Thursday Sep 3, 2020

Thursday, September 3, 2020

San Juan The

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Every Pirate to Wear 21 in Honor of Clemente Next Wednesday P26

‘We Have Had Enough of Throwing in So Many Towels’

PDP Senator & House At-Large Candidate: Gov’t Ethics Office ‘Endorsing Impunity’ by Closing Telegram Investigation P4

Lots of Senate Contracts Devoid of Details on Services Provided P4 NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 19

Some Scientists Giving Themselves DIY Coronavirus Vaccines P22-23

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, September 3, 2020

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September 3, 2020

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

Two executives arrested for racketeering in Florida & Puerto Rico

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ederal authorities have arrested two investment executives and accused them of making false representations to lure individuals in Florida and Puerto Rico into investing $12 million to provide loans for businesses.

Gary Steven Wykle and Alejandro Cortés López were arrested Monday and charged in a 14-count indictment alleging conspiracy to commit wire fraud, securities fraud, and wire fraud, said W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico, on Wednesday.

The FBI was in charge of the investigation.

Wyckle and Cortés López were, respectively, the president and executive vice president of The Republic Group Inc., a now defunct firm that had been based in Miami and, authorities say, advertised itself as a financial services company. From in or about 2010, through 2017, Wyckle and Cortés López, along with other individuals known and unknown to a federal grand jury, raised over $12 million in so-called promissory notes on behalf of The Republic Group Inc. “Wyckle and Cortés López solicited investors in person, via telephone, and via the internet, and caused materially false and misleading representations to be made to investors,” an FBI statement reads. “They falsely stated to investors that their investment would facilitate high-interest rate, short-term loans for various companies, including hotels, resorts, and other hospitality industries in the Dominican Republic, and elsewhere.”

The defendants failed to disclose to investors that in-

vestments would be used for Wyckle’s personal expenses, goods and services at retail stores, restaurants, travel, rent, entertainment, and to make lulling payments to existing investors. Defendant Cortés López was paid a commission, which he failed to disclose, from each investor that he brought to The Republic Group Inc. “The defendants’ alleged conduct undermines the confidence investors place in the financial markets,” Muldrow said. “Financial markets are governed by rules that are supposed to protect investors. These defendants, skilled at convincing individuals to place their trust in them, engaged in a ‘Ponzi’ scheme to defraud investors, and ultimately cost them millions of dollars. We will investigate and prosecute these types of crimes to the fullest extent of the law.”

“When people lose trust in the systems, society crumbles,” said Rafael Riviere Vázquez, special agent in charge of the FBI San Juan Field Office. “This is why the FBI is committed to staying ahead of this threat, by following the evidence wherever it may lead and pursuing these cases to the fullest extent of the law.”

Investors who believe they are victims of Wykle and Cortés López, and who signed contracts with them or The Republic Group Inc., are encouraged to contact the U.S. Attorney’s Office at (787) 766-5656 to obtain information about the proceedings and their rights to restitution.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Veronda. Both defendants are facing a maximum term of imprisonment of 30 years, and a fine not to exceed $1 million.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, September 3, 2020

Torres: ‘The GEO has failed once again to fulfill its duties’ to Puerto Rico PDP senator calls out GEO chief for ‘endorsing impunity’ by closing the investigation into the Telegram chat scandal that brought down a governor

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

P

opular Democratic Party (PDP) Sen. Aníbal José Torres, along with House of Representatives atlarge candidate Enid Monge, said Wednesday that Government Ethics Office (GEO) Executive Director Luis Pérez Vargas is failing to fulfill his duties and the office is “endorsing impunity” by closing the investigation into the Telegram chat that led former Gov. Ricardo Rosselló Nevares’ administration to collapse last year.

During a press conference at PDP Central Committee headquarters in Puerta de Tierra, Torres said Pérez Vargas could have continued the aforementioned investigation given that there were public statements from former Chief of Staff Ricardo Llerandi which confirmed the chat. The minority senator said further that, according to Items G and I in Article 2.3 of the GEO’s Organic Law, the entity was capable of asking the island Superior Court to force compliance with any order issued and could have summoned, examined, ordered, requested and obtained copies of any document or evidence that forms part of an investigation or that is under controversy before the GEO. Torres added that, according to Article 7.1 of the

Anti-Corruption Law, the GEO executive director is the current president of the interagency Corruption Prevention and Eradication Group, which bears the duty of securing cooperation from any agency in the battle against corruption.

“Without a doubt, the GEO has failed once again to fulfill its duties to the country and pretends to throw in the towel as again a member of this administration fails in their public execution, as both the Department of Justice and the Special Independent Prosecutor Panel [PFEI by its Spanish initials] have done, without a doubt,” Torres said after a member of the press asked if the dropping of the investigation proved to the PDP that the top GEO official is not complying with his duties.

As concerns were raised as to what the PDP was going to do apart from issuing denunciations, Torres said the party’s mission was to vanquish the governing New Progressive Party (NPP) from their seats and demand that officials such as Pérez Vargas “not be loyal to political parties, be loyal to the country,” as the senator pointed out that the GEO chief could remain in his seat even after a change of administrations in 2021.

“The corruption issue is one of great concern for Puerto Ricans and the only way that we can get trust in public service back, especially in these agencies, is that their directors show transparency toward the country and go above any political-partisan consideration,” Torres said. “In this NPP administration, we haven’t seen it.”

Monge, meanwhile, said the actions of the GEO “did not occur out of thin air” while noting the Family Socioeconomic Development Administration supply mismanagement case in Ponce, the PFEI referral against Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced and NPP Sen.

Evelyn Vázquez for allegedly mixing politics with food distribution in southern Puerto Rico during the January earthquakes, the failed purchase of COVID-19 serological tests and other cases of misgovernance that still remain unsolved.

“I think we have had enough of throwing in so many towels, we have had enough of letting [misdeeds slide] through and coming in [to report them] late on a Friday so the news dissipates and they keep fooling with our system,” the legislative candidate said. “These are [pieces of] evidence that makes the country tired, weary, fed up, discouraged; our institutions were not made for this purpose.”

Monge called on the GEO to be accountable to the public and say whether it went to court to force two of the Telegram chat participants to cooperate with the investigation.

Comptroller: 47% of Senate contracts have no description of services offered

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

P

uerto Rico’s comptroller issued a qualified opinion on the fiscal operations of the island Senate on Wednesday related to professional and advisory services contracts, finding that 47 percent of invoices paid for professional and consulting services contracts did not contain a detailed and specific

description of services offered by the contractors in the work reports.

In addition, in 23 percent of the invoices evaluated, no document related to the work carried out by the contractors could be located, nor could the Senate provide evidence.

A qualified opinion is issued when individual or joint non-compliances are significant, but not widespread.

The contracted services were related to labor and federal matters, administrative and communication advice, among others. The Senate awarded 1,899 contracts and 604 amendments from 2013 to 2018 for $42,413,901.

The audit of two findings indicates that the services provided by three contractors in the government affairs offices of San Juan and Mayagüez, for $144,000, were functions already offered by Senate employees.

The situation is contrary to Regulation 8, Code of Ethics and Parameters for Hiring Professional and Consultative Services of the Senate of Puerto Rico of 2010. A similar situation had been commented on in

Audit Report DA-12-80 of June 20, 2012.

This second report from the Senate of Puerto Rico covers the period from Jan. 1, 2013 to Dec. 31, 2018 and is available at www.ocpr.gov.pr.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, September 3, 2020

5

Pierluisi campaign chief calls on PDP to submit a name for new SEC chair

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

E

dwin Mundo, director of campaign operations for New Progressive Party (NPP) gubernatorial candidate Pedro Pierluisi, called on Popular Democratic Party Electoral Commissioner Nicolás Gautier on Wednesday to act and nominate someone to chair the State Elections Commission (SEC).

“They are bent on beheading the commission,” Mundo said in a radio interview.

“That is the only purpose [for not making a nomination]. There is a process for filling a vacancy with an alternate; the NPP complied and submitted a name.”

SEC Chairman Juan Dávila does not have the confidence of several of the party electoral commissioners to continue direct-

ing the commission after the primary. Mundo said he submitted the name of a person to lead the SEC. “Evaluate that one. If you don’t like that one … Gautier basically ruled it out on a television program,” Mundo said, adding that if “there is no consensus, we go to the next one [candidate to head the SEC]. But I tell you that time is running out. Time passes and they have to make decisions if we want the elections to be on Nov. 3.”

“If we decapitate the commission, imagine what is happening now when there is a chairman,” Mundo added. “If we decapitate the commission, they will never agree with 60-odd days left before the elections.

“My invitation is to take the process seriously, evaluate that one and if that is not the one they want, then they look for another one.”

Edwin Mundo, director of campaign operations for NPP gubernatorial candidate Pedro Pierluisi.

PR’s record deficit of $70.1 billion in 2016 got worse in 2017

By THE STAR STAFF

P

uerto Rico’s primary government recorded a net deficit of $71 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2017, an increase from $70.1 billion from FY 2016, and faced questions about several of its dependencies’ ability to continue as going concerns based on its audited financial statement for FY 2017.

The so-called primary government, including governmental and business-type activities, recorded a net deficit of $71.1 billion as of June 2017, which comprised $16 billion in total assets and $8 billion in outflows of resources, minus some $94 billion in total liabilities and $1.1 billion in deferred inflows of resources.

The net deficit of the commonwealth primary government increased by $391.5 million during FY 2017. The net deficit for government activities increased by $981.3 million and the net position for business-type activities increased by $69.3

million to $589.8 million during FY 2017, stated the report audited by KPMG. Governmental activities revenue was $18.04 billion in FY 2017, a 1.4 percent decrease from $18.29 billion in FY 2016, the document indicated. Total governmental activities expenses were $18.3 billion in FY 2017, representing a 6.4 percent decrease from $19.56 billion in FY 2016.

The government business-type activities had a total revenue of $3.2 billion in FY 2017, which was a decrease of $191.2 million from the year before.

For FY 2017, the total excess of revenue over expenditures in the general fund, which is used for the budget, was $577.2 million, or the difference between $9.2 billion in revenue minus expenditures of $8.6 billion.

The document noted that at the close of FY 2017 the commonwealth said “substantial doubt” existed that the component units of the Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rico Highways and Transportation Authority, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority, and the University of Puerto Rico would continue as going concerns.

The commonwealth Treasury Department submitted the 2017 audited financial statement to the markets after the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico held two meetings with Treasury Secretary Francisco Pares and Omar Marrero, head of the commonwealth’s Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority, and told them to come up with a plan to accelerate the release of annual audited financial reports.

Section 206 of the federal Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, commonly known as PROMESA, requires the oversight board to ensure that the commonwealth government has a process for producing audited financial reports before beginning debt restructuring.

The oversight board’s executive director, Natalie Jaresko, said the board has pressed the island government to have audited financials for three years but has relied on the government’s promises that it would deliver the reports.

The oversight board then came up with a proposal calling for the government to submit the FY 2017 audited financial on Aug. 31, the FY 2018 audited financial on Nov. 30 and the FY 2019 audited financial on Dec. 31.

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Thursday, September 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

CPEPR president decries shortage of personal protective equipment for nurses

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

A

mid the government assigning an additional $150 million to hospitals in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, Puerto Rico Nursing Professionals Association (CPEPR by its Spanish initials) President Ana García Cintrón said Wednesday during a Radio Isla interview that nurses in various island hospitals are short on personal protective equipment (PPE) as the impact of COVID-19 cases in Puerto Rico has been “swift and very negative.”

When journalist Julio Rivera Saniel on the program “Pegaos en la mañana” asked how nurses are fighting against COVID-19 and the steady increase in positive cases, García Cintrón said that even though hospitals have received financial aid to address the emergency, their administrations have not provided supplies to protect their nursing staff.

“Believe it or not, we are still short on materials for our country’s nurses. We are short on face mask coverings, coats and gloves,” García Cintrón said.

“Even though they gave incentives to hospitals, they have not provided any materials to the nurses.

There are hospitals that have even prevented us from bringing supplies to the nurses. We don’t understand

why they would do something like this.”

CPEPR president said further that hospitals “are not letting us stand by the door to provide materials to nurses.”

“This is incomprehensible,” she said.

Another concern raised by García Cintrón was that nurses are not getting tested for COVID-19 despite being the first in line to fight against the disease caused by the coronavirus and care for citizens who are infected.

“Another issue is that there is no monitoring of COVID-19 screenings for nurses; we have to take care of our nurses so they are able to look after others, and they’re not doing it,” García Cintrón said. “Nursing professionals feel more anxiety and fear, many things are happening within the nursing field and with patients, but we will still guarantee our service.”

Pleased with wage hikes, but expecting more inclusion As for the bill signed into law recently by Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced to increase nurse practitioners’ wages in both the public and private sector, García Cintrón said she felt relieved because the field had not seen a raise since 2005. However, she added, around five categories were left out of the raise.

“Nurses with specialist and advanced practice master’s degrees were left out, anesthesiologists and nursing practitioners were also left out,” she said.

“As for the doctorates, three categories were not included, such as advanced practice, DNP [doctor of nursing practice] and specialists.”

At press time, Nancy Báez, a nurse who worked at HIMA San Pablo Hospital in Bayamón, had become the sixth nurse in Puerto Rico to pass away due to complications from COVID-19, according to data provided by the College of Licensed Practical Nursing in San Juan.

Casino employees demonstrate to demand unemployment payments, reopening their workplaces

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

A

round 100 employees from the 16 casinos in Puerto Rico held a demonstration in front of the island Department of Labor and Human Resources on Wednesday to demand the reopening of their workplaces and denounce the lack of unemployment payments.

“We are here today, in front of the Labor Department, representing more than 3,000 colleagues in

our casino industry, demanding payment of the unemployment insurance benefit,” said Valeria Santos, a co-organizer of the demonstration, in a written statement. “There are many colleagues who have not received even a single unemployment payment since the casinos were closed in March.”

“The Executive Order on July 17 (OE-2020-054), which unilaterally closed the casinos again, has made it impossible for other colleagues to claim the payment of their unemployment again,” Santos added.

Yimarie Oliveras, another co-organizer of the demonstration, noted that “we are more than 3,000 employees, men and women, parents, who want to work and contribute to the economy.”

“In addition, we represent more than 80,000 families throughout the island that are dedicated to the tourism industry,” she added.

Both women noted the pride and satisfaction they derive from working in the Puerto Rico casino industry. Casinos contribute over $145 million to the island economy, benefiting the University of Puerto Rico, the Tourism Co. and the General Fund, they said.

“It is not fair that the government allows the operation of illegal slot machines in pharmacies, gas stations, bakeries and other places without hygiene

and distancing measures, while the casinos remain closed,” Oliveras said.

Santos demanded on behalf of her colleagues “that the casinos be opened so that we can return to work and support our families.”

“We want to work now, to continue contributing to the well being of the country,” she said.

The rally organizers noted that for casino owners and managers the health and safety of their colleagues and customers is a priority. Therefore, casinos meet the highest standards that govern the industry, they said, having implemented the most rigorous protocols established by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Tourism Co., and the island Gaming Commission to address the coronavirus pandemic.

Puerto Rico casinos have implemented strict protocols such as surveillance by cameras, security officers, a 24/7 gaming inspector, mandatory use of masks, physical distancing with free spaces between each game, body temperature measurement, cleaning procedures, and disinfection and sanitation stations, the demonstration organizers said.

“We are ready to work now and receive our customers with all the required measures, in order to continue contributing to the country’s economy,” Santos said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, September 3, 2020

7

‘Nobody likes snitching’: How rules against parties are dividing campuses

By TROY CLOSSON

I

t looked to be a typical college party: a small group of students crammed in a kitchenette, cheering on as a shirtless guy arm-wrestled a laughing young woman. No one wore masks.

The scene was posted on Snapchat by one of the partygoers, a first-year student at Cornell University, along with a selfie with a mocking caption: “The people who slide up saying ‘you’re not social distancing’ are the ones that wouldn’t have been invited anyway.”

The response was swift and severe. Within days, an online petition was created demanding that the student’s admission to Cornell be revoked, and in the week since, the petition has collected more than 3,500 signatures.

“Cornell University is attempting to take the biggest feat of allowing all students back on campus. This cannot be done without immense safety precautions taken and the compliance of every student,” a group calling itself the Concerned Student Coalition wrote in the petition. “We need to hold these students accountable for their actions.”

The situation at Cornell underscores a deeper tension on campuses all over the country as about 1,100 colleges embark on the huge experiment of reopening in a pandemic. Students, returning to school after months of isolation, are not only being asked to fully reimagine what their college social lives look like, but also to assume active roles as the front line against an outbreak at their schools by policing campus safety.

“Nobody likes snitching — it’s not comfortable,” said Melissa Montejo, a sophomore at Cornell who signed the petition.

“I really am not one to go around and tell people what to do, but for me, this was troubling. Three months of being careful and not engaging in problematic behavior is worth saving a life.”

Jessica Zhang, the student who posted the party scene to Snapchat, said she had apologized and met with Cornell officials.

Neither Zhang or Cornell would say whether she was disciplined.

In recent weeks, the coronavirus outbreak has spread swiftly on college campuses. The New York Times has tracked thousands of cases that were linked to returning students. Several schools, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Notre Dame and the State University of New York College at Oneonta, suspended in-person classes after more than 100 students at each campus tested positive, often after large parties.

As a result, growing numbers of college officials are realizing that there are limits to what they can monitor on their own — and are calling on students to help.

Colgate University sent students a memo encouraging them to report classmates who violate social-distancing guidelines and to include names so action could be taken. Similar instructions were sent out at schools across the country from the University of Colorado Boulder to the University of Pennsylvania. Yale University and some other colleges have hotlines in place for reports of risky activity.

It’s an extraordinary situation, and students face a quandary: Report parties to campus officials? Or keep quiet and hope for the best? As one freshman said at Hunter College, which has a dorm open even though classes are remote this semester: “I don’t know

Students on the campus of Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y., on Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2020. Students at campuses across the country are starting their semesters under stringent conduct codes, requiring physical distancing and limited social interaction. if I’d want to narc on people I’m trying to become friends with.”

Some faculty members at schools have warned against asking students to police their peers. They have said doing so could disrupt student life when classmates are pitted against one other, particularly when the consequences for breaking the rules can be harsh.

SUNY Plattsburgh, for example, placed 43 students on interim suspension last week after a large outdoor gathering. Fifteen others at Marist College, a small liberal arts school in Poughkeepsie, New York, were recently sent home for not following rules at an off-campus party, while at Ohio State University, more than 200 have been suspended for similar reasons.

Ariana Rebello, a freshman at Hofstra University on Long Island, said hearing about those punishments at other schools has dissuaded her from attending parties, but also from reporting her classmates. “I don’t think I could bring myself to snitch. I just wouldn’t associate with them,” she said.

In states with high virus counts, many administrators said they worried that college parties could accelerate an all-butinevitable rise of clusters on their campuses. But in the New York metropolitan area, which has largely continued to stem its own outbreak, the concerns carry a different weight.

Some epidemiologists said they feared that college parties and large social gatherings could lead to a resurgence of the virus in places like the New York region that have kept case counts low.

“The biggest concern is that you are going to have newly infected people leave these parties and disperse back into their communities,” said Dr. Stephen Thomas, an infectious disease specialist at SUNY Upstate Medical University. “It’s that they’re going to be sources for continuing to spread the virus and it’s going to reverse the work that has already been done.”

Many students say they have more self-interested reasons to report their peers. On TikTok and other social media platforms, videos have gone viral in which students say “snitching” on their classmates would be an easy choice because of how much it costs to attend their colleges.

But for others like Cambria Kelley, a first-year graduate student at New York University, the issue is more personal. Kelley, who is from California, said several members of her family contracted the illness over the last few months, including her grandmother who died in July.

NYU has asked students to “politely urge” their classmates to wear masks and socially distance and to report those who violate that advice to school officials. And despite the friendships she may form with her classmates, Kelley said she will still feel an obligation to do so, keeping her family in mind.

“If it was bad enough, I wouldn’t hesitate to report them,” Kelley said. “I’m not going to be having my life put at risk because people decided to be selfish. These rules are for the good of everyone here.”

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Thursday, September 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Wildfires hasten another climate crisis: Homeowners who can’t get insurance

By CHRISTOPHER FLAVELLE

A

NOTICE

s wildfires burn homes across California, the state is also grappling with a different kind of climate predicament: How to stop insurers from abandoning fire-prone areas, leaving countless homeowners at risk.

Years of megafires have caused huge losses for insurance companies, a problem so severe that, last year, California temporarily banned insurers from canceling policies on some 800,000 homes in or near risky parts of the state. However, that ban is about expire and can’t be renewed, and a recent plan to deal with the problem fell apart in a clash between insurers and consumer advocates.

Insurers are widely expected to continue their retreat, potentially devastating the housing market if homes become essentially uninsurable.

“The marketplace has largely collapsed” in those high-risk areas, said Graham Knaus, executive director of the California State Association of Counties, which has pushed state officials to address the problem. “It’s a very large geographic area of the state that is facing this.”

The insurance crisis is making California a test case for the financial dangers of climate change nationwide, as wildfires, floods and other disasters create economic shocks well beyond the physical damage of the disasters themselves. Those changes have already started to affect home prices, the mortgage industry and the bond market.

In California, the wildfires of the past few weeks have made the problem more urgent. The state has battled more than 875 fires since mid-August, which have burned almost 1.5 million acres and destroyed more than 2,800 structures, according to Cal Fire, the state fire agency. As of Monday, almost 40,000 people remained unable to go back to their homes.

As a result, insurers now face the prospect of another brutal year of losses.

The challenges are especially pronounced in California, where regulations lean toward consumer

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The Ranch Fire in Azusa, Calif., east of Los Angeles, in August. Several years of brutal fire seasons have hit insurers hard. protection. The state forbids insurance companies from setting rates based on what they expect in future damages. Insurers are allowed to set rates only based on prior losses.

Regulators also forbid insurers from passing along the costs of buying their own insurance, which they do to soften the blow of unexpectedly big losses. As wildfires get worse, those costs for insurers are going up as well.

Both rules were designed to guard against higher rates. But in the age of climate change, insurers say those rules have prevented them from keeping up with wildfire damage.

“From homeowners’ point of view, this is scary,” said Char Miller, a professor of environmental analysis and history at Pomona College near Los Angeles. But for insurance companies, he said, not covering high-risk homes reflects a straightforward logic: “Why am I insuring something that I know is going to be destroyed?”

The problem has become so bad that the state’s insurance commissioner, Ricardo Lara, last December banned companies from dropping people in or near ZIP codes struck by recent wildfires, calling the situation a “crisis.” The move, which covered at least 800,000 homes around the state, marked the first time his office had used that authority.

The ban was never meant to be a permanent fix. It lasts just 12 months and can’t be extended.

And data suggests that insurers have continued to drop customers. The number of households buying coverage from California’s high-risk insurance program, a costly and bare-bones alternative for people who can’t get private coverage, has increased by more than 50% between the start of 2019 and June 2020, to almost 200,000 households.

This spring, state lawmakers introduced a bill they described as a compromise: In areas exposed to wildfires, insurers would be allowed to incorporate climate predictions and other costs into their rate requests, in

return for making coverage more available and offering discounts to people who take steps reduce their home’s vulnerability to wildfires.

The bill was meant to address the needs of homeowners in what experts call the “wildland-urban interface,” or WUI — places at the edge of the forest, where the risk of wildfires tends to be highest but where housing costs are often lower than in urban areas.

“My main concern is those folks in the WUI, who are having a very difficult time getting insurance,” said state Sen. Susan Rubio, who represents the southeastern part of Los Angeles County and was one of the bill’s authors. “To do nothing, that’s just not an option.”

Insurers supported the change, as did the association of counties. So did the union representing firefighters at Cal Fire, many of whom live in fire-prone places.

“It’s affecting our members, being able to get insurance for the areas they can afford to live in,” said Tim Edwards, president of Cal Fire Local 2881, which represents more than 6,500 firefighters. He said more than 100 of his members had lost homes to wildfires in the past five years.

But the bill faced strong opposition from consumer groups.

Carmen Balber, executive director of an organization called Consumer Watchdog, called the bill “an insurance industry wish list.” She said the state should at least make insurers offer home insurance to anyone who takes steps to mitigate their wildfire risk, such as clearing brush around their home.

“If insurers want to sell in the best parts of California,” Balber said, “they need to sell in the riskier parts.”

The consumer groups prevailed. Last month, the state Senate stripped most of the provisions from the bill, instead directing the insurance commissioner to review the current rules and report back to the legislature in two years. Even that pared-back measure failed to come up for a vote by the time the annual legislative session ended Monday night.

“It was effectively gutted,” said Rex Frazier, president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California, which represents insurers. “Despite the fact that half of California is on fire.”

The state’s insurance commissioner said his focus now was working with high-risk communities to reduce their wildfire risk enough that insurers will keep offering coverage without big rate increases. “I will continue to move quickly to tackle the costs and availability of wildfire insurance affecting our state,” Lara said. “If Californians do our part to protect homes from wildfire,” the industry should respond by agreeing to insure those homes, he said.

But reducing the human and economic toll of wildfires will require deeper reform than just tweaking building codes or encouraging better landscaping, others said. It may also require addressing the shortage of new housing in Californian cities, which has helped push development further into areas at risk of burning, a trend that has continued despite years of severe wildfires.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, September 3, 2020

9

1 Million primary ballots were mailed late, Postal Service watchdog says

By LUKE BROADWATER

M

ore than 1 million mail-in ballots were sent late to voters during the 2020 primary elections, an internal Postal Service audit found, underscoring deep concerns about whether the agency has the ability to process what is expected to be a major increase in mail-in votes for the presidential election in November.

In a survey of mail-in ballots sent during primaries from June 2 to Aug. 13, the agency’s inspector general found that election boards across the country had sent more than 1 million ballots during the final week of the election, putting those votes at “high risk” of not making it back to officials in time to be counted. Hundreds of ballots were mailed after elections were over — meaning they could not be counted — and only a small percentage used the proper tracking procedures, the audit found.

With at least three-quarters of American voters eligible to receive a ballot in the mail in 2020 — the most in history — and about 80 million mail ballots expected to flood election offices this fall amid the coronavirus pandemic, the findings raised questions about whether the Postal Service would be able to handle the crush of votes.

“While the Postal Service has made progress in preparing for the 2020 general election, there are concerns surrounding integrating stakeholder processes with Postal Service processes to help ensure the timely delivery of election and political mail,” the auditors wrote.

The audit largely blamed local elections officials for mailing the ballots at the last minute in response to requests from voters, but it noted that the Postal Service should build “strong relationships” with local elections officials to ensure that they adjust their deadlines.

The findings come at a time of heightened scrutiny of the Postal Service, as President Donald Trump claims without evidence that voting by mail is fraudulent and as Louis DeJoy, the new postmaster general and an ally of Trump’s, has made operational changes that have coincided with a slowdown in mail deliveries.

The situation has prompted widespread concern among Democrats that the president is seeking to interfere with the mail to bolster his reelection chances or sow distrust about the ultimate result.

DeJoy has said that the agency is equipped to handle the demands of the election. But for months, the Postal Service has warned states to change their deadlines to avoid sending last-minute ballots to voters, a practice that all but ensures that many ballots will never be counted. More than 30 states require a ballot to be received by Election Day in order to count, and no state allows a ballot postmarked after Election Day to be processed.

An election expert testified before Congress last week that while some states have changed their deadlines, more than 20 states had failed to do so, risking the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters in the general election.

The audit, released on the same day as the Massachusetts primary election, which was expected to feature heavy voting by mail, found the problems during primaries had been most pronounced in Kentucky and New York, where a combined 628,000 ballots were sent out late.

In 17 states, the audit found, more than 589,000 ballots

were sent from election boards to voters after the state’s ballot mailing deadline. In 11 states, more than 44,000 ballots were sent from election boards to voters the day of or the day before the state’s primary election.

One particularly troubling situation, auditors found, unfolded in Pennsylvania, where 500 ballots were sent to voters the day after the election.

The inspector general’s audit also found that only 13% of ballots were mailed with the recommended bar code tracking technology. The investigators flagged long-standing problems with election boards’ failing to maintain updated voter files, meaning voters’ addresses were often out of date.

Additionally, the audit found problems in Baltimore. Even though postal officials there “certified that they were clear of election and political mail daily, our audit determined that political mail received on May 12, 2020, sat unprocessed for five days, resulting in about 68,000 political mail mailpieces not delivered on time,” the auditors wrote. They said the mail was eventually processed but much later than it should have been.

DeJoy, who built a fortune in the private sector, began putting cost-cutting measures in place when he took over the Postal Service in June; mail delivery slowed by as much as 8%. He backed off some of his service cuts amid a firestorm of criticism and pledged to Congress last week that “we will do everything in our power and structure to deliver the ballots on time.”

David Williams, a Postal Service vice president in charge of

operations, wrote in response to the report that management “largely agrees with the audit’s findings and recommendations, and we reiterate our commitment to efficiently process the nation’s political and election mail, and to timely deliver such mail.”

The audit, dated Monday, is the second by the Postal Service inspector general to examine mistakes made during the 2020 primary elections. Last month, auditors focused on problems in Wisconsin, where hundreds of ballots were left in tubs, unaccounted for, at the Milwaukee processing and distribution center during the state’s primary in April. About 160 ballots were erroneously returned to a local election office; another 390 had issues with the postmark, which led to confusion about whether they could be counted, the inspector general found.

The agency’s watchdog has also opened an inquiry into DeJoy in response to Democrats in Congress who sought an investigation into his operational changes and his personal finances, including his ownership of stock in a Postal Service contractor.

In July, the Postal Service warned states that it might not be able to meet their deadlines for delivering last-minute mail-in ballots, urging those with tight schedules to require that residents request ballots at least 15 days before an election — rather than the shorter periods allowed under the laws of many states. In response, some states, including Pennsylvania and Michigan, have called for extensions on counting late-arriving ballots in the election in November.

More than one million mail-in ballots were sent late to voters during the 2020 primary elections, an internal Postal Service audit found, underscoring deep concerns about whether the agency has the ability to process what is expected to be a major increase in mail-in votes for the presidential election in November.

10

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, September 3, 2020

A tumultuous Legislative session ends in California C

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alifornia lawmakers skidded to the chaotic close of a legislative session in which sweeping policy debates often took a back seat to more immediate crises wrought by the pandemic.

That included a last-minute law intended to stave off a wave of evictions that tenant advocates have warned would be likely if protections were allowed to expire as planned Tuesday.

Landlord groups fought hard against requiring landlords to forgive unpaid rent, and no such provisions made it into the deal.

In a statement, Debra Carlton, executive vice president of the California Apartment Association, said that the deal was a fine stopgap, but that renters would need federal help paying accumulated rent.

“Otherwise,” she said, “housing providers will go out of business.”

Some community organizations worried that the deal would still leave many renters, particularly in the hard-hit Central Valley, vulnerable to being kicked out of their homes.

Starting as early as this week, for instance, tenants can be evicted for lease violations other than nonpayment related to the coronavirus pandemic.

While landlords said that was necessary to be able to remove tenants who are endangering their property or bothering neighbors, tenant advocates said that many high-risk renters won’t have the resources to legally challenge their landlords if they use a lease violation as a pretext for evicting them for not paying.

“We expected California’s elected representatives, who’ve had nearly 6 months to devise a COVID-19 housing policy to safeguard the people they took an oath to serve, to represent the interests of the people — not property,” said a statement from the nonprofit Faith in the Valley. “We are disheartened.”

In any case, lawmakers and other tenant advocates said the hard-won compromise was the only way to avert disaster.

“California is stepping up to protect those most at-risk,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “But it’s just a bridge to a more permanent solution.”

Late into the night, other debates over how to manage coronavirus risks played out in real time, as the governor might say.

As Politico reported, tensions rose when Republican state senators — who had been barred because a member of their caucus tested positive for the coronavirus — complained about having to vote remotely.

A Democratic Assembly member, Buffy Wicks, was forced to bring her newborn baby to the floor after her request to vote by proxy was denied by Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, whose office said that she wasn’t considered higher risk of getting sick. Wicks gave birth in July.

It was a jarring contrast that ricocheted around social media. The same night, as The Los Angeles Times reported, lawmakers voted to expand job protections for people who take the state’s paid family leave. Newsom has said he will sign that bill into law.

And Tuesday night, Rendon issued an apology.

Another police shooting draws an outcry On Monday, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officials said deputies tried to stop a Black man who was riding a bike in South Los Angeles.

They said he was stopped for a code violation related to the bike but wouldn’t elaborate on what the alleged violation was.

The man, Dijon Kizzee, 29, fled. Deputies chased him, eventually catching up. Sheriff’s officials said Kizzee punched one of the officers in the face and dropped a bundle that they said contained a handgun.

When Kizzee dropped the bundle and “made a motion” toward the gun, officials said, the deputies opened fire. Kizzee died.

Soon, demonstrators gathered to protest.

Family members grieved and demanded answers.

According to The Los Angeles Times, his family planned to conduct an independent autopsy.

The shooting comes amid a continuing outcry across the country about racist police violence and took place not far from where Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies shot Andres Guardado, an 18-year-old Latino man, five times in the back in July.

But while many California leaders have expressed support for the demonstrations and have vowed reforms, many stalled in the Legislature, including one high-profile proposal that would have, among other things, stripped badges from officers who break the law.

An almost empty Assembly gallery during session in Sacramento on Monday.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, September 3, 2020

11

Facebook and Twitter warn of Russian meddling

A sign at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., July 15, 2020. Facebook said on Tuesday, September 1, that it took down a Russian disinformation campaign.

By SHEERA FRENKEL and JULIAN E. BARNES

T

he Russian group that interfered in the 2016 presidential election is at it again, using a network of fake accounts and a website set up to look like a left-wing news site, Facebook and Twitter said on Tuesday.

The disinformation campaign by the Kremlin-backed group, known as the Internet Research Agency, is the first public evidence that the agency is trying to repeat its efforts from four years ago and push voters away from the Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, to help President Donald Trump.

Intelligence agencies have warned for months that Russia and other countries were actively trying to disrupt the November election, and that Russian intelligence agencies were feeding conspiracy theories designed to alienate Americans by laundering them through fringe sites and social media.

Now Facebook and Twitter are offering evidence of this meddling, even as the White House in recent weeks has sought to more tightly control the flow of information about foreign threats to November’s election and downplay Russian interference. The Trump administration’s top intelligence official as recently as Sunday has tried to suggest that China is a graver risk than Moscow.

Facebook and Twitter, which were slow to react to wideranging disinformation campaigns on their services in 2016 and continue to face criticism — even from their own employees — that they are not doing enough to confront the issue, said they were warned by the FBI about the Russian effort.

Some U.S. officials are worried about a broad effort by Russian intelligence to use fringe websites, spread conspiracy theories and sow division in the United States. And some of the activity Facebook and Twitter identified Tuesday was just that kind of information laundering.

The fake network and site did not reach as big an audience as the group’s efforts in 2016, but the campaign came with a new wrinkle: The Russians hired real Americans to write for the website.

The site, called Peace Data, also used personas with computergenerated images to create what looked like a legitimate news organization.

The Internet Research Agency was very active in the 2016 presidential election, and a recent bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report detailed Russian interference in support of Trump’s election.

The group has been a less important part of Russia’s operations this year, according to two U.S. intelligence officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The group’s recently discovered activities on Twitter and Facebook were almost overt, designed to be detected, the officials said.

But the Peace Data site appeared to be a more worrying example of “information laundering,” a more covert and potentially dangerous effort by Moscow. Russian intelligence agencies have used allies and operatives to place articles, including disinformation, into various fringe websites.

“The Russians are trying harder to hide; they are increasingly putting up more and more layers of obfuscation,” said Ben Nim-

mo, whose firm, Graphika, worked with Facebook to release a report on the fake site. “But they are still getting caught.”

The IRA appeared to be in the earliest stages of building an audience for the fake news site on Facebook. The group had created 13 fake accounts and two pages dedicated to promoting Peace Data, according to Facebook. The pages were followed by 14,000 people.

The goal, said Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security, appeared to be to drive people to the Peace Data site, which billed itself as a “global news organization.”

The site’s first activity was in October 2019, when it began sharing articles published by other outlets. In March 2020, the site started publishing its own articles in English. Three editors were listed on the site. But when their photos were studied closely, it became apparent they were computer-generated images, said Nimmo.

“In terms of posting, they were clearly significantly left of the Biden-Harris campaign,” Nimmo said. He said topics ranged from racism in the United States to the environment and capitalism. Several articles argued that Biden would move the Democratic Party too far to the right.

Bill Russo, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, said the Russian activity was “proof of two immutable facts: Russia is attempting to interfere in our elections on behalf of Donald Trump, and Facebook’s platform is a key vector for these efforts.”

“President Trump’s refusal to speak out against Russian interference makes it all the more important that Facebook does more to enforce their rules and ensure their platform cannot be used to corrode the foundation of our democracy,” Russo said.

Facebook used the FBI tip to identify the Peace Data accounts and pages on its own platform, and to work with Twitter and other sites to remove the IRA-run network. The company said it contacted nearly 200 people who had been messaged by the network.

Twitter said on Tuesday that it had suspended five accounts associated with Peace Data for “platform manipulation that we can reliably attribute to Russian state actors,” a spokesman said.

The accounts were low-quality and engaged in spamming activity, Twitter said, so they did not gain a widespread following or attract much attention. Even so, Twitter said it would block any future attempts to share links from Peace Data.

But administration officials argue that Democrats are playing up the Russian threat to hurt Trump.

In an appearance on Fox News Channel on Sunday, John Ratcliffe, who was installed in May as director of national intelligence, asserted that China, not Russia, is the graver threat.

While people briefed on the intelligence concede that China wants to increase its influence in the United States, they said there was no direct evidence that Beijing had taken direct action to influence the presidential vote this year.

Researchers are also concerned about homegrown disinformation campaigns, and the latest Russian effort went to some lengths to appear like it was made in the United States. In addition to hiring American journalists and encouraging them to write in their own voices, the Peace Data website mixed pop culture, politics and activism to appeal to a young audience.

“It shows they are persistent and they are adaptive,” said Nimmo. “But it also shows they are having a much harder time than they used to in finding an audience.”

12

Thursday, September 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

A top Fed official warns that economic risks aren’t over

By JEANNA SMIALEK

L

ael Brainard, a Federal Reserve governor, said on Tuesday that the U.S. economy remained at risk as the coronavirus pandemic wore on — and support from Congress and the White House would be crucial to cushioning the blow. “There’s a lot of uncertainty that continues to cloud the outlook; downside risks continue to be important,� Brainard said at a Brookings Institution event. “It is very important to many households and businesses to have continued fiscal support — just as it was important to them in the early phase of this crisis.�

Her comments came as the future of another government support package remained unclear. Brainard, who was appointed during the Obama administration, said that monetary policy would also play a key role as pandemic uncertainty persisted, and that central bankers would need to pivot from stabilizing Gobierno de Puerto Rico

DEPARTAMENTO DE RECURSOS NATURALES Y AMBIENTALES

AVISO AMBIENTAL SOBRE INTENCIĂ“N DE OTORGAR UN PERMISO PARA CONSTRUIR Y OPERAR UNA INSTALACIĂ“N DE DESPERDICIOS SĂ“LIDOS NO PELIGROSOS El Sr. RamĂłn Lizardi, Presidente de la instalaciĂłn Borinquen Metals Scrap, Corp., localizada en Carr. PR-713, Km 1.4, en el barrio Jobos, sector Villodas Cimarrona en Guayama, ha sometido en el Departamento Recursos Naturales y Ambientales, una solicitud de permiso para construir y operar una instalaciĂłn de procesamiento para al reciclaje de metales ferrosos y no ferrosos y baterĂ­as desechadas, paletas de madera, plĂĄsticos, cartĂłn, papel y electrĂłnicos. Luego de realizada la evaluaciĂłn de los documentos sometidos, este Departamento tiene la intenciĂłn de emitir el permiso.

El Reglamento para el Manejo de los Desperdicios SĂłlidos No Peligrosos, establece en el CapĂ­tulo IX como requisito, el solicitar un permiso como condiciĂłn previa a operar una instalaciĂłn de desperdicios sĂłlidos no peligrosos, el cual es aplicable a dueĂąos u operadores. La Regla 649 del mencionado capĂ­tulo requiere la publicaciĂłn de este Aviso y regula la celebraciĂłn de Vistas PĂşblicas, las cuales podrĂ­an ser efectuadas de considerarse necesarias por esta Junta, o por peticiones durante el perĂ­odo comprendido para comentarios.

markets to supporting economic growth in the coming months. “It will be important to provide the requisite accommodation to achieve maximum employment and average inflation of 2% over time,� she said.

The Fed unveiled a new long-run policy statement last week, making critical updates to its strategy for achieving its goals of full employment and stable inflation. Brainard said the tweaks, which together laid the groundwork for long periods of very low interest rates, would help to guide the central bank’s policies coming out of the pandemic.

One key change — the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee will now aim for 2% inflation on average over time, instead of as a more or less absolute goal — will allow for low rates even as prices climb slightly, she said. “I would expect the committee to accommodate rather than offset inflationary pressures moderately above 2%, in a process of opportunistic reflation,� she said.

The Fed’s rework included a major change to the way it views low unemployment. Officials tweaked their long-run strategy statement to say that they would worry about “shortfalls� from full employment, rather than “deviations.� In plain terms, that means that the Fed will no longer raise interest rates simply because joblessness has fallen to low levels.

That’s a big shift from the recent past: The Fed lifted interest rates nine times between 2015 and the end of 2018 partly out of concern that the job market would overheat and spur inflation.

Instead, price increases stagnated.

Brainard said that if the Fed had been using the new strategy several years ago, “it is likely that accommodation would have been withdrawn later, and the gains would have been greater.�

Richard H. Clarida, the Fed’s vice chair and the head of the year-and-a-half review of the Fed’s policy framework that resulted in the updates, also highlighted the central bank’s new approach to full employment during a speech this week.

Low joblessness “will not, under our new framework, be a sufficient trigger for policy action,� Clarida said, absent pressing financial stability concerns or evidence that inflation is overheating or is likely to run hot.

The Fed’s revised statement emphasized that financial stability concerns will be an important consideration in a world where interest rates are likely to stay low for extended periods, driving investors to make bigger bets in hopes of richer payouts.

But Brainard said monetary policy should not be the primary tool for fighting such bubbles.

Instead, she said, the Fed should use regulation and other forms of oversight to tamp down risks. As part of that tool kit, she said, banks should be retaining their capital — money they can readily tap — to make sure they remain healthy amid the pandemic stress. “I don’t think they should be paying out dividends,� Brainard said of commercial banks. “I think they should be hanging onto their buffers.�

In a panel after Brainard’s remarks on Tuesday, former Fed officials suggested that the framework Chair Jerome Powell detailed last week was a step in the right direction but not a panacea. “They need to work harder to think about how the different tools coordinate with each other — how they’re going to think about financial stability, how they’re going to add firepower,� said Ben Bernanke, who was Fed chair during the 2008 financial crisis. “There’s a lot to be done still. This is just an aspirational, constitutional kind of statement.�

And Janet Yellen, who was Bernanke’s successor, said the central bank could not go it alone as it tried to help the United States to recover from the pandemic-spurred economic crisis. “In a situation like we’re in now, fiscal policy is necessary and plays an important role,� Yellen said. “There’s a little bit more the Fed can do — I would look at exploring the tool kit — but I think we also need fiscal policy in a situation like this.�

Copia de la solicitud del permiso, al igual que el Borrador de Permiso y otros documentos relevantes al caso, estĂĄn a la disposiciĂłn del pĂşblico SDUD VHU H[DPLQDGRV HQ OD 2ÂżFLQD 5HJLRQDO GH *XD\DPD GHO 'HSDUWDPHQWR de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales (antes Junta de Calidad Ambiental) ubicada en la Carretera 3, Km.136.0 Bo. Algarrobos en Guayama, de 8:00 A.M. a 4:30 P.M., de lunes a viernes.

Las partes interesadas o afectadas pueden someter sus comentarios por HVFULWR D OD 6UD 9DQHVVD 'HO 0RUDO 5RVDULR 'LUHFWRUD ,QWHULQD 2ÂżFLQD Regional de Guayama, a la direcciĂłn postal: 2000 Ave. Los Veteranos, Guayama PR 00784 o al Sr. Rafael A. Machargo Maldonado, Secretario, Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales a San JosĂŠ Industrial Park, Ave. Ponce de LeĂłn, San Juan PR 00926, no mĂĄs tarde de treinta (30) dĂ­as a partir de la fecha de publicaciĂłn de este Aviso.

Aprobado por la Autoridad Nominadora &HUWLÂżFDFLyQ &(( 6$ GHO GH IHEUHUR GH Este anuncio se publicĂł conforme a lo requerido por la Ley Sobre PolĂ­tica Publica Ambiental, Ley NĂşm. 416 del 22 de septiembre de 2004.

SegĂşn enmendada.

Aviso pagado por solicitante.

Carr. PR 3, Km . 136.0, Bo. Algarrobos, Guayama , PR /2000 Avenida Los Veteranos , Guayama, PR 00784 Tel. (787) 866.0200 Fax (787) 866.0572 • www.drna.pr.gov

Lael Brainard, a Federal Reserve governor, last year. On Tuesday, she warned that it was “very important� for households and businesses to receive continued governmental support as an aid package languished in Congress.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, September 3, 2020

13 Stocks

Wall Street climbs with defensive sectors out front

T

he S&P 500 rose on Wednesday for the ninth time in the past 10 sessions although defensive sectors took their turn to lead the gains after data showed U.S. private payrolls expanded last month, but at a much slower pace than expected.

The indexes pared gains briefly before regaining ground in the late afternoon after the Federal Reserve’s “Beige Book” report showed a modest increase in activity for U.S. businesses and an increase in employment through late August, while economic growth remained sluggish in parts of the country.

The blue-chip Dow edged up toward its Feb. 12 record high but was still 2% below the milestone. The tech-heavy Nasdaq, now more than 20% above its pre-crisis high, rose at a slower pace on Wednesday.

It was hurt by losses in shares such as Apple Inc, Tesla Inc and Zoom Video Communications Inc. “A handful of technology stocks have been a great place to be over the last several months, but at some point you need to kind of be on the lookout for other opportunities outside of those concentrated names,” said Adam Phillips, director of portfolio strategy at EP Wealth Advisors in Torrance, California.

The defensive utilities, consumer staples and real estate, which have trailed the broader market this year, posted some of the biggest percentage gains among major S&P sectors on Wednesday.

The Russell 1000 value index was up 1.2%, while the Russell 1000 growth index rose 0.7%.

“It’s positive momentum all around. I don’t think you’ll get a sustained rotation,” said Janet Walker, senior portfolio manager at Abbot Downing in San Francisco, who also cited the latest positive reports on COVID-19 treatments and vaccines.

At 2:20 p.m. EDT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 290.91 points, or 1.02%, at 28,936.57, the S&P 500 gained 38.95 points, or 1.10%, to 3,565.6 and the Nasdaq Composite added 71.09 points, or 0.6%, to 12,010.76.

U.S. private payrolls increased last month from July, according to the ADP report, but fell short of economists’ forecast. Investor focus will now be on the government’s comprehensive employment report which is slated for Friday.

Abbot Downing’s Walker expects Friday’s government payroll numbers to also reflect a stalling from July to August. As a result she says it will be important for U.S. lawmakers to reach an agreement for a new fiscal coronavirus relief bill.

Weakness in the jobs report “could become a bigger risk if there’s a delay in stimulus,” she said. “For us to continue to recover we’re going to need to see additional stimulus.”

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14

Thursday, September 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

New COVID-19 outbreaks test South Korea’s strategy like professional sports games, cafes and wedding halls.

But Moon has hesitated to go that far, fearing the damage to the alreadyshrinking economy.

“We are at crossroads,” Jung Eunkyeong, the director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday. “This coming week will decide whether we can stabilize the second wave of infections.”

In late February, S​outh Korea was reporting as many as 900 cases a day. But​ the country quickly flattened the curve of new infections, thanks to​its​aggressive contact-tracing and testing program. Also key to the success was a public that embraced curbs on their civil rights for the sake of fighting the pandemic. ​​People wore masks daily. Few complain​ ed​when the government aggresA customer getting her temperature checked at a cafe in Seoul on Monday. The sively used surveillance-camera footage, government is trying to sustain a fragile balance between controlling the virus and smartphone location data and credit card safeguarding the economy. purchase records to help trace corona​​ virus patients and establish transmission and between ​using ​government power ​to chains. South Koreans also gave Moon’s

By CHOE SANG-HUN protect public health and not infringing on governing Democratic Party a landslide victory in parliamentary elections in April​. outh Korea was so proud of its han- civil liberties.

By May, South Korea was confi“Our quarantine strategy, once condling of the coronavirus pandemic dent that it could become more active that it coined a term for it: K-Quar- sidered a model to f​ollow in the rest of economically without allowing the conantine, named after the global musical the world, is suddenly faced with a crisis,” tagion to come roaring back. It started a Moon said last week. “The whole nation phenomenon K-pop. campaign called “A New Daily Life With Its two-pronged strategy of fight- is in a difficult situation. The people’s lives COVID-19​,” urging people to go out, soing the virus while keeping the economy are crumbling.”

South Korea’s daily caseload of new cialize, spend and have fun to keep the running appeared to work. The country all but halted a large outbreak w ​ ithout infections​, once fewer than 10, has been economy rolling. If there was any back​ ould snap back into closing its borders, locking down towns in the triple digits​every day since Aug. 14, sliding, restrictions w place. or ​drawing an outcry over draconian re- taking the country of 50 million people to “We cannot delay returning to norstrictions on speech and movement. ​The more than 20,000 cases and 326 deaths, mal life forever,” Moon said then. “Quarcountry was held up as a model for the according to a New York Times database.​ antine is the beginning of economic reThe virus has spread quickly from churchrest of the world.

But now, South Korea is struggling es and a large antigovernment protest covery, but it doesn’t bring us the food.”

The government unleashed 14 trilwith a second wave of infections, and its rally. Moon’s government has threatened strategy seems as precarious as ever. The lawsuits​and prosecution against ​church- lion won, or $11.8 billion, in cash gifts new wave is spreading from the popu- goers and protesters accused of impeding to households to help shore up domestic lous Seoul metropolitan area and through officials’ efforts to control the epidemic. consumption. In late May, it opened 256 people deeply suspicious of President But they’ve pushed back, calling him a beaches across the country for summer Moon Jae-in’s epidemiological efforts. dictator who is running the country under vacationers. In July, it allowed Bible studies and other small religious gatherings, To complicate matters more, some of the “quarantine martial law.”

Undeterred, Moon recently tight- previously banned as ​​a​hard-to-monitor ​ government’s strongest allies in the fight against​COVID-19, young doctors, have ened restrictions, banning church gather- avenue for virus spreading.

In August, just days before the spike turned against Moon. They have gone on ings and large outdoor rallies and shutting strike, unhappy with his medical reform down nightclubs and bars. Epidemiolo- in cases, the Organization for Economic program. gists have called for more drastic social Cooperation and Development predicted The government is also trying to sus- distancing measures, like banning all gath- that South Korea’s economy would contain a fragile balance between controlling erings of more than 10 people and closing tract only 0.8% this year, compared with the virus and safeguarding the economy, hundreds of thousands of other places, an average of 7.5% for other countries in

S

the group. ​​ Millions of South Koreans hit the ​ road and shops in mid-August during a three-day weekend created by Moon’s government to give “a brief but valuable time of rest for people weary over the prolonged epidemic.”

But even before the holiday began Aug. 15, signs emerged that relaxing restrictions was leading to more infections.

Days earlier, a fast-growing outbreak​ erupted in Sarang Jeil Church in Seoul, home to a faith-based, conservative political movement against Moon. Another outbreak started Aug. 15, when vocal critics of Moon’s policies, especially on North Korea, a​ttended a large anti-government rally in downtown Seoul. Some Sarang Jeil Church members had mingled with the crowd, health officials said.

On Wednesday, the Rev. Jun Kwanghoon, chief pastor of Sarang Jeil Church​ , held a news conference where he accused the government ​ of scapegoating churches to silence its critics and cover up​ its own epidemiological failures.

As the new outbreaks threaten to tarnish one of ​his biggest achievements as president, Moon has sounded increasingly strident, suggesting he will use the blunt force of the law to punish those​ who impede the government’s epidemiological efforts.​His government has proclaimed “​ zero tolerance​” and “maximum penalties.”

“No freedom of religion, assembly or expression can be asserted at the cost of such damage,” ​he has said, accusing the politically active conservative church members of spreading the virus and endangering the economy.

“Prayers may give you peace of mind but don’t protect you from the virus,” he said.

The police have so far referred 959 people for prosecution for violating laws to control the virus, including hundreds charged with flouting a government order to wear masks or b ​ reaking quarantine to go out to eat, drink, smoke, take out the garbage or report to their workplaces. The police arrested at least four people, including two pastors, who were accused of misleading epidemiological investigations ​by lying about their whereabouts​or the size of their church congregations.

The San Juan Daily Star

15

Thursday, September 3, 2020

Across the globe, students head back to school

F

rom Wuhan to London to Tel Aviv and many places in between, students are returning to classrooms this week after months of staying home in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Opening schools is a step toward normalcy, in a changed world where the virus has killed more than 850,000 people and infected 25.4 million. Many countries see the return as imperative to jump-starting economies devastated by the pandemic.

Some are taking the risk despite rising cases, and schools are requiring precautions like wearing masks, washing hands, checking temperatures and keeping children in social bubbles.

In the Chinese city of Wuhan, the original center of the pandemic, state-run news media said that more than 2,840 primary and secondary schools, serving nearly 1.4 million students, reopened on Tuesday.

Students had their temperatures taken and were instructed in hand-washing techniques.

The school opening was a striking turnabout from the early days in January and February, when Wuhan became synonymous with the virus. The deadly infection spread rapidly and mysteriously through the city, and officials imposed a 76-day lockdown.

Now, China is taking an ambitious approach toward reopening schools, vowing to resume inperson classes this fall for almost all students. A notable exception is the region of Xinjiang in the west,

where several cities remain under lockdown more than a month after an outbreak there.

In Britain, classrooms and schoolyards rang with the clamor of students on Tuesday morning as hundreds of thousands of children returned to classrooms in the government’s boldest bid yet to reopen society.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has declared the reopening of schools to be a “moral duty,” and made it a centerpiece of his strategy to recover from the pandemic, which has inflicted a higher toll on Britain — 41,500 deaths — than on any other European country.

There is no nationwide rule about wearing face coverings at school. The government has left those decisions up to individual schools and has said children in primary school do not need to do so.

In Belgium, children ages 5 and older also headed back to school Tuesday. Only those in high-risk groups were allowed to stay home. But children returning from vacation in areas with high infection rates are not allowed back in school for 14 days. Masks are required for older students.

After six months off, other than a brief return in June, more than 12 million students in France were also back in classrooms, though the country is seeing climbing numbers of virus cases. Students over age 11 and all teachers are required to wear masks and try to maintain social distance. Where there are outbreaks, classrooms will close again, said the minister of education, Jean-Michel Blanquer.

In Israel, more than 2 million students returned Tuesday despite a relatively high infection rate and concerns that academic institutions could facilitate the spread. Experts have said that Israel’s quick reopening of schools in May — after COVID-19 cases had subsided — played a significant role in the virus’s comeback.

The Israeli authorities instituted new regulations meant to prevent outbreaks, and decided to keep schools closed in 23 cities and towns with especially high infection rates. As of Tuesday afternoon, there were 20,699 active virus cases in Israel, according to the Health Ministry.

In Russia, which reached 1 million confirmed cases on Tuesday, schools opened with few precautions. Teachers and children were not required to wear masks.

Spanish students are also returning to school this month, despite a surge in cases that has made Spain the worst current hot spot in Europe.

Children older than 5 are required to wear masks. But because schools are managed by each of Spain’s 17 regional administrations, rather than the central government, there are discrepancies in not only how but also when students are returning to the classroom. And some regions have been changing their school plans with only days to go before the scheduled reopening.

The global reopenings come as the United States has opted to carry on with remote learning for the most part.

New York City is the only major school system in the country planning on offering some in-person education this fall, though it pushed back its start date on Tuesday. Many U.S. colleges and universities that have reopened have seen outbreaks on camps, forcing some to close again.

But in other parts of the world, the openings have been hailed as a powerful sign that life is slowly getting back to normal.

“School is open, and I’m very excited and happy,” a sixth grader named Li Xinnuo told a radio broadcaster in Wuhan. “I can see my classmates, whom I haven’t seen for a long time.”

JOB OPPORTUNITY

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

ERICSSON CARIBBEAN INC. has an opening in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico for an Integration Engineer to provide on-site hardware support for analysis and troubleshooting of defective and damaged boards and parts of telecom equipment.

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Thursday, September 3, 2020

Saudi Arabia opens airspace to Israeli flights for first time EN MENONITA ESTÁS SEGURO

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audi Arabia announced Wednesday that it would allow any flights going to and from the United Arab Emirates to fly over its territory, a move that would give Israel access to some of the kingdom’s airspace for the first time.

The announcement, made at the request of the United Arab Emirates, came days after the first direct flight from Israel to the emirates — a symbolic move as the two nations begin normalizing relations.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, in a video statement delivered while standing in front of a map of the region, called the announcement a “tremendous breakthrough.”

“Flights will be cheaper and shorter, and it will lead to robust tourism and develop our economy,” Netanyahu said, while tracing the route between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi with his finger on the map.

He also said the route would allow Israelis to save time and money when traveling east to Asia.

“These are the benefits of a peace that is genuine,” he said.

The flight from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi on Monday passed through Saudi airspace, the first time the kingdom had explicitly allowed an Israeli commercial jet to pass over its territory. Air India had earlier received approval to fly directly to Israel and in 2018 established a direct route from New Delhi to Tel Aviv that passed over the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia’s decision to officially

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A view through the window of an El Al airliner carrying Israeli and American officials to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Monday.

allow flights to and from Israel from the United Arab Emirates make the route more commercially viable, cutting a nearly 7-hour journey in half.

Monday’s flight was the latest sign of growing diplomatic and commercial ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates that some hope will lead to similar moves in other Arab nations that have long refused to recognize the Jewish state. A landmark agreement came after six weeks of indirect talks between Israel and the emirates, with Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, playing a central role.

The two nations announced the accord last month after decades of stalemate. The United Arab Emirates is only the third Arab nation to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. Egypt signed a peace agreement with the country in 1979, and Jordan signed a treaty in 1994.

Netanyahu thanked Kushner and Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of the emirate of Abu Dhabi, for the “important contribution” toward opening up the airspace, adding that there would “be a great deal more good news to come.”

The Saudi announcement in the country’s official press agency refers to allowing “all flights” to pass through its airspace but makes no direct reference to Iran or Qatar, two nations currently banned from flying over the kingdom.

The announcement appears to refer only to the commencement of commercial flights between Israel and the emirates, and said the decision was a response to a “request by the UAE.” Saudi officials were quick to affirm that the change in rules in its airspace did not signal any departure from its current stance on the Israel-Palestinian issue.

“The Kingdom’s positions regarding the Palestinian cause and people are fixed and firm,” Faisal bin Farhan, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, said in a post on Twitter. He said that giving permission to “flights arriving in the United Arab Emirates as well as those departing from it to all countries” to use the kingdom’s airspace did not change that.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, September 3, 2020

17

Trial over January 2015 attacks opens in Paris

By AURELIEN BREEDEN and CONSTANT MÉHEUT

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rance began revisiting one of the worst chapters in its modern history Wednesday, as a landmark trial opened in Paris for the January 2015 terrorist attacks that killed 17 people in and around the French capital.

Over at least the next two months, before the glare of the world’s media and under tight security, the court is expected to meticulously examine three harrowing days that traumatized France 5 1/2 years ago, starting with a daytime assault on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine that Islamic extremists targeted after it published cartoons lampooning Islam.

The killings were followed by a string of deadly jihadi attacks, culminating with assaults in November that year in and around Paris that killed 130 people, vaulting France into a yearslong state of emergency.

Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, the two brothers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo attack, died in a shootout with the police north of Paris two days later. A third attacker, Amédy Coulibaly, killed a police officer in a Parisian suburb and four Jewish hostages at a kosher supermarket before dying himself when the police stormed the building.

With all the central assailants dead, the current trial will be more cathartic than revelatory for a country forced by the events to reckon with the threat of homegrown terrorism, permanently altering its balance between security and civil liberty.

Those on trial, who range in age from 29 to 68, are charged with providing logistical aid to the assailants, by carrying or supplying cash, weapons and vehicles. Most of the accused are facing up to 20 years in prison.

The court is expected to hear testimony from some 150 witnesses, and, exceptionally, the proceedings will be filmed for posterity.

“For them, for us, for history,” the daily Libération wrote on a black front page Wednesday.

“From a collective point of view, you need a trial to say that this sequence of events is closed and is now in the past,” said Gérôme

Truc, a sociologist who has worked extensively on the way countries like France have reacted to and commemorated terrorist attacks. “Society can move on.”

But as the trial closes one chapter, it will open another: In the years to come, several major terrorism cases are expected to come to trial, especially over the November 2015 attacks in Paris and one in Nice in July 2016, with a record number of defendants and plaintiffs — and often without the perpetrators.

“In a sense, it will be a sort of a big rehearsal,” Antoine Mégie, an expert on counterterrorism legislation, said of trial that began Wednesday.

Thirteen men and one woman stand accused in the trial, which was postponed from the spring because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Under French law, terrorism cases are tried by professional magistrates, not juries, and some 200 plaintiffs have joined the case.

“We want to fill this courtroom with what our clients went through,” Patrick Klugman, a lawyer for surviving hostages at the kosher supermarket, told reporters at the courthouse Wednesday, adding that he also wanted to renew the focus on the anti-Semitic nature of the killings.

Reporters mobbed lawyers with television cameras and microphones at the courthouse in Paris on Wednesday, quickly filling up several rooms that have been set aside to rebroadcast the proceedings, although the first day of the trial is expected to be purely procedural. Security at the courthouse was tight, with police blocking off neighboring streets, checking IDs and making rounds with bomb-sniffing dogs.

Everyone — including the suspects who were brought handcuffed into the main courtroom by police officers wearing black balaclavas — had a mask strapped across their face.

Among the accused in the new trial is Hayat Boumeddiene, Coulibaly’s religious partner at the time, and two brothers who helped her leave France for Syria shortly before the attacks.

The brothers, Mehdi Belhoucine and Mohamed Belhoucine, are thought to have died in Syria and Iraq, but French authorities believe that Boumed-

A mural outside the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris shows the cartoonists who were killed in an attack on the satirical magazine in January 2015. diene could be alive and in hiding. All three will be tried in absentia.

Mohamed Belhoucine and another man, Ali Riza Polat, are accused of more direct involvement in inspiring and preparing the attacks. They face more serious charges of complicity in the crimes, which carry a life sentence.

But none of the main perpetrators will face the court.

François Molins, the Paris prosecutor at the time of the attacks, said that the absence of main suspects might frustrate victims seeking answers.

He said the trial would nonetheless shine a light on remaining gray areas, including how the attacks were prepared and whether more were planned.

The Kouachi brothers said they were carrying out the attack in the name of al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen, while Coulibaly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, but it remains unclear who might have directly ordered them.

“The challenge, whether the main perpetrators are there or not, is to make it possible to understand what happened, how it happened and why it happened,” said Molins, who is now

the chief prosecutor at the Cour de Cassation, France’s highest judicial court.

In the days that followed the attacks, millions of people poured into streets around the country to demonstrate against Islamic extremism and show support for freedom of expression, rallying around the slogan #JeSuisCharlie — I am Charlie. “Still Charlie,” Jean Castex, the French prime minister, tweeted Wednesday.

But the attacks also set off debates — many of them unresolved — over secularism, freedom of expression and the integration of France’s Muslim minority.

Charlie Hebdo, true to character, defiantly reprinted cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad on its front page for the first day of the trial, explaining in an editorial that the drawings had “historical value” and were “pieces of evidence” that needed to be remembered.

“We will never back down,” Laurent Sourisseau, Charlie Hebdo’s editorial director, wrote in a separate piece, arguing that the “hatred” from the 2015 attacks was still present. “We will never give up.”

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Thursday, September 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

Trump needs his own Sister Souljah moment

By JAMELLE BOUIE

I

want to make a prediction about the election in November.

Here it is: If Joe Biden wins, it will be, in part, because Donald Trump could not separate himself from the chaos and disorder that have consumed his presidency.

But all is not lost for him or his campaign. What he needs to do right now is condemn those responsible for violence and disavow those who act in his name. He needs, in other words, what political observers have come to call a “Sister Souljah moment,” a pointed repudiation of a radical element within one’s own coalition, named for Bill Clinton’s rebuke of the eponymous hip-hop artist while speaking to Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition during the 1992 presidential campaign. A display like Clinton’s would show the country that Trump can be trusted to govern on behalf of all Americans.

Trump is in electoral trouble. He just had one of the best weeks of his presidency, four days of praise and celebration meant to put his negative record in the most positive light that the Republican Party and its strategists can muster. But none of it moved the needle much. Trump still trails Joe Biden in national polls, still trails him in swing states and is still struggling to improve his image with the majority of the voting public.

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sident Hubert Humphrey in 1968 to President George H.W. Bush in 1992. Trump is on the same path, with low approval ratings of his handling of “crime” (46% to 52%) and even lower approval of his handling of “race relations” (37% to 62%).

Compounding this problem is his rhetoric. The president speaks as if he approves of violence in the streets. Kenosha would be quiet if not for an incident of police brutality and abuse. The same is true for other cities where rioting and disorder have taken place. And yet, just last Friday, the president lamented the extent to which officers can’t use excessive force against protesters: “The reason they didn’t fight back too much,” Trump said of the police confronting protesters at his acceptance speech in Washington, D.C., is “they don’t want President Trump arriving for a news conference on Monday to lose their pension” and “they don’t want to lose their job” at the White House. because “we’ve become too politically correct. Everybody’s afraid to do anything now.”

Trump said something similar several years ago, telling A few days before the Republican convention, the Democratic Party concluded its national convention with a David Muir of ABC News that he would send federal “help” speech by Joe Biden accepting the party’s nomination for pre- to Chicago to handle its homicide problem. “I will send in sident. In it, he hit one of his main themes, that Trump is fan- what we have to send in. Maybe they’re not gonna have to be ning the fires of division and hatred for political gain. “The cu- so politically correct,” he said.

On Monday, Trump held a news conference. Asked to rrent president has cloaked America in darkness for much too condemn the killings in Kenosha, he said the shooter acted long. Too much anger. Too much fear. Too much division.”

As if on cue, the week of the Republican National Con- in self-defense; otherwise, “he probably would have been kivention saw exactly the kinds of mayhem and havoc that lled.” Asked to condemn the Portland caravan for harassment, he refused. (Over the weekend, on Twitter, he called them Trump has condoned throughout his years in political life.

It began with a police shooting. A white officer shot a “GREAT PATRIOTS!”) Trump said nothing, in other words, to Black man in the back while his children watched just a few disprove Biden’s claim that he “looks at this violence and sees feet away. The victim, Jacob Blake, survived the encounter, a political lifeline” and that he “adds fuel to every fire.”

It’s not too late. With a little more than two months although he is now paralyzed. But the city of Kenosha, Wisuntil the election, the president can still reverse course. But consin, where the shooting took place, exploded in rage.

Any hope of controlling anger on the ground was lost he cannot do so as long as he and his campaign indulge the when police met the agitated crowd with tear gas. For two fantasy that he is blameless and untouched by the crisis in nights, the city saw outright riots with shattered windows, “Democrat cities.”

The solution is for Trump to disavow the instigators. His looting and burned buildings. In the absence of police contrip to Kenosha on Tuesday should include tough words for trol, armed vigilantes took matters into their own hands, traveling to Kenosha supposedly to protect buildings and other police officers who insist on using lethal force when it’s not property. One of them, a teenager from nearby Antioch, Illi- necessary. He should urge police departments to reject the nois, killed two men in a confrontation on the third night use of tear gas, rubber bullets and military-style equipment that left no clear answers. Some say it was murder, others against protesters, understanding, as the Kerner Commission report explained in 1968, that “the harmful effects of oveself-defense.

A few days later, a truck caravan of Trump supporters rreaction are incalculable.”

Face to face with law enforcement at the site of a terridrove through downtown Portland, Oregon, spraying mace ble tragedy, Trump will have the chance to rebuke both bad and shooting paintballs as well as speeding through crosswalks filled with counterprotesters. Before the night was policing and the self-styled militias who raised the heat on an over, an armed opponent of the caravan allegedly shot and already tense situation.

Trump needs to show swing voters that he cares about killed a participant. the rights of African Americans and has a plan to handle poliIt is the worst of all worlds, for an incumbent president seeking reelection, to have the country feel as if its coming ce brutality and violence. He needs to show his independenapart under his leadership. Trump can deflect and cast this ce from the most radical parts of his base. It’s an opportunity chaos as a preview of “Biden’s America,” but the public usua- he shouldn’t let go to waste.

Not that I’ll hold my breath. lly punishes those who preside over disorder, from Vice Pre-

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, September 3, 2020

19

Asociación de Laboratorios entrega evidencia en contra de aseguradoras a Oficina del Comisionado de Seguros Por THE STAR

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a Asociación de Laboratorios Clínicos (ALC) hizo entrega, el miércoles, a la Oficina del Comisionado de Seguros (OCS) de múltiples documentos solicitados para tramitar la querella presentada el pasado 21 de julio en contra de varias aseguradoras que supuestamente no cumplieron con el pago de tarifas establecidas para las pruebas de COVID-19.

Además, exigieron que se lleven a cabo vistas administrativas de carácter público en las que se pueda discutir la evidencia presentada sobre la situación, que según describió el presidente de la ALC, el doctor Juan Rexach, afecta a miles de pacientes alrededor de la isla.

“La organización entregó evidencia que apunta a la petición de ajuste de tarifas a los laboratorios por parte de las aseguradoras para no pagar aquellas establecidas por el gobierno federal. A pesar de que los documentos requeridos nos han parecido excesivos, lo cual pudiera constituir un disuasivo en la radicación de este tipo de querellas, hemos cumplido con lo solicitado y confiamos que la Oficina del Comisionado de Seguros haga la labor que le correspon-

de en un caso que reviste suma importancia por el momento crítico que vivimos con la pandemia”, dijo doctor Rexach en comunicación escrita.

Rexach mencionó que solicitó que se llevaran a cabo vistas administrativas en las que se discuta la evidencia presentada, indicó que varios planes médicos se niegan a ofrecer cobertura a aquellos pacientes

que deciden hacerse las dos pruebas de COVID-19 -molecular y serológica -para corroborar que hayan contraído el virus. El problema se agudiza por el incumplimiento de algunas aseguradoras con la Ley 90 de 2019, que exige que el pago de las tarifas por dichas pruebas no sea menor al establecido por los Centros de Servicios Medicare y Medicaid (CMS, por sus siglas en inglés).

Cuatro de las aseguradoras Medicare Advantage más conocidas en el País, decidieron acudir al Tribunal Federal para impugnar esta ley durante el pasado año.

“Nuestra organización ha sido consistente en este reclamo porque la pandemia no ha sido la excepción. Durante los pasados años hemos visto cómo las aseguradoras han reducido tanto el número de pruebas que cubren como las tarifas de forma arbitraria. La pandemia ha recrudecido una situación que ya era insostenible”, recalcó Rexach.

El presidente de ALC denunció que han radicado varias querellas en ASES sobre el patrón de conducta asumido por las aseguradoras pero dicha dependencia no ha tomado acción. Mientras tanto, alrededor de 150 pruebas de varias condiciones no están siendo cubiertas por dichas reducciones en tarifas lo cual afecta sobremanera a los beneficiarios del Plan de Salud Gubernamental.

La Asociación solicitó al Comisionado de Seguros que otorgue un carácter prioritario a esta querella ya que el aumento de casos de coronavirus, y por ende, el número de muestras a realizar continúa en aumento.

Alcaldesa de San Juan solicita suspensión de empleada por llevar a familiar supuestamente positivo al CDT Hoare Por THE STAR

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a alcaldesa de San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto informó el miércoles, sobre la suspensión de una empleada gerencial del Centro de Diagnóstico y Tratamiento (CDT) Hoare por supuestamente llevar a un familiar positivo a COVID-19 a su área de trabajo.

“Me acabo de enterar que tuvimos una situación en el CDT de Hoare donde se alega que una empleada llevó a un familiar suyo al área de trabajo y que ese familiar estaba positivo a COVID. Obviamente, he pedido a la Oficina de Recursos Humanos que se suspenda a esa empleada que es gerencial, para una investigación y que se cierre ahora mismo, al mediodía el Centro de Diagnóstico y Tratamiento Hoare con las oficinas administrativas”, dijo Cruz Soto en un vídeo colocado en sus redes sociales.

Cruz Soto explicó que el CDT Hoare

será cerrado para una desinfección del lugar.

“Mañana a las 7:00 de la mañana estará trabajando el CDT y las Oficinas Administrativas. Nosotros vamos a estar también tomando la previsión de hacerle el examen a todo el mundo, así que estaremos moviendo eso el próximo día”, explicó.

Mencionó que se colocará una ambulancia en el área de Emergencias para el traslado de un paciente, de ser necesario.

“Hay que usar el sentido común, de verdad”, exclamó. “Si usted es de los agraciados, bendecidos de los que les da COVID sin tener ningún síntoma, que Dios lo bendiga. El problema es que usted le puede dar COVID a alguien que sí puede tener síntomas. De eso es lo que estamos hablando”, añadió.

“Yo voy a seguir haciendo mi trabajo de alcaldesa con el mismo ímpetu, con el mismo carácter hasta el último día”, señaló la alcaldesa.

20

Thursday, September 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

In Europe’s theaters, outsiders tread a tricky path

By LAURA CAPELLE

S

ince Ruth Mackenzie, the British artistic director of the storied Théâtre du Châtelet, was abruptly fired last Thursday, two very different perspectives have emerged.

Media coverage in France has focused on allegations that theater employees were unhappy with Mackenzie’s leadership style, and felt bullied. Her command of French hadn’t improved enough since she took over during the Châtelet’s recent renovation in 2017, according to the newspaper Le Figaro, and she was accused of outsourcing work and driving staff members away.

On the whole, English-language outlets have been more sympathetic. In an interview with The Guardian, Mackenzie, who was the first non-French artistic director at the Châtelet, speculated that sexism and xenophobia had played a part in her firing. French theater is elitist and reticent to change, she said.

Both points of view may well be true, but there is something else to consider in this dispute: the cultural differences between Mackenzie, a product of British theater, and the arts establishment in France.

An open letter signed by 60 high-profile artists and administrators in Europe and the United States was published on Tuesday by the French magazine La Lettre du Musicien, and is set to appear in English in The Guardian: It states that Mackenzie “broke boundaries” at the Châtelet and that the signers stand “in solidarity” with her.

One name among them caught the eye: Chris Dercon. In 2018, his tenure as director of the Volksbühne theater in Berlin also ended bitterly, after only six months.

Dercon, a former director of museums including Tate Modern in London, resigned after protests over his decision to refocus the former East German playhouse on visiting international productions. There, as in Paris, globalization was criticized as a threat to local artistic traditions.

Dercon is now based here in Paris, where he oversees a range of prominent exhibition spaces as the president of the Réunion des Musées Nationaux–Grand Palais. But theater isn’t the art world, which has adjusted to a global market.

Language is a factor: Most theater productions don’t travel as easily as visual

Performers with the Théâtre du Châtelet rehearse before the opening of “Parade,” in Paris on Sept. 10, 2019. The firing of the British artistic director of one of Paris’s most famous venues exposes fault lines between globalization and local tradition. artworks. The vast majority of top French directors are unknown abroad. Like German companies, they operate mainly within a local ecosystem, with its own history and conventions. Coming in as an outsider isn’t impossible — Swiss director Milo Rau has been successful so far at NTGent, in Belgium, for instance — but it requires serious diplomacy.

Like Dercon, Mackenzie also made some costly mistakes early on. One was to introduce herself with “DAU,” an immersive work staged while the Châtelet was still under renovation in 2019. Riddled with technical and ethical issues, it was an exclusive rather than inclusive choice. The Châtelet then reopened last September with “Parade,” a production consistent with Mackenzie’s outlook that featured mainly international companies alongside local amateurs.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that choice, except that, in displacing paid French workers, it doesn’t gel with the country’s values. Mackenzie herself knows this: “In the U.K. it’s completely accepted and normal that you can involve unpaid community members in the arts,” she told The Guardian. “In France, you have to protect

the paid professionals. It’s the sort of argument you’d hear in the U.K. 30 years ago.”

There are reasons her stance was resisted: The relative protection enjoyed by professional artists in the country is hardwon. Mackenzie frames this as a backward cultural quirk that she was going to fix. It’s no wonder many felt a sense of disconnect.

Whoever was advising Mackenzie on the subtleties of French workplace culture also did a dismal job. Le Figaro’s report said Mackenzie spoke “incomprehensible Franglais,” hired “Anglo-Saxon freelancers” instead of relying on her in-house team and didn’t spend enough time in Paris. In a country where proper etiquette and hierarchy remain key in most working environments, an incoming foreign director should have been better supported.

Still, her instant firing is extraordinary

by French standards. An underperforming artistic director in the United States might not be surprised if they were asked to vacate their office immediately, but job security is almost a sacred right in France. Even in cases of harassment or discrimination within publicly funded institutions, national and local authorities have been very reluctant to

suspend or remove artists and administrators. Just think of the case of Yorgos Loukos, the former director of the Lyon Opera Ballet: It took six years and two court trials for pregnancy discrimination before he was fired earlier this year.

Did Mackenzie’s status as a foreigner play a part in the decision by the Châtelet’s board to sack her, with the support of city officials? It’s worth asking whether an established French director, with political clout and roots in the local theater scene, would have suffered the same fate. Major arts appointments are heavily influenced by elected officials in France: The new director of the Paris Opera, Alexander Neef, had to interview with President Emmanuel Macron for that job. Having spent her career abroad, perhaps Mackenzie didn’t have the connections that might have protected her; her co-director, Thomas Lauriot dit Prévost, a long-serving French employee of the Châtelet, remains in his position.

As with Benjamin Millepied, who directed the Paris Opera Ballet from 2014 to 2016 and was also criticized for being too “Anglo-Saxon” in his approach, Mackenzie’s outspoken stance on diversity proved a lightning rod. She increased the number of Black artists in the Châtelet’s programming and invested in outreach initiatives including a “Robin Hood” scheme, asking theatergoers to buy extra tickets that were then offered to underprivileged groups.

Yet open conversations about racism are difficult to initiate in France, and along the way, Mackenzie’s vision didn’t always seem rooted in a nuanced understanding of local reality. According to a spokesman for the Châtelet, before the 2019-20 season was halted by the coronavirus pandemic only 13 patrons had gifted a total of 29 tickets through the “Robin Hood” scheme, for example.

Mackenzie’s frustration with French apathy is shared by many, but she could have leaned on existing initiatives instead.

Beyond Paris, France has its own tradition of popular theater and a large network of small venues, many situated in poor, outer suburbs and other economically deprived parts of the country. Some of them have been working hard to connect with local communities for years. When Mackenzie positioned herself as a revolutionary taking on entrenched racism and elitism, as she often did in interviews, she rubbed many in France the wrong way.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, September 3, 2020

21

7 Takeaways from ‘Melania and Me,’ by the first lady’s former friend

By ELISABETH EGAN

M

elania Trump was the sister Stephanie Winston Wolkoff never had — “a really confident, perfectly coiffed, ultimate older sister,” the former senior adviser to the first lady writes in “Melania and Me,” her epic scream of a tell-all, which comes out Tuesday.

For 15 years, the women were “like Lucy and Ethel, or Snooki and JWoww,” lingering over lunch in chic restaurants, attending each other’s baby showers and surprise parties, and trading adoring emoji-laden texts. In fact, the greatest reveal in “Melania and Me” may be the fact that Trump’s enthusiasm for emojis appears to rival her husband’s for Twitter. With strings of happy and sad faces and hearts galore, she telegraphs a remarkable range of triumphs and disappointments — and now readers will see how correspondence from first ladies has evolved since the days when Abigail Adams implored her husband to “remember the ladies.”

Even in its heyday, the Wolkoff-Trump merger was rife with red flags: Trump rarely appeared at Wolkoff’s charity events, and persistently called the author’s son by the wrong name (“Taylor” instead of “Tyler”).

Regardless, from the early 2000s to February 2018, when Wolkoff was abruptly dismissed from her role in the East Wing, the former Vogue staffer remained loyal to Trump. She was protective of the first lady, believed in the potential of the Be Best initiative (if not its name) and worked to the point where her body buckled under the stress of office politics. In the aftermath of her dismissal — handled by email, in a message addressed jointly to Wolkoff and a similarly fated colleague — she was, by her own admission, “a freaking basket case.”

“I was there at the beginning,” Wolkoff writes. “I witnessed the transformation of Melania from gold plate to 24-karat gold. I believed she had the heart to match, that she was genuinely caring and loving and worth all of our attention. Throughout our early friendship, she lived up to what I saw in her.

Watching her now, and seeing that only the gold shell remains, I have to wonder if that’s all she ever was, and I was the sucker who bought the fake watch on the street corner.”

Here’s a look at what readers will learn on Wolkoff’s tour of what she calls “Mel-LaLania Land.”

The first lady really doesn’t care.

Wolkoff quotes one of Trump’s oft-

repeated lines: “Pleasing anyone else is not my priority.” And later, Wolkoff writes: “Ever the pragmatist, she reasoned that since she had no control over people’s thoughts, why should she care what they believed.”

At the height of the family separation crisis in 2018, Melania bemoaned the media’s coverage of children being taken from their parents. In a phone call with Wolkoff, she allegedly said: “They’re not with their parents, and it’s sad. But the patrols told me the kids say, ‘Wow, I get a bed? I will have a cabinet for my clothes?’ It’s more than they have in their own country, where they sleep on the floor.” (“Melania and Me” contains lengthy quotes from phone conversations.

Wolkoff doesn’t address the question of whether she took notes, recorded the calls or pieced them together from memory.)

Trump launched Operation Block Ivanka to make sure the president’s older daughter didn’t steal the spotlight at the inauguration.

Wolkoff goes into great detail about Ivanka Trump’s intense focus on guest lists, seating charts, messaging and motorcades.

“Will there be a step and repeat?” Ivanka emailed. “Where will it be?” “Princess,” as Ivanka’s stepmother calls her, was eager to be included in a portrait of the new first family, usually shot in the Blue Room of the White House; Melania Trump rebuffed her.

“Melania was not thrilled about Ivanka steering the schedule and would not allow it,” Wolkoff writes. “Neither was she happy to hear that Ivanka insisted on walking in the Pennsylvania Avenue parade with her children.” These machinations led to a concerted effort to keep the first daughter’s “face out of that iconic ‘special moment.’” Wolkoff and her team orchestrated seating and studied camera angles to make sure Ivanka’s face would be hidden in pictures. (When the day arrived, Wolkoff learned that she and her family had been assigned to an area without chairs. They were eventually upgraded to VIP seating.)

The grimace that inspired #FreeMelania? There’s a story behind it.

Trump’s much-discussed miserable facial expression at the inauguration wasn’t in reaction to her husband, according to Wolkoff: “Melania suddenly frowned and looked down and to her right because Barron had kicked her in the ankle by accident.” Wolkoff suggested that she set the record straight to quell chatter about marital discord, but the first lady said, “I don’t owe them an explanation.”

Trump demanded renovations to the White House, but didn’t always get her way.

Wolkoff recalls Melania’s response to her future bedroom: “I’m not moving to D.C. until the residence has been renovated and redecorated, starting with a new shower and toilet.” Eventually she had her office painted Middleton Pink, but the ivory shade she selected for her bedroom was overruled by the president in favor of a darker tone.

The president won’t eat off a plate that has been touched by a friend.

In the restaurant at Mar-a-Lago, the president had his eye on a big slice of chocolate cake. “I handed him an empty plate, my fingers on the bottom and my thumb on the top edge, a perfectly natural and normal way to hand someone a plate. He stared at my thumb as if it were on fire,” Wolkoff writes.

“He beamed at me as he took the plate and then, when he thought I wasn’t looking, he put it down and got another.”

The first lady voices her opinions to her husband.

Wolkoff cites two instances when Melania Trump broke ranks with the president: first, on the issue of bathrooms for transgender people. The first lady asked Donald Trump why he inserted himself into the discussion, and Wolkoff quotes him as saying: “I didn’t need to get involved. I could have

let the Supreme Court deal with it. But it was very important to Mike,” meaning the vice president.

Later, she chides Donald Trump for lifting the ban on the import of big-game trophies from Africa — a move he made in response to pressure from his sons. Wolkoff writes: “Melania was not sympathetic to ‘the boys’’ lobbying efforts for guns and hunting or the bizarre need to hang a dead animal head on the wall.

That night, she did some lobbying of her own, and her plea to Donald actually worked.” The next day, the president tweeted: “Put big game trophy decision on hold until such time as I review all conservation facts.”

Trump enjoys “her game of hide-andseek with the American public.”

In May 2018, Melania underwent surgery for a “benign kidney condition,” then disappeared from public view for nearly a month. Wolkoff had been dismissed from the East Wing by then, but she describes a phone conversation during which Melania chuckled over the media’s speculation on her whereabouts. “‘Face lift? I’m too scared!’ she said. ‘Nervous breakdown? I’m like, seriously? They don’t even know me.’” Wolkoff recalls Melania quoting a friend who told her, “You give people nervous breakdown, you don’t have it your own!”

Wolkoff writes: “Tell me about it, sister.”

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff writes: “Yes, Operation Block Ivanka was petty.

Melania was in on this mission. But in our minds, Ivanka shouldn’t have made herself the center of attention in her father’s inauguration.”

22

Thursday, September 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

These scientists are giving themselves DIY Coronavirus vaccines

Genome scientist Preston Estep, who lives in the Boston area and is chief scientist and co-founder of the Rapid Deployment Vaccine Collaborative (RaDVaC), administers the eighth iteration of a peptide vaccine to himself, in Massachusetts, Aug. 20, 2020.

By HEATHER MURPHY

I

n April, more than three months before any coronavirus vaccine would enter large clinical trials, the mayor of a picturesque island town in the Pacific Northwest invited a microbiologist friend to vaccinate him.

The exchange occurred on the mayor’s Facebook page, to the horror of several Friday Harbor residents following it.

“Should I pop up and get your vaccine started?????,” wrote Johnny Stine, who runs North Coast Biologics, a Seattle biotech company with a focus on antibodies. “Don’t worry — I’m immune — I have boosted myself five times with my vaccine.”

“Sounds good,” Farhad Ghatan, the mayor, wrote after a few follow-up questions.

Several residents interjected skepticism in the exchange. They were swatted down by the mayor, who defended his friend of 25 years as a “pharmaceutical scientist on the forefront.” When residents raised additional concerns — about Stine’s credentials and the unfairness of encouraging him to visit San Juan Island despite travel restrictions — Stine lobbed back vulgar insults. (The geekiest and

least R-rated: “I hope your lung epithelial cells over express ACE2 so you die more expeditiously from nCoV19.”)

Several residents reported all of this to a variety of law enforcement and regulatory agencies. In June, the Washington attorney general filed a lawsuit against Stine not only for pitching the mayor with unsupported claims but also for administering his unproven vaccine to about 30 people, charging each $400. In May, the Food and Drug Administration sent a letter warning Stine to stop “misleadingly” representing his product.

Although his promotional tactics were unusual, Stine was far from the only scientist creating experimental coronavirus vaccines for themselves, family, friends and other interested parties. Dozens of scientists around the world have done it, with wildly varying methods, affiliations and claims.

The most impressively credentialed effort is the Rapid Deployment Vaccine Collaborative, or RaDVaC, which boasts famous Harvard geneticist George Church among its 23 listed collaborators. (The research, however, is not happening on Harvard’s campus: “While professor Church’s lab works on a number of COVID-19 research projects, he has assured Harvard Medical School that work related to the

RaDVaC vaccine is not being done in his lab,” a spokeswoman for Harvard Medical School said.)

Among the most tight-lipped projects is CoroNope, which refuses to name anyone involved because, according to the person responding to messages sent to the group’s anonymous email account, the “less than half a dozen” biologists don’t want to risk getting in trouble with the FDA or with their employers.

Each do-it-yourself effort is motivated, at least in part, by the same idea: Exceptional times demand exceptional actions. If scientists have the skills and gumption to assemble a vaccine on their own, the logic goes, they should do it. Defenders say that as long as they are measured about their claims and transparent about their process, we could all benefit from what they learn.

But critics say that no matter how well-intentioned, these scientists aren’t likely to learn anything useful because their vaccines are not being put to the true test of randomized and placebo-controlled studies. What’s more, taking these vaccines could cause harm — whether from serious immune reactions and other side effects, or offering a false sense of protection.

“Take it yourself, and there is not much anyone can or should do,” said Jeffrey Kahn, director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. But once a person starts encouraging other people to try an unproven vaccine, “you’re headed right back to the days of patent medicine and quackery,” he said, referring to a time when remedies were widely sold with colorful but misleading promises.

‘We Are the Animals’ The RaDVac vaccine effort, first reported on by MIT Technology Review, is different from Stine’s project in two important ways. No one involved plans to charge for the vaccine. And unlike Stine’s expletive-laden Facebook rants, RaDVaC has a 59-page scientific document to explain how it works and to guide others who might want to mix up the vaccine formulation on their own.

“The white paper is quite impressive,” said Avery August, an immunologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who is not involved with RaDVaC. But the impetus of both projects is similar. In March, as Preston Estep, a genome scientist who lives in the Boston area, was reading about people dying amid the pandemic, he vowed not to sit complacently on the sidelines. He emailed some chemists, biologists, professors and doctors he knew to see whether any were interested in creating their own vaccine. Soon they had devised a formula for a peptide vaccine that could be administered through a spritz in the nose.

“It’s very simple,” Estep said. “It consists of five ingredients you could mix together in a physician’s office.”

The key ingredient: tiny bits of viral proteins, or peptides, which the scientists ordered online. If all went well, the peptides would train the immune system to defend against the coronavirus, even with no actual virus present.

The San Juan Daily Star In late April, Estep joined several collaborators in a lab as they stirred the concoction and sprayed it in their nostrils.

Church, a longtime mentor to Estep, said he took it alone in his bathroom to maintain social-distancing precautions.

Estep soon gave the vaccine to his 23-year-old son, and other collaborators also shared it with their family members. So far, no one has reported anything worse than a stuffy nose and a mild headache, Estep said. He has also refined the recipe, removing and adding peptides as new coronavirus research has emerged. So far, he has sprayed eight versions into his nose.

A traditional drug development workflow begins with mouse or other animal studies. For RaDVaC, Estep said, “we are the animals.”

But without rigorous clinical trials, August said, there’s no reliable way to know if it is safe or effective. He said he feared that the scientists’ prestigious credentials might imply otherwise.

Church said that he respected the traditional evaluation process but that there should also be room for “preresearch,” and that most of what he had been involved with throughout his career — including editing genes in human cells — was considered “fringe” at first.

As of last week, Estep said, about 30 people in the United States, Sweden, Germany, China and Britain had taken the vaccine. He said a university professor in Brazil had told him he was considering making it in his lab and distributing it for free.

Vaccine via Facebook There is a long history of scientists openly testing vaccines on themselves and their children, but in recent decades it has become less common, according to Susan E. Lederer, a medical historian at the University of WisconsinMadison. What’s ethically and legally acceptable for testing and distributing your own medical product varies by institution and by country.

In August, the Scientific Research Institute for Biological Safety Problems, a government institution in Kazakhstan, announced that seven employees had become the first people to try the COVID-19 vaccine they were developing.

Russian and Chinese scientists affiliated with government and academic institutions have made similar pronouncements amid the pandemic.

The problem with Stine’s product, according to Attorney General Bob Ferguson of Washington, is not that he took it. It’s that he “sold this so-called vaccine to people in Washington who are frightened and more apt to look for a miracle cure in the midst of a worldwide pandemic,” Ferguson said in a statement. The lawsuit also cites Stine’s unsupported safety and effectiveness claims.

In March, a few months after he said he vaccinated himself and his two teenage sons, he posted an ad on the Facebook page for North Coast Biologics. After decades of working with antibodies, Stine said in an interview, he knew that making a vaccine should be “pretty goddamn easy.”

He described a job that sounded a bit like writing Hollywood screenplays that never become movies. He makes antibodies that could be used against various pathogens and sells them to companies that could use them to

Thursday, September 3, 2020

develop drugs, but they probably won’t. According to the Washington attorney general’s suit, Stine’s company was administratively dissolved in 2012.

To make his vaccine, he used a genetic sequence for the spike protein on the outside of the coronavirus to make a synthetic version. He put it in a saline solution, injected himself just under the surface of the skin of his upper arm and then took a so-called titer test to look for antibodies in his bloodstream. “It took me 12 days from downloading the sequence to being titer positive,” he said.

In his Facebook ad, he claimed that this left him immune to the virus and offered “interested parties” the opportunity to “pay $400/person.”

As part of an agreement that Stine eventually struck with prosecutors, he must refund all 30 people who had taken his vaccine.

Stine seemed amused by this, insisting that few people are likely to apply for a refund. His fee, he said, barely covered travel costs, and often he didn’t charge.

A man in his 60s in Montana, who asked to remain anonymous for privacy concerns, said he flew Stine out to inoculate him and his family. Now, he said, they have been able to return to “normal behavior,” such as having lunch with friends whose jobs put them at high risk for exposure.

The man even joined Stine to visit a police officer friend in Washington state who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 and was “on death’s door.” According to all three who were present, no one wore a mask. And Stine sat close to the sick officer in an enclosed space as he gave him a treatment.

Stine says his vaccine is similar to a recombinant vaccine being developed by the University of Pittsburgh

23

in Pennsylvania. He also claims that a shot will not only protect people against the virus, but also treat those who have it. Dr. Louis Falo, a lead researcher on University of Pittsburgh’s effort, said he was skeptical that Stine’s vaccine could be safe or effective based on how it was assembled.

Even if it was, he said, it’s unlikely it would help sick people.

In the 1990s, Stine worked for Patrick Gray, a molecular biologist who contributed to the discovery of a hepatitis B vaccine and is now the chief executive of a biotech company.

Gray said in an interview that the science Stine published at Icos, the biotech company where they worked together, was “sound” but that the young scientist had a penchant for making too much of too little. “Johnny was in a hurry to publish his work and advance his career,” he said. “We often insisted on more confirmation and more controls.”

“Regarding his current scientific efforts, I don’t believe Johnny is a ‘scam artist,’ but he has ignored FDA regulations necessary for drug development,” he wrote in an email. “It’s just not possible for an individual like Johnny to create a viable vaccine.”

The mayor of Friday Harbor said he regretted responding to Stine’s message on his Facebook wall, instead of privately. But he does not see why he should apologize for accepting his friend’s formulation for free. “I’d rather have the chance of having some protection than no protection at all and waiting and waiting,” Ghatan said.

The controversy, however, has derailed their plans to meet, he said. But if another opportunity arises to get the jab, he said, “I would.”

Dozens of scientists around the world are creating experimental coronavirus vaccines for themselves, family, friends and other interested parties, with wildly varying methods, affiliations and claims.

24 LEGAL NOTICE aESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE SAN JUAN.

CARLOS IVÁN BETANCOURT BENÍTEZ, ILANOVA BETANCOURT BENÍTEZ, RANDY BETANCOURT. BENiTEZ YYADIRA BETANCOURT DEL VALLE PETICIONARIOS

EX-PARTE

CIVIL NÚM: SJ2019CV11728.

SOBRE: EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO ENMENDADO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PR.

A: Wilfredo Betancourt y Francisco Betancourt Figueroa, miembros de la Sucesión de José Betancourt De Jesús, anterior inmediato dueño, ambos con dirección postal en 61 Yale St. Waterbury CT 06704, Ana Celia Rodríguez, viuda de Pastor López, 442 Glandon Ct., Fort Mills, SC 29708, Ana María López Rodríguez t/c/c Ana Lara, 3432 Pickney Bluff Fort Milis, SC 29715, Georgina López Rodríguez t/c/c Georgina Jarquin, 3575 Tybee Dr. Fort Milis, SC 29715, miembros de la Sucesión de Pastor López Betancourt, Glorimar González López, miembro de la Sucesión de Isabel López y a su vez de la de Lázaro López Betancourt, con dirección desconocida, Estela López Bigio, 866 Hearth Stone Ct., Aurora IL 60506 y Mirka López Bigio, 90 Postmouth lsland Dr., Garner NC 27529-6162: miembros de la Sucesión de Enrique López, Rosaura López González y Wilfredo López González, ambos con dirección en 516 Oak Branch Circle, Kissimmee, FL 32458, miembros de la Sucesión de Silvestre López Betancourt, John Doe, Richard Doe y Jane Doe, miembros de la Sucesión de Carmen María López Betancourt, cuya última dirección conocida era en Yabucoa, PR cuyos nombres verdaderos y paraderos se desconocen, James Toe, con nombre y paradero desconocidos, miembro de la Sucesión de Elvin Reyes López y Efraín Reyes López, con última dirección conocida en Ponce, PR, ambos miembros de la Sucesión de Justa López Betancourt , todos tos anteriores miembros a su vez de la Sucesión de Carmen Betancourt De Jesús, desconocidos, miembros de la Sucesión de José Luis Betancourt Figueroa, a su vez, de la de Jorge Betancourt De Jesús, inmediato anterior dueño; Josean Manuel Febres Betancourt, Joselyn Marie Febres Betancourt, Miosotis Febres Betancourt, Nicole Marie Febres Betancourt, miembros de @

la Sucesión de Evelyn Betancourt Meléndez y, a su vez, de la de Vicente Betancourt De Jesús, inmediato anterior dueño, con dirección todos en 1515 36th, Milwaukee, WI 53215; Zoraida Betancourt Vázquez, con última dirección conocida en Toa Baja, PR, María Betancourt Vázquez, con última dirección conocida en San Juan, PR y Florentina Betancourt Vázquez, con última dirección conocida en Sector Villa isleña en Guaynabo, PR, todas miembros de la Sucesión de Esteban Betancourt De Jesús, anterior inmediato dueño; Carmen Laura Betancourt Viera, cuya dirección en Orlando Florida se desconoce, miembro de la Sucesión de Arsenio Betancourt De Jesús, anterior inmediato dueño; Ricardo Betancourt Viera y Jaime Betancourt Viera, con últimos paraderos conocidos en Orlando, Florida y Boston, Massachussetts, respectivamente, ambos miembros de la Sucesión de Víctor Betancourt De Jesús, anterior inmediato dueño; Anastacia Betancourt Díaz, con última dirección conocida en Bo. Pugnado, Manatí, PR y Lydia Betancourt Díaz, con última dirección conocida en Bo. Ensenada, Gurabo, PR, ambas miembros de la Sucesión de Cándido Betancourt De Jesús, anterior inmediato duéño; Carmen Damaris Betancourt Clemente, con última dirección conocida en Bo. Consejo, San Juan, PR, codueña; Perensejo, Mengano, Fulano y FulaDa, con última dirección conocida en Urb. Borinquen Gardens, Calle Poppy AB-7, San Juan, PR 00926, miembros de la Sucesión de Oscar Bonelly, colindante, y Highland Realty, Inc., con paradero desconocido, también colindante del predio objeto del caso de epígrafe.

POR LA PRESENTE: se les notifica que la peticionaria de epígrafe ha presentado una Petición para que se declare a favor de ella, el dominio que tiene sobre la siguiente propiedad: “RÚSTICA: Parcela de terreno marcada cun el número uno (1) en la plano de inscripción, radicada en el Barrio Caimito del término municipal de San Juan, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de seiscientos veinte metros cuadrados con quinientos setenta y dos diezmilésimas de otro metro cuadrado (620.0572 M.C.), en lindes por el Norte, en una alineación de diecinueve metros lineales con setenta y dos centésimas de otro metro lineal (19.72 Mts.), con terrenos de Arcadia Betancourt, ahora su Sucesión, y · en otra alineación de veinticinco metros lineales con dos décimas de otro metro lineal (25.2 Mts.), con terrenos de Oscar Hernández Bonnelly, ahora su sucesión; por el Este, en siete metros lineales con treinta y seis centésimas de

otro metro lineal (7.36 Mts.), con terrenos de Highland Realty; por el Sur, en cinco alineaciones que suman cuarenta y cinco metros lineales con noventa y ocho centésimas de otro metro lineal (45.98 Mts.), con acera que la separa de la Calle Poppy y, por el Oeste, en dieciocho metros lineales con ocho centésimas de otro metro lineal (18.08 Mts.), con terrenos de la Autoridad de Carreteras.”

Sobre el terreno antes descrito enclava una estructura residencial en concreto. Este Tribunal ordenó que se publique la pretensión por tres (3) veces durante el término de veinte (20) días en un periódico de circulación general diaria, para que todas las personas arriba mencionadas y todas aquellas desconocidas a quienes pueda perjudicar la inscripción o deseen oponerse, puedan así .hacerlo dentro del término de veinte (20) días a partir de la última publicación del presente edicto . Por tanto firmo expido la presente en San Juan, Puerto Rico, a 13 de julio de 2020. Griselda Rodriguez Collado, Secretaria.

Marlyn Ann Espinosa Rivera, Sec Serv a Sala. ***

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE SAN JUAN SALA SUPERIOR.

MTGLQ INVESTORS, L.P. Parte Demandante Vs.

SUCESIÓN DE FERNANDO CAJIGAS DE JESÚS, compuesta por JOHN DOE y RICHARD ROE, como herederos desconocidos, ANA PIZARRO GONZÁLEZ por sí y como viuda de Fernando Cajigas de Jesus, ADMINISTRACION PARA EL SUSTENTO DE MENORES Y CENTRO DE RECAUDACION SOBRE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES

Parte Demandada CASO CIVIL NUM: SJ2020CV00863. SOBRE: EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA POR LA VIA ORDINARIA Y COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO Y NOTIFICACIÓN DE INTERPELACIÓN POR EDICTO. Estados Unidos de América Presidente de los Estados Unidos de América Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico.

A: John Doe y Richard Roe como posibles herederos desconocidos de la Sucesión de FERNANDO CAJIGAS DE JESÚS

POR LA PRESENTE se les emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la

staredictos@thesanjuandailystar.com

publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá radicar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired.ramajudicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se presente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá radicar el original de su contestación ante el Tribunal correspondiente y notifique con copia a los abogados de la parte demandante, Lcda. Marjaliisa Colon Villanueva, al PO BOX 7970, Ponce, P.R. 00732; Teléfono: 787-843-4168. En dicha demanda se tramita un procedimiento de cobro de dinero y ejecución de hipoteca bajo el número mencionado en el epígrafe. Se alega en dicho procedimiento que la parte Demandada incurrió en el incumplimiento del Contrato de Hipoteca, al no poder pagar las mensualidades vencidas correspondientes a los meses de julio de 2017 hasta el presente, más los cargos por demora correspondientes. Además, adeuda a la parte demandante las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado en que incurra el tenedor del pagaré en este litigio. De acuerdo con dicho Contrato de Garantía Hipotecaria la parte Demandante declaró vencida la totalidad de la deuda ascendente a la suma de $22,279.18, más intereses a razón del 7.249% anual, así como todos aquellos créditos y sumas que surjan de la faz de la obligación hipotecaria y de la hipoteca que la garantiza, incluyendo $4,300.00, pactado para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado. La parte Demandante presentó para su inscripción en el Registro de la Propiedad correspondiente, un A VISO DE PLEITO PENDIENTE (“Lis Pendens”) sobre la propiedad objeto de esta acción cuya propiedad es la siguiente: URBANA: Parcela radicada en iel barrio Obrero Santurce, Municipio de San Juan, Puerto Rico con un área de ciento ochenta y cinco punto dos cientos nueve (185.209) metros cuadrados, en lindes por el NORTE, con Carmen Luna en dieciséis punto treinta ( 16.30) metros; por el SUR, con A ida María Pizarro en dieciséis punto treinta y dos (16.32) metro; por el ESTE, con la Calle Nin en once punto veinte ( 11.20) metros y por el OESTE, con solar propiedad del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico.

Contiene una casa para fines residenciales. Inscrita al folio dos cientos cincuenta y tres (253) del tomo ochocientos sesenta y siete (867) de Santurce Norte, finca número treinta y dos mil doscientos sesenta y uno (32261 ). Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan Sección Primera. SE LES APERCIBE que de no hacer sus alegaciones responsivas a la demanda dentro del ténnino aquí dispuesto, se les anotará la rebeldía y se dictará Sentencia, conce-

(787) 743-3346

Thursday, September 3, 2020 diéndose el remedio solicitado en la Demanda, sin más citarle ni oírle. Además, como miembro de la Sucesión FERNANDO CAJIGAS DE JESÚS, se ha presentado una solicitud de interpelación judicial para que sirva en el término de treinta (30) días aceptar o repudiar la herencia. Se le apercibe que si no compareciera usted a expresarse dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación de este edicto en torno a la aceptación o repudiación de la herencia, se presumirá que han aceptado la herencia del causante FERNANDO CAJIGAS DE JESÚS y por consiguiente, responderán por las cargas de dicha herencia conforme dispone el Art. 957 del Código Civil. 31 L.P.R.A. S2785. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, a 18 de agosto de 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIO DEL TRIBUNAL. Marlyn Ann Espinosa Rivera, Secretarla Servicios.

DOE Y RICHARD ROE COMO MIEMBROS DESCONOCIDOS; ADMINISTRACIÓN PARA EL SUSTENTO DE SEÑORFS Y CENTRO DE RECAUDACIÓN DE INGRESOS MUNICIP ALES

The San Juan Daily Star PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE HUMACAO.

PALMAS DEL MAR HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC. Parte Demandante V.

RICHARD LEWIS HEIMER REDBORD Y ESTHER RHEINS HEIMER BEINBLIT Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

PALMAS DEL MAR HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC. Parte Demandante V.

VERÓNICA RIVERA CRUZ

Parte Demandada CIVIL NUM: HU2020CV00411.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EEUU. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R. SS.

DEMANDADOS CIVIL NÜM.: SJ2019CV01813.

SALA: 604. SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE A: VERÓNICA HIPOTECA. EMPLAZAMIENRIVERA CRUZ TO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS POR LA PRESENTE, se le emUNIDOS DE AMERICA EL plaza y requiere para que notifiParte Demandada PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. UU. CIVIL NUM: HU2020CV0424. que a: ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE GONZÁLEZ & MORALES SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO. P.R. SS. LAW OFFICES LLC EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICPO BOX 10242 A: JAVIER ENRIQUE TO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE HUMACAO, PR00792 HERNÁNDEZ VALENTÍN AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE TELÉFONO: (787) 852-4422 FACSÍMIL: (787) 285-4425 COMO MIEMBRO DE LA LOS EE.UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE Email: jrggonzalezmorales.com SUCESIÓN DE JANNE’ITE ASOCIADO DE P.R. SS abogados de la parte demandanA: RICHARD LEWIS VALENTÍN LAUREANO te, cuya dirección es la que deja HEIMER REDBORD Quedan emplazados y notificaLEGAL NOTICE indicada, con copia de su ConY ESTHER RHEINS dos de que en este Tribunal se testación a la Demanda, copia de ESTADO LIBRE ASOC1ADO DE ha radicado una demanda de HEIMER BEINBLIT Y la cual le es servida en este caso, PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE cobro de dinero y ejecución de dentro de los TREINTA (30) días PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SULA SOCIEDAD LEGAL hipoteca en sus contras. Se les de haber sido diligenciado este PERIOR DE SAN JUAN. DE GANANCIALES notifica para que comparezcan Emplazamiento, excluyéndose MTGLQ INVESTORS, L.P. ante el Tribunal dentro del térCOMPUESTA POR el día del diligenciamiento. Usted DEMANDANTE v. mino de treinta (30) días a partir AMBOS deberá presentar su alegación RAFAEL ANTONIO de la publicación de este edicto POR LA PRESENTE, se les em- responsiva a través del Sistema COLÓN TELLADO, ELEID y exponer e a sus derechos con- plaza y requiere para que notifi- Unificado de Manejo y Adminisvenga, en el presente caso. Se quen a: tración de Casos (SUMAC), al MARGARITA COLÓN les apercibe y notifica que si no GONZÁLEZ & MORALES cual puede acceder utilizando TELLADO, LA SUCESIÓN contestan la demanda radicaLAW OFFICES, LLC la siguiente dirección electróniPO BOX 10242 DE JANNETTE VALENTÍN da en sus contras, radicando el ca: https://unired.ramajudicial.

HUMACAO, PR 00792 LAUREANO COMPUESTA original de la misma y enviando pr, salvo que se represente por TELÉFONO: (787) 852-4422 de su contestación a la derecho propio, en cuyo caso POR JAVIER ENRIQUE copia FACSÍMIL: (787) 285-4425 parte demandante, Leda. Mardeberá presentar su alegación Email: jrggonzalezmoraIes.com HERNÁNDEZ VALENTÍN, jaliisa Colon Villanueva, al PO abogados de la parte demandan- responsiva en la secretaría del JANYFEL AMAGDYS BOX 7970, Ponce, P.R. 00732; te, cuya dirección es la que deja tribunal. Debe saber que en caso HERNÁNDEZ VALENTÍN Teléfono: 787-843-4168, ·correos indicada, con copia de su Con- de no hacerlo así podrá dictarse colonlawoffice@ Y JOHN DOE Y RICHARD electrónicos: testación a la Demanda, copia de Sentencia en Rebeldía en contra ahoo.com· mcolon@wwclaw. concediendo el remedio ROE COMO MIEMBROS com, dentro del término de trein- la cual le es servida en este caso, suya, de los TREINTA (30) días solicitado en la demanda, o cualDESCONOCIDOS; ELEID ta (30) días de la publicación de dentro de haber sido diligenciado este quier otro, si el Tribunal, en el este edicto, se les anotará la reMARGARITA COLÓN Emplazamiento, excluyéndose ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo en su contra y se dictará TELLADO, ÁNGEL LUIS beldía el día del diligenciamiento. Usted entiende procedente. EXTENDIsentencia en su contra, conforme deberá presentar su alegación DO BAJO Ml FIRMA y el Sello del LEÓN SIERRA T /C/C se solicita en la Demanda, sin a través del Sistema Tribunal, hoy día 27 de agosto de LUIS LEÓN SIERRA, Y LA más citárseles, tú oírseles. Se or- responsiva Unificado de Manejo y Adminis- 2020. Dominga Gómez Fuster, SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE dena a los herederos de la cau- tración de Casos (SUMAC), al Secretaria Regional. Dalissa Rea saber: JAVIER ENRIQUE BIENES GANANCIALES sante cual puede acceder utilizando yes de Leon, SubSecretaria.

HERNÁNDEZ VALENTÍN COMO la siguiente dirección electróniCOMPUFST A POR LEGAL NOT ICE MIEMBRO DE LA SUCESIÓN ca: https://unired.ramajudiciaLAMBOS; LUIS DE JANNETfE VALENTIN LAUESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE pr, salvo que se represente por REANO, a que dentro del misFRANCISCO COLÓN derecho propio, en cuyo caso PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GEtérmino de treinta (30) días TELLADO, T/C/C LUIS mo deberá presentar su alegación NERAL DE JUSITICA TRIBUNAL contados a partir de la fecha de responsiva en la secretaría del SUPERIOR SALA DE AGUADIFRANCISCO COLÓN, la notificación, ACEPTEN o REtribunal. Debe saber que en caso LLA. LA SUCES1ÓN DE PUDIEN la participación que les de no hacerlo así podrá dictarse PR RECOVERY AND MARGARITA TELLADO corresponda en la herencia de la Sentencia en Rebeldía en contra DEVELOPMENT JV, LLC. causante, JANNETTE VALENDE COLÓN T /C/C suya, concediendo el remedio DEMANDANTE VS TÍN LAUREANO. Se les apercibe MARGARITA TELLAOO a los herederos antes menciona- solicitado en la demanda, o cual- ERIC SUAREZ PEREZ, quier otro, si el Tribunal, en el ARCE, MARGARITA dos que de no expresarse dentro LAURA SANABRIA ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo de ese término De treinta (30) TELLADO, MARGOT entiende procedente. EXTENDIVALENTIN & LA días en tomo a su aceptación o TELLADO Y COMO DO BAJO Ml FIRMA y el Sello del SOCIEDAD LEGAL repudiación de herencia, se tenREGALADA TELLAOO drá por aceptada. Expedido bajo Tribunal, hoy día 27 de agosto de GANANCIAL 2020. Dominga Gómez Fuster, ARCE COMPUESTA mi firma y sello del Tribunal, a 18 DEMANDADO Secretara Regional. Dalias ReCIVIL NUM. AG2019CV01510.

POR, RAFAEL ANTONIO de agosto de 2020. GRISELDA yes de Leon, SubSecretaria.

RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, SESOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO C:OLÓN TELLADO, CRETARIA SERVICIOS A SALA. ORDINARIO. NOTIFIACION DE LEGAL NOTICE ELEID MARGARITA Marlyn Ann Espinosa, Secretarla SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE COLÓN TELLADO, LUIS Servicios a Sala.

SECRETARIO QUE SUSCRIBE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE NOTIFICA A USTED QUE EL FRANCISCO COLÓN PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE LEGAL NOTICE 24 DE AGOSTO DE 2020 ESTE TELLADO, Y JOHN HUMACAO. ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE TRIBUNAL HA DICTADO SEN-

The San Juan Daily Star TENCIA DECLARANDO CON LUGAR LA DEMANDA DE ESTE CASO, QUE HA SIDO DEBIDAMENTE REGISTRADA Y ARCHIVADA EN AUTOS DONDE PODRA USTED ENTERARSE DETALLADAMENTE DE LOS TERMINOS DE LA MISMA. Y, SIENDO O REPRESENTANDO USTED LA PARTE PERJUDICADA POR LA SENTENCIA, DE LA CUAL PUEDE ESTABLECERSE RECURSO DE REVISIÓN O APELACIÓN, DIRIJO A USTED ESTA NOTIFICACIÓN QUE SE CONSIDERARA HECHA EN LA FECHA DE LA ULTIMA PUBLICACIÓN DE ESTE EDICTO. COPIA DE ESTA NOTIFICACIÓN HA SIDO ARCHIVADA EN LOS AUTOS DE ESTE CASO, CON FECHA 28 DE AGOSTO DE 2020.

A: ERIC SUAREZ PEREZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL GANANCIAL URB SAN CARLOS 128 CALLE SAN FRANCISCO AGUADILLA PR 00603-5836 AGUADILLA, PUERTO RICO, A 28 DE AGOSTO DE 2020.

SARAHI REYES PEREZ, SECRETARIA GENERAL. F/ KATHERINE VARGAS MENDEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

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

THE TITLE SECURITY GROUP, LLC Demandante ‘y,

MUNICIPIO DE GURABO; JUAN DEL PUEBLO Y JUANA DEL PUEBLO Y CUALESQUIER PERSONA DESCONOCIDA CON POSIBLE INTERÉS EN LA OBLIGACIÓN CUYA CANCELACIÓN POR DECRETO JUDICIAL SE SOLICITA. Demandado(a) Civil: GR2019CV00301. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: JUAN DEL PUEBLO Y JUANA DEL PUEBLO Y CUALESQUIER PERSONA DESCONOCIDA CON POSIBLE INTERÉS EN LA OBLIGACIÓN CUYA CANCELACIÓN POR DECRETO JUDICIAL SE SOLICITA.

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que 20 de diciembre de 2019 , este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representan-

Thursday, September 3, 2020

do usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 28 de agosto de 2020. En CAGUAS , Puerto Rico, el 28 de agosto de 2020. CARMEN ANA PEREIRA ORTIZ, Secretario(a).

LILI RODRIGUEZ RODRIGUEZ, Secretario(a) Auxiliar.

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

de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 1 de septiembre de 2020. En ARECIBO, , Puerto Rico, el 1 de SEPTIEMBRE de 2020. VIVIAN Y FRESSE GONZALEZ, Secretario(a). F/ YANOLIES QUILES ROSARIO, Secretario(a) Auxiliar.

correspondiente, con copia a la parte demandante, se le anotara la rebeldía y se dictara Sentencia para conceder el remedio solicitado sin más citarle ni oírle.

EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA, y el sello del Tribunal en Fajardo, Puerto Rico, hoy 18 de agosto de 2020. Wanda I Segui Reyes, Secretaria Regional. Moraima Saliceti Solis, Sec Serv a Sala.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAGUAS.

Electrocables del Caribe, Corp.

Parte Demandante Vs.

Condado Electrical & Plumbing Supplies, Inc.; et als

Parte Demandada Civil No: CG2020CV00287 (702).

SOBRE: Cobro de dinero por la BANCO POPULAR DE Vía ordinaria e incumplimiento LEGAL NOTICE de contrato. EMPLAZAMIENTO PUERTO RICO ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDemandante ‘y, PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE DOS DE AMÉRICA EL PREPRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUCARMEN MARIA DE SIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS PERIOR DE FAJARDO. JESUS RIVERA, ET ALS. UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ARACELIS GARCIA CRUZ ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. Demandado(a) Demandante Vs. Civil: AR2019CV02329. Sobre: SS. COBRO DE DINERO Y EJETHAIS YAMIL LOPEZ A: MARÍA DOLORES CUCION DE HIPOTECA POR ROJAS; KRISD CAMACHO por sí y en LA VIA ORDINARIA. NOTIFIJONATHAN PEREIRA representación legal de la CACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR LOPEZ EDICTO. sociedad legal de bienes Parte Demandadas A: CARMEN MARÍA DE gananciales compuesta CASO NÚM: FA2020RF00053.

JESÚS RIVERA, T/C/C SALA: 204. SOBRE: CUSTODIA- con Rafael García Rosario CARMEN M. DE JESÚS, MONOPARENTAL O COMPAR- Urb. Condado Moderno, T/C/C CARMEN MARÍA TIDA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR A5 Calle 1, Caguas, DE JESÚS DE ROMÁN EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS Puerto Rico DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE T/C/C CARMEN M. DE DE LOS E.E.U.U. EL ESTADO Por la presente se le emplaza y JESÚS RIVERA POR SÍ LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PR. SS. requiere que conteste la Demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días Y EN REPRESENTACIÓN A: THAIS YAMIL siguientes a la publicación de DE LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL LOPEZ ROJAS este edicto. Usted deberá preDE GANANCIALES QUE Montebrisas III, calle 104 sentar su alegación responsiva COMPONE JUNTO A B-31, Fajardo, Puerto Rico a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de ÁNGEL M. ROMÁN, T/C/C 00738 Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede ÁNGEL MANUEL ROMÁN POR LA PRESENTE se le noti- acceder utilizando la siguiente GONZÁLEZ, T/C/C ÁNGEL fica que la demandante ha radi- dirección electrónica: https://unicado una Demanda sobre custoM. ROMÁN GONZÁLEZ; dia-monoparental o compartida. red.ramaiudicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho ÁNGEL M. ROMÁN, Habiéndose ordenado la publi- propio, en cuyo caso, puede radiT/C/C ÁNGEL MANUEL cación de un Emplazamiento por car el original de su contestación Edicto para emplazarlo a usted, a la Demanda ante el Tribunal ROMÁN GONZÁLEZ, durante el término que establece T/C/C ÁNGEL M ROMÁN la Ley, en un periódico de circula- y notificando al abogado de la demandante con copia de GONZÁLEZ POR SI Y EN ción general en la Isla de Puerto parte la contestación a la demanda.

REPRESENTACIÓN DE Rico. POR ESTE MEDIO, se le Este caso trata sobre Cobro de LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL emplaza por Edicto y requiere a Dinero por la vía ordinaria e inusted, la parte con interés, para cumplimiento. Se le advierte que, DE GANANCIALES QUE que notifique al: si usted deja de presentar su COMPONE JUNTO A LCDO. RICARDO M. alegación responsiva dentro del PRIETO GARCÍA, CARMEN MARÍA DE referido término, el tribunal podrá a su dirección postal 6 CALLE JESÚS RIVERA T/C/C CELIS AGUILERA S, SUITE 201-A, dictar sentencia en rebeldía en CARMEN M. DE JESÚS, FAJARDO, PUERTO RICO, 00738, su contra y conceder el reme(787) 860-0875, y/o a su email: dio solicitado en la demanda, o T/C/C CARMEN MARÍA DE Tel.prietolawoffice@yahoo.com, cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el JESÚS DE ROMÁN, T/C/C con copia de su contestación a ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo CARMEN M. DE JESÚS las alegaciones de la Demanda entiende procedente. El abogado en este caso, las cuales podrá de la parte demandante es: RIVERA f/Sharon Marie Santiaao Cintrón (Nombre de las partes a las que se usted examinar en la Sala de le notifican la sentencia por edicto) Fajardo, del Tribunal de Prime- SHARON M. SANTIAGO CINTRON RUA 19553 EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscri- ra Instancia, Sección Superior, PMB 530 be le notifica a usted que 24 de dentro de los treinta (30) días 405 Ave. Esmeralda, Suite 2 agosto de 2020 , este Tribunal contados desde el siguiente día Guaynabo, PR 00969-4427 ha dictado Sentencia, Senten- a la fecha de la publicación de Tel. (787) 423-8511 cia Parcial o Resolución en este este Emplazamiento por Edicto, sharon.m.santiaqo@gmail.com caso, que ha sido debidamente con la advertencia a los efectos Expedido bajo mi firma y sello registrada y archivada en autos de que si no contesta la deman- del Tribunal, hoy 28 de agosto de donde podrá usted enterarse da presentando el Original de la 2020. Carmen Ana Pereira Ortiz, detalladamente de los términos Contestación, ante el Tribunal

Sec. Regional.

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

Reverse Mortgage Funding, LLC DEMANDANTE VS.

Sucesión de Angel Rafael Antonini Nazario, t/c/c Angel R. Antonini Nazario, t/c/c Angel Antonini Nazario, t/c/c Angel R. Antonini compuesta por Jessica Antonini Montes, Sandra Antonini Montes, Fulano de Tal y Sutano de Tal como posibles miembros de nombres desconocidos; Sucesión de Sandra Felicita Montes Mendez, t/c/c/ Sandra F. Montes Mendez, t/c/c Sandra M. De Antonini, t/c/c Sandra Montes, t/c/c Sandra Montes Mendez, compuesta por Jessica Antonini Montes, Sandra Antonini Montes, Fulano de Tal y Sutano de Tal como posibles miembros de nombres desconocidos; Centro de Recaudación de Ingresos Municipales; y a los Estados Unidos de América.

DEMANDADOS CIVIL NIJM.: SJ2020CV02034.

SALA: 506. SOBRE: Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca por la Vía Ordinaria. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

A: Jessica Antonini Montes, Sandra Antonini Montes, Fulano de Tal y Sutano de Tal como posibles herederos denombres desconocidos de la Sucesión de Angel Rafael Antonini Nazario, t/c/c Angel R. Antonini Nazario, t/c/c Angel Antonini Nazario, t/c/c Angel R. Antonini

POR LA PRESENTE, se les emplaza y se les notifica que se ha presentado en la Secretaria de este Tribunal la Demanda del caso del epígrafe solicitando la ejecución de hipoteca y el cobro de dinero relacionado al pagaré suscrito a favor de VIG Mortgage Corp, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $220,500.00, con intereses computados sobre la misma desde su fecha hasta su total y completo pago a razón de la tasa de interés de 5.060% anual, la cual será ajustada mensualmente, obligándose además al pago de costas, gastos

25

y desembolsos del litigio, más honorarios de abogados en una suma de $22,050.00, equivalente al 10% de la suma principal original. Este pagaré fue suscrito bajo el affidávit número 20,373 ante el notario Francisco J. Biaggi Landrón. Lo anterior surge de la hipoteca constituida mediante la escritura número 73 otorgada el 22 de marzo de 2013, ante el mismo notario público, inscrita al folio 101 del tomo de 1,003, finca número 12,549, inscripción l2ma. La Hipoteca Revertida grava la propiedad que se describe a continuación: “URBANA: Solar marcado con el número Ciento Sesenta y Nueve (169) en el Bloque M-Setenta y Ocho (M-78) de la Urbanización Extensión Reparto Metropolitano radicado en el Barrio Monacillos del sitio denominado Río Piedras del término municipal del gobierno de la capital de Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de trescientos cincuenta (350.00) metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, en una distancia de veinticinco (25.00) metros con el solar número ciento sesenta y ocho (168) del Bloque M-Setenta y Ocho (M-78); por el SUR, en una distancia de veinticinco (25.00) metros con el solar ciento setenta (170) de Bloque M-Setenta y Ocho (M-78); por el ESTE, en una distancia de catorce (14.00) metros con la calle denominada “C Street” del mencionado plano; y por el OESTE, en una distancia de catorce (14.00) metros con la Urbanización Reparto Landrau.

Enclava una casa.” Property Number 12,549 filed at page 233 of volume 327 of Monacillos, Registry of the Property of Puerto Rico, Section III of Sane Juan.

Se apercibe y advierte a ustedes como personas desconocidas, que deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.iamaiudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal. De no contestar la demanda radicando el original de la contestación ante la secretaria del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, y notificar copia de la contestación de esta a la parte demandante por conducto de su abogada, GLS LEGAL SERVICES, LLC, Atención: Lcda.

Genevieve López, Dirección: P.O. Box 367308, San Juan, P.R. 00936-7308, Teléfono: 787-7586550, dentro de los próximos 60 días a partir de la publicación de este emplazamiento por edicto, que será publicado una sola vez en un periódico de circulación diaria general en la isla de Puerto Rico, se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia, concediendo el remedio solicitando en la Demanda sin más citarle ni oírle.

Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal hoy 28 de agosto de 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Secretaria Regional.

Marlyn Ann Espinosa Rivera, Sec Serv a Sala.

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

Reverse Mortgage Funding, LLC DEMANDANTE VS.

Sucesión de Angel Rafael Antonini Nazario, t/c/c Angel R. Antonini Nazario, t/c/c Angel Antonini Nazario, t/c/c Angel R. Antonini compuesta por Jessica Antonini Montes, Sandra Antonini Montes, Fulano de Tal y Sutano de Tal como posibles miembros de nombres desconocidos; Sucesión de Sandra Felicita Montes Mendez, t/c/c/ Sandra F. Montes Mendez, t/c/c Sandra M. De Antonini, t/c/c Sandra Montes, t/c/c Sandra Montes Mendez, compuesta por Jessica Antonini Montes, Sandra Antonini Montes, Fulano de Tal y Sutano de Tal como posibles miembros de nombres desconocidos; Centro de Recaudación de Ingresos Municipales; y a los Estados Unidos de América.

DEMANDADOS CIVIL NIJM.: SJ2020CV02034.

SALA: 506. SOBRE: Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca por la Vía Ordinaria. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

A: Jessica Antonini Montes, Sandra Antonini Montes, Fulano de Tal y Sutano de Tal como posibles herederos de nombres desconocidos de la Sucesión de Sandra Felicita Montes Mendez, t/c/c/ Sandra F. Montes Mendez, t/c/c Sandra M. De Antonini, t/c/c Sandra Montes, t/c/c Sandra Montes Mendez

POR LA PRESENTE, se les emplaza y se les notifica que se ha presentado en la Secretaria de este Tribunal la Demanda del caso del epígrafe solicitando la ejecución de hipoteca y el cobro de dinero relacionado al pagaré suscrito a favor de VIG Mortgage Corp, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $220,500.00, con intereses computados sobre la misma desde su fecha hasta su total y completo pago a razón de la tasa de interés de 5.060% anual, la cual será ajustada mensualmente, obligándose además al pago de costas, gastos

y desembolsos del litigio, más honorarios de abogados en una suma de $22,050.00, equivalente al 10% de la suma principal original. Este pagaré fue suscrito bajo el affidávit número 20,373 ante el notario Francisco J. Biaggi Landrón. Lo anterior surge de la hipoteca constituida mediante la escritura número 73 otorgada el 22 de marzo de 2013, ante el mismo notario público, inscrita al folio 101 del tomo de 1,003, finca número 12,549, inscripción l2ma. La Hipoteca Revertida grava la propiedad que se describe a continuación: “URBANA: Solar marcado con el número Ciento Sesenta y Nueve (169) en el Bloque M-Setenta y Ocho (M-78) de la Urbanización Extensión Reparto Metropolitano radicado en el Barrio Monacillos del sitio denominado Río Piedras del término municipal del gobierno de la capital de Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de trescientos cincuenta (350.00) metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, en una distancia de veinticinco (25.00) metros con el solar número ciento sesenta y ocho (168) del Bloque M-Setenta y Ocho (M-78); por el SUR, en una distancia de veinticinco (25.00) metros con el solar ciento setenta (170) de Bloque M-Setenta y Ocho (M-78); por el ESTE, en una distancia de catorce (14.00) metros con la calle denominada “C Street” del mencionado plano; y por el OESTE, en una distancia de catorce (14.00) metros con la Urbanización Reparto Landrau.

Enclava una casa.” Property Number 12,549 filed at page 233 of volume 327 of Monacillos, Registry of the Property of Puerto Rico, Section III of Sane Juan.

Se apercibe y advierte a ustedes como personas desconocidas, que deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.iamaiudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal. De no contestar la demanda radicando el original de la contestación ante la secretaria del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, y notificar copia de la contestación de esta a la parte demandante por conducto de su abogada, GLS LEGAL SERVICES, LLC, Atención: Lcda.

Genevieve López, Dirección: P.O. Box 367308, San Juan, P.R. 00936-7308, Teléfono: 787-7586550, dentro de los próximos 60 días a partir de la publicación de este emplazamiento por edicto, que será publicado una sola vez en un periódico de circulación diaria general en la isla de Puerto Rico, se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia, concediendo el remedio solicitando en la Demanda sin más citarle ni oírle.

Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal hoy 28 de agosto de 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Secretaria Regional.

Marlyn Ann Espinosa Rivera, Sec Serv a Sala.

26

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, September 3, 2020

Every Pirate will wear 21 in honor of Clemente on Sept. 9

By MARCOS MEJÍAS ORTIZ Special to The Star

A

lmost half a century after his physical disappearance, Roberto Clemente’s number 21 will be back on the field to honor one of the best players in the history of the Pittsburgh Pirates franchise and Major League Baseball.

Next Wednesday, Sept. 9, on Roberto Clemente Day, all Pirates players and coaches will use the number 21 that Clemente wore for 18 seasons with the organization when the team plays the Chicago White Sox. Clemente, who died on Dec. 31, 1972 in a plane crash when he was going to help the victims of the earthquake in Nicaragua, became one of the most respected figures in Pittsburgh -- and in professional baseball -- for his work on and off the field. Since 2002, Major League Baseball (MLB) has been celebrating Roberto Clemente Day in the month of September, but this year will be unique.

Thanks to the initiative of Pirates manager Derek Shelton, all team members will wear the number 21 on Sept. 9 in honor of Clemente. The game between the Pirates and the Chicago White Sox will be broadcast in Puerto Rico by WAPA Deportes (4.2) starting at 7:05 p.m.

“The first time I came in for an interview [for the Pirates manager position], the number 21 was everywhere. Clemente was a complete player. My dad told me how humanitarian he was, what he did,” Shelton said in a conference via Zoom. “When I was working with the Yankees [in the minors], all Puerto Ricans wanted to wear the number 21. It‘s something I‘ll be very proud of.”

One of the people who will wear the number 21 on his back will be Caguas native and third base coach Joey Cora, who will be the first Puerto Rican to wear number 21 in a Pirates uniform since Clemente did it for the last time on Oct. 11, 1972.

“It means a lot. It’s incredible. Ever since Derek told me this was going to happen, right now it gives me the goosebumps. You see that number eve-

rywhere in Pittsburgh. It will be an unforgettable moment,” Cora said with emotion. “I do not know how to explain it. It is a responsibility. Here [in Pittsburgh] everyone knows who Clemente is and number 21. It’s something that has impressed me about this city.”

The other Puerto Rican with the Pirates is Yacksel Ríos, a pitcher from Gurabo who is part of the 40-man ros-

ter but has only appeared in three games so far this season.

Shelton’s idea had the blessing of Clemente’s children, who hope that the initiative will serve as a push to continue the “Retire 21” movement that seeks to retire the number in the Major Leagues, as was done with Jackie Robinson’s number 42.

“We have never been involved [in

the movement]. It is the moment to retire the number,” said Luis Roberto Clemente. “For the first time I will be pushing for the number to be retired. It would be an initial step for that conversation.”

The initiative to use Clemente’s number 21 is only for this year, but it is not being ruled out that it will be repeated in the future and even more teams will take up the idea.

“Initially, we talked about doing it this year. We hope this grows because we have great feelings for number 21,” said Shelton, who is making his managerial debut in the majors this season.

“I‘m excited for the Major Leagues and that the Clemente family allowed this to be done.”

Puerto Rico baseball legends did not hide the pride they felt in the honoring of Clemente, the only Puerto Rican to achieve the 3,000 hit mark in the majors.

“Clemente number 21 represents a responsibility. He is a person who opened doors,” said former first baseman Carlos Delgado, the historical leader in home runs among Puerto Rican major leaguers.

Former second baseman Carlos Baerga added that: “It is going to be a super special day. I will be super happy.

I know it will be special for Joey.”

It will undoubtedly be a special day for Cora, who is already counting down the days until he wears number 21 in honor of Clemente.

“One of the most important people, on and off the field in the Major Leagues is Roberto Clemente,” Cora said.

“This is monumental. It is something very special. Puerto Rico will be more proud of Roberto Clemente. I feel very proud to be part of this organization and to be part of this historic moment for baseball in Puerto Rico.”

Clemente was a two-time World Series champion, earning Most Valuable Player honors in the 1971 championship. Added to this are his 15 All-Star Game selections, the National League Most Valuable Award in 1966 and his 12 Gold Gloves. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1973, months after his death.

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, September 3, 2020

27

Serena Williams wins her first match in the US Open

By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY

I

t was not the tennis record Serena Williams has been chasing with mounting urgency and frustration, but her 102nd singles victory earned earlier this week at the U.S. Open, the most of any player, male or female, still came as a relief.

In this strange and abbreviated season, straightforward matches have been difficult to come by for Williams, the most successful women’s player of the 21st century.

Williams’ 7-5, 6-3 victory over Kristie Ahn in all-but-empty Arthur Ashe Stadium on Tuesday had its wobbles, as well. Williams dropped her opening service game in both sets against the 96th-ranked Ahn and frequently struggled to find her range with her returns and groundstrokes until she finally hit cruising speed midway through the final set.

But it was undoubtedly a step in the right direction for Williams, who looked downcast and adrift as recently as last week in a third-round loss to Maria Sakkari at the Western & Southern Open, which preceded the U.S. Open in New York.

Williams had not won — or played — any match in straight sets since returning to action last month after a sixmonth break forced by the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s been years,” Williams joked.

“Been since the ’90s that I won a match in straight sets. It felt really good. I was like, ‘Serena, just be Serena and close it out.’ And I know I can do that.”

She certainly should know in her fourth decade as a champion. Williams played her first U.S. Open in 1998 and won her first in 1999, becoming a global star, which she remains at age 38 as she continues to pursue a record-tying 24th Grand Slam singles title with very little else left to prove on a tennis court.

Tuesday’s victory broke her tie at the U.S. Open with Chris Evert, who won 101 singles matches during her formidable career and who was the analyst for ESPN for Tuesday’s match.

“She’s got to play neater tennis, more solid, consistent tennis,” Evert said of Williams before it began.

Her performance, which came on her daughter Olympia’s third birthday, was no doubt an improvement, particularly when it came to sealing the deal: She won five of the last six games and finished with 12 aces.

But it was not yet the sort of rock-solid, overwhelmingly on-target performance to send shivers through the diminished field. Williams no doubt has a grand opportunity at this tournament, with nearly a quarter of the top 100 players missing, including six of the top 10.

With her stature in the United States, her absence would have weighed heaviest, however, and although she has had health issues that could have caused her to decide not to risk a return to the circuit, she committed early to the U.S. Open, giving it a major boost in credibility.

“I think what’s most important about this event taking place is just the spirit,” she said. “Sport has been gone for so long, particularly tennis. We missed two Grand Slams. The U.S. Open is the first major tennis event since the Australian Open. The morale can be really low in the world with everything that’s going on. Sometimes you just want to take your mind off it. People have been doing that for generations through sport.”

She looks motivated and quite fit, but she has also lost some of her traditional ability to intimidate. Ahn, a former collegiate star at Stanford University, was the latest example of an opponent who seemed comfortable in her presence.

The daughter of Korean immigrants, Ahn clearly does not suffer from stage fright in general as her clever and viral TikTok videos have made clear during the tour hiatus. She reached the fourth round at last year’s U.S. Open but has yet to win a singles match on the tour in 2020 or any tour title in any year.

And yet, in her first match against Williams, she started convincingly and cleverly shifted tactics and pace, alternating sliced backhands with flat forehand blasts and often getting the better of the baseline exchanges.

But Williams was still able to summon her signature weapon when she needed it: hitting aces to all four corners

Serena Williams won her first-round match in straight sets at the U.S. Open on Tuesday. of the service boxes and above all doing damage with her wide sliced serve in the deuce court.

“I was really happy with how I just fought for every point, no matter how I was playing,” Williams said.

“I feel like I have been focused, but I have been losing matches on literally 1 point that could swing a match a different way. I’ve been playing a ton of tight matches.”

She also seemed to be working on shortening the points, rushing the net more than usual and with mixed results.

Above all, she held firm under pressure, which has long been her trademark but has lately been an issue.

Last week against Sakkari, Williams did not put up her customary fight for much of the third set. She rushed between points and overhit groundstrokes intentionally as if she were in a hurry to get off the court and end the suffering.

“I put myself in a bad situation,” she said afterward. “It’s like dating a guy that you know sucks. That’s literally what I keep doing out here. It’s like I have to get rid of this guy. It just makes no sense.”

Tuesday was a better date, and it

earned her a second-round match today with Margarita Gasparyan, a Russian ranked No. 117 whom Williams has beaten in straight sets in their two previous encounters.

Bigger challenges presumably await as Williams tries to beat the clock and tie Margaret Court, the Australian who holds the record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles.

If she does it this year in New York, she will have to do it in an environment more appropriate for reflection than exertion. Even though Williams already had played five matches without fans since the hiatus, it had to be unsettling to walk into Ashe Stadium, the place where she has won six U.S. Open singles titles, and see five tiers of empty stands in a show court that normally accommodates more than 23,000 spectators.

“It’s quiet, but it’s such a big stadium,” she said, examining her familiar yet unfamiliar surroundings after the victory. “It’s a Grand Slam, so I’m still, I think, as passionate and intense out there.”

More vulnerable, too, but Williams, the greatest player of her era, should never be counted out.

28

Thursday, September 3, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Kemba Walker is smiling as he reads this

By SOPAN DEB

K

emba Walker is a most unusual NBA star. Even though he is a four-time All-Star who grew up playing basketball on the playgrounds of New York City and learned under Michael Jordan with the Charlotte Hornets, Walker is pretty low key for a player of his caliber.

He rarely trash talks. He is not interested in a career in film, television or music. His social media presence is bland — lots of sponsored pictures of him smiling. He rarely makes headlines or goes viral in clips that do not involve his play. In a league where individual players almost always make their presence known, Walker is content in the background. He’s not unlike Kawhi Leonard of the Los Angeles Clippers — except for that smile.

He was smiling when we caught up on a Zoom conversation after a Boston Celtics practice at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., where the NBA is playing out its season because of the pandemic. He was smiling when we sat down after a Celtics practice in March, days before the coronavirus outbreak forced a postponement of the season. Even when describing his experience in quarantine at his home in Charlotte — his teammate Grant Williams stayed with him — he smiled about how much he enjoyed his time away.

“I loved it,” Walker, 30, said. “It gave me a chance to slow down. As athletes, our lives move very fast. We don’t get much downtime or things of that nature until the summer.”

So you might be wondering: Why is Kemba Walker always so happy? From his telling, it has to do with where he came from.

When Walker was a high school student living in the Soundview section of the Bronx, he would travel to his basketball games with his cousin. Walker, then about 14, and his cousin stepped out of the Walker family’s apartment in the Sack-Wern Houses to go shoot hoops and encountered a woman sitting on the stairwell. She had a needle sticking out of her arm.

This kind of sight was not out of the ordinary growing up, Walker said. After growing up in what he called a “tough neighborhood” — where he would sometimes hear gunshots on the court — now he lives in Brookline, Mass., an affluent suburb that neighbors Boston.

“What’s there to be down about?” Walker said. “I’m doing what I love. Getting paid. I’m in a great place.”

Now, Walker is a Celtic. Before this season, Walker’s highest-stakes games were at the University of Connecticut, where he played three seasons and provided countless highlights, particularly during a 2011 NCAA tournament run. Or they were at Rice High School, the former basketball powerhouse in Harlem. Maybe they were on the New York City playgrounds where Walker first got his taste of basketball. Playground ball, Walker said, was “the ultimate competitive game to me” because “you literally earn every single bucket.”

But for the first time in his NBA career, he is playing for a team that has a real chance to make the finals.

On Tuesday, the Celtics went up 2-0 against the Toronto Raptors, the defending champions, in their second-round playoff series (Game 3 is today at 6:30 p.m.). Walker had a terrible shooting night, going 6-of-18 from the field, but he made clutch plays down the stretch. In Charlotte, Walker made the playoffs twice and was bounced in the first round each time. He has never had the expectation of winning on his shoulders until now, and he’s never played with teammates this talented. One of his best friends on the team, Walker said, is the 22-year-old Jayson Tatum, who has blossomed into one of the best players in the league.

Tatum’s ascension means that Walker is in an unfamiliar position: Sometimes he isn’t the best player on the floor. If this bothers Walker — as it might other stars — he doesn’t show it.

“I’m going to have my nights where the fourth quarter is mine, but I am willing to have the nights where I am just spotting up or I am the decoy,” Walker said. “It makes life so much easier and it’s so fun.”

Walker was sitting next to Tatum when he had his first “Welcome to Boston” moment. It was on the bench right before his first preseason game, against his former team, the Hornets.

“I look over at Jayson and I’m like, ‘Damn, this whole arena is packed right now.’” Walker said. “Sold out. Not one seat missing. And it’s a preseason game. The first preseason game! For me, I’m like, ‘This is different!’”

But leaving Charlotte was a shock for Walker. He expected to stay, he said. Walker was eligible for a socalled supermax extension, but the Hornets came in with an offer that was less than that, conscious of paying the luxury tax. He began to consider other teams. At first, Walker said, he was heavily pursued by the Los Angeles Lakers, the Dallas Mavericks and the team he grew up closest to, the New York Knicks. He considered going home.

“I feel it’s always tough to go home and play for your hometown team because there are a lot of distractions, but I started to get really excited actually about the possibility,” Walker said. “I thought about it hard.”

But instead, the Celtics called.

“When they came on the scene, things shifted a little bit,” Walker said. “The excitement started to go that way.”

It had almost become cliché to note how much happier the Celtics seemed as a team this year, in part thanks to Walker’s enthusiasm and unflappability.

“He has a smile that lifts a room,” said coach Brad Stevens, who bonded with Walker following a dinner at Stevens’ home soon after Walker was signed. After eating, the two retired into what Walker called a “man-cave, office-type of thing” and watched game tape. It was an appropriate introduction for two people for whom basketball is an all-encompassing endeavor.

Kemba Walker’s Celtics teammate Marcus Smart described him as “cool, calm and collected at all times.”

Danny Ainge, who is the head of basketball operations for the Celtics, said in a phone interview that Walker, was “one of those people who chooses to be happy,” adding: “He has human emotions that we all do. He just rallies and comes back to his smile.”

“It’s very rare,” said Celtics guard Marcus Smart, who, like Tatum, spent time with Walker last summer as part of Team USA. “I haven’t seen him frustrated. I haven’t seen him anything but smiling. In a game, I’ve seen him a little frustrated. He’s cool, calm and collected at all times.”

Walker just wants to win a championship, preferably in Boston. He has no other goals, he said. He is not concerned with his legacy. There are no awards he wants to win. He is not thinking about the bigger picture, at least not out loud.

“I’m boring, man. I don’t like doing much,” Walker said. “I don’t want to be a coach. If anything, I just want to be maybe behind the scenes. Developmental. I want to be around the young guys, the rookies — the secondand third-year players and help them grow their game.”

He just wants to keep playing as long as the league will have him, just like Vince Carter, who is 43 and only just retired this season.

“I want to play as long as I can,” Walker said. “I want them to say: ‘Kemba, you can’t play no more. We’re kicking you out of the league.’ I want to be one of those guys to try and get up there like Vince. I want to be the guy at the end of the bench, clapping for my young guys.

‘Let’s go.’”

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, September 3, 2020

29

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

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

Crossword

Answers on page 30

Wordsearch

GAMES

HOROSCOPE Aries

30

(Mar 21-April 20)

It’s not a good idea to listen to advice your family and friends want to offer. As well-intentioned as they might be, the dozens of different ideas they put to you will only confuse you. Plus you are wasting a lot of your time which could be spent in quiet thought so you can decide for yourself what you want to do.

Taurus

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, September 3, 2020

(April 21-May 21)

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

Sharing a hobby or online interest with someone you just met will motivate you into wanting to discover more. Time will fly when you are having fun. This could be the start of a close and special friendship. Don’t hesitate to reach out to anyone who has the skills or knowledge to help you achieve an aim.

You’re feeling down on your luck and a little sorry for yourself. If you’ve recently lost your job or money is tight, it’s understandable you feel frustrated. Reassessing your priorities will also make you aware of your blessings.

Whether it’s the company of a favourite animal or friends who offer unconditional love, take note of the things that bring beauty into your life.

Scorpio

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

Once you have given some thought to your future you will be confident about what steps need to be taken to achieve the next important goal. Now you know what you have to do the next step is to take action. A competitor wants to know what you are up to. Keep some plans to yourself for obvious reasons.

It might feel as if everything is going wrong but stay with it for just a short while longer.

Some people will give up; be sure you aren’t one of them. If you stick at it, just like with a jigsaw puzzle, you could be surprised by how all the pieces suddenly come together to form a great picture.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

The more you doubt yourself, the more difficult you will find it to achieve success. If you expect to have problems, you will. Mix with positive, upbeat people and your doubts will vanish. Visualise yourself achieving your goals and you will attract positive energy. Make better use of your wonderful imagination.

Virgo

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

You might surprise yourself by the success of the decisions you make and actions you take today. Friends will applaud your efforts. Your family will be proud of you. There might feel like an almost uncanny understanding between you and a colleague or neighbour. A special moment shared with someone will be like a dream come true.

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

Sinking your teeth into a challenging project will feel satisfying and rewarding. By rising to this challenge you will make giant strides towards a great achievement. This is a great time to take charge of an important fundraiser or community event. It will be hard work but you will enjoy it.

You would like to see immediate results but in most matters progress will be slow. At times it might feel as if time is moving in slow-motion. It won’t be until you go onto a favourite website that things will start to move more quickly. Interactions with on-line friends will be meaningful.

You prefer to be cautious and to look before you leap. Yet something is nudging you to take a risk. Surprise your family by being daring and impulsive. It can feel great to do something spontaneous and instead of worrying about making mistakes, you will be delighted by the results.

Aquarius

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

Take the initiative and you are in for some exciting moments. Don’t worry about what other people think or say. Allowing others to influence you will only hold you back. Push past your doubts and uncertainties. Find the courage to confront a challenging situation. A positive attitude will take you far.

Pisces

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

Tidying your home and workspace, getting rid of clutter and ending commitments you no longer enjoy will make you feel more focused. It is time to readjust your priorities.

Choose what is important to you now, what you want to do and where you want to go.

Set long-term goals.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

Thursday, September 3, 2020

31

CARTOONS

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

BC

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

For Better or for Worse

The San Juan Daily Star

Ziggy

32

The San Juan Daily Star

Thursday, September 3, 2020

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JBL Flip5

$89

.00

Abanico recargable

$69.00

Switching Power

$18

$149.00

$169.00

$289 Adapter .00

Samsung A10s

Learning Tab

Horno de Microondas Blanco, Negro o Stainless Steal

$749

$189

$649

$29.00

Pulsar 2300 .00

$489

Samsung Galaxy Tab A .00

Water Dispenser

Industrial Stand Fan

$169

.00

Sony. CDF-S70

$79

.00

Cafetera Oster .00

$29

Licuadora OSTER

$49.00

$39.00 Plancha Oster .00

$20

DEALER AUTORIZADO EN PIEZAS Y SERVICIO