Friday to Sunday Sep 11-13, 2020 by The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

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The Secret of How to Sell Stories Through the Art of Soap Crafting

Lighter Restrictions

New Executive Order Reopens Beaches, Casinos, Gyms, Others Curfew Hours Stay the Same; Yes, Keep Using Your Mask

Pro-Statehood Lawyer and Former Ombudsman to New SEC Chairman: Protect Vote of PDP Senator Back in Court Citizens with Disabilities 20 Years Later Over Status P4

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September 11-13, 2020

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September 11- 13, 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.

New executive order lessens restrictions on beaches, private sector, including restaurants, casinos, gyms

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

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fter press outlets reported that the next executive order (EO 2020-066) was expected to be more than a moderate reopening amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced announced on Thursday the reopening of gyms, beaches, movie theaters and casinos. With the island Health Department on Wednesday reporting that deaths in Puerto Rico due to the disease caused by the coronavirus had reached 500, Vázquez Garced said she was determined to make the executive order more flexible, but curfew hours will stay the same. “The most important thing in order to protect ourselves is not the curfew or the limitations that we can implement. The most important and necessary thing is to protect ourselves. The use of the mask and maintaining physical distance is what will help us save lives, more than closures or space limitations,” Vázquez said Thursday at a press conference. “The government has a role, but citizens have a responsibility to take care of themselves. Nobody would like to be infected and then go home to infect their children, their parents, their siblings.” This is what islanders need to know about the new executive order, which takes effect starting Sunday and will be in effect until Oct. 2: * Curfew remains from 10 p.m to 5 a.m. * Total lockdown ruling on Sunday is lifted * Dry law is eliminated. Alcohol can be sold during the day until 10 p.m. * In-person classes will not be possible until further notice * The use of face mask coverings remains mandatory, while gatherings remain forbidden. * Permitted indoor restaurant capacity is 50 percent, and physical distancing measures are mandatory. Previously it was 25 percent. The capacity will not be limited for open spaces; for example, restaurants with outdoor areas * Capacity at retail stores, laundromats, car dealers, churches, calling hours at funeral homes capacity is raised to 50 percent, physical distancing measures are mandatory. * Large home gatherings, parties with large crowds remain prohibited * Gyms will be authorized to open, but with a 25 percent capacity limit * Indoor movie theaters will be authorized to open with a 25 percent capacity limit

* Casinos will be authorized to open with a 25 percent capacity limit * Bars, dance clubs and “chinchorros” that don’t have open spaces remain closed * Beaches can reopen for bathing, workout and recreational activities; physical distancing measures are required, while gatherings are prohibited. Beachgoers in groups must remain with the same people or family members, maintaining six to eight feet of distance from other groups * Pools are permitted for common use, physical distancing measures are required * Docks will be authorized to open, but boats must stay 15 feet apart * Mass activities, such as parades and caravans, and any activities that promote gatherings remain prohibited * Concert and theater performances will be held under scrutiny by the chief of staff. Citizens who violate the executive order will be charged with a $5,000 fine and a six-month jail sentence. The governor said this was like a “second chance” for citizens. “We are in a stage of community infection,” she said. “Wearing a mask can make the difference between getting COVID-19 or staying healthy.” The governor also highlighted that since the Interagency Committee was created in May to ensure compliance on the part of businesses and government entities with the obligation to deliver their self-certification and COVID-19 management plan to the Department of Labor, 3,223 inspections have been conducted. She added that so far in September, 176 inspections have been carried out. Of those, 157 businesses and entities were in compliance, and only 19 were not. During the press conference, Vázquez also determined to dissolve both the Medical and Economic task forces as she said they “offered their experience, professionalism, and valuable time to help the government when we needed it the most, to help Puerto Rico and everyone else who lives on the island.” Both initiatives will remain now as a scientific method.

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

Officials: PREPA-LUMA deal will not result in layoffs, although current benefits are not guaranteed By THE STAR STAFF

iscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority Director Omar Marrero and other officials, including the chairman of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s (PREPA) board, said Thursday that the contract between PREPA and LUMA Energy for the management of the utility’s transmission and distribution (T&D) system will not result in layoffs. Marrero, however, said the government cannot guarantee the permanence and benefits provided through PREPA’s Employees Retirement System because the utility is in bankruptcy and such issues depend on the U.S. District Court. PREPA has a $4.3 billion debt with the retirement system, which pays benefits to 11,000 former employees. Regarding the jobs of PREPA workers, at a House Energy Committee hearing on Thursday, Rep. Víctor Parés made reference to a memo sent to employees with wording that did not

appear to support job permanence. LUMA Energy has said it will hire employees, and those wishing not to work for LUMA Energy will be given other jobs. The contract only covers the portion of PREPA’s 5,000 workers who work in T&D and not those assigned to the power plants. Marrero, however, said the memo was worthless because Puerto Rico’s energy public policy already states that PREPA’s transformation can’t result in job losses. Public-Private Partnerships Authority Executive Director Fermín Fontanés said at the public hearing held by the House Economic Development, Planning, Telecommunications, Public Private Partnerships and Energy Committee, regarding the contract with LUMA Energy that “[g]iven the multiple challenges and limitations that have characterized the performance of PREPA over the past decades, the Legislative Assembly promoted Law 120 with the aim of transforming the energy system

into a modern, sustainable, reliable, efficient, cost-effective and resilient one.” “To achieve this goal, the Legislature determined that the mechanism of public-private partnerships “provides the transparency and flexibility necessary for a negotiation that results in a financially viable energy system that focuses on the welfare of the consumer,” Fontanés said, reading from a prepared statement. At the beginning of his presentation, Fontanés told the committee that “the bidding process culminating in the announcement of LUMA Energy’s selection as the new operator of the transmission and distribution system of electric power in Puerto Rico was a competitive process, highly rigorous and complex.” “This process, in turn, began with a market study (known in English as ‘market sounding’), whose input was taken as the basis for publishing the Request for Qualifications for the project (RFQ),” he said.

Likewise, Fontanés said that on Feb. 1, 2019, the companies on a short list were given a request for proposals and answered more than 700 questions. Two of the four qualified proponents submitted proposals, which were evaluated and analyzed by a partnership committee. “Among the criteria that we can highlight as those that had the highest weight for the LUMA Energy selection are: higher understanding of the context of PREPA and community approach adapted to Puerto Rico, lower costs and more favorable trade terms, more experience in the acquisition, management and use of federal funds, greater commitment to significant improvements, greater guarantee and indemnification under the contract, a collaborative approach to working with the Energy Bureau, and a comprehensive initial transition plan that includes the specific hours per main task to be performed during the period of transition,” Fontanés said in his statement.

Igartúa, Báez Galib again in court 20 years later over status, presidential votes By THE STAR STAFF

ike 20 years ago, pro-statehood lawyer Gregorio Igartúa and former Popular Democratic Party Sen. Eudaldo Báez Galib are on opposite sides of the spectrum on the legality of laws that would allow a Yes-No statehood vote in the November election and allow Puerto Rico residents to vote for the U.S. president in the 2024 election. It is the first time since 2000, the year the commonwealth Supreme Court and the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals in separate rulings decided that the presidential vote was illegal in Puerto Rico, that the two constitutional law attorneys found themselves advocating different opinions on the constitutionality of Act 51 of 2020, which enabled the Yes-No statehood status vote, and Act 58 of 2020, which would allow residents of Puerto Rico to vote for a U.S president and vice president in 2024.

Opponents of the laws argued that they lack legal consequence and are symbolic gestures. Báez Galib insists that the precedent he helped create in the case Báez Galib vs State Elections Commission 20 years ago that declared that a proposed vote for president was invalid, should be upheld. Igartúa said the implementation of Act 51 of 2020 and Act 58 of 2020 seek to advance equality for Puerto Rico as U.S. citizens. The funds allocated to implement the laws support that cause of equality that derives from Puerto Ricans’ condition as U.S. citizens. Igartúa said that, as a result, the use of public funds to implement the laws was a permissible one under current law. “It is also an allocation to take a corrective action toward solutions to mitigate economic losses resulting from the discriminatory treatment in federal funds,” he said. “Puerto Rico is in an economic stalemate and in bankruptcy court.” The attorney said the United States is aware of the unequal treatment given to Puerto Rico in the allocation of federal funds and yet the Financial Oversight and Management Board refuses to acknowledge that there is a link between Puerto Rico’s status as a U.S. territory and the prevalent economic crisis. Igartúa said he has been waiting since 2006 for the Organization of American States to issue a decision regarding Puerto Rico’s status condition and noted that the United

States has not been complying with international treaties that force it to guarantee the presidential vote to its citizens. Laws similar to Act 51 and Act 58, he said, have been implemented by other territories such as Guam, which has a law permitting ballots to include a vote for the U.S. president. He also said that through the Tennessee Plan, that state was able to eventually achieve statehood as it shook up the congressional leadership. “The laws that are being challenged in this mandamus and declaratory sentence cannot be evaluated using what is permissible under Puerto Rican law,” he said. Igartúa said the island Supreme Court must overturn the 2000 precedent set in Báez Galib vs SEC for several reasons, including the fact that it was an undue intervention in a case that was evaluated in federal court. Igartúa successfully took the matter of the vote for president to the U.S. District Court but the decision was overturned on appeal in 2000. He also advocated to the commonwealth Supreme Court that Puerto Rico is a defacto U.S. territory as it has complied with all the requirements to take the path to statehood. On the other hand, Báez Galib reminded the top court that it already ruled against the vote for president in the 2000 vote and so did the federal appeals court. He said that in the case Báez Galib vs SEC, the commonwealth

Supreme Court declared the presidential vote unconstitutional because money earmarked for it had “no public purpose.” Regarding the status vote, Báez Galib reminded the top court that the U.S. attorney general declined to allow the disbursement of public funds to pay for the Yes-No referendum, arguing that it was biased in favor of statehood.The oversight board then agreed to disburse the funds to pay for the Yes-No vote. Báez Galib also noted that the use of public funds to pay for the vote violates the constitutional ban on the use of public funds for political purposes for several reasons. One of them is that Congress has already established a process or mechanism to deal with the political relationship with the United States that requires the U.S. attorney general to give it the green light. Because the U.S. Justice Department does not support the vote, it will not be taken into account by Congress, he said. Attorney General William Barr said in a letter to media outlets that the vote is misperceived when it states that a vote for the “Yes” statehood option will lead to a transition toward statehood. Báez Galib also said that the First Circuit Court ruling that banned the presidential vote, which was the case taken by Igartúa, remains the law of the land. That case ruled that residents of Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories did not have voting representation in Congress and were not entitled to electoral votes for president.

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

Ombudsman calls on SEC to protect vote of those with disabilities By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com Gabriel E. Corchado Méndez, the interim ombudsman for people with disabilities (DPI by its Spanish initials), called on the new chairman of the State Elections Commission (SEC), Judge Francisco Rosado Colomer, on Thursday to ensure that officials do not commit the same mistakes in the Nov. 3 general elections that the DPI documented during last month’s primaries, in which citizens with disabilities were inhibited in their access to voting. “During the primaries, and fulfilling our ministerial duty, our personnel from the Program for the Protection and Advocacy of Voting Access [PAVA] confirmed the absence of the voting system by telephone [Vote by Phone] and the templates in Braille language in the voting centers,” Corchado Méndez said. “In fact, the SEC sent the briefcase that had the templates in Braille language and the equipment for the telephone vote to the Permanent Registration Boards [JIPs by their Spanish initials], which is not the place where the voters go [to vote].” PAVA Program Coordinator Gabriel Esterrich Lombay added that “we have to work as a

team so that non-compliance problems are not repeated in the general elections.” The SEC has a duty to comply with Section 301, 3 (b) of the Help America Vote Act, Esterrich Lombay said, noting that the law establishes the requirement of the “use of at least one direct recording electronic voting system or another voting system equipped for people with disabilities in each polling station.” Esterrich Lombay reminded voters with disabilities that the deadline to request early voting is this Monday, Sept. 14, at the JIPs of each municipality. “There are several categories that facilitate the vote of voters with disabilities, such as being blind, having limited mobility, or being bedridden, or with some type of medical condition that prevents them from going to their polling station, or any voter 80 years of age or older,” he said. “It also includes the category of voter in the House of Accommodation and Sole Caregiver voter that includes that voter who is the only person available in the nuclear family of his or her domicile for the care of minors under 14 years of age, of people with disabilities or who are sick and bedridden at home. All these categories allow voters to vote preferentially in three

State Elections Commission chairman, Judge Francisco Rosado Colomer ways, by mail, at home and at the Easy Access polling place.” Corchado Méndez invited voters with dis-

abilities to visit the JIPs and demand to use the express line and priority shifts, as agreed to under former SEC Chairman Ernesto Dávila, given the prospect of potential lines and the closing of voter registration on Sept. 14. “It is important to let polling station officials know that voting by telephone must be located in the Easy Access polling places, with the rest of the accommodations available for voters with disabilities, which include templates in Braille language and magnifying glasses, among others,” Corchado Méndez said. It is crucial that such voting places be accessible without steps, with an accessible route on a smooth surface from the reserved parking lot to the polling place, Corchado Méndez noted. If there is no reserved parking, polling station officials are required, in coordination with the police, to create a temporary space for the event. “What we seek is that the process be accessible to voters with disabilities,” he said. “Any voter with a disability who experiences a problem with the electoral process can contact 787-725-2333 and ask about the PAVA Program, by email at gesterrich@dpi. pr.gov, brivera1@dpi.pr.gov, or at the SEC at 787-777-8682 or online at ceepur.org.”

PDP candidates demand internet connections for students By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

group of legislative candidates from the Popular Democratic Party, including several teachers, made a public demand Thursday for the island Education Department to immediately create internet connection centers to guarantee that students from low-income families can access their classes online. Deborah Soto, a teacher at Carmen Barroso School in

Photo: Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI)

Toa Baja; Kebin Maldonado, from Boquerón High School in Cabo Rojo; Noemi Andújar, from Isaac Rosario School in Cataño; and Juan Gómez, from Ana Delia Flores Vocational School in Fajardo made the demand to Education Secretary Eligio Hernández Pérez. “According to the community survey, in Puerto Rico around 53.8 percent of families with children 18 years of age or younger live under the poverty level. In the case of public school students, this number represents between 75 percent and 78 percent of families,” the educators said in a written statement. “Of 1,179,000 households, some 844,000 have a computer (71 percent), while 733,000 have an internet subscription (62 percent). This means that throughout the island four out of 10 families do not have an internet subscription, which dramatically hampers the educational possibilities of thousands of Puerto Rican children and youth.” The group noted that the proposal is aimed at using schools that are being kept closed due to the pandemic as internet connection centers where children and young students in the surrounding area can go, while observing the necessary precautions, to connect in order to take their classes and obtain the material assigned in each course. “If the government guarantees a reasonable number of open schools with internet connections, to be used by low-income students, it will be helping to reduce the

digital divide that causes thousands of families not to have access to computers and/or broadband connection and that in turn aggravates the lack of access to education that so many children and young people [experience] on the island today,” said Soto, Maldonado, Andújar and Gómez, along with Rep. Jesús Manuel Ortiz and other House candidates Keyliz Méndez, Domingo Torres and José “Cheito” Rivera.

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The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

Resilient local enterprise wants to sell stories through the art of soap crafting Barras wants its customers to have fun and feel inspired with artisanal soaps By PEDRO CORREA HENRY Twitter: @PCorreaHenry Special to The Star

n 2015, when Tanairi Miranda Torres was 19 years old, she lost her lost engagement ring, only had a part-time job, and was searching for a stable income to build her future with her fiance. She decided that turning her artisanal soap making skills, which she learned from her grandmother, into a business was the way to go. She opened a fan page on Facebook, posted pictures of her work, and began selling her creations to her friends and other acquaintances. Once she made enough money to buy back the ring she’d lost, she told her now-husband: “That’s it. I’m done.” However, five years from that moment, Miranda Torres keeps going with Barras, an artisanal soap enterprise whose fulfillment office and factory are located in her hometown of Ponce, where her team of four employees makes up to 12,000 bars of soap per week and 10 more people are currently employed. The 24-year-old businesswoman told the Star on Thursday that after that pivotal moment in her life, she couldn’t stop crafting soaps and finding new ways and new techniques to distinguish her products from many other initiatives, as soap making is a common practice on the island. However, as she wanted to take her plans to the next level, she started to study other industries and determine how their brands were able to stand out. She eventually realized that it was all about her experience, and in February 2017 she began sharing behindthe-scenes footage of the soap production on her social media platforms. “I remember having long nights, going through insomnia as I wanted to find that distinction, and I still didn’t have it. You could ask me: ‘Tanairy, what do you do differently?’ And it’s that the brand has me, I became the face of the brand, and that’s what made it different because there is no one else that could put their personality in a bar of soap other than me. Barras is a reflection of who I am,” Miranda Torres said. “I didn’t want a brand that’s simply

artisanal and that stays on a little table. I wanted to reach new heights.” As for the name of Miranda Torres’ enterprise, it is the Spanish translation of the word “bars” and she said that she got it as both sightseers and clients were fond of the soap bars’ color flow and minimal design, and commented on how beautiful they were. “It was the same clients who named the brand. I was like: ‘I’m not going to look for anything else, it will stay that way.’ But I began to question if Barras was too common a name, if people were not going to recognize it,” she said. “But then I started seeing that in many successful brands at local and international levels, so I told myself, why am I complicating things?” The Star asked the entrepreneur how she would describe Barras in a few words. She said Barras is a very fun, transparent, resilient, inspiring and fresh brand, that she wants customers to feel entertained when they use her products, to appreciate the effort and quality behind them, and she wants to be clear enough with customers so they know what they will be consuming. Miranda Torres said further that she wants her company to be an example for other entrepreneurs looking to build their own projects. “More than just a bar of soap, I want my soaps to tell a story to the customer, that the product they hold in their hands

did not come out of thin air, every soap has something to tell and you get to see it every time I get into my Stories [on Instagram] to show how my team makes it,” Miranda Torres said. Meanwhile, Miranda Torres told the Star that events such as the passage of Hurricane Maria, the earthquakes in the southwest of Puerto Rico and the COVID-19 pandemic made her think about shutting down her business. Nonetheless, she said that amid the pandemic she encountered a “good problem” as clients were demanding her soaps through various outlets of the company, making her expand her workforce as her employee, who has been with her since 2017, was the only person helping her at the factory. “I played the game wrong,” she said. “Instead of preparing for the worst, I had to prepare for the better, as I was getting more messages and people were actually looking for my products. People were reaching out to support what I was doing, but it was just my employee, who has been here for me since when Barras was unstable, and myself making around 800 soaps in four business days.” “Although this was a good problem, it was still a problem,” she added. “I didn’t want to constantly excuse myself for not being up to my customers’ expectations. You see that established businesses don’t

do that. They deliver.” Miranda Torres said Barras has become a leader in artisanal soap making in the Puerto Rican market and she expects to expand to the United States and other countries. However, in order to take such steps, she said more work needs to be done internally. She also said she feels comfortable now expanding her product line as she has realized that her initial offers helped establish her brand. “I’m sure that, more than a leading brand in an industry, we’ll become a leading brand in terms of entrepreneurship, and surely we already are for many people, and that fills me with much pride because they don’t only see us as: ‘Oh, the people who sell soap,’” she said. “They say: ‘Wow, I wish that my enterprise, no matter the industry, would have the exposure that Barras has.” As for advice for future entrepreneurs, Miranda Torres, who studied to become a PK-3 teacher, said people should focus on self-management and develop a good business plan in order to build a sustainable enterprise. “Living in Puerto Rico and being an entrepreneur is like an extreme sport,” she said. “We must self-manage and not expect anyone to serve us every solution on a platter; we must look for and create those solutions. From bad things, good things will come.”

Miranda Torres said further that she wants her company to be an example for other entrepreneurs looking to build their own projects.

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

In encounters with black leaders, Trump has chosen photo ops over substance By GLENN THRUSH

n Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January 2017, Donald Trump, then the president-elect, welcomed a group of civil rights leaders, led by King’s eldest son, into his office in Trump Tower. After a tour of Trump’s celebrity curio collection (Shaquille O’Neal’s sneakers, size 22, were a highlight), the visitors presented him with a proposal intended to prevent state voter identification laws from disenfranchising people of color. The delegation had low expectations. Trump had championed the lie that President Barack Obama was not born in America and, in their view, played to racial fears during the 2016 campaign. He quickly dashed even those modest hopes. Low turnout among Black voters, Trump declared, had helped him defeat Hillary Clinton. “Many people didn’t go out — many Blacks didn’t go out — to vote for Hillary because they liked me. That was almost as good as getting their vote,” Trump said, lowering his voice to say the word “Blacks,” on a recording provided by a meeting participant and confirmed as authentic by three others. (A White House spokesman did not dispute the veracity of the recording.) Trump promised he would seriously consider their proposal. It went nowhere. “I will be better to the African American people than anybody else in this room,” he declared just before heading down the elevator to appear before the cameras with his guests, according to the recording, which was shared with several news organizations last month. To Trump, this was little more than a photo op: Two former aides recalled that he wanted to be seen with a group of Black leaders to rebut an assertion made by Rep. John Lewis, the late civil rights paragon, who at the time said he did not “see this president-elect as a legitimate president.” As the 2020 campaign hits the homestretch, Trump has been claiming that he is the best president for Black Americans since Abraham Lincoln and papering over his history of racist remarks by having Black supporters at the Republican convention back his boast that he “is the least racist person in the world.”

In fact, Trump has hired very few Black officials to positions of authority in the White House and for his reelection effort. And his campaign has stoked racial divisions to an extent not seen since George Wallace’s run in 1968. He has tried to block or hamper efforts to expand ballot access. He has said Black people were “too stupid” to vote for him, according to his estranged former attorney, Michael Cohen. When asked about Cohen’s charge, a White House spokesman emailed a statement by press secretary Kayleigh McEnany calling Cohen “a disgraced felon and disbarred lawyer, who lied to Congress.” And as the 2017 meeting illustrates, many of Trump’s interactions with Black leaders have followed a similar pattern: He has turned opportunities for reconciliation, or even to debate policy differences, into empty-calorie encounters in front of the cameras, according to interviews with more than 30 Black officials, civil rights leaders and former and current administration officials. Trump campaign officials told reporters last week that they were working hard to slightly exceed their performance with Black voters in 2016 when they won about 8% of their vote. The president has also tried to mollify white moderates who might be turned off by his racial rhetoric. The result is a jarring, split-screen approach: The president talks up his friendships with Black Americans (often famous ones like Kanye West) while running a campaign whose objective is to frighten white suburban voters into thinking a Biden presidency will bring problems from inner-city America to their front lawns. “The goal of these things was just to get him through the meeting, then get the picture,” said Anthony Scaramucci, the former Trump aide, now an outspoken critic of the president, who set up several meetings between Trump and Black sports figures, including football legend Jim Brown. At first, some Black leaders seemed open to the president’s entreaties. But they said any chance of meaningful communication with Trump ended, with the finality of a slammed door, when he declared there were “very fine people on

Members of the Congressional Blacuk Caucus Executive Committee listen as President Donald Trump makes remarks during a meeting at the White House on March 22, 2017. both sides” after white supremacists rioted in Charlottesville,Virginia, in August 2017. For Martin Luther King III, the critical moment came a few minutes into the January 2017 session, when Trump falsely claimed that “hundreds of thousands of people” had crossed the border to illegally cast ballots for Clinton. “My hope, because I believe in the human spirit in most people, is that he would recognize there was an adjustment that had to be made,” King said in an interview. “But he has no interest in doing anything for anybody who does not support him. The vast majority of Black people do not support him, so he has nothing for the majority of Black folks.” Theodore Mukamal, a civil rights attorney who recorded the meeting, said he had gone in assuming that the presi-

dent wanted to move beyond the rancor of the election. “It was a disaster,” said Mukamal. “There was no follow through, and it turned out the opposite of what we could have possibly predicted.” Ja’Ron Smith, a deputy assistant to the president, said that Trump’s efforts have been geared at ensuring “hardworking patriots of the Black community are forgotten no longer,” rather than winning over the critics. “For decades Democratic leaders have stood behind empty promises when it came to Black Americans,” wrote Smith in an email. “The polices of stagnation and governmental dependence have been dismantled and replaced with economic prosperity and opportunity.”

Continues on page 8

8 From page 7 Trump continued to reach out after he was elected. In March 2017, Omarosa Manigault Newman, the former “Apprentice” star-turned-White House adviser, invited members of the Congressional Black Caucus to the White House to discuss their policy agenda. Trump ushered them, cheerfully, into the Cabinet Room. They sat across the table, grimly, with blue binders. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., recalled that Trump interrupted three times to suggest

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

they relocate to the Oval Office. Finally, as Clyburn began his pitch for a national infrastructure and broadband plan, Vice President Mike Pence popped in to announce that they needed to vacate the room to make way for another meeting, Clyburn said. “Let’s go!” Trump said. The group followed him into the Oval Office but congregated near the fireplace; Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., who chaired the caucus, turned down Trump’s request for a photo but he agreed to photographs showing the caucus

Martin Luther King III, the son of Martin Luther King Jr., walks out of the elevator with President-elect Donald Trump in the Trump Tower lobby in New York, Jan. 16, 2017.

negotiating — far from Trump’s favorite snapshot destination, the Resolute Desk. “I know his type,” Clyburn said in an interview. “He has been as caustic as he can be. Trump insults in public and then makes a private phone call to you to say that is really not what he meant. I have been around those kind of white people all my life.” Trum continued to pursue highprofile meetings. At the same time, his political appointees had begun to systematically scuttle enforcement of civil rights laws in education, housing, health care and at the Justice Department. The president seemed to place particular emphasis on systematically erasing the legacy of the first Black president; one of his aides printed out a checklist of Obama’s accomplishments to attack them, one by one. Richmond declined an invitation for another meeting later in 2017, writing that doing so would be pointless, “given the actions taken by your administration since our first meeting.” Trump’s supporters believe that the failure of the Democratic Party to fulfill its promises to Black Americans has created an opening for the president’s unorthodox approach. Wayne Dupree, a conservative talk radio host in Baltimore, said that “things wouldn’t have been any different” if Trump had made a more concerted effort at outreach. The most important back channel for communication has been Smith, who has played a key role in three achievements most frequently touted by the president: a tax credit program aimed at increasing investment in low-income neighborhoods, increased funding for historically Black colleges and universities and the bipartisan criminal justice reform bill.

Smith — who resisted efforts to play a bigger public role before agreeing to speak at the convention last month — has also quietly reached out to some civil rights groups even as the president was hurling gasoline-on-the-fire tweets, according to a White House official with knowledge of his actions. He is also one of the few White House officials pushing for a response to address disparities in health outcomes for people of color during the pandemic, and tried, with limited success, to broker bipartisan police reform legislation, another official said. The president sought to project a more empathetic image in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis in June. Smith’s efforts notwithstanding, Trump has not substantively addressed police violence. In June, he convened a group of Black conservatives and talk-radio hosts to the White House for a discussion in front of the cameras. Trump began with a rosy assessment of race relations and economic opportunity. Sonnie Johnson, a conservative radio host, challenged him. “The Black community is not OK — I understand the perspective and the desire to put out this talking point, but it’s not,” she said. When she was done, Trump declared, “Good job.” He did not address her specific concerns. The two Black people invited to a televised round table with Trump in Kenosha, Wisconsin, held in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, were James Ward and Sharon Ward, husbandand-wife pastors from a church in Skokie, Illinois, who are close to Blake’s family. When a reporter asked them if police violence was a systemic issue, Trump cut them off to say, “I think the police do an incredible job.”

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

Biden, in Michigan, pushes a jobs plan and tears into Trump’s virus response By THOMAS KAPLAN, KATIE GLUECK and JIM TANKERSLEY

oe Biden tore into President Donald Trump on Wednesday over new revelations from a forthcoming book by journalist Bob Woodward that the president knowingly minimized the risks of the coronavirus, arguing that Trump had lied to the American public and put lives in danger. Biden’s remarks came as part of a broader effort to take on Trump over protecting American jobs and to blame the president’s handling of the pandemic for the nation’s plunge into recession this year. “He had the information,” Biden said during a trip to the critical battleground state of Michigan. “He knew how dangerous it was. And while this deadly disease ripped through our nation, he failed to do his job on purpose. It was a life-and-death betrayal of the American people.” “It’s beyond despicable,” Biden added, detailing the crises the nation faces as a result of the pandemic that go far beyond the staggering public health costs. “It’s a dereliction of duty. It’s a disgrace.” During an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Biden used even sharper language to criticize Trump’s contradictory message about the gravity of the pandemic. “It was all about making sure the stock market didn’t come down, that his wealthy friends didn’t lose any money,” Biden said. “He waved a white flag. He walked away. He didn’t do a damn thing. Think about it. Think about what he did not do. It’s almost criminal.” And in an exchange with reporters Wednesday evening, asked whether he blamed Trump for “thousands of deaths” given the knowledge the president had earlier in the year, Biden replied: “Yes, I do. I absolutely do.” In his outdoor speech at the United Auto Workers Region 1 headquarters in Warren, Michigan, Biden assailed the president’s record on the economy, suggesting that Trump had not kept his promises to American workers on a range of issues. He also lashed his record on matters like job creation and keeping work in the United States rather than letting it move overseas. The remarks represented an effort by Biden, the former vice president, to turn the focus of the campaign to the economy after weeks of attention on issues of civil unrest

Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, waves during a campaign event at United Auto Workers Region 1 headquarters in Warren, Mich., Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2020. and a series of Trump-related controversies. Biden’s speech was also another display of how he is trying to campaign in person during the pandemic: He spoke in a parking lot, with journalists and a small number of other attendees sitting at a distance in white circles. A number of Biden’s allies had made clear in recent weeks that they wanted to see him focus more on Trump’s stewardship of the economy, something Biden tried to do in scathing terms Wednesday. “He’s failed our economy and our country,” Biden said in his speech, in which he made direct appeals to autoworkers. The former vice president, standing in front of a giant American flag and an array of gleaming automobiles, announced plans to change the tax code to discourage moving jobs overseas and to reward companies for investing in domestic production. He also promised to take a series of executive actions to ensure the purchase of American goods in the federal procurement process. Biden, who has already proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, would create a tax penalty aimed at American companies that move jobs to other countries, known as offshoring. The penalty would apply to “profits of any production by a United States company overseas for sales

back to the United States,” bumping up the tax rate to nearly 31% on those profits. That penalty would effectively serve as a new tax on American companies that make products abroad and sell them back to customers in the United States, but it would not apply to foreign-owned companies that operate in America and import products to sell. Conservative tax experts said on Wednesday that the disparity would disadvantage American corporations and

possibly push them to sell their foreign operations to rivals. “These kinds of rules are not going to bring real activity back to the United States,” said George Callas, who was a senior tax counsel for former Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and is now a managing director at Steptoe in Washington. Biden’s plan calls for tougher federal rules against so-called inversions, when an American multinational merges with a foreign-owned one in order to shift its headquarters abroad and qualify for different tax treatment. He has previously announced plans to increase the rate on what amounts to a minimum tax on multinational companies’ income and to apply that minimum to income earned from each individual country that a company earns revenue in. Liberal economists praised the plan, saying it would reduce incentives to move production and profits overseas. They also said Biden’s efforts could lead to more countries joining forces to impose a standard set of minimum taxes on multinationals in order to stop companies from shifting profits across borders in search of lower tax rates. Campaign officials said Wednesday that they did not have an estimate to share of how the plans Biden announced would increase or decrease federal tax revenues, in total. “Make it in Michigan, make it in America, invest in our communities and the workers in places like Warren,” Biden said. “That’s what this is about.”

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

Wildfires are worsening. The way we manage them isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t keeping pace. By BRAD PLUMER and JOHN SCHARTZ

ildfires are ravaging the West â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in California alone, five of the largest blazes on record have all struck in just the past four years â&#x20AC;&#x201D; offering a deadly reminder that the nation is far behind in adopting policies widely known to protect lives and property, even though worsening fires have become a predictable consequence of climate change. This summer has brought another horrific run of disasters. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This could be the greatest loss of human life and property due to wildfire in our stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history,â&#x20AC;? Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon said Wednesday, a day after invoking an emergency act to address wildfires that have triggered evacuations along the McKenzie Valley and in the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s southwest. Colorado is dealing with infernos like the Cameron Peak Fire west of Fort Collins, with more than 100,000 acres burned. Washington state has seen more than 300,000 acres burn, including 80% of the town of Malden. California, with a record 2.5 million acres burned so far, has 14,000 firefighters working to contain 25 major wildfires even though â&#x20AC;&#x153;this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fire season has another four months to go,â&#x20AC;? according to the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fire agency, Cal Fire. The worsening wildfire disasters mean the United States needs to drastically rethink its approach to managing fire in the decades ahead, experts warn. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The first step is to acknowledge that fire is inevitable, and we have to learn to live with it,â&#x20AC;? said David McWethy, a fire scientist at Montana State University. Millions of Americans are moving into wildfire-prone areas outside of cities, and communities often resist restrictions on development. A century of federal policy to aggressively extinguish all wildfires rather than letting some burn at low levels, an approach now seen as misguided, has left forests with plenty of fuel for especially

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The Bear Fire approaching Oroville, Calif., on Wednesday. destructive blazes. This is all in an era when global warming is creating a hotter, drier environment, loading the dice for more extensive fires. Some cities and states have taken important steps, such as imposing tougher regulations on homes built in fire-prone areas. And there has been movement toward using prescribed fires to scour away excess vegetation that can fuel runaway blazes in forests and grasslands. But these changes are still happening too slowly, experts say, and have been overtaken by the rapid increase in wildfires. â&#x20AC;&#x153;At this point weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve learned a lot about how to engineer homes and communities so that they can be more survivable,â&#x20AC;? said Max Moritz, a wildfire expert affiliated with the University of California, Santa Barbara. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But these lessons arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t being implemented fast enough.â&#x20AC;? The root cause of global warming is human behavior, and a major part of the solution is to reduce fossil fuel use, which pumps planet-warming gases into the atmosphere. But in the meantime there are steps that can lessen the wildfire damage even as countries work to cut emissions. One major reason that wildfires are becoming increasingly costly is that more Americans are moving to areas outside of cities near forests, known as the wildland-urban interface. Between 1990 and 2015, one study found, 32 million new homes were built in these areas. Only about 15% of the wildland-urban interface has been developed, and further growth is expected. Some people move to be closer to nature, or because housing costs are lower, and policymakers are unlikely to stop all growth. But, experts said, governments could impose tighter restrictions on future development to ensure that

communities are better protected against wildfire when it arrives. That would include measures like designing subdivisions and homes so that they have more surrounding â&#x20AC;&#x153;defensible space,â&#x20AC;? cleared of brush and vegetation, to keep blazes at a distance. It would mean building houses so they are protected against drifting embers, which often cause structural fires by blowing into homes through vents in the eaves or sides. Yet progress remains patchy. In many regions, developers have resisted new regulations. And in California, which is dealing with a statewide housing shortage, opponents have warned that more stringent requirements could drive up home costs. But even when a community does suffer from wildfire, the pressure to rebuild quickly, and without costly new regulations, is often intense. In addition, building codes for new construction only go so far, because they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t address the millions of homes already built. Consider the Camp Fire that devastated Paradise, California, in 2010, killing 85 people. One analysis found that about 51% of the 350 single-family homes built to Californiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new codes escaped damage. But of the 12,100 homes built before then, only 18% were undamaged. Retrofitting millions of existing homes can be expensive. For instance, single-pane windows are at risk of breaking from the heat of a fire, allowing embers in. But replacing those windows with sturdier glass can potentially cost $10,000 for a single home. In California, legislation to retrofit existing homes against wildfires have stalled over questions of funding. Other communities are coming up with

their own creative solutions. In Boulder, Colorado, county officials worked with insurance companies on an incentive program set up after the Fourmile Canyon Fire in 2010 burned dozens of homes. Residents can have a specialist visit and identify steps to reduce fire risk, such as removing certain trees or cleaning dead leaves from gutters. Homeowners who comply have a better chance of getting insured. Experts also say both the federal government and states will need to rethink their approach to managing forests. For over a century, firefighting agencies have focused on extinguishing fires whenever they occur. That strategy has often proved counterproductive. Many landscapes evolved to burn periodically, and when fires are suppressed, vegetation builds up thickly in forests. So when fires do break out, they tend to be far more severe and destructive. The Forest Service has programs to thin out forests, removing smaller trees and brush. But those efforts remain relatively modest, and funding is a hurdle: The share of the Forest Serviceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s budget devoted to fighting fires has risen from 15% to 55% in recent years, leaving less money to prevent fires in the first place. And forest-thinning programs can be poorly targeted, researchers have found, as they often support logging efforts, rather than effectively reducing fire risk. Scientists who study wildfires agree that allowing forests and grasslands to burn periodically â&#x20AC;&#x201D; by, say, intentionally setting smaller fires under controlled conditions â&#x20AC;&#x201D; can be a more effective way to clear out vegetation. In Ponderosa pine forests, for instance, low-level fire can nurture ecosystems and help prevent destructive large-scale fires from breaking out. With rare exceptions, however, the practice remains infrequent in the West. California intentionally burned just 50,000 acres in 2017. In August, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a memorandum with the Forest Service and others recognizing that the state needs more preventive fire, saying â&#x20AC;&#x153;Californiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s forests naturally adapted to low-intensity fire, natureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s preferred management tool.â&#x20AC;? But the scale is daunting: One study found that the state would need to burn or treat 20 million acres to counteract the legacy of fire suppression. (Researchers have estimated that in prehistoric times, around 4-12 million acres in the state burned each year, but that has since dropped precipitously.) The obstacles to using fire this way are considerable: Fire agencies worry about intentional fires raging out of control, as happened in New Mexico in 2000, when a prescribed burn caught by high winds ended up destroying 435 homes. And the smoke can be a concern for nearby communities.

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September 11-13, 2020

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September 11-13, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Bankrupt J.C. Penney is bought by mall operators in need of tenants J.C. Penney’s creditors had clashed with Simon and Brookfield over the value of the retail business and the rights to redevelop mall space, the people said. If the creditors lost redevelopment rights, any real estate business that was carved out would be less valuable. The company had until Thursday to strike a deal with creditors, find a buyer or opt to liquidate. The pandemic has upended the retail industry, especially apparel and department stores, and accelerated the fall of chains that were already struggling or overloaded with debt. Temporary store closures dealt a major blow to many mall retailers, which have struggled to regain shoppers who have adjusted to homebound lifestyles and remain concerned about the virus. J.C. Penney’s bankruptcy already had serious implications for American malls and workers, as the company prepared to close as many as 250 locations and started liquidations at more than 100 stores this summer. Smaller mall retailers often have so-called co-tenancy clauses in their leases, which allow them to pay reduced rent or even break their leases if two or more anchor stores — like Sears, Macy’s and J.C. Penney — leave a location. Many malls have already lost one or two department stores in recent years and are likely to struggle to find potential replacements as the pandemic persists. At the same time, chains like Victoria’s Secret and Gap are looking for ways to cut back on the number of their stores. J.C. Penney, which in its heyday operated more than A J.C. Penney Co. store at Manhattan Mall in New York, on Friday, May 15, 2020. The company reached an agreement 1,500 stores, was long viewed as a budget-friendly destinato sell its retail business to the mall operators Simon Property Group and Brookfield Property Partners on Wednesday, tion for Americans seeking reliable home furnishings and September 9, averting a total liquidation that would have had significant ripple effects through the industry and cost apparel. But the retailer has been on a downward slope for tens of thousands of jobs. years. It faced growing competition from rivals like Kohl’s and Macy’s, e-commerce took off, and it struggled to attract By LAUREN HIRSH and SAPNA MAHESHWARI would preserve. The future of the department store chain, younger consumers to its midtier mall locations. which is based in Plano, Texas, and filed for Chapter 11 Its decline was greatly accelerated in the past decade .C. Penney reached an agreement to sell its retail business bankruptcy protection in May, had been unsettled. Liqui- by the involvement of William A. Ackman, a hedge fund mato mall operators Simon Property Group and Brookfield dation was floated as a possibility as deal talks stalled this nager, and Ron Johnson, a former retail chief at Apple, whoProperty Partners on Wednesday, averting a total liquida- month. se turnaround attempt became one of the most disastrous tion that would have had significant ripple effects through That would have been a major collapse. J.C. Penney, retail makeovers in recent history. Ackman, who bought a the industry and cost tens of thousands of jobs. which started as a dry goods store in Wyoming in 1902, was major stake in J.C. Penney in 2010 and later joined its board, Simon and Brookfield will pay about $300 million in one of the first national retailers to file for bankruptcy during recruited Johnson, who sought to transform the stores into cash and assume $500 million in debt to buy J.C. Penney, the coronavirus pandemic, and while other familiar names collections of boutiques, team up with high-end designers, lawyers for the retailer said at a Bankruptcy Court hearing. like Brooks Brothers and Lord & Taylor have followed, it re- and banish coupons and promotions in favor of everyday low The deal will split J.C. Penney into separate companies, with mains the biggest to fall. It entered bankruptcy with $10.7 prices. Simon and Brookfield running the retail business and its cre- billion in annual sales, about 85,000 employees and nearly Johnson’s efforts ultimately alienated J.C. Penney’s core ditors owning a portion of its real estate. In all, the deal values 850 locations, many of them anchor stores at malls around customers and led to sales and traffic declines — the retailer J.C. Penney at $1.75 billion, including the funds committed the country. erased roughly $4.3 billion in sales, or 25% of its revenue, to support its business after it emerges from bankruptcy. The company’s potential buyers also included Hudson’s in a single year. Johnson was ousted after 17 months in April “We are in a position to do exactly what we set out to Bay, owner of Saks Fifth Avenue, and private-equity firm 2013, but J.C. Penney has continued to struggle and cycled do at the very beginning of these cases, and that is to preser- Sycamore Partners, according to two people familiar with through executives. ve 70,000 jobs, a tenant for landlords, a vendor partner and negotiations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity beThe company traces its roots to Kemmerer, Wyoming, a company that has been around for more than a century,” cause of confidentiality agreements. Simon and Brookfield, where James Cash Penney Jr. invested in a dry-goods store Joshua Sussberg, a lawyer at Kirkland & Ellis, which has been which have been involved in several deals to buy bankrupt called the Golden Rule, which was later renamed J.C. Penrepresenting J.C. Penney, said at the hearing. tenants in the past year, were thought to be the most likely ney. Penney, who died in 1971, remained devoted to the It was not immediately clear how many stores the mall buyers because the loss of J.C. Penney stores would hit their notion of the Golden Rule in how the company treated its operators will keep open or exactly how many jobs they shopping centers hard. workers, sharing its profits with staff from its early days.

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

13 Stocks

Wall Street ends lower as tech struggles resume

.S. stocks closed lower after a choppy trading session on Thursday as heavyweight tech-related stocks resumed their decline following a sharp rebound the previous session, while elevated jobless claims reminded investors of a still-difficult recovery ahead. Names that have rallied since March lows, such as Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com, all fell at least 2.8%. Tesla Inc rose 1.4%, initially helping to limit the Nasdaq’s losses before the tech-heavy index’s slide widened. The NYSE FANG+TM Index, which includes the core FAANG stocks, fell 1.8%, and all 11 sectors of the S&P 500 traded lower. Wall Street’s main indexes bounced back sharply on Wednesday from their biggest three-day rout since March, as investors returned to tech-focused stocks that are deemed insulated from the current economic downturn. The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits remained high last week, Labor Department data showed, as layoffs and furloughs persisted across industries. In addition, the U.S. Senate on Thursday killed a Republican bill that would have provided around $300 billion in new coronavirus aid, as Democrats seeking far more funding prevented it from advancing. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview with Fox News the electoral outcome for control of the Senate could go either way. “It’s more of this sort of stew of stuff than has come together than any one particular thing you can point to, and maybe most importantly you are looking at an extended market,” said Stephen Massocca, senior vice president at Wedbush Securities in San Francisco. “This thing has had a massive move so the line of least resistance might be to correct a little bit.” Massocca cited election uncertainty and the length of time it may take the economy to fully reopen due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 405.89 points, or 1.45%, to 27,534.58, the S&P 500 lost 59.77 points, or 1.76%, to 3,339.19 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 221.97 points, or 1.99%, to 10,919.59. The S&P tech index was one of the weaker performers on Thursday afternoon, stumbling 2.28%. Despite the recent pullback, the tech index is up about 24% in 2020, far outperforming the benchmark S&P 500’s rise of 3.3% in the same period. A few notably large, bullish tech-related options positions in Facebook Inc, Adobe Inc and Netflix Inc were partially unwound on Thursday, in line with more cautious sentiment toward tech names, according to Christopher Murphy, co-head of derivatives strategy at Susquehanna Financial Group.

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September 11-13, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

How a massive bomb came together in Beirut’s port By BEN HUBBARD, MARIA ABI-HABIB, MONA EL-NAGGAR, ALLISON McCANN, JAMES GLANZ, ANJALI SINGLIHVI and JEREMY WHITE

ate last year, a new security officer at the port of Beirut stumbled upon a broken door and a hole in the wall of a storage hangar. He made a frightening discovery: Thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate, a compound used in explosives, was spilling from torn bags. In the same hangar were jugs of oil, kerosene and hydrochloric acid; 5 miles of fuse on wooden spools; and 15 tons of fireworks — in short, every ingredient needed to construct a bomb that could devastate a city. Alarmed, the officer, Capt. Joseph Naddaf of the State Security agency, warned his superiors about what appeared to be an urgent security threat. But it turned out that other Lebanese officials already knew. A photo obtained by The New York Times shows bags Lots of officials. of ammonium nitrate piled haphazardly inside Hangar An investigation by a team of New York Times reporters 12 at the port of Beirut. who conducted dozens of interviews with port, customs and security officials, shipping agents and other maritime trade professionals revealed how a corrupt and dysfunctional system failed to the brink of ruin, with an economy on the verge of collapse, shodrespond to the threat while enriching the country’s political lead- dy infrastructure and a persistent anti-government protest movement. The explosion overshadowed all that, raising alarm about ers through bribery and smuggling. Previously undisclosed documents lay out how numer- the system’s inadequacy in a vivid and frightening new way. The daily business of moving cargo in and out of the port, ous government agencies passed off responsibility for defusing the situation. Exclusive photographs from inside the hangar show The Times found, requires a chain of kickbacks to multiple parties: the haphazard, and ultimately catastrophic, handling of explosive to the customs inspector for allowing importers to skirt taxes, to materials. And an analysis of high-definition video illustrates how the military and other security officers for not inspecting cargo, the volatile cocktail of combustible substances came together to and to Ministry of Social Affairs officials for allowing transparently fraudulent claims — like that of a 3-month old child who was produce the most devastating explosion in Lebanon’s history. In the six years since the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate granted a disability exemption from tax on a luxury car. Corruption is reinforced by dysfunction. The port’s main had arrived in Beirut’s port and been offloaded into Hangar 12, repeated warnings had ricocheted throughout the Lebanese cargo scanner, for instance, has not worked properly for years, government, between the port and customs authorities, three abetting the bribe-ridden system of manual cargo inspections. Hours after the blast, the president, prime minister and the ministries, the commander of the Lebanese army, at least two leaders of Lebanon’s security agencies — all of whom had been powerful judges and, weeks before the blast, the prime minister warned about the ammonium nitrate — met at the presidential and president. palace to assess what had gone wrong. The meeting quickly deNo one took action to secure the chemicals. So they lanvolved into shouting and finger-pointing, according to one attendguished in a warehouse with jury-rigged electricity and not so ee and others briefed on the discussion. much as a smoke alarm or sprinkler. There was plenty of blame to go around. All of Lebanon’s Last month, they exploded, unleashing a towering mushroom cloud above the city and a mighty shock wave that punched main parties and security agencies have a stake in the port. None through buildings for miles around, collapsing historic homes, re- took action to protect it. “There has been a failure of management from the birth ducing skyscrapers to hollow frames and scattering streets with of Lebanon until today,” Judge Ghassan Oueidat, Lebanon’s chief the detritus of countless upended lives. The blast killed more than public prosecutor, said in an interview. “We failed at running a 190 people, injured 6,000 and caused billions of dollars in damcountry, running a homeland.” age. And running a port. The explosion appears to have been set off by accident, but An Unscheduled Port of Call it was made possible by years of neglect and bureaucratic buckIn November 2013, a leaking and indebted Moldovanpassing by a dysfunctional government that subjugated public flagged ship sailed into the Beirut port carrying 2,750 tons of amsafety to the more pressing business of bribery and graft. Perhaps nowhere is that system more pronounced than at monium nitrate. The vessel, the Rhosus, had been leased by a the port, a lucrative prize carved into overlapping fiefs by Leba- Russian businessman living in Cyprus and was destined for Monon’s political parties, who see it as little more than a source of zambique, where a commercial explosives factory had ordered self-enrichment, contracts and jobs to dole out to loyalists, and as the chemical but never paid for it. Beirut was not on the itinerary but the ship’s captain was a clearinghouse for illicit goods. Government dysfunction had already brought Lebanon to told to stop there to pick up additional cargo. But after two com-

panies filed suit claiming they had not been paid for services they provided to the ship, Lebanese courts barred it from leaving. The Russian businessman and the ship’s owner simply walked away, leaving the ship and its cargo in the custody of Lebanese authorities. A few months later, a port security officer alerted the customs authority that the ship’s chemicals were “extremely dangerous” and posed “a threat to public safety.” Soon after, a Beirut law firm seeking the repatriation of the Rhosus’ crew to Russia and Ukraine urged the port’s general manager to remove the cargo to avoid “a maritime catastrophe.” The law firm attached emails from the ship’s charterer warning about its “EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CARGO” and a 15-page Wikipedia entry cataloging “ammonium nitrate disasters.” Fearing the dilapidated ship would sink in the harbor, a judge ordered the port to offload the cargo. In October 2014, it was transferred to Hangar 12, a warehouse designated for hazardous materials. After the Aug. 4 explosion, government prosecutors launched an investigation and have since detained at least 25 people connected to the port. But the investigation is unlikely to change the culture of gross mismanagement that set the stage for the explosion, and which is built into the port’s operations. Gateway for Contraband According to port employees, customs officials and shipping and customs agents, little moves in the port without bribes being paid, goods fly through with little or no vetting, and evasion of the law is the rule, not the exception. In addition to depriving the government of sorely needed revenue, corruption has made the port a gateway for contraband in the Middle East, allowing arms and drugs to slip through virtually unimpeded. The port security and military intelligence officials charged with enforcing regulations and keeping the port safe also exploit their authority for profit, port employees and shipping agents said, accepting what they euphemistically call “gifts” to let shipping containers avoid inspection. So do customs officers, port and customs officials said. The port handles 1.2 million cargo containers a year, but its main cargo scanner has been out of order or offline for years, they said. That means that customs officers inspect containers manually, if at all, and routinely take kickbacks to sign off on unregistered, undervalued or miscategorized goods. “Some traders buy certain items and show false receipts,” said Raed Khoury, a former economy minister. “If it costs $1 million, they will provide an invoice of $500,000 to pay less tax.” One customs clearing agent said his small company spends $200,000 a year on bribes to move goods through the port. No one complains as long as the money keeps flowing. A Hole in the Wall There was no shortage of security agencies that could have sounded the alarm about what amounted to a deconstructed bomb in Hangar 12. The army’s intelligence branch and the General Security Directorate have large presences there, and the customs authority also has a security force. Continues on page 15

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

Boris Johnson, COVID, Brexit and the art of policy improvisation By MARK LANDLER and STEPHEN CASTLE

rime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain has always taken a seat-of-the-pants approach to governing. But his reversals this week on the two most pressing issues facing the country — the pandemic and Brexit — have been breathtaking, even by Johnson’s brashly improvisational standards. On Wednesday, alarmed by a resurgence of the coronavirus, Johnson announced that the British government would ban gatherings of more than six people, after weeks of encouraging people to go back to work, eat out at restaurants, patronize pubs and send their children back to school. Hours earlier, the government introduced legislation on Northern Ireland that would override a landmark Brexit agreement that Johnson struck with the European Union, shepherded through Parliament and championed during last year’s election on his way to a landslide victory. The government admitted that this unexpected move breaks international law, which critics say raises a sticky question: Why should people obey Johnson’s new rules on social distancing when he brazenly flouts a legal treaty? “It’s a madman, no-holds-barred style of governing,” said Mujtaba Rahman, an expert on Brexit at the political risk consultancy, Eurasia Group. “You put your foot on the accelerator as hard as you can and hurtle yourself towards the cliff.” Whether Johnson’s brinkmanship with the European Union will crash the current trade negotiations or enable him to strike a better deal was not yet clear. European officials demanded urgent talks with Britain about its threat to rewrite the parts of the Withdrawal Agreement that deal with Northern Ireland. But they did not break off another set of talks in London for a trade deal. Either way, Johnson’s moves showed a readiness — one that dates back to his days as the mayor of London — to shift course suddenly, contradict himself and thumb his nose at traditional norms in pursuit of his goals. And, as so often in the past, his methods drive many in Britain’s establishment to distraction. One of his Conservative predecessors, John Major, said of the Brexit reversal, “If we lose our reputation for honoring the promises we make, we will have lost something beyond price that will never be regained.”

Johnson’s about-face on lockdown rules was a clearer case of bowing to evidence that the virus is spreading. After a tranquil stretch in June and July, new cases began to creep up in August. By Sunday, they had spiked to nearly 3,000, the highest daily number since May 23. Health officials said they worried that many of the cases were in young people, raising the danger that Britain is on the same path as France and Spain, where a jump in cases prompted Britain to impose a travel quarantine on both countries. The country’s infection rate has risen from 12.5 per 100,000 people last week to 19.7 per 100,000, indicating that the “R number” — a measurement that shows how many people are being infected on average by each person with the virus — has risen above one, a critical threshold. “It’s a stitch in time to save nine,” Johnson said at a news conference, flanked by his chief medical and scientific advisers. “These measures are not another national lockdown. The whole point of them is to avoid a new national lockdown.” Health experts praised Johnson for imposing modest restrictions now, rather than risking a larger spike, which would necessitate more draconian measures. But they said Britain’s policies continued to be inconsistent. Authorities allowed a crowd to gather for the opening day of horse races Wednesday in Doncaster, in northern England, before abruptly closing the rest of the races to spectators. “The U.K. government is muddled and needs to decide on a clear strategy because in the current approach, both the health and the economy will suffer, and compliance by the public will continue to fall,” said Devi Sridhar, professor and chairwoman of global public health at the University of Edinburgh. The mixed messages reflect a lingering tension within Johnson’s Cabinet and party between those who worry about a deadly second wave of infections this fall and winter and those who argue that more lockdowns will throttle the economy. Even now, Johnson insisted that schools would stay open and that people should still consider returning to work, as long as it was safe. For Johnson, analysts said, picking a fight with the European Union was a lot easier. Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London, said that in escalating the language on Brexit, Johnson had reverted to a tested strategy that played to the hard-core Brexit base in

the Conservative Party. While Johnson’s threat to renege on a treaty has outraged commentators and establishment figures like Major and former Prime Minister Theresa May, the government seems to have calculated it will cause little blowback beyond political circles in Westminster. “They seem to regard breaking international law as a Beltway issue rather than something that will bother most people — and in that, they are almost certainly right,” Bale said, referring to the parochial politics of Washington. Still, antagonizing the European Union four months before the deadline for a trade agreement is not without risks. Rahman said he now believes there is a greater than even chance that Johnson will fail to strike a deal with Brussels, ushering in a period of disruption on top of the pandemic. Having promised in the election to “get Brexit done,” analysts said, Johnson is also taking a risk in prolonging the wrangling, as many Britons are simply sick of hearing about it. In January, if the fears of scientists are true, he could find himself dealing with a far more serious health crisis. “COVID is a much bigger challenge, and the political risks of being seen as incompetent are much greater,” Bale said. “Most voters are far more worried about COVID, which impacts on them directly, than the technicalities of legal interpretations.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain announced new coronavirus restrictions, banning gatherings larger than six people, referring to it as the “Rule of Six.”

How a massive bomb came together in Beirut’s port From page 14 In 2019, the State Security agency also opened a port office, led by Naddaf, who is now a major. During a patrol last December, he noticed the broken door and hole in the wall of Hangar 12 and his agency investigated. The immediate worry was not an explosion, but that the chemicals would be stolen by terrorists.

State Security reported the issue to the state prosecutor’s office, and in May, Oueidat ordered the port to fix the hangar and appoint a supervisor. But no immediate action was taken. In late July, State Security warned the country’s most powerful officials in a report to the High Security Council, which includes the heads of Lebanon’s security agencies, the president and the prime minister.

On Aug. 4, the government finally acted, sending a team of welders to fix the hangar. It remains unclear whether their work accidentally lit the fire that caused the explosion that same day but that is the most likely scenario. “If there was welding going on in the vicinity, that’ll do it,” said Van Romero, a physics professor and explosives expert at New Mexico Tech. “You have all the ingredients.”

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

Boris Johnson, COVID, Brexit and the art of policy improvisation By MARK LANDLER and STEPHEN CASTLE

Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain announced new coronavirus restrictions, banning gatherings larger than six people, referring to it as the “Rule of Six.”

How a massive bomb came together in Beirut’s port

From page 14

In 2019, the State Security agency also opened a port office, led by Naddaf, who is now a major. During a patrol last December, he noticed the broken door and hole in the wall of Hangar 12 and his agency investigated. The immediate worry was not an explosion, but that the chemicals would be stolen by terrorists.

September 11-13, 2020

Summer jet-setters turned Sardinia into a virus hot spot By JASON HOROWITZ

he allure of the turquoise waters, extravagant villas and exclusive dance clubs of the Emerald Coast of Sardinia proved stronger than ever in August, as vacationers hungry for virus-free air poured in from other capitals of the international party circuit, like the Spanish island of Ibiza and Mykonos in the Aegean Sea, joining Italian tourists hungry for virus-free air. They joined Italian vacationers Silvio Berlusconi, the mogul who dominated Italian politics for a quarter-century and whose Sardinian refuge is worthy of a Roman emperor; and his businessman friend Flavio Briatore, an acquaintance of President Donald Trump, biological father to Heidi Klum’s first child and owner of the island’s unapologetically hedonistic club Billionaire. Now Berlusconi, 83, lies in a Milan hospital with pneumonia after contracting the coronavirus. Briatore, who dropped in to pay him a visit at his Sardinian estate and who had publicly complained about what he said was an overreaction by the government to the pandemic, is quarantined in Milan with COVID-19, too. It is not clear when or how Berlusconi or Briatore were infected. But local officials say that Billionaire and a few other clubs ignored health regulations and became the petri dish of an island epidemic that infected soccer coaches, socialites and showgirls as it spread to the mainland. Briatore’s club says that it did more than was asked of

The nightclub Billionaire in Porto Cervo, Sardinia, last month. Local officials say the club and a few others ignored health regulations and became the petri dish for an outbreak on the island.

it and blamed a sensationalist news media for jumping to conclusions. What is for sure is that the number of cases in Sardinia shot up from a few dozen before the summer to more than 1,000 in the space of a month and that the authorities have attributed more than 750 cases in Lazio, the region that includes Rome, to people returning from the island. Roberto Ragnedda, the mayor of the Sardinian town of Arzachena, where many of the clubs are, said “10 days of madness” in August had caused “enormous damage to our image and to economy.” “If the owners of the clubs were more careful these outbreaks could have been avoided,” he said, adding that, despite having gotten the outbreak under control, “we are seen as the source of everything wrong.” For the authorities in Sardinia, the summer realized their worst nightmare. In March, as infections and deaths exploded in the country’s north, the southern island’s governor, Christian Solinas, pleaded with the authorities in Rome to ban travel to Sardinia because Italians, especially those with a second home there, kept arriving. The government obliged. As a result, Sardinia essentially dodged the COVID-19 disaster. In mid-April, when Italy reached more than 170,000 total cases for the virus, Sardinia had about 1,000. Over the ensuing months, the virus all but vanished from the island, with zero new infections on May 14. Solinas vowed to keep it that way and at the time proposed requiring a “sanitary passport,” essentially a sticker certifying a negative coronavirus test result attached to a boat or plane ticket. The government called it unconstitutional, and ultimately, tourists only had to register via an online form on the region’s website. Still, it seemed sufficient. Solinas, using powers given by the national government, decided to reopen outdoor nightclubs, as long as people danced at a distance. On Aug. 1, the island’s cases had ticked up only slightly, to 39. But August has been Sardinia’s hot season since the 1960s, when the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of some 20 million Ismaili Muslims worldwide and an enthusiastic jetsetter, banded together with friends to buy miles of northeastern coastal land from herders and developed luxurious hotels, yacht and golf clubs and a village in medieval Moorish style along what became known as the Emerald Coast. This year, it became Italy’s viral hot spot; “the Emerald COVID,” according to one headline in the newspaper Cor-

riere della Sera. The authorities are investigating partygoers for leaving false names and numbers at clubs to avoid contact tracing. The Italian civil protection agency complained about a 5 a.m. incident at the Just Cavalli nightclub of the zebra-print fashion house Roberto Cavalli, in which a man broke the nose of a volunteer for blocking his yellow Mercedes and “ruining his holiday.” Johnny Micalusi, a Rome-based celebrity chef known as the King of Fish and for schmoozing with his famous guests at their tables, was hospitalized with COVID-19 after working out of a Sardinian club. But according to Ragnedda, the “most egregious” offender was Briatore, at whose club he once delivered drinks while working his way through law school. Briatore declined a request for an interview through Patrizia Spinelli, a spokeswoman for his Billionaire Life brand. (“We didn’t just create a company, we built a lifestyle” is its motto.) She said the club was not responsible: “We are victims of the situation, too, and took all the precautions.” In a social media post a few days before his coronavirus diagnosis, Briatore, 70, attacked a virologist for speaking badly about his club, saying that such scientists had “terrorized Italy.” “Let us work,” Briatore said in another post on May 31. “The coronavirus provides insurance for this government, they are scaring everyone, and since everything has been going down since June, they start scaring people for September,” he added. He also cited a comment made by his doctor, Alberto Zangrillo, who has said, “COVID clinically no longer exists; someone is terrorizing the country.” (Zangrillo later said that he had been speaking loosely and that he believes the virus is real.) Zangrillo is also the personal doctor of Berlusconi, who is in a Milan hospital where his condition is said to be improving. After making a political career out of victimization, Berlusconi this week seemed to have found a once-in-a-lifetime enemy: his coronavirus infection. In a call Tuesday to members of his party, Forza Italia, he said that hoped to return to political battle and that, out of all the thousands of tests conducted at the Milan hospital since the start of the epidemic, “I have come out in the top five in terms of the strength of the virus.” “I’m fighting to beat this infernal disease,” Berlusconi added, “It’s very ugly.”

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

Chinese ambassador ‘likes’ an X-rated video. Awkward. By AUSTIN RAMZY

hen the Twitter account of a Chinese ambassador Wednesday “liked” a tweet of an X-rated video involving the use of feet, a furious statement from the Chinese Embassy demanded that Twitter launch an investigation. The like created a storm on social media, with many debating whether it had been an accident or if the account of the ambassador to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, had been hacked. Evidence suggests that Liu may be a tech-unsavvy boomer struggling to master a platform that is banned in his own country. The account has a history of odd likes. It has frequently liked its own tweets. It has even liked criticism of China itself. But the episode threatened to become an embarrassing marker in the tenure of a leading voice among China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats. A Twitter representative declined to comment Thursday about China’s demand for an investigation. As the controversy boiled over, the ambassador’s account quickly scrubbed all but two of the dozens of likes it had accumulated over the past year, including the one for the video. But the tabloids in Britain — whose diplomatic ties with China have grown more strained over the national security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong, a former British colony — immediately seized on the Twitter storm. The Sun tabloid screamed that the “Firebrand Chinese Ambassador” had “PUT HIS FOOT IN IT.” Liu, 64, one of China’s most high-profile diplomats, has served as the ambassador to Britain since 2009. He frequently appears on television attacking China’s critics and batting away criticism of his country’s crackdown on democracy advocates in Hong Kong and its mass incarceration of Uighurs in the Xinjiang region. On a BBC program in July, he was shown drone

Liu Xiaoming, one of China’s most high-profile diplomats, has been the ambassador to Britain since 2009. video, apparently of prisoners in Xinjiang being led onto a train. When asked what was happening, he struggled to answer, then replied, “Xinjiang is regarded as the most beautiful place.” He later suggested that the video could be fake. Liu joined Twitter last year after other Chinese diplomats had amassed large followings on the site. He quickly adopted the aggressive tone of some of his colleagues, who have been nicknamed “Wolf Warriors” after the popular Chinese film series. In less than a year, his following grew to more than 85,000. He has used Twitter to attack Adrian Zenz, a scholar who has researched the Xinjiang crackdown. He has accused external forces of fomenting the protest movement in Hong Kong last year. He has praised China’s coronavirus response and defended Huawei, the embattled Chinese tech company. But from the time he joined the social media platform, the like function has proved particularly troublesome. Soon after his account posted an introductory message in October (“Hello Everyone! I’m Liu Xiaoming…”) his account liked a reply that a Chinese ambassador

wouldn’t normally approve: “Hail China dictatorship man! Hail totalitarianism!” The loose likes did not appear to become a serious issue until Wednesday, when Liu’s account attained infamy. “WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS IF EATING,” Luke de Pulford, a member of the British Conservative Party’s Human Rights Commission, wrote in a tweet drawing attention to Liu’s apparent endorsement of the video. “Felt a bit mean for this,” de Pulford added. “But then I remembered the #Uyghur concentration camps and #HongKong and quickly got over it.” The Chinese Embassy quickly came to Liu’s defense, blaming unnamed “anti-China elements” who it said had “viciously attacked Ambassador Liu Xiaoming’s Twitter account and employed despicable methods to deceive the public.” “The embassy has reported this to Twitter company and urged the latter to make thorough investigations and handle this matter seriously,” the statement continued. “The embassy reserves the right to take further actions and hope that the public will not believe or spread such rumor.” Liu joined a group of officials around the world who have been tripped up by strange or inappropriate tweets. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat from New York, resigned from Congress in 2011 after he tweeted an explicit photo of himself and later admitted to having inappropriate relationships with women online while married. Ed Balls, a former member of Parliament in Britain, tweeted his own name in 2011, apparently while trying to do a search. (The date on which he did so, April 28, is now known as Ed Balls Day on Twitter.) And the account of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, liked a pornographic tweet in 2017, which was blamed on a staff member. Liu has not directly addressed the controversy. But he tweeted an obscure maxim that appeared to declare his innocence: “A good anvil does not fear the hammer.”

September 11-13, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

Trump’s fear of black competence By CHARLES M. BLOW

f the many disturbing and scandalous stories about Donald Trump in Michael Cohen’s new book, “Disloyal: A Memoir,” one in particular sticks out to me. It is a continuation of centuries of white supremacist thought that has handicapped Black people and Black leadership. It is when Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, writes: “As a rule, Trump expressed low opinions of all Black folks, from music to culture and politics. Africa was a hellhole, he believed, and Nelson Mandela, to use but one example, was an object of contempt for Trump. ‘Tell me one country run by a Black person that isn’t a shithole,’ he would challenge me as he cursed out the stupidity of Obama.” He continued: “When Mandela passed away, years later, Trump told me he didn’t think the South African founding father and national hero was a real leader — not the kind he respected. ‘South Africa was once a beautiful country twenty, thirty years ago,’ Trump said, endorsing Apartheid-era white rule.” He directed an expletive at Mandela and said, “He was no leader.” This contempt for Black people and Black governance may be experiencing a fresh bloom with Trump, but it has ancient roots, deep and tangled. During the first of the seven famous debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in 1858, Douglas accused

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President Barack Obama speaking during the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in Johannesburg in 2018. Both leaders have been disparaged by President Trump. Lincoln of wanting to turn Illinois into a colony for free Black people, arguing: “For one, I am opposed to Negro citizenship in any and every form. I believe this government was made on the white basis. I believe it was made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men, men of European birth and descent, instead of conferring it upon Negroes, Indians, and other inferior races.” Lincoln, defensive, responded: “I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the Black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.” Many leaders in the United States would come to use Black struggle — in Africa and America — as proof of Black incompetence. As Adam Serwer has written in The Atlantic, Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, wrote in his private correspondence that “wherever you find the Negro, everything is going down around him, and wherever you find a white man, you see everything around him improving.” Lee, who fought against granting Black people the right to vote, wrote in 1868 that “the Negroes have neither the intelligence nor the other qualifications which are necessary to make them safe depositories of political power.” In 1890, the former Mississippi newspaper editor and Confederate soldier Solomon Calhoon wrote in a pamphlet titled “Negro Suffrage” that to understand Black people one need only look to Africa, where there was “no advancement, no invention, no progress, no civilization, no education, no history, no literature, no governmental polity.” He continued, “We see only ignorance, slavery, cannibalism, no respect for women, no respect for anything save the strong hand.”

Calhoon would become president of the state’s constitutional convention that year and write white supremacy into law. During the convention, one delegate said: “Let’s tell the truth if it bursts the bottom of the Universe. We came here to exclude the Negro. Nothing short of this will answer.” States across the South would quickly call constitutional conventions of their own to follow the Mississippi example. This view of Black people as irresponsible, erratic and dangerous was not confined to the political sphere, it bled over into the cultural sphere. In the 1915 silent film, “Birth of a Nation,” the country’s first true blockbuster, the film credited for helping revive the Ku Klux Klan, there is a ruckus scene depicting the South Carolina House of Representatives. The screen card says the white delegation is in the minority. In the scene, the Black politicians (white men in blackface) stand, shout and eat chicken, or sit, some with bare feet on desks and others ogling white women in the gallery. All the while, the white delegation sits properly and demur, a civilized contrast to the incivility. President Woodrow Wilson, a racist, would show the film at the White House. In the film, one of the screen cards would credit him with this quote: “The policy of the congressional leaders wrought … a veritable overthrow of civilization in the South … in their determination to ‘put the white South under the heel of the Black South.’ ” All these views have tracked forward into the current era. They have fueled everything from white flight and gentrification, to urban renewal and mass incarceration. Trump’s attacks on what he now calls poorly run, Democratic-controlled cities are often in fact an assailing of cities where Black people and other minorities are concentrated and in which they often have control. His relentless, yearslong attack on Chicago makes sense in this context: It has a large Black population and for the last year or so, a Black mayor. One thing that white supremacists have always twisted is this: They ravage lands and oppress people, then ascribe the inevitable disastrous result of the ravaging and oppression to the victim’s character and capacity, rather than to their own callousness and cruelty. They hurt people and then shame their expression of pain. They want to assert that Blackness is broken without acknowledging that they did the breaking. They want to look down on Africa without acknowledging that they drained that continent during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. They also don’t want to acknowledge that the European colonizing, mining and plundering of that continent had disastrous and retarding effects on it. They don’t want to acknowledge the effects of redlining, unfair lending, employment discrimination and concentrated poverty on many of America’s cities, even before white flight and massive disinvestment. In a sense, the fact that Black people in this country must struggle to live and to lead is one of white supremacy’s crowning achievements.

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

Multan a Héctor O’Neill García por no revelar sus informes financieros ante la OEG Por THE STAR

a Oficina de Ética Gubernamental (OEG) impuso una multa de $1,500 contra el exalcalde de Guaynabo, Héctor O’Neill García por violación al artículo 5.6 de la Ley de Ética Gubernamental. Según dicta el documento, esto por la falta de cumplimiento del requerimientos de la OEG de tra-

mitar sus informes financieros correspondientes a los años 2016 y 2017. El requerimiento contemplaba información sobre sus estados financieros del 2016 sobre transacciones realizadas con el producto de dos préstamos realizados en ese año, uno por $75 mil y otro por $132,700. El otro requerimiento trató sobre la falta de infor-

mación en encasillados relacionados a una deuda. Por otro lado, según una resolución de la OEG, se le impone a O’Neill García una multa de $8,500 por la infracción al artículo 5.6 de la Ley Orgánica de la OEG. Según la resolución, se le ordena al exalcalde de Guaynabo, completar los encasillados e información requerida por el ente.

Consumidores y planificadores siguen interesados en la isla según Discover Puerto Rico Por THE STAR

egún una investigación de Discover Puerto Rico muestra que, a pesar de las restricciones vigentes, los consumidores y planificadores siguen interesados en Puerto Rico y esperan ansiosamente visitar la Isla. Discover Puerto Rico, la Organización de Mercadeo de Destino (DMO, por sus siglas en inglés) oficial, continúa educando a los futuros visitantes sobre las Guías de Salud y Seguridad mientras mantiene a Puerto Rico en la mente de los consumidores. El enfoque de la organización es liderar la recuperación del sector turístico, cuyo impacto económico a causa del COVID-19 en la Isla es de aproximadamente $2,500 millones hasta la fecha. “Para nosotros, la recuperación no termina con la reapertura del turismo, ni con una vacuna para el COVID. Para nosotros, la recuperación no termina hasta que las tasas de ocupación se recuperen, los aviones estén llenos y los restaurantes y atracciones vuelven a estar repletos. Seguimos comprometidos a hacer eso una realidad, ojalá sea pronto”, expresó Brad Dean, principal oficial ejecutivo (CEO) de Discover Puerto Rico, durante la Actualización de la industria mensual de la organización en comunicación escrita. Alisha Valentine, directora de investigación y análisis de Discover Puerto Rico, compartió detalles sobre cómo las aerolíneas están constantemente haciendo cambios en los itinerarios futuros a base de la demanda anticipada. “Antes del cierre de la isla el 16 de julio, las aerolíneas estaban agregando capacidad de asientos en los mercados objetivos de Discover Puerto Rico. Aunque los asientos se redujeron después de la reversión de la apertura, el hecho de que las aerolíneas vuelvan a agregar asientos al mercado antes de

que finalice el año calendario es una señal fuerte de que anticipan demanda para Puerto Rico”, aseveró Valentine. El análisis de los principales economistas de la industria de Tourism Economics muestra que, entre la primera semana de marzo y la semana del 15 de agosto, Estados Unidos ha perdido $340,500 millones en gastos de visitantes. Si bien el turismo representa alrededor del 25 por ciento de las pérdidas financieras totales, la industria ha sido la más afectada en términos de pérdida de empleos, con un 40 por ciento proveniente del sector turístico. Al considerar las pérdidas por estado y territorio, Puerto Rico ha perdido más de $1,750 millones en gastos directos de visitantes, más que 13 estados de Estados Unidos. Dados los impactos económicos adicionales del gasto de visitantes perdidos, se estima que el impacto económico total del COVID-19 en el sector turístico hasta la fecha es de aproximadamente $2,500 millones. Destination Analysts, un socio de datos clave del DMO, ha estado rastreando la opinión de los consumidores en torno a los viajes desde principios de marzo, y más consumidores que nunca dicen que están “listos para viajar”. Por esta razón, los esfuerzos de mercadeo son clave. Mientras Discover Puerto Rico continúa promoviendo la salud y la seguridad, es importante equilibrar cuidadosamente los activos de nuestra Isla que nuestros seguidores esperan. “Debemos tener claro que la Isla no está abierta, pero podemos recordarles la belleza de la Isla para que seamos incluidos en su consideración una vez que abramos nuevamente al turismo del exterior. A partir del 19 de agosto, retomamos nuestro mensaje de ‘Todo a su tiempo’, para combinarlo con el mensaje de salud y seguridad. Producimos activos asombro-

sos para esta campaña al inicio del COVID; algunos de ellos no se utilizaron a su máximo potencial, por lo que vamos a relanzarlos y es probable que se creen nuevos activos dependiendo del tiempo que la Isla permanezca cerrada”, explicó Leah Chandler, principal oficial de mercadeo (CMO) de Discover Puerto Rico. El DMO lanzará en octubre una nueva serie de videos llamada “Suena a Puerto Rico”, que se enfoca en el lenguaje y el sonido. Estos videos están siendo desarrollados por el equipo interno de la organización para crear contenido nuevo que eduque a los visitantes potenciales sobre la Isla de una manera entretenida, generando inspiración e ideas de viajes para futuras visitas. Las investigaciones muestran que las restricciones del COVID-19 encendieron el deseo de que las personas aprendan una nueva destreza, les interesen nuevos pasatiempos y prueben nuevas actividades. Chandler comentó que, “los anfitriones de Discover Puerto Rico llevarán a los espectadores en un viaje para descubrir sonidos y palabras únicas para complementar su viaje a Puerto Rico. Junto con los locales, se revelarán los significados de las palabras y cómo usarlas correctamente, experimentando los verdaderos sonidos de nuestra Isla”. El equipo de servicios del destino de

Discover Puerto Rico y cinco hoteles asociados organizaron la primera experiencia de destino virtual, enfocada en el Distrito del Centro de Convenciones, El Distrito y los hoteles circundantes. Un total de 120 organizadores de reuniones se unieron al grupo para saber por qué Puerto Rico sería una buena opción para sus eventos futuros y cómo los anfitriones planean mantener seguros a sus asistentes. Desde que comenzó la crisis, el equipo de ventas ha visto más de 82,000 habitaciones solicitadas y ha confirmado casi 17,000 habitaciones para un total de $16 millones en impacto económico. “La pandemia del COVID ha devastado nuestra industria de formas que nadie podría haber anticipado. Como tú, estamos ansiosos por reabrir el turismo a los visitantes del exterior y reanudar la promoción y venta de Puerto Rico. Pero ninguno de nosotros puede ignorar la batalla económica que tenemos por delante, una batalla que estamos comprometidos a ganar con ustedes y para ustedes. En Discover Puerto Rico, continuaremos ayudándolos a que la gente vuelva a trabajar tan pronto como sea posible. Cuando sea el momento adecuado para retomar la promoción del turismo, actuaremos rápido y agresivamente para reiniciar el motor turístico lo más rápido posible”, finalizó Dean.

September 11-13, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Putting ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ in motion By GIA KOURLAS

“D

ance — when are we getting it back?” Amy Sherman-Palladino asked. “Nice to talk to you about the thing that doesn’t exist anymore.” While dance does exist, the live version has been hard to come by during the coronavirus pandemic. For now the screen is where it lives. Sherman-Palladino, the writer, director and creator of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” has been doing her part for years by presiding over an unofficial dance preservation movement. In her world, dialogue and movement meld together, always emphasizing the idea that choreography on television is not just a possibility but a shimmering, transformative experience. So, yes, we are in a waiting game in terms of being able to see live dance again. But until then, Sherman-Palladino has provided us with options. “Mrs. Maisel” — nominated for multiple Emmys for its third season — happens to be full of dance. And we can always watch “Bunheads” again — and mourn that it was canceled after just one season. Dance is infused, indirectly or not, in just about everything that Sherman-Palladino touches, even going back to “The Gilmore Girls.” Remember the dance competition in “They Shoot Gilmores, Don’t They?” That recital at Miss Patty’s dance studio? When Rory had to review a dance for the school paper? (I’ve never felt more understood.) That led to “Bunheads,” in which dance was everything. It was real, and it was funny — as Sherman-Palladino knows, dancers are both. What else do “Mrs. Maisel” and “Bunheads” have in common? For Sherman-Palladino and her husband and creative partner, Daniel Palladino, it is a choreographer: Marguerite Derricks. “We call Marguerite our secret weapon because it’s as if we have another almost a director onstage,” ShermanPalladino said. “She understands how to do dance for camera, because it’s actually a different animal — it’s not a proscenium, it’s 3D. It’s everything the world envelops.” The third season of “Mrs. Maisel,” set in the late 1950s and early ’60s, opens with a USO show. “I was thinking, how can I give my line producer the biggest heart attack?” Sherman-Palladino said. “I’m like, well if we’re going to do a USO show, I want a dance number. I want 850 dudes screaming at the dancers.” “Mrs. Maisel” has expanded the use of dance in conventional and unconventional ways; it breathes dance in many directions. There are those over-the-top numbers with the fervor and splendor of an MGM spectacle, but there are also intimate duets, like the dancers floating along the Seine in Season 2 and the sultry dance between Midge Maisel and Lenny Bruce in Season 3. The dances have a way of slowing down time in certain moments, while the show’s choreographed walking shots — bodies and dresses sweeping through city sidewalks or apartments or department stores — speed it up, crackling with purpose. It’s as if the Rockettes, in street clothes, had taken over Manhattan. But all of “Mrs. Maisel” feels like a dance to me. It’s help-

Conga blues: Rachel Brosnahan, center, in the third season of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” ful that Sherman-Palladino, who trained in ballet, still misses every part of being a dancer, from class to “those dopey cattle calls” in which, she said, “you stand in line for 12 hours and then get to dance for a half hour. Then you’d get to go home and figure out how to pay your rent.” And dance is as much for the head as it is the body, she said: “There’s also a discipline and a mental clarity about, ‘Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again,’ that I think is important in life in general.” In advance of the Emmys, Derricks, who studied at the National Ballet School of Canada and has choreographed for numerous movies and TV shows, including “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Glow,” joined Sherman-Palladino for a conversation about the constant motion of “Mrs. Maisel.” These are edited excerpts from that conversation. Q: Why is dance so important to you? AMY SHERMAN-PALLADINO: I was a dancer. There was one point where I was never out of tights. I think that everything I do is filtered through that lens. So I write with a dance rhythmic view of a scene in mind. And I think that my characters tend to have an energy that even when they walk down the street there’s sort of an internal beat to them. Then when directing came into play, I really realized, oh yeah, I can finally tell my mother that the dance lessons paid off. It’s been channeled through an unusual way, but I definitely direct like a dancer. Q: In many scenes, there’s a choreography of walking through and taking up space. You use dancers in walking scenes, right? SHERMAN-PALLADINO: We stage things that people don’t think are staged. In the season finale, we’ve got our girl Bailey [De Young, who plays Imogene] just walking down the street in slow motion to Nina Simone. Those are dancers. Those aren’t extras because we needed physicality, we needed crosses, we needed people, we needed presence. I don’t even like to call them extras because they’re so integral to our process. DERRICKS: The most fun for me is that I get there and Amy tells me where the pas de deux of the camera’s going to happen. She says, “OK, this is where the camera is going to move,” and

she kind of dances around and shows me. Then I get to fill in the background dancers musically and choreograph them — even if it’s just them spinning over their shoulder and walking across, it becomes this beautiful “Swan Lake” on the floor. With Amy, it’s always like she and I are dancing together. Q: In the season finale, Shy Baldwin appears at the Apollo and the performance includes a striking, sexy solo by Ra’Jahnae Patterson. What were your ideas for the solo? DERRICKS: Amy wrote that she starts onstage with her leg up over her head and it just hangs there. So I was like, Oh, I knew exactly where we were going. I researched Black women doing jazz from that time period, and then I just super heightened it. I took it to a level that I knew that she could handle. She makes everything look so easy, and she’s incredibly sexy without trying too hard. Q: What kind of research did you do for the Hines brothers tap duet? DERRICKS: Maurice Hines was one of my first friends when I moved to New York, and he’s kind of like a big brother to me, so when I saw that I was going to get to pay tribute to Maurice and Gregory, I called Maurice. I also talked to him about that time period. I took a deep dive into making sure that I was doing the tap that they did when they were teenagers as opposed to what they did as adults. For me, what made it the easiest was the Foreman brothers [the dancers are Jaden and Ellis Foreman] — these young guys are so well educated on the masters of the past. Q: How much did the Foreman brothers know about the Hines brothers? DERRICKS: They were huge fans, and so they knew the style. One of the brothers does this thing where he taps his toe really quickly and he points down to it. When they battle back and forth, Maurice was kind of this really flashy showoff. The Foremans knew that already. They knew the history, so they came in there and they embodied it immediately. Q: There’s so much digital dance around now — the quality is not always great, and it’s often not very creative. Would you ever consider making a film of a company like New York City Ballet performing a George Balanchine work? SHERMAN-PALLADINO: Absolutely. There’s nothing in the dance world that I would ever not be interested in doing. I was just watching the “Pina” movie again. The way they captured those dances was so fabulous. It’s a different way of looking at dance. I mean, it’s beautiful to sit in a lovely theater and watch a gorgeous ballet. And I long for the moment when we can — believe me. Theater is where everything happens. Everything that I do onscreen happens because I live in the theater. Everything that I breathe happens because I watched it, I saw it, I lived it for a while. And it challenges you and the camera to give people that same feeling. Q: Is it possible? SHERMAN-PALLADINO: You’ll never get that same feeling. You shouldn’t try to replicate what you feel in a live theater. I think that should be its own thing, but it can inspire you to push the camera, in a way.

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

Diana Rigg, Lady Olenna Tyrell of ‘Game of Thrones,’ dies at 82 By ANITA GATES

iana Rigg, the British actress who enthralled London and New York theater audiences with her performances in classic roles for more than a half-century but remained best known as the quintessential new woman of the 1960s — sexy, confident, witty and karate-adept — on the television series “The Avengers,” died Thursday at her home in London. She was 82. Her daughter, Rachael Stirling, said in a statement that the cause was cancer. Rigg had a late-career success in a recurring role, from 2013 to 2016, as the outspoken and demanding Lady Olenna Tyrell on HBO’s acclaimed series “Game of Thrones.” “I wonder if you’re the worst person I ever met,” Lady Olenna once said to her nemesis Cersei Lannister. “At a certain age, it’s hard to recall.” But Rigg’s first and biggest taste of stardom came in 1965, when, as a 26-year-old veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company, she was cast on the fourth season of ITV’s “The Avengers.” As Emma Peel, she was the stylish new crime-fighting partner of the dapper intelligence agent John Steed (Patrick Macnee), replacing Honor Blackman, who had left to star in the James Bond film “Goldfinger.” (Blackman died in April.) Although Mrs. Peel, as Steed frequently addressed her, remained on the show relatively briefly, she quickly became the star attraction and ultimately drew a cult following, especially when “The Avengers” was broadcast in the United States, beginning in 1966. Reviewing the 1969 movie “The Assassination Bureau,” in which she starred, Vincent Canby of The New York Times described Rigg in her Emma Peel persona as a “tall, lithe Modigliani of a girl with the sweet sophistication of Nora Charles and the biceps of Barbarella.” She had left the show by then for a high-profile career in feature films. Her other roles included Helena in Peter Hall’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1968), Portia in an all-star version of “Julius Caesar” (1970), a free spirit who tempted George C. Scott in Arthur Hiller and Paddy Chayefsky’s satire “The Hospital” (1971), and the cheated-on wife in Harold Prince’s interpretation of the Stephen Sondheim musical “A Little Night Music” (1978). But again it was for something of an action role that she received the greatest attention, when she played a crime boss’s daughter in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (1969), the only James Bond film to star George Lazenby. Her character had the distinction among Agent 007’s movie love interests of actually marrying Bond, but she was killed off in the final scene, for the sake of future plot lines. Rigg returned to television, largely in more serious roles than before, among them Clytemnestra, Hedda Gabler, Regan in “King Lear” and Lady Dedlock in “Bleak House.” And although she said she was not a fan of mysteries herself, she was the host of the PBS

Diana Rigg in the title role of “Phedre” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Majestic Theater in New York on Jan. 5, 1999. series “Mystery!” from 1989 to 2003 and played Gladys Mitchell’s unconventional detective Adela Bradley on the BBC series “The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries” from 1998 to 2000. Rigg never neglected the theater, where she had begun. She joined the National Theater Company in 1972 and went on to acclaimed performances both on Broadway and in the West End, interpreting writers as different as Tom Stoppard (“Night and Day,” “Jumpers”) and Sondheim (a 1987 London production of “Follies”). She continued working in theater well into her 70s, starring in “The Cherry Orchard” in 2008 and “Hay Fever” in 2009, both at the Chichester Festival Theater. One of her final stage roles was as Mrs. Higgins, the protagonist’s imperious but sensible mother, in a 2011 production of “Pygmalion” at the Garrick Theater in London. Thirty-seven years before, at what was then the Albery Theater, a few streets away, she had been the play’s ingénue, Eliza Doolittle. Wherever Rigg went, honors seemed to follow. She received the 1994 Tony Award for best actress in a play for her performance in the title role of “Medea.” In London she had already received the Evening Standard Theater Award for the same role, an honor she

received again, in 1996, for both “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and “Mother Courage and Her Children.” She never won the Olivier Award, London’s Tony equivalent, but she was nominated three times: for “Mother Courage” (1996), “Virginia Woolf” (1997) and “Britannicus/Phèdre” (1999). Her most notable British screen award was a 1990 best actress honor from BAFTA, the British film and television academy, for “Mother Love,” a BBC miniseries in which she played a murderously possessive parent. Between 1967 and 2018 she was nominated for nine Emmy Awards, including four for “Game of Thrones.” She won in 1997 as best supporting actress in a miniseries or special for her role in a British-German production of “Rebecca.” Mrs. Peel had become Mrs. Danvers. Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg was born on July 20, 1938, in Doncaster, Yorkshire, the daughter of a railroad engineer who soon moved his family to India for a job with the national railway. When she was 8, she returned to England to attend boarding school. She remained to complete her education. She entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at 17 and made her professional debut two years later, in 1957, in Bertolt Brecht’s drama “The Caucasian Chalk Circle.” As a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (1959-64), she began in minor parts and advanced to roles including Lady Macduff in “Macbeth” and Bianca in “The Taming of the Shrew.” Rigg, who was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1988 and a Dame Commander in 1994, was married and divorced twice. Her first husband (1973-76), Menachem Gueffen, was an Israeli artist. With her second (1982-90), Archibald Stirling, a Scottish businessman and theater producer, she had a daughter, Rachael, an actress, who survives her.

Diana Rigg as Mrs. Higgins, seated left, and Lauren Ambrose as Eliza Doolilttle, seated right, in a revival of the musical “My Fair Lady” in New York on April 11, 2018.

September 11-13, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Finding the heart of zinfandel By ERIC ASIMOV

he comment from Preston G. of San Francisco seemed dismissive and definitive. Over the last month, as this column has been exploring zinfandels that were a step back from the popular overthe-top blockbuster style, he wrote: “Restrained is not authentic to the variety.” Here at Wine School, expressions of historical certainty about wine generally arouse suspicions, as do assertions of authenticity. They are almost always wrong, yet nonetheless valuable in provoking discussions. Determining the authenticity of any product is never an easy task. It’s particularly difficult with wine. Its production is largely specialized, with few accessible records to testify to the techniques and goals of long-ago vignerons. The question of authenticity is especially perplexing in the New World, where decisions about which grapes to plant and what style of wine to make were often entrepreneurial or commercial rather than cultural. Even so, if you are producing cabernet sauvignon in California or pinot noir in Oregon, you can at least consult historic references, like Bordeaux and Burgundy. If you are making zinfandel, however, you are for the most part on your own. Although zinfandel has been shown to be genetically identical to tribidrag, a Croatian grape, and to primitivo, from the Puglia region of Italy, no definitive Old World blueprint existed for early zinfandel producers. Free from the dictates of well-known styles, they were able to follow their own muses. Nonetheless, old zinfandel vineyards, as Eric of Capitol Hill, D.C., pointed out, do offer a few clues about what long-ago wine producers were thinking. Preston G. cited Italian immigrants in California in the 19th and early 20th centuries who planted zinfandel, often in concert with other grapes. Some of these vineyards survive to this day, and are cherished and protected as heirlooms, while giving us some idea of how these farmers imagined their wines. Zinfandel, for all its alluring qualities of spicy fruit flavors, can, depending on the vintage, lack other attributes. It is not always sufficiently tannic, for example, so these old farmers made sure as well to plant petite sirah, a notably tannic variety. It can be light in color, so the vineyard could contain a grape like alicante bouschet, which yields dark, deeply colored wines. Other grapes, like carignan, might have been planted to add acidity, along with any number of other varieties, each with its par-

Debating authenticity in wine is often pointless, especially with New World wines and that leaves more options for producers, who are free to surprise. ticular attributes. Industrial winemakers today can simply take care of any potential problems in the cellar, adding products like Mega Purple, powdered tannin or tartaric acid to solve issues of color, structure or acidity. But these long-ago farmers, with their Old World experience, anticipated problems with more natural solutions. As today’s cliché has it, those old wines were truly made in the vineyard. Still, we don’t know much about how their wines smelled, tasted or felt in the mouth. And zinfandel producers cannot point to Old World cultural traditions, even if the immigrants who planted these old vineyards were in a sense trying to conjure up the wines they’d enjoyed in southern Italy or wherever they originated. The history that does exist identifies no dominant style of zinfandel. In his entertaining 1991 book, “Angels’ Visits: An Inquiry Into the Mystery of Zinfandel,” David Darlington pointed out that over many decades zinfandel styles “swung widely from moderate claretlike table wines to lurid alcoholic essences to pink

soda-pop-like aperitifs.” “This lack of a coherent zinfandel tradition is, however, another thing that makes it a purely American wine,” Darlington wrote in the book, which was later reissued as “Zin: The History and Mystery of Zinfandel.” In other words, zinfandel could invent and reinvent itself. Most recently, over the last 25 years, its identity has been that of an extravagant, alcoholic wine. Good producers could match power with precision. In less skilled hands, the wines could just as easily be thick, sweet and syrupy. But history tells us that zinfandel can be a lot of things, depending, as with so many wines, on the intent of the producer. Our aim in exploring a more restrained set of zinfandels was simply to examine the wine made from a different point of view. As usual, I picked three examples. They were: Broc Cellars Vine Starr Sonoma County Zinfandel 2018, Maître de Chai Clements Hills Stampede Vineyard Zinfandel 2017 and Dashe Cellars Vineyard Select California Zinfandel 2018. The alcohol content ranged from Broc’s 12.8% to Maître de Chai’s 14.2% to Dashe’s 14.5%. While wines above 14% alcohol may not seem restrained, in the context of zinfandel, where wines have often topped 16% and even hit 17%, restraint is a relative thing. Even among these wines, the differences in character were profound. The Broc was bright, fresh and nervy, with aromas and flavors of flowers and spicy fruit. Acidity was its defining quality. It was tangy, lightly tart and deliciously refreshing. Chris Brockway, the winemaker, says Vine Starr was inspired by the wines of Beaujolais and the Northern Rhône. For me, Beaujolais was most evident in its snappy, juicy vibrancy and simple, easy-to-digest drinkability. The Dashe, at 14.5% alcohol, was rounder and richer, yet pretty, with bright, spicy, floral flavors. It was extremely well-balanced and reminded me of an excellent Southern Rhône blend, although the producers, Mike and Anne Dashe, say only that they were aiming for a “bistro wine,” a bottle made to go well with food. Unlike the Vine Starr, which was 100% zinfandel, the Dashe included 6% petite sirah, which may account for its lightly tannic texture, and 5% teroldego, a northern Italian grape that paired seamlessly with the others. The third bottle, from Maître de Chai — French for cellar master — stood out. It was a single-vineyard wine, unlike the others, from grapes grown on decomposed granite soils in Clement Hills, a small viticul-

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tural area in the southeast part of Lodi. The other two wines, regardless of the intent, were varietal wines, defined by the characteristics of the grape as expressed by their producers. The Maître de Chai, though, seemed to be a wine of a particular place, earthier and more mineral, with focused fruit and floral flavors and a pleasant touch of tannin. As with the Dashe, several other grapes like mission, grenache and mourvèdre were part of the blend, though the producers were not explicit about the precise mix. As different as the bottles were, I thought each was an excellent example of zinfandel’s potential in a variety of styles. By and large, readers seem to enjoy zinfandel, although some pushed back against my aversion to high-alcohol bottles. Readers also offered plenty of suggestions of favorite producers, which I very much appreciated. Alex Seizew of Ojai, California, even suggested a white zinfandel from Turley, which happens to be an excellent bottle, dry and refreshing. As far as these wines went, however, opinions flew in all directions. Martina Mirandola Mullen of New York likened the Maître de Chai to an elegant Bordeaux blend, but George Erdle of Charlotte, North Carolina, said it was syrupy and disjointed. His dining group enjoyed the Dashe best, and seconded my suggestion, calling it Rhônelike. Jerry Pendzick of Jacksonville, Oregon, said the Broc reminded him of a watery pinot noir. But Martin Schappeit of Forest, Virginia, took my recommendation and tried a 2015 Broc with a recipe for orange beef. “This food fits this wine like Cinderella’s foot fit the shoe,” he said. “I was sitting down and thought in a sentimental moment: This is an American wine and I love it.” The Character of a Place This month we’re going to try something a little different. Ordinarily, I suggest three bottles of the same type of wine. Instead, I want to compare three wines that are closely related but come from different appellations within a larger region, the Northern Rhône Valley of France. Each is made with the syrah grape. But what if anything distinguishes one from the others? That’s what we are going to examine. The French appellation system suggests that each place will have its own distinctive characteristics. It’s one thing, say, to compare a Chambolle-Musigny

September 11-13, 2020

from Burgundy with a Chinon from the Loire Valley. One is made from pinot noir, the other with cabernet franc. You would expect that they would differ for that reason alone. But if wines are made with the same grape, other factors come into play. In the case of the Northern Rhône, the French authorities concluded long ago that the wines made in St.-Joseph, Crozes-Hermitage and Cornas were all sufficiently distinctive to warrant separate appellations. What would be the basis for the differences? Soils, drainage, microclimates, elevations, angles of inclination toward the sun, viticulture and, yes, the human element, all play a role. Terroir, in short. Of course, we would be naïve not to acknowledge other factors, like economics and politics, that influence how appellations are shaped. When the St.-Joseph appellation was founded in 1956, for example, it was intended to convey the qualities of wine grown on steep granite hillsides clustered near six villages. Eventually, though, because of economic and political pressure, the appellation was extended to include flat, fertile, easy-to-farm areas that yield inferior wines and muddy the meaning of place.

WINE

Still, St.-Josephs made by good producers, who respect the spirit of the appellation, ought to give good ideas of the character of a place. Here are the three Northern Rhônes I suggest: J.L. Chave Sélection Crozes-Hermitage Silène 2018 (Erin Cannon Imports, Manhasset, New York) $30 J.L. Chave Sélection St.-Joseph Offerus 2017 (Erin Cannon Imports, Manhasset) $31 Domaine Vincent Paris Cornas Granit 30 2018 (A Thomas Calder Selection/Polaner Selections, Mount Kisco, New York) $40 You will note that two of the wines come from the same producer, J.L. Chave Sélection, the négociant arm of Jean-Louis Chave, one of the great producers of the Northern Rhône. I think these are among the best and most accessible examples of both St.-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage. If Chave offered a Cornas, I might have chosen that bottle, too. Vincent Paris is an excellent choice in his own right. If you can’t find these bottles, please consult Wine School columns on St.-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage for other options. We have not covered Cornas previously, so if you cannot find the Granit 30, please consider bottles from Franck Balthazar, Alain Voge, Guillaume Gilles, Mickaël Bourg, Domaine Lionnet and Jean-Baptiste Souillard. I’m not suggesting legendary producers like Thierry Allemand and Auguste Clape, but if you have a spare bottle, by all means go ahead and drink it. I like pretty much anything with Northern Rhône reds, but you can’t go wrong with a roast chicken, various beef dishes and savory stews. A cautionary note: You may not find compelling differences among the wines. This is simply the beginning of an exploration, not a scientific experiment intended to reach definitive conclusions. If you do find differences, they may tell us little about appellations. They may be the usual variables that would be apparent in wines made from different producers, or different vintages in the case of the St.-Joseph. Differences in terroir become apparent over the course of many years of consistent evaluation. This month’s wines are not the end, but the beginning. J.L. Chave Sélection St.-Joseph Offerus 2017 for $31, Domaine Vincent Paris Cornas Granit 30 2018 for $40 and J.L. Chave Sélection Crozes-Hermitage Silène 2018 for $30 in New York on May 6, 2020.

24 LEGAL NOTICE

involuntario; JOHN DOE y RICHARD ROE.

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE Demandados PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE CIVIL NUM.: CA2020CV00140. PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SOBRE: LIQUIDACION DE SUPERIOR DE AGUADA. COMUNIDAD DE BIENES. EMCOOPERATIVA DE PLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. AHORRO Y CREDITO ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS DE AGUADILLA EE. UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE Parte Demandante VS ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

JUAN C. RUtZ ROMAN

Parte Demandada CIVIL NUM. AU2020CV00055. SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO (VIA ORDINARIA). EDICTO.

A: JUAN C. RUIZ ROMAN

Se le apercibe que la parte demandante por mediación del Lcdo. Rafael Fabre Colon, P.O. Box 277, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico 00681, Tel. 787-265-0334, ha radicado la acción de epigrafe en su contra. Copia de la demanda, emplazamientos y del presente edicto le ha sido enviado por correo a la ultima dirección conocida. Pueden ustedes obtener mayor información sobre el asunto revisando los autos en el Tribunal. Se le apercibe que tiene usted un término de treinta (30) dias para radicar contestación a dicha demanda de cobro de dinero y/o cualquier escrito que estime usted conveniente a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrOnica: https:// unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la SecretarIa del Tribunal de epigrafe, pero que de no radicarse escrito alguno ante el Tribunal dentro de dicho término el Tribunal procederá a ventilar el procedimiento sin más citarle ni oirle. Dada en Aguada, Puerto Rico, hoy 28 de agosto de 2020. SARAHI REYES PEREZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA. SALA SUPERIOR DE AGUADA. ERIKA I CRUZ PEREZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

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

SUCESION DE GLADYS JOSEFINA MALPICA ROSA, compuesta por sus únicos y universales herederos Jorge Luis Martínez Malpica; Glamaris de Lourdes Alméstica Malpica t/c/c Glameris Alméstica Cohen y Carlos Juan Alméstica Barbosa. Demandante Vs.

ENRIQUE RIVERA BOX, como demandado @

A: ENRIQUE RIVERA BOX; JOHN DOE y RICHARD ROE

Por la PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los 30 días de haber sido diligenciado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección: https://unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. POR MEDIO del presente edicto se les notifica de la radicación de una demanda en Liquidación de Bienes Hereditarios. Los demandantes, la Sucesión de Gladys Josefina Malpica Rosa, ha solicitado que se dicte sentencia contra usted y se ordene la Liquidación de Bienes Hereditarios. POR EL PRESENTE EDICTO se les emplaza y requiere para que conteste la Demanda radicando el original de su contestación ante el Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala de San Juan, y notificándole con copia de dicha contestación al abogado del demandante, Lcdo. Ricardo J. Cacho Rodríguez, 54 Calle Resolución, Suite 303, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00920-2729 Tel: (787) 722-2242; Fax: (787) 722-2243, cachor@microjuris. com dentro del término de treinta (30) días siguientes a la fecha de publicación de este Edicto; si dejaren de así hacerlo, se les anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia contra ustedes concediendo el remedio solicitado sin más citarle ni oírle. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal de Carolina, Puerto Rico, hoy 4 de septiembre de 2020. Lcda. Marilyn Aponte Rodriguez, Secretaria Regional. Myriam I Figueroa Pastrana, Sec Auxiliar.

JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera DE DINERO ORDINARIO. EM- Instancia Sala Superior MuniciInstancia Sala Superior de BA- PLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. pal de San Juan. YAMON. A: GRUPO SANGRIAS DONALD CHURCHILL

COOPERATIVA DE AHORRO Y CRÉDITO DR. MANUEL ZENO GANDÍA Demandante

ANGÉLICA PADILLA ROBLES

Demandado (a) Civil Núm.: TA2019CV01405 (500). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: ANGÉLICA PADILLA ROBLES

EL SECRETARIO (A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 3 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 diez (10) días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 4 de septiembre de 2020. En BAYAMON, Puerto Rico, el 4 de septiembre de 2020. LCDA. LAURA U SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria Regional. F/ MIRCIENID GONZALEZ TORRES, Secretario (a) Auxiliar.

CAPITAL INC. Demandante

DORAL MORTGAGE INC., por conducto de DUNBAR PRITCHARD LLC AHORA BANCO Demandante Rubén L. Ayala Ortiz o POPULAR DE PUERTO RF MORTGAGE agente autorizado. RICO; JOHN DOE Y & INVESTMENT A: RUBEN L. AYALA RICHARD DOE, COMO CORPORATION; ORTIZ por si y como POSIBLES TENEDORES JUAN DEL PUEBLO Y representante de la DESCONOCIDOS sociedad legal de bienes JUANA DEL PUEBLO Y Demandado (a) gananciales compuesta CUALESQUIER PERSONA Civil Núm.: GB2020CV00005. Sala: 201. Sobre: CANCELADESCONOCIDA CON con Zulmarie Rivera CION DE PAGARE EXTRAVIAPOSIBLE INTERES EN Carrasquilllo. DO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENLA OBLIGACION CUYA TENCIA POR EDICTO. A: ZULMARIE RIVERA CANCELACION POR CARRASQUILLO por si y A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD como representante de la DECRETO JUDICIAL SE ROE como posibles SOLICITA sociedad legal de bienes tenedores desconocidos Demandado (a) EL SECRETARIO (A) que susgananciales compuesta Civil Núm.: SJ2020CV00167. con Rubén L. Ayala Ortiz. Sala: 901. Sobre: CANCELA- cribe le notifica a usted que el NOTIFIQUESE A LAS DIRECCIONES:

• PO Box 9021092 San Juan, P.R. 00902. • 311 Calle Tetuán Viejo San Juan, SJ P.R. 00901. • Alaya & Capó: Calle Lopez Flores Esq. Muñoz Rivera, 00726 Caguas, P.R. • ra@ayalaortiz.com (dirección de RUA)

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y 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), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudjcjaljr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar 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 LEGAL NOTICE rebeldía en su contra y conceder ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE el remedio solicita1o en la dePUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE manda o cualquier otro sin más PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el SAN JUAN. ejercicio de su sana discreción, MERCHANT lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al ADVANCE, LLC abogado de la parte demandanDEMANDANTE VS. te, el Lcdo. Kenmuel J. Ruiz LóGRUPO SANGRIAS pez cuya dirección es: P.O. Box INC., H/N/C/ SANGRIAS 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico OLD SAN JUAN Y 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993RUBEN L. AYALA ORTIZ 3731 a la dirección kenmuel. Y ZULMARIE RIVERA riuz@orf-law.com. EXTENDIDO MI FIRMA y el sello del CARRASQUILLO, AMBOS BAJO Tribunal, en San Juan, Puerto EN SU CARÁCTER Rico, hoy día 3 de septiembre PERSONAL Y COMO de 2020. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 3 de septiembre de MIEMBROS DE LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Secretaria. ENID BIENES GANANCIALES DIAZ RIOS, Secretaria Auxiliar.

2 de septiembre de 2020, este CION DE PAGARE HIPOTECATribunal ha dictado Sentencia, RIO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENSentencia Parcial o Resolución TENCIA POR EDICTO. en este caso, que ha sido debiA: JUAN DEL PUEBLO Y damente registrada y archivada JUANA DEL PUEBLO Y en autos donde podrá usted CUALESQUIER PERSONA enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta noDESCONOCIDA CON tificación se publicará una sola POSIBLE INTERES EN vez en un periódico de circulaLA OBLIGACION CUYA ción general en la Isla de Puerto CANCECLACION POR Rico, dentro de los diez (10) DECRETO JUDICIAL SE días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted SOLICITA una parte en el procedimienEL SECRETARIO (A) que susto sujeta a los términos de la cribe le notifica a usted que el 31 Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial de agosto de 2020, este Tribunal o Resolución, de la cual puede ha dictado Sentencia, Sentenestablecerse recurso de revisión cia Parcial o Resolución en este o apelación dentro del término caso, que ha sido debidamente de 30 días contados a partir de registrada y archivada en autos la publicación por edicto de esta donde podrá usted enterarse notificación, dirijo a usted esta detalladamente de los términos notificación que se considerará de la misma. Esta notificación hecha en la fecha de la publise publicará una sola vez en un cación de este edicto. Copia de periódico de circulación general esta notificación ha sido archien la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro vada en los autos de este caso, de los diez (10) días siguientes con fecha de 8 de septiembre a su notificación. Y, siendo o rede 2020. En Guaynabo, Puerpresentando usted una parte en to Rico, el 8 de septiembre de el procedimiento sujeta a los tér2020. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA minos de la Sentencia, SentenSANCHEZ, Secretaria Regional cia Parcial o Resolución, de la II. F/ DIAMAR GONZALEZ BAcual puede establecerse recurso RRETO, Secretario (a) Auxiliar. de revisión o apelación dentro LEGAL NOTICE del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto por edicto de esta notificación, Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE dirijo a usted esta notificación JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera que se considerará hecha en la Instancia Sala Superior de CAfecha de la publicación de este ROLINA. edicto. Copia de esta notificaCENTURION INSURANCE ción ha sido archivada en los AGENCY, INC autos de este caso, con fecha Demandante de 8 de septiembre de 2020. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 8 de septiembre de 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Secretaria Regional. F/ MARTHA ALMODOVAR CABRERA, Secretario (a) Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE

Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de PrimeLEGAL NOTICE LEGAL NOTICE ra Instancia Sala Superior de Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Guaynabo. DEMANDADO Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE CIVIL NÚM.: SJ2020CV00661. DLJ MORTGAGE SALÓN: 602. SOBRE: COBRO JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera

POR AMBOS COMPUESTA

staredictos@thesanjuandailystar.com

The San Juan Daily Star

Friday, September 11, 2020

(787) 743-3346

COOPERATIVA DE AHORRO Y CREDITO DE LOS EMPLEADOS DEL CENTRO MEDICO JOHN DOE Y RICHARD DOE

Demandado (a) Civil Núm.: TJ2020CV00010. Sala: 407. Sobre: CANCELACION DE PAGARE EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: JOHN DOE/ RICHARD DOE

EL SECRETARIO (A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 4 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 diez (10) días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 14 de agosto de 2020. En CAROLINA, Puerto Rico, el 14 de agosto de 2020. LCDA. MARILYN APONTE RODRIGUEZ, Secretaria Regional. MARY D. CARRASQUILLO BETANCOURT, Secretario (a) Auxiliar.

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 9 de septiembre de 2020. En BAYAMON, Puerto Rico, el 9 de septiembre de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria Regional. NERI A SANFELIZ RAMOS, Secretario (a) Auxiliar.

(3001). Sala: 407. Sobre: DIVORCIO(R .I.). NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

NOTIFICACION DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. EL SECRETARIO(A) QUE SUSCRIBE LE NOTIFICA A USTED QUE EL 12 DE AGOSTO DE 2020 , ESTE TRIBUNAL HA DICTADO SENTENCIA, SENTENCIA PARCIAL O RESOLUCION EN ESTE CASO, QUE HA SIDO DEBIDAMENTE REGISTRADA Y ARCHIVADA EN AUTOS DONDE PODRA USTED ENTERARSE DETALLADAMENTE DE LOS TERMINOS DE LA MISMA. ESTA NOTIFICACION SE PUBLICARA UNA SOLA VEZ EN UN PERIODICO DE CIRCULACION GENERAL EN LA ISLA DE PUERTO RICO, DENTRO DE LOS 10 DIAS SIGUIENTES A SU NOTIFICACION. Y, SIENDO O REPRESENTANDO USTED UNA PARTE EN EL PROCEDIMIENTO SUJETA A LOS TERMINOS DE LA SENTENCIA, SENTENCIA PARCIAL O RESOLUCION,

LEGAL NOT ICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE GUAYNABO-SUPERIOR LIMITADO.

RIVERA MARQUEZ, RONALD VS

UMPIERRE SOTO, PABLO (SUCN)

CASO: D2AC2017-0002. SOBRE: DIVISION DE COMUNIDAD.

PABLO ANTONIO UMPIERRE FUENTES, CARLOS UMPIERRE, LEGAL NOTICE LYDIA UMPIERRE Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto (CONOCIDA COMO Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE ÑECA), SUCESION JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera DESCONOCIDA DE Instancia Sala Superior de BAPABLO UMPIERRE YAMON. SOTO COMPUESTA CENTURION INSURANCE POR A Y B; SUCESION AGENCY, INC DESCONOCIDA DE JULIO Demandante LUIS UMPIERRE CAMILO COOPERATIVA DE COMPUESTA POR C AHORRO Y CREDITO DE Y D Y LA SUCESION LOS EMPLEADOS DEL CENTRO MEDICO JOHN DESCONOCIDA DE JOSE ANTONIO UMPIERRE DOE Y RICHARD DOE Demandado (a) CAMILO COMPUESTA Civil Núm.: BY2019RF01122 POR E Y F.

A: HECTOR JERMAINE ALVARADO

EL SECRETARIO (A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 4 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 diez (10) días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede

The San Juan Daily Star

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCLA.DO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBlJNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE ARECIBO.

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO DEMANDANTE VS.

DAYAN IVAN CORREA VALLES T/C/C DAYAN IVAN CORREA VALES

DEMANDADOS CIVIL NÚ!vI.: AR2019CV02123. SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCJON DE HIPOTECA. EMPLAZMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R. ss.

A: DAYAN IVAN CORREA VALLES T/C/C DAYANIVAN CORREA VALES BARRIO HATO ABAJO URB. REPARTO MARQUES (MARQUEZ) F-31, CALLE 5 ARECIBO, PR 00612; POBOX2163 ARECIBO, PR 00613-2163

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los 30 días a partir de la publicación de este edicto. 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. ramaiudicíal.pr. salvo que se represente por derecho propio. en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda. o cualquier otro. sí el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción. lo entiende procedente. Representa a la parte demandante. la represen-

tación legal cuyo nombre, dirección y teléfono se consigna de inmediato: BUFETE FORTUÑO & FORTUÑO FAS. C.S.P. LCDO. JUAN C. FORTlTÑO FAS RUA NÚM.: 11416 PO BOX 13786, SAN JUAN, PR 00908 TEL: 787-751-5290. FAX: 787-751-6155 E-MAIL: ejecuciones@fortuno-law.com En Arecibo, Puerto Rico a 1 de septiembre de 2020. VIVIAN Y. FRESSE GONZALEZ, SECRETARIO. f/ MICHELINE REYES TORRES, SUB-SECRETARIO.

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

LUIS ISAAC GARCIA ROBAINA Demandante

FIRST BANK PUERTO RICO, JOHN DOE

Demandado (a) Civil Núm.: SJ2019CV09147. Sala: 901. Sobre: CANCELACION DE PAGARE POR LA VIA JUDICIAL. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: JOHN DOE

EL SECRETARIO (A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 9 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 diez (10) días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 9 de septiembre de 2020. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 9 de septiembre de 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Secretaria Regional. F/ MARTHA ALMODOVAR CABRERA, Secretario (a) Auxiliar.

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

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

Parte Demandante VS.

FELICIA ACOSTA VÁZQUEZ

GANANCIALES COMPUESTA CON LA SRA. EDNA CARMEN MALDONADO RIVERA T/C/C EDNA C. MALDONADO RIVERA.

Parte Demandada CIVIL NUM: SJ2020CV01167 (604). SOBRE: EJECUCIÓN DE GARANTÍAS (IN REM). NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EL SECRETARIO (A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el EDICTO. 2 de septiembre de 2020, este A: FELICIA Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, ACOSTA VÁZQUEZ Sentencia Parcial o Resolución LA SECRETARIA que suscribe le en este caso, que ha sido debinotifica a usted que el 4 de sepdamente registrada y archivada tiembre de 2020, este Tribunal en autos donde podrá usted ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia enterarse detalladamente de los Parcial o Resolución en este términos de la misma. Esta nocaso, que ha sido debidamente tificación se publicará una sola registrada y archivada en auvez en un periódico de circulatosdonde podrá usted enterarse ción general en la Isla de Puerto detalladamente de los términos Rico, dentro de los diez (10) de la misma. Esta notificación días siguientes a su notificación. se publicará una sola vez en un Y, siendo o representando usted periódico de circulación general una parte en el procedimienen la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro to sujeta a los términos de la de los 10 días siguientes a su Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial notificación. Y, siendo o repreo Resolución, de la cual puede sentando usted una parte en el establecerse recurso de revisión procedimiento sujeta a los térmio apelación dentro del término nos de la Sentencia, Sentencia de 30 días contados a partir de Parcial o Resolución, de la cual la publicación por edicto de esta puede establecerse recurso de notificación, dirijo a usted esta revisión o apelación dentro del notificación que se considerará término de 30 días contados a hecha en la fecha de la publipartir de la publicación por ediccación de este edicto. Copia de to de esta notificación, dirijo a esta notificación ha sido archiusted esta notificación que se vada en los autos de este caso, considerará hecha en la fecha con fecha de 3 de septiembre de la publicación de este edicto. de 2020. En BAYAMON, PuerCopia de esta notificación ha to Rico, el 3 de septiembre de sido archivada en los autos de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA este caso, con fecha 8 de sepSANCHEZ, Secretaria Regional. tiembre de 2020. En San Juan, F/MILITZA MERCADO RIVERA, Puerto Rico, el 8 de septiembre Secretario (a) Auxiliar. de 2020. Griselda Rodríguez Collado, Secretaria Regional. LEGAL NOTICE Mildred Martínez Acosta, Secretaria del Tribunal Confidencial I. ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE LEGAL NOTICE FAJARDO. Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto COOPERATIVA DE Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera AHORRO Y CRÉDITO Instancia Sala Superior de BAORIENTAL YAMON. PARTE DEMANDANTE V.

E.M.I. EQUITY SUCESIÓN DE MORTGAGE, INC., COMO GILBERTO RIVERA AGENTE DE SERVICIOS VEGA COMPUESTA DE SUN WEST POR JOAQUÍN RIVERA MORTGAGE COMPANY VELÉZ , FULANO DE TAL, Demandante MENGANO DE TAL Y SU FERNANDO CAMERON VIUDA LEDA M. EGEA SANTIAGO, EDNA CANDELARIO CARMEN MALDONADO PARTE DEMANDADA RIVERA T/C/C EDNA C. CIVIL NÚM.: FA2019CV01420. MALDONADO RIVERA Y l SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE e INTERPELACION JUDICIAL. SALA: 307. EMPLAZAMIENTO BIENES GANANCIALES Y MANDAMIENTO DE INTERCOMPUESTA POR PELACIÓN JUDICIAL POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS AMBOS; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE

DE LOS EE.UU. DE AMERICA Demandado (a) Civil Núm.: TA2020CV00018. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO Sobre: EJECUCION DE HIPO- DE PUERTO RICO. SS. A: JOAQUÍN RIVERA TECA “IN REM” (VÍA ORDINARIA). NOTIFICACIÓN DE SEN- VELÉZ Y SU VIUDA LEDA TENCIA POR EDICTO.

M. EGEA CANDELARIO, A: FERNANDO EN LA CUOTA VIUDAL CAMERON SANTIAGO, USUFRUCTUARIA, POR SI Y COMO COMO MIEMBROS REPRESENTANTE DE LA SUCESIÓN DE LEGAL DE LA SOCIEDAD GILBERTO RIVERA VEGA LEGAL DE BIENES

Y LOS CODEMANDADOS FULANO DE TAL Y MENGANO DE TAL COMO PERSONAS CON NOMBRES DESCONOCIDOS Y/O FICTICIOS COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE GILBERTO RIVERA VEGA Dirección física y postal: Urb. Alturas de Monte Brisas, Calle 4 02, Fajardo, Puerto Rico 00738; Urb. Sunny Hills, Calle Haiti 012 Bayamón, Puerto Rico 00956.

publicado este edicto, excluyendo el día de su publicación, acepten o repudien, mediante instrumento público o comparecencia judicial especial, la herencia del causante, Gilberto Rivera Vega, apercibiéndoseles que de no expresarse dentro de dicho término, se tendrá por aceptada la herencia a beneficio de inventario B.B.V.A. v. Latinoamericana, 164 D.P.R. 689 (2005) . Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, hoy 26 de agosto de 2020. Wanda l. Segui Reyes, Secretaria. Katherine Robles Torres, Sub-Secretaria.

RELIGIOUS

CLASSIFIEDS

DE LA CUAL PUEDE ESTABLECERSE RECURSO DE REVISION O APELACION DENTRO DEL TERMINO DE 30 DIAS CONTADOS A PARTIR DE LA PUBLICACION POR EDICTO DE ESTA NOTIFICACION, DIRIJO A USTED ESTA NOTIFICACION QUE SE CONSIDERARA HECHA EN LA FECHA DE LA PUBLICACION DE ESTE DICTO. COPIA DE ESTA NOTIFICACION HA SIDO ARCHIVADA EN LOS AUTOS DE ESTE CASO, CON FECHA DE 08 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2020. LIC. RODRÍGUEZ RIVERA, JAIME BUFETE.RODRIGUEZRIVERA@ GMAIL.COM EN GUAYNABO, PUERTO RICO, A 08 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2020. LAURA SANTA SANCHEZ, SECRETARIO. POR: F/ SARA ROSA VILLEGAS, SECRETARIO AUXILIAR.

Friday, September 11, 2020

LEGAL NOTICE

Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE Por la presente se les notifica JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera que ha sido presentada en este Instancia Sala Superior de BATribunal una Demanda en su YAMON. contra en el pleito de epígraAMERICAS LEADING fe. Los abogados de la parte FINANCE LLC demandante son: Lcdo. Juan Demandante A Santos Berríos - RUA 9774; JUAN LUIS BURGADO Lcdo. José R. González Rivera BELTRAN, SU ESPOSA - RUA 13105; Ledo. Ricardo A Acevedo Bianchi - RUA 20637, FULANA DE TAL Y LA AGS Legal Collections, LLC; SOCIEDAD LEGAL PO BOX 10242, HUMACAO, DE GANANCIALES PR 00792; Tel. (939) 545-4300; COMPUESTA POR email: agslegalcollections@ gmail.com. Se les advierte que AMBOS este edicto se publicará en un Demandado (a) (1) periódico de circulación ge- Civil Núm.: BY2020CV00519. neral una (1) sola vez y que si Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO no comparece a contestar dicha POR LA VIA ORDINARIA Y EJEDemanda radicando el original CUCION DE GRAVAMEN MOde la misma a través del Sistema BILIARIO (REPOSISION DE Unificado de Manejo y Adminis- VEHICULO). NOTIFICACIÓN tración de Casos (SUMAC), al DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. cual puede acceder utilizando A: JUAN LUIS BURGADO la siguiente dirección electróniBELTRAN Y SU ESPOSA ca: https://unired.ramajudicial. FULANA DE TAL Y LA pr, salvo que se represente por SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación GANANCIALES ENTRE responsiva en la secretaría del AMBOS Tribunal Superior, Sala Superior EL SECRETARIO (A) que susde Fajardo, con copia a los abocribe le notifica a usted que el 6 gados de la parte demandante, de agosto de 2020, este Tribunal dentro del término de treinta ha dictado Sentencia, Senten(30) días contados a partir de la cia Parcial o Resolución en este publicación del edicto, se entencaso, que ha sido debidamente derá que aceptaron la herencia registrada y archivada en autos a beneficio de inventario, se les donde podrá usted enterarse anotará la rebeldía y se dictará detalladamente de los términos Sentencia en su contra concede la misma. Esta notificación diendo el remedio solicitado en se publicará una sola vez en un la Demanda sin más citarles ni periódico de circulación general oírles. En un término de diez (10) en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro días a partir de la publicación de de los diez (10) días siguientes este edicto, la parte demandante a su notificación. Y, siendo o renotificará por correo certificado presentando usted una parte en con acuse de recibo, copia de la el procedimiento sujeta a los térDemanda y del Emplazamiento minos de la Sentencia, Sentencia y Mandamiento de Interpelación Parcial o Resolución, de la cual Judicial por Edicto, a las últimas puede establecerse recurso de direcciones postales conocidas revisión o apelación dentro del de Joaquín Rivera Vélez y su término de 30 días contados a viuda Lcda M. Egea Candelaria, partir de la publicación por edicto en la cuota viudal usufructuaria, de esta notificación, dirijo a usted como miembros de la Sucesión esta notificación que se conside Gilberto Rivera Vega y los derará hecha en la fecha de la codemandados Fulano De Tal y publicación de este edicto. Copia Mengano De Tal como personas de esta notificación ha sido archicon nombres desconocidos y/o vada en los autos de este caso, ficticios como posibles heredecon fecha de 10 de septiembre ros desconocidos de Gilberto de 2020. En BAYAMON, PuerRivera Vega. Además, se les to Rico, el 10 de septiembre de interpela judicialmente, a tenor 2020. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA con el Artículo 959 del Código SANCHEZ, Secretaria Regional. Civil de Puerto Rico, 31 L.P.R.A. IVETTE M. MARRERO BRACE§ 2787, para que en un término RO, Secretario (a) Auxiliar. de treinta (30) días de haber sido

Thanksgiving Novena to St. Jude . O Holy St. Jude!

Apostle and Martyr, great in virtue and rich in miracles, near kinsman of Jesus Christ, Faithful intercessor for all who invoke your special patron in time of need; to you I have recourse from the depth of my heart and humbly beg to, whom God has given such great power, to come to my assistance; Help me now in my urgent need and grant my earnest petition. I promise to make your name known and cause you to be invoked. Say three Our Fathers, three Hail Marys and Glorias. Publication must be promised. St. Jude pray for us and all who invoke your aid. Amen.

This Novena has never been known to fail. I have had my request granted Publication promised.

Let Us Pray

. O GOD, Who in Them infinite tenderness hast vouchsafed to regard the prayer of Thy servant, Blessed Rita, and dost grant to her supplication that which is impossible to human foresight, skill and efforts, in reward of her compassionate love and firm reliance on Thy promise, have pity on our adversity and succor us in our calamities, that the unbeliever may know Thou art the recompense of the humble, the defense of the helpless, and the strength of those who trusts in Thee, through Jesus Christ. Our Lord. Amen.

September 11-13, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Tom Brady, Florida man in full By BEN SHPIGEL

ome months back, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers star cornerback Ronde Barber heard from an acquaintance who had just moved near him, to Tampa, Fla., and wanted to get together. They played a round at the exclusive Pelican Golf Club, where Barber raved about the climate, the culture and the city, mentioning how even with more than 3 million people the region still feels small, chill, manageable. It’s why, Barber said, he has never felt overwhelmed by his fame there. Recent Florida transplant Tom Brady, the most recognizable football player in the world, nodded along. “You know,” Barber said he told him, “this town’s ready to love you, man.” Brady replied: “I’m coming here to work.” Brady spent two peerless decades with the New England Patriots before bringing that ethos to Tampa Bay, as the Buccaneers seized on his late-career wanderlust in a brazen attempt to restore honor and playoff berths to a bedraggled franchise. Brady trusts in the process, that if he trains hard and leads others, he will win lots of football games, and spoils will soon follow. The spoils have come first for Brady in Florida, where, as Barber suggested, fans have already fallen in love with him even if all they know of him is a caricature: the 43-year-old quarterback with a supermodel wife, Gisele Bündchen; an affinity for UGGs and clean eating; and a desire to imprint his winning brand on everyone and everything he touches. Brady was signed in the nascent stages of a pandemic that, six months later, has yet to lift, ensuring that the most important acquisition in team history — an international phenomenon who chose to play in Tampa — will make his Buccaneers home debut in an empty stadium. Without the traditional buildup of open practices and preseason games, fans have expressed their adoration mostly from a remove — which, in this age of

social distancing, might just be best. Shannon Greenwood, 20, encountered Brady in the wild twice in seven weeks, snapping a selfie with him in April after he played golf in nearby Tarpon Springs and then spotting him in June as he rode an electric scooter while walking one of his dogs around Davis Islands, the community south of downtown where he lives. Rolling down the car window, Greenwood asked if he was indeed Tom Brady. I said, ‘I met you at the golf course.’ He said, ‘Oh my God, it’s so good to see you again,’” Greenwood, of suburban Trinity, said in an interview. “I was like, ‘Yeah, you too.’” Many (many) others have made pilgrimages to the gated 30,000-square-foot mansion he rented from another famed Michigan Man with a supermodel wife, Hall of Fame New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter. The curious come by land, cramming the quiet street, and by sea, docking boats on the bay abutting Brady’s home, straining for a glimpse. On that street, Bahama Circle, bicyclists and dogs tend to outnumber cars. But one morning in April, soon after Brady moved in, a steady stream of traffic crept past the home, compelling a neighbor, John Hotchkiss, and his wife, Karin, to head up to their roof deck to survey the scene. In 20 minutes, they counted 163 cars or golf carts crawling past. “I wasn’t sure what everyone’s expectation of Mr. Brady was,” John Hotchkiss, 46, who has lived on Davis Islands for 21 years, said in an interview. “Were they expecting he’s going to come out and be their best friend? Maybe they were trying to get pictures of Gisele.” It is from a place of love and, really, disbelief that Matt Algeri — decked in red-and-black face paint, wearing a Bucs jersey — found himself on a boat behind Brady’s house a few weekends back, filming a segment with friends for a hype video. “This whole thing,” Algeri said, “is still absolutely surreal.” A six-time champion, Brady has won as many Super Bowls as the Buccaneers have playoff games over their 44 seasons. They have finished last in the NFC South seven times in the past nine years. And their general futility since winning their only title, after the 2002 season — two playoff appearances, both losses, and the fourth-fewest victories over that span, according to Pro Football Reference — has instilled a deep longing within fans like Algeri. Not for dominance. For competence. To Algeri — and Barber, too — Brady conjures the arrival in 2002 of Jon Gruden, who that season coached Tampa Bay to its lone Super Bowl victory. On a team already brimming with defensive talent, and that had upgraded its offense during free agency, it was Gruden, Barber said, who provided the “absolute spark” that propelled the Bucs to a championship. “If you win right away,” Barber said in an interview, “you give everybody a reason to believe that just your presence alone pushed us over the edge.”

Just as Gruden declared at the first team meeting that he was there to win a Super Bowl that season — “first words out of his mouth,” Barber said — Brady is governed by a similar urgency. He treasures each of his six Super Bowl wins. But his favorite, he likes to say, is the next one. Brady’s pursuit of a seventh title impelled him, with the pandemic shuttering facilities and canceling official activities, to improvise. With teammates to learn and a new offense to master, Brady arranged, through intermediaries, to use a practice field at Tampa’s Berkeley Preparatory School as his de facto home base. The headmaster, Joseph Seivold, promised him privacy and discretion even though, he said, Brady conveyed no such demands. “It was not a diva situation at all,” Seivold said. When in mid-May the Tampa Bay Times broke the news of Brady’s workouts despite social distancing restrictions, he was not angry. Rather, he deemed it inevitable, considering that he had already been training in secret for about seven weeks. He showed up before dawn for his first session April 4, joined by his longtime trainer Alex Guerrero and three teammates: receivers Chris Godwin and Scotty Miller and tight end Cameron Brate. They didn’t need much more than a field and a ball to get to work. Only Brady knows what drives him, whether he feels he must prove anything now that he is untethered from Bill Belichick and energized by a fleet of superlative receivers. For a man whose football legacy is winning championships, it stands to reason that a Super Bowl hosted in his new city would be an added enticement. Not long ago, Barber went to Buccaneers headquarters to watch Brady work. He spent much of practice mesmerized by how the ball left Brady’s hand and how he operated the offense — put another way, how Brady always seemed to make the right decision. He fled the Northeast for a better opportunity elsewhere, entranced by the prospect of professional satisfaction and personal fulfillment, the makings of a magnificent sunset.

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

At the US Open, players from Belarus eye unrest at home By BEN ROTHENBERG

ith the No. 1 ranking, two Grand Slam tennis tournament titles and an Olympic gold medal, Victoria Azarenka is one of the most famous Belarusian athletes of the past decade. But despite reaching her first Grand Slam quarterfinal in more than four years at the U.S. Open this week, Azarenka is an afterthought at home, in a country normally enamored with sports but currently rapt by mass protests against Alexander Lukashenko, the autocratic president known often as “Europe’s last dictator.” Lukashenko, in office since 1994, has been clinging to power and brutally suppressing demonstrations in the weeks since he claimed a landslide victory in the Aug. 9 election. Lukashenko said he earned 80 percent of the vote, but many Western governments have called the election a farce. At the U.S. Open, where five Belarusian women and one man won at least one match in the main singles draws, the unrest has become a topic of repeated, if halting, conversation. With some exceptions, the players have largely resisted the substance of what is happening in Belarus, with many refusing to say directly whether they support Lukashenko or his opposition. But they have said they think their run at the first major tennis tournament since the coronavirus pandemic has been a footnote at home, despite state media normally closely following the performances of Belarusian athletes and Lukashenko often an active promoter of athletics and fitness. (As he downplayed the threat of the coronavirus earlier this year, Lukashenko promoted hockey, vodka, saunas and farm work as potential cures.) Belarus has long had a connection to tennis, with a handful of consistently competitive players since the 1990s as part of an influx of Eastern Europeans into the sport, especially on the women’s side of the game. Yet Olga Govortsova, who reached the second round, said, “Sport is not important right now.” Govortsova primarily lives and trains in Sunrise, Fla., but she has stayed in close touch with family in Belarus and said they are staying out of the current unrest.

Victoria Azarenka has said the unrest in Belarus is “sad” but she also has had a friendly relationship with its authoritarian president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, known often as “Europe’s last dictator. “But they see a lot of people going to protest, and sometimes it’s scary to walk outside,” Govortsova said. “It’s crazy for Belarus.” Aryna Sabalenka, who was seeded fifth in singles but lost in the second round to Azarenka, said she was preoccupied by her family’s safety after arriving in the United States to play in several tournaments. During her first tournament here, in Lexington, Ky., a restless Sabalenka “couldn’t sleep,” growing increasingly frantic as she waited for her mother to answer her message. “I was really worried about her, and she didn’t respond to me,” Sabalenka said. “I forgot the internet there wasn’t working, and I just called her, and as soon as I heard her voice I felt a little bit better, and I could sleep.” She added that it was difficult for several weeks but that “hopefully everything will be calm.” Both Govortsova and Sabalenka posted a meme titled “Belarusians Lives Matter” on Instagram last month. Sabalenka included a caption that said: “I can’t look

at cruelty to people who are defenseless; please stop the violence.” The most politically outspoken Belarusian player has been the youngest: Vera Lapko, 21, attended a protest in Minsk, the Belarus capital, before reaching the second round of the U.S. Open. “There were a lot of people,” Lapko said. “They all were peaceful. They all were happy that they can show their opinions, show their emotions, about all that is happening right now. It was really nice to be there next to them.” While playing, Lapko wore red and white, evoking the flags that have become symbolic for opposition to Lukashenko. “I decided to keep that to show that I’m with the people,” she said. Had she won one more round in New York, Lapko would have faced another Belarusian, Aliaksandra Sasnovich, in the third round. After her firstround match, Sasnovich immediately said “no comments” when the subject of Belarus was broached. Sasnovich, who along with Saba-

lenka led Belarus to the 2017 Fed Cup final against the United States, has spoken of the pep talks she and her teammates had received from Lukashenko before the matches, which were held in Minsk. “He said ‘Come on girls, you can do it, Belarus is better than America,’” Sasnovich said in a 2018 interview. Belarus narrowly lost that final, and Lukashenko expressed his disappointment while praising the team’s “spirit.” “We men are nothing at all: We play very badly in tennis, football and hockey. Therefore, all hope fell on these delicate girls’ shoulders,” Lukashenko said. “We can just say that they played very well — but they could have won.” In 2010, Lukashenko attended an exhibition in Minsk between Azarenka and Caroline Wozniacki and enthusiastically accepted Azarenka’s invitation to come down on the court and play. In an interview with The New York Times in 2017, Azarenka, who won a gold medal in mixed doubles at the 2012 London Olympics, said she was once invited to meet Lukashenko and wound up talking about tennis with him for “seven hours straight.” “My mom thought I was, I don’t know, kidnapped,” Azarenka joked then. Azarenka’s tone about Belarus and Lukashenko has been considerably more serious and hesitant this year, calling it a “very difficult topic to speak on.” “That’s breaking my heart to see what’s happening, because not being able to be there and understand the whole situation, it’s really sad,” Azarenka said last month. “It’s really sad, and it’s really difficult to speak on that. But I just hope that all the violence stops immediately, really does, because it’s really heartbreaking. I can’t even speak without tears in my eyes when I think about it.” After beating Sabalenka last week, Azarenka said she hoped people in Belarus were watching. “Obviously what’s happening in Belarus is very dear to my heart,” she said. “At this point, what is it going to do? I feel like sport has always been a celebration in our country. “There was no sport for a really long time,” she added. “Having two Belarusian women playing on the biggest stages, I think it’s really important. I hope people have enjoyed our matches and will continue to watch.”

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

Rockets’ ‘microball’ puts P.J. Tucker at the center of chaos By MARC STEIN

he joke doesn’t have quite the same bite now that the NBA is playing all of its games in a so-called bubble, but it elicited a hearty laugh from P.J. Tucker of the Houston Rockets regardless. Have you heard the one about how the only center in Houston is the Toyota Center? “That’s true and false,” Tucker said, chuckling at the reference to his team’s home arena. “But it’s mostly true.” The Rockets, you see, insist that none of their players have assigned positions, no matter how they are listed in the box score. Tucker has invited onlookers to call him a center — “Label it however you want to,” he said — but he is not even Houston’s tallest starter. Nor does Tucker jump center for the Rockets when the game tips off, typically ceding that duty to the 6-foot-7 Robert Covington. Tucker is nonetheless often described as the closest thing to a center among the Rockets’ primary players, which owes largely to his physical defense. Yet even when Tucker, who is 6-5, guards someone much bigger, such as the Los Angeles Lakers’ Anthony Davis, he is quick to point out that his offensive responsibilities call for him to “still do everything” asked of smaller forwards. One clear takeaway amid all these contradictions is that LeBron James and the Lakers have been thrust into a precarious position in the second round of the NBA playoffs against Houston because they have to cope with the Rockets’ unconventional approach — with Tucker at the heart of the chaos. The Lakers led the series, 2-1, going into Thursday night’s Game 4, but have been forced to play smaller lineups than they prefer to counter a fleet, floor-spacing front line led by Tucker and Covington. “Every team needs a P.J. Tucker,” Cleveland’s Larry Nance Jr., a former Laker, tweeted Sunday during Game 2 of the Rockets-Lakers Western Conference semifinal series. Tucker played a starring role defensively in Houston’s Game 1 victory, then overcame foul trouble in Game 2 to register 18 points and 11 rebounds, though the Rockets’ rally fell short. He managed just 3 points Tuesday in a quiet Game 3 performance, shortly after openly disappointed Rockets officials learned that Tucker had not been selected to the NBA’s all-defensive first or second team. “What we see,” Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni said, “we think he’s the best.” The Rockets, to use general manager Daryl Morey’s word, were for years unabashedly “obsessed” with trying to topple the Golden State Warriors, who won three championships in their five consecutive trips to the NBA Finals from 2015 to 2019. This season, with the Warriors missing Kevin Durant (left in free agency) and injured guards Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry, Morey took even bigger swings than usual in his roster construction. He followed the much-debated trade that dispatched Chris Paul to Oklahoma City for Russell Westbrook by

assembling a four-team trade in February that sent Clint Capela, Houston’s starting center, to Atlanta to acquire Covington from Minnesota. The emphasis on small ball was widely rebranded as “microball.” Despite the 2-1 series deficit heading into Thursday’s game, and fears that Houston’s small lineups were being worn down by the Lakers’ power, Tucker has not wavered in his belief that the Rockets can win the series. As significant a surprise as that would be, it would also not automatically rank as the biggest upset by a Tucker team. The Toronto Raptors drafted Tucker No. 35 overall in 2006, but he didn’t stick, and headed to Israel for the 2007-08 season. There he led unheralded Hapoel Holon to a stunning victory over Maccabi Tel Aviv, the perennial European club power, for the championship; it was one of only two seasons between 1970 and 2008 that Maccabi failed to win it all domestically. “To this day, that’s my No. 1 basketball moment,” Tucker said. It was the start of a five-season odyssey in the international game, with additional stops in Ukraine, Greece, Italy, Puerto Rico and Germany, during which Tucker developed the long-distance shooting touch that makes him one of the NBA’s most productive corner 3-point shooters. “He used to just bully guys down low,” said Omri Casspi, Israel’s most successful NBA export and a teenager with Maccabi when Tucker was named the Most Valuable Player with Holon. There was “no match” in the league for Tucker physically, Casspi said. Tucker excitedly recounted how loud the crowds were, calling them the most vociferous fans he has ever played for — “no doubts, hands down, no close seconds.” Yet he said that his current role, as a key two-way contributor for an NBA championship contender, seemed like an unreachable dream for much of his time abroad. “Back then the league was different,” Tucker said. “Being a ‘tweener’ was terrible. Nobody wanted tweeners. You had to be a wing player that could shoot 3s or a back-to-the-basket big — and if you fell in the middle, you didn’t fit. So a lot of times, I was lost. “Going over there, I learned how to be a team player. I had to grow up. Being the main guy for three or four years, I understood what it took to be the leader. Coming back to the NBA, being one of those other guys again, I knew exactly how to do my job.” Becoming proficient from long range certainly didn’t hurt: Tucker made a league-high 90 corner 3-pointers during the regular season. As D’Antoni noted, Tucker is also the key defender in Houston’s schemes that depend on the frequent switching of individual assignments. “Now I bask in that whole area of the unknown,” Tucker said. “It’s the most beautiful thing ever.” At 35, Tucker averaged a career-high 34.3 minutes per game during the regular season. His seemingly boundless determination to collect sneakers tends to generate more media attention than his game — Tucker plans to open

The 6-foot-5 P.J. Tucker, center, is often tasked with defending taller players in the Houston Rockets so-called ‘microball’ strategy. his own sneaker store in Houston next month called the Better Generation With P.J. Tucker — but what he covets most is an NBA playoff memory to usurp what he did in Israel. He continues to agonize over the Rockets’ fate in the 2018 Western Conference finals. Up, 3-2, over the Warriors, Tucker’s Rockets had two shots to eliminate the reigning champions but could not overcome the loss of Paul to a hamstring injury in Game 5. In Game 7, Houston missed a still-unfathomable 27 consecutive 3-pointers and lost at home. “It’s been frustrating; I won’t lie about that,” Tucker said. “I still haven’t watched Game 6 and Game 7 from two years ago, because we knew that was the championship, whoever won that series. There’s nothing worse than that.” Yet the stakes for the Rockets seem higher than ever this postseason. D’Antoni’s future is uncertain in the final year of his contract as coach, and Tucker, who will be seeking an extension this offseason, has just one year left on his deal. Questions likewise persist about how Westbrook fits alongside James Harden — and the holes in Harden’s and D’Antoni’s playoff legacies. All of that tends to generate considerable noise around the Rockets, but Tucker, defiant as ever, said, “We laugh at it.” “We think it’s hilarious,” Tucker said.

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

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

(Mar 21-April 20)

There are more hurdles to overcome before you can get a project underway. It’s hard to anticipate a group venture being successful when you have had to deal with a variety of problems and overcome so many objections. Projects will go ahead as planned. A determined effort paves the way for success.

Taurus

(April 21-May 21)

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

(June 22-July 23)

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

A family dispute will be fraught with emotion. You’re going to have to face some arduous chores you have been putting off for some time. There’s a hint of resentment in the air when you feel someone else should share this responsibility. You’re tired of having to shoulder this burden by yourself.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

There will be something of a novelty associated with work, family or volunteer activities. You could be thrown into an unfamiliar environment or you may have to tackle a task you’ve never experienced before. You will welcome this change in routine and the chance to try something new. Treat every new experience as a learning opportunity.

Scorpio

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

A proposal put to you through someone you meet on a social networking site will offer a new and interesting angle to your career plans. Although normally you prefer to avoid mixing business with pleasure, this is something that could be to your benefit. Bear in mind this could involve some change in other areas of your life.

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

A refund, loan or insurance payment will make it easier for you to afford some of your favourite things. You’re in too much of a rush to spend this sum on luxuries. Even if you feel you have done without for long enough, if finances are unstable, putting it away for a rainy day would be a more sensible option.

A conflicting situation is causing you frustration. You aren’t sure whose advice you can trust and who might be projecting a false front. Not all information you are being given will be reliable. Whatever the issue under discussion you need some time alone to think through the various options. Take as much time as you need to think this through thoroughly.

Cancer

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

You have a lot to get through. An organised approach will help you get the most out of the day. Set a specific goal and keep your focus on this until it has been achieved. If a friend has a few hours to spare they will help you out in some areas. Accept their offer of assistance.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

Progress may be held back due to a mistake having been made somewhere along the line. Several other people will be affected by this turn of events so you won’t be alone. Once you realise there are others in the same boat you can sort this out by pulling together. This isn’t a competition.

Virgo

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

There’s no shortage of things to get on with, to get involved in and to improve on. With so much to think about, avoid a tendency to make decisions which haven’t been properly thought through. It isn’t like you to be in a rush. Slow down and reflect when faced with a choice.

A changing situation makes you nervous. Your boss or someone in a position of power does not appear to respect boundaries. They will try to exert control over you by prying into your personal life. Regardless of their position, you have a right to privacy. Keep personal information under wraps.

Aquarius

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

Some people adapt to change better than others. You might notice an older colleague is struggling with new developments in the workplace. They feel they are being abandoned and left behind. Lending a sympathetic ear to their problems along with assisting with anything they don’t understand, will help them through this. Colleagues will rely on you for support.

Pisces

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

You aren’t happy with the options being given in a changing situation. Someone is trying to talk you into a decision that does not feel right for you. You need to set yourself some quiet time without any distractions to give this matter more serious thought. Listen to your inner voice to guide you to the right path.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

September 11-13, 2020

CARTOONS

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

For Better or for Worse

The San Juan Daily Star

Ziggy

The San Juan Daily Star

September 11-13, 2020

DESPIDETE DEL CALOR CON NUESTRAS CONSOLAS DE AIRE ¡Disfruta el mejor Perfortmance!

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$589.00

Tope de Gas Mabe 20” .00

Pulsar 2300 .00

$749

$129

Plancha Oster .00

$20

Cafetera Oster .00

$29

Estufa Mabe 30” .00

$449

Nevera Mabe 10pc.

Licuadora OSTER

$49.00

Estufa de gas 2 hornillas .00

Samsung A10s

$20

$489

.00

$149.00

Ipad 7 .00

$489

Learning Tab

$169.00 Horno de Microondas Blanco, Negro o Stainless Steal

Freezer Commercial con Ruedas .00

$89

.00

$449

Samsung Galaxy Tab A .00

$189

QFX Remote Controlled Motorized 360 Rotating Outdoor Antenna

$29

Silla Metal Estudiantes .00

$29

Water Dispenser

$169.00

$649

$189.00

$29.00

Smart-tv-kit

.00

Lavadora GE .00

Super Sonic 32”

TV Mount desde

Abanico recargable

Bitz Stand Fan Turbo 5 aspas

Switching Power Adapter .00

$99.00

$18

$69.00 $29.00

DEALER AUTORIZADO EN PIEZAS Y SERVICIO

Sony. CDF-S70

$79.00