They are suspended from court activities but not from the court itself, pending a hearing process required by California law. (The court is a registered nonprofit based in Napa, California.)

Each of the men has been accused of sexual misconduct involving women who were candidates for the court’s top title of master sommelier. Each already holds that title, and wields enormous influence over the women’s ability to advance in the profession.

On Monday, the 27 women who belong to the 165-member court issued a public apology to the women named in the article, and demanded specific changes to the court, including an overhaul of its ethical policies by an independent third party and immediate postponement of board elections, scheduled for Nov. 11.

The U.S. group, established in 1997, is part of a global network of examining bodies that oversee exacting, multiyear tests of knowledge, skill and service.

SE BUSCA PARA LA TIENDAS DE: Aguas Buenas y Aibonito

1-Empacadoras (os) Bagger 2-Cajeras (os) 3-Supervisora(os) de Provisiones 4-Personal de Rotulación (labels/scanning)

5-Facturación/Contabilidad 6-Tablajeras(os) 7-Gondoleras (os) 8-Cocineras(os) 9-Gerente Cafetería

*No se requiere experiencia previa para Cajeras(os) y Empacadoras(os).

Posiciones a tiempo completo y parcial.

Se requiere disponibilidad para trabajar INTERESADOS LLENAR SOLICITUD EN LA TIENDA Patrono con igualdad de empleo

Wine tasting in Manhattan on Oct. 7, 2020. After recent sexual harassment allegations by many women, the Court of Master Sommeliers has apologized and announced next steps.

Those who pass the highest level are rewarded with the title of master sommelier, high salaries and consulting fees, and vast professional prestige.

On Sunday, Geoff Kruth, a prominent educator, resigned from the court; he had already left his highprofile role as president of GuildSomm, a wine education organization that is a spinoff of the court.

Eleven women who had been candidates told The Times that Kruth had tried to pressure them into sex, sometimes in exchange for professional favors. (Last week, Kruth denied any impropriety and said he believed that all sexual contact described was consensual.)

An initial statement from the court last week, after the article appeared online, began with praise for “the courage of those who have spoken up” and ended with a restatement of its current policy. “We are committed to receiving, investigating, and resolving all instances of misconduct involving our organization.”

It made no mention of increased transparency, an external investigation or consequences for the men involved. Public reaction from the court’s community of more than 10,000 people was overwhelmingly negative. One comment on the court’s Instagram feed, from Shawn Gordon, a certified sommelier in Austin, Texas, read: “You’ve failed us all. I paid hard-earned money to

test and be a part of this organization and it has shown itself to be a complete swamp that needs draining immediately.”

Liz Dowty Mitchell, one of the women quoted in the article, posted an essay about the court’s response.

In part, she wrote: “The CMS was well aware of these allegations and the extent of the problem, but chose never to address them in the appropriate manner. This neglect left us victims no choice but to come forward in this very public manner.”

On Sunday, the court released another statement, announcing the suspensions and resignation, and apologizing to each of the 13 women named in the article.

The court’s representative said the second statement was not generated by the reaction to the first, but because a formal vote by the board on the suspensions had to take place.

Many of the women said they were told that sexual relationships between masters and candidates were common and widely accepted. The court’s nonfraternization policy does not explicitly prohibit such relationships, as long as they are disclosed to the board and do not create an apparent conflict of interest.

Still, those interviewed said they believed that conflicts of interest were rampant and inevitable.

The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

23

At 12, she’s a COVID ‘long hauler’

By DAVID TULLER

I

n early March, when coronavirus testing was still scarce, Maggie Flannery, a Manhattan sixth grader, and both her parents fell ill with the symptoms of COVID-19. After three weeks, her parents recovered. Maggie also seemed to get better, but only briefly before suffering a relapse that left her debilitated.

“It felt like an elephant sitting on my chest,” Maggie said.

“It was hard to take a deep breath; I was nauseous all the time; I didn’t want to eat; I was very light-headed when I stood up or even just lying down.” She also experienced joint pain and severe fatigue.

At first, specialists suggested Maggie’s symptoms might be psychological, in part because she showed no sign of heart or lung damage. She also tested negative for both the coronavirus itself and for antibodies to it. But viral tests taken long after the initial infection are generally negative, and antibody tests are frequently inaccurate.

“They didn’t know anything about ‘long-COVID’ at that point,” said Amy Wilson, Maggie’s mother. “They said it was anxiety. I was pretty sure that wasn’t true.”

Maggie’s pediatrician, Dr. Amy DeMattia, has since confirmed the COVID-19 diagnosis, based on the child’s clinical history and the fact that her parents tested positive for coronavirus antibodies.

More than seven months into the coronavirus pandemic, it has become increasingly apparent that many patients with both severe and mild illness do not fully recover. Weeks and months after exposure, these COVID “long haulers,” as they have been called, continue experiencing a range of symptoms, including exhaustion, dizziness, shortness of breath and cognitive impairments. Children are generally at significantly less risk than older people for serious complications and death from COVID-19, but the long-term effects of infection on them, if any, have been especially unclear.

Although doctors recognize that a small number of children have suffered a rare inflammatory syndrome shortly after infection, there is little reliable information about how many who get COVID-19 have prolonged complaints like Maggie Flannery. That could change as the proportion of children who are infected rises.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, children represented 10.9% of reported cases nationwide as of mid-October, up from just 2.2% in April.

Dr. Richard Besser, a pediatrician and chief executive of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which focuses on health policy, said parents could be reassured by the data on children’s reduced overall risk. But he noted that much remains unknown about coronavirus infection and its medical consequences, including among children, and that continued vigilance is warranted.

“With schools reopening, we’re likely to see more infections in children,” he said. “We need to make sure we’re doing

Maggie Flannery, who fell ill with COVID-19 symptoms along with her parents in March, in New York, Oct. 18, 2020. Months later, she’s had to limit her activities and has trouble concentrating. the studies to understand the short-, medium- and long-term effects.”

As with Maggie, 19-year-old Chris Wilhelm and his parents got sick around the same time. In their case, it was in June, when viral tests were more available. All three of them tested positive. Only Chris, a rising sophomore at Johns Hopkins and a member of the cross-country and track and field teams, did not get better.

Because he did not initially know about the possibility of chronic symptoms, Wilhelm said, he was “confused” and “shocked” about his condition. The first doctors he consulted told him the symptoms would fade, he said.

“For a while it was just, ‘We need to wait a bit longer; it will just get better with time,’” he said. “Everyone was giving me this magic number, like the 12-week mark is when all your respiratory issues are supposed to go away. We hit that weeks ago, and there’s really not any improvement.”

Wilhelm recently consulted with Dr. Peter Rowe, a professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins who specializes in chronic and debilitating conditions like myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, which is often triggered by a viral illness and has no approved drug treatments. Rowe determined that Wilhelm has the heart-racing condition known as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS, which can occur after viral infections and limits the ability to carry

out day-to-day activities.

“He had been capable of training 60 and 70 miles a week as a runner,” said Rowe, adding that some of the symptoms and the “really severe impairment” that Wilhelm and many other long haulers suffer from are characteristic of ME/ CFS. Under Rowe’s direction, Wilhelm has been trying different medications in an effort to alleviate the symptoms.

In Baltimore, the Kennedy Krieger Institute, a treatment facility for children with neurological and other chronic disabilities, is offering multidisciplinary services for those under 21 who continue to experience challenges after COVID-19.

So far the institute has seen only one patient, said Dr. Melissa Trovato, the institute’s interim medical director of rehabilitation.

With infections on the rise, Trovato said she thought it was “quite possible” the clinic will see more patients with persistent symptoms in the coming months. Because of the perception that COVID-19 is rare in kids, she said, parents might not associate a mild illness and subsequent effects, like a loss of energy, with the coronavirus.

“It might take more time for family to pick up on it,” she said. “From a pediatric perspective there probably is more that we’re going to find out, as more children” with “prolonged symptoms come forward and get seen.”

24 LEGAL NOTICE

LISA FRANKLIN CARO Petitioner vs.

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO LAMAR D. NOLAND DE PUERTO RICO TRIBURespondent NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA Civil No.: OPA-2020-06325.

SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMatter: Protective Order DoMÓN. mestic Violence (Law 54).

JORGE LUIS EDICT. United States of AmeBAEZ GUZMAN rica Commonwealth of Puerto Peticionario Rico SS.

EX-PARTE

CIVIL: BY2020CV02425.

SOBRE: EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO/ Catastro: 171-001940-72-000. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: SUCN. DESCONOCIDA DE GREGORIO BÁEZ Y MARÍA CAMACHO COMO ANTERIORES DUEÑOS y CUALQUIER PERSONA IGNORADA QUE PUEDA PERJUDICARSE

POR CUANTO: El peticionario solicita se declare a su favor el dominio de la finca que se describe según sus títulos del siguiente modo: “RUSTICA: Predio de terreno radicado en la calle Flamboyán, Barrio Mamey de Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, con una cabida de 1705.732 rn/c, equivalentes a 0.4339 de cuerda. En lindes por el NORTE: con Sucesión de Gregorio Báez y María Camacho (hoy) Maximina Santos Guzmán; por el SUR: Calle municipal Flamboyán; por el ESTE: con María Meléndez Sierra (hoy) Marisol Figueroa Báez y por el OESTE: con Sucn. Gregorio Báez y María Camacho (hoy), Valentín Carrillo Carrillo.” Esta pretensión se publicará tres veces en veinte días en este periódico. El que tenga interés o derecho real en el inmueble, los anteriores dueños y personas ignoradas que puedan perjudicarse y deseen oponerse tienen 20 días para ello a contar desde la última publicación, siendo abogado de los peticionarios, Lic. Jaime Rodríguez Rivera, cuya dirección es #30 Calle Reparto Piñero, Guaynabo, PR 009695650, Teléfono 787-720-9553.

En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, a 20 de octubre de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria Reional. Sandra I. Cruz Vázquez, Secretaria Servicios a Sala. ****

LEGAL NOTICE

COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO MUNICIPAL COURT OF PUERTO RICO SAN JUAN PART.

@

TO: LAMAR D. NOLAND 2441 NE Loop 410, Apt. 1109 San Antonio, Texas, 78217 USA

A petition for protective order has been field against you before the Municipal Court of Puerto Rico, San Juan Part, under Law No. 54 of August 15 of 1989, as amended. This Court ordered the summons of said petition

by Edict which will be published once in this newspaper. Within 30 days after the publication of this edict (not counting the day of publication) you must file the original copy of your answer or motion with the court’s clerk office and serve a copy on the petitioner or petitioner’s attorney, whose name and address are:

MARICARMEN CARRILLO JUSTINIANO, ESQ P.O. Box 8257 Bayamón, PR 00960

If you fail to respond, judgement by default will be entered against you for the relief demanded in the petition without your appearance or citation. Issued under my hand and the official seal of the Court in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on 23 de octubre de 2020. Griselda Rodríguez Collado, Secretaria. Marie Montero Figueroa, Sub-Secretario.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA MUNICIPAL DE SAN JUAN.

VERONICA FIGUEROA CINTRON Peticionaria v.

JEREMY SCOTT DICKISON

Peticionado Caso Número OPA-2019010804. Sobre: ORDEN DE PROTECCIÓN LEY 54. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. Estados Unidos de América El Presidente de los Estados Unidos El Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico. SS.

A: Jeremy Scott Dickison DIRECCION: Calle Américo Salas, #1410 San Juan, PR 00909

POR LA PRESENTE se le notifica que ha sido presentada en este Tribunal por la parte peticionaria, una petición de Orden de Protección, Ley 54 en su contra y se ha señalado vista en sus méritos el 26 de mayo de 2020, a las 9:00 am. La abogada de la parte demandante, el Lcda. Verónica Rivera Torres, de la Oficina para el desarrollo Integral de las Mujeres, del Municipio de San Juan, en #420, Ave. Ponce de León, Midtown Building, Suite 2015, San Juan, PR 00918; Email: veronica.rivera@capr. org; Tel. 787-312-2836. Se le advierte que este edicto se publicará en un periódico de circulación diaria general una sola vez y que si no comparece a la vista señalada, la parte peticionaria podrá solicitar que se dicte una determinación en rebeldía, concediéndose el remedio solicitado en la Petición.

EXPEDIDA BAJO MI FIRMA Y EL SELLO DEL TRIBUNAL, en San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy día 3 de marzo de 2020. Griselda Rodríguez Collado, Secretaria y Rosa L. Rosario Rosa, Subsecretaria.

en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de esta. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los diez (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 2 de NOVIEMBRE de 2020. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 2 de NOVIEMBRE de 2020. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, Secretaria Regional. f/ MILDRED J. FRANCO REVENTOS, Secretario (a) Auxiliar.

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 30 de octubre de 2020. En CAROLINA, Puerto Rico, el 30 de octubre de 2020.

LCDA. MARILYN APONTE RODRIGUEZ, Secretario(a).

MARICRUZ APONTE ALICEA, Sec Auxiliar.

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

AMERICAS LEADING FINANCE, LLC Demandante v.

NICK ALBERTO NEGRÓN FALCÓN

Demandados CIVIL NÚM.: TA2020CV00361.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA Y EJECUCIÓN DE GRAVAMEN MOBILIARIO (REPOSESIÓN DE VEHÍCULO). EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRILEGAL NOTICE CA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS Estado Libre Asociado de Puer- EE.UU. DE AMERICA EL ESto Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL TADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE LEGAL NOTICE DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Pri- PUERTO RICO. SS. Estado Libre Asociado de Puer- mera Instancia Sala Superior A: NICK ALBERTO to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL de CAROLINA. NEGRÓN FALCÓN DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de PriORIENTAL BANK Queda emplazado y notificado mera Instancia Sala Superior Demandante v. que en este Tribunal se ha radiMunicipal de San Juan.

JOSE M. BRITO RAMOS cado Demanda sobre cobro de AMERICAS LEADING Demandado(a) dinero por la vía ordinaria en la FINANCE LLC Civil: CN2019CV00540. SALA que se alega que el demandaDemandante Vs 406. Sobre: COBRO DE DINE- do, NICK ALBERTO NEGRÓN JOSÉ LUIS LÓPEZ RO POR LA VIA ORDINARIA. FALCÓN, le adeuda a AmeriRODRÍGUEZ SU ESPOSA NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTEN- cas Leading Finance, LLC la FULANA DE TAL Y LA CIA POR EDICTO. suma de $16,261.88 más los A: JOSE M. SOCIEDAD LEGAL intereses que continúen acumulando, las costas, gastos y BRITO RAMOS DE GANANCIALES (Nombre de las partes a las que se honorarios de abogado según COMPUESTA POR le notifican la sentencia por edicto) pactados. Además, se soliciAMBOS EL SECRETARIO(A) que sus- ta de este Honorable Tribunal Demandados cribe le notifica a usted que el que autorice la reposesión y/o CIVIL NUM. SJ2020CV03229. 30 de OCTUBRE de 2020, este embargo del Vehículo. Se le SALA: (903). SOBRE: CO- Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, advierte que este edicto se BRO DE DINERO POR LA VIA Sentencia Parcial o Resolución publicará en un periódico de ORDINARIA Y EJECUCIÓN en este caso, que ha sido debicirculación general una sola DE GRAVAMEN MOBILIARIO damente registrada y archivada vez y que, si no comparece a (REPOSESION DE VEHICU- en autos donde podrá usted encontestar dicha Demanda denLO). NOTIFICACIÓN DE SEN- terarse detalladamente de los tro del término de treinta (30) TENCIA POR EDICTO POR términos de la misma. Esta nodías a partir de la publicación SUMAC. tificación se publicará una sola del Edicto, a través del Sistema A: JOSÉ LUIS LÓPEZ vez en un periódico de circula- Unificado de Manejo y AdminisRODRÍGUEZ ,SU ESPOSA ción general en la Isla de Puer- tración de Casos (SUMAC), al FULANA DE TAL Y LA to Rico, dentro de los 10 días cual puede acceder utilizando siguientes a su notificación. Y, la siguiente dirección electróniSOCIEDAD LEGAL siendo o representando usted ca: https://unired.ramajudicial.

DE GANANCIALES una parte en el procedimiento pr/sumac/, salvo que se repreCOMPUESTA POR sujeta a los términos de la Sen- sente por derecho propio, en AMBOS tencia, Sentencia Parcial o Re- cuyo caso deberá presentar EL SECRETARIO (A) que sus- solución, de la cual puede estasu alegación responsiva en la cribe le notifica a usted que el blecerse recurso de revisión o secretaría del tribunal, se le 29 de OCTUBRE de 2020, este apelación dentro del término de anotará la rebeldía y se dictará Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, 30 días contados a partir de la Sentencia concediendo el reSentencia Parcial o Resolución publicación por edicto de esta medio así solicitado sin más cien este caso, que ha sido debi- notificación, dirijo a usted esta tarles ni oírles. abogado de la damente registrada y archivada notificación que se considerará

staredictos@thesanjuandailystar.com

(787) 743-3346

The San Juan Daily Star

Friday, November 6, 2020 parte demandante es el Lcdo.

Gerardo M. Ortiz Torres, cuya dirección física y postal es: Cond. El Centro I, Suite 801, 500 Muñoz Rivera Ave., San Juan, Puerto Rico 00918; cuyo número de teléfono es (787) 946-5268, el facsímile (787) 946-0062 y su correo electrónico es: gerardo@bellverlaw. com. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, en Toa Alta, Puerto Rico, hoy día 27 de octubre de 2020. Lcda. Laura I. Santa Sanchez, Secretario Regional. Liriam Hernandez Otero, Sec Auxiliar del Tribunal.

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

ORIENTAL BANK COMO AGENTE DE SERVICIOS DE THE MONEY HOUSE, INC. Demandante v.

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 4 de noviembre de 2020. En CAGUAS, Puerto Rico, el 4 de noviembre de 2020. Carmen A. Pereira Ortiz, Secretario(a). Eneida Arroyo Velez, Sec Auxiliar.

FREDESVINDA CINTRON ORTIZ T/C/C FREDESWINDA LEGAL NOTICE CINTRON ORTIZ POR SI Y COMO MIEMBRO ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUDE LA SUCESION NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA DE RITA GRISSELLE SALA SUPERIOR DE TOA COGOLLO CINTRON, ALTA. LA SUCESION DE RITA BANCO POPULAR DE GRISELLE COGOLLO PUERTO RICO CINTRON COMPUESTA PARTE DEMANDANTE VS. POR FULANO, FULANA UNITED STATES DE TAL COMO DEPARTMENT OF POSIBLES HEREDEROS AGRICULTURE RURAL DESCONOCIDOS DE LA DEVELOPMENT POR SUCESION CENTRO DE CONDUCTO DE LA RECAUDACIONES DE ADMINISTRACIÓN INGRESOS MUNICIPALES DE HOGARES DE (CRIM) AGRICULTORES; METRO Demandado(a) ISLAND MORTGAGE, Civil: CG2018CV01522. SALA INC.,; PEDRO JUAN 801. Sobre: COBRO DE DINIEVES PEDROZA NERO y EJECUCION DE T/C/C PEDRO NIEVES HIPOTECA POR LA VIA ORPEDROSA T/C/C DINARIA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE PEDRO JUAN NIEVES SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. PEDRAZA; FULANO A: FULANO Y FULANA Y MENGANO DE TAL, DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL DESCONOCIDOS DE PAGARÉ LA SUCESIÓN DE RITA PARTE DEMANDADA GRISELLE COGOLLO CIVIL NÚM. TA2020CV00275 CINTRÓN A LA SIGUIENTE DIRECCION (202). SOBRE: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAFISICA Y POSTAL: M-10 VIADO POR LA VÍA JUDICIAL. CALLE LA PAZ EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS URB. CAGUAS NORTE DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS E.E.U.U. EL ESCAGUAS PR 00725 (Nombre de las partes a las que se TADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE le notifican la sentencia por edicto) PUERTO RICO. EL SECRETARIO(A) que susA: PEDRO JUAN NIEVES cribe le notifica a usted que el PEDROZA T/C/C PEDRO 27 de OCTUBRE de 2020, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, NIEVES PEDROSA T/C/C

PEDRO JUAN NIEVES PEDRAZA a su última dirección conocida: URB ALTAGRACIA, P3 CALLE GOLONDRINA, TOA BAJA, PR 009492452. FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL PAGARÉ.

Queda usted notificado que en este Tribunal se há radicado demanda sobre cancelación de pagaré extraviado por la vía judicial. El 6 de diciembre de 1983, Pedro Juan Nieves Pedroza t/c/c Pedro Juan Nieves Pedrosa constituyó una hipoteca en Arecibo, Puerto Rico, conforme a la Escritura núm. 60 autorizada por el notario Juan Santiago Ramírez Ruiz en garantía de un pagaré por la suma de $41,050.00, a favor de Estados Unidos de América por conducto de la Administración de Hogares de Agricultores o a su orden, con intereses al 10.75% anual (no expresa número de testimonio) y vencedero en 33 años, sobre la siguiente propiedad: URBANA: Urbanización La Altagracia, sita en el Barrio Candelaria de Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, Solar número 3 bloque “P”. Area del solar: 325.00 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE: con solar número 4 del bloque P distancia de 25.00 metros; por el SUR: con el solar número 2 distancia de 25.00 metros; por el ESTE: con la calle número 8 distancia de 13.00 metros; y por el OESTE: con Angelina G. de Marl distancia de 13.00 metros.

En dicho solar enclava una estructura de hormigón dedicada a vivienda para una sola familia. La propiedad y la escritura de hipoteca constan inscritas al folio 80 deI tomo 356 de Toa Baja, Finca 21097. Registro de la Propiedad de Bayamón, Sección II. Inscripción primera. La parte demandada deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: htt:ps:// unired.ramajudiciaLpr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal. Se le advierte que, si no contesta la demanda, radicando el original de la contestación en este Tribunal y enviando copia de la contestación a la abogada de la Parte Demandante, Lcda.

Belma Alonso García, cuya dirección es: PO Box 3922,

The San Juan Daily Star Guaynabo, PR 00970-3922, Teléfono y Fax: (787) 789-1826, correo electrónico: oficinabelmaalonso@gmail.com, dentro del término de treinta (30) días de la publicación de este edicto, excluyéndose el día de la publicación, se le anotará la rebeldía y se le dictará Sentencia en su contra, concediendo el remedio solicitado sin más citarle ni oírle. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal, hoy 22 de OCTUBRE de 2020 en Toa Alta Puerto Rico. LCDA LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, SECRETARIA (O). Gloribell Vazquez Maysonet, Sec del Trib. Conf. I.

LEGAL NOTICE

Friday, November 6, 2020

te en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia o Sentencia Parcial, 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 28 de octubre de 2020. En Caguas, Puerto Rico, el 28 de octubre de 2020. Carmen A. Pereira Ortiz, Secretario (a) Regional.

Eneida Arroyo Velez, Secretario (a) Auxiliar.

Estado Libre Asociado de PuerLEGAL NOTICE to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Pri- Estado Libre Asociado de Puermera Instancia Sala Superior to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL de Caguas.

DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de PriREVERSE MORTGAGE mera Instancia Sala Superior de SAN JUAN. FUNDING LLC DEMANDANTE Vs

SUCESION DE VICTORIA CAMACHO SIERRA COMPUESTA POR CARMEN CAMACHO SIERRA, SABINA CAMACHO POR FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DE NOMBRES DESCONOCIDOS, CENTRO DE RECAUDACIONES MUNICIPALES Y A LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA

PR RECOVERY & DEVELOPMENT JV, LLC POR CONDUCTO DE SU AGENTE AUTORIZADO, ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC Demandante v.

ONE FILM CORPORATION, LAURA M. DUQUE LEMOS

de 2020. En SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, el 4 de noviembre de 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Secretaria. F/MILDRED J. FRANCO REVENTOS, Secretaria Auxiliar.

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

25

de 29 de octubre de 2020. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 29 de octubre de 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Secretaria Regional. F/ MARTHA ALMODOVAR CABRERA, Secretaria Auxiliar.

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

LA SUCESIÓN DE SUCN LUIS MARIO LESLEIGH COX ARROYO PANTOJA TRAVELSTEAD T/C/C COMPUESTA POR LESLEIGH CHERYL COX BRENDA ARROYO MELVIN T/C/C LESLEIGH CHERYL TRAVELSTEAD PANTOJA T/C/C BRENDA ARROYO VEGA, LUIS COMPUESTA POR MARIO ARROYO HAILEY EDDY T/C/C PANTOJA Y ANA WILMA HAILEY COX, Y ARROYO PANTOJA Y BRANDON COX, OTROS Y LA SUCESIÓN Demandante v.

DE DAVID ALAN GEORGINA ANTONIA TRAVELSTEAD T/C/C DOMINGUEZ LUNA DAVID A. TRAVELSTEAD Demandada T/C/C DAVID ALAN Civil: BY2019CV01169. SALA TRAVELSTEAD 701. Sobre: DIVISION O LIQUICHAPMAN COMPUESTA DACION DE L A COMUNIDAD POR ANNETTE DE BIENES HEREDITARIOS. TRAVELSTEAD LANDIS, NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENJIM TRAVELSTEAD, Y CIA POR EDICTO A: GEORGINA ANTONIA JOHN TRAVELSTEAD DOMINGUEZ LUNA Y/O Demandante GEORGINA ANTONIA CITIBANK, N.A., FULANO DE TAL Y MENGANO DEL DOMINGUEZ LUNA P/C ARLENE DE LA ROSA CUAL; Demandado (a) SALAS T/C/C ARLINDA Civil Núm.: SJ2020CV03665.

DE LAS ROSAS SALAS

Demandado(a) Civil Núm. SJ2020CV00605.

SALA 903. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO INCUMPLIMIENTO DE CONTRATO EJECUCIÓN DE GRAVAMEN MOBILIARIO. Sala: 901. Sobre: CANCELA- (Nombre de las partes a las que se NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTEN- CION DE PAGARE HIPOTE- le notifican la sentencia por edicto) CIA POR EDICTO. CARIO EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFI- EL SECRETARIO(A) que susA: ONE FILM CACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR cribe le notifica a usted que DEMANDADO el 20 de agosto de 2020, este Civil Núm.: ECD2017-0202. CORPORATION Y LAURA EDICTO. Sala 801. Sobre: Cobro de DiA: FULANO DE TAL Y Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, M. DUQUE LEMOS nero y Ejecución de Hipoteca (Nombre de las partes a las que se MENGANO DEL CUAL Sentencia Parcial o Resolución por la Vía Ordinaria. NOTIFI- le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO (A) que sus- en este caso, que ha sido debiCACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EL SECRETARIO(A) que sus- cribe le notifica a usted que el damente registrada y archivada cribe le notifica a usted que el en autos donde podrá usted enEDICTO. 27 de octubre de 2020, este A: CARMEN CAMACHO 2 de noviembre de 2020, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, terarse detalladamente de los ha dictado Sentencia, términos de la misma. Esta noSentencia Parcial o Resolución SIERRA, FULANO DE Tribunal Sentencia Parcial o Resolución tificación se publicará una sola en este caso, que ha sido debiTAL Y SUTANO DE TAL, en este caso, que ha sido debivez en un periódico de circulacomo cualquier miembro damente registrada y archivada damente registrada y archivada ción general en la Isla de Pueren autos donde podrá usted aún desconocido de la en autos donde podrá usted en- enterarse detalladamente de to Rico, dentro de los 10 días terarse detalladamente de los siguientes a su notificación. Y, Sucesión de Victoria los términos de la misma. Esta términos de la misma. Esta nosiendo o representando usted Camacho Sierra y/o notificación se publicará una tificación se publicará una sola una parte en el procedimiento como cualquier otra sola vez en un periódico de vez en un periódico de circulaa los términos de la Senpersona con interés en ción general en la Isla de Puer- circulación general en la Isla sujeta tencia, Sentencia Parcial o Reeste caso. Demandados to Rico, dentro de los 10 días de Puerto Rico, dentro de los solución, de la cual puede estadiez (10) días siguientes a su desconocidos . siguientes a su notificación. Y, blecerse recurso de revisión o notificación. Y, siendo o repreEL(LA) SECRET ARIO(A) que siendo o representando usted apelación dentro del término de sentando usted una parte en el suscribe le notifica a usted que una parte en el procedimiento 30 días contados a partir de la procedimiento sujeta a los térel 26 de octubre de 2020 este sujeta a los términos de la Senpublicación por edicto de esta minos de la Sentencia, SentenTribunal ha dictado Sentencia tencia, Sentencia Parcial o Renotificación, dirijo a usted esta cia Parcial o Resolución, de la o Sentencia Parcial en este solución, de la cual puede estanotificación que se considerará cual puede establecerse recurcaso, que ha sido debidamente blecerse recurso de revisión o hecha en la fecha de la publicaso de revisión o apelación denregistrada y archivada en autos apelación dentro del término de ción de este edicto. Copia de tro del término de 30 días condonde podrá usted enterarse 30 días contados a partir de la esta notificación ha sido architados a partir de la publicación detalladamente de los términos publicación por edicto de esta vada en los autos de este caso, por edicto de esta notificación, de la misma. Esta notificación notificación, dirijo a usted esta con fecha de 29 de septiembre dirijo a usted esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en notificación que se considerará de 2020. En BAYAMON, Puerto que se considerará hecha en la un periódico de circulación ge- hecha en la fecha de la publicaRico, el 29 de septiembre de fecha de la publicación de este neral en la isla de Puerto Rico, ción de este edicto. Copia de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA edicto. Copia de esta notificadentro de los 10 días siguientes esta notificación ha sido archiSANCHEZ, Secretaria. F/MAción ha sido archivada en los a su notificación. Y, siendo o vada en los autos de este caso, RIA E COLLAZO, Secretaria autos de este caso, con fecha representando usted una par- con fecha de 4 de noviembre Auxiliar.

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26

November 6-8, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

The Houston Rockets have to keep James Harden happy. But how?

By MARC STEIN

T

he NBA draft will take place Nov. 18, nearly five months later than scheduled. An abbreviated free agency period will likely be stuffed into Thanksgiving week afterward.

The offseason, like the 2019-20 season that preceded it, resembles nothing teams are accustomed to — except for the chatter about potential trades, hires and the like. That talk never stops.

Let’s tap into the grapevine for the latest around-the-league buzz, starting with a superstar’s uncertain future in Houston.

James Harden’s happiness in Houston must be closely monitored.

Mike D’Antoni walked away from the Rockets as head coach less than 48 hours after their season ended, with no promise of a new job, and will be a Brooklyn Nets assistant coach next season under Steve Nash. Daryl Morey then fled Clutch City, in the midst of a coaching search, to take over the Philadelphia 76ers’ front office.

And Houston didn’t hire either of the two candidates Harden endorsed the strongest to replace D’Antoni: Tyronn Lue and John Lucas.

Rival teams are thus already wondering: a.) how perturbed Harden is, and b.) how long before the Tilman Fertitta-owned Rockets seriously entertain trading him?

The Rockets are adamant that Harden will not be shopped. They have the NBA’s longest active playoff streak, at eight seasons and counting, which began after Morey traded for Harden in October 2012. Fertitta insisted during a recent CNBC appearance that the Rockets are “not blowing up anything” and “plan on contending.”

He has owned the team long enough to know that just keeping Harden should keep the Rockets in 50-win territory.

Houston’s resolve, though, is about to be tested, unless Harden warms to the change all around him.

Rafael Stone, Houston’s new general manager, made a sensible choice in difficult circumstances by hiring Stephen Silas to succeed D’Antoni. Fertitta had strong interest in ESPN’s Jeff Van Gundy, despite considerable reported reluctance from both Harden and Russell Westbrook, while Stone has been Lucas’ biggest backer in the organization. But the coach Houston ultimately chose got strong reviews for his work in each of his previous stops (Cleveland, Golden State, two stints with Charlotte and Dallas) and is known for his offensive acumen.

Silas has always been well liked, too, as evi-

This offseason, James Harden has lost the coach and general manager who believed in him. denced by the praise his hiring drew on social media from the likes of Luka Doncic and Jamal Crawford. The relationship he builds with Harden figures to be the most important of his career, but it’s certainly promising for the Rockets that he has always been able to click with stars, going back to his early days in Cleveland and Golden State, when Silas could often be found preparing LeBron James and Stephen Curry before games.

Give the Philadelphia 76ers this much: No team is spending more on organizational upgrades.

More than two years after The New York Times revealed the Sixers’ first attempt to lure Daryl Morey away from Houston, Philadelphia has hired him to a monster five-year deal.

And that’s after Philadelphia awarded a fiveyear, top-dollar contract to its new coach, Doc Rivers; committed to a contract extension with the holdover general manager Elton Brand; and hired two executives (Indiana’s Peter Dinwiddie and Orlando’s Prosper Karangwa) under Brand.

Industry insiders estimate that Morey received a salary in excess of $10 million annually. Specific figures were not announced, but some insist that the deal tops the five-year, $60 million con-

tract that Phil Jackson reportedly received when he was named team president by the New York Knicks. The Sixers, citing team policy, declined to discuss the contract specifics when asked this week.

One immediate plus for the Sixers in finally landing their man: Morey, as we know from the nearly 80 trades he swung in Houston from 2007 through last season, has the gumption to break up the tandem of Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons by trading one of them if Rivers is unable to get them functioning better together.

One immediate concern: Morey, Rivers and Brand are all accustomed to having varying degrees of shot-calling power. So they will also have to prove, just like Philadelphia’s franchise duo, that they can mesh.

Morey joins Toronto’s Masai Ujiri and Boston’s Danny Ainge as high-profile executives in the Atlantic Division, where the Knicks’ new team president, Leon Rose, received his own lucrative deal in the spring.

Rose’s annual salary, I’m told, is in the $8 million range, after he became the latest player agent to make the leap to the front office.

The last of the league’s nine coaching vacancies is in Oklahoma City.

Will Hardy, an assistant coach with the San Antonio Spurs, Charles Lee from the Milwaukee Bucks’ staff and Mark Daigneault, an assistant coach with the Thunder, are among the candidates who have received strong consideration for the post.

Other outlets have mentioned the Thunder assistant coach Brian Keefe and the former Nets assistant Will Weaver, who is coaching the Sydney Kings in Australia, as contenders.

But I’ve also braced myself, from the moment Billy Donovan and the Thunder parted ways Sept.

8, for Oklahoma City General Manager Sam Presti to hire someone whose name had never been connected to the job. That would be the Prestian outcome.

Hardy has emerged as a key member of Gregg Popovich’s San Antonio staff and also worked under Popovich as part of the USA Basketball staff in 2019 when the United States cratered to a seventh-place finish in the FIBA World Cup. Lee has spent the past two seasons on Mike Budenholzer’s staff in Milwaukee after starting his NBA coaching career in Atlanta. Daigneault has been in the NBA for only one season, but he coached Oklahoma City’s NBA G League team for five seasons and before that had a stint under Donovan at the University of Florida.

The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

27

NFL Week 9 predictions: NYT picks against the spread

By BENJAMIN HOFFMAN

A

fter several upsets last week, the NFL was left with a few top-tier contenders (Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Tampa Bay, Seattle) and a wide middle zone of teams that can surprise you on any given week. And, of course, the New York Giants and the New York Jets are bringing up the rear.

Here’s a look at NFL Week 9, with all picks made against the spread.

Last week’s record: 5-8-1 Overall record: 58-58-3 Sunday’s Best Games Baltimore Ravens at Indianapolis Colts, 1 p.m., CBS Line: Ravens -2.5 | Total: 45.5 Before you get too far down the path of the Ravens (5-2) having been exposed in last week’s loss to Pittsburgh, consider that Baltimore had a chance to win on the game’s final possession even though Mark Ingram, the team’s best running back, was out with an injury. The game emboldened Pittsburgh, and took some bragging rights from the Ravens, but teams would be wise not to underestimate Baltimore just the same.

The Colts (5-2) should be an excellent test of the Ravens’ resolve. Indianapolis has been nearly as effective as Baltimore on offense and has a defense that is equally adept at defending the pass and the run. For all intents and purposes, this game is something of a tossup, which is less of an indictment of Baltimore than it is an endorsement of Indianapolis. The Ravens could easily bounce back, but this matchup is close enough to lean toward the home underdog. Pick: Colts +2.5 Seattle Seahawks at Buffalo Bills, 1 p.m., Fox Line: Seahawks -3 | Total: 55 Russell Wilson reminded everyone why he is the front-runner for the league’s Most Valuable Player Award in last week’s win over San Francisco, but the defensive shortcomings of the Seahawks (6-1) were apparent even in that 10-point victory.

It is with that imbalance between its offense and defense that Seattle travels to Orchard Park, N.Y. to face the Bills (6-2). Such a game this deep into the season would normally create a hostile environment for a visiting team. But with no fans in attendance, and an expected game time temperature of 71 degrees, it

is about as neutral a setting as the Seahawks could hope for.

That being said, Buffalo is not nearly as bad offensively as it looked in the past few weeks, and Seattle is very likely to have its hands full. Pick: Bills +3 Miami Dolphins at Arizona Cardinals, 4:25 p.m., CBS Line: Cardinals -4.5 | Total: 48 There are so many reasons to seek out this game. The Cardinals (5-2) have been a delight in Year 2 of the Kliff Kingsbury/Kyler Murray era. When last seen, they were upsetting Seattle in overtime.

The Dolphins (4-3) are the surprise of the season, not only by beating the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams in recent weeks, but by romping them.

The open question for Miami’s offense is if it can get more out of rookie quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. (Journeyman Ryan Fitzpatrick was undoubtedly antsy watching his replacement pass for only 93 yards last week.) Arizona will have to figure out its running game if Kenyan Drake is out or limited by an ankle injury.

Tagovailoa was a Heisman finalist in 2018, when Murray won the award, and if either of them remembers that then maybe there’s some motivation for revenge. More realistic: Arizona is further along in its development and playing at home. Pick: Cardinals -4.5 New Orleans Saints at Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 8:20 p.m., NBC Line: Buccaneers -5.5 | Total: 52 Antonio Brown is expected to play for the Buccaneers (6-2) after serving an eight-game suspension from the NFL for his role in a January dispute and for texting threats to a woman who accused him of sexual misconduct. He has played in one game in the past 23 months, so how much he is involved in Tampa Bay’s offense may come down to the health of Chris Godwin, who is hoping to return from a broken finger. With Mike Evans, Rob Gronkowski and Godwin on the field, there wouldn’t be many targets left for Brown, but if Godwin sits, quarterback Tom Brady may try to lean on the receiver whom he campaigned for his team to sign.

Tampa Bay has an ungenerous defense, and plenty of offensive upside, but it is worth wondering if the team should be favored by so much against the Saints (5-2) when it managed only a two-point win against the Giants on Monday. Pick: Saints +5.5

In his start against Pittsburgh last October, Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson threw for 161 yards and rushed for 70 more in an overtime win.

Sunday’s Other Games Pittsburgh Steelers at Dallas Cowboys, 4:25 p.m., CBS Line: Steelers -13.5 | Total: 42 In quarterback Ben DiNucci’s first career start, the Cowboys (2-6) managed 9 points against Philadelphia. This week, Dallas faces a far more formidable Steelers (7-0) defense, making it reasonable to wonder just how much uglier things can get with either Garrett Gilbert or Cooper Rush starting in place of DiNucci.

It was a given that this game would have an enormous point spread since the Steelers have matched the longest unbeaten streak to start a season in franchise history. But if there is any reason to be skeptical of a rout, it is that Pittsburgh has won only one game by more than 10 points this season. A moral victory for the Cowboys would be losing by “only” 9 or 10, but if the team’s fourth and fifth options at quarterback don’t have a different gear from what DiNucci showed last week, even that seems far-fetched.

Pick: Steelers -13.5

Carolina Panthers at Kansas City Chiefs, 1 p.m., Fox Line: Chiefs -10.5 | Total: 52.5 The Chiefs (7-1) learned a lesson from their monumental letdown against Las Vegas in Week 5. They followed that loss with a convincing road win against the Bills and have won consecutive blowouts, beating the Broncos and the Jets by a combined score of 78-25. That dominance has forced Patrick Mahomes into the MVP debate with Seattle’s Russell Wilson and made it clear that Kansas City is a legitimate threat to successfully defend last year’s Super Bowl win.

The Panthers (3-5) are not so much a pushover as they are overmatched, even if running back Christian McCaffrey is making his much anticipated return from injury. The only thing that could slow Kansas City is the team’s disinterest, but piling on against the Jets last week seemed to indicate that the Chiefs aren’t taking games off anymore. Pick: Chiefs -10.5

Continues on page 28

28

The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

From page 27 Las Vegas Raiders at Los Angeles Chargers, 4:05 p.m., Fox Line: Chargers -1.5 | Total: 53 The Raiders (4-3) escaped with a win on a chilly Sunday in Cleveland, grinding out the game on the ground with their first 200-yard rushing game of the season. A trip to Los Angeles to face the Chargers (2-5) should let Las Vegas return to its aerial attack. This could easily be a shootout, with Derek Carr and Justin Herbert putting up big numbers. Los Angeles has the ability to run up a huge lead, but the team’s propensity for squandering such leads has officially become troubling, which is why the point spread is so narrow.

Pick: Chargers -1.5 Chicago Bears at Tennessee Titans, 1 p.m., Fox Line: Titans -5.5 | Total: 46.5 If you were to make a team out of Tennessee’s offense and Chicago’s defense, you’d have a Super Bowl contender. Instead you have a pair of flawed teams with records that may not reflect their quality.

It is all relative, though. The defensive woes of the Titans (5-2) limit the team’s ability to compete against top teams, but the offense of Chicago (53) is so bad that people are speculating about coach Matt Nagy’s job security.

Pick: Titans -5.5 Denver Broncos at Atlanta Falcons, 1 p.m., CBS Line: Falcons -4 | Total: 50 Is it time to be excited about the Broncos (3-4)? The defense has given up a fair amount of points this season, but the underlying statistics suggest the team is solid on that side of the ball.

Meanwhile, the offense suddenly woke up in the fourth quarter of last week’s come-from-behind win over the Los Angeles Chargers, giving a glimpse of what quarterback Drew Lock can do in ideal circumstances.

It may also be considered ideal to go up against the secondary of the Falcons (2-6). Atlanta has allowed 311.4 yards a game through the air, and Football Outsiders ranks the team as the fourthworst pass defense in the NFL. There is a lingering feeling that the Falcons are dangerous at home, but the team is 0-4 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium this season, and will most likely be without wide receiver Calvin Ridley until Week 11, giving them a decent chance of staying winless at home. Pick: Broncos +4

Jamal Adams is the best player on a terrible Jets team. He publicly criticized his team in the past week for entertaining trade offers.

Houston Texans at Jacksonville Jaguars, 1 p.m., CBS Line: Texans -7 | Total: 51 With quarterback Gardner Minshew sitting out with a thumb injury, the Jaguars (1-6) will turn to Jake Luton, a sixthrounder out of Oregon State, who will be the fifth rookie quarterback to start a game this season. Luton is enormous (6foot-6, 224 pounds), was incredibly efficient on deep throws for the Beavers last season, and despite a penchant for airing it out, he threw just three interceptions. If anything, the knock on Luton was that he was boring, which will be quite a change from Minshew, who was everything but that.

The Texans (1-6) beat Jacksonville easily in Week 5, and should be expected to win again. But Luton is enough of a wild card that it’s worth being mildly skeptical of the large point spread. Pick: Jaguars +7 Detroit Lions at Minnesota Vikings, 1 p.m., CBS Line: Vikings -4 | Total: 53.5 It has been a season of almost constant disappointment for the Vikings (2-

5), but Dalvin Cook having one of the best individual games in franchise history in an upset of the Packers in Green Bay makes up for a lot. Now, Minnesota will look to capitalize on that momentum at home against the Lions (3-4), who aren’t quite a pushover but probably aren’t that much of a threat.

Minnesota is still far from threatening for a wild-card spot, but it clearly has no intention of packing it in. And while people may not love quarterback Kirk Cousins, there is no question that opposing teams need to respect the Vikings’ offense. Pick: Vikings -4 New York Giants at Washington Football Team, 1 p.m., Fox Line: Footballers -3 | Total: 41.5 These once-proud franchises are a combined 0-9 when facing teams outside the NFC East this season. Neither team is averaging even 20 points a game and both are giving up more than 23 a game. They might at least be entertaining against each other, but that wasn’t the case a few weeks ago when the Giants (1-7) eked out their lone win of the season against the Footballers (2-5).

Daniel Jones of the Giants is by far the most exciting player on either team, and he’s fairly likely to have a highlight run or throw that will make you wonder if he has what it takes to be a star.

Unfortunately for the Giants, he’s also likely to commit one or more turnovers and play a large part in his team’s failure. Pick: Footballers -3 Monday’s Matchup New England Patriots at New York Jets, 8:15 p.m., ESPN Line: Patriots -7 | Total: 42.5 The Jets (0-8) have matched the longest winless start in franchise history, and the Patriots (2-5) have matched their worst seven-game start since 2000.

Something has to give, and while both teams have been disappointing, the Jets have truly earned their spot at the bottom of the NFL. The team is 32nd in points scored and 28th in points allowed.

This game presents what appears to be one of the Jets’ best chances for a win this season. They are playing at home against an injury-ravaged team that has lost four straight. But it is hard to imagine the Jets scoring enough to beat anyone. Quarterback Sam Darnold aggravated his shoulder injury last week and, as Rotoworld eloquently said of Frank Gore, “We have reached the ‘why? … just why’ phase of Gore’s status as the Jets’ lead back.”

New England has been bad enough that a spread of seven points seems outlandish, but opponents thus far have seemed to enjoy beating up on the Jets.

If Cam Newton wants to prove a point about his health, it is hard to see Gang Green stopping him. Pick: Patriots -7 Bye weeks: Cincinnati, Cleveland, Los Angeles (Rams), Philadelphia All times are Eastern.

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The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

29

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

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

Crossword

Answers on page 30

Wordsearch

GAMES

HOROSCOPE Aries

30

The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

(Mar 21-April 20)

Catching up on work and errands will mean you can make a start on new responsibilities. Taking on new commitments doesn’t mean you’re being anti-social. You can’t do everything and sometimes you have to put practical concerns in front of social ones. A friend or neighbour’s behaviour will fail to impress you. In fact, you will be disappointed by their childish antics.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

Friends won’t be happy when you cry out of arrangements already made. Two very good reasons why you will be cutting down on your socialising is that firstly, you want to spend more time with your partner and secondly, you’re ready to go with a desire for peace and privacy. You’re ready for something different now.

Taurus

(April 21-May 21)

Scorpio

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

You’re taking a precautionary and careful approach to new ideas. You have no plans to extend arrangements beyond your immediate environment as you agree to perform some duties on a trial basis. It will be a relief too that others are given the discretion to make some choices for themselves.

The more open you are to new experiences, the better it will be for your creative development and the more chance you will have for meeting someone new, if you are single.

You’re feeling fit and full of energy. Put this to good use by doing something constructive.

There will still be energy at the end of the day for activities a partner is planning.

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

You have always been intuitive. You sense someone is feeling differently about something.

They haven’t said anything and they are telling you that nothing is wrong but your instincts tell you otherwise. Although you can’t yet work out what is bothering them, you are picking up on their emotions and you are right to trust your intuition.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

New opportunities will bring fresh mental stimulus, pushing you further towards achieving your ambitions. Keep working at a steady pace. Driving yourself too hard could result in a marked loss of vitality later in the day. It is important and sensible, too, to find a balance between work and play.

After holding back from stating your opinions, you will be feeling more assertive as the hours wear on. There will be renewed determination to get plans that were put on hold underway again. Putting a practical idea into motion will cause everyone to breathe a sigh of relief.

In romance, you are not being as sensible as you like to think you are. You don’t like to see yourself as being whimsical but instead of weighing up your options, you could jump right into a new relationship. A careless decision will cause more trouble than it is worth.

Watch your spending. Resist the temptation to make impulsive purchases.

Aquarius

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

Your attention turns to your family life and what is happening in your neighbourhood. A situation later in the day will bring a heart to heart conversation and events soon after this will highlight the fact that it is time to forget old rows and bury the hatchet. Domestic issues will be sorted out to everyone’s satisfaction.

You’ve never been materialistic. Still, you do appreciate a little comfort and combining a small amount of cash with a lot of imagination will help you create a comfortable lifestyle. Finding happiness in your circumstances is the greatest super-power you possess. You might think about turning a creative hobby into a money-making venture.

Virgo

Pisces

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

Avoid excess in food and drink and start treating your body with respect. Cut out junk food and unhealthy snacks and don’t tax your system with toxic substances. Read up on healthier alternatives such as natural remedies and herbal teas. If life is stressful, brisk exercise can be a healthy outlet for your frustration.

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

You’re taking more interest in community activities than has been the case in recent weeks. You’ve been worried about a relative but careful to hide your concerns as this is something you don’t find easy to talk about.

News confirms that a problem has been solved and this will take a weight off your mind.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

November 6-8, 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

The San Juan Daily Star

November 6-8, 2020

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