Monday Oct 19, 2020

Monday, October 19, 2020

San Juan The

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DAILY

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P20

How Much Do You Really (Really) Miss the Movies?

Police to Enforce Executive Order Citizens, Business Owners Disobey, Caught Breaking the Law Amid COVID-19 P4

González Colón Plans to Win Again and Silence the Opposition: ‘I Don’t Stop’ P5

NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 19

Ever Wondered How Much the Urban Train, AMA Have Lost Thanks to COVID-19?

P4

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

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October 19, 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.

Allegations of insider trading by Puerto Rico debtholders gain momentum

Today’s

Weather

By THE STAR STAFF

Day

Night

High

Low

86ºF

75ºF

Precip 10%

Precip 20%

Sunshine

Few Clouds

Wind: Humidity: UV Index: Sunrise: Sunset:

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From NNW 9 mph 72% 10 of 10 6:19 AM Local Time 5:58 PM Local Time

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

Travel Legals Sports Games Horoscope Cartoons

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he Committee of Unsecured Creditors in Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy process wants the U.S. District Court to allow discovery to determine if certain bondholders used non-public information obtained during negotiations for a restructuring agreement to buy government bonds and obtain an unfair advantage.

Pending before the court is an Oct. 5 request from National Public Finance Corp., a bond insurer, to appoint an independent investigator to probe possible insider trading by Puerto Rico’s bondholders. Bondholders last week denied the claims and noted that any trading conducted during the mediation process for a commonwealth debt was done only after the release of so-called cleansing materials or information related to the bonds was made public.

The unsecured creditors, which support National’s request and have asked to be appointed to investigate, told the court that they plan to do their own probe and asked to be allowed to conduct discovery or a “Rule 2004 examination of the Bondholder Groups concerning their trading of the Debtors’ securities during the pendency of the Title III process.”

National’s request asked for the appointment of a special investigator or for the U.S. Trustee Office to do the probe.

Regardless of the disposition of the National motion, the unsecured creditors said they want to conduct the Rule 2004 discovery.

Section 301(a) of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Man-

agement and Economic Stability Act, better known as PROMESA, provides, in pertinent part, that a creditors’ committee may “investigate the acts, conduct, assets, liabilities, and financial condition of the debtor, the operation of the debtor’s business and the desirability of the continuance of such business, and any other matter relevant to the case or the formulation of a plan.”

The allegations came out after Judge Laura Taylor Swain agreed to an unsecured creditors request to enhance financial disclosures. From June 2019 to about February of this year, when the government unveiled a new restructuring agreement for some $35 billion in debt, some 21 hedge funds that make up the four coalitions that are negotiating with the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico had $7.7 billion in central government bonds.

That sum represents around 42 percent of the central government bonds to be restructured in the adjustment plan.

In August, several members of Congress asked the New York attorney general to investigate.

The allegations contend that at least four hedge funds, taking advantage of the drop in prices as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, acquired over $443 million in central government bonds. The Lawful Constitutional Debt Coalition, one of the bonded debt groups, supported the oversight board in its challenge to the legality of central government bonds issued after 2012. However, four vulture funds from this coalition -- GoldenTree, Monarch, Taconic, and Whitebox -- bought bonds on the market whose legality they themselves were challenging in court. Thus, those investors were placed on both sides of the legal dispute.

4

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

Health Dept. and Police Bureau commit to enforcing executive order to prevent COVID-19

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

W

ith the commitment to enforce the latest executive order that seeks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Puerto Rico, the island Health Department (DS by its Spanish initials) continued to collaborate with law enforcement agencies over the weekend as Investigations Office Director Jesús Hernández issued fines and ordered the closure of several establishments in various towns.

Hernández said Sunday that personnel from both the aforementioned office and San Juan municipal police raided an after-hours drinking establishment located on the second floor of El Ensayo in Río Piedras and ordered its closure as “they were violating all the provisions of the executive order, including the use of masks and the consumption of alcoholic beverages, outside the established time.”

During the intervention, authorities found 70 people gathered during the early hours of Sunday morning consuming alcoholic beverages and not complying with physical distancing rules enacted in the order. Hernández said the owner of the establishment was fined and could also face criminal char ges pending a consultation with commonwealth authorities.

Meanwhile, the DS ordered the shutdown of Brisas BBQ in the Collores sector

in Las Piedras, as authorities found crowds of people gathered inside the establishment, guests not being requested to use face coverings, and alcoholic beverages being dispensed at the bar outside the curfew hours determined by the order.

In the same eastern-central municipality, another establishment known as the Girasol Motel was fined for selling alcoholic beverages outside of established hours, and Tijuana Bar & Grill in the Caribbean Shopping Center, along with Las 7 Potencias in Barrio Montones and Qué Barbaridad on Highway 921, were also fined for violation of the executive order regarding the use of masks and physical distancing.

Hernández thanked local authorities from the municipality and said “we are going to continue with interventions in establishments that are not complying with the executive order.”

“This is a very serious matter because each one of the violations represents a health risk for citizens,” he said.

Hernández added that, since early Thursday, Investigations Office personnel have ordered an establishment in Cataño shut down and have issued fines against various businesses such as Hotel La Rueda in Bayamón and Crazy Wise Wings and Chinin Tripletas, both in Toa Baja. Meanwhile, the Villa Borinquen Motel in Toa Baja, as well as Guacamole and A la Leña in Las Piedras, were among establishments that were inspected

and showed that they were complying with the executive order and Health Department regulations.

“We ordered the closure of Storm Riders Taverna, in the Palmas district in Cataño, for not having licenses for the sale of alcohol, failing to comply with the use of masks and sale of alcoholic beverages outside the established hours,” Hernández said. “In the intervention, the owners described the establishment as a motor club; however, inside the premises, a cash register and the sale of alcoholic beverages were observed. A tattoo room was also found with syringes, inks, designs, and chairs used for tattooing when the business did not

have health licenses for these purposes.”

Puerto Rico Police Bureau Commissioner Henry Escalera said in a written statement that his agency will continue to ensure compliance with the executive order that seeks to stop COVID-19 from spreading and called on both citizens and visitors to comply with the provisions issued by Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced.

“Most citizens are aware of the importance of maintaining physical distance, wearing masks, and complying with established schedules,” Escalera said. “However, some people still try to carry out activities outside what is allowed, in clear breach of the provisions of the Executive Order. These people are exposing themselves to fines and other penalties such as the closure of businesses or the revocation of licenses.”

The current executive order, which remains in effect until Nov. 13, authorizes the percentage of occupancy in commercial establishments and dining rooms to increase to 55 percent, while places such as movie theaters, casinos and gyms that were allowed to operate at 25 percent capacity under the previous order can now have up to 30 percent occupancy.

Meanwhile, public transportation services such as the Metropolitan Bus Authority, the Urban Train, and tourist transportation provided by the Maritime Transport Authority only to the island municipality of Culebra will be re-established next Monday, Oct. 26.

After losses in the millions, AMA & Urban Train to resume services for citizens in need

By THE STAR STAFF

W

ith each passing month the Department of Transportation and Public Works (DTOP by its Spanish acronym) loses $500,000 in fares because the Urban Train is not operating, and for that reason DTOP Assistant Secretary Josué Menéndez says it is a matter of urgency that the operations of the train and the Metropolitan Bus Authority (AMA by its Spanish acronym) resume as soon as possible.

Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced announced Friday that as part of the new executive order related to COVID-19,

the AMA and the Urban Train will resume operations next Monday, Oct. 26.

During a Capital City Development and Youth Affairs Committee hearing last week evaluating the status of mass transportation in Puerto Rico under House Resolution 46, Committee Chairman Eddie Charbonier Chinea said the system, whose administration contract is for $4 million, has continued to be paid with the federal grant that was awarded for it.

Menéndez said the budget insufficiency at the AMA will be corrected by an allocation of $21 million from the funds the island received as part of the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. In the case of the Urban Train, the losses will be remedied with “grant” funds that have yet to be requested.

Menéndez assured that during the three weeks in which the system was in operation, no cases of coronavirus infection were reported and disinfection and distancing protocols were followed to the letter, both by employees and users, which were calculated at 3,000 daily.

He also noted that once the system resumes next Monday, service operations can be started in a period of five to six days, after employees have been tested for COVID-19 and rigorous cleaning and disinfection has been carried out. He argued that buses and the Urban Train cars are ready because they have continued to receive proper maintenance.

During the committee hearings in the House of Representatives last week, Charbonier criticized the executive branch for failing to activate the transportation system sooner, given that it serves vulnerable people who do not have their own transportation, such as students, the elderly and people with disabilities.

Puerto Rican Independence Party Rep. Denis Márquez Lebrón criticized the government for failing to note the urgency of the situation for the transit system’s core users.

“Since these means of transportation were closed, there has been a direct consequence of injustice against all those sectors of the population, because they do not have a means of transportation to return to work,” Márquez Lebrón said.

Meanwhile, Carmen Febres Alméstica, president of the Residents of Barrio Obrero Marina United Inc., complained about the lack of service through a presentation submitted to the committee in which the group protested the suspension of service for more than seven months.

“Although in principle we endorse the determination made and respect it, at present measures must be made more flexible or eliminated in order to open up various services and standardize them,” said Febres Alméstica, who requested that the determination to keep the service suspended be reviewed.

“However, the suspension of mass transportation continues, greatly affecting our residents, especially the elderly.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

5

‘I have to open doors for others’ Unstoppable González Colón feels empowered by what she is doing in the US capital •

• Resident commissioner rejects opposition accusa-

tions, details plans to win re-election

By ELSA VELÁZQUEZ SANTIAGO Twitter: @elsavelazquezpr Special to The Star

H

er busy schedule in Congress and trips to and from the island are not synonymous with detachment from her homeland.

On the contrary, Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón says, returning to the island each time always makes her connect to the needs of its residents.

And of course, she also tries to recharge batteries with her family in her Carolina home.

“I travel to Washington between Sunday and Monday and return [to the island] on Friday,” González Colón said in an interview with the Star. “Unlike when Aníbal [Acevedo Vilá] was there [in Congress], and lived in Puerto Rico all the time and did not have a property [in Washington] or did not stay there, I come [back to Puerto Rico] every weekend to keep in touch with the needs of the municipalities, to keep myself in touch with the needs of the government. So I travel every week.”

“They didn’t mention those trips,” she said, referring to recent allegations by Popular Democratic Party (PDP) members of lavish spending on trips. “The sacrifices, coming from catching a flight, arriving [on the island] at dawn to be in meetings on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and returning on Sunday [to Washington] at night. I do it with passion. I do it with joy because I believe it is a privilege that God has given me.”

Regarding the list of trips to different parts of the world, González Colón said they were paid for by Congress, not with funds from the central government. In addition, they were not pleasure trips, she said.

“Trips that did not cost the people of Puerto Rico a penny, but that have produced more than $121 billion for the island. These are trips paid for by Congress in my function as a congressman, as a member of committees,” the resident commissioner said. “I have had the opportunity to visit Puerto Rican troops in different countries, where I have represented the United States Congress, such as in the parliament of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which for me is a privilege to be the only Puerto Rican to have represented the United States in that parliament, as well as the trips we have made to see possibilities for energy, infrastructure, economic development, security. … Trips in which I achieved the Medal of Freedom for the Borinqueneers [in the] Korean [War]. So all my trips are official, not pleasure trips as perhaps he [Acevedo Vilá] did. In fact, they have awarded me trips that I didn’t even take.”

She also said there is a great difference between her role as resident commissioner and Acevedo Vilá’s.

“He was an absentee resident commissioner,” González Colón said.

The resident commissioner also reacted to the complaints of Reps. Luis Vega Ramos and at-large candidate for the House of Representatives Gabriel López Arrieta, both of the PDP, about donations to her campaign by lobbyists of the Financial Oversight and Management Board and the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. She defended the donations by saying they were made according to the law.

“This is very natural. When we are days away from the general election, where the numbers of all the polls put me so overwhelmingly ahead, despair becomes the opposition’s attack strategy. And that these accusations come from a candidate who remained silent when Aníbal Acevedo Vilá’s campaign director and treasurer were imprisoned, precisely for money laundering, for conspiracy involving illegal campaign donations, he at that time being the resident commissioner. It is an irony that those who raise these questions about campaign donations are the same ones who in 2009 admitted in court that they laundered dirty money with illegal political donations,” she said. “Obviously the thief judges according to his own condition.”

The New Progressive Party (NPP) leader is running for re-election against the former governor and former resident commissioner Acevedo Vilá of the PDP, as well as against Puerto Rican Independence Party candidate Luis Piñero and new faces Zayira Jordán of the Citizen Victory Movement and Ada Henriquez of the Dignity Project.

When questioned about her support and endorsement of President Donald Trump, who has been criticized for the infamous incident in which he tossed paper towels to island residents gathered at a press event during his brief visit after Hurricane Maria, as well as for allegedly having intentions to sell the island and for criticizing island leaders, the resident commissioner said Trump is the one who signs the checks and endorses her requests for the island.

“Puerto Rico is much more than a presidential candidate. Puerto Rico does not have the right to vote for the president, it does not have the right to two senators, it does not have the right to five congressmen and there are some who believe that by fighting with the occupant of the White House, things will be achieved for the island,” González Colón said. “As long as I represent Puerto Ricans in Congress, I have to seek a relationship with the president, with Republicans, with Democrats and with all those who are in power to achieve things for Puerto Rico. In that sense, even though the president has a difficult charisma, that seems to me to be [for] public [consumption], I have managed to get him to sign each and every one of the requests for funds that I have made for the island.”

González Colón also guaranteed that she has a good relationship with Trump’s opponent for the Democratic Party, former Vice President Joseph Biden, and with members of Congress. She also said she has a good relationship with the island gubernatorial candidates, although she makes a “perfect team” with Pedro Pierluisi, who is running for the NPP and is a former two-term resident commissioner.

Meanwhile, even with the amount of funds she has raised for the island, the resident commissioner is anxious to win the general election to continue with issues that she said are in process and in the pipeline.

“I pushed for the repeal of the air cabotage laws so that Puerto Rico had a cargo and passenger hub. We did

it for the first time in history, as Puerto Rico had not had that before. Now, that was given to us for two years and I want it to be done permanently. I already did it, now I want it to be permanent,” she said. “Also, when I arrived [in Congress] the refund of the rum excise duty had expired, which leaves Puerto Rico out of more than $400 million.

It had expired, [and] I got an extension for a period of five years. Now I want to make it permanent.”

“I filed legislation to give an incentive to the manufacturing industry. I have already gotten the president to sign an executive order forcing federal agencies to buy protective [equipment] against COVID and [other] medical products [made] in the United States,” the resident commissioner continued. “Now I want, and it is what we are looking for, for it to become permanent incentives in law that are tied to the employee, to work, to the generation of investment in Puerto Rico, not necessarily only to the owner of the company.”

González Colón also stressed that regarding health funding on the island, she achieved an increase to 100 percent in the federal allocation for two years, from the current allocation of 82 percent. Before that it was 55 percent, she added. The resident commissioner said she wants it to be fixed at 83 percent, as in the rest of the states. She also mentioned that she achieved access to additional funds, although she will fight for the elimination of the cap of $350 million that limits health processes in Puerto Rico.

“I am looking [for the U.S. government] to apply 100 percent of Supplemental Social Security to the island,” González Colón said.

“I am the only candidate for resident commissioner that has an economic development platform, an infrastructure platform, a security platform, a health platform, with measures some of which have been established and others are in the process of being established in the next Congress,” she said. “You will not find another resident commissioner in the history of Puerto Rico with a more complete platform than mine.”

“For me, becoming the first female resident commissioner in Washington is a challenge, because I have to open the door for others,” González Colón said. “For girls, I have to open doors for other women. That’s why I give one hundred percent. I have nuclear power. I do not stop.”

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

CVM accuses SJ mayoral candidate Romero of tax benefits, pay-for-play scheme; he dismisses ‘conspiracy theories’

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

C

itizen Victory Movement (CVM) San Juan District Senate candidates Rosa Seguí and Marilú Guzmán called out New Progressive Party (NPP) San Juan mayoral candidate Miguel Romero on Sunday for obtaining a 57 percent discount per square feet on the purchase of a luxury apartment after allegedly pushing for tax benefits for home developers as Labor and Human Resources secretary under former Gov. Luis Fortuño’s administration.

Guzmán said Romero, as Labor secretary and part of Fortuño’s economic team, promoted the creation of a tax exemption program for home purchases as the thengovernor signed the Real Estate Market Stimulus Law on Sept. 2, 2010. However, Guzmán said that according to estimates from the economic team, the tax benefits from Law 132-2010 would have cost $77.8 million in its first two fiscal years. The CVM Senate candidate said further that less than 90 days after the bill was signed, “Romero closed on a $403,000 mortgage from a luxury apartment in the Mirador del Parque Condominium in Hato Rey.” “In 2016, Romero received a mortgage modification of that apartment under extremely advantageous conditions.

It was a modification of the original mortgage through which, among other benefits, he obtained a reduction of $31,000 in the principal of that loan, and it was a loan that, at the time of modification, also reduced the interest up to monthly payment number 72,” Guzmán said. “It should be noted that this is a 40-year loan that, as a general rule, no bank gives to anyone; mortgage loans are, in general, 30 years, 15 years if you decide to modify the loan.”

Citizen Victory Movement (CVM) San Juan District Senate candidates Rosa Seguí and Marilú Guzmán Meanwhile, Seguí said that such information could be confirmed as an attachment to the apartment’s mortgage included a sworn declaration where Romero purchased a home that was eligible under the aforementioned law.

Moreover, she said the NPP senator did not have to pay the Municipal Revenue Collections Center (CRIM by its Spanish acronym) from 2011 until 2015 “even though the rest of the country was paying the special CRIM surcharge imposed under Law 7 [2009].”

“Romero not only bought the largest apartment that was sold in the Mirador del Parque Condominium that year, but he got it with a discount [that was] 57 percent per square foot cheaper than the other apartments sold in 2010. Instead, on December 29 of that year, one of his neighbors bought an apartment, which is half the size of Romero’s apartment, for $471,200, this being 121 percent more expensive per square foot,” Seguí said, adding that “this happened in the same period in which dozens of public employees were fired in order

to allegedly have some savings that never happened.”

Likewise, the CVM Senate candidate said housing developers from both Mirador del Parque Condominium and Las Monjas Realty took advantage of the alleged scheme as they were able to sell $3.68 million in luxury apartments that were in the same complex as Romero’s property. Las Monjas Realty “was able to enjoy maximum tax benefits, 0 percent tax on profits on those sales, during the 10 months stipulated by Law 132-2010,” she said.

Romero reacts, calls CVM leaders’ accusations ‘conspiracy theories’ Romero, meanwhile, called the accusations released by the CVM candidates “false and defamatory conspiracy theories that seem to come out of a science fiction novel.”

“For everyone’s knowledge, this [public] servant bought his home 10 years ago like anyone else,” Romero said in a written statement. “At that time, I was not a legislator, much less received special treatment in the sale of my home. As the Labor secretary, I was not involved at that time nor did I work with anything that had to do with incentives for housing development; saying otherwise is an irresponsible act for the sole purpose of tarnishing reputations.”

The senator from San Juan said “CVM claims to represent a new way of doing politics, yet today we see how they actually use the worst of old and traditional politics to maliciously smear and defame.”

“I reiterate that the statements made today by the candidates are absolutely false and are not supported by any fact that has to do with me; [they show] a clear disregard for the truth,” Romero said. “San Juan citizens are already tired of this type of politicking. Our team will continue to focus on working to make San Juan shine again.”

PDP mayor presents what she says is evidence of NPP double balloting

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

M

orovis Mayor Carmen Maldonado González, who is also a vice president of the Popular Democratic Party, presented over the weekend what she says is photographic evidence of double ballots being sent to members of the New Progressive Party (NPP) in Morovis.

“Affiliates of that party, decent and honest people, have sent me this information in a confidential way because they are outraged at this impudence,” Maldonado said Sunday. “There is the result of having approved a new electoral law at gunpoint that, far from expanding the right to vote, what it leads to is electoral fraud.”

In the two photos submitted by the mayor, “the stamp with the name and address of the voters is covered to protect their right to confidentiality and two plebiscite ballots are distinguished,” Maldonado said.

“If they did it with these ballots, knowing the despair of the NPP with that useless [Statehood Yes or No] con-

sultation, no one doubts that they are doing the same thing with the ballots of the governor’s office, mayors and Legislature,” the mayor said. “That is why we are going to promote intervention at the federal level. This is a government that could not adequately distribute aid to those in need, but for electoral fraud they are organized.”

Maldonado said her claim is not isolated, since on Friday it was reported to the media that at least 300 requests for early voting, including those for voting at home and voting by mail, faced questions when they were evaluated by electoral commissioners at State Elections Commission headquarters. Specifically, there were cases in which they identified voters who never requested early voting.

“There are applications that were not completed, others lack information, and there are even questionable signatures. All of this encourages electoral fraud,” Maldonado said. “Broad sectors asked the governor not to sign this electoral law, but she preferred to please her party than serve the country and now we have the results.

But we are going to be vigilant, vigilant and combative.

Democracy is manifested with fair votes and we are going to defend that principle.”

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

7

Biden is dominating Trump on the airwaves in battlegrounds

By NICK CORASANITI and WEIYI CAI

P

resident Donald Trump is being vastly outspent by Joe Biden in television advertising in the general election battleground states and elsewhere, with the former vice president focusing overwhelmingly on the coronavirus as millions of Americans across the country begin casting early votes.

Biden has maintained a nearly 2-to-1 advantage on the airwaves for months. His dominance is most pronounced in three critical swing states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — where he spent about $53 million to Trump’s $17 million over the past month, with ads assailing the president’s handling of the economy and taxes as well as the virus, according to data from Advertising Analytics, an ad tracking firm.

In Pennsylvania alone, Biden ran 38 different ads during a single week this month, a sign of how comprehensive his effort there has been.

The president’s ad strategy, in turn, reflects the challenges facing both his campaign finances and Electoral College map.

He has recently scaled back advertising in battleground states like Ohio and Iowa and, until this past week, slashed ads in Michigan and Wisconsin, despite being behind in polls. And Trump is having to divert resources to hold onto Republicanleaning states like Arizona and Georgia.

Trump spent less on ads in 2016, too, and still went on to capture critical states and prevail over Hillary Clinton.

But back then he relied heavily on huge rallies and live cable news coverage to get his message out, and he got extensive airtime for his attacks on Clinton. This time around, his rallies have been fewer and smaller because of the pandemic and his own virus infection; the events have gotten less cable coverage; and he has had a hard time making attacks stick on Biden.

In many ways, the advertising picture reveals how the pandemic has upended the 2020 race. With in-person campaigning sharply limited, the traditional advantages built by a ground game in battleground states have largely been replaced by the air cover provided by advertising. More than $1.5 billion has been spent on the presidential race alone; by contrast, $496

million was spent on ads in just the presidential race by this point in the 2016 race.

Onscreen, voters are inundated with imagery of the pandemic — hazmat suits and shuttered businesses — as well as scenes from protests, both peaceful and violent.

Roughly 80% of theTrump campaign’s ads have been either negative or what is called a contrast ad, a mix of criticism of the opponent and self-promotion.

Of those, 62% were all-out attacks. For Biden, about 60% of campaign ads have been negative or contrast, with just 7% outright negative.

This inundation can be dizzying to viewers in swing states. In Phoenix, during the Spanish language broadcast of “Exatlón,” a popular reality TV show, a Biden ad that hails Sen. Kamala Harris’ record with the Latino community and that shows her peacefully marching in the streets is followed by a Trump ad denouncing Biden as “radical,” with scenes of violent clashes from protests. “Exatlón” runs an average of 15 ads from the Trump or Biden campaigns per broadcast.

In Philadelphia, fans of “Judge Judy” had to sit through an average of five political ads per half-hour of broadcast, with the Biden and Trump campaigns offering dueling arguments on criminal justice reform.

The increasingly lopsided nature of the TV ad wars is part of an overall narrative that shows a persistent, if slight, advantage for the former vice president.

Biden has built steady, single-digit leads in battleground polls with a campaign message of resolve and a pledge to control the pandemic — points reflected in his ads. Trump, who has repeatedly shifted his messaging, has played more defense

Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, is vastly outspending President Donald Trump in TV advertising, maintaining a nearly two-to-one advantage on the airwaves. on the airwaves.

The result is a reversal of fortunes in a campaign where it seemed Trump had built an unstoppable cash machine early on and, in the words of his former campaign manager, had a “death star” of political advertising ready for the final push. Having been outspent by roughly $124 million on the airwaves since May, Trump has largely ceded the ad wars to Biden.

“The candidates almost always try to match what their opponent is doing because it’s like an arms race,” said Lynn Vavreck, a politics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “They understand that allowing them to get ahead

has consequences.”

For months, the Trump campaign held a significant advantage on digital advertising, although recently the Biden campaign has essentially matched the Trump footprint online, reaching a rough parity on Google and Facebook over the past 30 days, at about $50 million on the platforms for each campaign.

Of course, the overall effectiveness of political advertising varies widely from race to race, and it is likely to have less impact in winning over voters when an electorate is exceptionally polarized, as it is in 2020. But given the slowdown of normal operations, campaigns have relied on television ads this cycle to simply remain in the daily conversation.

Both campaigns are spending by far the most money and airing the most ads in Florida. It is a must-win for Trump; if Biden prevails there, political strategists believe, it would signal a clear path to victory. Biden has spent about $14 million more on broadcast television and cable ads there than Trump. The latest polling average calculated by The New York Times’ Upshot shows Biden with a 4-point advantage.

Continues on page 8

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

From page 7 In Florida, perhaps no markets offer a greater indication of the two campaigns’ strategies than Miami-Fort Lauderdale, home to Biden’s biggest base of support in the state, and the Tampa-St. Petersburg media market, which includes Pinellas County, a populous area that switched from blue to red in 2016.

Tampa is one of the few markets where Trump has been outspending Biden over the past 30 days, as his campaign tries to hold on to support with a largely negative campaign focused on Biden’s tax proposals.

But in Miami, Biden is the dominant force on the airwaves. Democratic operatives view their path to winning Florida through a huge turnout in Miami, the state’s most diverse city, where Democrats have a huge advantage.

Biden has been airing two biographical spots — one in Spanish and one in English, each with near-equal money behind them — that focus on his personal history benefiting from health care, and his fights to expand that access through the Affordable Care Act. “That had extraordinary potency in 2018,” said Roy Temple, a Democratic ad maker, referring to the health care ads and messaging that helped Democrats take back the House two years ago. “If anything, COVID added to the potency of that because you’ve got literally millions of people who now have a new preexisting condition.”

But while the Biden campaign is looking to Florida for a knockout punch, it has also steadily been landing body blows in the former “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that Trump won in 2016.

Take Milwaukee, where Biden has been owning the airwaves at a nearly 5-to-1 spending advantage over the past 30 days. While it is the Democratic anchor of the state and where Biden needs to turn out a large part of his base, the Milwaukee media market includes Kenosha and Racine, two of the 10 biggest counties in the state and ones that Trump flipped to red in 2016.

Now, voters in the two counties, as well as in Milwaukee, have seen an average of 139 Biden ads each day for the past week, and just 17 Trump ads.

The Biden campaign has been running a mix of ads that are heavy on personal biography and that contrast his vision for controlling the pandemic with Trump’s

handling of the virus.

“When you get a candidate in Biden’s position, you no longer are in a situation where you really are trying to knock the other guy down,” said Tad Devine, a Democratic ad strategist who ran the ad campaigns of both John Kerry and Al Gore. “You are in a situation where you must offer fundamental reassurance.”

In Detroit and Philadelphia, the ad disparity is similarly stark, with Biden more than doubling Trump’s spending in both cities. The Biden campaign has been making an effort to energize Black voters, with ads featuring actor Samuel L. Jackson and young Black millennials from Flint, Michigan, discussing the importance of voting.

But while the traditional swing states occupy most of the attention, Devine says the Biden campaign’s dominance in Arizona is among the biggest indicators of his campaign’s strength.

“If you can move into the other guy’s terrain and force them either to defend it or actually make a play to take it away from them,” Devine said, “that’s the single most aggressive play there is in a presidential campaign — to move against an opponent in turf that belongs to them.”

The Biden campaign’s large investment in Arizona has forced the Trump campaign to move some money around as well, adding $5.7 million more to its ad reservations in Arizona since Aug. 30.

Forcing the Trump campaign to spend more in Arizona, a Republican state that hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1996, is most likely a factor that has forced the campaign to draw down its advertising in states like Ohio and Iowa, two traditional battleground states that the campaign won handily in 2016 and is hoping to win again this year.

But it has also meant that the Trump campaign has significantly reduced spending in Minnesota, a traditionally

blue state that Republicans had hoped would be in play in 2020. Biden has had double-digit leads in most polls there.

The Trump campaign claims that all of its ad decisions have been strategic and not budget-forced.

“Television ads are a small piece of the voter outreach puzzle and the Trump campaign has perfected the art of utilizing them in the most strategic, surgical way possible,” said Samantha Zager, the deputy press secretary for the Trump campaign. “It makes no sense to run TV ads in states we know we’re going to win, and in other states, they’re a useful tool to reach the right voters with the right message.”

The Trump campaign has been using a more counterintuitive way to try to maximize its ad spends in particularly expensive states like North Carolina, Arizona and Michigan, with a national buy — purchasing an ad on a national network that airs in every state. While competitive Senate races help drive up the cost per ad in a local market, in some states a national buy ends up being cheaper.

The Trump campaign is also spending directly on local cable networks that have high viewership among more rural voters, such as RFD-TV, WGN-TV and the Weather Channel, and spending

heavily on evangelical and conservative radio stations.

Perhaps to allay concerns about the advertising spending gap, Bill Stepien, the Trump campaign manager, released a memo in September saying that the media coverage of the president’s travel and campaigning was equal to $40.1 million of broadcast airtime.

For the Biden campaign, having an enormous ad campaign running across many states reflects the many paths it sees to the White House.

“We started in a broader swath of states, including two that Democrats have not won in recent cycles, because we see a lot of paths to 270,” said Patrick Bonsignore, director of paid media for the Biden campaign. “We’ve gone into new states because our paths to 270 are increasing.”

But as the end of the race draws near and more people begin to vote, some political experts say the president is running out of time to make up his messaging gap.

“The best mobilizer is message,” said Ken Goldstein, a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco. “Advertising can’t matter when everyone has made up their mind. And some people have not only made up their mind but cast their vote.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

9

Virus spikes collide with fatigue and apathy in troubling trend

By JULIE BOSMAN, SARAH MERVOSH and MARC SANTORA

W

hen the coronavirus began sweeping around the globe this spring, people from Seattle to Rome to London canceled weddings and vacations, cut off visits with grandparents and hunkered down in their homes for what they thought would be a brief but essential period of isolation.

But summer did not extinguish the virus. And with fall has come another dangerous, uncontrolled surge of infections that in parts of the world is the worst of the pandemic so far.

The United States surpassed 8 million known cases this past week and reported more than 70,000 new infections Friday, the most in a single day since July. Eighteen states added more new coronavirus infections during the seven-day stretch ending Friday than in any other week of the pandemic.

In Europe, cases are rising and hospitalizations are up. Britain is imposing new restrictions, and France has placed cities on “maximum alert,” ordering many to close all bars, gyms and sports centers.

Germany and Italy set records for the most new daily cases. And leaders in the Czech Republic described their health care system as “in danger of collapsing,” as hospitals are overwhelmed and more deaths are occurring than at any time in the pandemic.

The virus has taken different paths through these countries as leaders have tried to tamp down the spread with a range of restrictions. Shared, though, is a public weariness and a growing tendency to risk the dangers of the coronavirus, out of desire or necessity. With no end in sight, many people are flocking to bars, family parties, bowling alleys and sporting events much as they did before the virus hit, and others must return to school or work as communities seek to resuscitate economies. And in sharp contrast to the spring, the rituals of hope and unity that helped people endure the first surge of the virus have given way to exhaustion and frustration.

“People are done putting hearts on their windows and teddy bears out for scavenger hunts,” said Katie Rosenberg, the mayor of Wausau, Wisconsin, a city of 38,000 where a hospital has opened an extra unit to treat COVID-19 patients.

Katie Rosenberg, mayor of Wausau, Wis., who took office during the coronavirus pandemic, Oct. 15, 2020.

“They have had enough.”

Ann Vossen, a medical microbiologist in the Netherlands, where daily cases doubled this past week, said people across Europe “let go too much.” She added, “This is the result.”

In parts of the world where the virus is resurging, the outbreaks and a rising sense of apathy are colliding, making for a dangerous combination. Health officials say the growing impatience is a new challenge as they try to slow the latest outbreaks, and it threatens to exacerbate what they fear is turning into a devastating autumn.

The issue is particularly stark in the United States, which has more known cases and deaths than any other country and has already weathered two major coronavirus surges; infections spiked during the spring in the Northeast and again this summer across the Sun Belt. But a similar phenomenon is setting off alarms across Europe, where researchers from the World Health Organization estimate that about half the population is experiencing “pandemic fatigue.”

“Citizens have made huge sacrifices,” said Dr. Hans Kluge, the WHO’s regional director for Europe. “It has come at an extraordinary cost, which has exhausted all of us, regardless of where we live or

what we do.”

If the spring was characterized by horror, the fall has become an odd mix of resignation and heedlessness. People who once would not leave their homes are now considering dining indoors for the first time — some losing patience after so many months without, others slipping in a fancy meal before the looming winter months when the virus is expected to spread more readily. Many people are still wearing masks to support their neighbors and keep others safe, but sidewalks that were decorated with chalk messages of encouragement for health care workers and others at Easter are likely to be bare at Halloween.

“In the spring, it was fear and a sense of, ‘We are all in it together,’” said Vaile Wright, a psychologist at the American Psychological Association who studies stress in the United States.

“Things are different now,” she said.

“Fear has really been replaced with fatigue.”

In New York, Indra Singh, 60, took the toddler she babysits to a playground on a recent morning.

“I am so tired of everything,” she said, pulling at the black mask on her face and worrying about what she will do when the weather turns cold. “Is it going to be over?” she said. “I want it to be over.”

Medical treatments for the virus

have vastly improved since the spring, and deaths remain lower than at the worst peak, but the latest growth in coronavirus infections has left public health officials worried. More than 218,000 people have died in the United States since the start of the pandemic, and daily reports of deaths have stayed relatively consistent in recent weeks, with about 700 a day.

In some parts of the world, behavior has changed, and containment efforts have been tough and effective. Infections have stayed relatively low for months in places like South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and China, where the virus first spread. After a dozen cases were detected in the Chinese city of Qingdao, authorities sought this past week to test all of its 9.5 million residents.

“We have very little backlash here against these types of measures,” said Siddharth Sridhar, an assistant professor of microbiology at the University of Hong Kong. “If anything, there’s a lot of pushback against governments for not doing enough to contain the virus.”

The response in the United States and much of Europe has been far different.

While residents willingly banded together in the spring, time has given rise to frustration and revolt.

Continues on page 10

Diners at a restuarant in Wausau, Wis., Oct. 15, 2020. Exhaustion and impatience are creating new risks as cases soar in parts of the world. “They have had enough,” one U.S. mayor said of her residents.

10 From page 9 Hot spots are emerging in the South and the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and expanding rapidly in the Midwest and the Mountain West. Illinois this past week recorded its highest daily number of confirmed cases since the pandemic began and the most deaths in a single day since June.

In Spain, a summer of travel and dancing has led to a new surge this fall. In Germany, health authorities on Thursday registered 7,334 infections in a 24-hour period, a national record. Even Italy, which imposed one of the most sweeping lockdowns in Europe this spring, is now seeing disturbing new growth and considering a 10 p.m. curfew nationwide.

The virus has seeped through communities, rural and urban. In Chicago, public schools remained closed to students for a sixth consecutive week as the city’s rate of positive coronavirus tests inched up near 5%. In Gove County, Kansas, population 2,600, nine people have died from the virus in recent days, health officials reported.

Clusters of infections have emerged from a spa in Washington state, a hockey league in Vermont, a Baptist church in North Carolina and a Sweet 16 party on Long Island.

Sick people are telling contact tracers they picked up the virus while trying to return to ordinary life. Beth Martin, a retired school librarian who is working as a contact tracer in Marathon County, Wisconsin, said she interviewed a family that had become sick through what is now a common situation — at a birthday party for a relative in early October.

“Another case said to me, ‘You know what, it’s my adult son’s fault,’” she recalled. “‘He decided to go to a wedding, and now we’re all sick.’”

Mark Harris, county executive for Winnebago County, Wisconsin, said he had been frustrated by the “loud minority” in his county that had been successfully pushing back against any public health measures to be taken against the pandemic.

They have a singular frame of mind, he said: “‘This has been inconveniencing me long enough, and I’m done changing my behavior.’”

In the Czech Republic, a politically divided nation, people met the initial order to shelter at home this spring with an unusual show of unity. They began a national mask sewing campaign, recognized around the world for its ingenuity. Confidence in the government, for its handling of the crisis, reached a record 86%.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

Since then, support for the government response has plummeted, and the country is now experiencing the fastest increase in virus cases in Europe. Roughly half of the more than 150,000 cases recorded in the Czech Republic have come in the past two weeks, and more than half of the country’s nearly 1,300 deaths have come this month.

Poland is not far behind, with an explosion of new cases and a waning interest in volunteerism. The country of 38 million has the lowest number of doctors per capita in the European Union, and some doctors are now refusing to join coronavirus teams, concerned about safety protocols.

“We are on the brink of catastrophe,” Pawel Grzesiowski, a prominent Polish immunologist, told the Polish radio station RMF FM. There are growing signs that the ongoing stress is taking a toll. In the United States, alcohol sales in stores are up 23% during the pandemic, according to Nielsen, a figure that could reflect the nation’s anxiety as well as the drop in drinks being sold at restaurants and bars.

Overdose deaths, too, are on the rise in many cities. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which includes Cleveland, there were recently 19

overdose deaths in a single week, far more than most weeks.

“Like a lot of other people, I’ll be happy to see 2020 end,” said Dr. Thomas Gilson, the county’s medical examiner.

In the initial days of the pandemic, Shanna Groom, 47, kept busy spreading uplifting messages in her neighborhood in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. She drew smiley faces in chalk in her driveway, waved the school flag when teachers did a drive-through visit of the neighborhood and positioned a teddy bear in her window as part of a “bear hunt” for neighborhood children.

The bear, which was dressed like a nurse, wearing a mask and mint green scrubs, sat in her dining room window for months. This month, Groom finally removed the bear to paint the room.

“It kind of made me a little sad,” said Groom, who is a nurse. “We were doing sprints in the beginning, and now it’s a marathon. We’re a little tired.”

In many states, businesses are open and often operating free of restrictions, even as hospitalizations have been driven up by coronavirus patients. This past week in Wisconsin, a field hospital at the state fairgrounds

with a 530-bed capacity was reopened for coronavirus patients.

Dr. Michael Landrum, who treats coronavirus patients in Green Bay, Wisconsin, said mask use is more widespread than in the spring, personal protective equipment is easier to come by for hospital workers, and treatment of the virus is more sophisticated.

Back then, it was not as hard to figure out where sick patients had contracted the coronavirus. There were outbreaks at meatpacking plants in town, and many cases were tied to them. Now it is more complicated.

“The scary scenario is the number of patients who really just don’t know where they got it,” Landrum said. “That suggests to me that it’s out there spreading very easily.”

The challenge ahead, he said, would be convincing people that they need to take significant steps — all over again — to slow down spread that could be even worse than before.

“We’re trying to get people to change their behavior back to being more socially distanced and more restrictive with their contacts,” Landrum said. “There’s been a false sense of complacency. And now it’s just a lot harder to do that.”

Pedestrians and cyclists in New York’s Central Park, Oct. 5, 2020. New Yorkers say they fear the loss of outdoor spaces, where much of the city’s socializing has safely taken place, as the weather begins to cool.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

11

For long-term investors, small things like presidential elections don’t matter

By JEFF SOMMER

I

n a year of serial crises, solace for many people has come from an unlikely source: the stock market.

Despite periodic jitters and a horrendous downturn earlier in the year, the stock market has been a surprisingly sturdy refuge. Although there is heartbreak almost everywhere else you look, most of the time stocks rise anyway.

Through Friday, the S&P 500, a bench mark for the shares of big American companies, was up almost 8% this year. And this stock market prosperity in a time of general desperation isn’t an outlier.

With important exceptions, the stock market has generated rich returns for decades, regardless of the outcome of portentous events, including presidential elections.

Since 1929 through 2019, the S&P 500 and its predecessor indexes generated annualized returns of 10.3%, according to data supplied by Dimensional Fund Advisors, an asset management firm.

There were terrible stretches in world history during that long period, and some calamitous stock returns. The volatility of the stock market is a key reason for holding high-quality bonds: Bonds can buffer the gut-wrenching shifts in stocks.

But it is hard to pin either the market’s losses or gains explicitly on the policies or management of presidential administrations, or on voter expectations.

Presidents are powerful, but they don’t control the market. Was Barack Obama responsible for the fabulous 16% annualized market returns during his eight years in office? Was Donald Trump responsible for the 14.5% annualized returns for his presidency through January (according to Bloomberg data) — or for the 33% downturn in February and March, or for the subsequent bull market run? You can argue this any way you like. I think the most intelligent answer is: yes, to some extent, but certainly not entirely. With all the factors affecting the staggeringly complex markets and the overall economy, presidencies don’t matter as much as they may seem in campaign season.

Given that complexity, it is impossible to consistently predict political or

President Trump Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, at their first debate in Cleveland on Sept. 29, 2020. market outcomes with certainty. Yet it is possible to forecast the long-term trend of the stock market with a fair amount of confidence, in the view of David Booth, a founder of Dimensional Fund Advisors.

“We know that for the last 100 years, investors have had a reasonable return from the stock market of about 10% a year. That includes big declines and terrible events — the Great Depression, World War II, etc. — yet they have found a way to adapt.

And I think they still will.”

Consider the current dim state of the world and the comparative glow of the markets.

Millions of people are sick and dying, with more than 217,000 dead in the United States alone. Aside from the lethal pandemic, the battered economy, the fraying social fabric and the incendiary presidential election, this country is facing a battle over the shifting composition of the Supreme Court as well as struggles for racial and gender equality, a destabilized international order and the increasingly obvious consequences of global warming.

In my imagination — if not yours — on bad days, the world seems to be coming to an end.

Yet the outlook has been very different for stock investors. Those lucky

enough to own a well-diversified bundle of stocks and strong enough to hold on to it will have found that their financial statements are in indecently good shape.

Stocks have been magnificent since the Federal Reserve intervened and stopped the market rout March 23; the S&P 500, which you can own in a low-cost index fund, has since gained more than 50%. A core debate now is what effect the American election will have on the market.

There are many erudite answers, for the overall market and for specific sectors, and they are worth studying if you work in one of those sectors, or if your life or the lives of your loved ones are affected by the giant corporations whose shares are traded in the stock market.

But in forecasting the performance of the entire stock market, I am increasingly skeptical about the real worth of most analyses of the probable market impact of elections.

For one thing, market prices — which incorporate prevailing assessments of election probabilities — are fickle.

Would a Biden or a Trump presidency be better for stocks? I can easily argue either case. And the stock market appears to be playing it both ways as well.

For instance, the consensus on Wall Street is that corporate taxes are likely to rise if former Vice President Joe Biden wins the election, which would presumably be bad for stocks. Furthermore, Biden would probably tighten federal regulations on auto emissions and the environment — good news if, say, you have asthma and care deeply about the air you breathe or the warming of the planet, but probably bad if you own shares in Exxon Mobil.

Biden would also be expected to move for greater investor protections and tighter control over the financial services companies that have been given a freer rein in the Trump administration. On the other hand, if Trump wins reelection, he could be expected to move further in liberating corporations and wealthy investors from heavy tax and regulatory burdens.

So far, based on these factors, it might seem that a Trump victory would be preferable for most investors. Yet, as I’ve pointed out, a solid BofA Global Research report came to the opposite conclusion.

I don’t know which candidate would be better for the stock market as a whole or even for specific stocks.

Instead, I share the radically agnostic view of Booth. “Vote with your ballot, not your life savings,” he said, adding that markets are far too complex to make judgments based on elections. As I’ve noted, the market has done better under Democrats, not Republicans, although I doubt that those results are statistically relevant.

The more important point is that stock markets have risen and fallen under both Democratic and Republican presidents — and more often than not, they’ve risen.

Capital ultimately finds a way to make profits. That is great for investors but by no means an unmitigated boon for everyone else. To the contrary. As Thomas Piketty pointed out in his landmark book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” the stock market is a channel through which wealth discrepancies widen.

Still, by holding broad, low-cost index funds for very long periods, it’s possible for people of relatively modest wealth to prosper financially, despite the madness in the world and regardless of the results of presidential elections.

12

Monday, October 19, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

$421 Million in debt: Trump calls it ‘a peanut,’ but challenges lie ahead

Trump International Hotel in Washington, April 21, 2020. Loans that President Donald Trump is carrying on his books, and the rare step he took of personally guaranteeing $421 million in debts, puts his assets on the line and could place his lenders, should he be re-elected, in the position of deciding whether to foreclose on a sitting president.

By RUSS BUETTNER and SUSANNE CRAIG

P

resident Donald Trump painted a rosy picture of his financial condition during a televised town hall Thursday night, calling his hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due “a peanut” and saying he had borrowed it as a favor to lenders eager to take advantage of his financial strength.

In fact, the loans, and the unusual requirement he had to accept to receive them, illustrate the financial challenges he faces and the long-standing reluctance of banks to deal with him.

Trump had to personally guarantee $421 million in debt, a rare step that lenders only require of businesses that may not be able to repay. The commitment puts his assets on the line and could place his lenders, should he be reelected, in the position of deciding whether to foreclose on a sitting president.

The personal guarantee also speaks to why, despite Trump’s assertion that banks are eager to lend him money, nearly all the money he borrowed in the last decade came from only two institutions.

“When a bank asks for a personal guarantee, it is because the bank isn’t satisfied with the creditworthiness of the borrower,” said Richard Scott Carnell, who served as

assistant secretary for financial institutions at the Treasury Department under President Bill Clinton and now teaches law at Fordham University. “If the captain gives a personal guarantee for the ship, he will be less likely to sink it.”

Trump was asked about the debt in response to an investigation by The New York Times published last month based on a review of more than two decades of his tax-return data. The investigation found that Trump had personally guaranteed $421 million of his companies’ debts, with more than $300 million coming due within four years.

The tax-return data obtained by The Times does not by its nature identify the lender for most of Trump’s debts. But the borrowing businesses and largest amounts track with the personal financial disclosures he has been required to file with the federal government as a candidate and president.

The bulk of the debt appears to be owed to Deutsche Bank, one of the few lenders that would do business with Trump in the last decade, even after he defaulted on past loans.

The tax records, for example, show that the largest loan balances at the end of 2018 that Trump had personally guaranteed were $160 million on his Washington hotel and more than $125 million on his Doral golf resort. His disclosure forms indicate that Deutsche Bank was the lender on both loans. Trump had also personally guaranteed $60.3 million

of debt owed by one of his entities, DJT Holdings. His Chicago tower, another Deutsche Bank borrower, is among the many businesses he controls through that holding company.

Deutsche Bank is the only mainstream financial institution that has been consistently willing to do business with Trump. And even that lender has required him to personally guarantee what he has borrowed.

According to Trump’s disclosure forms and property records, the only other significant lender to his businesses since 2012 has been Ladder Capital.

Trump’s reputation among lenders was sealed over the decades that his Atlantic City casinos repeatedly filed for bankruptcy. Ben Berzin, a retired executive vice president and senior credit officer at PNC Bank who dealt with Trump over the casino loans, said banks got “an expensive education,” and the ones that did not demand a personal guarantee got burned.

“They lent on the aura of success,” he said. “And things went really wrong.”

The debt that Trump has personally guaranteed was only part of the total debt and other liabilities shown in his tax records for the end of 2018. Additionally, Trump’s businesses owe more than $200 million for which Trump is not personally responsible.

During the town hall, Trump said that the $421 million in debt was not a concern, apparently clinging to his longheld assertion that his net worth is more than $10 billion.

“What I’m saying is that it’s a tiny percentage of my net worth,” Trump said “When you look at vast properties like I have, and they’re big and they’re beautiful and they’re well located, when you look at that, the amount of money, $400 million, is a peanut, it’s extremely underlevered,” he added, seemingly using his own version of the financial term “underleveraged.”

In a dire situation, Trump could try to sell some assets or properties to cover a loan coming due. But loans are usually based on the profitability of the business borrowing the money.

Tax records for the businesses on which he borrowed the bulk of the money suggest that refinancing may present a challenge. Doral and his Washington hotel, with more than $300 million in debts coming due, have posted regular losses. And in addition to the debt he owes, Trump has pumped a net of $261.8 million cash into the businesses to help keep them afloat.

And he appears to have spent much of the cash and investments he had on hand just a few years ago, as his income from entertainment and endorsements began a steep decline. icial, said Trump’s personal guarantee on the debts put his lenders, primarily Deutsche Bank, in an “awkward” spot, in no small part because banks are subject to federal regulation and Trump has displayed a willingness to push the Justice Department to investigate perceived foes.

“The Donald Trump approach to law is all legal levers would be fair game in pressuring or punishing a bank,” he said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

13 Stocks

Coronavirus spending pushes U.S. 2020 fiscal year deficit to record $3.132 trillion

T

he U.S. budget deficit hit a record $3.132 trillion during fiscal 2020, more than triple the 2019 shortfall due to massive coronavirus rescue spending, the U.S. Treasury said on Friday.

U.S. stocks registered sharp gains for the third quarter, but they fell in September in the first monthly decline since March, when the coronavirus began its rapid spread across the United States.

The deficit more than doubled the previous record of $1.416 trillion in fiscal 2009, when the United States was battling a financial crisis.

At the start of the 2020 fiscal year ended Sept. 30, the U.S. government had been forecast to rack up a $1 trillion deficit before coronavirus lockdowns began in March, shutting down large portions of the travel, retail and small business sectors of the economy.

Outlays for fiscal 2020 jumped $2.105 trillion from 2019 to a total of $6.55 trillion, with the increase made up almost entirely from coronavirus aid programs: increased healthcare costs, stimulus checks and unemployment compensation, along with the cost of small business and corporate rescue programs approved by Congress.

As a result of programs that kept paychecks flowing to laid off workers through September, receipts for the full year fell only about 1% or $43 billion from fiscal 2019, totaling $3.42 trillion.

The final fiscal 2020 deficit numbers come as the Trump administration and Congress have been unable to agree on a new round of coronavirus stimulus, with many Senate Republicans calling for fiscal restraint in another package.

A joint statement from the U.S. Treasury and the White House Office of Management and Budget emphasized an “incredible comeback” of economic activities as businesses reopened over the summer months.

“The administration remains fully committed to supporting American workers, families, and businesses and to ensuring that our robust economic rebound continues,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said.

In September, the year’s final month, the U.S. budget deficit was $125 billion, compared with an $83 billion surplus in September 2019, the Treasury said.

September receipts totaled $373 billion, just $1 billion below a year earlier as higher Federal Reserve earnings and excise tax collections made up for lower personal and corporate income tax receipts. September outlays rose by $206 billion from a year earlier to $498 billion, due to COVID-19 related spending.

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14

Monday, October 19, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Who was ‘El Padrino,’ godfather to drug cartel? Mexico’s defense chief, U.S. says

Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos of Mexico saluting soldiers at a military camp in Mexico City in 2016. He was arrested in Los Angeles on money laundering and drug trafficking charges.

By AZAM AHMED and ALAN FEUER

A

merican law enforcement agents were listening in as Mexican cartel members chattered on a wiretap, talking about a powerful, shadowy figure known as El Padrino, or The Godfather.

Agents had been closing in on him for months, suspecting that this central figure in the drug trade was a high-ranking official in the Mexican military.

All of a sudden, one of the people under surveillance told his fellow cartel members that El Padrino happened to be on television at that very moment. The agents quickly checked to see who it was — and found it was the Mexican secretary of defense, Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, according to four American officials involved in the investigation.

In that moment, the authorities say, they finally confirmed that the mystery patron of one of the nation’s most violent drug cartels was actually the leader in charge of waging Mexico’s war against organized crime.

It was a stunning display of how deep the tendrils of organized crime run in Mexico, and on Thursday night Cienfuegos was taken into custody by the American authorities at the Los Angeles airport while traveling with his family.

Even for Mexico, a country often in-

ured to the unrelenting violence and corruption that have gripped it for years, the arrest was nothing less than extraordinary, piercing the veil of invincibility that the nation’s armed forces have long enjoyed.

Cienfuegos, Mexico’s defense minister from 2012 to 2018, is being charged with laundering money and trafficking heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana from late 2015 through early 2017, according to an indictment unsealed in the Eastern District of New York on Friday.

The charges are the result of a multiyear sting that investigators called Operation Padrino. Officials say that Cienfuegos helped the H-2 cartel, a criminal group that committed horrific acts of violence as part of its drug smuggling business, with its maritime shipments. In exchange for lucrative payouts, officials say, Cienfuegos also directed military operations away from the cartel and toward its rivals.

The news not only casts a pall over Mexico’s fight against organized crime, but also underscores the extent of corruption at the highest levels of government. Cienfuegos was defense minister throughout the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto, who left office two years ago.

The damage to Mexico is hard to overstate. The general’s arrest comes only 10 months after another top Mexican official — who once led the Mexican equiva-

lent of the FBI — was indicted in New York on charges of taking bribes while in office to protect the Sinaloa drug cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal mafias.

That official, Genaro García Luna, served as the head of Mexico’s Federal Investigation Agency from 2001 to 2005, and for the next six years was Mexico’s secretary of public security, a Cabinet-level position. In that role, he had the task of helping the president at the time, Felipe Calderón, create the nation’s strategy to battle drug cartels.

If the men are convicted, it means that two of the highest-ranking and most widely respected commanders ever to oversee the war on drugs in Mexico were working with organized crime — helping the very cartels that continue to kill record numbers of Mexicans.

The two cases call into question the American role in the drug war as well. For years, U.S. officials have helped shape and fund Mexico’s strategies, and they have relied on their Mexican counterparts for operations, intelligence and broad security cooperation. If the allegations hold up, some of those same Mexican leaders were playing a double game.

“The difficulty in working in Mexico where you have this level of corruption is that you never really know who you’re working with,” said Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. “There’s always a concern that Mexican law enforcement could compromise you, or compromise an informant, or compromise an investigation.”

Both García Luna and Cienfuegos served at the top of the government when homicides spiked to historic levels, drug cartels waged war and military operations were expanded.

A mercurial presence, Cienfuegos symbolized the prominent role the military plays in Mexico. Commanders are granted an extraordinary amount of autonomy, seldom bowing to political pressures and typically enjoying protection by the president.

“There has never been a minister of defense in Mexico arrested,” said Jorge Castañeda, a former Mexican foreign minister. “The minister of defense in Mexico is a guy that not only runs the army and is a military man, but he reports directly to the president. There is no one above him

except the president.”

Because of that power and autonomy, analysts and others have long suspected some top leaders of corruption. But with their elevated status, no one dared investigate — at least not in Mexico.

“This is a huge deal,” said Alejandro Madrazo, a professor at CIDE, a university in Mexico. “The military has become way more corrupt and way more abusive since the war on drugs was declared, and for the first time they may not be untouchable — but not by the Mexican government, by the American government.”

On Friday, responding to the arrest, Mexico’s current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, both defended the military and decried the bad actors in it. But it was unclear whether López Obrador would step back from his heavy reliance on the military, whose role has expanded during his administration to include everything from construction to public security.

Mexico’s military has been a central part of the nation’s domestic security since the crackdown on drug cartels began in 2006, with soldiers deployed to regions overrun by organized crime. The secretary of defense oversees that effort.

The use of soldiers trained in combat but not in policing has brought problems well beyond corruption. With the military front and center in the fight against narcotics trafficking, the Mexican government has never built an effective police force.

In December 2017, Mexico passed a security law cementing the military’s role in fighting the drug war, outraging the United Nations and human rights groups. They warned that the measure would lead to abuses, leave troops on the streets indefinitely and militarize police activities for the foreseeable future.

Cienfuegos played a crucial role in convincing politicians to pass the law, which gave the military legal permission to do what it had been doing for a decade without explicit authorization. At one point, he threatened to withdraw his troops from the streets, arguing they were not trained for domestic security and were exposed legally.

The military has repeatedly been singled out for human rights abuses and the use of excessive force, including accusations of extrajudicial killings that dogged the armed forces throughout Cienfuegos’ tenure as defense minister.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

15

Bill offering LGBT protections in Italy spurs rival rallies on both sides

By EMMA BUBOLA

P

rotesters turned out in force Saturday for rival demonstrations on a bill that would make anti-LGBT violence a hate crime carrying harsher penalties than under current law, coming out by the hundreds in Rome despite a resurgence of coronavirus cases in the country.

Demonstrations were planned throughout the country before a parliamentary vote planned for this coming week, with supporters framing the measure as a long-overdue means to provide basic human rights and protection from attack, and opponents depicting it as an overreaching step that would also suppress opinion and religious beliefs.

“We have been through centuries of discrimination,” said Marlon Landolfo, 21, who recounted a vicious homophobic attack on him and another man in northern Italy last month.

“Now it’s 2020, and we are still discussing a law that protects us for what we are.”

The bill under debate would explicitly recognize antiLGBT and anti-women hate crimes and hate speech by including those offenses under an existing law that makes discrimination, violence or incitement to violence based on someone’s race or religion a crime punishable by up to four years in prison.

Current law does not have a specific designation for such offenses against LGBT people, and as a result, homophobic or transphobic assaults are tried on lesser charges than racially motivated or anti-Semitic ones.

The bill, which appears to have the support of a parliamentary majority, makes discrimination based on sex, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity an aggravating circumstance, which could mean added time to sentences.

Decades of efforts and multiple attempts to extend protections to LGBT people have failed in Italy, making the country an outlier among Western European democracies such as Britain, France and Spain. Italy approved same-sex civil unions in 2016 but does not allow same-sex marriage.

Within the European Union, it is joined by Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria in not responding to European Parliament appeals for member states to prosecute hate crimes and hate speech motivated by homophobia and transphobia.

Supporters of the bill face resistance from traditional opponents such as conservatives and the Roman Catholic Church, but also from some less expected corners, such as one group of feminists.

Proponents say a change would allow authorities to keep statistics on homophobic and transphobic attacks, provide a deterrent and send a clear message that these are hate crimes.

Landolfo, his ankle still sore after a beating last month in the city of Padua, said he felt disheartened by the debate around the new bill. He and another young man, Mattias Fascina, had held hands and exchanged a quick kiss during a date on a September night when a gang mocked them, then punched and kicked them while shouting homophobic slurs.

Under Italian law, the pair cannot be considered victims of a hate crime.

The attack on Landolfo is not an isolated case. Arcigay, Italy’s leading LGBT association, records more than 100 episodes of violence, hate and discrimination every year. In

September, in the northern city of Novara, a man kicked his lesbian neighbor and broke her nose. In the city of Bergamo, residents of an apartment complex insulted and threatened two homosexual neighbors, prompting them to temporarily move out of their apartment.

“These episodes rarely turn into official complaints,” said Francesca Rupalti, a lawyer with Rete Lenford, a network of lawyers for LGBT rights. “Without a specific law, it is hard to prove homophobic acts.”

Alessandro Zan, a member of Parliament with the center-left Democratic Party who proposed the bill, said its ratification would denote a significant cultural shift in a society with deep patriarchal and conservative roots.

“These people are particularly exposed to hate crimes,” he said. “This is why we particularly need to protect them.”

Unlike the United States, where speech is largely protected by the First Amendment, Italy and many other European countries scarred by fascism and Nazism have stricter laws against preaching racial or ethnic superiority. They have also outlawed blatantly discriminatory associations or groups.

“Laws need to balance freedom of expression and hatred,” Zan said. “This law says clearly that discriminating against LGBT people and inciting violence against them is not an opinion.”

Some opponents of the bill say it will cross the line into censorship. They have presented hundreds of amendments — including one that mockingly asked to extend protection to bald or white-haired people — in order to slow down the

legislative process.

One objection is that the bill, which opponents have dubbed a “gag law,” could be used to suppress dissenting opinions about same-sex marriage or adoption by homosexual couples. A prominent opponent, Matteo Salvini, the leader of the nationalist League party, said the bill “puts ideas on trial” and has insisted that Italy does not discriminate anyway.

Supporters say the bill would not infringe on free speech or religious liberty. Groups or individuals, they say, will still be able to promote and discuss their values as long as they do not engage in violent behavior or incite violence and hatred.

The nationalist and conservative political opposition has been joined by Italy’s Catholic bishops. That has unnerved advocates for the bill who had been encouraged by tolerant remarks from Pope Francis. The pope told a gay man in 2018 that God had made him that way and in 2013 famously said, “Who am I to judge?” when asked about a priest said to be gay — a dramatic change of tone in Vatican comments on homosexuality.

But the Italian bishops conference, which is influential in domestic politics, has argued that the measure could criminalize expression of the church’s belief that marriage should be between a woman and a man, if it were interpreted as incitement to discrimination.

The bishops said in a statement that Italian law already has tools available to punish violent and discriminatory behavior and that adding more “incriminatory norms” would threaten liberty.

Marlon Landolfo, who was beaten up while on a date with another man, in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 16, 2020.

16

Monday, October 19, 2020

Netherlands to allow doctors to help end lives of terminally ill children

By MARIA CRAMER and CLAIRE MOSES

T

he Dutch government announced plans this week to allow doctors to end the lives of terminally ill children who are under 13 years old, a decision that is bound to inflame the debate over physician-assisted death.

The Netherlands already allows doctors to facilitate the deaths of people who are over 12 or less than 1 year old as long as parents have given their consent.

In a letter to parliament Tuesday, the Dutch health minister, Hugo de Jonge, proposed expanding the law to include children between the ages of 1 and 12 who are dying and suffering.

“In a small number of cases, palliative care isn’t sufficient,” de Jonge wrote. “Because of that, some children suffer unnecessarily without any hope of improvement.”

“In a small number of cases, palliative care isn’t suffiHe estimated that the measure would affect about five to cient,” Hugo de Jonge, the Dutch health minister, wrote 10 children every year. in a recent letter to the parliament.

Doctors in the Netherlands have expressed concern that they could be held criminally liable if they were to help end the ized physician-assisted death for adults in certain cases.

In the Netherlands, parliament does not need to vote on the lives of “incurably ill” children between 1 and 12, because the law had no provision for children that age who are expected to new regulation because it will be folded into the already existing law, de Jonge said in the letter. die imminently.

Nevertheless, a parliamentary majority is expected to agree Under the current law, a doctor may end the life of a child younger than 1, with the consent of the child’s parents, if the child with the change, which will take a few months to finalize, a is experiencing “intolerable and hopeless suffering,” de Jonge spokesman for de Jonge said.

“It’s an intensely complicated and sad issue,” de Jonge told wrote.

He said the new regulation would provide more transpar- Dutch broadcaster NOS on Tuesday.

According to Dr. Ira Byock, a palliative care physician and ency for doctors.

Three other European countries — Luxembourg, Belgium director of the Providence Institute for Human Caring, the develand Switzerland — allow physician-assisted death, though the opment in the Netherlands is a worrying example of the growing laws differ in each country. Belgium allows children to die with reliance on medically assisted death to address wrenching health the help of a doctor, but in Luxembourg, the law is restricted to cases, rather than finding compassionate ways of helping people cope with pain and suffering. adults with an incurable medical condition.

“We can always manage someone’s physical suffering,” he Canada, parts of Australia and Colombia have also legal-

said. “We can always provide medication that approaches general anesthesia and allows someone to die gently — sleep through the end of their life.”

Byock said he was concerned about growing calls in the United States to use euthanasia to help adults with degenerative conditions to end their lives.

“When patients who are suffering are seen as problems to be fixed, rather than whole persons to be cared for, we have set ourselves up for a situation that is damaging to the profession and to our society as a whole,” he said.

Byock added: “We’re all on this slippery slope.”

Eight states and Washington, D.C., have laws that allow mentally competent adults with a terminal illness and six months or less to live to obtain prescription medication that will hasten their deaths, according to Death With Dignity, an Oregon-based nonprofit that supports such laws.

The new language in the Dutch law could create “pressure in the United States to try and expand our conservative policy to include people who are unable to consent but are terminally ill and adults,” said Arthur Caplan, a professor of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center.

But he expressed doubts that the United States would start following the example of the Netherlands, where people with mental illness have been allowed to end their lives with the help of doctors.

Americans have less faith in their medical system than the Dutch, who are more likely to believe doctors when they say a medical condition is hopeless, Caplan said.

The Netherlands is “a small country,” he said. “The doctors and the patients know each other very well, and there is pretty good access to health care.”

Caplan added: “In the United States, we have large segments of people who don’t have access to good health care, and that means more mistrust.”

Turkey moves closer to activating its Russian air defense system

By CARLOTTA GALL and ERIC SCHMITT

T

urkey fired a missile as a test of its Russian-made air defense system on Friday, a U.S. official confirmed, a move that breaks an agreement with the Trump administration and risks the imposition of sanctions by Congress.

The Turkish military tested the air defense system, known as the S-400, in the Black Sea province of Sinop, A Haber television, a news outlet close to the government, first reported and the U.S. official later confirmed. Video obtained by Reuters showed a white smoke trail rising high in the sky.

There was no official confirmation from the Turkish government of the test launch, but also no denial of the report. Turkey had been seen moving the missiles to Sinop and had issued several recent notices restricting air space and waters off the coastal area to allow for tests.

The test launch brings Turkey closer to activating the system, a step that would further strain relations with the United States.

A State Department spokeswoman, Morgan Ortagus, said the

United States had told Turkish officials at the most senior levels that the acquisition of Russian military systems like the S-400 was unacceptable, and that such systems should not be made operational.

If officially confirmed, Ortagus said, “we would condemn in the strongest terms the S-400 test missile launch as incompatible with Turkey’s responsibilities as a NATO ally and strategic partner of the United States.”

“We have also been clear on the potential serious consequences of our security relationship if Turkey activates the system,” she added.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey enraged the United States and other NATO allies last year by buying the advanced S-400 system. The system is aimed at countering American F-35 stealth bombers and other advanced Western weaponry, and military officials have complained that Turkey’s use of it will compromise NATO aircraft in the vicinity.

The U.S. government suspended Turkey from its F-35 program and has warned that penalties could be imposed under a program known as Countering America’s Adversaries

Through Sanctions Act. Erdogan has insisted on Turkey’s right to buy the weapons systems as part of a more militarized and assertive foreign policy, and the S-400 system has become an important purchase in his relationship with Russia.

In recent months, though, Erdogan had seemed to tread more carefully. Under an agreement with the Trump administration, Turkey had kept the missile system under wraps and since April had made no move to activate it.

By moving closer to activating the S-400 system Erdogan was raising his bargaining power with the United States and NATO, but was also risking further penalties, said Asli Aydintasbas, senior fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“He is raising the value of the bargaining chip, but also the size of the risk,” she said. “It is a Russian roulette of sorts.”

Erdogan may be calculating that President Donald Trump will not win the election and that he has time to activate the S-400 since it would be months before a new administration took office and reviewed its policies toward Turkey, she added.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

17

A safari, in the shadow of a metropolis, with deadly attractions

By MIKE IVES

T

he snake didn’t see the catcher coming, at least not in time to avoid being caught.

“This is the fourth-most-toxic land snake in the world, and the most toxic snake in Asia by far,” the catcher, William Sargent, told a group of hikers on a recent night in Hong Kong. He delivered the news calmly, in the way one explains that dinner is ready.

Which of us, he asked, wanted to touch it first?

Sargent, 44, runs Hong Kong Snakes Safari, an outfit that takes residents on night hikes through the territory’s wooded hinterlands. Some are more apprehensive than others as they learn firsthand about what he says is a chronically misunderstood reptile.

The hikes highlight the scale of biodiversity in Hong Kong, a financial hub of 7.5 million people that is better known for its high-rises than its sprawling protected areas. It’s also a way for city slickers with snake phobias to confront their fears in the wild.

Hong Kong is nearly the size of Los Angeles, but about 40% of its land area consists of parks that were created in the 1970s when the Chinese territory was still a British colony.

Human-animal conflicts are inevitable because so much of the protected land lies within walking distance of dense urban areas.

Wild boars, in particular, often cause a stir when they wander into busy streets or subway stations. Last month, a family of boars made the local papers by sauntering through Hong Kong’s central business district and taking a swim in the fountain outside the Bank of China’s 72-story office tower.

Snakes generally keep a lower profile in Hong Kong, but because eight native species are capable of inflicting fatal bites, the health risks can be serious if they end up in close quarters with humans.

The Hong Kong Police Force said in a statement that whenever a snake endangers the public, it is “safely boxed and bagged” by approved catchers, then sent to live at Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden, a local nonprofit that also shelters rescued bats, birds, crocodiles, monkeys, pangolins and turtles.

Most of the snakes are later released into the wild.

Sargent, who kept snakes as pets while growing up on one of Hong Kong’s outer islands, has been a police-approved expert since 2015. He said his snake-catching assignments had taken him to prisons, schools, supermarkets, an airport hangar and a construction site for a coronavirus ward, from which he extracted a 10-foot python.

The World Health Organization estimates that about 81,000 to 138,000 people around the globe die each year from snakebites, mostly in developing countries, and that about three times as many suffer permanent disabilities.

Most of the world’s estimated 1.8 million to 2.7 million annual “envenomings,” or snake poisonings, occur in Asia, many in countries with weak health systems and sparse medical resources. The countries that lack the capacity to manufacture antivenom are the most at risk.

But in Hong Kong, which has a first-rate medical system, no one has been killed by a venomous snake since at least 2005, according to a spokesman for the city’s Hospital Authority. In 2018, the last year for which data is available, the

A Chinese cobra found on the Hong Kong Snakes Safari in Hong Kong, Sept. 16, 2020. On nighttime hikes in Hong Kong’s lush forests, a snake catcher teaches city slickers about the reptiles — and their bites. authorities recorded just 73 snakebites, making the chances of being bitten about 1 in 100,000.

“It’s not mystical,” said Sargent during the night hike.

“It’s very clear-cut what the risk is. But there’s such a huge gap of misconception.”

I was one of several hikers who met Sargent at a village near Hong Kong’s border with mainland China on a sweltering weekday evening. Before we entered an adjacent country park, he explained that the best way to avoid a snakebite was simply to watch our feet and walk with a high-quality headlamp.

Check. And check. As we set out on a concrete path, our carefully monitored footsteps were bathed in a reassuringly bright LED halo.

But the ambient light seemed to fade with every step, and sections of the path were starting to look worryingly overgrown — at least to my snake-fearing eyes.

“Look everywhere you can look,” said James Kwok, a wildlife enthusiast who had tagged along for the safari and offered snake-spotting advice.

The group forded a thigh-high stream and traversed slippery rocks in the dark. A few hikers lost their footing and tumbled into the water.

Sargent spotted our first quarry — a mountain water snake — and plucked it off a stream-side rock with his bare hands.

As he showed us the snake, it nibbled at his hand, drawing a trickle of blood. He shrugged: It was nonvenomous, and therefore harmless.

That seemed like more than enough drama for the night.

But a few minutes later, a longer, thicker, black-and-whitestriped snake slithered into the light of the group’s headlamps.

“Quick, quick, quick!” Sargent yelled in a stage whisper, as the group scrambled into formation behind him, headlamp beams bouncing across the subtropical foliage like spotlights at a rock concert.

In a fluid motion, he sprinted ahead, slipped his hand into a puncture-resistant glove and scooped up the snake.

As it writhed around in the humid air, he said it was a many-banded krait, a nocturnal species whose highly toxic venom targets the nervous system. We all tittered with anxiety.

But Sargent, who still looked serenely calm, reassuringly said that in three decades of handling wild kraits, he had yet to see one strike. The animal’s primary instinct was to flee, not bite.

So we gathered around to touch the krait’s belly — which was surprisingly smooth and delicate, like a baby’s cheeks — and to marvel at how beautiful its scales looked up close.

“It’s not what you expect,” said Ruth Stather, a fellow hiker, who works in marketing.

The krait was not exactly pleased, but it seemed willing to tolerate the curious humans for a few minutes. As we stood there touching it in the silent darkness, I felt my snake phobia easing.

“They’re not interested in fighting,” Sargent said.

I worried that he was tempting fate. But, sure enough, when he released the snake into the undergrowth, it slithered away.

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Monday, October 19, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

When science is pushed aside

By JENEEN INTERLANDI

F

rom his first days in office, President Donald Trump has waged a relentless and cynical campaign against the institutions most responsible for turning science into sound policy.

These institutions — the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency — are as essential to democracy as any high court or legislative body. They have set standards that the rest of the world still aspires to, for safe food and medicine, for clean air and water and, until recently, for effective disease control. At their best, they stand as a bulwark against the apathy that can attend such difficult problems and as a beacon for human society’s highest ideals: intelligence, discernment and moral action in the face of grave threats.

In the past four years, however, they have been imperiled like never before by a president who places no value on science.

Or data. Or facts. Or truth.

He is a president who muzzles credible scientists and amplifies charlatans. One who suggested on live television that UV light and bleach injections might cure people of the coronavirus.

One who has refused to promote or consistently wear face masks, even as the virus has spread through his inner circle and assaulted his immune system. He is a president who has lied, again and again, about the severity of threats the country is now facing — be they from climate change or the pandemic — even as reams of evidence make those threats plain.

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Trump’s disdain for science is so terrifying that two of the nation’s oldest scientific publications — Scientific American and the New England Journal of Medicine — have waded into the morass of electoral politics for the first time in their morethan-100-year histories. The Journal implored voters to fire the president come November, while Scientific American went a step further and endorsed Joe Biden. “The evidence and science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people — because he rejects evidence and science,” the editors there wrote.

That rejection began at the EPA, where Trump appointed an administrator whose greatest ambition had been to abolish the EPA. After a string of scandals, Trump replaced him with a former coal industry lobbyist. The agency has effectively prohibited any study involving human participants and any scientist who receives federal grants from informing its environmental policies. It has deliberately downplayed climate change, going so far as to purge the term from its website. It has also weakened or dismantled scores of environmental protections, including curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, rules meant to keep toxic chemicals in check and protections for national wetlands and wildlife.

The Trump administration has billed each of these rollbacks as a win for the economy — a tired argument that is easily debunked, in some cases by the government’s own research. The EPA’s own lies have been even more brazen. A spokesperson recently told The New York Times that by undoing so many environmental protections the agency was returning to its “core mission,” which is to protect the environment.

The story has been similar at the FDA, where officials have repeatedly appeared to bend to the president’s will, for instance by authorizing unproven coronavirus treatments that he champions but that scientists advise against. The first of those authorizations — for the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine — was rescinded after the treatment was linked to potentially deadly side effects in COVID-19 patients. The second — for convalescent plasma — triggered a crisis of confidence in the FDA when its commissioner, Dr. Stephen Hahn, grossly overstated the treatment’s potential in public remarks that he was then forced to walk back.

That spectacle has left both scientists and ordinary citizens deeply anxious about the coming coronavirus vaccines. The president has all but promised one before Election Day; scientists insist that such a timeline cannot possibly be met without compromising safety. The FDA recently tried to assure the public that it will come down unequivocally on the side of safety. But in early October Trump dismissed the agency’s newly tightened vaccine standards as a “political hit job” and indicated that he would somehow overrule officials there.

It was as Orwellian a ploy as any Americans have seen in the past four years: a president who is running for reelection interfering with an agency that is supposed to be apolitical, in service of a campaign promise that no credible expert thinks is achievable — and then accusing that same agency of partisanship. In any other administration, it would be a major scandal. Under Trump’s leadership, it has become commonplace.

The most shameful of all Trump’s meddling has been at the CDC, an agency designed to confront exactly the kind of pandemic America is now facing. Political appointees have prevented scientists at the agency from publishing a range of crucial guidelines and edicts meant to shepherd the nation through the pandemic. As a result, decisions across the country about school openings and closings, testing and mask-wearing have been muddy and confused, too often determined by political calculus instead of evidence.

The CDC’s director, Dr. Robert Redfield, has repeatedly walked back statements that counter the president’s own sunny assessment of the pandemic. Other scientists at the agency have been muzzled altogether — holding few news conferences and giving almost no talks or interviews in the nine months since the coronavirus first reached American shores. Morale at the agency has reached a low point, with many career civil servants there telling the Times that they might resign if Trump wins reelection, and others speculating that the CDC’s ability to function at all, in this pandemic or the next, is in serious jeopardy.

The most immediate impacts of these machinations are plain to see. Pollution is up, fines for polluters are down, and carbon emissions have risen and are poised to rise further. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost and millions of livelihoods destroyed by a pandemic that could have been contained. The nation’s standing in the wider world and public trust here at home have been eroded almost beyond recognition.

The longer-term impacts will be equally dire. Consider a future in which the empirical truths ferreted out by doctors, scientists and engineers no longer have currency because there is no one left to act on them. Real medicine and snake oil are sold on the same shelf, with no good way to tell the two apart. Vaccines are developed, but even the most pro-science families don’t trust them enough to make use of them. We resign ourselves to the lead in our water, the pesticides in our food and the toxins in our baby bottles because we know that no one will resolve these crises in our favor. Lies and shrugs become the official response to any disease that threatens us.

Some of these things are already beginning to happen.

Agencies that use science to protect human health have long been plagued by a lack of funding and too much political interference. But a world in which these agencies become fully ornamental would be dangerously different from the world we currently inhabit.

It is hard to say what chance science or civics have against so foolish and self-serving a commander in chief. But for now, at least, there is still cause for hope. This month the FDA updated its criteria for emergency authorization of a coronavirus vaccine, against Trump’s stated wishes. After a brief standoff, the administration quietly backed off its opposition to the new guidelines, which should make it all but impossible for the president to rush a product through in the next few weeks.

Career civil servants at the CDC, the EPA and elsewhere are engaged in similar battles to preserve these institutions and the embers of what they stand for. Anyone who wants to ensure that Americans’ food and medicine nourish rather than poison them, or who worries about the relentless march of climate change, or who hopes that the next deadly disease outbreak will be prevented from morphing into a global pandemic should root for those civil servants to succeed — and vote accordingly.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

19

Departamento de Justicia de EE.UU. asigna fondos para combatir la adicción a sustancias controladas Por THE STAR

E

l fiscal federal W. Stephen Muldrow anunció el sábado que el Departamento de Justicia de los Estados Unidos concedió 3 millones de dólares para ayudar a combatir el abuso de sustancias controladas en Puerto Rico.

“La crisis de adicción ha provocado un gran peso en las familias y comunidades, erosionando la salud, amenazando la seguridad pública y reclamando decenas de miles de vidas año tras

año”, dijo el fiscal general de los Estados Unidos, William Barr en declaraciones escritas.

Las entidades recipientes de los fondos serán: el municipio de Bayamón, Administración de Servicios de Salud Mental y Contra la Adicción (ASSMCA) y el Departamento de Corrección y Rehabilitación.

Los fondos provienen de la Oficina de Programas del Departamento de Justicia que serán distribuidos en Estados Unidos y sus territorios.

Policía ofrece detalles sobre asesinato de Pinky Curvy Por THE STAR

U

na joven empresaria fue asesinada de varios balazos el sábado en la noche, dentro de un vehículo frente a un restaurante en la avenida Roosevelt en Hato Rey, confirmó la Policía.

La mujer fue identificada como Isadora Marie Nieves Cruz, de 24 años, residente de San Juan.

Nieves Cruz, conocida popularmente como Pinky Curvy, era dueña de la empresa Pinky Summer Beauty, que vende ropa, cosméticos y productos de belleza por Internet.

En sus cuentas en Instagram, isadoranievez, que tiene 330 mil seguidores y pinkysummerbeauty, con unos 31 mil seguidores, Nieves Cruz promovía sus productos.

Nieves Cruz tenía récord criminal en la jurisdicción federal. En febrero de 2019 fue acusada junto a 74 personas por un Gran Jurado federal, de pertenecer a la organización criminal autodenominada Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Cantera (FARC).

Los integrantes de la FARC fueron acusados por conspiración con intención de distribuir sustancias controladas, mayormente en la zona metropolitana de San Juan, dijo la entonces fiscal federal, Rosa Emilia Rodríguez Vélez, el 27 de febrero de 2019.

“Y desde que empezamos a investigar a esta ganga violenta, nos llamó la atención que cogían a sus víctimas y los cuerpos cuando los mataban se los tiraban a los caimanes. De he-

cho, esta operación de hecho se llamaba Operación Cocodrilo. Los tenían en sus residencias y eran propiedad de ellos”, dijo Rodríguez Vélez en conferencia de prensa tras el arresto de decenas de personas vinculadas a la FARC. Llamada al 9-1-1 El sábado en la noche una persona llamó al Sistema de Emergencias 9-1-1 para alertar de detonaciones en la avenida Roosevelt.

Los agentes que llegaron al lugar encontraron el cuerpo de una mujer con varios balazos, en el interior de una Toyota Tacoma Gris del año 2017. La guagua tenía decenas de impactos de bala.

Relacionado a estos hechos, resultó herido de bala un hombre, identificado como Edwin Rivera, de 23 años, quien fue transportado al Centro Médico de Río Piedras.

De acuerdo a la pesquisa preliminar del incidente, desconocidos persiguieron y dispararon contra los ocupantes de la guagua, luego que estos salieran de comer de un restaurante en Hato Rey. El conductor del vehículo trató de escapar, pero finalmente perdió el control y saltó la isleta de la avenida Roosevelt, deteniéndose frente a un restaurante.

Los atacantes le dispararon nuevamente y huyeron. Cerca de la escena del asesinato fue encontrado abandonado un auto que chocó contra un objeto fijo.

La Policía encontró dentro del vehículo casquillos de bala. El cristal delantero del auto presentaba impactos de bala aparentemente

hechos desde el interior.

Se desconoce la condición de salud de Rivera, que desde la noche del sábado recibe protección de la Policía.

Agentes adscritos a la División de Homicidios del Cuerpo de Investigaciones Criminales de San Juan en unión al fiscal Omar Domínguez se hicieron cargo de la pesquisa.

Se exhorta a la ciudadanía que de poseer información que ayude con el esclarecimiento de casos, llamar al 787-343-2020, o la aplicación de teléfonos inteligentes BASTA YA. También a través de Twitter en @PRPDNoticias y en Facebook www.facebook/prpdgov.

20

Monday, October 19, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

How much do you really miss going to the movies?

By A.O. SCOTT

W

ill moviegoing survive the pandemic? The question sounds both trivial — there are surely graver matters to worry about — and unduly apocalyptic.

Movie theaters, after all, have reopened in many parts of the country, and some people went to see “Tenet” last month — but not as many as Warner Bros. had hoped for, and few enough to start the fall film season under a pessimistic cloud.

Lately, the news has become only grimmer. On Oct. 5, Regal Cinemas, the secondlargest exhibition chain in the United States, announced it would temporarily shut down its more than 500 theaters. Studios have pushed most of their high-profile 2020 holiday releases into 2021 — for now. And last week Disney let it be known that the new Pixar feature, “Soul,” originally scheduled to open in theaters in June, would debut on the Disney+ streaming platform in December, bypassing multiplexes altogether.

That news was a teaser of sorts for the corporate blockbuster that arrived Monday: the announcement of a restructuring at Disney that would, in the words of the chief executive, Bob Chapek, involve “managing content creation distinct from distribution.”

“Our creative teams,” Chapek’s statement explained, laying on the poetry, “will concentrate on what they do best — making worldclass, franchise-based entertainment — while our newly centralized global distribution team will focus on delivering and monetizing that content in the most optimal way across all platforms.”

Those words don’t exactly pronounce a death sentence for theaters, but they do express a bottom-line indifference about their future. Whether cinemas survive, Disney will find screens and viewers. Netflix, which is sprinkling some of its 2020 releases into theaters, has built a subscription empire on the belief that people would just as soon stay home and surrender to the algorithm. Those two companies together control an ever-larger share of the global attention span, and their growing reach can’t help but raise troubling thoughts in a movie lover’s mind.

What if the pandemic, rather than representing a temporary disruption in audience habits and industry revenues, turns out to be an extinction-level event for moviegoing?

What if, now that we’ve grown accustomed

A Regal Cinemas sign in Las Vegas, Aug. 26, 2020. Amid concerns about the future of theaters after the coronavirus pandemic, remember that the past wasn’t always glorious. to watching movies in our living rooms or on our laptops, we lose our appetite for the experience of trundling down carpeted hallways, trailing stray popcorn kernels and cradling giant cups of Coke Zero, to jostle for an aisle seat and hope all that soda doesn’t mean we’ll have to run to the bathroom during the big action sequence?

The specter of empty movie houses was haunting Hollywood (and the press that covers it) long before the COVID-19 plot twist.

In most recent years, ticket sales were flat or declining, a malaise masked by seasonal juggernauts like episodes in the “Avengers” saga or the chapters of the third “Star Wars” trilogy — by Disney’s mighty market share, in other words. And even the periodic triumphs of nonfranchise, or at least non-Disney, products — “Get Out,” “Joker,” “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “American Sniper” — were faint puffs of wind in the sails of a becalmed schooner, or teacups of water bailed from the hull of a listing liner, or some other suitably disastrous nautical metaphor.

Perhaps no art form has remade itself as frequently and dramatically in so short a life span as film (which technically speaking isn’t even film anymore). Over the past hundred-some years, “going to the movies” has encompassed a lot of different ways of leaving the house — and a corresponding variety of destinations: curtained-off carnival booths, grand palaces with gilded ceilings and velvet seats, Bijoux and Roxys on small-town main streets, suburban drive-ins and shopping mall multiscreens, grindhouses, arthouses, repertory houses and porno parlors. Most recently, in response to the soulless sameness of the megaplexes, a new kind of gentrified cinema has emerged, with reserved seating, food service and artisanal cocktails delivered to your seat.

So, which one are we mourning? What are we defending? A frequent answer, offered both by those who worry that movies will die and by those who insist that they can’t, is community, the pleasure of sitting in the dark among friends and strangers and partaking of a collective dream. That picture strikes me as idealized if not downright ideological, a fantasy of film democracy that has rarely been realized.

Did you buy your ticket online, or did the site reject your credit card? Did you wait in line only to find out that what you wanted to see was sold out? Was the person in the seat in front of you texting through the sad parts, while the person behind you kicked the back of your seat? Was the theater full of crying babies? Talkative senior citizens? Unruly teenagers? Or — what may be worse — did you find yourself, on a weeknight a few weeks into the run of a well-reviewed almosthit, all but alone in the dark?

Was the floor sticky? Was the seat torn?

How was the projection? Was there masking on the edge of the screen, or did the image just bleed onto the curtains? Was the sound clear?

These were common cinephile complaints in the pre-pandemic era, and we shouldn’t let them be washed away in the nostalgia of this moment. Moviegoing was often as communal as a traffic jam, as transporting as air travel, and the problems went deeper than lax management or technological glitches.

The problem, to return to Chapek’s memo, was “world-class, franchise-based entertainment” — not every instance of it, but

the models of creation and consumption the idea imposed. The big theater chains were kept alive by Disney, which dominated the domestic box office by ever greater margins and which seemed almost uniquely able to produce the kind of big-event movies that could attract the masses on opening weekend. Those films, parceled out every other month or so, at once raised financial expectations among the exhibitors and helped break the habit of regular movie attendance among audiences. There was less and less room — literally fewer rooms but also less collective bandwidth — for nonfranchise entertainment.

At least at the multiplexes. The movie audience didn’t vanish; it splintered. Some stayed home, now that genuine cinema — not prestige TV, but restored classics and new work by established auteurs — could be found on streaming. Midlevel arthouse distribution was kept alive by newish companies like A24 and Neon, which distributed Oscar laureates like “Moonlight” and “Parasite.”

The pictures were, in several ways, getting smaller: somewhat cheaper to make and also less dependent on mass popularity. But it was also true that some of the most interesting films of the past half-decade — especially in languages other than English — had a hard time finding screens and oxygen.

The shuttering of theaters has accelerated this tendency, at least for the moment. In the absence of blockbusters, small, audacious movies have popped up like mushrooms on a forest floor — signs of life amid the general decay but fragile and too easily overlooked or trampled underfoot.

Will the return of independent theaters, however many remain, help those little movies survive? Will a return to normalcy herald the next stage in an emerging duopoly, with the two dominant companies — Netflix and Disney — using big screens to showcase selected content, treating theaters as a kind of loss leader for their lucrative subscription services?

But maybe that’s putting it the wrong way. Making predictions, in addition to being foolish, is an expression of passivity, an acceptance of our diminished role as consumers of culture. Instead of wondering what might happen, what if we thought about what we want and thought of ourselves not as fans or subscribers but as partners and participants?

I’ll see you at the movies.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

21

Jake Gyllenhaal on his first Tony nomination

By SARAH BAHR

O

n Thursday afternoon, Jake Gyllenhaal pulled off a rare feat: He earned his first Tony nomination for his role as Abe in the second half of “Sea Wall/A Life,” a pair of monologues narrated by young fathers, and served as a producer on two shows nominated for best play (“Sea Wall/A Life” and “Slave Play”). Tom Sturridge, who performs the show’s first half, “Sea Wall,” also earned a nod for best leading actor in a play.

In an interview Thursday evening, the actor discussed overcoming his initial terror at being alone onstage for an hour, how his performance evolved over the course of the show’s run and what it was like to have his father in the audience. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Q: How does it feel to receive your first nomination?

A: I’m so deeply moved. At a time where so much is uncertain, it’s nice to have a tiny bit of certainty. “Sea Wall/A Life” was something that was just cooked up between a couple of friends and became something that was such a deep, profound journey for all of us.

Q: How is it different performing in and producing shows on and off-Broadway?

A: I knew I was seeing something extraordinary when I saw “Slave Play” for the first time, and I knew I wanted to

help bring it to as many people as possible. And then when we brought “Sea Wall/A Life” to Broadway, I felt like I was in sort of a rock show doing a monologue. The Hudson Theater is such a vertical theater, and the audience feels so close to you. I remember walking off drenched in sweat after the first Broadway preview, and I thought, “Wow, this is going to take a lot of hydration.”

Q: How did your performance evolve over the course of the run?

A: At first, I was in absolute terror being alone onstage for an hourlong monologue, with me facing all my deepest insecurities and projections. So, initially, it was just the success of even having gotten through it with most of the writing intact in the first part. Then, when I got to Broadway, I really felt like I was having a conversation with the audience and was able to listen to them in a way that I wasn’t when I was more terrified.

Q: You play a character grappling with a dying father.

Did your own father have the chance to see the show?

A: The first time I performed it for my own father was surreal and really moving. I don’t think we have a lot of opportunity to talk to our parents — I haven’t, I’ll speak for myself — about what we think about them dying. To be able to know the person in the dark is really listening and to be able to speak with an open heart to them about that is — you’re go-

ing to make me cry. It was an honor to be able to tell him how important he is to me.

Jake Gyllenhaal in the play “A Life,” at the Hudson Theater in New York, Jan. 31, 2019.

Adrienne Warren’s dream role give my knees and back a little bit of a break. I think I ran up and down those stairs eight times a night.

Q: You recently sang a killer rendition of “Before the he last time Adrienne Warren slipped on the towering Parade Passes By” from “Hello, Dolly” in “Miscast.” What is blond wig she wears in “Tina — The Tina Turner Musiyour dream role in a Broadway musical, regardless of age or cal” was seven months ago. But when she received the gender? second Tony Award nomination of her career on Thursday, A: It’s crazy because I feel like I’m already for best actress in a musical, she was recording in it. I’m a rock ‘n’ roll girl, so the opportunity voice-overs and didn’t have the chance to look at to tell Tina’s story and to have her mentorship her phone until nearly 5:30 p.m. and guidance is amazing. As for what the next In an interview soon after that, the 33-yeardream role will be, I don’t know. I want to make old actress discussed how she handled one of sure that I’m telling stories that represent me as a Broadway’s most physically demanding roles Black woman and also push the needle forward and what she meant when she said in June that in ways that resonate with people, both in this she wasn’t sure she wanted to continue her actnation and abroad. ing career. These are edited excerpts from the Q: You said in June that you weren’t sure conversation. you wanted to continue performing given all the Q: Has Tina Turner congratulated you? racial injustice. How are you feeling about your A: [Laughs.] Actually, I have no idea. I’ve career as an actor right now? been in the sound studio doing voice-over work A: I know this is what I’m supposed to do, all day, so I just looked at my phone, which has but the question is whether I want to do it at the absolutely blown up. address I’ve been doing it. Because institutionalQ: Have you been enjoying the break from such a physical role? ly, Broadway has some work to do. And I believe A: I had a lot of injuries around the time that work will be done. But it makes me queswe ended the run, so I was in desperate need tion myself, especially as a Black artist, when the of time to heal my body. I sang over 25 songs a phrase Black Lives Matter is more political to my night. You have to be as present as possible be- Adrienne Warren as Tina Turner in the musical “Tina: The Tina Turner Musi- community than it is humanizing to my commucause of all the fight choreography and the danc- cal” in New York, Oct. 4, 2019. nity. That hurts deeply.

By SARAH BAHR

T

ing and making sure you’re as safe as possible not only for yourself but for those around you.

Q: How tall were the heels you wore?

A: [Laughs.] It depends on the day. My main ones were 3 1/2 inches, and we had some that were a little bit taller.

When I had injuries, we actually had a lower set of heels to

22

Monday, October 19, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Sizing up the rural-urban travel divide: Who’s up and who’s down

Zion National Park in southern Utah, Aug. 11, 2017. Remote U.S. destinations, where social distancing is easier, are generally faring better than cities, which are trying hard to get a bigger share of the leisure crowd.

By ELAINE GLUSAC

T

he pandemic has been hard on travel. According to the U.S. Travel Association, it has caused $386 billion in cumulative losses, but the pain hasn’t been evenly distributed. Cities, which are largely reliant on business and group travel, have suffered more compared to rural and outdoor destinations where it is easier to fulfill social-distancing needs. That sense of safety in extra space has tempted many leisure travelers to venture out on vacation.

Lodging results attest to the urban-rural divide.

Short-term rentals were most popular in remote rather than city destinations this summer. According to the hotel benchmarking analysts STR, Inc., urban hotels are worse off compared to accommodations elsewhere, with occupancy down more than half in August nationally compared to August 2019. As a result, high-profile city hotels, from the Hilton Times Square in New York City to the Luxe Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California, have closed.

“Leisure travel has been the demand driver that has returned more quickly,” said Patrick Mayock, the vice president of research and development at STR, noting that urban hotels “are more reliant on group

and business travel.”

The rural-versus-urban contest for leisure travelers is still a losing game for most contenders; for example, rural places consider being down 20% a sign of relative health.

Expect the rivalry to intensify, even as most states maintain restrictions on gatherings. In the eighth of a series of surveys, the travel marketing firm MMGY Travel Intelligence recently found 42% of the 1,200 Americans surveyed — the highest since the pandemic — are likely to take a domestic leisure trip in the next six months.

Cities are now rolling out staycation programs, discount incentives and safety assurances to try to claim a bigger share of that traffic.

The following is a look at some of the destinations hit hardest and those that have bounced back.

Viva Las Vegas? Not so much.

Some of the biggest convention cities are suffering the most, including Las Vegas, where year-over-year visitor volume was down more than 60% to 1.4 million in July, and where the airport was off about the same amount in August, the most recent months for which figures are available.

Conventions, which have been scratched for the past six months, drew 6.6 million of the city’s 42.5 mil-

lion visitors in 2019, generating $6.6 billion. With gatherings limited to 250, football fans are shut out of the new stadium built for the Raiders, the NFL team that moved to Las Vegas from Oakland, California, this season.

With a tack to leisure travel only, hotels and tourism operators are reframing their approaches. MGM Resorts, which operates some of the best-known resorts on the Strip, including the Bellagio, began offering work-fromhotel packages, called “Viva Las Office,” starting around $100, including Wi-Fi and some food and beverage credits. The company is also gambling that visitors will appreciate smoke-free casinos; its Park MGM and NoMad Las Vegas hotels, which occupy the same building and reopened Sept. 30, are smoke free.

“Everything was convention-based and now it’s changed and we have to adapt,” said Donald Contursi, the founder of the local restaurant tour company Lip Smacking Foodie Tours, which launched Finger Licking Foodie Tours, self-guided outings to three restaurants ($79).

Ever the chameleon, Las Vegas continues to develop its leisure appeal, even though the Las Vegas ReviewJournal reported that several casinos on the Strip were the leading sources of possible COVID-19 exposures this summer. At the end of the month, the new Circa Resort & Casino, with the city’s largest sportsbook spread across three stories, is expected to open. The new art and event space AREA15 recently opened, requiring free reservations to control capacity, for visitors to its art installations.

Another popular city for meetings and events, Miami has come a long way since April, when 85% of tourism disappeared. In addition to losing business travel, Miami suffered when the U.S. border was closed — the city is popular with South Americans, in particular — cruises were shut down and cases COVID-19 spiked over the summer. Now, hotel sales are about half compared to last year, thanks to the uptick in leisure travel.

“A big part of our tourism recovery has been to ask people in our own backyard, people within Florida, to drive,” said Rolando Aedo, the chief operating officer of the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau.

The bureau’s marketing campaign has focused on the city’s outdoor attractions, which include three national parks within an hour’s drive of South Beach, uncrowded beaches on Key Biscayne and kayaking amid the mangroves of a river estuary. Dozens of hotels are offering “Work & Learn” packages that offer rooms as day-use offices with access to resort amenities such as pools.

Cities roll out the welcome mat for residents Back in January, when Dallas resident Murphey Sears, 38, planned to mark her 10th wedding anniversary, she and her husband discussed going abroad, or to Hawaii. By July, the parents of four secured grandparent babysitters and settled on a two-night staycation at The Joule Dallas hotel downtown.

The San Juan Daily Star “We needed to get away not only to celebrate ourselves but also to find some rejuvenation,” said Sears, a nonprofit development officer. “We felt so far away, even though it was 15 minutes from our house.”

Once a weekend afterthought, staycations are now viewed as a lifeline for urban tourism as cities from Boston to Los Angeles are encouraging residents to travel responsibly by staying — and spending — locally.

“We’ve had to shift to really focus on leisure travel until the meetings industry stabilizes,” said David Whitaker, the president and chief executive of Choose Chicago, which promotes travel in the city, adding that conventions normally drive 40% of hotel business.

In a weekly survey of 1,200 Americans published Sept. 28, the marketing firm Destination Analysts found that interest in leisure travel in local communities was at 44.5%, the highest it had been since mid-March, partially driven by a fear of flying.

While the 1,544-room Hilton Chicago, a large convention hotel, is currently closed, on weekends, the 180room Viceroy Chicago has been filling nearly 80% of its rooms entirely with regional residents who self-park, as valet service is suspended. The rooftop pool, where capacity is restricted to 25 for two-hour slots, has been a big attraction.

“We have adjusted some of our strategies and we’re just super thankful to see there’s that much leisure travel going on,” said Nienke Oosting, the hotel’s general manager.

Locals are a critical market in cities like Chicago and New York City that have extensive quarantine lists for outof-staters, deterring nonresidents. In New York state, as of Sept. 29, visitors from 34 states and territories are advised to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.

The tourism office NYC & Co. is encouraging New Yorkers to explore the city’s neighborhoods with incentives that include up to 40% off rooms at the Benjamin hotel in Midtown and 20% off Harlem Heritage Tours, which offers walking trips. Amal Daghestani, 43, of Brooklyn, who works in meeting and event planning, chose the Mondrian Park Avenue hotel for a weekend stay with her family as a change of scenery and an expression of civic pride.

“New York City has enriched my life so much and doing a staycation was also my way of giving back,” she said.

Mixed results in Colorado In July and August, Denver International Airport said it was the busiest airport in the country, relatively speaking, pointing to Transportation Security Administration checkpoint figures that showed traffic was down 57%, versus 71% on average elsewhere.

But arriving passengers didn’t necessarily go to Denver, where the current hotel occupancy rate is about 40%; last year at this time, 78% of rooms were booked. Instead, cities like Denver, along with Las Vegas, often serve as gateways to more distant vacations. Though visitor figures are down in both cities, Priceline found that Denver was also the top city for car rentals this fall, followed by Las Vegas; the pre-pandemic top cities were Orlando and Los Angeles.

Monday, October 19, 2020

“It’s important to understand that Denver is the gateway for the whole Rocky Mountain West,” said Cathy Ritter, the director of the Colorado Tourism Office. Since early March, travel spending in Colorado dropped to $5 billion, compared to $12 billion for the same period last year. “The activity in mountain resorts over the summer created almost an illusion that tourism had recovered in our state,” she added.

Colorado captures the deceiving nature of tourism spending. Though they loom large, the state’s celebrated mountain towns like Aspen and Crested Butte account for just a quarter of tourism spending. Sixty percent remains in eastern communities, including Denver and smaller cities that attract business and event travelers.

(BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM.) Given the slowdown, tourism officials in Colorado Springs consider themselves lucky to be down about 22% in July and August. A “Get Out Spread Out” campaign publicized lesser-known hiking trails to ensure social distancing.

“Coloradans were here, but so were Texans, Arizonans, Californians,” said Doug Price, the president and chief executive of Visit Colorado Springs, naming residents of states subject to quarantines elsewhere. “Where a spike was happening, people wanted to get out. Colorado never had restrictions or quarantines on people coming to Colorado. It helped us.”

Some of those Denver arrivals may have traveled to Breckenridge, about 80 miles west, where the town’s taxable sales were behind 18% relative to last year, “much better than expected,” said Lucy Kay, the president and chief executive of the Breckenridge Tourism Office.

23

TRAVEL

The Lure of Space and Social Distance Most of those who have taken a vacation since the pandemic chose rural over urban areas for their getaways.

Signs point to this pattern of fleeing population centers continuing. In a recent survey, Destination Analysts found nearly 40% of respondents who planned to travel this fall planned to visit small towns or rural destinations.

From the Adirondacks to northern Wisconsin, tourism authorities reported business doubling this summer over last. Even so, few will make up for the months of shutdown.

In the Greater Zion region in southwest Utah, which covers more than 2,400 square miles and includes Zion National Park and four state parks, room taxes are down $1.5 million from a year ago, though the last three months have been busier than usual, according to Kevin Lewis, the director of the Greater Zion Convention & Tourism Office.

“In the past, leisure travel has been thought out and strategic about planning a big national park vacation and spending three to four days here,” he said. “This seems a little more reactionary, wanting to find space but doing it at the last minute.”

Beaches were top destinations over the summer as demonstrated in Panama Beach City, in the Florida Panhandle. There, traffic was back to prepandemic expectations in June and July. August and September surpassed 2019 results.

“We feel it will continue next year,” said Dan Rowe, the chief executive and president of Visit Panama Beach, predicting that socially distant vacations will remain the norm.

People walk along the Strip in Las Vegas, July 31, 2020.

24 aceptar o repudiar la herencia.

Se le apercibe que si no comESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO pareciere usted a expresarse DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- dentro del término de treinta NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA (30) días a partir de la publicaSALA DE CAGUAS. ción de este edicto en torno a CONSEJO DE TITULARES la aceptación o repudiación de la herencia, se presumirá que DEL CONDOMINIO han aceptado la herencia de la ESTANCIAS DEL REY causante Rafael Jesús López Demandante v.

Montalvo y, por consiguiente, RAFAEL jESÚS LÓPEZ responderán por las cargas de MONTALVO, SUCESIÓN dicha herencia conforme dispone el Art. 957 del Código Civil DE RAFAEL JESÚS L.P.R.A. §2785. EXPEDIDO LÓPEZ MONTALVO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del COMPUESTA POR JANE Tribunal, en Caguas, Puerto Y JOHN DOE Rico hoy día 2 de octubre de Demandados 2020. Por: Secretairal del TriCivil Núm.: CG2020CV01472. bunal. Por: Jessenia Pedraza SALA: 101. Sobre: Cobro de Andiono, Subsecretario.

Dinero (Procedimiento OrdinaLEGAL NOTICE rio). EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO E INTERPELACIÓN. ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉ- DE PUERTO RICO TRIBURICA EL PRESIDENTE DE NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL SALA DE CAGUAS. ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO CONSEJO DE TITULARES DE PUERO RICO.

LEGAL NOTICE

A: Jane y John Doe como posibles herederos desconocidos de la Sucesión de Rafael Jesús López Montalvo.

POR LA PRESENTE, se le notifica que se ha presentado una Demanda en cobro de dinero por la vía ordinaria, en la cual la parte demandante alega se le adeuda la cantidad de $3,437.28. Por consecuencia, se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste dicha Demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto, radicando su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala de Caguas y enviando copia a la parte demandante: Lcdo. Israel O. Alicea Luciano, Número RUA: 16,267, Capital Center Building, South Tower, 239 Arterial Hostos Ave., Suite 305, San Juan, Puerto Rico 009181476, teléfono (787) 250-1420, correo electrónico: israel_alicea@yahoo.com. Se le apercibe que si dejare de comparecer se podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra de acuerdo con la súplica de la demanda, conforme a lo establecido en la Regla 45 de Procedimiento Civil de 2009. A SU VEZ, se le notifica que, como miembros de la Sucesión de Rafael Jesús López Montalvo se ha presentado una solicitud de interpelación judicial para que sirva en el término de treinta (30) días

@

DEL CONDOMINIO ESTANCIAS DEL REY,

correo electrónico: israel_alicea@yahoo.com. Se le apercibe que si dejare de comparecer se podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra de acuerdo con la súplica de la demanda, conforme a lo establecido en la Regla 45 de Procedimiento Civil de 2009. EXPEDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Caguas, Puerto Rico hoy día 2 de octubre de 2020.

Por: Carmen Ana Pereira Ortiz, Secretario del Tribunal. Por: Jessenia Pedraza Andiono, Subsecretario.

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

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Plaintiff, V.

GERARDO GUILLOTFELICIANO, et al.,

Defendants Civil No. 20-1045 (FAB). SUMMONS.

TO: JOHN DOE AND Demandante v.

RICHARD ROE, AS Rafael jesús lópez UNKNOWN MEMBERS Montalvo, sucesión OF THE ESTATE OF ANA de rafael jesus lópez montalvo compuesta por DELIA NEGRON-PEREZ Pursuant to the Order AuthoriJANE Y JOHN DOE zing Service of Process by Pu-

Demandados Civil Núm.: CG2020CV01472.

SALA: 101. Sobre: Cobro de Dinero (Procedimiento Ordinario).

EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERO RICO.

A: Rafael Jesús López Montalvo

POR LA PRESENTE, se le notifica que se ha presentado una Demanda en cobro de dinero por la vía ordinaria, en la cual la parte demandante alega se le adeuda la cantidad de $3,437.28. Por consecuencia, se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste dicha Demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto, radicando su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala de Caguas y enviando copia a la parte demandante: Lcdo. Israel O. Alicea Luciano, Número RUA: 16,267, Capital Center Building, South Tower, 239 Arterial Hostos Ave., Suite 305, San Juan, Puerto Rico 009181476, teléfono (787) 250-1420,

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

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, V.

ESTATE OF JORGE LUIS RAMOS RODRIGUEZ, et al.,

Defendants.

Civil No. 19-2073 (FAB). SUMMONS.

TO: JOHN DOE AND RICHARD ROE, AS UNKNOWN MEMBERS OF THE ESTATE OF JORGE LUIS RAMOSRODRIGUEZ

Pursuant to the Order Authorizing Service of Process by Publication entered on October 6, 2020, by the Court (Docket No. 21), you are SUMMONED to appear and answer the Complaint, no later than thirty (30) days after publication of this Summons by serving your answers in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, and serving a copy on counsel for plaintiff.

Attorney Juan C. Fortuno-Fas, at P.O. Box 13786, San Juan, PR 00908, telephone numbers 787-751-5290 and 787-7515616. This Summons shall be published only once in a newspaper of general circulation in Puerto Rico. Within ten (10) days following publication of this Summons, a copy of this Summons and the Complaint will be sent to you, by certified mail/return receipt requested, addressed to your last known addresses. Should you fail to appear and answer the Complaint as ordered by the Court and notified by this Summons, the Court will enter default against you and proceed to hear and adjudicate this case based on the relief demanded in the Complaint. BY ORDER OF THE COURT, summons is issued pursuant to Federal Rules Civil Procedure 4 (e) and Rule 4.6 of the Rules of Civil Procedure for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, October 6, 2020.

MARIA ANTONGIORGI-JORDAN, ESQ., CLERK OF THE COURT. By: Ana E. Duran-Capella, Deputy Clerk.

blication entered on October 6, 2020 by the Court (Docket No. 13), you are SUMMONED to appear and answer the Complaint, no later than thirty (30) days after publication of this Summons, by serving your answers in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, and serving a copy on counsel for plaintiff.

Attorney Juan C. Fortuno-Fas, at P.O. Box 13786 San Juan, PR 00908, telephone numbers 787-751-5290 and 787-7515616. This Summons shall be published once in a newspaper of general circulation in Puerto Rico. Within ten (10) days following publication of this Summons, a copy of this Summons and the Complaint will be sent to you,, by certified mail/return receipt requested, addressed to your last known addresses.

Should you fail to appear and answer the Complaint as ordered by the Court and notified by this Summons, the Court will enter default against you, and proceed to hear and adjudicate this case based on the relief LEGAL NOTICE demanded in the Complaint.

BY ORDER OF THE COURT, UNITED STATES DISTRICT summons is issued pursuant to COURT FOR THE DISTRICT Federal Rules Civil Procedure OF PUERTO RICO 4 (e) and Rule 4.6 of the Rules UNITED STATES of Civil Procedure for the ComDEPARTMENT OF monwealth of Puerto Rico. In AGRICULTURE San Juan, Puerto Rico, October (Farm Service Agency) 6, 2020. MARIA ANTONGIORPlaintiff V. GI-JORDAN, ESQ., CLERK OF THE COURT. By: Ana E. LUIS ORTIZ COLLAZO, Duran-Capella, Deputy Clerk.

staredictos@thesanjuandailystar.com

HIS WIFE JENARA

(787) 743-3346

Monday, October 19, 2020 RODRIGUEZ BAEZ, AND THE CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP CONSTITUTED BETWEEN THEM,

Defendants) CASE NO. 19-02140 (PG).

Foreclosure of Mortgage. SUMMONS BY PUBLICATION.

TO: LUIS ORTIZ COLLAZO, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP COMPOSED BY HIM AND JENARA RODRIGUEZ BAEZ

Pursuant to the Order for Service by Publication entered on 10/05/2020, by the Honorable Juan M. Perez-Gimenez, Senior United States District Judge (ECF No. 20), you are hereby SUMMONED to appear, plead or answer the Complaint filed herein no later than thirty (30) days after publication of this Summons by serving the original plea or answer in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, and serving a copy to counsel for plaintiff: Attorney Juan C. Fortuno Fas, at PO Box 13786 San Juan, PR 00908, telephone numbers 787-751-5290 and 787-751-5616. This Summons shall be published by edict only once in a newspaper of general circulation in the island of Puerto Rico. Within ten (10) days following publication of this Summons, a copy of this Summons and the Complaint will be sent to you, by certified mail/return receipt requested, addressed to your last known address.

Should you fail to appear, plead or answer to the Complaint as ordered by the Court and noticed by this Summons, the Court will enter default against you and proceed to hear and adjudicate this cause based on the relief demanded in the Complaint. BY ORDER OF THE COURT, summons is issued pursuant to Federal Rules Civil Procedure 4(e) and Rule 4.6 of the Rules of Civil Procedure for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, this October 6, 2020. MARIA ANTORGIORGI-JORDAN, ESQ., CLERK, U.S. DISTRICT COURT. By: Ana E. Duran-Capella, Deputy Clerk.

CRUZ TORRES, SU ESPOSA ARELIS MEDINA LOZADA Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS; YADIRA GARCIA RODRIGUEZ

The San Juan Daily Star COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VIA ORDINARIO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: ARLENE VIERA ESPINAL, FULANO DE TAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Demandado(a) Civil: Núm. CG2019CV02676.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO (Nombre de las partes a las que se EJECUCION HIPOTECA. NOle notifican la sentencia por edicto) TIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA El SECRETARIO (A) que susPOR EDICTO. ENMENDADO cribe le notifica a usted que EN CUANTO A PARTE DEel 8 de octubre de 2020, este MANDANTE. Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, A: LA SOCIEDAD Sentencia Parcial o Resolución LEGAL DE BIENES en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR FELIX en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de RAFAEL CRUZ TORRES los términos de la misma. Esta Y SU ESPOSA ARELIS notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de MEDINA LOZADA Y circulación general en la Isla A YADIRA GARCIA de Puerto Rico, dentro de los RODRIGUEZ. 10 días siguientes a su notifica(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) ción. Y, siendo o representando EL SECRETARIO(A) que sus- usted una parte en el procedicribe le notifica a usted que miento sujeta a los términos el 24 de SEPTIEMBREEE de de la Sentencia, Sentencia 2020, este Tribunal ha dictado Parcial o Resolución, de la cual Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o puede establecerse recurso de Resolución en este caso, que revisión o apelación dentro del ha sido debidamente registra- término de 30 días contados a da y archivada en autos donde partir de la publicación por edicpodrá usted enterarse deta- to de esta notificación, dirijo a lladamente de los términos de usted esta notificación que se la misma. Esta notificación se considerará hecha en la fecha publicará una sola vez en un de la publicación de este edicperiódico de circulación gene- to. Copia de esta notificación ral en la Isla de Puerto Rico, ha sido archivada en los autos dentro de los 10 días siguientes de este caso, con fecha de 9 de a su notificación. Y, siendo o octubre de 2020. En TOA ALTA, representando usted una parte Puerto Rico, el 9 de octubre en el procedimiento sujeta a de 2020. Lcda. Laura I Santa los términos de la Sentencia, Sanchez, Secretaria. Gloribell Sentencia Parcial o Resolu- Vazquez Maysonet, Sec del Trición, de la cual puede esta- bunal Conf I. blecerse 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 15 de OCTUBRE de 2020. En CAGUAS, Puerto Rico , el 15 de OCTUBRE de 2020. CARMEN ANA PEREIRA ORTIZ, Secretario(a). F/YARITZA ROSARIO PLACERES, Secretario(a) Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala Superior de CAGUAS.

SCOTIABANK DE PUERTO RICO Demandante vs.

ANDRES ALEXANDER FLORES CONCEPCION y su esposa LEYINSKA MORALES MARTINEZ y la Sociedad Legal de Bienes Gananciales compuesta por ambos

Demandados CIVIL NÚM: GR2019CV00109.

LEGAL NOTICE SALA 704. SOBRE: COBRO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE DE DINERO (Ejecución de HiJUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera poteca por la Vía Ordinaria).

Instancia Sala Superior de CA- NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. GUAS.

A: ANDRES ALEXANDER FLORES CONCEPCION y su esposa LEYINSKA BANCO POPULAR MORALES MARTINEZ y la DE PUERTO RICO, Sociedad Legal de Bienes CUSTODIO DE Gananciales compuesta LOS ARCHIVOS por ambos WESTERNBANK PUERTO EL(LA) SECRETARIO(A) que RICO; JOHN DOE & suscribe le notifica a usted que RICHARD ROE el 9 DE OCTUBRE DE 2020 ORIENTAL BANK Demandante V

Demandados CIVIL: CG2020CV01657. SOBRE: CANCELACIÓN DE PAEstado Libre Asociado de PuerGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFIto Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL LEGAL NOTICE CACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de PriEDICTO. Estado Libre Asociado de Puermera Instancia Sala Superior to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL A: JOHN DOE Y de TOA ALTA. DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de PriRICHARD ROE ORIENTAL BANK mera Instancia Sala Superior EL(LA) SECRETARIO(A) que Demandante Vs. de CAGUAS. suscribe le notifica a usted LUNA ACQUISITIONS, ARLENE VIERA ESPINAL, que el 9 DE OCTUBRE DE ETC. 2020 este Tribunal ha dictado LLC. Demandado(a) Sentencia o Sentencia Parcial Demandante v.

Civil: TA2019CV01144. Sobre: o Resolución en este caso, FELIX RAFAEL

LEGAL NOTICE

que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada 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 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia o 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 13 de octubre de 2020.

En Caguas, Puerto Rico, el 13 de octubre de 2020. CARMEN PEREIRA ORTIZ, Secretaria Regional. Teresita Vega Gonzalez, Secretaria Auxiliar Tribunal I.

este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia o 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 esta.

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 procedi-

The San Juan Daily Star miento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia o 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 13 de octubre de 2020. En Caguas, Puerto Rico, el 13 de octubre de 2020. CARMEN PEREIRA ORTIZ, Secretaria Regional.

Teresita Vega Gonzalez, Secretaria Auxiliar Tribunal I.

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

LOURDES APONTE ROSARIO, FEDERICO TOMAS COSTA APONTE Y GRETCHEN MARIA COSTA APONTE Demandante v.

ORIENTAL BANK & TRUST SUCESOR EN INTERES DE RG FEDERAL SAVINGS BANK, JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE

Demandado(a) Civil: GB2020CV00475. SALA 201. Sobre: CANCELACIÓDNE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE

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

Monday, October 19, 2020

Demandado(a) Reg II. f/Sara Rosa Villegas, Civil: Núm. MZ2019CV01902.

Sec del Trib Conf I. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y LEGAL NOTICE EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA. Estado Libre Asociado de Puer- NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENto Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL CIA POR EDICTO ENMENDE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Pri- DADA. mera Instancia Sala Superior A: WILMA MENDEZ de CAROLINA.

CITIMORTGAGE, INC. Demandante v.

RAMIRO TORRES MARTINEZ Y OTROS

Demandado(a) Civil: Núm. CA2018CV02670.

SALA 409. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA POR LA VIA ORDINARIA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: RAMIRO TORRES MARTINEZ, HILDA ALTAGRACIA GARCIA RODRIGUEZ Y LA SOCIEDAD DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS.

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 9 de octubre de 2020 , este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 13 de octubre de 2020 . En CAROLINA , Puerto Rico , el 13 de octubre de 2020. LCDA. MARILYN APONTE RODRIGUEZ, Secretaria.

MARICRUZ APONTE ALICEA, Secretaria Auxiliar.

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

BOSCO IX OVERSEAS, LLC BY FRANKLIN CREDIT MANAGEMENT CORPORATION AS SERVICER Demandante v.

WILMA MENDEZ PAGAN T/C/C WILMA GISSELLE MENDEZ PAGAN

PAGAN T/C/C WILMA GISSELLE MENDEZ PAGAN

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 2 de octubre de 2020 , este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 13 de octubre de 2020 . En MAYAGUEZ, Puerto Rico , el 13 de octubre de 2020.

LCDA. NORMA G SANTANA IRIZARRY, Secretaria. F/BETSY SANTIAGO GONZALEZ, Secretaria Auxiliar.

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

LEGACY MORTGAGE ASSET TRUST 2019-GS7 Parte Demandante Vs.

ROMUALDO QUIRINDONGO ECHEVARRIA su esposa ALICIA EUSEBIA GONZALEZ ROSADO y la Sociedad Legal de Bienes Gananciales Compuesta por ambos

Parte Demandada CASO CIVIL NUM: AG2020CV00650.

SOBRE: EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA POR LA VIA ORDINARIA Y COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTOS. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A: ROMUALDO QUIRINDONGO ECHEVARRIA, ALICIA EUSEBIA GONZALEZ

ROSADO y la Sociedad Legal de Bienes Gananciales Compuesta por ambos

POR LA PRESENTE se les emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá radicar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired.ramajudicial.pr/ sumac/, salvo que se presente por derecho propio, en: cuyo caso deberá radicar el original de su contestación ante el Tribunal correspondiente notifique con copia a los abogados de la parte demandante, Lcda.

Marjaliisa Colon Villanueva, al PO BOX 7970, Ponce, P.R. 00732; Teléfono: 787-8434168. En dicha demanda se tramita un procedimiento de cobro de dinero y ejecución de hipoteca bajo el número mencionado en el epigrafe. Se alega en dicho procedimiento que la parte Demandada incurrió en el incumplimiento del Contrato de Hipoteca, al no poder pagar las mensualidades vencidas correspondientes a los meses de mayo de 2019, hasta el presente, más los cargos por demora correspondientes.

Además adeuda a la parte demandante las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado en que incurra el tenedor del pagaré en este litigio. De acuerdo con dicho Contrato de Garantía Hipotecaria la parte Demandante declaró vencida la totalidad de la deuda ascendente a la suma de $46,886.05 de principal, el cual se compone de un primer principal por la suma de $43,808.15, y un segundo principal por la suma de $3,057.90, más los intereses sobre dicha suma al 5.80% anual, así como todos aquellos créditos y sumas que surjan de la faz de la obligación hipotecaria y de la hipoteca que la garantiza, incluyendo la suma pactada para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado. La parte Demandante presentó para su inscripción en el Registro de la Propiedad correspondiente, un AVISO DE PLEITO PENDIENTE (“Lis Pendens”) sobre la propiedad objeto de esta acción cuya propiedad es la siguiente : RUSTICA: Solar sito en el Barrio Aguacate de Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, con una cabida de cuatrocientos cincuenta y cinco punto setecientos cincuenta y cinco (455.755) metros cuadrados de superficie. En lindes por el NORTE, con el señor José Millán Suárez y mide vente punto veintidós (20.22) metros, por el SUR, linda con el remanente de finca principal, hoy Cristóbal Rodrlguez Lugo y mide quince punto cero cinco (15.05) metros; por el ESTE, linda con Juan Solero Barreto y mide veinticinco punto ochenta y tres

(25.83) metros: por el OESTE. linda con la faja de terreno o segregarse rotulada uso público y tiene dos (2) direcciones una de trece punto veintinueve (13.29) metro y otra de dieciséis punto treinta y cinco (16.35) metros.

Inscrita al folio doscientos treinta y tres (233) de tomo trecientos treinta y seis (336) de Aguadilla, finca número dieciocho mil novecientos sesenta y seis (18966), Reglstro de Aguadilla. SE LES APERCIBE que de no hacer sus alegaciones responslvas a la demanda dentro del término aquí dispuesto, se les anotará la rebeldía y se dictará Sentencia, concediéndose el remedio solicitado en la Demanda, sin más citarle ni oírle. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal en Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. A 5 de octubre de 2020. Sarahi Reyes Perez, Secretaria. Katherine Vazquez Mendez, SubSecretaria.

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Parte Demandante vs.

SUCESION DE FRANCISCA GUTIERREZ RIVERA COMPUESTA POR SUS HIJOS JUAN RIVERA GUTIERRÉZ y MARIA RIVERA GUTIERREZ, y X, Y, Z, COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS

Parte Demandada CIVIL NUM.: BY2019CV06568.

SALA: 702. SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO EMITIDO POR EL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA. INSTANCIA DE PUERTO RICO, SALA DE SUPERIOR DE BAYAMON.

A: JUAN RIVERA GUTIERREZ Y MARIA RIVERA GUTIERREZ, parte codemandada en el caso de: Banco Popular de Puerto Rico vs. Sucesión de Francisca Gutiérrez Rivera, compuesta por sus hijos Juan Rivera Gutiérrez y María Rivera Gutiérrez, y X, Y, Z, como herederos desconocidos, Civil Núm.: BY2019CV06568 (702), sobre Cobro de Dinero.

Se les notifica a ustedes, JUAN RIVERA GUTIERREZ Y MARIA RIVERA GUTIERREZ, que en la Demanda Enmendada que originó este caso se alega que ustedes le adeudan a la parte demandante, BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO, las siguientes cantidades: a. $13,586.92 de principal,

25

$1,024.89 de intereses devengados hasta el 8 de noviembre de 2019, más los intereses que se devenguen a partir de la fecha de radicación de la Demanda al tipo legal, hasta el total y completo pago de la obligación, $49.20 de cargos por mora y la cuantía de $1,466.11 pactada para las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado. La deuda es por concepto de un préstamo que les fue desembolsado por la demandante y cuyos últimos cuatro dígitos son 0104. b. $14,142.43 de principal e intereses devengados hasta el 8 de noviembre de 2019, más los intereses que se devenguen a partir de la fecha de radicación de la Demanda al tipo legal, hasta el total y completo pago de la obligación, y una suma razonable para las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, por concepto de las sumas desembolsadas por el uso de una tarjeta de crédito VISA Novel cuyos últimos 4 dígitos son 8545. Se les emplaza y requiere que presenten al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este edicto, a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual pueden acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se representen por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberán presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Deberá notificar a la licenciada: María S. Jiménez Meléndez al PO Box 9023632, San Juan, Puerto Rico 009023632; teléfono: (787) 723-2455; abogada de la parte demandante, con copia de la contestación a la demanda enmendada.

Si ustedes dejan de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda enmendada o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Expedido en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, a 1 de septiembre de 2020. LCDA. LAURA l. SANTA SANCHEZ, Sec Regional. Yariliz Cintron Colon, Sec Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOT ICE ESTADO UBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE HUMACAO.

MICHAEL YUZ, su esposa ELAINE YUZ, y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES, compuesta por ambos EUGENE DMITRY FRUMKIN también conocido como EUGENE FRUMKIN, su esposa IRINA FRUMKIN y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL

DE GANANCIALES, compuesta por ambos Demandantes Vs.

FULANO DE TAL Y MENGANO DE TAL

Demandados CIVIL NUM.: HU2020CV00925.

SOBRE: CANCELACION EXTRAVIADO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADO UBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO

FULANO DE TAL Y MENGANO DE TAL DE PAGARE.

El Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Humacao dictó la siguiente providencia: “ORDEN: Vista la solicitud sobre publicación de edictos, la demanda que se acompaña para cancelar un pagaré que se ha extraviado y las Reglas de Procedimiento Civil vigentes, el Tribunal ordena que se citen por edictos a los demandados desconocidos Fulano de Tal y Mengano de Tal, en su condición de posibles tenedores del siguiente pagaré: pagaré a favor de EUGENE DMITRY FRUMKIN, también conocido como EUGENE FRUMKIN e IRINA FRUMKIN, o a su orden, por la suma principal de Ciento Ochenta Mil Dólares ($180,000.00), devengando intereses al cinco por ciento (5%) anual, vencedero el veinte (20) de septiembre de dos mil veinte (2020), garantizado con Hipoteca constituida mediante la Escritura número Ciento Ochenta (180), otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, del veinte (20) de septiembre de dos mil diecinueve (2019) ante la Notario Público Teresa Pacheco Camacho. Los edictos se publicaran en un periódico de circulación general.

En vista de encontrarnos ante demandados desconocidos, se exime a la parte demandante del envio por corrED certificado del presente edicto”. DADA en Humacao, Puerto Rico, 29 de septiembre de 2020. Hon. Mayra Huergo Cardoso, (Firmado) JUEZ SUPERIOR. Se le notifica que de no contestar, o alegar en contra de la demanda radicada en este caso, previa notificación del demandante, dentro de veinte (20) días si el demandado reside en Puerto Rico, o dentro de treinta (30) días si el demandado reside fuera de Puerto Rico, contados desde la publicación del edicto, se le anotará rebeldía, sin más citarle ni oírle, y oída la evidencia del demandante, el Tribunal dictará sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado. La abogada de la parte demandante es la Leda. Teresa Pacheco Camacho, con oficinas en la Calle Santiago Vivaldi Pacheco, Número 24-B, Yauco, Puerto Rico 00698. La dirección postal es: PO BOX 1942 Caguas, Puerto Rico 00726-1942. Expedido bajo mi firma y el sello de Tribunal para su publicación, hoy día 5 de octubre de 2020. En

Humacao, Puerto Rico. Dominga Gomez Fuster, Secretaria Regional. Marisol Davila Ortiz, Sec Auxiliar.

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

JOSÉ ÁNGEL RODRÍGUEZ AQUINO Y ARNALDO RODRÍGUEZ AQUINO Demandantes Vs.

UNITED FEDERAL SAVINGS AND LOAN ASSOCIATION OF PUERTO RICO, a través el BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO; JUAN DEL PUEBLO Y FULANO DE TAL

Demandados CIVIL #: GB2020CV00516. SOBRE: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ HIPOTECARIO EXTRAVIADO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. Por la presente se notifica a los demandados desconocidos Juan del Pueblo, Fulano de Tal Y United Federal Savings And Loan Association Of Puerto Rico, que se ha radicado una demanda sobre Cancelación de Pagaré en la que se solicita la cancelación de Un pagaré hipotecario a favor de United Federal Savings and Loan Association of Puerto Rico, el cual se identifica a continuación: Hipoteca en garantía de un pagaré suscrito en la misma fecha de la escritura, por la suma de $30,300.00 con intereses al 9%, mediante escritura #36 del 24 de febrero de 1978, otorgada ante el notario Manuel Correa Calzada, la cual quedó inscrita en la finca 24,595 en su inscripción primera. Cualquier persona que posea dicho pagaré tiene 30 días a partir de esta fecha para comparecer en el pleito de epígrafe presentando contestación original en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Guaynabo, exponiendo lo que a su derecho conduzca; advirtiéndosele que de no hacer alegación responsiva en el término indicado se anotará la rebeldía y se podrá dictar Sentencia concediéndose el remedio solicitado sin más citarle ni oírle. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https:// unired.ramajudicial.pr, Es abogado de la parte demandante, el Lic. Jaime Rodríguez Rivera, quien tiene oficinas abiertas en el #30 de La Calle Reparto Piñero, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, Teléfono 787-720-9553.

En Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, a 6 de octubre de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, Secretaria Regional. Diamar T. González Barreto, Secretaria del Tribunal.

26

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

What the NBA’s west teams need: Shooters and shady texts

By SOPAN DEB

F

inally — finally — the NBA offseason is here. Sure, it is October, months removed from when the offseason would typically begin if there wasn’t a pandemic. And of course, the Los Angeles Lakers are still trying to figure out if they can throw a Zoom championship parade after conquering the Walt Disney World bubble.

(They can. But you just know that J.R. Smith would forget to mute himself during LeBron James’ speech.)

This means that 30 NBA teams are about to reload, retool or reset through trades, free agency and the draft, though the league still needs to sort out the financial impact of the pandemic and set the salary cap for next season.

The Western Conference is a particularly tough nut to crack. The Los Angeles Lakers won the championship and should be assumed to be the favorites to win again, given their dominant playoff run.

But other teams with young stars might have something to say about that.

So for all the general managers out there, we have some suggestions for one thing every team in the West needs to do this offseason.

THE CONTENDERS Los Angeles Lakers Anthony Davis has a player option this offseason, and if the Lakers persuade him to sign an extension, that is a success.

With Davis and James, the team would remain title favorites even with Statler, Waldorf and me rounding out the starting lineup.

Los Angeles Clippers The Clippers were an expensive Hollywood production with A-list stars meant to win it all during awards season.

But instead, they were upstaged by less established talent. In other words, they were Netflix’s “The Irishman.”

Their path forward is not ideal: They probably won’t have much cap space.

Montrezl Harrell, the sixth man of the year, and Marcus Morris are unrestricted free agents. They don’t have a first-round draft pick, and their two stars, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, can leave after the 2020-21 season.

The Clippers have to bank on one

thing: fixing their chemistry. It was an issue all season, so in theory, a new coach could come along and mend that, given Leonard’s and George’s talent.

Denver Nuggets The Nuggets are in one of the better positions in the league: Their franchise cornerstone, Nikola Jokic, is locked up through 2022-23. He has a solid, if inconsistent, secondary player in Jamal Murray, signed through 2023-24. They have some big contracts coming off the books, freeing cap space.

But their most crucial move might be right under their noses. Jerami Grant was a solid contributor on both ends and can test the free-agent market. The Nuggets would do well to keep him.

Golden State Warriors All the Warriors have to do this offseason is wrap Stephen Curry in cellophane. If the Warriors are healthy next season — this means a rested Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green — Golden State will be a solid title contender.

THE MAYBES Houston Rockets The Rockets need to surround James Harden and Russell Westbrook with shooting. They showed that their miniball style can work, but Westbrook’s jump shooting woes became an issue in the postseason, and Houston needs someone to take the pressure off Harden.

The Rockets, with no cap space, will have to solve this either through trade or free agency on the cheap. Kyle Korver and Isaiah Thomas might fit the bill here offensively, but defensively — yikes.

Oklahoma City Thunder This is an attractive franchise: a bevy of future draft picks, compelling young talent like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a head coach opening. And Chris Paul, at 35, showed he was still one of the best point guards in the game.

There is not much for the Thunder to do, other than try to hit home runs with their two late-first-round draft picks. Relax and enjoy the ride. See the light at the end of the tunnel. They do not have enough cap space to attract a top-tier free agent to play alongside Paul. The team’s most tradable asset is Steven Adams, who has a roughly $27.5 million expiring contract.

But the team is best off letting it expire

rather than taking on other contracts. Be as competitive as you can until 2021-22, when you will have cap space, draft picks and maybe Paul to make a legitimate run.

Utah Jazz The Jazz are capped out, both in salary and their talent ceiling. They’re not good enough to play with the Lakers, but they’re not bad enough to get lottery picks. Rudy Gobert has a $27.5 million expiring contract, and given his pandemic-related tensions with Donovan Mitchell, it is worth asking whether the team would be better off with a center who can space the floor.

Dallas Mavericks Upgrade defensively. They’ll have their midlevel exception and a first-round draft pick to do so. They have two franchise blue chips in Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis, but the team was 18th defensively last season. (A caveat: Porzingis just had surgery to repair a meniscus injury in his right knee. He has had trouble staying healthy for most of his career, but he really showed his potential in the playoffs.)

Bonus: Give Boban Marjanovic more playing time because the world is suffering and we need a smile.

Portland Trail Blazers This team barely got to an eighth seed, an underwhelming campaign. But if Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins can be healthy for a full season, the Blazers will be formidable. Maybe. Or Portland can hope that an opposing star insults Damian Lillard’s rap talents, fueling an aggrieved run for the ages.

Memphis Grizzlies Poke the bear. Constantly remind Ja Morant that one basketball writer out of 100 did not choose him to win the Roo-

kie of the Year Award. Text him every morning. Mention it at every practice.

Send him an accidental email with the subject line: “Man, I wish we had Zion Williamson. He might’ve had a better rookie year.”

Phoenix Suns Move the team’s home arena to Walt Disney World, where the Suns went 8-0 in the bubble. Aside from that, the Suns are one of the few teams with lots of cap space and a lottery pick. It is a less topheavy draft class than usual, but Danilo Gallinari and Montrezl Harrell are legitimate free-agent targets for them.

THE MAYBE-NOTS San Antonio Spurs Promise coach Gregg Popovich that he won’t have to do any more sideline interviews, and the Spurs will go 82-0. Aside from that, much of their offseason will hinge on whether DeMar DeRozan will opt in for the final year of his contract.

The Spurs should hope he stays. Under the radar, DeRozan has played some of the best basketball of his career in San Antonio.

Sacramento Kings Trade Buddy Hield, who has not so subtly suggested he wants out of Sacramento, and hand the keys over to Bogdan Bogdanovic, a restricted free agent. Hield is a young, talented guard on a reasonable contract who can net the Kings some assets. If this drags on, the Kings will lose leverage.

New Orleans Pelicans Find the right coach for Zion Williamson. Players are more likely than ever to force their way off teams, even when locked into contracts. Any year of Williamson’s prime squandered with a coach who doesn’t mesh with him is an invitation for Williamson to try to leave when he can, as James did in Cleveland.

Minnesota Timberwolves Minnesota has the No. 1 pick in the draft as well as a Nets first-rounder. The Timberwolves have one of the best young players in the league, with Karl-Anthony Towns, and a talented guard beside him, D’Angelo Russell. Minnesota cannot whiff on the first pick. Go get James Wiseman.

His athleticism will allow him to play three positions on the floor, and Minnesota needs both wing and frontcourt help.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

27

Fred Dean, sack specialist who ignited 49ers dynasty, dies at 68

By ALEX TRAUB

A

fter two losing seasons with a new head coach and an unproven young quarterback named Joe Montana, the San Francisco 49ers in October 1981 had a modest 3-2 record and were getting ready to face the Dallas Cowboys, who had beaten them in every game for almost a decade.

But something about the 49ers had changed. They’d just acquired a defensive end, Fred Dean.

In the first half of that game against the Cowboys, Dean relentlessly pursued the Dallas quarterback, Danny White; on one play he flipped 360 degrees over an offensive lineman en route to a sack.

During halftime in the locker room, Dean pulled out a pack of Kools and started smoking. The entire team just stared at him, San Francisco defensive back Ronnie Lott recalled.

Roused by Dean’s aggression and effortless confidence, the 49ers crushed the Cowboys, 45-14.

“He’s an inspiration to the rest of the group,” coach Bill Walsh told The New York Times the next month. “Not that they were ragtag, but he gave us the single greatness we have to have.”

The team would go on to win the Super Bowl that season, its first, and would remain a dominant force in the NFL for nearly 20 years.

Dean died Oct. 14 while being airlifted from a hospital in West Monroe, La. to Jackson, Miss. He was 68. The cause was complications of COVID-19, his son Mason said.

At 6 feet, 2 inches and 227 pounds, Dean was “a shrimp” for a defensive end, according to the Times. He compensated

Fred Dean, a pass-rushing specialist for the San Francisco 49ers, waved to fans as he was introduced at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, in 2008. for his size with speed and with strength in his hands that he had gained through training inspired by martial arts.

Dean was an All-Pro starter for the San Diego Chargers before San Francisco acquired him during the 1981 season. The 49ers made him into a pass-rushing specialist, playing him only when the defense took a 4-3 formation. He’d line up on the weak side, usually leaving a lone defender between him and the quarterback.

Dean had six sacks in a game against the New Orleans Saints in 1983, a record that stood until 1990. He helped lead the 49ers to a 26-21 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in the 1982 Super Bowl and

to another championship in 1985 over the Miami Dolphins, 38-16. The Times attributed that victory principally to pressure the 49ers brought against Miami’s quarterback, Dan Marino.

Dean retired after the 1985 season and entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2008. Edward DeBartolo Jr., the former owner of the 49ers, credited Dean with starting the 49ers’ run of success in the Super Bowl; they won the championship five times in a 14-year period.

“We wouldn’t have won five if we hadn’t won the first two,” he said. “We would not have won the first two if it weren’t for Fred Dean.”

Frederick Rudolph Dean was born Feb. 24, 1952, in Arcadia, La. His father, Rual Dean, was a dairy farmer, and his mother, Rosie (Giles) Dean, was a homemaker.

Fred’s upbringing, in nearby Ruston, La., was strict.

“Mom would whip me before she would leave, and I hadn’t done anything,” he recalled in an interview with the 49ers.

“I’d ask her why. She said, ‘Just in case.’”

At Louisiana Tech University, Dean led the football team to multiple national and conference titles. He was drafted by the Chargers in 1975.

His marriage to Irene Bolds ended in divorce. In 1990, he married Pamela Massie.

In addition to his son Mason, from Dean’s second marriage, she survives him, as do four children from his first marriage: Fred Dean Jr., Fredricka White, Fredia Stringfellow and Keith Bolds; two other children, Brandon Dean and Amanada Beach Dean; a brother, James Earl Dean; two sisters, Dessie Pruitt and Dorothy Dean; 15 grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren.

After retiring from football, Dean suffered financial setbacks and developed medical issues, including diabetes. To pay his bills, he had to sell his Super Bowl rings.

His life stabilized after he obtained a master’s in theology from United Theological Seminary and Bible College in Monroe, La. He became pastor of New Nature Ministries church in Ruston.

In his Hall of Fame acceptance speech, Dean reflected on the elemental struggle of being a defensive end.

“You get used to getting down in the dirt, getting your clothes dirty and wallowing a little bit,” he said. “I said to myself, ‘Hmm, I like the dirt.’”

28

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

Football’s boo birds are all cooped up

By BEN SHPIGEL

D

rew Kanevsky, a New York Jets season-ticket holder since 2002, misses the familiar game day rhythms when the team is at home: putting on his trusty No. 74 Nick Mangold jersey; tailgating at Lot K1 at MetLife Stadium; and explaining nuances to his 10-yearold son, Anthony, that the television feed doesn’t show.

But in this fraught NFL season in which fans have mostly been barred from stadiums because of public health concerns, Kanevsky finds himself pining for a cherished bygone ritual: booing his favorite team.

“More than you can understand,” said Kanevsky, 42, of Belleville, N.J. “Because I have no way to release my venom.”

The void Kanevsky feels is yet another consequence of a pandemic that has muted so many joyous occasions — buzzer-beating shots and game-winning field goals drilled in empty venues; the Stanley Cup awarded in Edmonton, Alberta, to a team from Tampa, Fla., that beat a team from Dallas — but also deprived the sporting world of a critical side of fandom: the collective venting.

Watching from home — “miserably,” Kanevsky said — as the winless Jets plod through the season, he has groaned, seethed, even changed the channel. Nothing, he said, has adequately replaced the “weird satisfaction” he derives from expressing his disapproval in person, surrounded by his people.

This sense of loss is being felt, maybe more than anywhere else across the NFL’s empire, along a section of the Northeast corridor. Jets and New York Giants fans — in a boon to their mental health, perhaps — are prohibited from attending games at MetLife all season. About 90 miles south, the slumping Philadelphia Eagles have been cleared to host 7,500 people — a small fraction of the normal crowd size — at Lincoln Financial Field beginning with Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Ravens.

In those parts, a general affinity for booing has collided with a grim answer to that old metaphysical question: If ugly football is played and no one is there to see it, yes, the results still count in the standings.

In the New York metropolitan area, the locus of NFL agony, the Jets and Giants are each 0-5, outscored by a combined 138 points, and their game film is best handled by a hazmat crew. The Eagles, at least, have won a game — but only one — and their demanding fan base treats the team’s record, 1-3-1, as a personal affront.

Booing is a basic human need in Philadelphia, less an impulsive reaction for its sports fans than a state of mind (a Twitter account, @Phillybooing, emits lengthy boos when a sports team there stumbles, which is often). Eagles fans proudly admit to booing draft picks who’ve never played a down. But booing is also an expression of love — an accountability check of sorts — and without it, some fans are feeling unmoored.

“I’m a lifelong Philadelphian; this is in my blood,” said Stephanie Ruggeri, 47, an Eagles season-ticket holder for 23 years. “The booing, really, comes from a place of, ‘We know you can be doing better than this.’ It’s not so much like, ‘We hate you as a person.’”

So far, 18 of the league’s 32 teams have been cleared to allow fans in their stadiums at diminished capacities. The seats are often filled by cardboard cutouts of fans, and the television networks have been playing prerecorded crowd noises to mask the eerie quiet for viewers at home. During a game in the second week of the season in Philadelphia, Fox, perhaps catering to its audience, occasionally sprinkled in some catcalls after Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz threw an incompletion or interception.

Philadelphia lost that game — to the Los Angeles Rams, by 18 points — but for many fans, a more embarrassing indignity befell the Eagles the next week when coach Doug Pederson sent out the punt team on fourth-and-12 from the Cincinnati 46-yard line late in overtime, effectively conceding a tie.

“I really feel that if fans were in the stadium, the rain of boos that would have come down would have made him second-guess that decision,” said Eric Emanuele, 38, of Clinton, N.J., whose family has had Eagles season tickets for nearly 30 years. “To not be able to voice your displeasure in that moment — oh, absolutely, that’s something that hurts.”

On these fallow Sundays, the game day experience is not quite a solitary pursuit for Emanuele — he now partakes with about 12 others on the deck at his home, where he refrains from screaming so as not to disturb his neighbors — but rather an underwhelming imitation, a reminder of where he would rather be.

That sense of belonging is vital to the identity of sports fans. And it is harder to recapture during the pandemic, sports psychologists say, when people are discouraged from congregating in large groups. Rich Knott, 60, of West Caldwell, N.J., said he often conveyed his emotions at Giants games — whether it was bewilderment, disgust or, less likely over the last few years, euphoria — just by making eye contact with strangers in Section 124.

“It’s a way to communicate fitting in,” said Christian End, a social psychologist at Xavier University who studies sports fans’ behavior, “even though, you know, quite frankly, the athlete or whoever isn’t going to hear you from the last row of the stadium.”

On some level, Kanevsky realizes this. It isn’t as if, he lamented, coach Adam Gase is going to resign just because Jets fans angered by his play-calling or the team’s (lack of) execution are yelling at him from behind the benches.

But thousands of like-minded fans, as paying customers, have a strong voice. At stadiums, they have a direct conduit to objects of their ire, an opportunity to provide immediate feedback. That release now goes unfulfilled.

“I don’t want to boo; I want to go there and cheer when

The Jets and the Giants are 0-5; their fans, pictured in 2018, are prohibited from attending games at MetLife this season. they win,” Kanevsky said. “But how else can we tell them that this is mind-numbingly frustrating? That’s all we have.

When it’s third-and-7 and he runs a 2-yard out, what am I going to do? I have to tell them. They have to hear that.”

Football fans are not alone in being denied vocal vengeance. With MLB banning all fans from stadiums in the regular season, the Houston Astros avoided blowback after they were caught in one of the sport’s worst cheating scandals (though a man with a megaphone scolded them from an apartment balcony overlooking the stadium at a recent playoff game in San Diego).

“Anytime someone’s in the wrong in sports this year, there’s never going to be a real penalty from the public spotlight perspective,” said Greg Stengel, 25, a Jets seasonticket holder from Morristown, N.J. “If Jets games were happening right now, it would be a clown show.”

As Stengel well knows, Jets games are, indeed, happening. Their performance in the home opener, a 31-13 loss to San Francisco that fell on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, prompted Stengel, who watched while observing the holiday with his family, to bemoan, “What a great way to ring in the new year, right?”

Among the regrettable moments that afternoon, one in particular irked Kanevsky: With the Jets trailing, 24-3, late in the third quarter, Gase, the coach, played it safe on fourth down, choosing to attempt a short field goal rather than try for a touchdown. The kick was good, and when the fake crowd cheered the meager 3 points, Kanevsky felt like throwing his television out the window because, he said, really, what else could he have done?

“It’s not like I’m going to sit in my living room and boo,” he said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 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

Monday, October 19, 2020

(Mar 21-April 20)

You are noticing signs that there is going to be a repeat of recent events. You have been expecting this but not for it to happen so quickly. You know how difficult this is going to be and this makes you more inclined to take some time for yourself now, while you have the chance.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

Decisions influenced by emotion and logic could lead you astray. You can’t believe everything everyone is telling you. You’re too quick to accept what you hear without checking facts. Remember that your decisions could be coloured by subjective preferences.

Being too trusting could set you up for later disappointment.

Taurus

(April 21-May 21)

Scorpio

You have known and benefited from other people’s generosity in the past. It may be necessary now to combine resources or share expenses to make ends meet. There are things you have been holding on to in case of a rainy day. Now is the time to take a risk and make these available to others.

Start aiming a little higher. Instead of waiting for the right opportunities to come to you, take action. Apply for your dream position.

No one’s going to offer you a job if you don’t show interest. Have faith in yourself and go for your dreams. If your first attempt fails, try again and keep trying until you do succeed.

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

You can’t continue putting in all the work and making so much effort when there are others who are getting away with doing nothing.

You’ve reached breaking point and you’re ready to declare enough is enough. Besides, you need to relax to prepare for what is coming as you sense more responsibility is on the way.

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

You have attracted a lot of interest in your activities. People are talking about you. Friends can’t wait to see what you are going to do next. Since most of the time you are acting on impulse, even you don’t know but you welcome this chance to make changes and improvements to your life.

Your desire to be of service is being taken very seriously. You’re looking for positive ways to help those who are disadvantaged. You’re starting to see how recent difficulties have taught you a lot about yourself and your relationships. You have a sense of purpose and you want to share your skills with the world.

You can’t make any sense out of your current mood. You aren’t used to feeling so vulnerable. Because of this you seem to have temporarily lost your ability to take a logical approach to events that have a strong impact on your emotions. Talk to a sensitive friend and they will give you guidance.

Leo

Aquarius

(July 24-Aug 23)

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

An annual social event you have always enjoyed may not appeal due to safety regulations now in place. If you do agree to go it will be to keep the peace. What might surprise you is that there will be plenty to enjoy despite any restrictions and you will be pleased you did go in the end.

Life does not seem to be moving in the direction you had planned. You’re getting annoyed with yourself for not being able to make the right decisions. What you have failed to notice is it isn’t you who is doing anything wrong.

It is the lack of support from those around you that is causing problems and delays.

Virgo

Pisces

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

You have a clear vision of the steps you need to take to get you where you want to go. You have big ideas and know you are quite capable of achieving these goals. Put your plan into action and if you need someone’s assistance, your enthusiasm will help keep them motivated and inspired.

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

It’s easy to find enjoyment in your daydreams and from dreaming of your future achievements. Unless you attend to the details, they will always remain as dreams. Don’t hold back from taking up a challenge just because you’ve done nothing like it before. Facing personal issues will bring a strong sense of achievement.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

Monday, October 19, 2020

31

CARTOONS

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

BC

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

For Better or for Worse

The San Juan Daily Star

Ziggy

32

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, October 19, 2020

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