Tuesday, October 6, 2020
San Juan The
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Delgado Altieri Proposes to Target Violence Against Women. What About Gender Perspective Education?
DAILY
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Pope Criticizes Lack of World Unity in COVID-19 Response P16
Supreme Court Gives Green Light to Plebiscite
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Is Ruling That Legalized Same-Sex Marriage Hanging by a Thread?
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NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 19
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32 SEMANA, INC • Tuesday, October 6, 2020 2 EDITORIAL
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The San Juan Daily Star
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October 6, 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.
Special Independent Prosecutor Panel: Deadline for appointment of an SIP in Apex General case is 2 weeks away
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pecial Independent Prosecutor Panel (PFEI by its Spanish initials) President Nydia Cotto Vives said Monday that the deadline has not yet been reached for determining whether the appointment of an independent special prosecutor in relation to the failed purchase of COVID-19 test kits by Apex General Contractors. “A couple of months ago, as soon as we received the referral from the [House] Health Committee, we appointed an investigating prosecutor who is not an independent special prosecutor,” Cotto Vives said in a radio interview (Radio Isla 1320 AM). “The difference is that this investigator does the preliminary investigation that Justice was responsible for. Having not counted on this preliminary investigation, we appointed attorney Crisanta González to conduct it and recommend to the panel, if appropriate and proper, the appointment of an independent special prosecutor. The term that the attorney González has [for making a
recommendation] expires soon, this October 19.” Cotto Vives stated that the investigation in the case against Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced regarding food supplies after Hurricane Maria should also be delivered on Oct. 19, but due to prosecutors’ heavy workload, it is likely that they will ask for additional time. The head of the PFEI also said the prosecutors in the Telegram chat case, which led to the resignation of Ricardo Rosselló Nevares as governor of Puerto Rico, will need an additional 15 days to present a detailed report. “The prosecutors presented the panel with a brief where they say they are already concluding their case,” Cotto Vives said. “However, they needed a short additional 15 days to submit their report. That 15-day term expires on October 27. But this case is [already] before special independent prosecutors. The Telegram chat, as it came with a preliminary investigation of the Department of Justice, there the prosecutors Miguel Colón and Leticia Pabón were appointed to carry out a thorough investigation.”
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The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
Island Supreme Court rules statehood referendum is constitutional By PEDRO CORREA HENRY Twitter: @PCorreaHenry Special to The Star
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ven though they didn’t receive approval from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in July because they did not comply with federal public policy, the Puerto Rico Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the provisions in Subchapter VIII-B of Law No. 58 of June 20, 2020, the Puerto Rico Electoral Code, and Law No. 51 of May 16 of 2020, the Final Definition of Puerto Rico’s Political Status Law, are constitutional. Regarding the validity of the latter, Law 51-2020, which provides for the holding of a political status consultation on Nov. 3, 2020, the day of Puerto Rico’s general elections, the high court concluded that it has a public purpose as it is consistent with what is provided in Article VI, Section 9 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico “since it allows all Puerto Ricans, under equal conditions, to participate and express themselves in favor of or against ratifying and implementing the status formula that was favored in the plebiscites held in 2012 and 2017” and exercising their right to self-determination. The court also found that the precedent in Báez Galib II maintains that legislation that substantially alters Puerto Rico’s political relationship with the United States cannot be approved without first obtaining the approval of Puerto Rico residents. Therefore, the ruling concluded that, unlike in 2000, when the case of Báez Galib II was resolved, there is now an electoral mandate for the decolonization of Puerto Rico and in favor of all legal measures that advance those ends. Given this, it also determined that the political status consultation to be held on Nov. 3 is a valid and non-discriminatory mechanism with an eminently public purpose. Meanwhile, the ruling added that the Legislative Assembly has the power to choose legitimate mechanisms to advance its objectives and register the people’s expression of their will and that the court cannot question the wisdom or convenience of the legislative determination in question because it is a non-justiciable political issue. On the other hand, regarding Subchapter VIII-B of Law 58-2020, the Electoral Code, which authorizes the holding of presidential elections in Puerto Rico, it was resolved that, unlike Law No. 403-2000, the recent law has a “discernible and definite public purpose.” According to the Supreme Court’s determination, it is due to the fact that, unlike when Báez Galib II was resolved, the people expressly authorized the Legislative Assembly to pass a presidential voting law in 2017, consistent with the electoral mandate in the 2012 and 2017 plebiscites. Moreover, the high court reaffirmed the ruling in Báez Galib II, that this type of legislation needs to be authorized by the people. In its conclusion, the Supreme Court determined that it does not correspond to invalidate the contested legislation because that express authorization was obtained for Law No. 58-2020 in the 2017 plebiscite and that it is consistent with the aspirations that the people of Puerto Rico expressed when approving the island Constitution. Justices submit their opinions Associate Justice Rafael Martínez Torres issued the court’s majority opinion, while Associate Justice Ángel Colón Pérez issued a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Chief
Justice Maite Oronoz Rodríguez and Associate Justice Anabelle Rodríguez Rodríguez, in which they pointed out that the majority of the court revoked sub silentio the precedent established several decades ago in the Báez Galib v. State Elections Commission case. In that precedent, the court had determined in 2000 that because the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico did not favor, nor does it favor, any alternative of any status, it was concluded that using public funds to advance the cause of only one of the political parties “understand, statehood,” was unconstitutional. According to the dissenting judges, by deviating from this rule the majority of the court “dangerously validate in our jurisdiction the use of public funds to advance the status formula proposed by the political party in power.” Meanwhile, the dissenting justices stated that the actions of the majority of the court were in direct conflict with the provisions of the constitutions of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the United States of America, and their interpretative jurisprudence. That conclusion is based on the statements of the U.S. DOJ in written communication in which it listed its objections to the holding of the plebiscite, both procedurally and substantively. Likewise, the dissenting opinion emphasized that “you will notice that the public funds that today most of the members of this Forum authorize are to be used in symbolic events, drawn up in dark rooms and with malicious intent, when they would have served a better purpose of having ended up at the doors of all those homes of Puerto Rican families that are still suffering the damage caused by hurricanes Irma and Maria, the earthquakes in the southwest region of the country, or the COVID-19 pandemic; events that have truly revealed the poverty that exists on this island and the economic gaps that sadly and unnecessarily separate one from the other. Perhaps this way, in a more real and accurate way, we can achieve the true EQUALITY that some of my colleagues on the bench claim in their writing!” Associate Justice Rodríguez Rodríguez, who is slated to retire from her seat on the Supreme Court as she turns 70 on Dec. 24, issued a separate dissenting opinion in which she highlighted her disagreement with the decision of the majority since it allows the million-dollar disbursement of public funds for the holding of two electoral events that lack a public
purpose and whose results will be completely inconsequential. As stated, the action in question is unconstitutional and the social and economic implications of the course of action of the majority are just as dangerous and problematic as the judicial precedent they establish. Resident commissioner applauds Supreme Court’s ruling Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón, meanwhile, applauded the high court’s decision. “I think this was another attempt by the leadership of the Popular [Democratic] Party [PDP] to rig, to hinder, to boycott a process. However, I have to tell you that even though they had that tantrum in court, the reality is that this is the first plebiscite process endorsed by all political parties. In the past, the PDP always sought to boycott, to say not to vote or not to participate. They enrolled early [this time] and said they were going to participate. That makes this plebiscite the one that everyone has embraced, defending a decision,” González Colón said in response to questions from the press. “Congratulations on the determination of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico to say ‘enough’ to these legal attempts to obstruct the free and voluntary voting process of the people of Puerto Rico to tell them what they want to be for their future.”
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The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
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Rights group says ruling that legalized same-sex marriage is in peril By THE STAR STAFF
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he U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a case from a Kentucky clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples, but two of the justices used the opportunity to attack the 2015 court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage. The two conservative justices said the ruling has had ruinous consequences for religious liberty. The group LGBT Puerto Rico immediately responded that the ruling that legalized same-sex marriage was under attack. The court declined to hear the case of Kim Davis, the former Rowan County clerk who was sued after she said her religious convictions kept her from recognizing same-sex marriages, even after the Supreme Court found a constitutional right to those unions in Obergefell v. Hodges. She had been jailed for refusing to issue gay marriage licenses at the time and her case had attracted national attention. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. said
they agreed with the court’s decision not to hear Davis’s petition, but used the opportunity to oppose Obergefell v. Hodges. They noted that Davis was forced to choose between her religious beliefs and her job as a result of the court’s actions. “Davis may have been one of the first victims of this court’s cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision, but she will not be the last,” Thomas wrote. “Due to Obergefell, those with sincerely held religious beliefs concerning marriage will find it increasingly difficult to participate in society without running afoul of Obergefell and its effect on other anti-discrimination laws.” Thomas added “It would be one thing if recognition for same-sex marriage had been debated and adopted through the democratic process, with the people deciding not to provide statutory protections for religious liberty under state law. But it is quite another when the court forces that choice upon society through its creation of atextual constitutional rights and its ungenerous interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause, leaving those with religious objections in the lurch.”
Still, Thomas and Alito said they agreed with the decision not to accept the case, because it did not present a clear-cut issue that could be decided. The opinion comes a week after President Donald Trump appointed another conservative judge to the court, which some fear will reverse acquired rights. LGBT Puerto Rico said the two justices’ remarks appear to be urging the court to reverse its prior ruling.
Candidate Delgado Altieri details proposal to address violence against women By PEDRO CORREA HENRY Twitter: @PCorreaHenry Special to The Star
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opular Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial candidate Charlie Delgado Altieri on Monday presented his government proposal to address violence against women in Puerto Rico amid being heavily criticized in recent days for for his take on the gender perspective in education and LGBTQIAP+ issues. Gathered at PDP headquarters in Puerta de Tierra with every female-identifying leader and candidate for both the Legislature and various municipalities in the party, Delgado said that if he were to become the governor of Puerto Rico he would immediately declare a state of emergency due to violence against women via an executive order. He said further that the documents created for the order, which would go into effect in January 2021, would be “dynamic” as “things are not written in stone, and the country requires that each situation be handled according to the changes that are taking place.” “[Puerto Rico’s] second transformation doesn’t have to do with dollars and cents, nor is it about an economic or fiscal transformation,” the PDP president said. “Puerto Rico’s transformation has to do with our social situations, and the great polarization that exists in our country on many social topics; it calls upon us to, instead of going to a place of controversy and confrontation, that these conversations make us sit down at the table to seek a discussion, to look for convergence.” Some of the measures and bills that the Isabela mayor mentioned for inclusion in his executive order are to identify funds and budget items to implement the state
of emergency, establish effective protocols for managing protection orders, strengthen early alert systems, create an advisory council on violence against women that presents quarterly reports of actions taken and results obtained, prioritize the prompt conducting of appropriate tests after sexual assault at the Forensic Sciences Institute, and formulate public policies to have “zero impunity in cases of violence against women.” “I will separate a recurrent annual allocation for emergency and temporary housing shelters for domestic violence victims,” Delgado said. “This measure will be key to ensuring that shelters remain operating without interruption.” Delgado Altieri struggles again to respond on gender and LGBTQIAP+ issues Even though Delgado said his proposed executive order would include implementing a teaching curriculum with gender perspective “based on equality and respect for each person,” he added that the curriculum must also include the evaluation, teamwork and recommendations of “all interest groups,” including religious groups. When
a member of the press asked why include churches in a discussion that involves an education issue, after a long pause, he said that “churches, communities, non-profit organizations, and you can keep mentioning [others], all are components of society.” “We can’t exclude, and if I say that I leave out the LGBTT community, they say it’s bad. So no, it’s equality, it’s participation from all sectors of our country, or, if not, we will be excluding,” he said. “I reiterate: this country, like many other countries that have been in wars and deep controversies, in this press conference, shows that it needs dialogue and convergence.” Meanwhile, the PDP gubernatorial candidate said he will insist on finding convergence among every sector even if clashing sectors don’t end up in agreement on the teaching curriculum with a gender perspective. “There will always be people who will come out saying, ‘I don’t like what I saw,’” Delgado said. “We can’t please everyone. You have to put in the most effort to find that consensus.” When the Star asked what the PDP candidate will do differently to forge an agreement on education with gender perspective with much of the religious sector being so vocal in its opposition to that educational approach, the PDP president said “he will make the religious sector participate.” As for the trans community, which was not mentioned once in the government proposal even though five trans women have been killed in 2020 and their cases remain unsolved, Delgado said such crimes are intolerable and that he will reinforce public policies because he has friends from that community and he “doesn’t want anything bad to happen to them.”
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The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
MIDA presents latest data as Consumer Radiography marks 40 Years By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com
A
s part of the celebration of its 40th anniversary, the Puerto Rico Chamber of Food Marketing, Industry and Distribution (MIDA by its Spanish acronym) announced Monday that during October it will present a commemorative publication that shows the historical contributions of MIDA through those 40 years as well as the 28th edition of its Consumer Radiography study. “The 40-year issue, which will have more than 130 pages, will take the reader on a journey through history where we will be able to understand the reasons for the founding of MIDA, see photos and meet the key characters in that long history, see the image and logo changes, the different meetings with the government, contributions to the country, the various MIDA conventions and even the evolution of the Consumer Radiography study,” MIDA President Ferdysac Márquez said in a written statement. Regarding Consumer Radiography (RC by its Spanish initials) 2020, Márquez said this time it is a 100 percent digital study with a 100 percent different offer. “RC2020 offers three digital sessions focused on three topics highly relevant to the audience,” he said. “We will be focusing on the sessions on income and expenses, purchasing habits and marketing strategies, and the long-awaited digital topic along with innovations. This format allows the audience to receive in-depth data and the opportunity to interact, in a virtual way, with the panel of experts.” According to the study, “the Puerto Rican consumer continues to evolve in the face of the constant changes in the social and economic environment on the island, resolutely adapting to prevail regardless of the challenges.” “This resilient consumer is reflected in the Consumer Radiography 2020 study,” it says. “Emergency after emergency, from earthquakes, hurricanes, and a fiscal crisis,
to global pandemic, the buying habits of the Puerto Rican consumer have been impacted and the study reveals this.” “The Consumer Radiography allows us to observe key indicators in consumer habits,” MIDA Executive Vice President Manuel Reyes Alfonso said. “We continue to provide our partners with relevant information that allows them to anticipate changes in behavior for the development of future strategies.” Márquez added that “Consumer Radiography 2020 analyzes the challenges in the face of the global emergency we are experiencing.” “The Consumer Radiography study is based on a quantitative study of 1,360 interviews conducted during June and August 2020 in eight economic regions of the island,” he said. “Ensuring the safety of interviewees and interviewers, we turned to digital media to conduct the surveys, thus maximizing the capabilities of Nielsen, the research firm conducting the study this year. As part of the methodology, 75 percent of the ‘online’ interviews were used and 25 percent through the CATI [computer-assisted telephone interviewing] tool. The combination of both tools makes it possible to meet a wide range of demographic profiles. We complement the study with a qualitative phase of 10 virtual interviews. Responding to the reality we live in and ensuring everyone’s safety, the study will be presented virtually through the Zoom platform.” Tatiana Irizarry, Caribbean sales leader at Nielsen Retail Intelligence, noted that “[a] s part of the demographics of the study, 56 percent of the respondents work in private, government or self-employment, with 34 percent retired or unemployed. The remaining 10 percent is distributed among students, housewives, and others.” “In terms of socioeconomic status, 16 percent are at a high level, 54 percent are at a medium level, and 30 percent are at a low socioeconomic level,” she said. “Along these lines, 46 percent of those surveyed claimed to depend on the income from the
Nutritional Assistance Program (PAN by its Spanish acronym) for the purchase of food; 3 percent of those surveyed became new users of PAN during the pandemic.” The RC2020 data on PAN are very similar to those provided by the island Family Department, which shows that as of Sept. 27 the program had 836,990 families with 1,505,093 participants throughout the island. The U.S. Census meanwhile estimated the population of the island for 2020 at around 3.4 million, which coincides with the fact that 46 percent of the population receives this aid. As expected, average monthly spending reported an increase, reaching $500 per month, an increase of 18 percent compared to what was reported last year. That result is consistent with category sales figures, according to Nielsen’s syndicated Scantrack study. Spending appears to be driven by an increase in the frequency of visits to supermarkets, which were recorded at an average of eight visits per month versus six last year, an increase of 33 percent. Likewise, monthly visits to convenience stores and pharmacies increased by a factor of three (from 1.4 to 4.3) and by six (from 1 to 6.8), respectively. These data can be explained by considering the significant injection of funds from PAN (which ended in September). To which is added the closure of other types of shops, as well as the limitations imposed on hotels, bars and restaurants, causing an increase in purchases and visits to supermarkets. Meanwhile, the report found that the adult population continues to grow and adults’ dependence on their families continues to increase. A full 52 percent of respondents are 45 years or older and one in two respondents does the grocery shopping for their parents or in-laws. This finding is relevant to industry strategies and presents an enormous challenge to Puerto Rico’s public policy makers. Among the positive news, it stands out that 95 percent of those surveyed claim that they will increase or continue to buy food pro-
duced locally. This represents an opportunity for the local industry caused by the shortage and limitation of supply from abroad during the pandemic. Despite the limitations imposed by the government, three in four (77 percent) respondents claimed to have bought prepared food in the past month. Of those, 27 percent claim to have bought prepared food at supermarket delis. This implies that the delis of the supermarkets are a prepared food alternative for the consumer and represent an interesting proposal to continue developing. Through recent years it has been seen how the purchase of items online has been on the rise. The COVID-19 emergency accelerated the adoption of the use of the internet to buy food; 24 percent of those surveyed claimed to have used a digital platform to buy food, a 60 percent increase vs. 2019. According to the study, although this tool is still under development in Puerto Rico, consumer acceptance is evident. The emergence of COVID-19 has changed the importance of the different means of reaching the consumer and RC2020 undertook the task of understanding this dynamic. Email is the main form of communication on the part of the store that the consumer favors, followed by social networks. Half of consumers follow an “influencer;” of these 40 percent are highly influenced in their purchase decision by celebrity endorsements. The boom in online shopping has created a dynamic where the comments or points that the products receive from consumers play an important role when selecting a product; one out of two consumers considers it very important, the study says. Discount coupons continue to be used by 42 percent of respondents, who claim that they will definitely continue to use them. According to the study, consumers have the greatest interest in receiving discount coupons on cleaning products, hair care and for the purchase of protein.
Labor secretary: Over $31 million in PUA checks have been returned By THE STAR STAFF
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abor and Human Resources Secretary Carlos Rivera Santiago said Monday that over $31 million in checks from the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program (PUA) that were wrongly disbursed, have been returned. “The total amount that was collected last week was $6.3 million. The previous week it was $6.4 million,” Rivera Santiago said in a radio interview on WKAQ 580 AM. Rivera Santiago stressed that PUA fraud
schemes have also been detected in other jurisdictions in the United States, but no state has seen a massive refunding of money like in Puerto Rico. “As of [Monday], $30,949,357 was returned by citizens in funds that they were not eligible for,” Rivera Santiago said. “There are thousands” of people who have returned checks, the Labor chief said, adding that citizens have a window in which they can provide a letter explaining why they are returning the money. If they cashed the check, they must return the
sum in a money order, payable to the Secretary of the Treasury, Francisco Parés Alicea. Rivera Santiago noted that there are government employees, minors and even prison inmates who have returned PUA checks. “We get the checks and once they are here, we divide them into returned checks, money orders, and then we also divide them between government employees, minors and prison inmates,” he said. “We categorize them and count them.” Asked about the specific number of people who have returned PUA checks, the official
did not offer a number but noted that “there are thousands.” “This leads us to see that at some point there was a large group of people who did not necessarily qualify for checks and were taking up space, and this delayed the process even more to be able to deal with claims,” Rivera Santiago said. Regarding the reason most commonly given for returning the checks, the secretary said the majority indicate that they believe they do not qualify for the money or that they made a mistake when applying for the aid.
The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
7
A timeline of Trump’s symptoms and treatments By CHRISTINA MORALES and ALISSON WALLER
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s President Donald Trump continues to be treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, doctors and senior White House staff members have given conflicting updates about the president’s condition, treatments and when he learned he was infected with the coronavirus. A timeline of events about the president’s illness is drawn from his tweets, news conferences, statements from the White House and reporting from The New York Times. Wednesday Trump and his team traveled to Minnesota for a rally that lasted about 45 minutes — about half the length of his typical campaign speeches. During the event, one of Trump’s closest advisers, Hope Hicks, started to have symptoms related to the virus. On the return trip, Trump slept as some of his advisers spoke about the condition of Hicks, who was isolated in the back of the plane. Thursday News that Hicks tested positive for the virus came as Trump left the White House by helicopter around 1 p.m. for a fundraiser at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. At the event, Trump appeared before hundreds of supporters, both indoors and outdoors. One person who saw the president there said he was in contact with about 100 people and appeared lethargic. On a call with Iowa voters and in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Trump sounded raspy. Later that night, Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, tested positive for the coronavirus, officials said. The president had a mild cough, nasal congestion and fatigue. Friday Close to 1 a.m., Trump said on Twitter that he and the first lady had tested positive for the coronavirus. Later in the morning, Trump had a high fever and his oxygen saturation levels dipped below 94%, Dr. Sean Conley, the White House physician, said. The doctor recommended that Trump be given supplemental oxygen. “He was fairly adamant that he didn’t need it,” Conley said. “He was not short of
Supporters of President Donald Trump outside of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where Trump is being treated for COVID-19, in Bethesda, Md., Oct. 4, 2020. breath. He was tired, had the fever, but that was about it.” After about a minute on 2 liters of supplemental oxygen, Trump’s saturation levels were back over 95%, Conley said. The president stayed on the supplemental oxygen for about an hour at the White House. That evening, Trump was taken to Walter Reed for a more thorough evaluation and monitoring. Trump received an 8-gram dose of an experimental polyclonal antibody combination. He also took zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin and aspirin. The president also was given his first dose of remdesivir, an antiviral drug that has an emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration as a COVID-19 therapy. Trump has mild heart disease, similar to many men in their 70s. He also takes a statin drug to treat high cholesterol and aspirin to prevent heart attacks. His health summary, released in June, showed that he crossed the line into obesity at 244 pounds. Saturday The president’s blood oxygen level dropped for a second time to about 93%, which some experts describe as a potential indicator of severe COVID-19, although it was unclear if the president received any supplemental oxygen. He was given the steroid dexametha-
sone, which has been used to treat diseases like lupus, arthritis and cancer. A study conducted by scientists at the University of Oxford showed the drug reduced deaths of COVID-19 patients on oxygen by one-fifth. Trump was given a second dose of remdesivir and did not exhibit any known side effects, doctors said.
Conley said that, as of that night, Trump remained “fever-free and off supplemental oxygen.” “While not yet out of the woods, the team remains cautiously optimistic,” he added. Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, offered a more somber description of the president’s health, generating skepticism over Conley’s initial news conference. “The president’s vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning, and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care,” Meadows told reporters. “We’re still not on a clear path to a full recovery.” In a video shared on Twitter, Trump said he was “starting to feel good” and thanked supporters and well-wishers. Sunday The president’s blood oxygen level improved to 98%, Conley said at a news conference. Doctors wanted him to eat, drink and be out of bed as much as possible. The president’s medical team hinted at the possibility that Trump might be discharged to the White House as early as Monday. Doctors were tracking any damage to his lungs for signs of pneumonia. “There’s some expected findings, but nothing of any major clinical concern,” Conley said.
President Donald Trump’s physician Dr. Sean Conley, accompanied by other medical staff members, provide an update on Trump’s condition at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda Md., Oct. 4, 2020.
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Tuesday, October 6, 2020
The San Juan Daily Star
A student dies, and a campus gets serious about Coronavirus
The Appalachian State University campus in Boone, N.C., was quiet on Sunday By CHRISTINA BOLLING
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ince Sept. 28, when a sophomore at his school died from suspected COVID-19 complications, Chase Sturgis says he has been thinking about his own bout with the coronavirus — and his own mortality. Sturgis, 21, had been avoiding socializing over the summer, but as students at his school, Appalachian State University, began returning to campus in August, he yielded to temptation. “We went out to a bar,” he said. Within days he felt ill and then tested positive for coronavirus: “To this day I have no sense of taste or smell.” But even more unnerving is the “really, honestly scary” realization that he and the student who died, 19-year-old Chad Dorrill, were sick at about the same time, with similar symptoms and no known preexisting conditions. “He died a week or two after he got the virus,” Sturgis said. “It has been about two weeks for me.” Young people have generally been at lower risk of developing severe cases of COVID-19, and there have been only a few student deaths linked to the virus. But while that statistical advantage may have led to apathy about the pandemic at some institutions, Dorrill’s death has shaken the rural Appalachian State campus in the Blue Ridge Mountains, sparking questions about whether the college is doing enough to keep its students and faculty safe. “It’s not a hoax, that this virus really does exist,” said a classmate of Sturgis, Emma Crider. “Before this, the overall mentality was ‘out of sight, out of mind.’”
As if to underscore that point, cases at Appalachian State, part of North Carolina’s state university system, spiked sharply last week. On Thursday, the school canceled an upcoming football game and announced outbreaks in four residence halls, two fraternity houses, the volleyball team and the football program. The school’s dashboard shows more than 700 confirmed COVID-19 cases at the 20,000-student campus since early June. Aside from athletes, who must be tested under NCAA rules, Appalachian State has not conducted the kind of costly, widespread mandatory testing and tracing of people with and without symptoms that has helped control the virus at some campuses. Rather, the school has offered voluntary testing at its student health center and at “pop-up” test sites where students can walk up and be tested twice weekly. That approach, the school’s website says, is based on CDC guidance, which has advised against testing all students upon arrival to campus. Health experts have criticized the CDC’s guidance as weak and confusing, but many large public colleges have based their coronavirus health regimens on it. Surrounding Watauga County also experienced its worst seven-day period in the pandemic this past week, according to data collected by The New York Times. Coronavirus cases in the county have more than doubled since Sept. 1, to more than 1,300, and an update last week found the largest percentage of cases in the 18-24-year-old age group. Despite efforts by most colleges and universities to contain the virus by banning large gatherings, mandating face masks and expanding remote instruction, many have nevertheless become
some of the nation’s most virulent hot spots. A CDC report released last week said cases among people ages 18-22 rose 55% in the month from early August to early September, as students were returning to campuses. A New York Times survey has documented more than 130,000 cases on campuses since the pandemic began. Tensions around reopening have already run high in the 16-campus University of North Carolina system, where the push to maintain sports and dorm occupancy has met with intense opposition from worried faculty members. Days after the semester began, the flagship campus in Chapel Hill pivoted to all remote instruction amid spiking infections. At Appalachian State, which continued to allow students to live in dorms and take classes in person, the faculty senate voted in August to hold the system responsible for any illness or death as a result of reopening. Dorrill, a seemingly fit basketball player, was among some 5,000 students on campus and thousands more off-campus attending a blend of in-person and remote classes. He went home to Wallburg, North Carolina, feeling under the weather, in early September. He tested positive for the virus there. His family said he remained isolated at home for two weeks and then returned to Boone, but fell ill again less than a day later, calling to say he couldn’t remember how he had gotten back to college. His neurological condition swiftly deteriorated.Three weeks after his positive test, Dorrill died at Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem. An autopsy is pending. Relatives said that though he had recovered from the respiratory symptoms of COVID-19, the virus had also attacked his brain, possibly triggering a previously undetected case of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare disorder in which the body’s nerves are attacked by its immune system. “Any loss of life is a tragedy, but the grief cuts especially deep as we mourn a young man who had so much life ahead,” the university system’s president, Peter Hans, said in a statement after Dorrill’s death. The events of the past week have caused mounting alarm among both staff and students, and some tensions over whether the school needs to take stronger measures to contain the virus. “There has been polarization between those who say, ‘Just wear a mask, we’ll be OK,’ and the faculty who just don’t want to be in the room,” said Rick Rheingans, chairman of Appalachian State’s department of sustainable development, who has been tracking the school’s health measures. “My argument has been that we need rigorous testing and active tracing, quarantining and isolation. We can’t reopen if we’re not safe.” One graduate teaching assistant, Chloe Dorin, called on the university to cancel athletics, shut down the dorms, disband Greek life and return to online instruction, in a letter to university leaders that was posted on Facebook on Saturday. “Our lives,” she wrote, “are in your hands.” In a letter to students, Chancellor Sheri Everts said the school had added an extra pop-up testing event, expanded contact tracing resources and suspended football practice. “Should we need to, we are ready to pivot to all-remote learning,” Everts wrote, urging students to wear masks and “hold one another accountable.”
The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
9
NYPD warns officers: Wear your masks By ASHLEY SOUTHALL and MICHAEL GOLD
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ew York City police officials instructed all officers to wear masks in public or risk discipline, as the department faces mounting criticism over officers’ failure to comply with a state mandate that people wear face coverings in public when social distancing is not possible. The Police Department’s directive, issued Friday in memos and a video, came after elected officials repeatedly called out the police for flouting the mask mandate they are supposed to enforce. About 400 officers have been assigned to nine neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens where there has been an uptick in coronavirus cases and where the city plans to close nonessential businesses and schools this week. Terence Monahan, the chief of department and the highestranking uniformed officer, appeared in a video sent to officers Friday instructing them to wear masks in public areas, department facilities and where they cannot be socially distanced. “It is our responsibility to set the example for our great city and do everything we can to help ensure that we do not have another hospitalized member bring this deadly infection into our homes or have another funeral,” he said. A memo sent later in the day added that the requirement applies to shared offices, elevators, halls and bathrooms, and at all times in the first 14 days of an officer’s return from places with a travel advisory. But officials carved out exceptions when officers are eating and drinking, adjusting their masks or having difficulty breathing. A second memo, first reported by the NewYork Post, warned that officers who did not follow the rules could face disciplinary action. The memo did not specify how officers might be punished, but the department has options ranging in severity from verbal or written warnings up to suspension or termination. Gov. Andrew Cuomo criticized the police last week for ignoring the mask mandate. And Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has been dismissive for months toward complaints about officers not wearing masks, said last week that there should be penalties for those who do not comply. Police officers’ failure to wear masks has been a point of tension since the spring, when they were initially made responsible for enforcing social-distancing measures. During mass protests that erupted in the city after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, thousands of officers assigned to the demonstrations did not wear masks. The Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investigates complaints from the public about officer misconduct, said Sunday that it had referred 156 complaints about officers who failed to wear masks to the Police Department since March. It was unclear if the department disciplined any of the officers involved. Attention returned to the police last month as coronavirus cases began rising again in the city, and the mayor announced that officers would once again be told to enforce masking and social-distancing requirements. Cuomo complained on Sunday that local officials were not doing enough to slow the spread of the virus in the hot spots and threatened to close all business activity in those areas if local
New York police officers wear masks during a march in New York, Aug. 3, 2020. New York City police officials instructed all officers to wear masks in public or risk discipline, as the department faces mounting criticism over officers’ failure to comply with a state mandate that people wear face coverings in public when social distancing is not possible. governments did not step up. Last week, he threatened fines of up to $10,000 a day for lax enforcement. The directives from the Police Department were issued hours after President Donald Trump revealed that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. But Monahan, in the video, said the reminder was timed ahead of a memorial service scheduled on Monday in Manhattan for 46 police department employees who died from COVID-19. At the peak of the pandemic, almost 20% of the department’s 36,000 officers were out sick. Many continue to test positive for the virus, Monahan said in the video. Over the weekend, compliance among officers was mixed. Twitter users shared photos after the directive went out showing officers in Times Square and other locations who were not wearing masks. Patrick Lynch, the president of the Police Benevolent Association, spoke at a Republican rally Saturday on Staten Island where organizers did not require masks and many in the crowd did not wear them. “We understand the seriousness of it, but the nature of our job makes it difficult to always think first of the mask,” said Lynch in an interview with NY1, a local television station. A police officer outside the 10th Precinct station house in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood around noon Sunday was wearing a mask as she stood guard at the entrance. But a stream of officers and detectives entering and leaving the station did not
wear anything over their faces. In Washington Square Park in Manhattan, Maya Carmosino, 23, said the majority of officers she had seen during the pandemic had not been wearing masks or were not wearing them properly over their noses and mouths. Although she was hopeful that the directive would change officers’ behavior, she remained skeptical, she said. “It’ll be great if they’re not hypocritical,” Carmosino said. Moe Singleton, 31, of the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, said he did not think the police were wearing masks more or less frequently than anyone else. He said he had seen people across the city, officers and not, wearing masks improperly — “as headbands, on their elbows, as chin hammocks” — or not at all. Still, Singleton, who moved to New York a year ago from Richmond, Virginia, thought that the police should be held to a higher standard when it came to mask compliance, since they were enforcing the law. “If they don’t do it, why would we?” he said, adding, “It’s just a power thing.” Jim McShane, 69, who lives in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, sympathized with officers as he rode his bicycle in Manhattan on Sunday. He said he did not think that they should be held to a higher standard. “They’re human,” McShane said. “I mean, masks can be uncomfortable or hot or you’re thirsty or something.”
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Tuesday, October 6, 2020
The San Juan Daily Star
Voters dread election: ‘It’s going to be hell no matter what’ By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
T
he cool breezes arrived a few weeks ago, coming in after a long summer of protest, illness and economic devastation. They brought a chilling reminder: Gobierno de Puerto Rico
DEPARTAMENTO DE RECURSOS NATURALES Y AMBIENTALES
AVISO AMBIENTAL SOBRE INTENCIĂ“N DE OTORGAR PERMISO PARA CONSTRUIR UNA INSTALACIĂ“N DE DESPERDICIOS SĂ“LIDOS NO PELIGROSOS El Hon. Ă ngel L. Torres Ortiz, alcalde del Municipio de Yauco, ha sometido ante el Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales una solicitud de permiso para construir una InstalaciĂłn de DisposiciĂłn Final de Desperdicios SĂłlidos No Peligrosos (ExpansiĂłn Lateral al Sistema de Relleno Sanitar lo existente), localizada en la Carr. PR-335, Km. 3.8, Bo. Marina, Sector La Joya, Yauco, Puerto Rico. Luego de realizada la evaluaciĂłn de los documentos sometidos, este Departamento tiene la intenciĂłn de emitir el permiso sometido ante nuestra consideraciĂłn. El Reglamento para el Manejo de los Desperdicios SĂłlidos No Peligrosos, Reglamento NĂşm. 5717 de 14 de noviembre de 1997, establece en el CapĂtulo IX el requisito de solicitar un permiso como condiciĂłn previa a la construcciĂłn u operaciĂłn de una instalaciĂłn de desperdicios sĂłlidos no peligrosos, el cual es aplicable a dueĂąos u operadores. La Regla 649 del mencionado capĂtulo, requiere la publicaciĂłn de este Aviso y regula la celebraciĂłn de Vistas PĂşblicas, las cuales podrĂan ser efectuadas de considerarse necesarias por este Departamento, o por peticiones durante el perĂodo comprendido para comentarios. Copia de las solicitudes de permiso, al igual que del Borrador de Permiso y otros documentos relevantes al caso, estĂĄn a OD GLVSRVLFLyQ GHO S~EOLFR SDUD VHU H[DPLQDGRV HQ OD 2ÂżFLQD Regional de MayagĂźez, localizada en Plaza Monserrate, Carr. PR2, km. 164.0, lnt., Hormigueros, Puerto Rico y en el Ă rea Control ContaminaciĂłn de Terrenos del Departamento de Recursos 1DWXUDOHV \ $PELHQWDOHV XELFDGD HQ HO (GLÂżFLR $PELHQWDO 6DQ -XDQ Industrial Park, 1375 Ave. Ponce De LeĂłn, San Juan, PR 00926 de 8:00 A.M. a 4:30 P.M., de lunes a viernes. Toda parte interesada en someter comentarios con respecto al borrador de permiso, deberĂĄ hacerlo por escrito dentro de 30 dĂas a part ir de la fecha de publicaciĂłn de este Aviso. DeberĂĄ dirigir su comunicaciĂłn a la Sra. 0D\UD - 5LYHUD 9HJD 'LUHFWRUD 2ÂżFLQD 5HJLRQDO GH 0D\DJÂ H]
Nov. 3 is almost here. Brenton Davis has stocked up on guns and ammo. Kathy Faticia is considering leaving the country, mulling the options for dual citizenship. The morning that the United States learned the president had tested positive for a dangerous virus, Eric Hawes had the same sentiment about what lies ahead that he has had for weeks: “It’s going to be hell no matter what.� Since 2016, when Erie County gave a slim majority of its votes to Donald Trump after years as a Democratic bastion, this slice of northwestern Pennsylvania has been seen as an especially precise gauge of the national political mood. The United States is separated into two mutually distrustful political camps, but in Erie, the camps sit side by side — friends, neighbors and family members who live and work together yet cannot fathom why the others believe the way they do. These days, Erie is carpeted with campaign banners and signs, one yard often facing off against the next, a battle posture borne out by national surveys finding the highest share of Americans in decades — more than 4 in 5 — who believe the outcome of the election “really matters.� But as the days lurch toward November, there is a remarkably bipartisan sentiment: dread. “Just stick the knife in,� Marlay Shollenberger, 33, said of the looming election and all of the terrifying discord that could accompany it. “That’s kind of where I’m at.� Already facing a resurgent virus and the growing toll of a pandemic economy, Americans are now looking with grim foreboding at the months ahead. The outcome of the vote itself, the claims of rampant voter fraud that Trump leveled during last week’s debate, the specter of a stolen election, the fear of violent clashes should the vote counting drag out — there is no limit to the bleak imagination. The country woke up Friday to the news that the president had the coronavirus. By the evening, he was hospitalized. The grim developments have not stopped, even if there is a limit to how much the country can digest. About 7 in 10 Americans believe that the country is headed in the wrong
Aprobado por la Autoridad Nominadora, &HUWLÂżFDFLyQ &(( 6$ GHO GH IHEUHUR GH Este anuncio se publicĂł conforme a lo requerido por la Ley Sobre PolĂtica PĂşblica Ambiental, Ley NĂşm. 416 del 22 de septiembre de 2004, segĂşn enmendada. Aviso pagado por solicitante.
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Erie County, Pa., which gave a slim majority of its votes to Donald J. Trump, has been seen as a precise gauge of the national political mood.
direction, according to a poll last month from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, a comparable percentage to four years ago. But now there is a sense of a country breaking down. Hawes, 47, rues the day he sold off most of his guns. His unease about November is one of the few things that he and his stepfather, Tom Ulrich, 73, a die-hard Democrat, agree on regarding the election. “There could be a lot of trouble on the streets,� Ulrich said. “Never mind the courts, I’m talking about on the streets.� For Ulrich, a decorated Vietnam veteran who worked for more than three decades at the local General Electric plant, the stakes could not be higher. He sees Trump as openly hungering to become “a freaking dictator�; Joe Biden seems decent, Ulrich said, but he would “stand outside in a blizzard for 10 hours� to vote against this president, whoever the alternative was. He is not alone in his sense of urgency. The county board of elections has sent out more than 45,000 requested mail-in ballots, 10,000 more than in the primary. And requests are still pouring in. The deadline to ask for a mail-in ballot does not arrive for more than three weeks. Hawes agrees with his stepfather about the stakes. Like most other Trump backers, he believes his man will prevail. But he is pessimistic all the same. “Right now we’re at a pivotal point,� he said. Now out of the service on disability, his military career curtailed by injuries in paratrooper training, Hawes holds strongly to his identity as a veteran, talking with veterans’ groups and keeping up with retired service members over Facebook. Many of them see a Biden win, he said, as the acceleration of a slow-moving “Marxist, socialist� coup that is being kept alive by left-wing protesters. “It’s scary,� he said, “it really is.� Still, while father and son both fear catastrophe if their preferred candidate loses, neither is particularly hopeful about what lies ahead even if their candidate were to win. “I’m going to be honest with you,� Hawes said. “I don’t believe that things are going to get better if Trump gets reelected.� The question that troubles Hawes is whether the country is just too broken at this point to be fixed. This is the same question that is routinely raised among voters in Erie who believe that Trump is the one who broke it. Down in Union City, a little town that has been drained over the years by factory and plant closures, a Biden campaign storefront opened in August. It was the first presidential campaign office to appear in town in a long time, if ever. Within two weeks, a Trump office opened up two doors down the block and huge Trump signs appeared all over the vacant warehouse across the street. Kelly Chelton, 58, a volunteer at the Biden office, is on friendly terms with most of the people at the Trump office; one of her sons-in-law is a volunteer there. But she said threats and insults have been lobbed at fellow campaign workers over the last few weeks — a lot more tension in town than there ever was around a presidential race. “I’m worried when the results come in,� Chelton said. “I’m worried they might get a little on the rowdy side.�
The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
11
Hydroxychloroquine is part of the online conversation, again By KATHERINE J. WU
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resident Donald Trump’s announcement Friday that he tested positive for the coronavirus has reignited an online fervor over hydroxychloroquine, a drug repeatedly promoted and taken by Trump despite a lack of evidence that it effectively treats or prevents COVID-19. Advocates of the drug have taken to Twitter and Facebook over the past few days to recommend hydroxychloroquine as a course of treatment for Trump. Among them was Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. On Friday, Biggs passed on his well wishes to the president on Twitter before encouraging him and the first lady, Melania Trump, who also contracted the coronavirus, “to take hydroxychloroquine to assist with their recoveries.” Over the weekend, other Twitter users also posted that Trump should use hydroxychloroquine, with some calling it a “miracle drug.”
The hashtag #hydroxychloroquine popped up frequently on Twitter, with others posting under the hashtag #HCQWORKS. All of the online activity means it’s a good time to sort through what we know about hydroxychloroquine. The drug has long been used to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. At the start of the pandemic, a handful of small, poorly designed studies suggested that it could block the coronavirus from replicating in cells. Since then, the data on hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness against the virus has been mixed. The early, seemingly promising results, bolstered by political pressure, prompted the Food and Drug Administration to grant the drug an emergency authorization for use in very sick COVID-19 patients. Follow-up studies, however, found that the drug neither sped recovery nor prevented healthy people from contracting the coronavirus or progressing to serious disease.
The FDA ultimately revoked its emergency approval. The agency now warns that hydroxychloroquine can cause dangerous abnormalities in heart rhythm in coronavirus patients. Researchers have also conducted large reviews concluding that hydroxychloroquine does not benefit COVID-19 patients and have reaffirmed the risks of side effects in these individuals. Still, the drug has been championed by some — including Trump, who praised it through the summer.
So what treatment is Trump, who has been hospitalized at Walter Reed military hospital, actually receiving? His doctor, Sean P. Conley, has said that Trump received an infusion of an experimental antibody treatment developed by drugmaker Regeneron and was also taking zinc, vitamin D, melatonin, aspirin and a generic version of the heartburn treatment Pepcid. Conley has also said the president has begun a five-day course of remdesivir, an antiviral drug given emergency use authorization from the FDA to treat hospitalized COVID-19 patients. And Sunday, Conley said that Trump had been given the steroid dexamethasone, which has been shown to help patients who are severely ill with COVID-19 but can be harmful for patients with mild or moderate cases of the disease. Hydroxychloroquine was not mentioned by Trump’s medical team. That prompted some on Twitter to speak out on what they saw as an omission in Trump’s treatment.
Why did hundreds of thousands of women drop out of the workforce? By ALISHA HARIDASANI GUPTA
T
he September jobs numbers, released by the Labor Department on Friday, confirmed what economists and experts had feared: The recession unleashed by the pandemic is sidelining hundreds of thousands of women and wiping out the hard-fought gains they made in the workplace over the past few years. While the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 7.9% in September, far below the record high of nearly 15% in April, a large part of that drop was driven not so much by economic growth — though there were some job gains — but by hundreds of thousands of people leaving the job market altogether. A majority of those dropping out were women. Of the 1.1 million people ages 20 and over who left the workforce (neither working nor looking for work) between August and September, over 800,000 were women, according to an analysis by the National Women’s Law Center. That figure includes 324,000 Latinas and 58,000 Black women. For comparison, 216,000 men left the job market in the same time period. From the start of the pandemic, the job losses among women have been a direct result
of the collapse of female-dominated industries like hospitality, education, entertainment and even some parts of the health care system. But even as parts of the economy stirred back to life, recent data suggest that some women are actually beginning to opt out. One of the key factors in their decision? The persistent gender wage gap, experts said. “The earnings gap issue is a big part of the story at this point,” said Stefania Albanesi, an economics professor at the University of Pittsburgh who has studied gender inequalities in the workforce. Throughout the year, there have been signs of women buckling under the burden of unpaid labor while juggling full-time jobs. A report from Lean In and McKinsey & Co., published in September, found that of 40,000 women surveyed across corporate America between May and August, 1 in 4 was contemplating resigning or downshifting her career — perhaps going part time, leaving for a less demanding job or finding a job with better work-life balance. As the caregiving burden increased, with many schools and child care centers still shuttered heading into the fall, many women — particularly white women — made the decision to
bow out of the workforce. The labor participation rate in September among white women ages 20 and older was 56.3%, down from 58.3% in the same period last year. For Black women, it was 59.8%, down from 62% last September, and the participation rate for Hispanic or Latina women was 57%, down from 61% a year earlier. “White families tend to have higher wealth and higher average income so they can afford to reduce labor supply, compared to most African American households, where earnings are quite low,” Albanesi said. When making the decision as to who will look after kids or sick family members, it only makes economic sense for the higher-wage earner to go back to work or keep working, Albanesi explained, and in a dual-income household, more often than not, the higher-wage earner is a man. “The bigger the wage gap across spouses, the smaller the labor supply of the secondary earner, which is typically the wife,” she said. Dropping out of the workforce completely has long-term consequences not just for the woman trying to reenter the workforce down the line but also for women’s overall position in the workforce, said Matthias Doepke,
an economics professor at Northwestern University who is the co-author of a report published in August about the gendered impacts of this economic recession. “First of all, it takes some time to find a new job,” Doepke said, “but what’s actually more important is that it’s even more difficult to find a job that is comparable and to get back to the same career position.” “So we see that even decades after a recession, people who lost their jobs often have low earnings,” he added. That, in turn, has an impact on the wage gap. According to Doepke’s research, this recession will likely widen that gap by 5 percentage points, further perpetuating the conditions that drove women out of the workplace this year. When women do step out of the workforce, whether it’s because they were laid off or because they stepped out voluntarily, they are more likely to stay out of the workforce longer, said Kweilin Ellingrud, a senior partner at McKinsey and co-author of its report with Lean In. “That is a very worrisome story.” “We’ve now lost a lot of ground that we had gained very, very slowly over the last decade,” she added.
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Tuesday, October 6, 2020
The San Juan Daily Star
Apps will get you paid early, for a price ce. Others, like PayActiv, DailyPay and Rain, are offered through employers as a workplace benefit. Their popularity has grown rapidly. Last year, workers tapped their paychecks through workplace providers an estimated 37 million times, gaining access to more than $6 billion, or nearly double the amount in 2018, according to Aite Group, a research company. And DailyPay said the number of users who tapped money for coronavirus-related reasons had increased 400% during the early months of the pandemic. “Maybe the user’s income hasn’t been affected by COVID but someone else in their household has had their hours reduced or has been laid off, resulting in less overall income,” said Leslie Parrish, a senior analyst with Aite. Tasha Ayala-Spain checks one of her pay-advance apps near her home in Upper Darby, In recent months, hundreds of Pa., Sept. 9, 2020. companies — including Kroger, Wayfair, Dollar Tree, Staffmark, HCA HealthcaThe appeal is obvious: For a few re and Mercy Hospitals — have begun By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD dollars or less, users can cover a bill that offering the apps to employees. “I cannot change the level of salary, mericans have become accus- comes due in the middle of a pay cycle but what I can change is the timing,” tomed to summoning just about or get cash for an unexpected expense, said Safwan Shah, founder and chief anything on demand, from groce- like a wildfire or hurricane evacuation. ries to car rides. Now it’s just as easy to By tapping their earned but unpaid inco- executive of PayActiv, which added 410 me early, they can avoid overdraft fees, employers as clients from March to Auget paid when you want. As the coronavirus pandemic late charges or worse — more predatory gust — more than double the additions squeezes household budgets, workers lenders. And come payday, the advance a year earlier. Big-money investors have been eaand employers alike are increasin- is repaid from their bank account or diger to cash in on the growth of an industry gly turning to pay-advance apps with rectly from their paycheck. that caters largely to the financially vulfriendly-sounding names like Earnin, But these services, which millions nerable. Alternative lenders — a class of Dave, Brigit and Rain. They allow users, have downloaded, come with question for a sometimes-optional fee, to request marks. Some customers have sued, regumoney before payday. One even briefly lators across the country are looking into offered a program for those waiting for their practices, and consumer advocates slow-to-arrive jobless benefits. fear that the apps are glossy packaging And many customers see them as for the kind of lending that can leave lifelines. users stuck in an expensive cycle of debt. “I turned to those pay-advance “It’s possible it’s helping them coapps to compensate where I couldn’t,” ver their bills and avoid overdraft and said Tasha Ayala-Spain, an American higher cost loans,” said Alex Horowitz, Airlines employee from Upper Darby, a senior officer for the Pew Charitable Pennsylvania, whose hours were slas- Trusts’ consumer finance project. “It’s hed this year. She has used Dave and also possible it’s leaving them without Earnin to get advances of up to $200 per enough money on payday so they turn pay period. to them again.” “It wasn’t like a loan to a bank,” The apps generally come in two said Ayala-Spain, who sometimes wor- flavors. Some, like Earnin and Dave, are ked 50-hour weeks before the pande- open to the public and can require acmic, loading and unloading baggage, cess to your transaction history or work Ayala-Spain is an American Airlines mail and medical equipment from air- time sheets. Earnin may even use your employee whose hours were slashed this planes. “You don’t have to pay interest.” phone’s GPS to check work attendan- year.
A
businesses that also include point-of-sale and small-business lenders — drew $2.5 billion in equity funding during the first half of 2020, according to CB Insights. “This is venture capital money that is expected to be paid back royally,” said Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center. Although cheaper than payday lenders, cash-advance apps can be costly if used frequently, she said: A $100 advance taken out five days before payday with a $5 fee is equivalent to an annual percentage rate of 365%. Some services have installed safeguards, including limits on the amount that can be advanced and ceilings on fees. Others let employers set the rules for their workers. DailyPay will immediately transfer up to 100% of earned but unpaid income for a $2.99 fee, or $1.99 for next-day delivery. Its founder and chief executive, Jason Lee, said most users wanted to cover a specific need. “Something like 87% of people who use it type in a precise number, like $85.91,” Lee said. The similarity to traditional payday lending has prompted regulatory scrutiny. The New York Department of Financial Services and officials in 10 other states, along with Puerto Rico, are investigating the fledgling industry, focusing on whether the apps violate consumerprotection and payday-lending laws. The results could be significant: Payday lenders are barred in 15 states, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Wage-advance apps occupy a regulatory gray area. Unlike traditional and payday lenders, they don’t have any recourse against users — they don’t try to collect on unpaid debts or report them to credit bureaus. And payday-lending laws typically apply to services that charge customers a fee to be eligible for a loan. Workplaceaffiliated services do often charge fees, and say that’s permitted because they aren’t offering credit but instead access to an early payment directly from your employer. Public apps often take a different approach: optional “tips,” which are among the practices that state regulators are examining.
The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
13 Stocks
U.S. stocks, crude gain as Trump’s improving health, stimulus hopes boost higher-risk assets W all Street gained ground and crude prices rose on Monday as investor risk appetite was stoked by renewed stimulus optimism and news of President Donald Trump’s health progress. U.S. stocks closed sharply lower on Friday after news of Trump’s infection with COVID-19 compounded mounting uncertainties surrounding the looming presidential election. But while Trump’s condition remains unclear, he took a brief ride in a presidential motorcade to wave to his supporters, and his doctors said he could be released from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center as early as Monday. “The fact that (Trump) defied his doctors’ wishes and got into the motorcade, people are saying he can’t be that sick,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York. “The markets are saying his physical condition can’t be all that bad.” U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday progress was being made in negotiations on a bipartisan pandemic relief package, fueling optimism that a new round of stimulus could be in the offing, more than two months after emergency unemployment benefits expired for millions of Americans. “It looks as though we’re moving forward with stimulus, which is encouraging,” Cardillo added. “There’s a good chance the economy may avoid a double-dip recession.” Democratic contender Joe Biden opened his widest lead in a month in the U.S. presidential race, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sunday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 311.32 points, or 1.12%, to 27,994.13, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 38.98 points, or 1.16%, to 3,387.42 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 170.05 points, or 1.54%, to 11,245.07. Positive health updates regarding Trump and a flurry of deal activity helped European stocks advance. Emerging market stocks rose 0.88%. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS closed 1.25% higher, while Japan’s Nikkei .N225 rose 1.23%. Crude prices jumped as uncertainties abated, and were further supported by an escalating oil workers strike in Norway, where Equinor EQNR.OL shut down four of its offshore oil and gas fields. U.S. crude CLcv1 rose 5.51% to $39.09 per barrel and Brent LCOcv1 was last at $41.10, up 4.66% on the day. The dollar index slipped and riskier currencies advanced. The dollar index .DXY fell 0.45%, with the euro EUR= up 0.57% to $1.1783. The Japanese yen weakened 0.28% versus the greenback at 105.64 per dollar, while sterling GBP= was last trading at $1.2971, up 0.31% on the day. Stimulus hopes and news of Trump’s improving health also gave a boost to U.S. Treasury yields.
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Tuesday, October 6, 2020
The San Juan Daily Star
‘Keep calm and carry on’ may not work in a time of pandemic By PETER S. GOODMAN
D
uring a recent visit to a private London hospital, I was horrified to encounter a delivery man wheeling in a load of supplies without wearing a face mask. An orderly in blue scrubs stood inside the elevator, 3 feet from me, with his mask draped around his chin. The scene at the hospital may present an especially shocking example of the casual way in which many people in London continue to confront a pandemic that has killed more than 57,000 Britons, but it is hardly unusual. Coronavirus cases are again increasing rapidly, yet shoppers routinely wander the aisles of the supermarket in our North London neighborhood, Hampstead, without wearing masks. Cafes and pubs are full of people hoisting drinks in proximity. When I asked the proprietor of our local indoor fruit and vegetable market why, despite regulations mandating masks, he was allowing unlimited numbers of people to enter his narrow premises absent protection, he gruffly waved me away. “We’re not the police,” he said. Every morning, I take my children to school on the public bus, where the 14-passenger limit is routinely breached along with face mask rules. We angle for a spot near an open window. At our international school, the children must wear masks. But as I walk home through the leafy streets, I see children and parents chatting jovially without masks as they await the opening of their school gates. They look like people lining up to board the Titanic. Beyond the obvious ways that this cavalier behavior is disconcerting, it has enhanced a widely shared sense that Britain — famously rule-abiding — is now operating without adult supervision. Public confidence has plummeted, with more than half of respondents in a recent survey declaring the government has botched its handling of the pandemic, up from 39% in May. The modern Britain that we learn about in history lessons supposedly displayed its truest character during World War II, when Winston Churchill exhorted the nation to persevere in the face of the Blitz, the relentless German bombing campaign. People pulled together and endured in a collective effort whose inconveniences and indignities were borne as the cost of defeating the enemy. “The government issued thirty-five million gas masks to civilians, who carried them to work and church, and kept them at their bedsides,” writes Erik Larson in his history of the Blitz, “The
A pro-Brexit rally, before the referendum on whether to depart the European Union, near Parliament in London, June 15, 2016. Eighty years after Londoners rallied in the face of the deadly German Blitz, many are flouting the rules aimed at preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus. Splendid and the Vile.” “Strict blackout rules so darkened the streets of the city that it became nearly impossible to recognize a visitor at a train station after dark.” How did that society turn into this one? Or is society more or less the same, while the nature of the menace has changed, triggering a different response? People with long memories counsel against using romanticized depictions of the past as jumping-off points for lamenting supposed decline. “To quote a Russian proverb, ‘It was a long time ago, and it wasn’t true anyway,’” said Timothy Garton Ash, a European historian at the University of Oxford. “If you look at the real history of the Blitz, it wasn’t that wonderful national stereotype of people with bowler hats and rolled umbrellas patiently waiting in queues for cups of tea.” Not everyone was so cooperative or resigned, he said, with differences in discipline from place to place. The current crisis seems exacerbated by an offshoot of the very virtue celebrated in the conventional historical narrative — an admirable refusal to bend. The national mantra, “keep calm and carry on,” seems to have been reconfigured into the misguided notion that nothing is amiss. “There is a sense of bravado, and not being a wimp about illness, and you can just soldier through it,” said Selma Dabbagh, a British-Pales-
tinian novelist who lives in North London. “There is this idea of, ‘Don’t be a wuss, man up, get on with it.’” Preventing transmission of the virus requires behavior that feels rude: not holding doors for fear of getting too close to other people; wearing masks that obscure smiles; avoiding unnecessary interactions. This feels more poignant in England, given the degree to which social discourse is governed by manners and ritual. Forgoing small talk with the butcher feels uncomfortable. Other cultural features may protect the populace. “England is the only place I know where the better people know each other, the less physical contact they have,” Garton Ash said. But that sense of remove may make it even harder for people here to follow the strictures imposed to halt the virus. In what amounts to both a stereotype and an observable truth, many English people require the aid of lubrication to bond with others. This means that closing pubs amounts to a revocation of basic human connection. When my family moved to London from New York in 2016, we were immediately struck by how tightly regulated everything seemed to be. In place of the crumbling New York subway, we encountered well-functioning facilities overseen by uniformed people who were pleasantly available for counsel. The post office was not an ordeal. Heathrow Airport was a marvel of
efficiency. Competent people appeared to be in charge. The first alteration to this impression came courtesy of Brexit, Britain’s bewildering, torturous (and continuing!) abandonment of the European Union. In the face of warnings from business groups that Brexit amounted to an elaborate act of self harm, and despite an entirely anticipated slowdown in the economy, the political class carried on, tangling itself in arcane parliamentary procedure, while never fully resolving the question of what comes next. The word “shambolic” got a heavy workout. The experience divided the country into two warring tribes — Leavers and Remainers — a polarized state in which facts relating to nearly any subject, from health care to foreign policy, were reduced to props in arguments over Brexit. This legacy of distrust endured as the pandemic emerged in Britain, now led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose predilection for stagecraft over substance frequently draws comparisons to President Donald Trump. My family reluctantly canceled our daughter’s 8th birthday party — an outdoor get-together with a half-dozen kids from school — because of new prohibitions against gatherings larger than six. That would seem a legitimate sacrifice, were it not for the fact that we could legally expose ourselves to scores of strangers inside a restaurant. One event yielded profound cynicism: the brazen flouting of the lockdown by Johnson’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, who was caught driving more than 200 miles to visit his parents during the worst of the pandemic, followed by a journey to a scenic country town. His elaborate and evolving explanations — one centered on using the drive as a chance to test his eyesight — were widely dismissed as preposterous. Despite strident calls for his resignation, Cummings remained, supported by Johnson. It was as if Churchill’s right-hand man had been caught hosting a barbecue during a nighttime German bombing raid, flipping on the lights to illuminate the garden. The results of all this — the sense of hypocrisy, the confusion, the muddled messages — may account for why many people are flouting the rules. “This is a time when you really need government to step up and be very clear with its messaging,” said Dabbagh, the novelist. ”I think people would respond to messages if they were clear. Now, it’s all being pushed onto the individual to make these decisions.”
The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
15
Israel’s Coronavirus lockdown fuels protests, violence and confusion By ISABEL KERSHNER
F
ractured by internal political conflicts, confusing instructions and a lack of public trust in the government, Israel seems to be fraying further under a second national lockdown as the country struggles to cope with a surge in coronavirus cases and deaths that, relative to the size of the population, are among the worst in the world. With new daily cases of the coronavirus reaching up to 9,000 recently, here are some of the main factors contributing to the sense of chaos and loss of control. Curbs on anti-Netanyahu protests have backfired. For months, tens of thousands of demonstrators have been calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is standing trial on corruption charges and has been the focus of blame for many Israelis over the country’s handling of the pandemic. Netanyahu, a polarizing conservative, has portrayed the protesters as leftwing anarchists and has accused them, without evidence, of spreading the virus in mass gatherings outside his Jerusalem residence. After coronavirus regulations were tightened late last month, the government approved temporary restrictions on the demonstrations, confining protests to groups of up to 20 people wearing masks, standing 2 meters apart, and gathering no farther than 1 kilometer, or just over half a mile, from their homes. Critics considered the curbs anti-democratic and found ways to fight back. On Saturday night, hundreds of smaller protests took place all over the country, with the largest gatherings shifting to Tel Aviv. Protest leaders have vowed to continue. Urging Netanyahu to resign, many have adopted the Hebrew word for “Go!” as a rallying cry. But there has also been an increase in attacks by those who oppose the demonstrations. In television interviews with anti-Netanyahu protesters, a woman said she had been punched in the face in Tel Aviv and a man said he had been left with a broken arm in Pardes Hana-Karkur, in the north. The police were also accused of violence as they detained or dispersed protesters. On Sunday, police said that they had detained 38 protesters in the Tel Aviv area overnight and that many had been fined for offenses such as not wearing masks, blocking roads or breaching social distancing orders. Ron Huldai, 76, the mayor of Tel Aviv, who had joined the city’s main protest, went home with a bloodied arm. The government had placed the police in an “impossible position” and turned them into “a political tool,” Huldai said on Israeli
A protester being detained during a demonstration against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv on Saturday. television, adding that the scene had been calm and orderly until officers had moved in with force. Many ultra-Orthodox are flouting rules and getting sick. Preventing large gatherings, especially in Israel’s crowded ultra-Orthodox areas, was always going to be a challenge during the Jewish High Holy Days, which began Sept. 18 and extend until Oct. 11. Dr. Ronni Gamzu, Israel’s coronavirus czar, said last week that 40% of those testing positive came from the ultra-Orthodox community, even though it makes up only about 13% of the population. Even so, some Hasidic sects insisted on holding indoor prayers and large gatherings to celebrate Sukkot, the Jewish harvest holiday. Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, 92, a leading ultra-Orthodox authority, tested positive for the virus last week. Police said that they had closed at least 22 synagogues that were operating illegally over the weekend. Stormy confrontations broke out Sunday in some ultra-Orthodox areas. In the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit, police officers were shown on video throwing a bucket at and then aggressively dragging away a boy who was accused of throwing a chunk of concrete at a police vehicle. The police said they would investigate
the officers’ conduct. In the cities of Bnei Brak and Jerusalem, crowds clashed with the police overnight. Two officers were wounded when objects were thrown at them, police said Monday. One rabbi of an extremist ultra-Orthodox branch told his followers
not to fear the authorities and to perform all the usual holiday customs. In a less confrontational scene — which drew much online criticism — police officers received a blessing from a Hasidic rabbi after they arrived to ensure compliance with the lockdown.
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Tuesday, October 6, 2020
Pope criticizes lack of unity in world’s response to Coronavirus By JASON HOROWITZ
P
ope Francis criticized the failures of global cooperation in response to the coronavirus pandemic in a document released Sunday that underscores the priorities of his pontificate. “As I was writing this letter, the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly erupted, exposing our false securities,” Francis said in the encyclical, the most authoritative form of papal teaching. “Aside from the different ways that various countries responded to the crisis, their inability to work together became quite evident. For all our hyperconnectivity, we witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all,” he added. “Anyone who thinks that the only lesson to be learned was the need to improve what we were already doing, or to refine existing systems and regulations, is denying reality,” the pope said. Released amid another Vatican financial scandal and after changes in church rules regarding sex abuse, the letter steered clear of other contentious subjects. It instead returned often to some of the church’s hobbyhorses, including a secularism that has produced what the church sees as a throwaway, consumerist culture. Francis argued that this was apparent in the treatment of older people during the pandemic. “If only we might keep in mind all those elderly persons who died for lack of respirators, partly as a result of the dismantling, year after year, of health care systems. If only this immense sorrow may not prove useless but enable us to take a step forward toward a new style of life,” he wrote.
The pope also warned that the forces of “myopic, extremist, resentful and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” is a reflection on fraternity and social friendship heavily influenced by St. Francis of Assisi, after whom the pope took his name. The document calls for closeness to the marginalized, support for migrants, resistance of nationalist and tribal populism, and the abolition of the death penalty, but in those respects it broke little new ground. Francis signed the letter Saturday in the crypt of the Basilica of St. Francis in the town of Assisi in central Italy, his first trip outside Rome since the coronavirus pandemic prompted Italy to lock down for nearly three months starting in March. In the letter, the pope made a connection between the economic globalization that he thinks leaves people behind — writing, “We are asked to believe this dogma of neoliberal faith” — and the spread of the virus, which he said exposed existing inequalities. “If everything is connected, it is hard to imagine that this global disaster is unrelated to our way of approaching reality, our claim to be absolute masters of our own lives and of all that exists,” he wrote. “I do not want to speak of divine retribution, nor would it be sufficient to say that the harm we do to nature is itself the punishment for our offenses.” Francis expounded on some of his preferred themes, including an appeal for peace, justice and fraternity that he has elevated to church teaching. Most of the letter consists of spiritual reflections on love or biblical commentary or esoteric insights (“Concupiscence is not a flaw limited to
An intensive care unit Bergamo, Italy, March 21, 2020. Pope Francis criticized the failures of global cooperation in response to the coronavirus pandemic in a document released on Sunday that underscores the priorities of his pontificate.
our own day”). There are also long tracts about charity and respecting local cultures and outsiders. But Francis has some more concrete hopes, too, though they remain at an altitude high above policy proposals. To help migrants, he calls for simplifying the granting of visas and for opening humanitarian corridors. He argues that fraternity on a state level requires richer countries to help poorer ones. But at the same time, he expresses suspicion of foreign loans. “In many instances, debt repayment not only fails to promote development but gravely limits and conditions it,” he wrote. Instead, he endorsed a sort of international collective bargaining, with small or poor countries signing agreements with their regional neighbors that would allow them to negotiate as a bloc. The pope identified global trends that he believes “hinder the development of universal fraternity.” He cited economic inequality, sexism and racism, “a virus that quickly mutates” and which he said continues to shame the world despite “supposed social progress.” He was especially critical of internet trolls, the “frenzy of texting” and “self-centered chats” that prevent the seeking of wisdom and deep relationships. In social networks, he criticized technologies that “shamelessly peer into every detail” of people’s lives and “do not really build community; instead, they tend to disguise and expand the very individualism that finds expression in xenophobia and in contempt for the vulnerable.” Debasement of culture on the internet, he wrote, has transferred to real life. “Things that until a few years ago could not be said by anyone without risking the loss of universal respect can now be said with impunity,” he said, “and in the crudest of terms, even by some political figures.” The pope devoted a full chapter, one of eight, to his view on politics, which he argued can be among the noblest of professions. But now he sees an enemy to fraternity in the way “certain populist political regimes, as well as certain liberal economic approaches, maintain that an influx of migrants is to be prevented at all costs.” He argued that disregard for the vulnerable “can hide behind a populism that exploits them demagogically for its own purposes.” And the pope made clear that he did not like the permanent campaign tenor of modern politics. “Today, in many countries, hyperbole, extremism and polarization have become political tools,” he wrote, without mentioning any specific country. Nevertheless, Francis sought to strike a hopeful note, expressing optimism that the “recent pandemic enabled us to recognize and appreciate once more all those around us who, in the midst of fear, responded by putting their lives on the line.” But, perhaps less optimistically, he noted, “once this health crisis passes, our worst response would be to plunge even more deeply into feverish consumerism and new forms of egotistic self-preservation.”
The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
17
Nobel Prize in medicine awarded to scientists who discovered hepatitis C virus T By KATHERINE J. WU and DANIEL VICTOR
he Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was awarded jointly to Dr. Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice on Monday for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus, a breakthrough the Nobel committee said had “made possible blood tests and new medicines that have saved millions of lives.” “For the first time in history, the disease can now be cured, raising hopes of eradicating hepatitis C virus from the world population,” the committee said in a statement. The committee announced the prize at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. About 71 million people worldwide live with a chronic infection of the hepatitis C virus, a blood-borne pathogen that can cause severe liver inflammation, or hepatitis, and is typically transmitted through shared or reused needles and syringes, infected blood transfusions and sexual practices that lead to blood exposure. Tests and treatments “all start with being able to recognize the virus exists,” said Craig Cameron, chair of the department of microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a hepatitis C virus researcher. Why did they win? The discovery of the hepatitis C virus solved a thorny scientific mystery that had plagued physicians and researchers for years. A number of hepatitis viruses can infiltrate the liver and cause a range of health problems, some of which are fatal. One of the main ways that hepatitis is transmitted is through blood transfusions, a lifesaving procedure central to modern medicine that could have deadly consequences when blood was contaminated. The hepatitis A virus usually has few long-term impacts on the people it infects. The hepatitis B virus tends to linger in the body and is responsible for hundreds of millions of chronic infections around the world, many of which remain undiagnosed. The discovery of the hepatitis B virus earned Baruch Blumberg the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1976.
In the 1970s, Alter led a team of scientists in discovering that most cases of post-transfusion hepatitis couldn’t be linked to Type A or B viruses — a hint to the existence of a pathogen that had not yet been described. In the 1980s, Houghton, along with colleagues Qui-Lim Choo and George Kuo, became the first to identify and formally name the hepatitis C virus as the infectious culprit. The work led to the development of a diagnostic test to identify the virus in blood, enabling doctors and researchers for the first time to screen patients and donors. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University who spent her postdoctoral fellowship working on the hepatitis C virus, described the pathogen as “a tricky virus to work with.” She added that Houghton’s work, which isolated the virus’s genetic sequence, bolstered the case that it was a new pathogen and distinct from the viruses behind hepatitis A and B. Alter and Houghton later shared the Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research in 2000 for their work. Rice’s genetic experiments added important details to scientists’ understanding of the virus, showing that it could be isolated in the lab and cause disease in an animal host, the chimpanzee. These studies nailed the hepatitis C virus as the sole infectious agent responsible for the mysterious “non-A, non-B” cases of hepatitis and set up a crucial animal model for future studies. “Without Charlie, we still probably would not have completed the story,” Cameron said. Why is the work important? Work by the three awardees paved the path for highly accurate and effective blood tests for the hepatitis C virus. In many parts of the world, screening blood for hepatitis has driven post-transfusion hepatitis rates down to near zero. Still, most people living with the hepatitis C virus have not received a diagnosis, especially in low-income countries, where testing rates remain below 10%. Numerous life saving treatments have also
Harvey Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles Rice shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. been developed for the hepatitis C virus, many of which are in regular use today. When available, hepatitis C antivirals can block the virus from multiplying in the body, and can cure people of the infection in weeks. Researchers around the world are now at work on a vaccine that could prevent future hepatitis C virus infections and disease. Who are the winners? Alter, an American, is a medical researcher for the National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Born in 1935 in New York City, he earned a medical degree at the University of Rochester before joining the NIH in 1961. Rice, born in Sacramento, California, in 1952, is a professor at Rockefeller University in New York. From 2001-18, he was the scientific and executive director at the Center for the Study of Hepatitis C. He earned his doctorate from the California Institute of Technology in 1981. In an interview Monday, Rice described the utter shock he felt at receiving the early
morning phone call notifying him of the award. “I thought it was because a freezer in the lab was warming up, or it was a wrong number,” he said. Even after getting over “being mad at the phone for ringing,” added Rice, a self-described night owl, “my initial impression was this had to be a crank phone call.” Cameron, a frequent collaborator of Rice’s, described him as welcoming, generous and a dedicated and prolific mentor. “His lab has really populated the flavivirus field,” Cameron said, referring to the virus family that includes the hepatitis C virus. “I was not formally a trainee, but I feel like I was adopted by him early on.” Houghton, born in Britain, is a Canada Excellence Research Chair in Virology and the Li Ka Shing professor of virology at the University of Alberta. He is also director of the Li Ka Shing Applied Virology Institute at the university. He earned his doctorate from King’s College London in 1977.
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Tuesday, October 6, 2020
The San Juan Daily Star
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL
A president in the hospital and a nation in the dark By FRANK BRUNI
T
he coronavirus’s rampage through America threw a spotlight on its failings — on the galling inequality, the fatal partisanship, the susceptibility to fiction and the way in which rugged individualism had curdled into plain old selfishness. The coronavirus’s rampage through the White House has had the same effect. What we have seen over recent days is Donald Trump’s presidency in miniature, his worst traits distilled. Two in particular — mendacity and recklessness — are on especially unsettling display. When exactly did the president get sick and precisely how sick did he get? That’s knowable, but we still don’t really know it. He’s in the hospital. We’re in the dark. How many people might he have exposed to the coronavirus since first experiencing symptoms himself? We’re still plumbing that mystery. We’re still doing that tally. What is clear amid all this defensive murkiness is that Trump’s dismissive attitude toward the virus became its accomplice, as his disdain for masks and perverse sense of invincibility translated into a packed calendar of events and blasé behavior by the people attending them that amounted to epidemiological suicide. Illness isn’t illuminating him, not to judge by a stunt he pulled early Sunday evening, when he left Walter Reed National Military Medical Center briefly to ride past and wave at supporters outside. Although he wore a mask, “Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days,” Dr. James P. Phillips,
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an attending physician at Walter Reed, wrote on Twitter. “They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.” Reviewing the timeline of the president’s activities leading up to his positive coronavirus test, journalists have focused, for good reason, on the Rose Garden ceremony on Sept. 26 at which he introduced his latest Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, to the nation. At least a half-dozen people who have tested positive for the coronavirus over the past few days were there, in a crowd where neither social distancing nor face covering was enforced. It may have been a superspreader event. But the crazy part is that Trump’s next five days were a sequence of potential superspreader events, because his look-Mano-mask presidency is its own potential superspreader event: the rallies, the big convention speech outside the White House, the sessions of debate prep and the debate itself, at which the safety protocol decreed that everyone in the audience wear a mask. Trump’s family members and Trump’s chief of staff did not and, according to the debate’s moderator, Chris Wallace, waved away an official from the Cleveland Clinic who offered masks to them. Wallace recounted that situation on “Fox News Sunday,” asking a Trump adviser if they think that “rules for everybody else” don’t apply to them. Great question. With an obvious answer. They are trapped by their own denialism, which demands that they model the lack of concern that they push on voters, and they elevate looking undaunted over being smart, confidence over prudence, because that’s the administration’s way. Besides, masks would have incensed Trump, who, based on his debate performance, needed to be cooled down, not fired up. As Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman reported in The New York Times, he created a “top-down culture of fear” about exhibiting any worry about infection. “If you wanted to make the boss happy,” Karni and Haberman wrote, “you left the mask at home.” That’s a metaphor for a whole lot more. If you want to make the boss happy, you tell him that his inauguration drew many more people than it did. You tell him bad news is fake. You tell him the polls are off. You tell him Robert Mueller’s investigation is a hoax. You tell him that President Barack Obama spied on his campaign. You become Attorney General Bill Barr, a one-man factory of exonerations and excuses. You abet his existence in an alternate reality, where the sun is always shining and will magically zap an inconvenient virus into oblivion. Trump’s aides abetted him all the way to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, supplemental oxygen, steroids and remdesivir. In the course of making the boss happy, they helped make him sick. A president’s diagnosis with a serious illness should be a moment of at least temporary conciliation, unity and healing, when political adversaries put away their weapons, journalists muffle their alarms and Americans say a public prayer for a speedy recovery. But Trump’s path to this point and his manner at this point prevent that. They compel the telling of hard truths, because they’re so reflective of the mistakes made in battling this pandemic. “What I hope is that what we have seen with the president is
a cautionary tale for people” and that more of them “wear a mask to help other people,” one governor said publicly. That governor was a Republican, Mike DeWine of Ohio. I’ve heard nothing yet from Trump or senior White House officials that suggests that necessary lessons have been learned — that a commitment to a new conscientiousness has been made. As of early Sunday evening, they’d offered absolutely no public information or assurances about contact tracing for all the people who’d attended Trump events recently or crossed paths with him. On Saturday evening, Trump tweeted out a four-minute video in which he had the good grace to thank the medical professionals tending to him and the many Americans who’d sent kind wishes his way. Nevertheless, he persisted in his irresponsibility. Instead of promoting mask wearing and proper social distancing — a message that would have had tremendous power, given the circumstances of its delivery — he defended all those crammed events of his, saying the alternative was sequestering himself upstairs in the White House and abdicating his duties. “I had no choice,” he said, preposterously. There’s a middle ground between hiding out and a schedule that summons maskless throngs and dispenses with all caution. He just didn’t care to inhabit it. And while he found no time in that video to discuss proper protection against the coronavirus, he did reassure Americans that medical advances, such as new treatments, would save the day. “They’re miracles, coming from God,” he said. That statement isn’t an incentive to behave better. It’s an invitation to nonchalance. Early Sunday evening, he released another video, just over a minute long. Again, no mention of masks. No mention of social distancing. But lavish self-congratulation. “We have enthusiasm like probably nobody has ever had — people that love the job we’re doing,” he said of his administration’s supporters. “We have more enthusiasm than maybe anybody.” It’s certainly not the fruit of candor or transparency. He and his administration have demonstrated neither since the tweet in the wee hours of Friday morning when he told the world that he had the coronavirus. Physicians and administration officials have contradicted one another. They have contradicted themselves. They have moved and muddled the timeline of his first symptoms and treatments. They have given us every reason to wonder about a cover-up and made calm impossible and trust a joke. “What is the actual state of President Trump’s health — now and over the past 24 hours?” Jonathan Swan of Axios wrote late Saturday. “It’s one of the most high-stakes questions in the world, and I cannot answer it, despite having spent since 5 a.m. on Friday on my phone with sources inside and close to the White House.” In fact, Swan added, some of those sources merely echoed and amplified his wonderment. “They’re utterly perplexed about what’s going on,” he wrote. “They, like us, have little confidence in what they are being told.” To my ears they’re not just talking about Trump’s current illness. They’re talking about his administration’s sickness from the start.
The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
19
Empleados del Fondo denuncian hacinamiento y falta de protocolos contra el COVID-19 Por THE STAR
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a Unión de Empleados de la Corporación del Fondo del Seguro del Estado (UECFSE) denunció el lunes el alegado hacinamiento que existe en la oficina regional de Carolina que evita mantener el distanciamiento físico aumentando el riesgo de contagio de COVID-19 entre los empleados y la falta de comunicación entre el sindicato y la administración para la activación de protocolos cuando un empleado da positivo al virus. “Estamos aquí para denunciar el hacinamiento que existe en algunas partes de esta oficina regional del Fondo del Seguro del Estado. En este edificio hay espacios donde están ubicadas más de 20 personas en el mismo lugar, esto claramente, evita que los empleados puedan cumplir con el requerimiento del distanciamiento físico y aumenta el riesgo de contagio de COVID-19 entre los empleados”, detalló Lizbeth Mercado Cordero, presidenta de la Unión de Empleados de la Corporación del Fondo del Seguro del Estado (UECFSE). Mercado Cordero explicó que antes se tenían a los empleados presenciales
en días alternos reduciendo así las plantillas de trabajo en todas las áreas y se comprobó que era menos la exposición a los empleados por el hacinamiento. “Cuando los empleados estaban en modalidad alterna no existía el problema de hacinamiento que hay hoy, el riesgo de contagio era mínimo, pues no había tantos empleados juntos. Además, según la orden ejecutiva el trabajo a distancia (remoto) facilita que no se expongan tantos empleados juntos. El propio administrador del Fondo, Juan Benítez impartió instrucciones a todos los directores regionales del Fondo para promover el trabajo a distancia y ellos han hecho caso omiso para así cumplir la orden ejecutiva”, resaltó. La líder sindical detalló que, además del problema de empleados aglomerados, existe también, falta de comunicación entre el sindicato y el director médico de la región, el Dr. Juan Arango, en la activación de los protocolos establecidos por la propia Corporación del Fondo y por OSHA cuando ocurre un caso positivo a COVID-19. “El director médico hace con la activación del protocolo lo que le da la
gana. No sigue los pasos establecidos, no nos notifica a nosotros y lo que hace es crear histeria entre los empleados. La Orden Ejecutiva de la gobernadora Wanda Vázquez establece que las agencias y corporaciones tienen que contar con las organizaciones sindicales para el cumplimiento de los protocolos de prevención del Covid. La Unión de Empleados del Fondo es una facilitadora, nosotros podemos orientar a los empleados y ser facilitadores en estos procesos. No buscamos ser creadores de histeria como lo está siendo ahora el director médico por no dar información y no activar los protocolos”, puntualizó.
Mercado Cordero añadió que los empleados que se niegan a trabajar para proteger su salud son amenazados por el director regional, Roberto Acevedo. “Si un empleado expresa que no quiere exponerse al COVID en su área de trabajo que no ha sido sanitizada luego de un positivo es amenazado por el Director Regional diciendo que tomará medidas disciplinarias. No es momento de amenazas, es momento de acción. Momento de que incluyan a la Unión en la activación de los protocolos y se reubiquen a los empleados que están hacinados en su área de trabajo”, sentenció.
Educación anuncia aumento de 39 % en distribución de almuerzos escolares Por THE STAR
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l secretario de Educación, Eligio Hernández Pérez, anunció este lunes que la Autoridad Escolar de Alimentos (AEA) registró un aumento de 92,804 raciones adicionales de almuerzos tras concluir la primera semana con los servicios a todos los menores entre uno y 18 años, estén o no matriculados en escuelas públicas. “El permitirnos ampliar las edades y condiciones para ofrecer almuerzos ha sido de beneficio para cerca de cien mil niños y jóvenes más que se han podido alimentar con los almuerzos de nuestros comedores escolares. Instamos a que todos los que cumplan con las condiciones visiten las escuelas para que obtengan los alimentos. La dispensa nos permite ofrecer el servicio hasta diciembre 31”, expresó el titular de Educación en comunicación escrita. Hernández Pérez informó que al cierre de la semana pasada se habían dis-
tribuido un total de 245,130 almuerzos, lo que representa un aumento de 39 por ciento en comparación a los 152,334 que se habían distribuido previo a la otorgación de la dispensa de Food Nutrition Services, adscrita al Departamento de Agricultura Federal, que extendió el Programa de Servicios de Alimentos de Verano (PSAV) a todos los menores de 18 años. Los padres, madres o encargados de cualquier menor de edad podrán pasar por cualquiera de los más de 650 comedores escolares abiertos cercanos a su residencia y recoger las raciones. No será necesario solicitar el servicio por escrito (formulario o compromiso de padres) ni proveer número de estudiante y tampoco llevar consigo al menor. Sobre el horario de recogido, el jefe de Educación indicó que la AEA recomienda que se entreguen entre 10:30 de la mañana y 12:30 de la tarde o entre 11:00 de la mañana y 1:00 de la tarde,
pero cada director escolar podrá establecer horarios de acuerdo con las particularidades de su comunidad. Enfatizó que, por disposiciones de salubridad, la entrega no deberá exceder las dos horas. Por el momento, solo se servirá almuerzo, pero si aumenta la demanda, se considerará ofrecer desayuno. Personal de comedores escolares continúa trabajando en todas las regiones educativas para asegurar la prestación del servicio a aquellos que cualifiquen, según estableció la agencia federal. En cuanto a las raciones servidas en la modalidad de grupos satélites se despacharon unos 6,397, por lo que el secretario invitó a todos los auspiciadores que tradicionalmente forman parte de este esfuerzo a participar de la extensión del PSAV. Las organizaciones que deseen inscribirse en la entrega de servicios deberán comunicarse a la Autoridad Escolar de Alimentos correspondiente a su oficina regional educativa (ORE).
“Hacemos una exhortación para que aquellas entidades sin fines de lucro, incluyendo los municipios, que anteriormente hayan participado en el Programa de Verano, que se unan al esfuerzo. Pueden solicitar los almuerzos necesarios para la población que atienden entre las edades de uno a 18 años. Esto será de gran ayuda para llegar a la mayor cantidad de niños y jóvenes que requieran de un almuerzo sano y balanceado confeccionado en nuestros comedores escolares”, agregó el funcionario. De otra parte, indicó que la semana pasada se redujo la cifra de raciones perdidas a un 3 por ciento, lo que representa una cantidad de 7,146. La semana anterior – previo a la implementación de la dispensa- se registró una cifra más amplia de raciones perdidas ascendente a un 9 por ciento o 13,541 almuerzos perdidos que fueron ordenados por los padres o encargados, pero no pasaron recoger a las escuelas.
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Tuesday, October 6, 2020
The San Juan Daily Star
Mariah Carey, elusive no more By JON CARAMANICA
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n the rainy night in the mid-1990s when Mariah Carey first kissed Derek Jeter — a tentative step away from her suffocating marriage to Tommy Mottola, the music mogul who had been crucial to building her career — the singer, drenched, returned to her waiting limo and turned on the radio. What she heard was the “grimy, dangerous, sexy-ass beat” of Mobb Deep’s “Shook Ones Pt. II,” one of the crucial New York rap statements of all time, the sort of desolate song that can drop the temperature 20 or 30 degrees in an instant. The track was stuck in her head when she got back to the palatial home she and Mottola had built together in Bedford, New York, Carey writes in her new memoir, “The Meaning of Mariah Carey.” The next day, she started working on a song based on a sample of “Shook Ones” that told her story of going romantically rogue. “The Roof (Back in Time)” is both rugged and sensual — Carey cooing over a sample of Prodigy jabbing, “I got you stuck off the realness.” It was a product of its era, in which pop, R&B and hip-hop were all beginning to loosely commingle — soon it would be the norm. “The Roof” appeared on Carey’s fifth album of original songs, “Butterfly,” in 1997, a propitious moment in her life and music. Carey, the pop-soul megastar with the most impressive voice of her generation (Whitney Houston, for these purposes, was in the prior one), was deepening her connections to hiphop right as it was fully emerging as the pop culture lingua franca. Carey the embattled and surveilled wife was catching her first glimpses of romantic and sexual freedom. And Carey, the daughter of a Black father and a white mother, who had been the target of racist taunts in her childhood (“like a first kiss in reverse: each time, a piece of purity was ripped from my being”) and was urged to play down her Blackness by her music business partners, was announcing who she was loud and clear. For Carey, all of these vectors — professional, personal, romantic, creative, racial, familial — intersected and often overlapped, and had since her childhood. “The Meaning of Mariah Carey” tells that
story vividly and emotionally and, for long stretches, unblinkingly. It is a memoir about a determined and preternaturally talented artist focused on her craft long before she had captured the world’s eyes and ears, and also about a young woman foiled at almost every turn when trying to feel secure in her identity. Her musical gift — the only sturdy thing — provided a beacon of hope as family turmoil wrecked her childhood. It also saw her through a traumatic marriage to Mottola, who she said effectively imprisoned her in their upstate home and smothered her with security guards, even as she became one of the biggest pop stars on the planet. But while music was a retreat for her, it was a source of confusion to others. “Most labels didn’t really get me,” Carey writes about her early years seeking a record deal in New York. “My demo was more diverse than the music industry at the time.” This caused problems with Mottola. “Tommy and I were completely different, and the Black part of myself caused him confusion,” she writes. “From the moment Tommy signed me, he tried to wash the ‘urban’ (translation: Black) off of me.” The arc of Carey’s career demonstrates the sheer deafness of this approach. She brought rich soul conviction to her early ballad smashes — “I Don’t Wanna Cry,” “Hero,” “One Sweet Day” — that rescued them from treacle. And of all the forays into hip-hop by pop stars of her generation, hers were the most convincing, the most fluid and becoming. The remix of “Fantasy,” her Ol’ Dirty Bastard collaboration from 1995, was a crucial turning point in hip-hop’s absorption by pop. Here again, romantic, creative and racial tension collide — Carey played the song for Mottola and, she writes, it “scorched our pristine white bedroom with the grime and righteous fun I’d been craving!” Mottola hated it. Once Carey began regularly working with hip-hop producers like Jermaine Dupri, she made some of the most creatively successful music of her career while remaining at the top of the charts: “Always Be My Baby,” “We Belong Together,” “Heartbreaker,” “I Know What You Want.” This is a full-circle triumph for Carey, who had been anxious about race since childhood. Her mother had been all but dis-
owned by her family for marrying a Black man. Early in the book, Carey suggests that her older siblings resented her because of her fair complexion, suspecting that she was passing for white. This recurs throughout her life, leaving Carey vexed. In fact, at the Giorgio Armani dinner where Carey first met Jeter (a few weeks before their tryst), there is an open conversation about whether Carey’s Blackness is visible at all. Key to her attraction to Jeter that night is her learning that he, too, has a Black father and a white mother. The writing in this book — by Carey with Michaela Angela Davis — is arresting, a little soft-bellied, decidedly human. Carey is rendered as much a spiritual force as a musical prodigy — resilient, self-aware, and also funny, in her regal way. The memoir’s first sentence — “I refuse to acknowledge time, famously so” — is *chef’s kiss*. There are plenty of dahlings sprinkled throughout. Also, Carey pointedly pulls out an “I don’t know her” omission of Jennifer Lopez’s name when discussing how Mottola sought to craft Lopez in Carey’s image, and blows a little shade Madonna’s way: “I could emulate the popular Madonna studio technique, but with my voice alone.” “The Meaning of Mariah Carey” is less revealing the later into Carey’s life it moves. One harrowing section around the 2001 release of the album and film “Giltter” jumps from family-member manipulation to detox facility to corporate malfeasance and beyond, but still feels frustratingly ambiguous. She does not mention the bipolar disorder diagnosis she received at that time and publicly revealed in 2018. And the final chapters of the book are hurried, crashing through diva duets, Karl Lagerfeld memories, and Carey’s eight-year marriage to Nick Cannon and the twins they share, Moroccan and Monroe. Carey’s focus is resolute — her music is the product of her life. A protective cloak when needed, and the place where she quietly revealed her dark truths for everyone to hear, even if they couldn’t fully understand. (She weaves particularly poignant lyrics throughout — songwriting is just as important to Carey as singing, sometimes more so.) Carey also just issued “The Rarities,” a collection of previously unreleased songs
dating back to 1990, which echoes the path her memoir maps out. Beginning with the Jackson 5-esque “Here We Go Around Again,” the album moves toward the sorts of slow-burn-drama R&B ballads (“Everything Fades Away”) that were crucial to her early success, before pivoting toward a more evident hip-hop influence in the mid-90s (“Slipping Away”). Many of the songs are strong, but they largely bolster the story Carey has long been telling. The more revealing document, however, might be the second disc of the release: “Live at the Tokyo Dome,” her first concert in Japan, recorded in 1996. This is Carey at the peak — one of the peaks, at least — of her vocal authority and pop fame. She is in phenomenal form: “Emotions” is frisky and cheering; her rendition of “I Don’t Wanna Cry” preserves the original’s bombast while making it just a touch more grounded and unctuous; “Vision of Love,” “Hero” and “Anytime You Need a Friend” are a cathartic one-two-three punch of power, swing and grace. In the years after this, Carey would wriggle out from under Mottola’s thumb, delve deeper into hip-hop, have her first bust (with “Glitter”) and begin to melt under public scrutiny. Her fame remained intact, but it became more complicated and chaotic. Viewed through that lens, and in the context of what she reveals in her memoir, this concert performance feels like a valedictory for how she once did things, the culmination of a lifetime of singing through clenched teeth. A metamorphosis was coming.
The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
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Mellon Foundation to spend $250 million to reimagine monuments By JENIFFER SCHUESSLER
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he Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the largest humanities philanthropy in the United States, has pledged to spend $250 million over five years to help re-imagine the country’s approach to monuments and memorials, in an effort to better reflect the nation’s diversity and highlight buried or marginalized stories. The Monuments Project, the largest initiative in the foundation’s 50-year history, will support the creation of new monuments, as well as the relocation or rethinking of existing ones. And it defines “monument” broadly to include not just memorials, statues and markers but also “storytelling spaces,” as the foundation puts it, like museums and art installations. “The beauty of monuments as a rubric is, it’s really a way of asking, ‘How do we say who we are? How do we teach our history in public places?’” said Elizabeth Alexander, the foundation’s president. “So much teaching happens without us going into a classroom, and without us realizing we’re being taught,” she continued. “We want to ask how we can help think about how to give form to the beautiful and extraordinary and powerful multiplicity of American stories.” The announcement comes amid intensifying challenges to Confederate monuments and other controversial memorials, a number of which have come down across the country in the wake of this summer’s protests over racism and police violence. The initiative also arrives as the foundation, which has an endowment of more than $6 billion, has officially revised its mission to put social justice at the center of its support for scholarly research, higher education and the arts. Even before the reset, Mellon had spent $25 million on monument-related projects over the past two years. Grants have included $5 million to support the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, in Montgomery, Alabama, which honors Black lynching victims across the country, and $250,000 for a monument in New York’s Central Park to an African American abolitionist family who lived in Seneca Village, a 19th-century Black community razed to build the park. The first major grant under the new $250 million initiative will be a $4 million, three-year gift to Monument Lab, a Philadelphia-based public art and research
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which honors lynching victims, in Montgomery, Ala., April 20, 2018. studio that works with artists and community groups across the country to “re-imagine public spaces through stories of social justice and equity,” according to its website. That grant will include what the foundation calls a “definitive audit” of the existing commemorative landscape across the country. “For example, one thing I want to know is, what percentage of monument sites are dedicated to women?” Alexander said. The project will also involve rethinking what forms monuments can take and investigating what communities want from them. “How do communities feel about that which they live in the midst of?” Alexander said. “What do they feel should be commemorated, and what stories do they think should be told?” Mitch Landrieu, the former mayor of New Orleans, praised the foundation for making a big commitment not just to the creation of new monuments but also to the politically fraught and often expensive task of taking down existing slabs of metal and stone.
In 2017, when he oversaw the removal of New Orleans’ last four Confederate monuments, “there was pushback, wrongly I think, on using public money to take them down or put them back up” elsewhere, he said. The removal of the statues, which he said are currently in storage, was ultimately supported by the Ford, Kellogg, Rockefeller and Kresge foundations. “I am thrilled that now these guys are stepping up, and putting money behind it,” Landrieu, now the president of the nonprofit group E Pluribus Unum, said of Mellon’s $250 million commitment. “I hope other philanthropic groups will continue to work together to lift up the entire history of the country.” Alexander emphasized that the foundation would not itself be recommending any monuments for removal or rethinking. “It will depend on who comes to us, with which project,” she said. But at the core of the efforts, she said, is exploring new ways to honor America’s histories, an approach that goes beyond honor-
ing only famous leaders. As an example of more inclusive monuments, she cited Maya Lin’s celebrated Vietnam memorial, with its thousands of engraved names. She also noted a less famous personal favorite: “Path of Stars,” a 1994 installation in New Haven, Connecticut, by Sheila de Bretteville, which embeds tributes to the lives of ordinary citizens in the sidewalk, in the style of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Where old monuments remain, they can be recontextualized, with new perspectives and information added to reveal their distortions or erasures. As an example, she cited artist Dustin Klein’s light projections this summer on the statue of Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, which superimposed the faces of figures like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman on the monument, allowing it to tell two stories at once. “The beauty of the deep study of history is when you realize there’s not just one story, and there’s not just two stories,” she said. “You realize the power of this country is our multiplicity.”
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The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
In isolating times, can robo-pets provide comfort? By PAULA SPAN
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hen Linda Spangler asked her mother, in a video chat, what she would like as gift for her 92nd birthday, the response came promptly. “I’d like a dog,” Charlene Spangler said. “Is Wolfgang dead?” Wolfgang, a family dachshund, had indeed died long ago; so had all his successors. Charlene Spangler, who lives in a dementia care facility in Oakland, California, has trouble recalling such history. Her daughter, a doctor, considered the request. Before visitors were barred from the residence because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Linda Spangler had seen her mother every other day, often taking her to Lake Merritt in her wheelchair to see the ducks and to pat passing dogs. In her facility, Charlene Spangler had eaten meals with several other residents, joined art classes and listened to visiting musicians. Now activities and communal meals have vanished. Aside from one quick visit in the lobby, she has not seen her daughter in person in six months; they communicate through 15-minute video calls when staff members can arrange them. “She’s more isolated in her room now,” Linda Spangler said. “And she misses having a dog.” Knowing that her mother couldn’t manage pet care, even if the residence had permitted animals, Linda Spangler looked online for the robotic pets she had heard about. She found a fluffy puppy with sensors that allow it to pant, woof, wag its tail, nap and awaken; a user can feel a simulated heartbeat. Unable to deliver the robot personally, she asked a staff member to take it inside. In a subsequent video chat, Linda Spangler learned that her mother had named the robot dog Dumbo. Such devices first appeared in American nursing homes and residences for seniors several years ago. A Japanese company began distributing an animatronic baby seal called PARO in 2009, and Hasbro started marketing robotic cats in 2015. But the isolation caused by the coronavirus, not only in facilities but also among seniors living alone in their homes, has intensified interest in these products and increased sales, company executives said. It has also led to more public money being used to purchase them. Long before the pandemic, loneliness and social disconnection were acknowledged
A study of 271 independently living seniors who suffered from loneliness found “there was improvement in their mental well-being, in sense of purpose and optimism,” after 30 days with a robotic pet cat or dog. public health problems for older people, linked to measurably poorer mental and physical health. Now, their risk for serious illness from the coronavirus has denied many seniors the stimulation and comfort of personal visits, cultural events, volunteering, even grocery shopping. Isolation particularly threatens people with dementia, who are less able to embrace online diversions and communication. “COVID has created a bizarre world where nobody can hug anybody,” said Laurie Orlov, a veteran industry analyst and founder of the newsletter Aging and Health Technology Watch. “The idea of a pet you can hold — a tactile experience — transcends that somewhat.” In part because of its $6,120 price tag, PARO (the name echoes the Japanese term for “personal robot”) has primarily been adopted by institutions: hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities. Because the Food and Drug Administration classifies the robot as a biofeedback device, Medicare will cover its purchase and use by therapists. Since the pandemic, “we’re seeing a lot of interest,” said Tom Turner, general manager of PARO Robots U.S., which sells about 50 robot seals annually but expects a big increase as insurance coverage broadens. Researchers have reported benefits from interacting with PARO, although the studies
were often small and short-term. At facilities in Texas and Kansas, for instance, investigators followed 61 residents with dementia who had 20-minute group sessions with a PARO three days a week for three months. Their stress and anxiety decreased, the researchers found, and they needed less medication for pain and problem behaviors. Front Porch, a nonprofit senior living provider, acquired several PAROs in 2015 and tracked their effects through about 900 surveys reporting residents’ interactions. Over six months, the staff reported that the robots — which acquired names and, at holidays, festive outfits — helped calm residents, increased their social behavior and improved mood and appetite. More recently, researchers have started analyzing the use of robotic pets outside institutional settings, by seniors living in their own homes. Of particular interest is the Joy for All brand sold by Ageless Innovation, a spinoff of Hasbro, and available from retailers like Walmart and Best Buy for about $120. One of the largest studies, underwritten by United HealthCare and AARP, distributed free Joy for All robots to 271 seniors living independently. All the seniors suffered from loneliness, according to a screening questionnaire. At 30 and 60 days, “there was improvement in their
mental well-being, in sense of purpose and optimism,” said Dr. Charlotte Yeh, chief medical officer of AARP’s business subsidiary and a study co-author. The study also found “a reduction in loneliness,” Yeh said, although the questionnaires showed that participants remained lonely. Armed with such findings, Ageless Innovation has been offering discounted robots to state agencies working with seniors. (Both Joy for All and PARO robots can be sanitized to prevent viral transmission, the companies said.) New York state ordered and distributed 1,100 pets after a pilot study found that participants reported less isolation and loneliness. “Families were sending me thank-you notes,” said Becky Preve, executive director of the Association on Aging in New York. Florida purchased 375. Ageless Innovation said that a dozen states had placed orders totaling 6,000 devices. But that’s small potatoes compared to the sales potential if Medicare Advantage plans, offered through private insurers, agree to cover robotic pets. One already does — HealthPartners, in the Midwest — and “we are in conversations with many other Medicare Advantage plans,” Ted Fischer, chief executive of Ageless Innovation, said in an email. The company is also eyeing certain Medicaid programs. The idea of a robot, however fuzzy, as an antidote to loneliness produces both enthusiasm and revulsion. “These animals are helping people,” said Preve, a fan. But Sherry Turkle, a psychologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has long studied how older people use technology, objected. “The promise is that it becomes a companion and you have a relationship with it,” she said of a robotic animal. “As though there’s mutuality. There’s not mutuality. It’s a bunch of bits and bytes.” As for Charlene Spangler, during a recent video chat she mentioned that her dog was barking and that she could feel its heartbeat. “It seems like there’s some interaction,” her daughter said. But a caregiver must repeatedly present the dog and remind her mother to pet or talk to it; otherwise, she forgets about it. How often that will happen, and whether it will assuage the pain of isolation, remains an unanswered question. “I’m not sure how well this is going to work,” Linda Spangler said. “But for $120, it was worth a try.”
The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
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The underused weight loss option: Bariatric surgery By JANE E. BRODY
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rowing rates of obesity among Americans are clear evidence that even the best intentions and strongest motivations are often not enough to help seriously overweight people lose a significant amount of weight and, more important, keep it off. But for those who can overcome fears of surgery and perhaps do battle with recalcitrant insurers, there remains another very successful option that experts say is currently vastly underused. That option is bariatric surgery, an approach that is now simpler, safer and more effective than in its early days in the 1990s. “Only one-half of 1 percent of people eligible for bariatric surgery currently undergo it,” Dr. Anne P. Ehlers, a bariatric surgeon at the University of Michigan, told me. Bariatric surgery is generally considered a treatment option for people with a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or more who did not lose weight with diet and exercise. It is also recommended for those with lesser degrees of obesity — a BMI of 30 to 35 — who have obesity-related medical conditions. Weight loss surgery’s underuse has been largely attributed to “the reluctance of the medical community and patients to accept surgery as a safe, effective and durable” obesity treatment, other experts at the University of Michigan wrote in JAMA in 2018. They said patients “may be reluctant to pursue surgical treatment because they may be judged by others for taking the easy way out and not having the willpower to diet and exercise.” Willpower is clearly not enough for millions struggling with obesity, but “many may feel like failures if they opt for surgery,” Ehlers said in an interview. This stigma, real or imagined, may keep many people from a treatment that can result in long-term weight loss and can significantly improve physical and emotional health and even longevity. Disorders that can be lowered or reversed by bariatric surgery include Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), obstructive sleep apnea, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, urinary incontinence, infertility and fractures. Death rates may decline by nearly 50%, especially among people 55 and older.
Although guidelines set in 1991 limit recommendations for bariatric surgery to those most severely affected by obesity, current evidence indicates that young people who are not yet morbidly obese may be especially likely to benefit from weight loss surgery. Most adolescents who are obese remain obese as adults and have worse medical outcomes than people who became obese as adults. The surgical route is now sometimes offered to adolescents and young adults with obesity-related health problems like Type 2 diabetes that have failed to yield to diet and exercise. In a study reported by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health that followed 2,221 patients, within three years of bariatric surgery, most experienced less pain and improved ability to walk. But as with any weight loss program, such benefits as well as lasting weight management depend on whether patients stick to a healthful diet and exercise regimen after the surgery. The original bariatric technique, called Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, reduces the stomach to the size of an egg and bypasses a major portion of the small intestine to limit caloric absorption. A now-retired friend who underwent this operation 15 years ago lost 160 pounds and has kept all but 10 pounds off despite traveling widely on vacations, a time when people often gain weight. In recent years, gastric bypass has yielded to a newer, less involved operation, sleeve gastrectomy, that has fewer complications yet excellent long-lasting results. The American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery reports that only 1.5% of sleeve gastrectomy patients require a reoperation because of complications, as against 7.7% undergoing gastric bypass and 15.3% who have a less effective procedure called lap band surgery, in which a band placed around the stomach divides it into two pouches. In a sleeve gastrectomy, about 85% of the stomach is removed, resulting in a banana-shaped pouch that limits the amount of food that can be consumed. In addition to restricting how much a person can eat, the surgery reduces hunger and the desire to overeat by eliminating the portion of the stomach that produces ghrelin, the hormone that stimulates appetite. Both sleeve gastrectomy and gastric by-
Experts say bariatric surgery can result in long-term weight loss and significantly improve physical and emotional health and even longevity. pass, as well as other, less effective bariatric approaches, can be done laparoscopically, with patients spending only a day or two in the hospital. In a major report involving 33,560 patients treated at 10 national medical centers and followed for five or more years, sleeve gastrectomy resulted in significantly fewer postoperative interventions than Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. The study was published in January in JAMA Surgery. At most centers today, Ehlers said, “sleeve gastrectomy accounts for at least 80 percent of the procedures done.” Even with these seemingly drastic treatments, weight loss occurs gradually, with patients beginning to notice weight loss by the end of a month. Most people can lose up to half their excess weight within a year of surgery and up to 60% by 18 months. However, Ehlers cautioned: “This operation is not a magic pill. It’s a tool to be used in combination with a proper diet and physical activity. Before surgery, patients should be taught how to eat, and after surgery they need to learn how much they can eat before feeling sick. Most people can tolerate any food in small amounts, but they may never be able to eat a full Thanksgiving dinner again.” Bariatric surgeons recommend that patients skip all sugary and carbonated drinks
and not drink water when they eat solid food. Although it is possible to overeat and stretch one’s stomach, even back to its original size, this can be avoided if patients learn to stop eating when they feel full. Patients may have to supplement their diets with certain nutrients, like calcium, iron, vitamin B12 and vitamin D, to compensate for the reduced ability to absorb them after surgery. As with any operation, bariatric surgery has potential complications, which tend to be lower when performed by experienced surgeons at medical centers that do many of these operations. Rates of both complications and deaths related to the surgery have fallen drastically since 1998 from a peak of 11.7% and 1%, respectively, to 1.4% and 0.04% by 2016. About a quarter of a million bariatric surgeries were performed in 2018, yet approximately 18 million adults ages 20 or older had BMIs higher than 40, according to the latest available data from the American Society for Bariatric Surgery. The average cost of weight loss surgery ranges from $17,000 to $30,000 and is often covered by insurance. However, untreated obesity costs the nation $1.72 trillion, or 9.3% of the gross domestic product, in health care expenses alone, the society reported.
24 LEGAL NOTICE
Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS
CRISTINA MEDINA FELIZ
Parte Demandada ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO CIVIL NÚM.: SJ2020RF00651 DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU·SALON: 703. SOBRE: DIVORNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CIO (Ruptura Irreparable). EMDemandados SALA SUPERIOR DE MA YAPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO CIVIL NÚM.: IS2019CV00284. GUEZ. DEL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIAEDNA COMAS RIVERA SALÓN: SOBRE: COBRO DE DO DE PUERTO RICO. DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO Demandante v. A: CRISTINA POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIINGA COMAS MEDINA FELIZ DOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRERODRIGUEZ, ILGA CALLE GREGORIO SIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS COMAS RODRIGUEZ, UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE LUPERON #2, LA CALETA JOHN DOE, RICHARD ASOCIADO DE PUERTO BOCA CHICA RICO.
DOE Y JANE DOE
Demandados NUM CASO: MZ2020CV00828. ACCION CIVIL; SENTENCIA DECLARATORIA. EDICTO.
A: INGA COMAS RODRIGUEZ, ILGA COMAS RODRIGUEZ, JOHNDOE,~CHARDDOEY JANE DOE
A) FULANA DE TAL POR SÍ Y EN REPRESENTACIÓN DE LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR ÉSTA Y DANIEL A. CRESPO ROMAN
REPUBLICA DOMINICANA
POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y se le notifica que una demanda ha sido presentada en su contra, la cual obra en el expediente del Honorable Tribunal de Primera Instancia de Bayamón, Sala Superior de Toa Alta, en el caso de epígrafe, y se le requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de casos (SUMAC) el cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: HTTPS://unired. rámaiudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo· caso deberá presentar se alegación responsiva en la secretaria del Tribunal. Si Usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. VAZQUEZ & ASSOCIATES LAW OFFICES LCDO. DIEGO SAIZ RUBIO RUA 17975 379 CALLE CESAR GONZALEZ HATO REY, PR 00918 TEL: {787) 766-0949 I FAX: (787) 771-2425 · CORREO ELECTRONICO: VAZQUEZYASOCIADOSPR@ GMAIL.COM EXPEDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA ~/ el SeUo del Tribunal , hoy día 24 de septiembre de 2020. Griselda Rodriguez Collado, Sec del Tribunal Milagros Vazquez Velazquez, Sec Serv a Sala.
POR LA PRESENTE: Se le notifica que contra usted se ha Por la presente se le emplaza y presentado la Demanda sobre se le notifica que se ha presen- Cobro de Dinero de la cual se tado en la Secretaría de este acompaña copia. Por la preTribunal la Demanda de Sen- sente se le emplaza a usted y tencia Declaratoria en el caso se le requiere para que dentro de epígrafe contra su persona. del término de TREINTA (30) Se le estará remitiendo por co- días desde la fecha de la Publirreo una copia de la Demanda cación por Edicto de este Ema cada uno de los Demanda- plazamiento presente su condos. Se le apercibe y advierte testación a través del Sistema a usted, que de no contestar la Unificado de Manejo y AdminisDemanda radicando el original tración de Casos (SUMAC), al de la contestación ante la Se- cual puede acceder utilizando cretaría del Tribunal de Primera la siguiente dirección electróniInstancia, Sala de Mayagüez, y ca: https: / /unired.ramajudicial. notificar copia de la contesta- pr, salvo que se represente por ción de ésta a la parte deman- derecho propio, en cuyo caso dante EDNA COMAS RIVERA; deberá presentar su alegación por conducto de su abogado, responsiva en la Secretaría del Ledo. Luis Roberto Santos Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Montalvo, a su dirección: P. O. Sala de Isabela, P.O. Box 868, Box 1809, Mayagüez, Puerto Isabela, Puerto Rico 00662Rico 00681-1809, Teléfono 0269 y notifique a la LCDA. 787-833-5466, dentro de los GINA H. FERRER MEDINA, próximos TREINTA (30) días a personalmente al Condominio partir de la publicación de este Las Nereidas, Local 1-B, Calle Emplazamiento por Edicto, que Méndez Vigo esquina Amaserá publicado UNA (1) sola dor Ramírez Silva, Mayagüez, vez en un periódico de circula- Puerto Rico 00680; o por correo ción diaria general en la Isla de al Apartado 2342, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico; se les anotará la Puerto Rico 0068 1-2342, Terebeldía y se dictará Sentencia, léfonos: (787) 832-9620 y (845) concediendo el remedio soli- 345-3985, Abogada de la parte citado en la Demanda sin más demandante, apercibiéndose citarle ni oírle. En Mayagüez, que en caso de no hacerlo así Puerto Rico, hoy 21 de sep- podrá dictarse Sentencia en tiembre de 2020. POR: LCDA Rebeldía en contra suya, conNORMA G SANTANA IRIZA- cediendo el remedio solicitado RRY, Secretaria Regional. en la Demanda sin más citarle POR: F/ BETSY SANTIAGO ni oírle. EXPIDO BAJO MI FIRLEGAL NOTICE GONZALEZ, Secretaria Auxiliar MA y el Sello del Tribunal hoy ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO Sala de Mayagüez. 11 de septiembre de 2020. SaDE PUERTO RICO TRIBUrahi Reyes Perez, Secretaria. LEGAL NOTICE NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA LEGAL NOTICE SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO JUAN.
MORTGAGE BANKERS POR CONDUCTO DE SU AGENTE RESIDENTE; FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION (FDIC) COMO SÍNDICO DE DORAL BANK; DORAL MORTGAGE CORPORATION T/C/C DORAL MORTGAGE, LLC., POR CONDUCTO DE SU AGENTE RESIDENTE CT CORPORATION SYSTEM; WILLIAM PÉREZ ROSARIO, RUTH DOMÍNGUEZ BURGOS Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS, FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL PAGARÉ
PARTE DEMANDADA CIVIL NÚM. SJ2020CV03882 (803). SOBRE: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO POR LA VÍA JUDICIAL. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS E.E.U.U. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.
A: FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION (FDIC) COMO SÍNDICO DE DORAL BANK a las siguientes direcciones: FDIC SAN JUAN FIELD OFFICE, 235 CALLE FEDERICO COSTA, STE 335, SAN JUAN, PR 00918-1341, 350 5TH AVE STE 1200, NEW YORK NY 10118-1201 Y 1601 BRYAN ST., DALLAS TX 752013401. WILLIAM PÉREZ ROSARIO, RUTH DOMÍNGUEZ BURGOS Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS a sus últimas direcciones conocidas: PARQUE SAN AGUSTÍN, APT H202, SAN JUAN, PR 00923 Y COND PARQUE BANCO POPULAR DE GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRI- DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE SAN AGUSTÍN, 501 BUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTAN- GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIPUERTO RICO CALLE GUAYANILLA CIA SALA DE ISABELA. BUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTAN- PARTE DEMANDANTE VS. BOX 46, SAN JUAN, PR CIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN BANCO POPULAR DE FIRST FINANCIAL JUAN. 00923-3021. FULANO PUERTO RICO CARIBBEAN JAIME IVAN Y MENGANO DE TAL, Demandante Vs. CORPORATION T/C/C FIGUEROA ALMODOVAR POSIBLES TENEDORES DANIEL A. CRESPO DORAL FINANCIAL Parte Demandante Vs. ROMAN, FULANA DE TAL CORPORATION H/N/C H.F. DESCONOCIDOS DEL @
staredictos@thesanjuandailystar.com
(787) 743-3346
Tuesday, October 6, 2020 PAGARÉ.
Queda usted notificado que en este Tribunal se ha radicado demanda sobre cancelación de pagaré extraviado por la vía judicial. El 8 de de octubre de 1993, William Pérez Rosario y su esposa Ruth Domínguez Burgos constituyeron hipoteca en San Juan Puerto Rico, mediante la Escritura núm. 133 autorizada por el notario Edgardo del Valle Galarza en garantía de un pagaré a favor de First Financial Caribbean Corporation haciendo negocios como H. F. Mortgage Bankers por la suma de $22,700.00, intereses al 5.95%, sobre la siguiente propiedad: URBANA: PROPIEDAD HORIZONTAL: Apartamento H-202. Apartamento residencial de forma irregular localizado en la segunda planta del edificio H del Condominio Parque San Agustín situado en el barrio Sabana Llana del término municipal en San Juan, Puerto Rico. El área aproximada es de 1,083.53 pies cuadrados equivalentes a 100.70 metros cuadrados. Son sus lindes: por el NORTE, en una distancia máxima de 37’3” con área de exterior común; por el SUR, en una distancia máxima de 37’3” con área de exterior común; por el ESTE, en una distancia máxima de 33’ con el apartamento I-201; y por el OESTE, en una distancia máxima de 29’8” con el apartamento H-201 y con el área de escalera común. La puerta de entrada al apartamento está situada en su Oeste. Consta de sala-comedor, cocina-laundry, balcón, 3 dormitorios, pasillo y 2 baños. Le corresponde un espacio de estacionamiento identificado con el mismo número del apartamento (H-202). Este apartamento tiene una participación de 1.47% de los elementos comunes del condominio. La propiedad y la escritura de hipoteca constan inscritas al tomo 13 del tomo 1053 de Sabana Llana, Finca 34297. Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan. Sección V. Inscripción quinta. La parte demandada deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal Se le advierte que, si no contesta la demanda, radicando el original de la contestación en este Tribunal y enviando copia de la contestación a la abogada de la Parte Demandante, Lcda. Belma Alonso García, cuya
dirección es: PO Box 3922, Guaynabo, PR 00970-3922, Teléfono y Fax: (787) 7891826, correo electrónico: oficinabelmaalonso@gmail.com, dentro del término de treinta (30) días de la publicación de este edicto, excluyéndose el día de la publicación, se le anotará la rebeldía y se le dictará Sentencia en su contra, concediendo el remedio solicitado sin más citarle ni oírle. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal, hoy 24 de septiembre de 2020 en San Juan, Puerto Rico. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA. LEVY RODRÍGUEZ, LINDA, SUBSECRETARIA(O).
LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN.
BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO
PARTE DEMANDANTE VS.
FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION (FDIC) COMO SÍNDICO DE RG FEDERAL SAVINGS BANK T/C/C RG PREMIER BANK OF PUERTO RICO Y DE RG MORTGAGE CORPORATION; ORIENTAL BANK COMO SUCESOR EN DERECHO DE SCOTIABANK DE PUERTO RICO; TRADITIONAL BANKERS MORTGAGE CORPORATION; JUAN ALBERTO RÍOS AROCHO, CARMEN MILAGROS GARCÍA BARRETO, FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL PAGARÉ
PARTE DEMANDADA CIVIL NÚM. SJ2020CV02102 (602). SOBRE: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO POR LA VÍA JUDICIAL. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS E.E.U.U. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.
A: TRADITIONAL BANKERS MORTGAGE CORPORATION a sus últimas direcciones conocidas: 15 MÉNDEZ VIGO ST, ESQ. AURORA, PONCE PR 00731 y PO BOX 7383, PONCE, PR 00732-7383. JUAN ALBERTO RÍOS
The San Juan Daily Star AROCHO a sus últimas direcciones conocidas: 439 CALLE APENINOS, RIO PIEDRAS, PR 00926 y PO BOX 439, MANATI, PR 00674. FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL PAGARÉ
Queda usted notificado que en este Tribunal se ha radicado demanda sobre cancelación de pagaré extraviado por la vía judicial. El 31 de octubre del 1992, Juan Alberto Ríos Arocho constituyó una hipoteca en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, conforme a la Escritura núm. 1326 autorizada por el notario Héctor Moyano Noriega, en garantía de un pagaré bajo el affidavit núm. 14,041 por la suma de $81,000.00, a favor de RG Federal Savings Bank o a su orden, con intereses al 8⅝% anual y vencedero el 1 de noviembre de 2022, sobre la siguiente propiedad: URBANA: Solar de forma rectangular que mide doce metros de frente por veintiún metros de fondo, marcado con el número seis de la manzana GI, de la Urbanización Puerto Nuevo, propiedad de la Everlasting Development Corporation, que radica en el barrio Monacillos de Río Piedras, con un área superficial de doscientos cincuenta y dos metros cuadrados; en lindes por el NORTE, SUR, ESTE y OESTE, con terrenos propiedad de la Everlasting Development Corporation y dando frente al Oeste con la calle denominada calle número cincuentiuno de la urbanización. La propiedad consta inscrita al folio 1 del tomo 203 de Monacillos, Finca 7482 Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección III. La escritura de hipoteca consta inscrita al folio 219 del tomo 840 de Monacillos, Finca 7482 Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección III. Inscripción séptima. La parte demandada deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal. Se le advierte que, si no contesta la demanda, radicando el original de la contestación en este Tribunal y enviando copia de la contestación a la abogada de la Parte Demandante, Lcda. Belma Alonso García, cuya dirección es: PO Box 3922, Guaynabo,
PR 00970-3922, Teléfono y Fax: (787) 789-1826, correo electrónico: oficinabelmaalonso@gmail.com, dentro del término de treinta (30) días de la publicación de este edicto, excluyéndose el día de la publicación, se le anotará la rebeldía y se le dictará Sentencia en su contra, concediendo el remedio solicitado sin más citarle ni oírle. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal, hoy 25 de septiembre de 2020 en San Juan, Puerto Rico. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. LOYDA M. COUVERTIER REYES, SECRETARIA(O) SERVICIOS A SALA.
LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYAMON SALA SUPERIOR GUAYNABO
WILMJNGTON SAVINGS FUND SOCIETY FSB d/b/a Christiana Trust, as indenture Trustce, for the CSMC 2015-PR 1 Trust Mortgage-Backed Notes, Series 2015-PR-1 Parte Demandante Vs.
SUCESION DE MIRTHA ALEMAN SANTIAGO T/C/C MYRTA ALEMAN SANTIANGO, T/C/C MYRTA DEL CARMEN ALEMAN SANTIAGO, MIRTA DEL CARMEN ALEMAN, COMPUESTA POR DAMARIS CRUZ ALEMAN, ARELIS CRUZ ALEMAN, JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; ALBERTO CRUZ SANTINI; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE IMPUESTOS MUNICIPALES
Parte Demandada CIVIL NUM. BY2018CV03553. SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA “IN REM”. NOTIFICACION DE INTERPELACION POR EDICTO. Estados Unidos de América Presidente de los Estados Unidos de América Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico.
A: Damaris Cruz Alemán, Arelis Cruz Alemán como herederas de Sucesión de Mirtha Alemán Santiago t/c/c Myrtha Alemán Santiago t/c/c Myrta Del Carmen Alemán Santiago t/c/c Mirta Del Carmen Alemán Santiago
The San Juan Daily Star
y John Doe y Richard Roe como posibles herederos desconocidos de la Sucesión de Mirtha Alemán Santiago t/c/c Myrtha Alemán Santiago t/c/c Myrta Del Carmen Alemán Santiago t/c/c Mirta Del Carmen Alemán Santiago
Por la presente se le notifica, como miembro y/o posible herederos desconocidos de la Sucesión de Mirtha Alemán Santiago t/c/c Myrtha Alemán Santiago t/c/c Myrta Del Carmen Alemán Santiago tic/e Mirta Del Carmen Alemán Santiago se ha presentado una solicitud de interpelación judicial para que sirva en el término de treinta {30) días aceptar o repudiar la herencia. Se le apercibe que si no compareciera usted a expresarse dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación de este edicto en tomo a la aceptación o repudiación de la herencia, se presumirá que han aceptado la herencia de la causante Mirtha Alemán Santiago t/c/c Myrtha Alemán Santiago t/c/c Myrta Del Carmen Alemán Santiago tic/e Mirta Del Carmen Alemán Santiago y por consiguiente, responderán por las cargas de dicha herencia conforme dispone el Art. 957 del Código Civil, 31 L.P.R.A. S2785. Deberá notificar además a la representación legal de la parte demandante, la Lcda. Marjaliisa Colon Villanueva, con oficina en la Avenida Tito Castro #481 en Ponce, Puerto Rico 00716 y con dirección postal Apartado 7970, Ponce, Puerto Rico 00732-7970, Tel. (787) 843-4168. En Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, a 28 de septiembre de 2020. Lcda. Laura I Santa Sanchez, Sec Regional. Diamar T. Gonzalez Barreto, Sec del Tribunal Conf II.
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
TO POR EDICTO.
su alegación responsiva en la secretaría dl tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remeLEGAL NOTICE dio solicita1o en la demanda o ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO cualquier otro sin más citarle ni DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- oírle, si el tribunal en el ejerciNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA cio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sisteSALA DE SAN JUAN. MERCHANT ADVANCE, ma SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de la parte demanLLC danté, el Lcdo. Kenmuel J. Ruiz DEMANDANTE VS. López cuya dirección es: P.O. GRUPO SANGRIAS INC., Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto H/N/C/ SANGRJAS OLD Rico 00936-85 18, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección SAN JUAN Y RUBEN kenmuel.riuz@orf-law.com. L. AYALA ORTIZ Y EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA ZULMARIE RIVERA y el sello del Tribunal, en San CARRASQUILLO, AMBOS Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy día 3 EN SU CARÁCTER de septiembre de 2020. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 3 de PERSONAL Y COMO septiembre de 2020. GRISELMIEMBROS DE LA DA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE Secretaria. ENID DIAZ RIOS, BIENES GANANCIALES Secretario(a) Auxiliar
POR AMBOS COMPUESTA
de FAJARDO..
A: GRUPO SANGRIAS MANUEL INC., por conducto de ANGUEIRA ROLON Demandante v. Rubén L. Ayala Ortiz o RUTH MOLINA agente autorizado. DELGADO, ET.ALS. A: RUBEN L. AYALA Demandado(a) ORTIZ por si y como Civil: FA2019CV00802. Sobre: representante 1ela CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ sociedad legal de bienes EXTRAVIADO, INCUMPLIgananciales compuesta MIENTO DE CONTRATO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA con Zulmarie Rivera POR EDICTO. Carrasquillo. A: RUTH MOLINA A: ZULMARIE RIVERA DELGADO también CARRASQUILLO por si y conocida como RUTH como representante de la SWEDARSKY; ISAURO sociedad legal de bienes gananciales compuesta FRANCESCHINI VARGAS, su esposa DOLORES con Rubén L. Ayala Ortiz. JIMÉNEZ PEDRAGÓN NOTIFIQUESE A LAS y la Sociedad Legal de DIRECCIONES: Bienes Gananciales ¯ PO Box 9021092 San Compuesta entre ambos; Juan, P.R. 00902. JOHN DOE y RICHARD ¯ 311 Calle Tetuán Viejo ROE como demandados San Juan, SJ P.R. 00901. desconocidos con ¯ Alaya & Capó: Calle posible interés: 625 N Lopez Flores Esq. Muñoz VAN BUREN AVE APT Rivera, 00726 412, TUCSON, AZ 85711Caguas, P.R. 2438; PO BOX 361167 ¯ ra@ayalaortiz.com SAN JUAN, PR 00936(dirección de RUA) 1167; CONDOMINIO POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que ISLETA MARINA, TORRE conteste la demanda dentro de I APARTAMENTO 5-C, los treinta (30) días siguientes FAJARDO, PR 00740; a la publicación de este Edicto. 933 N GADSDEN PL, Usted deberá presentar su aleTUCSON, AZ 85710gación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y 2643; 933N GADSEN PL, Administración de Casos (SUTUCSON, AZ 85710MAC), la cual puede acceder 2643; 727 SAPPHIRE ST utilizando la siguiente direcUNIT 206, SAN DIEGO, ción electrónica: https://unired. CA 92109-10267; 727 ramajudjcjal.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, SAPPHIRE ST 206, SAN en cuyo caso deberá presentar DIEGO, CA 92109-1026.
LEGAL NOTICE
Estado Libre Asociado de PuerDEMANDADO CIVIL NÚM.: SJ2020CV00661. to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL SALÓN: 602. SOBRE: COBRO DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de PriDE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIEN- mera Instancia Sala Superior
(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que 11 de agosto de 2020, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 30 de septiembre de 2020. En Fajardo, el 30 de septiembre
de 2020. Wanda I Segui Reyes, ciere usted a contestar dicha Secretaria. F/KATHERINE RO- demanda dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de BLES TORRES, Sec Auxiliar. la publicación de este edicLEGAL NOTICE to, radicando el original de la ESTAIJO LIBRE ASOCIADO contestación ante el Tribunal DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- correspondiente, con copia a la NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA parte demandante, se le anoSALA SUPERIOR DE CARO- taría la rebeldía y se le dictará sentencia concediendo el reLINA. medio solicitado sin más citarle ASOCIACIÓN DE ni oírle. Expedido bajo mi fama PROPIETARIOS Y y sello del Tribunal, hoy 17 de RESIDENTES VISTAMAR septiembre de 2020. Lcda MaMARINA ESTE, INC., rilyn Aponte Rodríguez, SecreDemandante, vs. taria Regional. Lourdes Diaz ARNALDO GOENAGA Medina, Sec Aux Tribunal I.
MILlAN, JEANNIE JURI RIVERA y la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales compuesta por ambos,
LEGAL NOTICE
Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Codemandados. Primera Instancia Sala Superior CIVIL NÚM.: CA2020CV01593. de CAROLINA. SALA: 408. SOBRE: INVICTOR RIVERA JUNCTION PERMANENTE, RIVERA Y YOLANDA INCUMPLIMIENTO DE CONCARRASQUILLO ROSA DICIONES RESTRICTIVAS. Demandante EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICESTADOS UNIDOS TO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE AMÉRICA POR DE LOS EE. UU. EL ESTADO CONDUCTO DE LA LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R. SS.
A: ARNALDO GOENAGA MILlAN, por si y en representación de la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales compuesta por éste y la codemandada Jeannie Jun Rivera 241 NW 217 Way, Pembroke Pines, FL 33029 JEANNIE JURI RIVERA, por si y en representación de la Sociedad Legal de Gananciales compuesta por ésta y el codemandado Arnaldo Goenaga Rivera 241 NW 217 Way, Pembroke Pines, FL 33029
Por la presente se les notifica que se ha radicado en este Tribunal una Demanda de Injunction Permanente bajo el número del epígrafe. Representa a la parte demandante, el abogado cuyo nombre, dirección y teléfono se consigna de en adelante: Lcdo. Iván López Irizarry Banco Cooperativo Plaza, Suite 205-B 623 Ave. Ponce de León Hato Rey, PR 00917 (787) 239-3613 ivan_lopez33@yahoo.com 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, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal. Se le apercibe que si no compare-
ADMINISTRACIÓN DE HOGARES DE AGRICULTORES (USDA), JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE
Demandado(a) Civil Núm: CA2020CV01060 (406). Sobre: CANCELACION DE PAGARE 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 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 1 de octubre de 2020. En CAROLINA, Puerto Rico, el 1 de octubre de 2020. MARILYN APONTE RODRIGUEZ, Secretaria. JANNETTE RAMIREZ BERNARD, Sec Auxiliar.
25
LEGAL NOT ICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE SAN JUAN SALA SUPERIOR 807.
MR CONSTRUCTION, INC. Demandante Vs.
INMOBILIARIA MEDIO MUNDO, LLC; y otros
Demandados CIVIL NÚM: SJ2019CV13173. SOBRE: LEY DE CORPORACIONES, COBRO DE DINERO - ORDINARIO - FRAUDE DE ACREEDORES, DAÑOS, IMPUGNACIÓN DE CONTRATO, NULIDAD DE CONTRATO, ACCIÓN RESCISORIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO el Tribunal correspondiente y DE PUERTO RICO. SS. notifique con copia al abogado de la parte demandante, A: ALL HANDS DEVELOPMENT, LLC LCDO. GABRIEL R. AVILES APONTE, 1056 AVE. MUÑOZ PMB 606, Suite 105, RIVERA, COND. FIRST FE89 De Diego Avenue DERAL, STE. 613 SAN JUAN, PR 00927, TELEFONOS: (787) San Juan, PR 00927 POR LA PRESENTE se les 764-1430/1530 FAX (787) 767emplaza y requiere para que 1683 gravileslaw@gmail.com. conteste la demanda dentro de SE LES APERCIBE que, de no los treinta (30) días siguientes hacer sus alegaciones respona la publicación de este Edicto. sivas a la demanda dentro del Usted deberá radicar su ale- término aquí dispuesto, se les gación responsiva a través del anotará la rebeldía y se dictaSistema Unificado de Manejo y rá Sentencia, concediéndose Administración de Casos (SU- el remedio solicitado en la DeMAC), al cual puede acceder manda, sin más citarle ni oírle. utilizando la siguiente dirección EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA electrónica: http://unired.rama- y el Sello del Tribunal, hoy día judicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se 26 de agosto de 2020. Griselda presente por derecho propio, Rodriguez Collado, Secretaria. en cuyo caso deberá radicar el Norma I Flores Rivera, Sec de original de su contestación ante Sala. Sec
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The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
At French Open, separation in interviews makes for some odd and lost exchanges By KAREN CROUSE
F
rom behind a glass divider with frosted patterns, French Open players bare their souls to voices seated on the other side. It is Roland Garros’ version of the confessional, and in the first week of the French Open, players paid more than 158 visits to the boxy phosphorescent rooms and fielded more than 1,083 questions, many from reporters on the other side of the divider, as close to the athletes as the baseline is from the net. “It’s obviously a very strange situation,” said Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria, who is seeded 18th. In accordance with coronavirus-induced self-distancing protocols, players’ face-to-face interviews with most reporters have moved online. Like videoconferencing desk workers everywhere, the participants are adjusting to the new normal while gaining a new appreciation for what is lost in the transaction. “I miss you guys,” Dimitrov said Saturday night as he sat behind a desk and stared at a checkerboard of faces on a flat screen mounted to a post in the middle of an otherwise empty room. Dimitrov, 29, added that he “feeds off” the “vibes” of a full house of reporters, even when the sentiments they express give him pause, as happened last week when a reporter from a remote location confessed that he was jealous of Dimitrov for dating Maria Sharapova and asked if he had kept in touch with her since their 2015 breakup and her 2020 retirement. Dimitrov gracefully volleyed back the wild lob with a playful reply: “You can still be jealous.” Dimitrov still loves the old-fashioned news conference, perhaps no surprise given that his arsenal includes a classic one-hand backhand. “Whatever insight I can give, it’s not only for me, not only for the audience, but also for the fans,” he said before his fourth-round match Monday against Stefano Tsitsipas. “One of the things our sport needs a lot more, I would say, is just get closer to the fans.” Tsitsipas, the fifth seed from Greece, appreciates the value of the news me-
dia maybe more than most. Tsitsipas, a fan who dabbled in journalism before he became a professional athlete, sat up straighter in his seat when he was asked what he got out of news conferences. “I have something interesting to say,” said Tsitsipas, who went on to describe at some length the Facebook page that he set up before he was a teenager. Ten years later, Tsitsipas, 22, remembers vividly the details of the page he named “Tenniscore ITN,” where he posted news about top players like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. He said he updated the information regularly after poring over the latest tennis results and news of interest. It was the daily assignment he gave himself before he started in on his schoolwork. “I was really into it,” said Tsitsipas, who took great pains not to let his personal biases seep into his coverage. “That is the most challenging part of journalism, isn’t it?” Tsitsipas said Saturday night with a mischievousness that perforated all the barriers between him and his audience. “I think you all know that Roger Federer was my favorite player growing up, but I didn’t necessarily make him a god in my Facebook page,” he said. A beatific smile lit his face. “Everyone was treated the same,” he added. Because he was a novice journalist striving to find a unique way to present his information long before he became
a seasoned competitor answering the same old questions, Tsitsipas said, he recognized how challenging it could be to give an interview a different spin or present a novel angle. “I do appreciate journalists that come out a little bit more, I would say, unexpected,” Tsitsipas said. “Ask me some other things that don’t relate or don’t have to do with my tennis match, but in a way, in a deeper sense, and kind of unlock something within me in which I can express myself a little bit more open, provide more information. That’s what it is all about: information; getting the best, the most, out of the player.” The virtual news conference, while better than nothing, is not the best vehicle for steering athletes down interesting paths. Interviews are constructed like points in a match. Participants often start out with a planned course of action, but the best will nimbly adjust depending on what is thrown at them. There is a flow, a spontaneity, to a verbal rally that is hard to achieve when there is an audio delay on one end or reporters are fumbling to unmute their microphones — or are cut off by the moderator midsyllable as they try to nail down an answer with a second question. Then there are the questions so convoluted they require multiple clarifications just so the player can make sense of what is being asked. At 114 words, the fifth of eight questions in the English por-
tion of the Spaniard Nadal’s news conference Sunday took longer than some of the rallies in his straight-sets victory over American qualifier Sebastian Korda. It began: “Can you sympathize with us a little because you keep winning so it’s often tough for us to ask you new questions,” and devolved from there. It was nominally about a nifty return that Nadal made on a windswept ball but pivoted to include whether Nadal had ever lost something that was important to him and did he like dancing off the court. Nadal gamely answered the question about the shot, explaining that in the windy conditions it is important to stay focused and accept that you’re going to make mistakes. “And have you ever lost anything that you have found?” the reporter persisted. “Sorry?” Nadal replied. The virtual news conference, featuring reporters logging in from all over the world, is revealing in its own way, as was demonstrated by the shirtless reporter in one tennis news conference in August. Or by the former world No. 1 Andy Murray at the U.S. Open when he commented on the plush Pikachu toys on a shelf in one reporter’s video background. On Saturday night, after he stepped down from his news conference, Tsitsipas recorded an audio text to explain the difference in the dynamics now compared with before the pandemic. “The absence of reporters can be felt,” Tsitsipas said, adding: “First of all, the energy you get from each one of them when asking the question, having them in person, it can give you a good or a bad impression. And it can also impact your answer.” Like so much else that used to be taken for granted, the live news conference is a casualty of the health crisis that is appreciated a lot more now that it is gone. “I much prefer the interaction person to person,” Tsitsipas said. Referring to its virtual counterpart, he added: “Who knows? Maybe that’s the future of journalism.”
The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
27
Cardinals’ trust in Bob Gibson went beyond his fastball and slider By TYLER KEPNER
I
t should have been as good as over: Bob Gibson on the mound in Game 7 of the World Series, facing the bottom of the New York Yankees’ order with a four-run lead in the ninth inning. But Clete Boyer homered with one out, and Phil Linz homered with two out. Due up was Bobby Richardson, who somehow had seven hits off Gibson in the World Series. The dangerous Roger Maris would follow Richardson. Gibson was pitching on two days’ rest and coming off a 10-inning complete game. Yet Johnny Keane, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, left his ace on the mound. The 1964 World Series would be Gibson’s to decide. “I had a commitment to his heart,” Keane said later, a telling and touching comment about both Gibson — who died of pancreatic cancer Friday at age 84 — and his era. But while logic said Gibson was tired that day, his stuff did not show it. Gibson’s final pitch was a fastball, just high enough that Richardson could not hit the line drive he wanted. He swung under the pitch and lifted a harmless fly to second base. The Yankees’ glory years were over, and Gibson was a champion. “That fastball I popped up was just as good as it was at the start of the game,” Richardson said Sunday from his home in Sumter, S.C. “I never thought for a moment that Johnny Keane would take him out.” Gibson died on the final day of the season for the Cardinals, the only team he played for in his Hall of Fame career. They were eliminated from the playoffs with a shutout by the San Diego Padres, who used nine pitchers to do what Gibson often did by himself, especially in October. Gibson made three trips to the postseason, all in the years when the regularseason champions advanced directly to the World Series. He made nine starts and threw 81 innings, going 7-2 with a 1.89 ERA and is the only pitcher to win Game 7 of the World Series twice. The second time was in 1967, at Fenway Park in Boston. The Red Sox used their Cy Young Award winner, Jim Lonborg, on short rest, and the Cardinals battered him. Gibson struck out 10, hit a homer and went
Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson, who won seven consecutive World Series starts, died on Friday at age 84. the distance for his third win of the Series. “You knew you had to stay close to beat him, and Lonborg just didn’t have his stuff,” Rico Petrocelli, Boston’s shortstop that day, said by phone Sunday. “He was exhausted, and with Gibson, there was no change. It was like the first game, same thing — boom, breaking ball, boom, fastball in, right on the black on the outside corner. He had it all.” Gibson saved his most dominant performance for the opener in 1968, when he set a World Series single-game strikeout record with 17 against Detroit. He won again in Game 4 and was pitching a shutout in Game 7 when center fielder Curt Flood misjudged a two-out fly ball by Jim Northrup in the seventh, turning it into a decisive two-run triple. Although he pitched a complete game that day — of course — Gibson lost to Mickey Lolich, ending a season in which he was never pulled from a game in midinning. Gibson had a 1.12 ERA, a modern
record, and won the National League Cy Young and MVP Awards. Gibson’s slider was a devastating weapon but a physical hazard; try turning a doorknob as hard as you can, over and over. His success with the pitch inspired a young teammate, Steve Carlton, to use it as well — but Carlton modified his release and used innovative training techniques, all to minimize the pain he saw Gibson endure. “Gibby always used to say: If you throw, it’s going to hurt,” Carlton said in a 2015 interview. “There’s truth in that.” Carlton pitched longer than Gibson and also wound up in the Hall of Fame. At a reception before his induction ceremony, in 1994, Tim McCarver saluted Carlton in a speech, with Gibson in the crowd. McCarver, who caught both pitchers in their primes, told the crowd that if Carl Hubbell had the best screwball ever, Nolan Ryan the best fastball and Sandy Koufax the best curveball, then surely Carlton had the best slider.
“Everybody applauded, it was very emotional, very fitting,” McCarver said a few years ago. “And we’re hugging, and I look over Steve’s shoulder and I see this figure swinging through the crowd — a ‘he had to get to me’ type of deal. Well, that figure was Gibson. He gets about 6 inches from my face and says: ‘The best left-handed slider in the history of the game!’ He kind of skulked away and laughed. He had to have the last word.” Gibson’s intimidating persona has only grown lately, as MLB tries to eliminate brushback pitches with fines and suspensions to promote player safety. But Gibson never actually led the league in hit batsmen, and when he did hit a batter, it was usually a right-hander moving up on the plate to reach the slider. Their fault, Gibson would say. “When you go guessing for a ball outside and you go out there to get it — especially with that slider out there a lot to right-handers — they would start out there to get that ball,” Gibson said in 2015. “Well, if I threw a fastball inside, especially a twoseamer, it’s going to hit them. And I wouldn’t acknowledge, ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ I would never acknowledge that. I just said, ‘Gimme another ball, let’s go,’ so they thought I was throwing at everybody. And that was OK.” Gibson was generous off the field, Richardson said; when they served together on the board of the Baseball Assistance Team, Gibson would sometimes cover an ailing player’s expenses by himself. He was intensely loyal to friends like McCarver and Joe Torre, and gentle with children. After a banquet in the 1990s, Gibson engaged in a conversation with a 9-year-old Little Leaguer and shared his attitude on the mound. “He asked me if I pitched, and we got to talking about how much he took it personally when the hitter stepped in the box against him, making him feel uncomfortable and attacking him, trying to embarrass the guy,” said the boy, Drew Storen, who grew up to pitch in the major leagues. “That’s something I always took to heart: You have to go out there and have that mound presence.” No pitcher ever had a presence quite like Gibson, the master of the big moment and a monument to prideful endurance.
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The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
The one name the WNBA won’t say By KURT STREETER
T
hey will not say her name. Not now, after what these players have been through. It is important not to give her recognition. Think of it as protest jujitsu. The WNBA finals have begun. On Sunday, the Seattle Storm defeated the Las Vegas Aces, 104-91, to take a 2-0 lead in their best-of-five series. Game 3 is tonight. In its 24th year, the women’s league has some of the most incandescent players in basketball but still struggles for broad recognition and respect. In this strange season, which unfolded in a Florida arena without fans because of the coronavirus pandemic, the minimalist environment has provided a bright backdrop for the league’s evolving talent to shine. The legacy of the 2020 season, however, will not only be about on-court action and a championship won. It will also be about the WNBA’s continued leadership in the battle for human rights. In no way has this been clearer than in how its players have responded to brackish bullying from an unexpected source: an owner of the Atlanta Dream, Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga. When they talk about her, they refuse to name her. Think back to June, to the raw-edged days after the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. As the nation reeled and launched into self-examination, the WNBA was among the first professional leagues to say its upcoming season would be devoted to pushing for social justice and promoting the Black Lives Matter movement. That was not a surprise. Nearly 70 percent of the league’s players are Black, and a significant number of its stars are lesbian. They are women who know all too well the full brunt of discrimination. That is why they have been leaders in the justice fight for so long. Nor was it a surprise when they faced blowback. The surprise was that the blowback came from within — to be specific, from one of the league’s most influential voices, Loeffler, who is running to keep her seat in the Nov. 3 election. Loeffler reacted by publicly scoffing at the league’s pledge to double down on social justice support in 2020. She scorned the decision to cover player jerseys with the slogan “Say Her Name,” meant to call attention to the deaths of Black women like Breonna Taylor at the hands of police. In a letter to the WNBA’s commissioner, Loeffler wrote, “I adamantly oppose the Black Lives Matter political movement,” before listing a series of inaccurate claims, including that it “promoted violence and destruction across the country.” There was a method to Loeffler’s obstinate stance. She has been engaged in a hard-nosed battle for Repub-
lican voters in a conservative state. To gild her bona fides with the far-right in her party, she cribbed from a wellworn playbook used by President Donald Trump: To show toughness, verbally attack Black athletes and draw them into a fight. Even if it meant attacking everything that the players on her team — along with the entire league — have stood for. But things have not turned out as she planned. With each of the league’s dozen teams sequestered on a sports training campus near Tampa Bay, the players huddled together. They knew the WNBA commissioner’s office had denounced Loeffler’s views. They also understood that their cash-compromised league was not exactly in a prime position to demand she put her 49 percent stake in the Dream up for sale. Amid a pandemic and widespread economic calamity, who would be the buyer? So the players strategized and took her on in their typically thoughtful manner. “We realized, ‘Oh, she wants us to get mad,’” said Sue Bird, Seattle’s veteran guard, remembering the moment as we spoke last week by telephone. “She wants us to try and kick her out. That would give her more attention. This is what she wants. “We had to find a better way.” Instead of meeting force with force, providing fodder that would only fuel Loeffler’s campaign, the players decided to work around her. Just like jujitsu. Their first move was decisive and quietly aggressive: In interviews, public pronouncements and on social media, they decided to stop saying her name. They refused to give her the dignity. “Words are things,” said Nneka Ogwumike, the Los Angeles Sparks forward who is president of the league’s players association, as she walked me through the strategy. “Words have power. And to give energy to a name I think is very meaningful. So we stopped saying that name.” The next move was more to the point. It began with leaguewide video calls featuring a cast of advisers including Michelle Obama and Stacey Abrams, who in her bid to become governor of Georgia in 2018 nearly became the first Black woman to be elected governor anywhere in the United States. The discussions centered on politics and power. The players began vetting Loeffler’s political opponents in the upcoming election, looking for a way to insert themselves into a race that could end up altering the balance of congressional power. They homed in on one candidate: the Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat and a pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. was a pastor. Once Warnock addressed the players over Zoom, there was no doubt. “It was clear to us immediately,” Bird told me. “He stands for everything that we stand for. You
Sue Bird of the Seattle Storm wearing a “Vote Warnock” T-shirt in support of a political opponent of Senator Kelly Loeffler, who has spoken against the Black Lives Matter movement. could literally go down the line of all the things we care about, and we were aligned with him. It was like, ‘Wow, we want this guy in the Senate. This is the candidate that we want in the Senate.’” Within days, nearly everyone in the league began showing up for their nationally televised games wearing black T-shirts emblazoned with two words: Vote Warnock. That kind of mass support for a single candidate opened a new chapter in the annals of athlete protests. “It’s unprecedented,” said Amira Rose Davis, an assistant professor at Penn State who specializes in race, sports and gender. Davis noted the many examples of individual athletes supporting politicians. That’s been the tradition in sports. “But this is different,” she said. “The coordination. The strategic part. The specificity, taking the time to meet a candidate and then to back that candidate as a group. That has never happened before.” After the player push, the Warnock campaign said it received a significant boost in enthusiasm and financial support. A spokesperson said $236,000 flowed to the campaign in the days after the T-shirt endorsement began. Although it is impossible to draw a direct correlation with the WNBA’s activism, at least one major poll shows Warnock surging ahead of Loeffler and the other candidates for the first time. This Senate race is far from over. If no candidate gets a majority of votes, there will be a runoff in January with the top two vote-getters. “If Warnock wins and the byproduct is that a certain someone is not in the Senate, then, hey, we’re all happy,” said Bird, refusing, of course, to say that certain someone’s name. No matter how this season or the election turns out, women’s professional basketball has once again helped lead the way — this time by showing the best way to work around a bully.
The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
29
Sudoku How to Play: Fill in the empty fields with the numbers from 1 through 9. Sudoku Rules: Every row must contain the numbers from 1 through 9 Every column must contain the numbers from 1 through 9 Every 3x3 square must contain the numbers from 1 through 9
Crossword
Answers on page 30
Wordsearch
GAMES
HOROSCOPE Aries
30
(Mar 21-April 20)
A chance to make some cash out of a hobby or special talent should not be overlooked. This may not be a regular source of income but it will add to your bank balance. Study new subjects and develop your skills if you want to make yourself a more interesting person at parties and get togethers.
Taurus
(April 21-May 21)
A dash of creativity can brighten the dullest of chores. You need more excitement in your life if you are to feel content and happy. If you’re spending a lot of time at home watch a romantic film or read a favourite novel. Give your partner or children a hug when they least expect it.
Gemini
(May 22-June 21)
Cancer
(June 22-July 23)
Heavy responsibilities have left you tired and worn out. If you can, delegate some of the work to housemates or workmates. Friends have been putting too much pressure on you to join in with social activities you haven’t time for. Be firm to get them to understand this cannot continue.
You are ready to take your life in a new direction. New skills recently learned will pave the way to bigger and better opportunities. You will be glad you stuck at it even when you were about to give in. Your practical knowledge of life will impress a senior colleague.
Leo
(July 24-Aug 23)
Your ability to keep smiling in the face of adversity will help keep other people inspired too. It isn’t luck that gets you to your goals. It is your willingness to push through obstacles until you get the results you are aiming for. It’s important to find compromise in a close relationship.
Virgo
(Aug 24-Sep 23)
The San Juan Daily Star
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
A community activity is disorganised and disappointing. They could do with someone like you to take the driver’s seat. If you’re willing to take charge, this will be your chance to expand your skill set. People don’t often realise how taking on a leadership role can be a good learning opportunity.
Libra
(Sep 24-Oct 23)
It is becoming increasingly difficult to feel happy when you are spending a lot of time with someone who does not share your interests. It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t try to curb you from doing what you plan. You’re inclined now to go off now, to follow our own inclinations and to leave them to do whatever it is they want to do without you.
Scorpio
(Oct 24-Nov 22)
Despite the fact you realise someone close has something on their mind, you won’t question them. If they wanted to talk about it, they would already have done so. You’ve always been intuitive and you can sense there is something wrong but you also know they have to work this out on their own.
Sagittarius
(Nov 23-Dec 21)
Capricorn
(Dec 22-Jan 20)
Someone is complaining about group travel plans they can’t afford. You don’t want to leave them out of anything but you also sense they are hinting for a reduction in the amount they contribute. If this would be unfair on others who are involved, it may be that they will just have to pay their share or pull out.
Discussing changes and improvements you have in mind for the future will be at times be frustrating. Show patience with anyone who has objections to your plans. Put your powers of persuasion to good use and you will get others to see why some ideas are so important to you.
Aquarius
(Jan 21-Feb 19)
Recently you’ve enjoyed a good run in being successful in handling your own finances as well as a shared budget. It is time now to give others a chance to discuss their ideas. Consider their opinions and suggestions. Not only will you enjoy sharing this responsibility but you could end up better off too.
Pisces
(Feb 20-Mar 20)
It doesn’t matter how long you have known someone, steer conversations away from touchy topics. Discussing political, religious or financial affairs could lead to a row. In some matters you need to follow your instincts for they won’t lead you astray even though this will upset someone you live with.
Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29
Tuesday, October 6, 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
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
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