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WIPR Still Standing Thanks to Collab with Dept. of Education What Is the Next Step for the Puerto Rico Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Its Struggle to Remain Afloat?

Dávila Finally Says Goodbye to SEC Chairmanship P5 NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 19

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Local Tourism to Lose Nearly $275 Million Due to COVID-19

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The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

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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.

Island tourism projected to lose $271 million to pandemic

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arla Campos, executive director of the Puerto Rico Tourism Co. (CTPR by its Spanish initials), estimated the losses this year in the island industry due to the economic closure necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic at about $271 million, when compared to the same time period last year.

“We were able to do a local analysis and that indicates that we are going to close 2020 with a figure that is not at all encouraging,” Campos said in a radio interview Thursday. “In the hotel sector, $271 million will have been lost compared to the previous year.”

“At the passenger arrival level, it is projected

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that we will close the year with 50 percent fewer passenger arrivals,” Campos added. “Obviously these are figures that reflect the reality in which we live.”

The CTPR executive director announced that “the recovery is going to be one that will last at least from 24 to 36 months.”

“It will not be until 2023 or 2024 that we will be seeing figures that are relatively comparable to 2019,” she said.

Regarding the loss of jobs in the tourism industry, Campos estimated that there will be a 70 percent reduction in the market. That equates to 14,000 fewer hotel jobs.

The official urged Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced to reopen attractions in the tourism sector, such as swimming pools and beaches, among others.

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September 4-6, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

WIPR still standing thanks to collaborative project with Education Dept.

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

W

ith island government funding for the Puerto Rico Corporation for Public Broadcasting (known as WIPR by its Federal Communications Commission call sign) cut off in March because the Financial Oversight and Management Board refused to allocate funds for its operation, WIPR President Eric G. Delgado Santiago said Thursday that, amid the coronavirus pandemic, the island Education Department’s (DE) TV project “En Casa Aprendo” has been the only independent income source that has allowed WIPR to keep its doors open.

As for continuing to make payroll, Delgado Santiago told the Star that WIPR has been working with other independent sources of income such as sales of sponsorships, production services, and proposals with other public broadcasting corporations, for which they had to increase their prices; however, he said the revenue from these sources could only provide for up to one month of operations.

Meanwhile, he said the only “big” contract that has helped them remain upright for a longer period of time has been the collaborative project with the DE. “Our collaboration with the DE has been the only reliable source of income. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we are going to start another cycle of ‘school camp’ coming soon to give support to the DE after school hours end. We’ll be starting with Monday to Friday programs from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. with reviews and other materials that were covered in students’ online courses,” Delgado Santiago said. “Teleducation, as we named it, has gained back importance in different parts of the world; literally, there are places that have not bet on internet projects, but have done so on television projects, as geographical circumstances in bigger countries make it difficult to distribute internet access.

So we’re working swiftly on preparing the following curriculums for the children, and with that, for now, we can keep operating.”

As for the next restructuring plan, which the Star reported was expected to be announced in the third week of June, Delgado Santiago said it hasn’t been possible as House Bill (HB) 2564, by which the Legislature must review the plan to transform the corporation into a non-profit organization, has not been up for examination yet. The plan is still under negotiation as cost quotations have yet to be confirmed by other mainland and local corporations. However, the WIPR president said it was neither his nor Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced’s intention to turn the public corporation into a nonprofit as it was greenlit by Vázquez herself to continue operating on independent income.

“We’re still working within local terms wherein Governor Wanda Vázquez said: ‘No, no, WIPR is not for sale.’ She gave me joy when I heard that as she told me to keep working through independent income so WIPR keeps operating, and not turn it into a non-profit organization,” Delgado Santiago said. “I said it was going to be the same job even if we were to become a non-profit organization, which was to make the Corporation self-sufficient, so let’s go to work with that.”

Regarding funding for the Radio Drama Workshop and the Lucy Boscana Television Drama Program, Del-

gado Santiago said he was concerned for their funding as they were not included in HB 2564 because both are programs approved by independent laws.

“The only way for these programs to be saved, even if WIPR were to be privatized, was to amend the laws that created these workshops so as to include these programs in the restructuring,” he said. “As for funding, instead of providing their funds in one payment, it was put under remittance to be paid every month, which makes it challenging to commit to any productions.”

As for local WIPR productions, Delgado Santiago said he wanted to “democratize” the program schedule, as he believed that even though earlier productions have contributed to Puerto Rico’s culture, he felt that such programming was not providing a public service because it was not engaging enough for islanders due to the content being too “upscale.” Still, he insisted that topics such as music, arts and literature should never be left out on the public channel.

“Sometimes, I would tune in to a performance of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, and instead of having a host explaining the next composition and how it was made to the audience, there was an upscale conversation that only musicians would understand.

How are you going to make the viewers fall in love with classical music if you don’t find more simple and satisfying ways to engage with them?” he said.

“Same goes for a book, why have an upscale and deep conversation where you meet the author of the book, when you can find ways to make people fall in love with literature, find ways to make them log off the internet and enjoy a good book? It’s not that we should ever abandon literature or music, it’s more on

how we present the topic.”

Delgado Santiago went on to say that another of his goals is for island youth to be better represented in WIPR productions and have outlets for them to express and discuss their concerns about Puerto Rico.

He said programs such as Puerto Rico 2020, which is hosted by former Popular Democratic Party Rep. Jorge Colberg Toro, with appearances from New Progressive Party Spokesman Kenneth McClintock, Puerto Rican Independent Party Spokesman Hugo Rodríguez Díaz, Citizen Victory Movement President Ana Irma Rivera Lassen and Dignity Project Spokeswoman Ada Norah Henriquez, will provide a segment where young leaders from the aforementioned parties can present their ideas to viewers.

“When we talk about democracy, we should not only think about political parties but more of something generational. We want to listen to our youth speak their concerns, as I did when I was younger,” Delgado Santiago said, noting that the social and political priorities of the island’s youth are very different from those of older citizens. “Older people care more about the Vital [government medical] Plan and health issues, but we want to listen to the youth, we want to see what points they bring to the table so not only do the viewers see them, but also the political leaders themselves, so that we might see if they [politicians and policymakers] have paid attention to their issues or not.”

As for what will happen to WIPR when the next administration arrives in early 2021, Delgado Santiago said that before the year ends, “he would love to finish the project, whether it transfers to a non-profit organization or it remains as a public corporation.”

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

5

Embattled SEC chief Dávila finally steps down

By THE STAR STAFF

J

uan Ernesto Dávila said that right after the longest primary in Puerto Rico’s history he was going to resign from the chairmanship of the State Elections Commission (SEC).

Weeks later it finally happened.

Dávila presented his immediate resignation Thursday after being absent from a meeting with party electoral commissioners on the November election. The now former head of the SEC said he didn’t want to be a distraction.

“With immediate effect, I resign as Chairman of the State Elections Commission,” Dávila said in a written statement.

“The well being of my family, friends and [fellow] church [members] lead me to make this decision. I pray to the Lord for the good of Puerto Rico, the SEC and the electoral commissioners. I don’t want to be a distraction at this point in our history.

Now, it must be clear that at all times I have acted within the framework of the law and have had the best welfare of Puerto Rico as our goal.”

Dávila gave assurances that he has continued working on the coordination of

the general election, including payments required for the ballots to be printed.

“Since I wish the best for our island, I have continued working with the procedures for the General Election and everything is proceeding in due course,” he said in the statement. “Authorization has already been requested from the Department of the Treasury to make the advance payment required by PRINTECH, as a condition for printing of the ballots.”

“I am not resigning because I think that any of the complaints filed against me have any chance of proceeding,” Dávila added. “In fact, the Court of Appeals has already dismissed most of them. In the public arena, several lies, insults and slander about this [public] servant have been mentioned. Telling a lie repeatedly does not make it true. To those who have made these statements I say: God bless you. Thanks to all the people who have supported me through these difficult weeks. I appreciate your concern and sense of brotherhood. I ask our God that the electoral event of November 3, 2020 can be given as our People deserve. This will require the teamwork of all political parties in the SEC. Regardless of the cir-

cumstances, it has been an honor for me to be able to serve the People of Puerto Rico from the SEC. These will be my only statements on this matter.”

After Dávila’s announcement, Popular Democratic Party Sen. Aníbal José Torres said “[t]he late resignation of the SEC chief

should be reason enough for the NPP [New Progressive Party] to stop using [island] institutions as if they were its campaign committee.

“It is time to seek a consensus,” Torres said. “Don’t continue harming Puerto Rico.”

Court grants House additional time to supply info on Capitol salaries

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

E

va Prados Rodríguez, the Citizens Victory Movement candidate for the San Juan District 3 seat in the island House of Representatives, said Thursday that she will wait for the term granted by the Superior Court of Puerto Rico for the House to deliver the names,

House Speaker Carlos ‘Johnny’ Méndez

salaries and positions of all its employees, and did not rule out returning to court if necessary.

In response to a mandamus request filed by Prados Rodríguez, the court gave the House and its speaker, Carlos “Johnny” Méndez Nuñez, 10 days to make the requested information public.

“The Court’s decision has the effect of giving the Chamber more time to provide the information, even though that legislative body had already stated that the request was onerous,” Prados Rodríguez said in a written statement. “We will continue the process to achieve the delivery and disclosure of this information that should be public knowledge.”

Last week she asked Méndez for the list of employees hired from 2013 to the present, along with their respective positions and wages.

“These are not times to ignore citizen demands for transparency and access to information, much less in a legislative body in which two elected officials and several employees have recently been arrested on corruption charges,” added Prados Rodríguez, an attorney.

“Our request for information is still valid. In compliance

with the provisions of the Court, we will immediately resume the process before the House. If the information is not made public, we will return to Court, where I am confident that we will prevail. We will not rest until the country has access to this information.”

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The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

Health info access rule to go into effect in January

By THE STAR STAFF

T

he federal Interoperability and Patient Access rule, which will allow patients to have access to their health information when they need it most and can best use it, is slated to go into effect in January, Dolmarie Méndez, chief executive officer and co-founder of Abartys Health, said Thursday.

The bottom line of the federal regulation, put forward by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), is to provide for more individualized care for a patient because currently the information is not in a specific place that patients can access through computers or cellphones, she said.

Abartys Health has a platform specifically designed to improve patient access issues in accordance with the new CMS policy and provide a platform for patients to keep their health data, Méndez said.

“This impacts the patient positively because these are regulations on information that allow patients to exchange their clinical data with whomever they decide, or add information to it,” she said, adding that the regulation

also will help medical providers and health insurance companies.

“Nowadays, health insurance companies have information on the patients but each health insurance company operates differently and there is no centralized database,” Méndez said. “This empowers the patient.”

Méndez said the new rule will be another tool in the fight against the coronavirus because it will allow for better contact tracing and help identify infection focal points.

As part of the Trump administration’s MyHealthEData initiative, this final rule is focused on driving interoperability and patient access to health information by liberating patient data using CMS authority to regulate Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program, and Qualified Health Plan issuers on the federally facilitated exchanges, but Méndez said the initiative will spread to other sectors.

According to CMS, the lack of seamless data exchange in healthcare has historically detracted from patient care, leading to poor health outcomes and higher costs.

“The CMS Interoperability and Patient Access final

rule establishes policies that break down barriers in the nation’s health system to enable better patient access to their health information, improve interoperability and unleash innovation, while reducing burden on payers and providers,” CMS said. “Patients and their healthcare providers will have the opportunity to be more informed, which can lead to better care and improved patient outcomes, while at the same time reducing burden.”

Tropizen completes first commercial cannabis harvest at new El Yunque facility

By THE STAR STAFF

A

s patient demand for cannabis flower in Puerto Rico continues to surpass available market supply, Tropizen announced this week the completion of its first commercial cannabis harvest from its recently added 10,000-square-foot outdoor cultivation facilities destined for both flower sales and the manufacture of infused medicinal products.

“This harvest represents an important

milestone for our company as we continue to expand to meet patient demand for highquality flower,” said Tropizen co-founder Marni Meistrell. “We are growing cannabis near the base of El Yunque tropical rainforest, following cultivation best practices as we conduct research and test new strains that thrive in this location.”

An additional 7,000 square feet of outdoor cultivation will be added before the end of the year, Meistrell said. Tropizen recently expanded its cannabis flower production to 400 percent of original capacity,

at an investment of over $1 million. The expansion project included the construction of the new outdoor cultivation space.

The new harvest comprises five of the company’s best-performing strains.

Tropizen rotates five primary strains with five secondary strains, including Brian Berry Cough, Ogiesel and Agent Orange, all exclusive to Tropizen in Puerto Rico.

One of the company’s priorities going forward is the cropping of rare tropical cultivars as part of its ongoing research and development process.

Meistrell said the company is working on the introduction of a new packaging and grading system for its cannabis flower, incorporating a new prepackaged midgrade flower product that will be more accessible to patients in terms of price, while offering the same effectiveness as the premium flower.

Tropizen was the first cannabis cultivator on the island to offer individually prepackaged flower to dispensaries instead of bulk cannabis packaging. The former facilitates higher sales volumes for dispensaries. Moreover, patients get a fresher product, as the packaging protects the delicate cannabis flower from exposure to degrading environmental conditions, including oxygen and moisture. Presently, prepackaged flower comprises approximately 20 percent of the company’s sales

to dispensaries.

With lab tested cannabinoid concentrations of over 20 percent (and as high as 30 percent), Tropizen offers product consistency, exceptional plant genetics and attention to detail, said Novacann Labs Director of Operations Christian Burgos.

“Normally we see that quality suffers when production volume increases; however, this has not been our experience with Tropizen,” Burgos said. “The results from their harvest demonstrate strict compliance and consistent quality control.”

As part of its cultivation protocol, Tropizen uses live soil with beneficial insects in its outdoor cultivation facilities, as well as organic processes. An outside entomologist serves as technical adviser and conducts weekly inspections of the plants. Moreover, chemical pesticides are not used.

Meistrell noted that cannabis flower has been in short supply in Puerto Rico this summer.

“Dispensaries are consistently running out of product even though our volume has increased,” he said. “We seem to be approaching a worrisome scenario where patients have a harder time acquiring their medicine, driving prices up.”

The growth in patient numbers may be a contributing factor, but official figures have not been published so far this year.

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

7

Black man died of suffocation after officers put hood on him

By TROY CLOSSON and ED SHANAHAN

A

Black man died of suffocation in Rochester, New York, after police officers who were taking him into custody put a hood over his head and then pressed his face into the pavement for two minutes, according to video and records released by his family and local activists Wednesday.

The man, Daniel Prude, 41, died March 30, seven days after his encounter with the police, after being removed from life support, his family said.

His death occurred two months before the killing in police custody of George Floyd in Minneapolis set off protests across the United States. But it attracted widespread attention only Wednesday when his family held a news conference to highlight disturbing video footage of the encounter taken from body cameras that the police officers wore.

The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, and the Rochester police chief said they were investigating the death. The officers involved are still on the force.

Joe Prude, his brother, called 911 on March 23 after Daniel Prude, who was visiting from Chicago, ran out of his home in an erratic state. Prude had been taken to a hospital the previous day after he apparently began experiencing mental health problems, police reports show.

He was running through the street after leaving his brother’s home before Rochester police officers detained him. A truck driver also called 911 before officers arrived, according to internal police investigations of the case, to say that a man wearing no clothes was trying to break into a car and saying that he had the coronavirus.

The video, first reported by the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, shows Prude, who has taken off his clothes, with his hands behind his back. He is standing on the pavement in handcuffs, shouting, before officers put a socalled spit hood on his head. New York was in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic at the time.

After the hood is placed over Prude’s head, he becomes more agitated. At one point, he shouts, “Give me that gun. Give me that gun,” and three officers push him to the ground.

The video shows one officer placing both hands on Prude’s head and holding him against the pavement, while another places a knee on his back, even as the hood remains

Footage from a police body camera shows a Rochester police officer putting a so-called spit hood over the head of a Black man, Daniel Prude. He died of suffocation, the authorities said. on his head.

One officer repeatedly tells Prude to “stop spitting” and to “calm down.”

After two minutes, Prude is no longer moving or speaking, and the same officer can be heard asking, “You good, man?”

The officer then notices that Prude had thrown up water onto the street.

A paramedic is called over, about five minutes after the officers placed the hood on Prude’s head, to perform CPR on him before he is put into an ambulance.

The Monroe County medical examiner ruled Prude’s death a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint,” according to an autopsy report.

“Excited delirium” and acute intoxication by phencyclidine, or the drug PCP, were contributing factors, the report said.

The body camera video was provided to Elliot Dolby-Shields, a lawyer for Prude’s family, on Aug. 20 through an open records request, and then released to the public Wednesday after he and relatives reviewed the footage.

At the news conference Wednesday, activists and members of Prude’s family said the officers involved should be fired and charged with homicide, the Democrat and Chronicle reported. Joe Prude called the death a “coldblooded murder.”

“How many more brothers got to die for society to understand that this needs to stop,” Joe Prude said.

At a separate news conference, Rochester’s police chief, La’Ron D. Singletary, said he understood that people were angry about Prude’s death and frustrated about the lack of action in the matter, as well as about the delay in releasing the video.

“I know that there is a rhetoric that is out there that this is a cover-up,” Singletary said.

“This is not a cover-up.”

Later Wednesday, more than 100 protesters gathered for hours in downtown Rochester outside a police station and marched to the street where Prude had been detained. The demonstration grew tense at times. Police officers, some of whom wore masks with Thin

Blue Line flags, shot what appeared to be tear gas or pepper spray at protesters as they stood in a line across from them.

James said in a statement that a unit in her office dedicated to investigating deaths in which the police are involved had already opened an inquiry.

“The death of Daniel Prude was a tragedy,” James said, adding that “as with every investigation, we will follow the facts of this case and ensure a complete and thorough examination of all relevant parties.”

In an interview late Wednesday, DolbyShields called the case a “huge misuse of force,” and questioned why officers took “such a long time” to call for CPR. He also disagreed with the decision not to suspend the officers involved.

“How do you watch the video and say what they did is OK?” Dolby-Shields said.

“How do you watch it and say, ‘You guys can still go out on the street and make arrests?’”

Rochester’s mayor, Lovely Warren, speaking at the same news conference as the police chief, said she was “very disturbed” by what the video showed.

“This is not something that’s in our wheelhouse, in our control at this moment in time,” Warren said, an apparent reference to the attorney general’s inquiry. “And had it been, for me this would be something that we would’ve talked about months ago.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said late Wednesday that he had not yet seen the video, but had been briefed on it.

“The way it was described is very disturbing,” said the governor, who asked James to investigate the death, via an executive order, in July.

Cuomo said he did not want to comment on the status of James’ investigation, but “people should know that it is under investigation and has been for months.”

8

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

Trump encourages people in North Carolina to vote twice. Is illegal

By MAGGIE HABERMAN and STEPHANIE SAUL

P

liam Barr declined to comment on Trump’s suggestion Wednesday.

“We haven’t had the kind of widespread use of mail-in ballots that’s being proposed,” Barr said, adding that he wasn’t familiar with the specifics of North Carolina’s voting laws.

States have long used a number of measures to guard against double voting. Patrick Gannon, a spokesman for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said the system in North Carolina would prevent a person from voting twice, because only the first vote recorded would be counted.

If a person has already mailed in an absentee ballot and goes to the polls on Election Day, records will show poll workers that the person has already voted, Gannon said. Or, if a person votes on Election Day and officials later receive that person’s absentee ballot, it will be “spoiled” and not counted, he said.

“Intentional willful double voting is a felony,” Gannon added.

He encouraged voters to request absentee ballots, send them in and track them on the elections board’s website.

In an interview last year, Kim Wyman, the secretary of state in Washington state, where elections have been conducted by mail for years, said it was unusual for voters to vote twice.

“We can actually run a list of people who appeared to have voted more than once,” said Wyman, a Republican. “Out of 3.5 million ballots cast in 2018, it appears that roughly 100 people may have voted more than once.

Counties are checking.”

“Is it perfect? No,” Wyman said. “Is there rampant fraud? No. Do people sometimes make mistakes? Yes.”

resident Donald Trump suggested Wednesday that people in North Carolina stress-test the security of their elections systems by voting twice — an act that constitutes the kind of voter fraud the president has railed against.

Trump made the comment in a briefing with reporters, where he was asked about his faith in the state’s system for voting by mail, which is expected to be more expansive in the 2020 presidential election than in previous years because of concerns about the spread of the coronavirus.

Trump encouraged people to send in an absentee ballot and then go vote in person on Election Day. “Let them send it in and let them go vote, and if their system’s as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote,” the president said. “If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote.”

“That’s the way it is,” he added. “And that’s what they should do.”

Voting twice in the same election is illegal.

ButTrump’s suggestion that people should vote twice is one he has discussed privately with aides in recent weeks amid concerns he is depressing turnout among his supporters by raising alarms about the security of mail-in voting.

As the number of people planning to mail in their ballots has increased, Trump has repeatedly made false claims about widespread fraud in mail voting. With his advisers trying to tell him that he’s scaring his own supporters, including older voters, with his broad condemnations, he has sought to draw a distinction between universal mail voting and more limited absentee voting in which the person is away from home or has a disability.

But even as he has made such distinctions, he has continued to float wild theories about extensive voter fraud that are not backed up by evidence. He has repeatedly detailed farfetched, seemingly manufactured stories about ballots President Donald Trump looks over at supporters who gathered to welcome him upon his arrival in being forged.

Attorney General Wil- Wilmington, N.C., on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2020.

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

9

NYC school plan hinges on hundreds of thousands of virus tests

By EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS

C

oronavirus testing tents will be constructed outside New York City schools. More than 10% of students and teachers will get a nose swab once a month. At $70 per test, the operation could cost the city $10 million per month.

Bringing children back to classrooms in the nation’s largest school system was already a monumental challenge.

Now New York City is also rushing to set up mandatory random testing at 1,800 schools by Oct. 1 — a last-minute wild-card mission that no other major city has tried.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat who has staked his legacy on reopening schools during the pandemic, said his administration can pull off the testing endeavor, even as city officials scramble to address other safety concerns before schools reopen for in-person learning Sept. 21.

“It will be done every single month,” the mayor said Tuesday. “It will be rigorous. We’re going to be looking constantly for any signs of a challenge we have to address.”

As children across the globe slowly return to school this week, most schools that are reopening classrooms are not requiring testing. Health officials in New York pointed to Luxembourg, a tiny European nation with a population less than half the size of the Bronx, as the only place that had tried something similar by testing all of its high school seniors before reopening.

In Los Angeles, school officials have worked for months to plan a robust testing system after delaying in-person learning. Their program is expected to cost $150 million.

New York City, the only major school district in America attempting to reopen, is trying to create a coronavirus testing system on a much faster timeline.

“It strikes me as being very ambitious,” said William Hanage, an associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard University. “I’m glad they’re doing it, but I think it would be better if they’d been planning to do this in advance.

“This is not something that is easy to pull out of a hat,” he added.

De Blasio moved this week to delay the reopening of schools from a start date of Sept. 10, agreeing to the testing program to avoid a teachers’ strike. The teachers union also wanted more time to address other issues, including hiring nurses for every school and upgrading ventilation systems in classrooms.

The goal of random testing is to identify students and teachers who have the coronavirus and do not have symptoms, city officials said. But testing in New York has already been plagued by delays. Some people have waited more than two weeks to get results, rendering them essentially useless.

Avery Cohen, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said the schools testing plan was “entirely unprecedented in its size and scope, building on our city’s reputation as a world leader in making testing available to all.”

On Wednesday, the city announced it had hired a company called Fulgent Genetics to conduct the school testing.

About 34% of parents have decided to keep their children at home for remote learning, but that leaves more

than 600,000 students who could attend school in person.

The city is planning to randomly test 10% to 20% of students, teachers and staffers at each school once a month, which could mean processing 60,000 to 120,000 tests every month. Officials hope to return test results in 48 hours and provide individual students with their results, city officials said.

Each test costs about $70 to $90 — a steep bill for the city at a time when it is in financial crisis. De Blasio has warned that he might have to lay off 22,000 city workers next month.

The city’s health and hospital system will oversee the schools testing program and is likely to rely on school nurses to help administer the tests. The city is contracting with additional labs to process test results and is working to secure a partnership with a lab in New York City.

“We’re looking at different innovative strategies to expand our testing capacity, including a stand-alone lab, and will have more to say soon,” Cohen said.

The powerful union that represents teachers, the United Federation of Teachers, said that as part of its agreement with de Blasio, children who do not have parental consent to testing will be required to learn remotely at home. School staff who choose not to participate will be put on unpaid leave, the union said.

Critics say the testing plan raises logistical concerns and is too intrusive. Steven Matteo, a Republican councilman from Staten Island, sent de Blasio a letter with a list of questions: Who will perform the tests? Will children miss class? Can

parents be present for the test?

Joseph Borelli, another Republican councilman from Staten Island, said barring students from school if they refuse to be tested was “an astounding stretch of authority.”

“We must fight,” Borelli said on Twitter, urging parents to call the school chancellor’s office.

De Blasio had resisted calls from the teachers union to require mandatory testing and repeatedly argued that other school districts that had successfully opened did not require it.

But union leaders demanded testing to help protect teachers who are afraid to return to classrooms.

Michael Mulgrew, the leader of the teachers union, said testing was an important part of the city’s safety plan, along with social distancing, wearing masks and cleaning classrooms.

“We’re going to make sure that if there’s any signs that there could be a problem, that we’re in there as quick as possible and stopping it very quickly,” he said.

Some private schools and universities are conducting more aggressive testing, as often as twice a week. The Rochester Institute of Technology in New York is even testing sewage for genetic evidence of virus shed in feces.

De Blasio said he was confident that most parents would agree to testing, noting that children would receive a “self-swab” test using a short Q-tip.

“It is the Q-tip, not the long apparatus that goes farther up your nose,” the mayor said. “I did that one. I don’t want to do it again.”

Central Park East High School in Manhattan on Sept. 2, 2020. New York City schools will reopen on Sept. 21, 2020 with random testing to begin on Oct. 1.

10

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

Amtrak will furlough over 2,000 workers because of the Coronavirus

By PRANSHU VERMA

A

mtrak, the passenger railroad agency, will furlough over 2,000 workers in the coming weeks because of a steep decline in ridership and revenue caused by the coronavirus pandemic, according to company officials.

The job cuts represent nearly 10% of Amtrak’s roughly 20,000-member workforce and will take effect as the agency begins its new fiscal year, which starts in October. The rail agency will cut 1,950 workers from its unionized workforce and 100 employees from its management

ranks. Cuts among union jobs could increase or decrease by 2%, officials noted in an internal email.

The reductions come as Amtrak’s response to historic fiscal challenges receives scrutiny from rail advocates and federal lawmakers.

Critics say the agency should focus less on cuts to its workforce and declines in service and instead ensure the rail network operates close to normal at a time when it is seen as an attractive alternative to air travel. In some areas of the United States, Amtrak provides the lone mode of public transportation, rail advocates say.

An Amtrak employee at Union Station in Washington on Saturday, April 25, 2020.

Amtrak will furlough over 2,000 workers in the coming weeks because of a steep decline in ridership and revenue caused by the coronavirus pandemic, according to company officials.

“Amtrak’s announcement that they will furlough over 2,000 employees is disappointing and unacceptable,” said Rep. Daniel Lipinski, D-Ill., a member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. “Amtrak workers provide an essential service to travelers and communities. These workers deserve better from Amtrak leadership.”

In a statement, an Amtrak spokeswoman said the job cuts were necessary because the rail agency was experiencing “slow recovery of ridership and revenue” from the pandemic. Amtrak receives federal funds but is independently run.

Since March, ridership on Amtrak has fallen by 95%, and projected revenue for 2021 has declined by 50%. In response, Congress has bailed out the rail network with nearly $1 billion in emergency funds. But William J. Flynn, Amtrak’s chief executive, has asked lawmakers for an additional $1.4 billion in emergency funds, predicting revenue and ridership will continue to remain low into 2021.

Flynn has told congressional leadership that Amtrak is prepared to cut $500 million in operating costs if it does not receive more emergency funding. In June, he outlined a plan that would cut up to 20% of the company’s workforce and reduce service on long-distance routes that serve the middle of the country.

Federal lawmakers responded with intense skepticism, asking why Amtrak needed to enact such steep cuts when it had already received nearly $1 billion in emergency aid. The agency’s request for an additional $1.4 billion is on top of its standard $2 billion budget request for 2021.

“We are deeply concerned by the downsizing plan,” a bipartisan coalition of seven senators wrote in a letter to Amtrak.

“These cuts would not only dramatically reduce the utility of the nation’s passenger rail network, but would also ignore congressional intent to expedite economic recovery following the pandemic.”

Critics are particularly concerned about Amtrak’s plan to reduce daily service on its long-distance train network to three times per week. They say any cuts to long-distance routes, which run across parts of the Southern, mountain and Western regions, would make the company a less reliable and less attractive option to travelers who depend on the network.

Advocates note that long-distance routes across the country are faring better than on those that were more popular before the pandemic began, including shorter routes like those in the Northeast Corridor.

Long-distance ridership is down 62% compared with the same period last year, while ridership on those relatively shorter routes through more urban areas is down more than 80%, according to an analysis by industry experts.

Others point to Amtrak’s statements from as far back as 2000, in which its leadership said attempts to reduce longdistance service “ended up costing the company more in lost revenue than we were able to take out in the way of expenses” because some fixed costs could not be cut even after reducing service to three days a week.

House lawmakers will hold a hearing next week to discuss Amtrak’s response to the pandemic.

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

11

Facebook moves to limit election chaos in November

By MIKE ISAAC

F

acebook on Thursday moved to clamp down on any confusion about the November election on its service, rolling out a series of changes to limit voter misinformation and to prevent interference from President Donald Trump and other politicians.

The social network, in one of its most sweeping sets of election actions, said it planned to bar any new political ads on its site in the week before Election Day. It said it would also strengthen measures against posts that try to dissuade people from voting. Postelection, Facebook said it would quash any candidates’ attempts at claiming false victories by redirecting users to accurate information on the results.

Facebook is bracing for what is set to be a highly contentious presidential election. With two months to go, Trump and Joe Biden have ratcheted up their attacks against each other, clashing over issues including the coronavirus pandemic and racial unrest. Even when the results are in, Trump has suggested that he may not accept them and has questioned the legitimacy of mail-in voting.

“This election is not going to be business as usual,” Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, wrote in a post. He said he was concerned about the challenges that people could face when voting in a pandemic and how the count might take days or weeks to finalize, potentially leading to more unrest. As a result, he said, “we all have a responsibility to protect our democracy.”

Facebook has become a key battleground for both Trump’s and Biden’s campaigns. Trump’s campaign has run ads on the social network featuring false corruption accusations about Biden. Biden’s campaign has criticized Facebook for allowing lies, while also spending millions of dollars to buy ads on the service to appeal to voters.

The social network is striving to prevent itself from being misused. It also wanted to keep either Republicans or Democrats from saying that it unduly influenced voters.

In particular, the Silicon Valley company wants to avoid a repeat of 2016, when Russians used the service to sway the American electorate with divisive messaging to promote Trump.

At the time, Zuckerberg shrugged off the idea that his social network had influenced the election and Trump’s victory. After evidence of Russian meddling through Facebook became overwhelming, Zuckerberg spent billions of dollars to secure the social network, hired thousands of employees to focus on security, and worked with intelligence agencies and other tech companies to guard against foreign meddling.

Even so, Facebook has continued to face criticism as domestic misinformation about this year’s election — including from Trump — has proliferated. Zuckerberg has declined to remove much of that false information, saying that Facebook supports free speech. Many of the company’s own employees have objected to that position.

On Tuesday, Facebook said the Kremlin-backed group

President Trump, left, and Joseph R. Biden Jr., right. Facebook is taking steps to minimize misinformation and election confusion as the two men vie for the presidency. that interfered in the 2016 presidential election, the Internet Research Agency, tried to meddle on its service again using fake accounts and a website set up to look like a left-wing news site. Facebook said it was warned by the FBI about the Russian effort and removed the fake accounts and news site before they had gained much traction.

Thursday’s changes, which are a tacit acknowledgment by Facebook of how powerful its effect on public discourse can be, are unlikely to satisfy its critics. Some of its measures, such as the blocking of new political ads a week before Election Day, are temporary. Yet they demonstrate that Facebook has sweeping abilities to shut down untruthful ads should it choose to do so.

Facebook said it would begin barring politicians from placing new ads on Facebook and Instagram, the photosharing service it owns, starting Oct. 27. Existing political ads will not be affected. Political candidates will still be able to adjust both the groups of people their existing ads are targeting and the amount of money they spend on those ads.

They can resume running new political ads after Election Day, the company said.

In another change, Facebook said it would place what it calls its voting information center — a hub for finding accurate, up-to-date information on how to register to vote, and when and where to do so — at the top of its News Feed, which is seen daily by millions, through Election Day. The company had rolled out the voter information center in June and has continued promoting it to users, with a goal of registering 4 million people and encouraging them to vote.

To curb misinformation about voting, Facebook said

it would remove posts that tell people they will catch COVID-19 if they take part in voting. For posts that use the coronavirus to discourage people from voting in other, less obvious ways, the company said it would attach a label and link to its voter information center.

Facebook also plans to remove posts that both explicitly and implicitly aim to disenfranchise or prohibit people from voting; previously, the company removed only posts that actively discouraged people from voting. Now, a post that causes confusion around who is eligible to vote or some part of the voting process — such as a misstatement about what documentation is needed to receive a ballot — would also be removed.

The company also said it would limit the number of people that users can forward messages to in its Messenger app to no more than five people, down from more than 150 people previously. The move mirrors what WhatsApp, the messaging app also owned by Facebook, did in 2018 when it limited message forwarding to 20 people from a previous maximum of 250.

Misinformation across private communication channels is a much more difficult problem to tackle than on public social networks because it is hidden. Limiting message forwarding could slow that spread.

To get accurate information on the election’s results, Facebook said it plans to partner with Reuters, the news organization, to provide verified election results to the voting information center. If any candidate tries to declare victory falsely or preemptively, Facebook said, it would add a label to those posts directing users to the official results.

12

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

Sólo en

Japan’s convenience stores are told to stop pushing 24-hour schedules J

By BEN DOOLEY and HISAKO UENO

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apanese convenience store owners who have been fighting for a break from their grueling 24-hour, 365-day-a-year operations may be closer to shorter opening hours.

In a report Wednesday, Japan’s Fair Trade Commission took the industry’s top chains to task for business practices that have generated enormous profits by pushing growing operating costs onto franchise owners.

The report, which was based on a survey of more than 8,400 convenience store franchisees, detailed numerous problems with the companies’ business models, starting from the franchisee recruitment process and extending to the most fundamental aspects of store management.

It is the most comprehensive examination to date of an industry that is as opaque as it is ubiquitous. Companies like 7-Eleven, Lawson and FamilyMart have closely guarded their business practices, including from their own franchisees, making it difficult to ascertain the extent of the issues facing them.

Among the most serious problems cited by the report were companies’ coercing franchisees into buying more products than they could sell, pushing them to maintain 24/7 operating hours and making misleading recruitment promises to store owners about the prospects for their new businesses.

The commission warned that those practices, among others, may have run afoul of Japan’s antimonopoly law by “abusing a superior bargaining position.” It requested that the country’s eight leading convenience store chains submit a plan for taking corrective measures. The commission also said it would seek further information about possible legal violations by the companies.

Convenience stores are ubiquitous in Japan, with more than 55,000 locations so widely spread throughout the nation that the government considers them part of the national infrastructure.

But the industry has come under heavy scrutiny in recent years after allegations by franchisees that companies have used strong arm tactics to force them to overstock their stores and maintain 24/7 operations, leading some short-handed and overworked owners to collapse from exhaustion.

In early 2019, the decision by Mitoshi Matsumoto, a 7-Eleven franchise owner in the Osaka area, to close his store in defiance of company policy set off a media frenzy and

put the issue in the spotlight. The trade commission began its inquiry nearly one year ago, amid mounting public pressure on the industry to change its practices.

7-Eleven severed Matsumoto’s contract in December after he decided to close his shop for the New Year’s holiday. The company has said the decision was made in response to customer complaints. The matter is now the subject of competing lawsuits.

Reached by phone, Matsumoto — who has been working as a carpenter since losing his store — said that while he was encouraged by the commission’s report, he was concerned that big companies like 7-Eleven would still be able to avoid making major changes to their practices.

“If we don’t end the battle here and win a decisive victory, I think that the current situation will just drag on,” he said.

In a statement, 7-Eleven said that it accepted the commission’s findings and “is working toward improving,” adding that it had set up a team to address and resolve the issues raised in the report.

The company, which came under Japanese ownership in 1991, accounts for nearly 40% of convenience stores nationwide.

Companies have already begun to make some changes. 7-Eleven changed its fee structure in March to increase the amount of revenue retained by franchisees. And companies across the industry have begun to allow some stores to shorten their hours in response to public pressure, a change that has been accelerated by the pandemic.

The commission’s report will be a “weapon” for owners who have been afraid to demand their rights, said Reiji Kamakura, the leader of the Convenience Store Union, a small group that has struggled to grow in the face of industry opposition.

“It will back up those owners who haven’t been able to show courage,” he said, adding that “they will start demanding vacation and other things, one after another.”

A 7-Eleven store inTokyo, April 22, 2020.

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

13 Stocks

Wall Street tumbles on tech selloff, recovery worries

W

all Street’s main indexes tumbled on Thursday, heading for their worst day since June as investors dumped high-flying technology-focused stocks, while economic data highlighted concerns about a long and difficult recovery.

Shares of Facebook Inc (FB.O), Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), Microsoft Inc (MSFT.O) and Google-parent Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) sank between 4.9% and 7%.

The five stocks, deemed stay-at-home winners during the coronavirus crisis, account for nearly a quarter of the S&P 500’s market capitalization and have driven the stock market’s narrow technology-led recovery from the pandemic lows hit in March.

The NYSE FANG+TM Index .NYFANG, which includes the core FAANG stocks, shed 5.5%, putting it on track for its biggest one-day decline since March 16.

The Philadelphia chip index .SOX and the S&P tech sector .SPLRCT also dropped about 5% each, with investors also booking profits ahead of the Labor Day long weekend.

“Some of the stocks have gotten a little pricey, and what the actual cause is to spark this selloff is difficult to say,” said Randy Frederick, vice-president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin.

“The leading sector for quite a long time has been the Nasdaq, which is very heavily weighted in technology stocks so people just saw this as an opportunity to take the profits off the table.”

The pullback in stocks comes a day after the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed at record levels and the Dow came within 1.5% of its February peak, powered by unprecedented fiscal and monetary support.

Earlier in the day, data showed the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, but remained extraordinarily high. The closely watched monthly payrolls report is set for Friday Separately, a survey showed U.S. services industry growth slowed in August, likely as the boost from the reopening of businesses and fiscal stimulus faded.

Wall Street’s fear gauge crossed its 200-day moving average to hit its highest level in seven weeks.

At 12:44 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was down 692.33 points, or 2.38%, at 28,408.17, the S&P 500 .SPX was down 114.67 points, or 3.20%, at 3,466.17. The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC was down 563.63 points, or 4.67%, at 11,492.81.

“The prevalent attitude in the market now is that this is a healthy correction,” said Mike Zigmont, head of trading and research at Harvest Volatility Management in New York.

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14

September 4-6, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Putin adversary Navalny was poisoned with nerve agent

Aleksei Navalny, the Russian politician, activist and blogger, photographed in his offices in Moscow in 2014.

By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ and MELISSA EDDY

S

oon after a private plane carrying the poisoned Russian opposition leader, Alexei A. Navalny, touched down in Berlin last month, doctors treating him at the prestigious Charité hospital there became so alarmed, they called in the army.

Navalny was certainly not suffering from low blood sugar, as the Russian doctors who first treated his mysterious illness had claimed, or even a standard detective-novel poison like arsenic or cyanide.

It was, the German doctors suspected, something far more dangerous, requiring the attention of the army’s chemical weapons specialists, German officials said.

On Wednesday, the German government confirmed the doctors’ fears: Navalny, 44, had been poisoned with a militarygrade nerve agent from the Novichok family, a potent class of chemical weapon developed by the Soviet Union that was used at

least once before in recent years in an attack on a Kremlin enemy.

Navalny remains in critical but stable condition at the Charité hospital, in a medically induced coma.

The Novichok revelation, which the German government said was based on “unequivocal evidence,” provided the strongest indication yet that the Kremlin, which has denied involvement, was behind the poisoning, as Western intelligence agencies have assessed that only the Russian government would likely have access to such a dangerous weapon.

That thrust what had begun as a domestic Russian political scandal into the international arena, with serious implications for Moscow’s relations with the West.

Already, the German government has briefed its allies in the European Union and NATO, and plans to provide information about its findings to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the world’s chemical weapons watchdog. All day Wednesday, Western governments issued condemnations of Russia, with the United States raising the possibility of imposing financial sanctions on those involved.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who over the years has taken pains to preserve Germany’s diplomatic relations with the Kremlin, took the unusual step Wednesday of publicly calling Russia out.

“Mr. Navalny has been the victim of a crime,” Merkel in a statement. “It raises very serious questions that only the Russian government can and must answer.”

Russia is unlikely to provide such answers.

On Wednesday, the Kremlin said it had not been informed of Germany’s findings before they were announced, Russian state news outlet Tass reported.

“No, such information was not conveyed to us,” said the presidential spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov. He added that Russian doctors had found no evidence of any poisonous substances in Navalny’s system before he was moved to Germany.

German officials said the Russian ambassador had been briefed around the same time the findings were made public.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun said Wednesday that American officials found the German conclusion about the use of Novichok “very credible” and “deeply concerning.” He said Washington was discussing a response with Germany and other allies.

It is unclear what Western governments can do to curtail such behavior. Despite years of escalating sanctions, expulsions of diplomats and international isolation, the Kremlin, according to Western intelligence agencies, continues to act concertedly to undermine U.S. and European institutions and violate international norms.

Attacks against the Kremlin’s enemies both in Russia and abroad have also become increasingly brazen. In 2015, Boris Nemtsov, who was Navalny’s predecessor at the helm of Russia’s opposition, was shot dead on a bridge near Red Square, just outside the Kremlin walls.

An attacker doused Navalny with a green liquid in 2017 that damaged his sight. In December, a former Chechen rebel commander was shot to death in a park in Berlin.

And in March 2018, operatives from Russia’s military intelligence service, known as the GRU, traveled to Britain, where they poisoned Sergei V. Skripal, a former GRU officer who had served prison time in Russia for spying for the British before being traded in a spy swap.

At the time, few in the world had heard of Novichok, a nerve agent that Soviet chemists devised for battlefield use.

With the substance again being used, this time to poison the Russian government’s most visible opponent, critics accused the Kremlin of thumbing its nose at its opponents both at home and abroad.

“In 2020, poisoning Navalny with Novichok is the same as leaving an autograph at the scene of the crime,” Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s chief of staff, wrote on Twitter.

The Navalny case also sends an unmistakable message from Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, at time when Russians are holding enormous protests in the country’s Far East and prodemocracy forces have flooded the streets in neighboring Belarus, said John Sipher, a former chief of station for the CIA, who was once posted to Russia.

“In a country that’s ruled by fear you need to send signals to the population about what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable,” Sipher said. “They want to make it clear to the people inside that if you screw with the czar, you’re going to get killed.”

Navalny, the most persistent critic of Putin, fell ill Aug. 20, on a flight back to Moscow, after spending several days meeting with opposition candidates in Novosibirsk, Siberia’s largest city. He had been promoting a strategy aimed at drawing support away from the dominant United Russia party before nationwide municipal elections Sept. 13.

His plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, another Siberian city, where he was first hospitalized. He was flown to Berlin two days later.

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

15

BBC lost a battle over British songs, and the war is far from over

By MARK LANDLER

I

t had all the ingredients for a juicy skirmish in Britain’s simmering culture war, so when the BBC announced last week that it would strip the lyrics from two popular patriotic songs in its telecast of a beloved annual concert, Conservative leaders predictably lined up to express their outrage.

“It’s time we stopped our cringing embarrassment about our history, about our traditions, and about our culture, and we stopped this general bout of self-recrimination and wetness,” said Prime Minister Boris Johnson to reporters, adding with an indignant flourish, “I wanted to get that off my chest.”

On Wednesday, the BBC reversed itself, announcing it had decided to have a small choir sing the words to “Rule, Britannia!” and “Land of Hope and Glory” after all. Critics say the lyrics evoke a British colonial, imperialist past that is at odds with the values of the Black Lives Matter movement that has spread across the Atlantic.

The BBC insisted its original decision had been driven less by politics than by its inability, because of the coronavirus pandemic, to gather an audience to sing along. But after a backlash fueled by the government and pro-government newspapers, it said in a contrite statement, “We hope everyone will welcome this solution.”

Score another point for the government in its feud with Britain’s revered, but embattled public broadcaster. And though the BBC’s viewer numbers have been as strong as ever, the decision was only the most visible setback for the broadcaster, which faces commercial as well as cultural headwinds.

In Parliament on Wednesday, Johnson hinted that the government would soon roll out a plan to overhaul the BBC that would address the compulsory license fee that finances much of its operations. Critics would like to see the fee abolished, which would throw the BBC’s future into question.

Meanwhile, two billionaire media moguls are hatching plans for 24-hour news channels that would be politically opinionated, bringing the model of Fox News to a market dominated by the BBC’s studied impartiality.

“The BBC is uniquely vulnerable at this moment,” said Alan Rusbridger, a former editor-in-chief of the Guardian newspaper.

“There is a convergence of interests between the government and media owners in dama-

The BBC reversed its decision to strip the lyrics from two patriotic songs set to be performed at the Proms this month. ging the BBC. For them, this story is almost too good to be true.”

The Proms, as the series of BBC-sponsored classical music concerts is known, ends Sept. 12 with an evening that has become famous for its rousing rendition of “Land of Hope and Glory,” sung as part of a performance of Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance March,” as well as the anthem “Rule, Britannia!”

Thousands of spectators in Royal Albert Hall, as well as in Hyde Park outside, wave Union Jacks as they belt the chorus, “Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves! Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.”

Such jingoistic appeals give some people pause at a time when crowds have marched in Britain’s streets to protest the killing of George Floyd by the police in Minneapolis.

Demonstrators in Bristol tore down the statue of a 17th-century slave trader, Edward Colston; others vandalized a memorial to Winston Churchill. The British Museum moved a bust of one of its founders, Hans Sloane, from a plinth in a main gallery to a display case because he was a slave trader.

Johnson and other critics have struck back at those who defaced Churchill and banished Sloane, saying they are erasing British history and surrendering to the pressure of a “woke” mob. The BBC is high on the list of those they accuse of political correctness — or, in British parlance, of being “wet.”

In such a febrile atmosphere, analysts said the BBC should have anticipated how its decision would reverberate. “Was it naive

not to think it wouldn’t play out as part of the culture wars?” said Meera Selva, director of the Reuters Journalism Fellowship Program at Oxford University.

But Selva said the real threat to the BBC would come if the government follows through on a proposal to stop prosecuting people for failing to pay the license fee. Officials argue that nonpayment of other such fees is handled in civil, not criminal, proceedings. They say the fee, which is currently £157.50 ($209) a year, falls disproportionately on older people, who can least afford to pay it.

Despite its hostility toward the BBC, the Johnson government has yet to move on

this proposal — a delay that may reflect its preoccupation with dealing with the coronavirus rather than any softening of its views.

Some analysts said the government’s botched handling of the pandemic had weakened its ability to go after an institution that, for all its detractors, remains enduringly popular.

“You have to have a lot of vim for this,” said Claire Enders, a London-based media analyst. “The government is on its back foot.

Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings were sustaining a lot of this, but they have lost a lot of steam,” she added, referring to Johnson’s powerful chief adviser.

The pandemic also served to remind Britons of the value of a credible public broadcaster. Viewership of BBC’s news programs spiked at the height of the outbreak in March, though its ratings have returned to more normal levels since. The BBC remains far more trusted than the rest of the British media, drawing high marks across the political spectrum and with viewers of all ages and income levels.

Still, as the reflexive outrage over “Rule, Britannia!” and the Proms shows, picking a fight with the BBC will always be tempting to the Johnson government. And in the end, it is an unfair battle.

“The BBC can’t really fight back because of its commitment to impartiality,” said Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford. “That makes it quite a useful punching bag for old, mainly white, men who want to make a point by punching it.”

16

September 4-6, 2020

After Afghan women asked #WhereIsMyName, a small victory

By MUJIB MASHAL and NAJIM RAHIM

A

fghan citizens will soon have their mothers’ names printed along with their fathers’ on their national identification cards, the government said Tuesday, after years of campaigning by activists to do away with the shame associated with female names in public.

The victory, even if symbolic, is seen as a small boost for women’s rights at a time when the future of women’s role in Afghan society hangs in the balance amid imminent government negotiations over a power-sharing deal with the Taliban. When it was in national power in the 1990s, the Taliban’s Islamist government largely confined

women to their homes and stripped them of basic rights like education and paid employment.

Afghanistan has made major improvements in expanding women’s role in public in the two decades since the toppling of the Taliban. Millions of girls attend schools and universities across the country, and women hold important government jobs. But activists say a misogyny justified by religiosity still runs deep, with the Taliban’s bullying of women emblematic of a wider problem.

The old Afghan taboo over women in public runs so deep that young schoolboys often get into fights if someone even mentions the name of their mother or sister, an act seen as a dis-

Afghan citizens will soon have their mothers’ names printed along with their fathers’ on their national identification cards, the government said on Tuesday, after years of campaigning by activists to do away with the shame associated with female names in public.

honor. In a country of war and widows, women struggle to assert themselves as legal guardians of their children in government offices or carry out business transactions in their own names without the presence of a man. Even most women’s graves never include their names — only those of male relatives.

The Afghan Cabinet’s legal committee headed by one of the country’s two vice presidents, Sarwar Danish, said a proposal to amend the census law to include the mother’s name on the national identity card had been approved in a committee meeting Tuesday. While the amendment still requires parliamentary approval and signing into law by the president, a spokesman for the vice president said officials expected those steps to be smooth.

“The amendment changes the definition of identity — the new identity would comprise of the person’s name, last name, father’s name, mother’s name, and date of birth,” said the spokesman, Mohamed Hedayat. “In the old definition, mother’s name was not part of the identity.”

Afghanistan lacks an accurate census of its population, with the last one conducted in the 1970s, before four decades of war and upheaval. The country introduced a long-delayed electronic ID system in 2018 with iris and biometric scans to help law enforcement better identify citizens. But the process of issuing the IDs quickly faced controversy over whether an individual’s ethnic group should also be included.

Rights activists saw an opportunity in the debate: While ethnic groups were jostling for recognition, women — roughly half of the country’s popula-

tion, and representing all ethnicities — had long been long denied their basic identities, and the cards offered a new opportunity on that front. A hashtag campaign on social media, #WhereIsMyName?, was already underway, and it quickly began gaining ground.

While Afghan social media has been full of celebration since Tuesday over the announced change, many also feared that its introduction would deter people in conservative rural areas from registering for the national identity cards.

Laleh Osmany, one of the earliest supporters of the #WhereIsMyName? campaign in western Herat province, said they were fighting a deeply rooted misogyny that used religion as cover.

From a young age, girls are conditioned to believe they are an appendix to a man, known in relation to the men in their families, with no independent identity of their own.

“Most of the limitations on women in society have not foundation in religion, and I realized the depth of that in my four years as a student of Islamic law,” Osmany said. “In Islam, there is nothing that limits women’s identity.

But in our society they associate every limitation — even on women’s identity — with religion.”

The change to the ID system “is about restoring the most basic and natural right of women that they are denied,” Osmany said. “By printing her name, we give the mother power, and the law gives her certain authorities to be a mother who can, without the presence of a man, get documents for her children, enroll her children in school, travel.”

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

17

India bans 118 Chinese apps as Indian soldier is killed on disputed border

By SAMEER YASIR and HARI KUMAR

I

ndia banned more Chinese phone apps on Wednesday as tensions continue to escalate along its disputed border with China, with one Indian soldier reportedly killed earlier this week by a Chinese land mine.

The Indian government has blocked Chinese apps from its huge domestic market as a way to strike back against China, and the new measures will prevent Indians from gaining easy access to 118 Chinese apps, including the popular video game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, which has over 50 million players in India.

Some of the banned Chinese apps, including Baidu, Alipay and some versions of the messaging app WeChat, are operated by the largest Chinese internet companies, like Tencent and Ant Financial. Many of these companies see India as an avenue of growth.

“This decision is a targeted move to ensure safety, security and sovereignty of Indian cyberspace,” said a statement issued Wednesday by India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

China and India have been locked in a bitter border dispute for months — though the roots of the conflict go back decades — and tensions sharply rose in June, after Chinese forces beat to death 20 Indian soldiers in brawl.

Both countries have pushed thousands of reinforcements toward the frontier, which winds 2,100 miles through the Himalayas and other mountain ranges. The troops are supported with tanks, artillery, helicopters and fighter jets.

After the clashes in June, which involved hundreds of soldiers battling each other with rocks, sticks, clubs and bare fists, India banned 59 mobile apps including TikTok, ShareIt and Tencent’s WeChat, citing security concerns.

At the same time, a wave of anti-China sentiment swept across India, with Indians taking to the streets in

Children playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds in Hyderabad, India. some places and crushing Chinese-made televisions, plastic tricycles and other products to show their anger.

On Wednesday, the Indian government extended the number of banned apps to include PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds — known as PUBG — and other gaming apps like Rise of Kingdoms and Zakzak. An app that reads business cards was also banned.

The government said it had received complaints that Indian users’ personal data had been stolen.

The government did not link the ban to the recent killing of an Indian soldier along the border. While the death has been widely reported in Indian news media, the government has provided no details of what happened, or even confirmed that it lost a soldier.

According to some military officers, the soldier

was a member of a secretive force of exiled Tibetans in India who are deployed for high-altitude warfare.

Ajai Shukla, a retired Indian army colonel and defense analyst, wrote on his blog that on Tuesday, an Indian army officer handed over the soldier’s body to his wife, telling her the circumstances of his death had to remain secret.

It’s not clear if the soldier’s death, attributed in news reports to a land mine, is connected to a standoff that took place earlier this week on the shores of Pangong Lake along the border, which is known as the Line of Actual Control. Troops from both sides yelled at each other and surged to within a yard or two of each other before commanding officers pulled them apart.

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September 4-6, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

Can America survive 2020?

By FARHAD MANJOO

M

y wife, Helen, and I got into a quarrel the other day about how to plan for America’s bleak future. Our family needs to replace an aging car, but I’ve been hesitant, wary of making any new financial commitments as the nation accelerates into the teeth of political chaos or cataclysm. What if, after the election, we need to make a run for it? Why squander spare cash on a new car?

Helen thinks I’m being alarmist — that I’m LARPing “The Handmaid’s Tale,” nursing some revolutionary fantasy of escape from Gilead. But I think she — like a lot of other white, Gen X native-born Americans who’ve known mostly domestic peace and stability — is being entirely too blasé about the approaching storm.

As an immigrant who escaped to America from apartheid-era South Africa, I feel that I’ve cultivated a sharper appreciation for political trouble. To me, the signs on the American horizon are flashing blood red.

Armed political skirmishes are erupting on the streets, and scholars are tracking a rise in violence and instability as the election draws near. Gun sales keep shattering records. Mercifully, I suppose, there’s a nationwide shortage of ammo. Then there is the pandemic, mass unemployment, natural disasters on every coast, intense racial and partisan polarization, and not a little bit of lockdown-induced collec-

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tive stir craziness.

There’s also this: Helen skipped the Republican convention. I watched it wall-to-wall, and it drove me to despair. In that four-night celebration of Trumpism, I caught a frightening glimpse of the ugly end of America, an authoritarian cult in full flower, and I am not keen to stick around much longer to see if my terrifying premonition pans out.

I want you to know that I am straining, here, to resist partisan squabbling. There was a lot for a lefty like myself to dislike about the Republican confab, but what shook me was not any particular policy goal but instead the convention’s Peronist aesthetics and the unembarrassed profligacy of lies.

The convention certainly intensified my worries about a Trump reelection. Unloosed from all checks, a two-term Trump would, I fear, usher in a reign by his clan for long into the future. (Trump has repeatedly “joked” about serving beyond a second term.)

But the Republican convention also quickened my worries about American democracy even in the event that he loses. If Trumpism has charmed a sizable minority of Americans, and if the Trump dynasty retains its mass appeal, will America ever move on? Even if the country can get as far as a peaceful transition of power, can we expect anything like a functioning federal government beyond the inauguration?

In a new book, “Presidents, Populism and the Crisis of Democracy,” political scientists William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe argue that Trumpism is largely a symptom of growing populist disaffection with the American government’s inability to solve people’s problems. Even if Trump does lose, they argue, our democracy will still face serious questions about its viability. I asked Moe, a professor at Stanford, how America might recover from this damage.

“It’s not clear that we can,” he told me. “I think the Republicans, for now, are an anti-democracy party.” Their only

chance of political survival is to continue to “make the country as undemocratic as they can so that they can win elections.”

The party’s complete submission to Trump was on full display at the convention. It adopted a platform that was essentially no new platform other than to “enthusiastically support the president’s America-first agenda.” There was no mention of Obamacare, the repeal of which was once a Republican policy obsession. There wasn’t a single reference to the number of Americans who’ve died from the coronavirus, nor even a passing recognition of the threats of a changing climate.

Instead, we saw a dynastic cult of personality: Of the six convention speakers who spoke for longer than 10 minutes, four were Trumps.

Then there was the blizzard of lies. The convention represented a new low in collective artifice and delusion. These weren’t lies about obscure details or matters of interpretation.

These lies cut to the bone and marrow of reality — the rendering in the past tense of a pandemic that is still killing about a thousand Americans a day, or the description of an economy that is in the worst downturn since the Great Depression as roaring on all cylinders. How did the party get low-income New Yorkers to praise Trump? They simply tricked them into participating.

It’s not the lies themselves that worry me most, but the fact that millions of people might accept them. Can America endure such mendacity? When you don’t have social trust, when you don’t have a shared view of reality, do you even have a country?

This week, I asked my Twitter followers if they shared my growing alarm over the state of American democracy.

Were they, like me, contemplating the coming unraveling of America?

I was surprised and dismayed to find I was hardly alone.

Dozens of people responded saying they worried about the outright rigging of the race, the potential for violence over a disputed election, and the abandonment of democratic norms.

Nancy Bermeo, an emeritus professor of politics at Princeton who studies the erosion of democracies — what scholars call “democratic backsliding” — told me that she sees some reasons for optimism that American democratic norms may survive Trump. Recent polls show the military is increasingly critical of Trump — a positive sign if you’re worried about extra-democratic power grabs. The United States also still has a free press, and there remains widespread support of the basic ideals of democracy.

Still, there is more than enough reason for alarm.

“There’s no doubt that there’s serious democratic backsliding going on,” she told me. “He’s doing things that are reminiscent of authoritarians in much less-developed countries with much shorter histories of competitive politics.”

In looking for reasons for consolation, she added, “I’m grasping for hope.”

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

19

Organizaciones de servidores públicos inician campaña electoral en defensa de las pensiones Por THE STAR

C

onstruyamos Otro Acuerdo (COA) y el Frente en Defensa de las Pensiones anunciaron este jueves el lanzamiento de la campaña electoral “Mi Pensión, Mi Decisión” con el propósito de que los aspirantes a la gobernación, la legislatura y las alcaldías, se comprometan a convertir en ley el Proyecto que crea la Ley para un Retiro Digno (PC 2434) y el proyecto que crea el Sistema de Retiro de la Universidad de Puerto Rico (PC 2572).

La campaña cuyo objetivo principal es informar a los pensionados y servidores públicos activos sobre los aspirantes a puestos electivos que están comprometidos con las pensiones y los derechos laborales comienza exactamente a dos meses de las elecciones generales.

“Hoy, a dos meses de las elecciones, queremos dejar claro que 167,000 pensionados y 120,000 trabajadores activos del gobierno no permitiremos que se siga jugando con nuestro futuro. Por esta razón, empezamos una campaña de educación que busca lograr que aquellos que aspiren a candidaturas en la legislatura y la gobernación se comprometan a apoyar una agenda de cero recortes a las pensiones y apoyo incondicional a los trabajadores y trabajadores del país. Exigimos que todo

aquel que quiera nuestro apoyo incluyan en sus respectivos programas de gobierno un compromiso a la ley que crea la Ley para un Retiro Digno y el proyecto que crea el Sistema de Retiro de la Universidad de Puerto Rico. ¡Que se sepa que con nuestro retiro no se juega!”, indicó Sonia Palacios, portavoz de COA en comunicación escrita.

Adicional a la solicitud de compromisos, la campaña cuenta con un plan de trabajo adaptado a la pandemia del coronavirus en el cual los pensionados coordinarán breves entrevistas con los candidatos a la gobernación y algunos candidatos

a la legislatura de los cinco partidos inscritos y candidatos independientes.

“Estaremos realizando breves entrevistas las cuales se transmitirán en vivo a través de las redes sociales de todos los grupos que componen el Frente y COA. Además, hemos elaborado un calendario de actividades y seguimiento que incluye bancos de correos electrónicos y llamadas semanales y publicaciones informando quienes se están uniendo a nuestro reclamo de cara a las elecciones generales”, añadió Palacios.

Ambos proyectos fueron aprobados por unanimidad tanto en la Cámara de Representantes, como en el Senado de Puerto Rico durante la última Sesión Ordinaria. Sin embargo, durante el cierre de Sesión, el Senado incluyó enmiendas que perjudicaban los objetivos principales de las medidas.

“Ante esta esta agenda inconclusa buscamos un compromiso genuino y contundente de los aspirantes a puestos públicos en las próximas elecciones. Los aspirantes tienen que demostrar su voluntad y compromiso para establecer que las pensiones son primero que los bonistas. No obstante, si la gobernadora convoca una sesión extraordinaria, vamos a impulsar la aprobación de los proyectos en el senado y nos mantenemos en la disponibilidad de

dialogar con el Presidente Rivera Schatz.” expresó Emilio Nieves, presidente de la Central Puertorriqueña de Trabajadores “Nada nos va a detener en este esfuerzo. Desde la Asamblea de Pensionados realizada en el mes de febrero se aprobó un plan de trabajo con el propósito de desarrollar las acciones necesarias para que los aspirantes a puestos electivos se comprometan con los proyectos que viabilizan la protección de las pensiones presentes y futuras.” señaló por su parte Pedro Pastrana, del Capítulo de Pensionados de la Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico.

Durante la conferencia de prensa, los coautores originales del actual Proyecto de la Cámara 2434, los representantes Luis Vega Ramos, Manuel Natal y Dennis Marquez estuvieron presentes y firmaron el compromiso de “Mi Pension, Mi Decisión” reafirmando que de prevalecer las elecciones generales realizarán las acciones correspondientes para promover la aprobación de las medidas hasta lograr la firma del gobernador. La representante Lourdes Ramos por su parte, se excusó de la conferencia de prensa, no sin antes firmar el compromiso igual que sus colegas.

A este esfuerzo se suman sobre una decena de organizaciones sindicales que representan a servidores públicos activos y jubilados.

Profesionales de Enfermería se manifiestan ante muertes de enfermeras por COVID-19 Por THE STAR

U

n grupo de enfermeros, enfermeras y familiares se manifestaron el jueves en El Capitolio ante el problema de contagio y muertes registradas de estos profesionales de la salud.

Entre sus reclamos está la explotación laboral, falta de equipo de protección, ausencia de rastreo y pruebas para monitorear las condiciones de estos profesionales que están en la primera fila en la lucha contra la pandemia.

“En la actualidad atravesamos por una pandemia que ha cobrado seis (6) vidas de nuestras heroínas de enfermería y son más de 400 los casos positivos de contagio en estos profesionales de la salud. Los Profesionales de enfermería han sido ignorados en los esfuerzos para combatir la

pandemia Covid-19 además denunciamos la falta de materiales de seguridad, estos equipos han estado ausente en varios hospitales del país. Por otro lado, los directores de hospitales cuando comenzó la pandemia cesantearon 250 enfermeros y enfermeras, hoy en día luego de recibir un incentivo por parte del gobierno, no han vuelto a reclutar, causando agotamiento físico y mental en el personal de enfermería que se retuvo. Deseamos denunciar este maltrato al personal que tiene efectos colaterales en la ciudadanía”, expresó Juan Del Valle Figueroa, líder de FEPR en comunicación escrita.

Explicó que es urgente que se provea equipos de protección, reclutamiento de personal adicional y que los hospitales no están ofreciendo a su personal de enfermería un monitoreo de muestras de

Covid-19, no llevan un rastreo en su propio personal.

Del Valle añadió que “luego de 15 años sin aumento salarial, el gobierno de Wanda Vázquez aprobó un aumento, pero solo para tres categorías de enfermería, dejando fuera las maestrías y doctorados,

luego del cabildeo de la asociación con la gobernadora, los hospitales privados podrán emitir el aumento para el año 2023 y los hospitales públicos para el 2022. El aumento fue firmado con la presidenta del Colegio de Profesionales de Enfermería de Puerto Rico”.

20

September 4-6, 2020

The San Juan Daily Star

Lamorne Morris’ week: Watching ‘First things first’ and absorbing ‘The fire next time’

By KWAME OPAM

L

amorne Morris, the star of the new Hulu series “Woke,” which debuts Sept. 9, has had a lot on his mind.

The week of Aug. 23 was particularly disorienting. Amid the theatrics of the Republic National Convention, a Black man named Jacob Blake was shot by police officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Then, at demonstrations that followed, a 17-year-old white gunman was charged in connection with the fatal shootings of two people. NBA players walked out in protest. It all has had a bewildering effect on Morris.

Morris is at home in comedies, known for his work on seven seasons of “New Girl.”

That his new series is so painfully relevant is something he’s still processing. “Woke,” by cartoonist Keith Knight and screenwriter Marshall Todd, follows Morris as Keef, a young artist just getting a taste of fame when he has a run-in with the San Francisco police. The experience forces Keef (with the help of the animated inanimate objects he encounters) to grapple with Blackness and power in America in a newly profound and profoundly weird way.

“I’ll be honest with you. Sometimes none of it feels real to me,” Morris said about the recent news reports — especially the shootings. “You look at it on the surface and you go, ‘No, there’s no way that would happen.’ If that doesn’t get anybody’s skin boiling, then I don’t know what will.”

Still, he’s trying to stay optimistic when he can. In a Zoom call in late August, he tracked the recent routines and cultural items that bring him some joy. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

A Sports Fan in Austin I had just got to Austin, Texas. I’m here on some personal matters, some business, all kinds of stuff. But I’m a huge basketball fan.

My process is I’ll watch a game and then I love hearing what the sports analysts say the very next day. I just binged “Undisputed” — Shannon Sharpe and Skip Bayless. “First Things First” with Nick Wright. Chris Broussard. Colin Cowherd. These are my people. Stephen A. Smith, that’s my guy. I’m always curious as to what it is that they’re saying about my favorite sports teams, mainly basketball, and I’ll just watch highlights. Because basketball is now being played in August, which is crazy to me, and then September, this is a whole new world

The actor Lamorne Morris, known for his work on the comedy “New Girl,” in Austin, Texas, Aug. 26, 2020. for me.

Now, obviously, there’s an election coming up too, so I’ve been bingeing a lot on the conventions that have happened. Just trying to catch up on those things, because throughout the course of the day, I’m usually working or running around.

Creative Endeavors I’m trying to create an animated series right now. So I just find myself diving into a little bit of that, a little bit of “Rick and Morty,” tons of “Family Guy.” Those are the things that were driving me this past weekend, on that front. Some buddies of mine and I are developing an animated film on another front. So just diving into more of those types of shows, movies like “Toy Story,” “Cars,” things like that.

So just checking stuff out, to do more research.

But my mom’s in town, too, so we got a chance to get out a little bit. We got some barbecue here, and by get out, I mean, we drove, ordered, they came to our car, gave us the food and we drove off. We haven’t really been into any establishments like that but drove around a little bit just to see some of the area. It’s my mom’s first time here.

Downtime I watch comedies. “Ramy” is one of those shows on Hulu that has more than just jokes to it, so I usually lean toward some of those shows that leave each episode with a cliffhanger. I really loved “High Fidelity.” It was sad to see that one go. But the real dark

British shows, I really love those. I think “The Five” was a show that I loved watching. If Harlan Coben did it, I’m all about watching it.

A Chaotic World The shift came with Jacob Blake [news of the shooting broke that day]. Once that happened, it was like, “My goodness.” You start to think a show like [“Woke”] will always be timely, because this type of stuff keeps happening. So my mind moved away from the show a little bit and more on what else could be done or what’s happening. That’s where my mind has been. When you open the door, the world around you is chaotic. So it’s hard to stay focused, but we’re making do as best as we can.

Reason for Hope For me, I’m clueless and aimless as to what to do now that there’s no basketball happening, but if there was a silver lining outside of this, I’m all for it. [NBA play was halted for three days last month in the aftermath of the shooting.] Let me tell you something. I’m miserable. Hopefully things start to resume quickly, just because I just like watching basketball.

However, I’m a huge fan of what they’re doing.

If they want to boycott the rest of the season, that’s perfectly fine with me. As long as there’s a plan in place, and as long as it’s getting the

attention from the people and the powers that be.

You still keep thinking about the people out there who are being affected by all kinds of things, not just the racial injustice. There are people out of work right now. There are people who don’t have the ability to vote. It’s people all over the world that have ever been going through this type of stuff. All these things are at the forefront of my mind, but there’s other things going on that I want to focus on, but you just can’t. I’ll be honest with you. I’m a little cloudy. I do see a light at the end of the tunnel.

I’m very optimistic about where we are. I think more and more young people are engaged.

Today, it’s cloudy, but it’s a light cloud. Light cloud, no chance of rain.

The Last Few Nights It’s usually just saying good night to my mom. Once I say good night to my mom and I go to my room, then that’s the end. I’ll put YouTube on; if I haven’t seen the highlights, I’ll check the highlights out, and that’s how I fall asleep.

The last two days have been slightly different. Someone suggested something for me: “The Fire Next Time.” I just got the audiobook.

So I feel like that’s going to be how I end every night, just so I can take all that in.

The actor, who stars in the new Hulu series “Woke,” spends his days watching basketball highlights and trying to stay focused on what’s next.

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

21

Prince Harry and Meghan sign megawatt Netflix deal

By BROOKS BARNES

P

rince Harry and his wife, Meghan, having resettled in California, on Wednesday unveiled new Hollywood careers.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have founded a yet-to-be-named production company and signed a multiyear deal with Netflix, which will pay them to make documentaries, docu-series, feature films, scripted shows and children’s programming — giving the couple a global platform six months after their dramatic decampment from the House of Windsor.

Harry and Meghan may appear on camera in documentary programming. But she has no plans to return to acting, according to a representative. She last appeared in the cable drama “Suits” in 2018.

“Our focus will be on creating content that informs but also gives hope,” the couple said in a statement. “As new parents, making inspirational family programming is also important to us.” They added that Netflix’s “unprecedented reach will help us share impactful content that unlocks action.” Their productions will be exclusive to Netflix, which has 193 million subscribers worldwide.

It is unclear how much Harry and Meghan will be paid, given their lack of producing experience. A Netflix spokeswoman declined to comment.

The streaming service, however, is known for backing up Brink’s trucks when it wants to be in business with high-profile people, particularly when other entertainment companies also want their services.

In recent months, Harry and Meghan have

The next chapter in the saga of Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, will take place largely in the entertainment business. quietly talked with Disney and Apple. Two executives involved in those discussions said representatives for the couple at one point were seeking a deal in the neighborhood of $100 million. Variety reported last month that the couple had also met with NBCUniversal.

Harry and Meghan have been living in the Los Angeles area since March, staying for a time at a Beverly Hills mansion owned by Tyler Perry and delivering food to the needy during the early part of the coronavirus pandemic. They soon filed an invasion of privacy lawsuit against tabloid photographers, saying that paparazzi had flown drones overhead in an extreme effort to capture images of their son, Archie, who

turned 1 in May. Harry, 35, and Meghan, 39, have since bought a $14.7 million home in Montecito, an oceanside enclave located about an hour north of Malibu where Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres also have estates.

“We’re incredibly proud they have chosen Netflix as their creative home and are excited about telling stories with them that can help build resilience and increase understanding for audiences everywhere,” Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-chief executive and chief content officer, said in a statement.

Netflix is under pressure to keep its pipelines flowing as it competes for viewers with Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, Hulu, Peacock and the traditional

broadcast networks. Family programming is particularly important to Netflix, and Harry and Meghan already have an animated series in development which is focused on inspiring women. Last week, Netflix released “Rising Phoenix,” a documentary about the Paralympic Games; Harry, who founded the Invictus Games for wounded veterans, appears in the film.

The production company being established by Harry and Meghan will operate independently from their charitable foundation, which is called Archewell. The couple shut down their previous philanthropic endeavor, SussexRoyal, in March after they agreed to stop using the term “royal” for commercial or charitable activities.

Harry and Meghan — beloved by millions of fans, who see them as daring and modern, and reviled by an equally vehement faction, which sees their royaltyspurning actions as unbecoming — have long been expected to set up shop in Hollywood. Before he gave up his Royal Highness title, Harry signed on for a project with Winfrey and Apple TV+ involving mental health. And Meghan provided narration for “Elephant,” a nature documentary that arrived on Disney+ in April.

In January, a video resurfaced of Harry that had been recorded by a fan in July 2019 at the London premiere for “The Lion King.”

It caught the prince talking up his wife’s vocal talent to Robert Iger, then Disney’s chief executive. As with seemingly everything related to Meghan, the video created a stir online, prompting representatives to clarify that the duchess had been approached to narrate “Elephant” before Harry’s red-carpet schmooze.

22

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

There’s more to German wine than riesling

Twelve wine bottles of German riesling under $20 in Newburgh, N.Y. on Aug. 12, 2020. Germany produces a host of great wines, made from grapes both famous and little known. Often, they are produced in small lots and are great values.

By ERIC ASIMOV

P

lunging into German riesling is like a great high dive into a pool of dazzling wines — graceful, complex and utterly delicious.

Some people gladly leap over the edge. Others hang back, mistakenly believing that all rieslings are sweet or shrinking from the supposedly indecipherable nomenclature of German wine labels.

Regardless of where they stand, most consumers share the perception that riesling represents the entirety of German wine.

But a whole other Germany exists, of myriad reds, rosés and whites that make clear that riesling is only part of that nation’s wine story. These wines offer many of the joys that attract riesling lovers. Best of all, they also are often great values.

Yet, astoundingly, these wines are practically unknown in the United States except to a tiny band of importers who seek them out and a small group of aficionados who adore them.

Count me among them. Inspired by a delicious German pinot blanc I found for a recent 20 Under $20 column, I shopped at Manhattan wine stores and came up with 12 superb bottles that demonstrate the appeal of German wines beyond riesling.

Some of these wines might seem familiar, like pinot noir, although they may seem surprising to find in Germany, where the grape is often called spätburgunder.

Red wine in Germany? Pinot noir has been there since only the 13th century, when it was first planted along the Rhine by Cistercian monks, who performed the same good deed in Burgundy.

Pinot noir frequently struggled to ripen in the cool

German climate. It was often lean and pale, not unattractive but without much depth or complexity. But climate change, while a menace to humanity, has enhanced German pinot noir, as have improved farming methods and know-how.

Many other grapes are making delightful wines in Germany. They include pinot blanc, known as weissburgunder in German; blaufränkisch, which in Germany is generally called lemberger; silvaner, often rendered sylvaner; and trollinger, better known in Italian as schiava.

You’ll also find wholly obscure grapes like elbling and blauer portugieser, which have no aliases of note.

“Riesling is still the bench mark in Germany, the way Burgundy or Bordeaux is in France,” said Stephen Bitterolf, whose import company, Vom Boden, specializes in German wines, rieslings and beyond. “But I think what is happening is the realization that all of this other stuff has a deeper value that should be brought to the attention of the greater public.”

It wasn’t that long ago that a great wine homogenization seemed to be occurring around the world. Countries like Italy and Spain, rich with traditional wines, seemed to reject their indigenous grape varieties in favor of internationally known grapes like cabernet sauvignon, merlot and chardonnay.

In the last 20 years or so, these countries and many others — even the United States — have rediscovered the diversity of their grapes and wines, the breadth of which now seems to be cherished worldwide.

Germany, though, lagged behind. Riesling was always on an elevated plane, but other grapes, for the most part, were given the back of the market’s hand. Bitterolf calls it a “vicious circle of cheap wines.”

“You planted the grapes in the worst area, farmed

them badly, then you say, ‘These are terrible wines,’” he said.

There were exceptions, of course. Grape growers like Stefan Vetter sought out old vineyards of silvaner, for example, nursed them back to health and then proved how good the wines could be.

Bitterolf also cited younger wine consumers in Germany, who were more open to exploration, who embraced the notion that these grapes, once consigned to the cheapest shelves, could make excellent wines.

Germany, too, has not been untouched by the world’s embrace of natural wines. One of the great achievements of that movement has been the resurrection of indigenous grapes and local customs that had long been cast aside.

Some of the bottles I found fit squarely in the natural-wine category. They may not have been filtered or clarified, but they are absolutely delicious.

Along with a new cast of grapes, looking at Germany’s diversity also requires a new look at its wine geography beyond the quintet of prime riesling regions: Mosel, Rheingau, Pfalz, Nahe and Rheinhessen.

The wines I’ve chosen come from places like Ahr, a river valley that stretches southeast from Bonn, and Baden and Württemberg in the southwest, along with some of the more familiar regions.

Some of these producers don’t use the names of the appellations on their labels, preferring the generic term Landwein, just as many excellent producers use Vin de France in France or Vino di Tavola in Italy. In some cases it indicates nonconformity or a disdain for the hidebound bureaucracies that decide what’s an acceptable representation of a particular appellation.

One important thing to point out: These dozen bottles all come from small family producers. They will not be easy to find. If you have access to good wine shops, however, you may find many other German bottles beyond riesling.

Don’t hesitate to try them out. My choices are not at all intended to be seen as the best bottles. They are simply 12 excellent examples of German wines other than riesling.

Here they are, in order from least to most expensive.

Fürst Mosel Elbling Trocken 2018 $13.96 1 liter The Mosel is best known for its delicate, lacy rieslings, but this wine is made of elbling, an ancient grape that may have come to Germany with the Romans. It’s planted in the southernmost part of the Mosel Valley, near the Luxembourg border, which Anne Krebiehl, in her excellent book “The Wines of Germany,” calls “the relatively unknown Obermosel.” This Fürst family, not to be confused with the excellent producer Rudolf Fürst in the Franken region, has been making wine there since the 13th century. This bottle is fresh and gentle, yet vibrant and textured, refreshing and a great deal. (Willie

The San Juan Daily Star Glückstern Selections/Bowler Wine, New York) Jochen Beurer Württemberg Trollinger Trocken 2019 $21.99 Trollinger generally makes a light red wine that goes down easy. But this is no simply thirst-quencher, even if it is eminently glug-worthy. Although light and graceful, it still has plenty of spicy red fruit flavor with an underlying note of refreshing, stony bitterness that sends you back for another sip. It’s not Italian (some identify trollinger more with Italy than Germany), and it’s not what’s typically thought of as German, but perhaps it’s very much Württemberg, the area in southwestern Germany where this wine was produced. (Vom Boden, Brooklyn, New York) Stein Mosel Rosé Trocken 2019 $21.99 Ulrich Stein’s wines are among the most interesting and idiosyncratic I’ve seen from the Mosel region. I love them.

This is made from pinot noir, along with some of the few cabernet sauvignon and merlot vines in the region. It’s typical of Stein’s sense of intuition and experimentation to blend these grapes, which have no historical basis together, to make a rosé. This is light enough to drink poolside in the hot sun, yet full of flavor and character. (Vom Boden) Kraemer Franken Silvaner 2017 $21.99 I love silvaner, a perennially underrated grape. It can make straightforward, delightfully refreshing wines that are perfect for a warm-weather lunch. Beyond that, dedicated producers are exploring its potential. Stephan Kraemer is one of those producers, as is Stefan Vetter (see below). This bottle, however is Kraemer’s entrylevel wine, made simply of organically grown silvaner, fermented in steel tanks and not filtered or clarified. It’s subtle and delicious. (A Fatboy Selection/Super Glou, Brooklyn, New York) 2Naturkinder Kleine Heimat Landwein 2017 $24.96 As you might guess from the name of the winery, 2Naturkinder (meaning two children of

September 4-6, 2020

nature), this is a natural wine, farmed organically and made without additives.

Kleine Heimat is also made with the silvaner grape, although in a different style than the Kraemer. The husband-and-wife proprietors, Michael Völker and Melanie Drese, allow the juice of these grapes to ferment with the skins for a week as if it were a red wine, deriving a bit of color and structure. In other words, it’s an orange wine, with a slightly amber cast and a bare hint of tannin. It’s richer and rounder than the Kraemer, lively, refreshing and pure. (Jenny & François Selections, New York) Holger Koch Spätburgunder Kaiserstuhl 2018 $25.99 Spätburgunder is the German word for pinot noir. You’ll see both the German and the French term used on German pinot noirs, depending on the producer’s preference. Holger and Gabriele Koch make exquisite wines in the Baden region. This spätburgunder is sheer, graceful and juicy, with stony, earthy red berry flavors that are both lip-smacking and thought-provoking. (Super Glou) Julia Bertram Ahr Spätburgunder Handwerk 2017 $27.96 Here’s another interpretation of pinot noir, from the Ahr, a narrow valley that extends northwest from Koblenz toward Bonn. Spätburgunder is the grape of choice there. This one, the entry-level bottle from Julia Bertram, a young producer born into a winemaking family, is earthy, floral and a touch tart, yet lively and refreshing. Try it lightly chilled. (Schatzi Wines, Milan, New York) Roterfaden Landwein Lemberger Trocken 2017 $29.99 Germany and Austria may share a language, but they divide on what to call one particular grape. In general, Austria uses blaufränkisch, which if not familiar in the United States has at least become known. Germany generally opts for the more obscure lemberger. Either way, if farmed with care and vinified with a light

23

WINE

touch, it makes a lovely wine. Roterfaden, in the northern part of the Württemberg appellation, near Stuttgart, makes small amounts of wine, essentially by hand. This one is bursting with fresh cherry flavors that keep you returning to the glass. (Vom Boden) Schäfer-Fröhlich Nahe Pinot Noir Blanc de Noir Trocken 2019 $31 This is white wine made of pinot noir. How do you make white wine from a red grape, a blanc de noir? The color-causing pigments are contained in the skins. You make red wine by allowing the juice to macerate for days with the skin. If you cut the maceration short after a little while, you’ve got rosé. No maceration, and the wine is white. That’s how Champagne is made when using the red grapes pinot noir and pinot meunier. This wine has the faint whiff and flavor of flowers and red berries, yet it has the texture of a white wine. It’s vivacious and refreshing. Schäfer-Fröhlich, by the way, is one of the Nahe region’s foremost riesling producers.

(The German Wine Collection, Carlsbad, California) Dr. Heger Baden Ihringer Winklerberg Spätburgunder 2014 $34.99 This bottle offers a chance to try a spätburgunder with a little bit of age, from the 2014 vintage. I found it earthy and floral, and just beginning to display some of the forest underbrush flavors associated with Burgundies reaching maturity. It’s nuanced, balanced and delicious. This wine is made from a small plot of vines on a steep, terraced portion of Winklerberg, one of the historic vineyards in the Baden region.

(Schatzi Wines) Enderle & Moll Baden Pinot Noir Liaison 2018 $36.99 In a sense, Sven Enderle and Florian Moll helped put Baden pinot noir on the map. No, they weren’t the first producers to make pinot noir there, but they were among the first to capture the attention of the English-speaking world. This wine couldn’t be more different from other pinot noirs in this roundup. It’s bigger, fuller, riper and richer. Yet it’s still juicy, focused and complex. (Vom Boden) Stefan Vetter Rosenrain Sylvaner 2016 $79.95 This wine is not for the faint of heart.

The pale amber color and a faint whiff of caramel at first suggest that the wine might be oxidized. But it’s absolutely not.

The stony, saline flavor is gorgeously savory, and the wine has a tightly coiled core worthy of an excellent young white Burgundy. The producer, Stefan Vetter, who uses the alternate spelling “sylvaner” on his labels, is devoted to small plots of old silvaner vines in the Franken region, often rehabilitating the vineyards himself.

Rosenrain is one such place, where old vines are planted on a mixture of limestone and red sandstone soils. Sure, it’s expensive. But it’s silvaner like few others.

(Vom Boden)

24 LEGAL NOT ICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMON.

JORGE LUIS RIVERA ORTEGA PETICIONARIO

EX-PARTE

CIVILNUM: NJ2020CV00012.

SOBRE: EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R.

A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE, PERSONAS IGNORADAS A QUIENES PUEDA PERJUDICAR LA INSCRIPCION SOLICITADA O A CUALQUIER PERSONA QUE TENGA INTERES EN DICHO BIEN Y QUE PUEDA SER PERJUDICADA POR DICHA INSCRIPCION

Por la presente se les notifica que la parte demandante ha presentado en este Tribunal una acción para que el Tribunal Ordene inscribir la propiedad que se describe como sigue: “RUSTICA: Predio de terreno radicado en El Barrio Achiote del termino municipal de Naranjito, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superificial de OCHOCIENTOS DIAZ PUNTO TRES MIL SEISCIENTOS TREINTA Y CUANTRO METROS CUADRADOS (810.3634 mc) equivalentes a CERO PUNTO DOS MIL SESENTA Y UNO CUERDA (0.2061 cds), el cual colinda por el NORTE, y OESTE, con terrenos de Carmen Lydia Sanabria; por el SUR, con terrernos de Javier Rivera, William Gimenez y un camino asfaltado y por el ESTE, con la Familia Rivera.”

Que la Propiedad antes descrita no esta inscrita en el registro de la propiedad. Se le notifica además a toda persona que tenga algún derecho real sobre el inmueble anteriormente descrito o cualquier persona ignorada que pueda ser perjudicada por esta inscripción y en general a todo el que tuviere motivo para oponerse, que comparezca a alegar cualquier derecho que tuviere en un término de veinte (20) días, a partir de la fecha de publicación del último edicto, excluyendo el día de su publicación. Represena a la parte peticionaria, el abogado cuyo nombre y dirección se consigna de inmediato: LCDO. HECTOR M. MARRERO MARRERO 95 CALLE GEORGETTI, SUITE 1 APARTADO POSTAL 283 NARANJITO, PUERTO RICO 00719 TELÉFONO: 787-869-0806 EMAIL: marreroh@gmail.com

@

En Bayamón, Puerto Rico a 9 de julio de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria Regional. Ana L Lopez, SubSecretaria. ***

LEGAL NOTICE

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

MARESA DEL TORO BETANCOURT, MANUEL FRANXISCO DEL TORO BETANCOURT Demandante V.

ORIENTAL BANK; JUAN DEL PUEBLO JUANA DEL PUEBLO y cualesquier persona desconocida con posible interés en la obligación cuya cancelación por decreto judicial se solicita.

Demandados CIVIL NÚM. GB2020CV00277.

SOBRE: CANCELACION DE PAGARE EXTRAVIADO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

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

Por la presente se le notifica que ha sido presentada en este Tribunal una Demanda en su contra en el pleito de epígrafe. 1. En este caso la parte demandante ha radicado una Demanda para que se decrete judicialmente el saldo de un (1) pagaré hipotecario a favor de Pan American Financial Corporation o a su orden, por la suma principal de $135,000.00, intereses al 6.125% sobre “Prime Rate”, vencedero el lero de mayo de 2034. Dicho pagaré fue suscrito mediante Escritura número 13, otorgada, el día 20 de abril de 2004, ante el Notario Alfredo Ortiz Almedina, inscrita en virtud de la Ley 216 del 2010 para Agilizar el Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico al folio 2318 del tomo 1543 de Guaynabo, inscripción 5ta. sobre la propiedad que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Propiedad Horizontal: Apartamento 12-F en el inmueble sometido al régimen de Propiedad Horizontal conocido como Condominio Garden Hills Estates, Torre Sur, localizado en

el barrio Pueblo Viejo del municipio de Guaynabo, Puerto Rico y colindante en su frente Oeste con la carretera estatal #19, en su frente Norte con la calle #13 de la Urbanización Mansiones de Garden Hills y en su frente Este con el área de parque de la urbanización Mansiones de Garden Hills. Esta construido de concreto reforzado y bloques de concreto con un área de piso de 98 metros cuadrados más o menos la cual comprende el área entre la carea interior de sus paredes exteriores. Dicho apartamento está localizado al Sur-Oeste del vestíbulo del elevador en el piso #12. La entrada principal de este apartamento esta localizada frente de la salacomedor y comunica inmediatamente con el pasillo que a su vez comunica inmediatamente con el vestíbulo del elevador que es uno de los elementos del edificio y conduce a la calle #3 de la Urbanización Mansiones de Garden Hills. Colinda por el NORTE en 6.33 metros más o menos con la cocina y la lavandería del apartamento 12-G; en 8.41 metros, más o menos con el pasillo que comunica con el vestíbulo del elevador por el SUR en 14.73 metros más o menos con la pared exterior Sur, por el OESTE, en 8.41 metros, más o menos, con la pared exterior Oeste en 0.93 metros, más o menos, con el p asilo de acceso al apartamento, por el ESTE, en 1.71 metros, más o menos con el pasillo de acceso al apartamento, en 0.53 metros, más o menos, con el vestíbulo del elevador, en 2.16 metros, más o menos con el pasillo entre el vestíbulo del elevador y la escalera, en 2.34 metros, más o menos, con la escalera; en 0.81 metros, más o menos con el cuarto del incinerador; en 1.83 metros, más o menos, con la pared exterior. Este apartamento será usado para propósitos residenciales y contiene lo siguiente: sala-comedor, cocina, lavandería, dos dormitorios con sus respectivos guardarropas, un pasillo que comunica los dormitorios, dos baños, un guardarropa de cama, un vestíbulo y un balcón. PORCENTA.JE: Elementos Comunes: 0.576% ESTACIONAMIENTO: Le corresponde el marcado con el #B-20. Finca 27,843. Inscrita al folio 80 del tomo 690 de Guaynabo, inscripción lera Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Guaynabo. La parte demandante alega que dicho pagaré ha sido saldado según más detalladamente consta en la Demanda radicada que puede examinarse en la Secretaría de este Tribunal. Por tratarse de una obligación hipotecaria y pudiendo usted tener interés en este caso o quedar afectado por el remedio solicitado, se le em-

staredictos@thesanjuandailystar.com

Friday, September 4, 2020

plaza por este edicto que se publicará una vez en un periódico de circulación diaria general de Puerto Rico. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https:// unired.ramajudicial.pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propIo. Debe notificar con copia de ella a la abogada de la parte demandante la Lcda. LizbetA viles Vega, Urb. Los Sauces, Calle Pomarrosa #222, Humacao, PR 00791; Tel. (787) 354-0061, dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto, apercibiéndole que de no hacerlo así dentro del término indicado, el Tribunal podrá anotar su rebeldía y dictar I sentencia concediendo el remedio solicitado en la Demanda sin más citarle ni oírle. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, en Guaynabo,. Puerto Rico, hoy día 2 de julio de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretario Regional. Diamar T. González Barreto, Secretaria del Tribunal Conf II.

GAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS, le adeudan solidariamente al Americas Leading Finance, LLC la suma de principal de $17,375.93, más los intereses que continúen acumulando, las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado según pactados. Además, solicitamos de este Honorable Tribunal que autorice la reposesión y/o embargo del Vehículo.

Se les advierte que este edicto se publicará en un periódico de circulación general una sola vez y que, si no comparecen a contestar dicha Demanda dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación del Edicto, a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial.pr/ sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal, se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará Sentencia concediendo el remedio así solicitado sin más citarles ni oírles. El abogado de la parte demandante es el Lcdo. Gerardo M. Ortiz Torres, cuya direcLEGAL NOTICE ción física y postal es: Cond. El ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE Centro I, Suite 801, 500 Muñoz PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE Rivera Ave., San Juan, Puerto PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA Rico 00918; cuyo número de SUPERIOR DE CAROLINA. teléfono es (787) 946-5268, el AMERICAS LEADING facsímile (787) 946-0062 y su correo electrónico es: gerardo@ FINANCE LLC bellverlaw.com. Expedido bajo Demandante, v. mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, CARLOS J. ALLENDE en Puerto Rico, hoy día 25 de ROUSS, SU ESPOSA agosto de 2020. Lcda. Marilyn FULANA DE TAL Y LA Aponte Rodriguez, Secretario Regional. Lourdes Torres, Sec SOCIEDAD LEGAL del Tribunal.

DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE Demandados PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE CIVIL NÚM.: CA2020CV00776. PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN. POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA Y AMERICAS LEADING EJECUCIÓN DE GRAVAMEN FINANCE LLC MOBILIARIO (REPOSESIÓN Demandante, v.

DE VEHÍCULO). EMPLAZARICARDO REYES MIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTAGARCÍA, SU ESPOSA DOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. FULANA DE TAL Y LA DE AMERICA EL ESTADO LISOCIEDAD LEGAL BRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO DE GANANCIALES RICO SS.

A: CARLOS J. ALLENDE ROUSS, SU ESPOSA FULANA DE TAL, Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Quedan emplazados y notificados que en este Tribunal se ha radicado Demanda sobre cobro de dinero por la vía ordinaria en la que se alega que los demandados CARLOS J. ALLENDE ROUSS, SU ESPOSA FULANA DE TAL, Y LA SOCIEDAD LE-

(787) 743-3346

COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Demandados CIVIL NÚM.: SJ2020CV01925.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA Y EJECUCIÓN DE GRAVAMEN MOBILIARIO (REPOSESIÓN DE VEHÍCULO). EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. DE AMERICA EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

A: RICARDO REYES GARCÍA, SU ESPOSA

FULANA DE TAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS.

The San Juan Daily Star

SOBRE: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARE EXTRAVIADO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE Quedan emplazados y notifica- ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. dos que en este Tribunal se ha SS. radicado Demanda sobre cobro A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD de dinero por la vía ordinaria en ROE COMO posibles la que se alega que los demantenedores desconocidos dados, RICARDO REYES GARPOR LA PRESENTE se les emCÍA, SU ESPOSA FULANA DE plaza y requiere para que conTAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL teste la demanda dentro de los DE GANANCIALES COMPUEStreinta (30) días siguientes a la TA POR AMBOS., le adeudan publicación de este Edicto. Ussolidariamente al Americas Leated deberá radicar su alegación ding Finance, LLC la suma de responsiva a través del Sistema principal de la suma de principal Unificado de Manejo y Adminisde $13,394.88 más los intereses tración de Casos (SUMAC), al que continúen acumulando, las cual puede acceder utilizando costas, gastos y honorarios de la siguiente dirección electróniabogado según pactados. Adeca: http://unired.ramajudicial.pr/ más, solicitamos de este Honosumac/. salvo que se presente rable Tribunal que autorice la por derecho propio, en cuyo reposesión y/o embargo del Vecaso deberá radicar el original hículo. Se les advierte que este de su contestación ante el Tribuedicto se publicará en un periónal correspondiente y notifique dico de circulación general una con copia a los abogados de la sola vez y que, si no compareparte demandante, Lcda. Marcen a contestar dicha Demanda jaliisa Colón Villanueva, al PO dentro del término de treinta (30) BOX 7970, Ponce, P.R. 00732; días a partir de la publicación Teléfono: 787 -843-4168. En del Edicto, a través del Sistema dicha demanda se tramita un Unificado de Manejo y Adminisprocedimiento de cancelación tración de Casos (SUMAC), al de pagare extraviado. Se alega cual puede acceder utilizando la en dicho procedimiento que se siguiente dirección electrónica: extravió un pagaré que consta https://unired.ramajudicial.pr/ en la escritura número setenta sumac/, salvo que se represeny seis (76), otorgada en Manatí, te por derecho propio, en cuyo Puerto Rico, el día treinta (30) caso deberá presentar su alegade septiembre de dos mil cuatro ción responsiva en la secretaría (2004), se constituyó hipoteca del tribunal, se le anotará la en garantía de pagaré suscrito rebeldía y se dictará Sentencia ante la notario público Teresa concediendo el remedio así soTrujillo Ortiz, a favor de Associalicitado sin más citarles ni oírles. tes lntemational Holdings CorpoLa abogada de la parte demanration, o a su orden, por la suma dante es la Lcdo. Gerardo M. de treinta y dos mil novecienOrtiz Torres, cuya dirección físitos cincuenta y nueve dólares ca y postal es: Cond. El Centro con noventa y nueve centavos I, Suite 801, 500 Muñoz Rivera ($32,959.99), con intereses al Ave., San Juan, Puerto Rico trece punto cuarenta y tres por 00918; cuyo número de teléfono ciento (13.43%), vencedero el es (787) 946-5268, el facsímile cinco (5) de octubre dos mil (787) 946-0062 y su correo elecdiecinueve (2019) y cuya oblitrónico es: gerardo@bellverlaw. gación hipotecaria se encuentra com. Expedido bajo mi firma y inscrita al folio cincuenta y uno sello de este Tribunal, en San (51) del tomo tres ciento uno Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy día 25 (301) de Vega Alta, finca númede agosto de 2020. Griselda Roro tres mil treinta y uno (3,031), driguez Collado, Sec Regional. inscripción duodécima (12ma).

Loyda M Couvertier Reyes, SeQue grava la propiedad que se cretario Servicio a Sala. describe a continuación: Urbanización Santa Rita, Barrio Espino LEGAL NOTICE de Vega Alta, Puerto Rico, con ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE área superficial de cuatrocientos PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE veintiséis punto treinta y seis PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA (426.36) metros cuadrados. En SUPERIOR DE CAROLINA. lindes por el NORTE, en veinMTGLQ INVESTORS, L.P. ticinco punto cero cero (25.00) Parte Demandante Vs. metros, con el solar catorce ASSOCIATES (14) del bloque E de dicha urbanización; por el SUR, en dos INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS CORPORA (2) distancia, una (1) se quince punto diez (15.10) metros y la TION; JOHN DOE Y otra de seis punto cincuenta y RICHARD ROE, Como dos (6.52) metros, con la calle trece (13); por el ESTE, en dos posibles tenedores (2) distancia una (1) de trece desconocidos punto treinta y ocho {13.38) y Parte Demandada CIVIL NÚM: CA2020CV01727. la otra de cinco punto cincuenta

(5.50) metros, en forma de arco con I calle número dos (2) y por el OESTE, en diecisiete punto cuarenta y tres (17.43) metros, con el solar número doce guion E (12-E), de dicha urbanización.

Enclava una casa. lnscrita al folio ciento cincuenta y siete (157) del tomo cuarenta y nueve (49) de Vega Alta, finca número tres mil treinta y uno (3,031). Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina Sección Tercera (3ra). SE LES APERCIBE que, de no hacer sus alegaciones responsivas a la demanda dentro del término aquí dispuesto, se les anotará la rebeldía y se dictará Sentencia, concediéndose el remedio solicitado en la Demanda, sin más citarle ni oírle. Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal en Carolina, Puerto Rico, a 27 de agosto de 2020. Lcda. Marilyn Aponte Rodriguez, Secretarla Regional. Rosa M Viera Velazquez, Sec Auxiliar Tribunal I.

LEGAL NOT ICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE CAROLINA.

REVERSE MORTGAGE FUNDING LLC. Demandante vs.

RAMON CINTRON MIRO P/C/C RAYMOND CINTRON MIRO T/C/C RAMON CINTRONMIRO T/C/C RAYMOND CINTRON T/C/C RAMON CINTRON POR si Y EN CUANTO A LA CUOTA VIUDAL USUFRUCTUARIA; SUCESION MARIA ESTHER ROSADO RODRIGUEZ T/C/C MARIA E. ROSADO DE CINTRON T/C/C MARIA E. ROSADO RODRIGUEZ T/C/C MARIA ROSADO RODRIGUEZ T/C/C MARIA ESTHER ROSADO P/C/C MARIA E. ROSADO P/C/C MARIA ROSADO COMPUESTA POR WENDY CINTRON ROSADO, MONICA CINTRON ROSADO; JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES

Demandados CIVIL NUM. CA2020CV00709.

SOBRE: EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS tJNIDOS DE ANERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL

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Friday, September 4, 2020

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE BY2019CV06510. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. NOTIFICAPUERTO RICO. SS. CION DE SENTENCIA POR A: RAMON CINTRON EDICTO.

MIRO T/C/C RAYMOND A: MYRTA I. MORALES CINTRON MIRO T/C/C SAEZ. FULANO DE TAL RANON CINTRO-MIRO Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL T/C/C RAYMOND DE GANANCIALES CINTRON T/C/C COMPUESTA POR RAMON CINTRON, POR S± Y EN CUANTO (Nombre deAMBOS las partes a las que se A LA CUOTA VIUDAL le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO (A) que susUSUFRUCTUARIA; cribe le notifica a usted que el WENDY CINTRON 25 de AGOSTO de 2020. este ROSADO, JOHN DOE Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Y JANE DOE como Sentencia Parcial o Resolución posibles miembros de en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada la SUCESION MARIA en autos donde podrá usted ESTHER ROSADO enterarse detalladamente de los RODRIGUEZ T/C/C MARIA términos de la misma. Esta notifiE. ROSADO DE CINTRON cación se publicará una sola vez T/C/C MARIA E. ROSADO en un periódico de circulación RODRIGUEZ T/C/C MARIA general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los (10) días siguienROSADO RODRIGUEZ tes a su notificación. Y, siendo o T/C/C MARIA ESTHER representando usted una parte ROSADO T/C/C MARIA en el procedimiento sujeta a los E. ROSADO T/C/C MARIA términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la ROSADO cual puede establecerse recurso

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al Tribunal su alegación responsiva a la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) dias a partir de la publicación de este edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberé presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaria del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegacion responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeidía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, Si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente.

Greenspoon Marder, LLP Lcda. Frances L. Asencio-Guido R.U.A. 15,622 TRADE CENTRE SOUTH, SUITE 700 100 WEST CYPRESS CREEK ROAD FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 33309 Telephone: (954) 343 6273 Frances.Asencio@gmlaw.com Expedido bajo ml firma, y sello del Tribunal, en Carolina, Puerto Rico, hoy 31 de agosto de 2020.

Lcda. Marilyn Aponte Rodriguez, Sec Regional. Ida Fernandez Rodriguez, Sec Auxiliar del Tribunal.

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

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 27 de AGOSTO de 2020. En TOA ALTA, Puerto Rico, el 27 de AGOSTO de 2020. ce: LCDO. JAIME RUIZ SALDAÑAPMB 450. 400 CALLE CALAF. SAN JUAN. PUERTO RICO. 00918-1314 LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretario (a) Regional Int. LIRIAM M HERNANDEZ OTERO, Sec Auxiliar.

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

LIME HOMES, LTD Demandante v.

SUCESION DE ZULMA G. QUINTERO GOMEZ Y OTROS

Demandado Civil: Núm. CA2018CV02615.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA POR LA VIA ORDINARIA. NOLEGAL NOTICE TIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA Estado Libre Asociado de Puer- POR EDICTO. to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL A: JOSEPH THOMAS DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de PriSCHUTTY-QUINTERO, mera Instancia Sala Superior de TOA ALTA. FULANA DE TAL,

PR RECOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT JV LLC Demandante VS.

LOURDES FONTANEZ RIVERA HNC AGROCENRO OJO DE AGUILA

Demandados Caso Civil Núm.

CZ2019CV00254. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCION DE GRAVAMEN MOBILIARIO. NOTIFICACION DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: LOURDES FONTANEZ RIVERA H/N/C AGROCENTRO OJO DE AGUILA

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) Demandante vs.

EL SECRETARIO (A) que susMYRTA I. MORALES SAEZ cribe le notifica a usted que el 28 de AGOSTO de 2020, este Y OTROS Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Demandados Caso Civil Núm. Sentencia Parcial o Resolución

ORIENTAL BANK

en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los (10) días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de (30) días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto.

Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 1 de SEPTIEMBRE de 2020. En TOA ALTA, Puerto Rico, el 1 de SEPTIEMBRE de 2020.

CC: LCDO JOSÉ FRANCISCO AGUILAR VÉLEZPO BOX 71418, SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO, 00936-8518 LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria Regional. LIRIAM M. HERNANDEZ OTERO, Secretaria Auxiliar.

FULANO DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON INTERES EN LA SUCESION DE ZULMA G. QUINTERO GOMEZ T/C/C ZULMA G QUINTERO GARAYUA

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 28 de AGOSTO de 2020, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el

25

siguientes a su notificación. Y, Reverse Mortgage siendo o representando usted Funding, LLC una parte en el procedimiento DEMANDANTE VS. sujeta a los términos de la SenSucesión de Flor De tencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede es- María Vázquez Santiago, tablecerse recurso de revisión o t/c/c Flor De M. Vázquez apelación dentro del término de Santiago, t/c/c Flor M. (30) días contados a partir de la Vázquez Santiago, t/c/c publicación por edicto de esta Flor Vázquez Santiago, notificación, dirijo a usted esta t/c/c Flor De María notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publi- Vazquez, t/c/c Flor María cación de este edicto. Copia de Vázquez, t/c/c Flor De M. esta notificación ha sido archivaVázquez, Flor M. Vázquez, da en los autos de este caso, t/c/c Flor Vázquez con fecha de 1 de SEPTIEMBRE de 2020. En BAYAMON, compuesta por Fulano de Puerto Rico, el 1 de SEPTIEM- Tal y Sutano de Tal como BRE de 2020. LCDA. LAURA I. posibles herederos de LEGAL NOTICE SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria. nombres desconocidos, Estado Libre Asociado de Puer- IVETTE M. MARRERO BRACECentro de Recaudaciones RO, Secretaria Auxiliar. to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL Municipales; y a los DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de PriLEGAL NOTICE mera Instancia Sala Superior de Estados Unidos de Estado Libre Asociado de PuerBAYAMON. América.

Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL REVERSE MORTGAGE to DEMANDADOS DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de PriCIVIL NUM.: CA2019CV01032.

FUNDING, LLC mera Instancia Sala Superior de SOBRE: Cobro de Dinero y Demandante VS. SAN SEBASTIAN. Ejecución de Hipoteca por la SUCESION DE MARIA NORBERTO Vía Ordinaria. ORDEN. Vista la DAISY RAMOS VAZQUEZ SOTO moción de la parte demandante FELICIANO COMPUESTA Demandante ‘y, solicitando el emplazamiento por edictos de los demandados POR RAMON VERA ELSA ELENA desconocidos Fulano de Tal y RAMOS, FULANO DE TAL NIEVES REYES Sutano de Tal como cualquier Demandado(a) Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO miembro aún desconocido de POSIBLES HEREDEROS Civil: SS2020RF00027. Sobre: la Sucesión de Flor De María DIVORCIO (RUPTURA IRREDE NOMBRES PARABLE). NOTIFICACIÓN DE Vázquez Santiago, t/c/c Flor De M. Vázquez Santiago, t/c/c Flor DESCONOCIDOS, SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. M. Vázquez Santiago, t/c/c Flor CENTRO DE A: ELSA ELENA Vázquez Santiago, t/c/c Flor De RECAUDACIONES NIEVES REYES María Vazquez, t/c/c Flor María MUNICIPALES; Y A LOS (Nombre de las partes a las que se Vázquez, t/c/c Flor De M. Vázle notifican la sentencia por edicto) ESTADOS UNIDOS DE EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscri- quez, Flor M. Vázquez, t/c/c Flor Vázquezcomo cualquier otra AMERICA be le notifica a usted que 20 de persona con interés en el caso y Demandados agosto de 2020 , este Tribunal Caso Civil Núm. ha dictado Sentencia, Senten- atendida la Regla 4.7 de conforBY2019CV05116. SALA: 503. cia Parcial o Resolución en este midad con la Regla 4.6 de ProSobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y caso, que ha sido debidamente cedimiento Civil, el Tribunal la EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA registrada y archivada en autos declara con lugar y ordena que POR LA VIA ORDINARIA. NO- donde podrá usted enterarse dichos demandados desconociTIFICACION DE SENTENCIA detalladamente de los términos dos sean emplazados por medio de edicto, el cual deberá publiPOR EDICTO. de la misma. Esta notificación una sola vez en un perióA: RAMON VERA RAMOS; se publicará una sola vez en un carse dico de circulación diaria geneperiódico de circulación general FULANO DE TAL Y ral en la isla de Puerto Rico. Se la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro SUTANO DE TAL COMO en dispone además, que la parte de los 10 días siguientes a su POSIBLES HEREDEROS notificación. Y, siendo o repre- demandante quede relevada de dirigir por correo certificado con DE NOMBRES sentando usted una parte en el acuse de recibo dentro de los 10 DESCONOCIDOS COMO procedimiento sujeta a los térmi- días siguientes a la publicación nos de la Sentencia, Sentencia CUALQUIER MIEMBRO del emplazamiento por edicto, Parcial o Resolución, de la cual una copia del emplazamiento DESCONOCIDO DE puede establecerse recurso de por edicto y de la demanda a la LA SUCESION DE revisión o apelación dentro del dirección conocida de los MARIA DAISY RAMOS término de 30 días contados a última demandados, por ser esta despartir de la publicación por edicFELICIANO Y/O COMO conocida. Regístrese y Notifíto de esta notificación, dirijo a CUALQUIER OTRA quese. Dada en Carolina Puerto usted esta notificación que se PERSONA CON INTERES considerará hecha en la fecha Rico, a 28 de febrero de 2020. F/ Lizardo W. Mattei Roman, JUEZ. EN ESTE CASO. de la publicación de este edic(Nombre de las partes a las que se to. Copia de esta notificación LEGAL NOTICE le notifican la sentencia por edicto) ha sido archivada en los autos EL SECRETARIO (A) que sus- de este caso, con fecha de 27 ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE cribe le notifica a usted que el de agosto de 2020. En SAN PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE 24 de AGOSTO de 2020, este SEBASTIAN, , Puerto Rico, el PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, 27 de agosto de 2020. SARAHI SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN. Sentencia Parcial o Resolución REYES PEREZ, Secretario(a).

SERGIO en este caso, que ha sido de- IVELISSE ROBLES MATHEWS, DOMÍNGUEZ WOLFF bidamente registrada y archiva- Secretario(a) Auxiliar.

Demandante Vs. da en autos donde podrá usted CARIB LEGAL NOTICE enterarse detalladamente de los SAMPSON MIRANDA términos de la misma. Esta no- ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE Demandado tificación se publicará una sola PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE vez en un periódico de circula- PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA CIVIL NÚM.: SJ2020CV00982 (504). SOBRE: COBRO DE DIción general en la Isla de Puer- DE CAROLINA NERO POR SERVICIOS PROto Rico, dentro de los (10) días

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 31 de AGOSTO de 2020. En CAROLINA, Puerto Rico, el 31 de agosto de 2020. Marilyn Aponte Rodriguez, Secretaria. Keila Garcia Solis, Sec Auxiliar.

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

A: CARIB SAMPSON MIRANDA

POR LA PRESENTE, se le emplaza y se notifica a Ja parte demandada, que la parte demandante ha presentado ante este Tribunal demanda del caso de epígrafe en su contra sobre cobro de dinero por servicios profesionales. Se le apercibe y advierte a usted que deberá presentar su alegación responsiva dentro de los próximos treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación de este emplazamiento por edicto que será publicado una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico.

Dicha alegación responsiva deberá hacerla a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC),, al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la Secretaría del Tribunal y notificando copia de la misma a la parte demandante por conducto del Lcdo. Luis G. Estades, Jr., PO Box 368048, San Juan, Puerto Rico 009368048, Tel. (787) 724-2300, Fax (787) 725-1691, E-mail: Iuisestadeshotmail.com. Se le apercibe que, si no comparece usted a contestar dicha demanda dentro del término de 30 días de la publicación de este Edicto, podrá dictarse Sentencia en Rebeldía en su contra concediendo el remedio solicitado en la demanda, sin más citarle no oírle. EXTENDIDO BAJO Ml FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, hoy día 25 de agosto de 2020. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, Sec Regional.

LOYDA M. COUVERTIER REYES, Sec Serv a Sala.

ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO; HONORABLE SECRETARIO DE JUSTICIA DEL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO,

Demandados CIVIL NÚM.: MT2020CV00070.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.

A LA PARTE DEMANDADA: MILDRED PEREZ MENDEZ COMO HEREDERA CONOCIDA DE LAS SUCESIONES DE ALBERTO PEREZ MENDEZ Y DE JUANA MENDEZ VALDES T/C/C JUANITA MENDEZ

Por la presente se le emplaza y notifica que debe contestar la demanda dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de la publicación del presente edicto.

Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Se le apercibe que, de no contestar la demanda dentro del término aquí estipulado, se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia sin más citarle ni oírle. Por la presente el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, conforme al caso de Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria vs. Latinoamericana de Exportación, Inc., 164 DPR 689 (2005), le ordena que en el término de treinta (30) días, haga declaraLEGAL NOTICE ción aceptando o repudiando ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO la herencia de la Sucesión de DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL Alberto Pérez Méndez y la SuDE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CEN- cesión de Juana Méndez Valdés t/c/c Juanita Méndez. Se le aperTRO JUDICIAL DE MANATI. MTGLQ Investors, L.P., cibe que de no expresar su intención de aceptar o repudiar la Demandante vs. dentro del término que SUCESION DE ALBERTO herencia se le fijó, la herencia se tendrá PEREZ MENDEZ Y LA por aceptada. La parte demanSUCESION DE JUANA dante ha radicado una acción de MENDEZ VALDES T/C/C cobro de dinero y ejecución de JUANITA MENDEZ ambas hipoteca por deuda vencida y la misma está garantizada sobre la compuestas por sus siguiente propiedad: Los abohija: MILDRED PEREZ gados de la parte demandante son: MENDEZ; FULANO García-Chamorro Law Group, P.S.C., DE TAL, FULANA DE 1606 Ave. Ponce de León, Edif. Julio TAL, ZUTANO DE TAL, Bogoricin, Ste. 900, San Juan, PR 00909, ZUTANA DE TAL, A, B Y Tel. (787) 977-1932, C, COMO HEREDEROS Fax (787) 722-1932.

DESCONOCIDOS DE Expido este edicto bajo mi firma AMBAS SUCESIONES; y sello de este Tribunal, hoy 6 de mayo de 2020. F/Vivian Y FresHONORABLE se Gonzalez, Secretario RegioSECRETARIO DE nal. Por: f/ Yadira Liz Cuevas HACIENDA DEL Correa, Secretaria Auxiliar.

ESTADO LIBRE

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The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

Naomi Osaka is steadfast in winning, and her message

By BEN ROTHENBERG

T

hrough two matches at the U.S. Open, Naomi Osaka is staying on message.

Osaka, the 2018 champion from Japan, reasserted herself as the favorite in the top half of the women’s singles draw with a dominant 6-1, 6-2 victory over Camila Giorgi of Italy in an hour and 10 minutes on Wednesday night.

The fourth-seeded Osaka advanced on a day in which many of the other top seeds in her half of the draw stumbled, with No. 1 Karolina Pliskova, No. 12 Marketa Vondrousova and No. 13 Alison Riske all losing.

After Pliskova’s exit, Osaka is the only player in the top 10 of the WTA singles rankings remaining in the top half of the draw; six top-10 players, including world No. 1 Ashleigh Barty and No. 2 Simona Halep, did not enter this year’s tournament.

Osaka’s left leg was heavily taped during her match, but she appeared Naomi Osaka, the 2018 United States unburdened despite admitting that the the tournament. hamstring injury that forced her out of Saturday’s Western & Southern Open final was not healing as rapidly as she what I mean? I’m kind of here for pride. I don’t have to be here. So for me, I’m just hoped.

“I feel like I want to be the player that here to, hopefully, beat people.”

Osaka has been using the mask she you can’t tell I’m in pain,” Osaka said in wears before and after matches at the a post-match interview on ESPN. Osaka’s steadiness through physical U.S. Open to spotlight victims of police pain is complemented by her steadfast- violence. On Monday it was Breonna Taness highlighting police violence against ylor, the 26-year-old medical worker kiBlack people. She has found her voice in lled in March in Louisville, Ky.; on Wedthat campaign in recent months, which nesday evening, it was Elijah McClain, a led her to provoke a one-day stoppage 23-year-old who died last year days after in the Western & Southern Open last police in Aurora, Colo., used a banned week, simultaneously drawing praise chokehold.

In comments to the Japanese news from many around the sport and stunning several other players remaining in media during her news conference Wednesday night, she explained that she the tournament.

“I don’t feel like I’m being brave; I wanted to take what some see as an just feel like I’m doing what I should be American issue to a worldwide audience.

“The biggest thing I can gain off of indoing,” Osaka said last week. “So honestly, when people say ‘courageous’ or ternational viewers watching is for them anything, I don’t really resonate that well to, like, Google the name, research the with it. This is what I’m supposed to be story, find out exactly what’s going on,” Osaka said. “Racism isn’t just an Amedoing in this moment.”

Osaka said she didn’t think her pro- rican thing; like, it’s all over the world. It affects people literally every day.” minence came with pressure.

One of the international players who “A lot of people ask me if I feel more stressed out ever since I started speaking has been affected by Osaka’s messaging out more; to be honest, not really,” Osa- is her Greek friend Stefanos Tsitsipas, the ka said Monday. “At this point, like, if you fourth-seeded men’s player who won his don’t like me, it is what it is. You know match, 7-6 (2), 6-3, 6-4, over American

Open champion, advanced to the third round as other top seeds fell out of

wild card Maxime Cressy in the finale of the night session. Tsitsipas wore a Black Lives Matter T-shirt as he watched matches from his suite inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, next door to Osaka’s.

“I’m super proud of him,” Osaka said. “I’m very glad that his first response when everything started happening was to ask me questions. For me, I feel like I like to get knowledge; for him to do the same thing, to start branching out and asking questions on topics he’s not so sure of, is very mature and intelligent.”

Although tennis players have typically been encouraged by coaches and athletes to remain mum on social and political issues, Osaka’s increasingly vocal stances have been supported by both her agent, Stuart Duguid, and her coach, Wim Fissette.

Fissette said that despite her highprofile social and commercial endeavors, Osaka’s attention has been “100 percent focused on the tennis” during their training blocks together this year. He marveled at her ability to change her relaxed, quiet personality to a single-minded intensity during training sessions.

“When she comes to the court, she’s very perfectionist,” Fissette said. “She’s a

super champion. It’s very, very different.”

Fissette also sees Osaka’s self-belief in how she handles situations during matches.

“She has no doubts that she will serve out the set,” he said. “She’s very confident in her strength, and she’s very confident in herself.”

Osaka’s management has carefully made sure her media and sponsor activities happen in blocks away from her tennis training. This summer, Forbes magazine named her the world’s highest-paid female athlete for the first time, surpassing her role model Serena Williams.

Osaka said she has felt her peers change their perception of her this summer.

“I mean, I’m weird, right?” Osaka said. “Like, it’s kind of a fact. So people were always looking at me differently.

Now, people are just kind of looking. It’s a different vibe.”

They won’t stop looking any time soon. Knowing that, Osaka, who will play her third-round match against the 18-year-old Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk today, will walk on court with another name written across her mask, another story to share.

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

27

Sharp words and dangerous pitches: The Yankees-Rays rivalry boils over

By JAMES WAGNER

T

he long-standing rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees is considered among the fiercest in sports history. But since Boston won the 2018 World Series, it’s been largely one-sided, with the Yankees going 21-5 against the Red Sox. Fortunately, a new team has stepped in as the Yankees’ true rival: the Tampa Bay Rays.

If it wasn’t already apparent from the close contests, frequent jawing and aggressive hit-by-pitches exchanged over the previous three seasons, the two teams’ disdain for each other bubbled over in explosive fashion this week.

Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman threw a 101-mph fastball near Rays infielder Mike Brosseau’s head in the ninth inning in the Bronx on Tuesday. The benches cleared after the final out of the Yankees’ 5-3 win, which was only their second victory over the Rays in nine tries this season. And in his news conference after the game, Rays manager Kevin Cash issued an ominous threat of retaliation, saying he had a “stable full of guys who throw 98 miles an hour.”

Rays outfielder Kevin Kiermaier summed it up: “We don’t like them, they don’t like us.”

Before the Rays’ 5-2 win in the series finale Wednesday, Major League Baseball intervened. Chapman was suspended three games and fined an undisclosed amount for what the league said was intentional throwing at Brosseau’s head. Yankees manager Aaron Boone was suspended one game and fined for Chapman’s actions, while Cash was also suspended one game and fined for his comments after Tuesday’s game.

Chapman was available to pitch Wednesday, as he was appealing a suspension he said wasn’t appropriate, but Boone and Cash were slated to serve theirs Wednesday night.

“I know it was an ugly pitch,” Chapman said, “but it wasn’t my intention to make that kind of pitch, no less to try to hit him.”

While Cash said he felt his suspension was fair and warranted, Boone felt the opposite about his own. “I don’t think I should be sitting out tonight, nor Chappy,” he said,

Michael Brosseau ducked away as a fastball from Aroldis Chapman whizzed by his head in the ninth inning on Tuesday. referring to Chapman. “But I also do respect the process.”

Chapman said the reason he missed so errantly against Brosseau with two outs in the ninth inning was because he had been struggling with his mechanics and because Tuesday was just his fourth appearance of the season. (He had a late start after testing positive for the coronavirus in July.) Before facing Brosseau, he had already missed high and inside to the two previous batters.

“Sometimes these things happen when you’re playing for a lot,” Boone said Wednesday of the bad blood between the teams. “I believe it can be behind us and should be behind us.”

Kiermaier offered a slightly different theory, suggesting the Yankees’ emotions had boiled over because “we’ve beaten them time and time again” this season.

After Wednesday’s win in which Brosseau smashed two home runs, the Rays (26-12) held a 4 1/2-game lead over the Yankees (20-15) in the AL East. It was a reversal from last season, when the Yankees won 103 ga-

mes and the division, while the Rays finished second with 96 victories and had to play the wild-card game as the road team.

Although umpires warned both benches after Chapman’s pitch Tuesday, the fireworks didn’t start in earnest until he struck out Brosseau to end the game. Players and coaches exchanged words as the teams headed off the field; Kiermaier said the Yankees’ third-base coach, Phil Nevin, had instigated it.

“Once again, it’s the same people over there chirping and trying to stir the pot,” Kiermaier said, adding later, “It’s a tired act.”

The Yankees and Rays converged and then dispersed within minutes without much physical confrontation — although Brosseau and Chapman were held away from each other by teammates.

Tensions had actually started simmering early in Tuesday’s game. Yankees starter Masahiro Tanaka, who normally has better control than Chapman, hit Rays third baseman Joey Wendle in his side with a 95

mph fastball with two outs in the first inning. Wendle smiled as he jogged to first base.

The Rays believed that Wendle’s hitby-pitch was retaliation for their strategy of pitching up and in to Yankees hitters, particularly infielder D.J. LeMahieu. The Yankees have complained repeatedly about that approach from the Rays, including last season. (Five Rays batters had been hit this season by the Yankees entering Wednesday, while three Yankees had been hit by Rays pitchers.)

During a heated series in early August, Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge said a past incident was still on the team’s mind when Rays pitchers challenged his teammates again with pitches high and tight. In 2018, Yankees catcher Austin Romine had to dodge a Rays pitch near his head, and CC Sabathia, the now-retired Yankees pitcher who was at the center of several brush-ups with the Rays over the years, reciprocated by hitting Rays catcher Jesús Sucre.

“If anybody wants to talk about the unwritten rules of baseball and sending a message, I believe that was done in the first inning with Joey,” Brosseau said of Wendle’s plunking Tuesday. “Usual protocol, when that happens, is that you get the message and you move on.”

But when Chapman threw too close to Brosseau’s head, the Rays felt the Yankees had taken things too far. Cash called the incident “absolutely ridiculous” and cast blame on the Yankees, Chapman and the umpires.

“I get it: They don’t like being thrown up and in,” he said. “But enough is enough.

We’re talking about a 100-mile-an-hour fastball over a young man’s head.”

Cash said the Yankees had “poor judgment, poor coaching” and “poor teaching.”

He later hinted that his team had thrown at Romine on purpose in 2018, then issued his threat about having several hard-throwing pitchers of his own.

After Tuesday’s game, Boone called Cash’s comments “pretty scary,” and he continued a day later, calling them “reckless and inflammatory.” But as far as Cash’s claims that the Yankees’ coaching was lacking, Boone said he wasn’t offended by his counterpart’s comments in the heat of the moment.

28

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

Nash hired as coach of Brooklyn Nets

By MARC STEIN

T

he Brooklyn Nets made a stunning move Thursday to fill their coaching vacancy by hiring Steve Nash, the Hall of Fame point guard and two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Award winner, despite Nash’s lack of coaching experience.

Nash will replace Jacque Vaughn, who will stay on as an assistant. Nets officials, led by general manager Sean Marks, decided to take a splashy gamble on Nash rather than retain Vaughn or hire a more experienced replacement, believing Nash is a coaching natural who will benefit greatly from his relationship with star forward Kevin Durant.

Nash’s name was not previously mentioned in connection with the job and Vaughn, according to a Tuesday report from The Athletic, is the only other known candidate to have formally interviewed for the post.

Vaughn had been the Nets’ interim coach since March 7, when the team, on course for a playoff berth, abruptly announced that it had mutually agreed to part ways with Kenny Atkinson. Despite missing most of his frontline players apart from Caris LeVert and Joe Harris, Vaughn coached the Nets to a 5-3 record in the eight seeding games at the NBA restart. The Nets were then swept in the first round by the Toronto Raptors, the reigning champions, but surprised many with a victory over Milwaukee and a 1-point loss to Portland that nearly prevented the Trail Blazers from reaching the playoffs.

Vaughn became the fourth head coach — and third Black head coach alongside New Orleans’ Alvin Gentry and Indiana’s Nate McMillan — to lose his job after his team returned home from the NBA bubble at Walt Disney World. Philadelphia also fired coach Brett Brown after a first-round sweep against Boston.

The Nets have maintained since March that Vaughn would be considered strongly for the full-time post.

They were also widely expected to pursue Tyronn Lue, the Los Angeles Clippers’ in-demand assistant coach, among a number of other experienced candidates. Lue coached the Nets’ star guard Kyrie Irving to a championship with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016.

Yet Marks had quietly targeted Nash for some time, according to three people familiar with the search who

were not authorized to discuss it publicly. Marks’ interest stemmed in part from Nash’s strong bond with Durant, which he built across Durant’s three seasons in Golden State while working as a part-time consultant for the Warriors in player development.

The more immediate challenge for Nash will be establishing a similar rapport with Irving, who played in only 20 games in an injury-riddled debut season in Brooklyn. Durant sat the season out entirely as he recovered from a torn right Achilles tendon he sustained during the 2019 NBA finals.

“He continues to be a very loud voice in terms of where we’re going in the future and what we’re doing and I involve him like the other players and staff and how we’ll continue to build this team and how we move forward,” Marks said of Durant in early July.

Nash, 46, arrived in Brooklyn this week, according to the people. An eight-time All-Star who led the league in assists five times, Nash had resisted all previous overtures to join an NBA coaching staff full time, even as an assistant, since retiring after the 2013-14 season, saying repeatedly that he intended to put his coaching and front office aspirations on hold until his five children were older.

The Phoenix Suns, with whom Nash won his backto-back MVP awards in 2005 and 2006, gauged Nash’s interest in recent years in both coaching and frontoffice work. Marks, though, convinced Nash to move up his timetable and make an immediate leap to head coaching, similar to what the Nets’ previous regime did in June 2013 when they hired Jason Kidd, one of Nash’s playing contemporaries, just after Kidd had participated in the playoffs with the Knicks.

The hiring, beyond the questions sure to be raised about Nash’s lack of experience, will also bring renewed attention to the league’s dwindling number of Black head coaches. Vaughn’s reassignment has left the NBA with just five in a league in which the player pool is estimated to be roughly 80 percent Black. At the start of the 2012-13 season, there were 14 Black head coaches.

New Orleans and Indiana have yet to replace Gentry and McMillan. Philadelphia and Chicago are the NBA’s other two teams with a coaching vacancy. The other

Steve Nash was hired as the coach of the Brooklyn Nets. current Black coaches are Atlanta’s Lloyd Pierce, Cleveland’s J.B. Bickerstaff, Detroit’s Dwane Casey, Phoenix’s Monty Williams and the Los Angeles Clippers’ Doc Rivers. Charlotte’s James Borrego was the first Latino coach in NBA history, and Miami’s Erik Spoelstra, of Filipino descent, was the league’s first Asian American coach.

In retirement, Nash has worked with the men’s senior national basketball team in his native Canada — both as the program’s general manager and in an advisory role — while maintaining a significant presence in soccer as both a team owner and broadcaster. For the past two seasons, Nash was part of Turner Sports’ coverage of the Champions League. The various soccer jobs, Nash has said, allowed him to be home with his children in the Los Angeles area.

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

29

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

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

Crossword

Answers on page 30

Wordsearch

GAMES

HOROSCOPE Aries

30

The San Juan Daily Star

September 4-6, 2020

(Mar 21-April 20)

It would be easy to get discouraged by a friend’s thoughtless comments. Instead of encouraging your ideas as you had hoped, they will offer nothing but criticism. This is upsetting when you have always supported them.

Whether or not they are deliberately trying to make things difficult for you, you would do better to avoid them and mix instead with more positive people.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

Taking part in a group event will be a great way to showcase your work in an effective way. This is your chance to use your creative skills in a team activity. Following a mix of your ideas and instructions from on high, you will find a clever solution to a difficult problem. Finances are in for a boost.

Taurus

(April 21-May 21)

Scorpio

You’ve always been careful and cautious. You are thinking about how you might go after a special goal. Visualise how you might take steps to achieve this aim. Take it slowly and you will get there. Look on your future with hope and optimism. Believe in yourself. With the right approach, progress will be positive.

No dream is impossible if you believe in yourself. Don’t listen to a friend or colleague who accuses you of being unrealistic. Your willingness to adapt and go with the flow has not gone unnoticed by a work superior. You could soon get an impressive job offer that will be both emotionally and financially rewarding.

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

You’re looking on the bright side of life and keen to get started on a joint project. A friend will inspire you with their ideas and suggestions. Their enthusiasm will help keep you motivated. This is your chance to channel your restless energy into projects and activities that bring you pleasure. Your priorities are changing.

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

Great news about some family plans you have recently been discussing will spur you into action. You’re ready for a change. Your world has felt stagnant for too long and this is not the time to let life pass you by. Your vitality is high and doing what you love will make you glow with happiness.

A friend will not resent your intervention if you can see a way to help make their life easier for them. You might hesitate about giving advice as you don’t want to be seen as interfering. Make a few suggestions and if these are enthusiastically received, share more information or offer practical assistance.

Taking on extra work will increase the money coming into your household. Having another source of income will make you feel more secure, financially. Your aim is to protect yourself against economic uncertainty. You could save a lot of money by buying an item you need that a friend doesn’t use at half the price it’s going for in the shops.

Leo

Aquarius

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

(July 24-Aug 23)

The end of a long-term financial arrangement is in sight. It is time for you and a partner to have a serious discussion about money. It is not time to splash out on luxury items. By continuing to be cautious with cash you will feel more secure. Finances are slowly showing signs of improving.

Virgo

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

You’ve always been willing to put time and effort into bringing about your goals. If your boss puts an interesting challenge to you it will be disappointing that workmates are making excuses as to why you should not take this up. If it appeals to you, say yes. It doesn’t matter what others have to say.

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

Be more assertive. Take any chance that is given to showcase your talents. This is not a time to allow less talented people to overshadow you. Your business methods are unique and will impress those in power. Now they know what you are capable of, you will be awarded a plum assignment. Be determined to demonstrate exactly what you can do.

Pisces

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

Getting advanced training will boost your confidence and earn you some impressive qualifications. You will feel better equipped and more confident to pursue goals that were once out of your reach. Happiness can be found through developing your talents and expanding your intellectual horizons. Studying a challenging subject will bring out the best in you.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

September 4-6, 2020

31

CARTOONS

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

BC

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

For Better or for Worse

The San Juan Daily Star

Ziggy

SEMANA, INC • Jueves, 3 de septiembre de 2020 September 4-6, 2020 32EDITORIAL

24

The San Juan Daily Star

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