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PMH HAS ‘PASSED BREAKING POINT’ By RASHAD ROLLE Tribune Senior Reporter rrolle@tribunemedia.net A TOP doctor at Princess Margaret Hospital described the strain COVID-19 has on the hospital in stark terms yesterday, insisting the institution has “passed the breaking point”. She said that sections of the facility are “bursting at the seams” and that the hospital is already at the point of collapse. Dr Raquel Davis-Hall, a consultant in the Accident & Emergency section of the hospital, said PMH is currently in the worst state it has been in since the start of the pandemic last year. “Right now I’ve been having doctors call us over the last two, three days, they call us from Abaco,
they calling from Andros, they calling from Eleuthera, they have patients, either symptomatic for COVID or testing positive or they need to be investigated for COVID. I have nowhere to put them so I have to delay their transfer,” she told reporters during a media tour of PMH yesterday. “(A) physician I spoke to from Abaco yesterday, he had three patients and he been calling for two days. I felt so horrible, I said I have to make space for at least one of your patients so you won’t feel that burden, so that we can share in this responsibility and I took the patient but after that I could take no more. So the islands are calling and I have nowhere to put these patients.” SEE PAGE THREE
EDUCATION Minister Jeff Lloyd said he is not concerned “whatsoever” by recent comments made by Bahamas Union of Teachers President Belinda Wilson, who warned that the union could take industrial action if schools are not ready before the new school year or if increments
are not paid. Mr Lloyd spoke after the BUT president sent a voice note to teachers on Monday night, raising concerns about the readiness of institutions due to COVID-19, among other things. According to Mrs Wilson, the union has yet to receive a plan from the Ministry of Education on the reopening of schools. SEE PAGE FOUR
By RASHAD ROLLE Tribune Senior Reporter rrolle@tribunemedia.net UP to 300 healthcare workers participated in a sick-out for a sixth straight day yesterday despite an effort by Public Hospitals Authority leaders to resolve their concerns. Bahamas Public Services Union president Kimsley Ferguson confirmed union leaders met the PHA’s managing director, human resources director and chairman on Monday afternoon to discuss their concerns. SEE PAGE THREE
RBDF ON STANDBY FOR HAITI SAILINGS
MINISTER SHRUGS OFF UNION STRIKE THREAT By LEANDRA ROLLE Tribune Staff Reporter lrolle@tribunemedia.net
NO END IN SIGHT TO PAYMENT SICK-OUT
GUNNED DOWN THE BODY of a man shot dead on Collie Bluff yesterday. Residents heard what sounded like a dozen shots and a man was spotted running into the bush after the shooting. See PAGE TWO for the full story.
THE Royal Bahamas Defence Force remains on heightened alert should there be an influx of migrants to The Bahamas in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake in Haiti. According to RBDF Commodore Raymond King yesterday, the agency’s strategy is “layered” and involves other agencies. Tens of thousands of people have been left homeless and at least 1,419 people are known to have died following the 7.2 magnitude earthquake on Saturday. More than 6,900 people were injured and an unknown number remain missing. SEE PAGE FIVE
RAPE CLAIM GOES ON AFTER ‘VICTIM’ DIES By FARRAH JOHNSON Tribune Staff Reporter fjohnson@tribunenedia.net THE attorney representing the late Claudia Bethel, the woman at the centre of a rape allegation against an immigration officer, yesterday criticised the government for questioning his client’s credibility in her civil suit, despite the Crown prosecuting the officer on her behalf during his criminal trial.
CLAUDIA BETHEL, speaking to The Tribune before her death. Fred Smith, QC, told Justice Indra Charles that he would file an
amendment seeking “additional aggravated damages” against the Crown for attempting to question Mrs Bethel’s reliability as a witness. He did this after putting his client’s death on the record and informing the court that her estate intended to continue their legal action against Norman Bastian and the government despite her recent death. SEE PAGE SEVEN
Nassau & Bahama Islands’ Leading Newspaper
ALICIA WALLACE: LEARN, LISTEN AND THEN TEACH
- SEE PAGE EIGHT
PAGE 2, Wednesday, August 18, 2021
THE TRIBUNE
FAMILY members were in tears yesterday morning as a man was shot dead in the Fox Hill area.
Photos: Donovan McIntosh/Tribune Staff
Gunned down By EARYEL BOWLEG Tribune Staff Reporter ebowleg@tribunemedia.net A MAN was found shot dead in front of a residence on Collie Bluff in the Fox Hill area yesterday. Residents living near the scene heard what sounded like a dozen shots being fired. Seconds after the shooting stopped a man was spotted running into the bush opposite the murder scene. Family members identified the victim as Navada Nairn. Superintendent Michael Johnson, of the Criminal Investigations Department, told reporters on the scene that the victim appeared to be in his early 40s. “Sometime shortly before 11am this morning a male victim was leaving a residence just behind me. Just as he was entering into his vehicle, he was approached by a male who was armed with a handgun
who approached him and shot him multiple times about the body,” he said. “The basic information is that this person came on foot and left in a northern direction.” When asked about the description of the assailant, Supt Johnson said the only information police had at the time was that the shooter was a man in dark clothing.
PEOPLE in tears on the scene of yesterday’s shooting.
He made calls for individuals to come forward with information that may assist the case. “I again appeal to anybody, any person, of this community to please if you have any information about anybody who is in possession of a firearm, please contact your local police station, call our crime tipsters. Give us the information, let us assess it and your information will be kept in the strictest of confidence.” People were inconsolable and wailing as police processed the scene. This comes after a woman was killed and a man was left in hospital after a shooting in Victoria Gardens on Saturday. Police are appealing to members of the public to contact them at 502-9991, Crime Stoppers at 328-TIPS (8477) or the nearest police station with any information that can assist in their investigation.
THE TRIBUNE
Wednesday, August 18, 2021, PAGE 3
PMH has ‘passed breaking point’ from page one The government has thus far resisted implementing strict restrictions on people’s ability to assemble and move throughout New Providence during the third wave of COVID-19, emphasising that the arrival of vaccines points to a way out of the pandemic. But even as residents show greater willingness to get the jabs, hospital officials are worried that their institutions cannot cope with the deluge of patients. “People are dying,” Dr Davis-Hall said. “Young people are dying. We have people pull up at the Critical Care Block not breathing and we do all that we can to assist them and we are limited in our reach and in our scope. There are things that we don’t have in this institution to help our fellow man. We want to have negative pressure rooms in the emergency rooms (but) we don’t have that and so our efforts for these patients are limited.” Dr Davis-Hall said the Accident & Emergency Department needs more nurses. She said tents donated recently by Samaritan’s Purse were a welcomed gift, but they are already filled to capacity under the surge of COVID19 patients. “Our secondary area in the clinic, we call the general practice clinic, that is bursting at the seams at this particular point in time,” she said. “I know we have two wards that are scheduled to come on stream, I need them to open and I need them to be staffed. I need them to decompress our load. The load is great and we are feeling the
weight and it is crushing us at times.” Staff of the Accident & Emergency section have been overworked since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Davis-Hall said. Some, she added, have worked continually with no relief and no breaks. “We are tired and we would like for the Bahamian public to know we care about you, we love you as our fellow brothers and sisters but we want you to take care of yourselves, we want you to do the protocol that has been outlined by the Ministry of Health,” she said. “We also
want you to get vaccinated. Please, brothers and sisters, you need to be vaccinated. This COVID virus is relentless. We see patients come in, let’s say 12am, they’re breathing, and you could say in the next two hours those same persons can be dead.” Despite the hard work of her team, Dr Davis-Hall acknowledged that some of them have not been among those given honorariums by the government. The matter has prompted up to 300 healthcare workers in other departments to engage in a sick-out for six consecutive days now,
delaying services in an already troubling time for the health system. Dr Davis-Hall said only two doctors in her department have been given honorariums to date. “Some of us are feeling at this particular point under-appreciated and overlooked, in particular what has happened with the gift some people call it that was given out?” she said. “It is a slap in the face when people who have not worked from day one can be given gifts and those who have been on the frontlines get nothing. It is almost heartbreaking.
But we don’t work for the money at times. We work because we love what we do. We come to work every day loving what we do. We love the new challenges, the new experiences. Yes, we want to get a salary. At the end of the day we have families, mortgages, things to take care of, but for us in the Emergency Department, the physician staff, for only two doctors to get an honorarium is ridiculous. “We have hospital workers who themselves have lost their loved ones to COVID and even in that I have lost my father to
COVID and I’ve had to pick myself up and remain in the fight.” The Ministry of Health said 55 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded on Monday, bringing the nation’s toll to 16,723. One hundred and thirty-seven people are in hospital while 313 people have died from the virus to date. Yesterday, health officials said due to increasing COVID-19 cases, PMH’s A&E Department is “operating at capacity.” The public has been asked to visit community clinics for non-emergency and nonurgent care.
‘WHY DID NON-FRONTLINE WORKERS GET PAYMENT?’
By TANYA SMITHCARTWRIGHT tsmith-cartwright@ tribunemedia.net HEALTHCARE union officials are expressing displeasure with the roll out of COVID-19 honorariums that awarded non-frontline workers over nurses and doctors who work daily in the fight against the pandemic. Last week, it was revealed that the driver and personal assistant of Minister of Health Renward Wells were each given more than $1,000 in honorariums. On Monday, he said the two workers were asked to return their gifts and they had agreed to do so. On Friday, a purported list of recipients of the honorariums made the rounds on social media. The leaked list contained the names of the recipients, the departments in which they worked and the amounts given which ranged from $1,200 to $5,000. President of Bahamas Nurses Union Amancha Williams was unhappy about this and said the money was designed to say “thank you” to healthcare workers for risking their lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The honorarium was a gift,” Nurse Williams said. “The honorarium provides a gift to say, ‘thank you for the hard work’. This was supposed to be paid from March to June. That’s the time frame they were to pay it. They waited a whole year and a half. Here it comes, the healthcare workers are upset because they paid persons who
MITCHELL SAYS WELLS SHOULD RESIGN AS MINISTER PROGRESSIVE Liberal Party chairman Fred Mitchell said Health Minister Renward Wells should do the “honourable thing” and resign. Mr Wells has come under fire after the Ministry of Health revealed last week that his driver and personal assistant received an honorarium set aside for frontline and non-frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. On Monday, the minister said he asked the two staffers to return the $1,158.40 they each received in honorariums to the government and made it clear he made no recommendations about who should receive the gift. However, this provided little comfort to the general public. In a
release yesterday, Mr Mitchell said he believed returning the funds does not help the issue. “Health Minister Renward Wells has a serious problem,” he said. “Directing his aides to return more than $1,100 in public funds does not solve the problem, in fact it exacerbates the problem. “The return of the money is an admission against interest; this means that the Health Minister publicly admitted that with his knowledge and agreement, an improper and unauthorised payment was made with public funds and consequently, there is a course of action which he must now take and only the Prime Minister can save him from the inevitable.
“The rules and conventions in these circumstances are very clear and impatient of debate. Minister Wells – do the honourable thing,” Mr Mitchell said. The honorarium has been a point of contention since last week when scores of healthcare workers began calling in sick over issues about those workers who had not received it. However, Mr Wells explained that the people who received an honorarium were recommended by a select committee within the Ministry of Health. “This committee was to make the decision based on the criteria approved by Cabinet for those who willingly stepped forward during the period 19th March to
18th June, 2020, and for those who later joined the fight in the Ministry of Health,” he said in a statement on Monday. “I shall be taking the list of those who were nominated to receive and yet to receive an honorarium to Cabinet for review to ensure that Cabinet’s intent has been upheld and met as directed.” The minister explained that to date 308 doctors, 644 nurses, 111 emergency medical services staff and 669 non-clinical staff have received honorariums ranging from about $1,000 to $5,000. “This group consisted of laboratory technicians, administrative, clerical, transport, security, custodial and other support staff in the Ministry of Health,” he said.
didn’t even touch a COVID patient. That wasn’t what the honorarium was sent for. “We had a major problem. The PHA (Public Hospitals Authority) list was not done correctly. The DPH (Department of Public health) list to me was satisfactory. The PHA list was off. “We’ve had minimum complaints out of DPH. You have nurses in Grand Bahama but only (some) of them received payment. Only eight nurses. Something is wrong with that picture. “The sad thing is that the secretary was paid the same thing as the nurses. Tell me what the secretary did? That killed the people’s spirit. That is what happens when you don’t want the union to be a part of what you are doing. You cannot say you don’t want the union to be a part of your decision making.”
Nurse Williams said supervisors should have had input when the government was making choices to pay honorariums. “The X-ray department, the phlebotomist, the auxiliary nurse, the registered nurse, the doctor, the maid that cleans various areas and the porters,” she said. “Those were the people who are to be paid. The people got very upset because they would rather pay the secretary, rather than pay someone who actually did the work. I feel something is wrong with that. “We worked on the frontline. The others were in the office or they didn’t even come in. They worked from home and they have them on the list to collect money. And, the nurse who was actually exposed to COVID is left off the list. The hospital and the clinics never closed down and nurses
went to work every day. So tell me why nurses were not on that list? “The supervisors should have been able to classify everybody in terms of the areas they work in. So you are left with a bunch of disgruntled people. They have drawn the line. They are saying, ‘we are already working in poor conditions and at the end of the day we had enough.’” She said it was tragic that the government sought to pay an honorarium to a secretary and driver when many healthcare workers were not paid anything after working continuously and eventually contracting the deadly virus themselves. “My union and my team were the first to write that document. We wrote to secure our members and we left it up to the leaders to choose those leaders that, with bravery, went above and beyond the call of duty
to fight COVID. So why weren’t they paid?” Dr John Dillett, vice president of the Consultant Physicians Staff Association, took issue with the roll out of the honorariums. He feels input should have come from healthcare unions. “Many people have not been paid, many people have been paid,” he said. “I think the way that it was rolled out … the communication that was given … The announcement was placed in the press before a discussion was had. Again, no discussion with the unions, no discussions with health bodies, things released in the press, so people are left scrambling trying to figure out what actually is going on. “I think the unrest that is going on in our hospital right now it’s pretty obvious that nurses, doctors and allied staff are unhappy
with how things are and that is not just about the honorarium. “I think lack of collaboration and lack of communication with health bodies has probably led to some of the discontent and some of the problems we are having, perhaps could have been avoided if the administrators and the politicians had sat down and outlined the plan and the timeline accordingly.” He said if collaboration were done, the unrest at the country’s healthcare institutions could have been avoided. The PHA said in a statement last week that department heads submitted names of people who should get the honorariums. On Monday, Mr Wells said the people who received an honorarium were recommended by a select committee within the Ministry of Health.
fight have received the honorarium. “We were told that a list is forthcoming for us to peruse for our consideration,” Mr Ferguson said. “If there are people not on that list, we can make additions with relevant justifications and submit the list to PHA and PHA will consider the changes. They will determine if those people qualify and another
list will indicate who will be paid.” Lists of people who would receive gifts of between $1,000 and $5,000 were leaked last week. Mr Ferguson said PHA officials told them they don’t know where those lists came from. “I wasn’t very impressed with them,” he said. “The perception I got was that these people were
appointed to try and clean up the damage that was already done. I thought it was disingenuous because I asked about the process of putting together the lists and it was indicated that some departmental reps were advised to compile persons who they thought would qualify to receive the honorariums, but these lists appeared to come from different organisations.”
Mr Ferguson said PHA could not present a document clearly showing the criteria for getting honorariums. On Monday, Health Minister Renward Wells said his driver and personal assistant will return the gifts of more than $1,000 they were given. Mr Wells said he did not recommend that anyone get the money.
That Mr Wells’ driver and personal assistant will return the money does not change the position of healthcare workers, Mr Ferguson said. The fact that they were on the list calls the credibility of the list into question, he said. In a statement yesterday, PHA again warned people they should expect delays accessing services because of the staff sick-out.
NO END IN SIGHT TO PAYMENT SICK-OUT from page one
“Only decisive action can satisfy the concerns we have,” he said yesterday. Workers are participating in a sick-out in protest of the government’s honorarium exercise. They say some deserving people did not get the gift while some who were not on the frontline of the COVID-19
PAGE 4, Wednesday, August 18, 2021
THE TRIBUNE
Minister shrugs off union strike threat from page one “Schools are scheduled to reopen for teachers, guidance counsellors, librarians, teachers’ aides on Monday, August 23, which is seven days away. To date, after writing to the Ministry of Education about a plan for the re-opening, I have not had anything in writing,” the BUT president said. “I have been informed of a meeting that is supposed to be held. I await the details.” She said the lack of communication between education officials and the union concerning health and safety protocols have left many teachers fearful of returning to the classrooms. Advising members on how to react if the proper measures are not in place, Mrs Wilson said: “All
teachers when you report to school and the schools are not prepared, do not enter the classrooms and remain outside socially distanced. “The shop stewards will have the union’s COVID-19 health and safety checklist that they will meet with the principal. They will go through the checklist and then they will meet with you as teachers to make sure that you are satisfied that the safety protocols are implemented before school begins.” Mrs Wilson also addressed concerns related to promised increments for educators, noting that she had been informed that the payments will be made this month. However, if health and monetary concerns are not addressed, the BUT president gave this message: “Just be ready for
industrial action,” she said. Responding yesterday, Mr Lloyd said he was not fazed by the remarks. He said schools will be ready to re-open safely come the end of this month. He reiterated that schools on certain islands will resume face-to-face instruction, while others will start with a blended learning environment due to the high COVID infection rates in those communities. Pointing to the Ministry of Education’s Strategic Plan for the Safe Reopening of Schools, Mr Lloyd said the same guidelines applied for the 2020/21 school semester will also apply for this upcoming school year. “In our conversations with the Ministry of Health... they determine what can happen in the Commonwealth of
LLOYD CLARIFIES VACCINATION COMMENTS EDUCATION Minister Jeff Lloyd has clarified earlier remarks he made regarding vaccinations for public school students, saying he was not inferring that COVID-19 vaccines are mandatory for students. On Monday, Mr Lloyd told reporters: “Do please remember that no child can enter the public school system without vaccinations, so parents are very familiar with vaccinations.”
However, yesterday the minister clarified that he was referring to students attending public schools for the first time. He said: “What I said was any child entering a public school for the very first time—that is for students who are either coming to a pre-school or grade one would have to show proof of immunization of vaccines. No child, no teacher, no educator, no staff member, no administrator, nobody is required to have
a COVID-19 vaccination in the Commonwealth in The Bahamas.” The Ministry of Education later released a statement saying the COVID-19 vaccine is not included in the Ministry of Health’s immunisation schedule for students. Therefore it is not mandatory for any student to demonstrate that they have received the COVID-19 vaccine in order to gain admittance to a public school.
Private Graveside Service For Nioka Grace Taylor, 51
of Moss Town, Exuma will be held on Thursday, August 19th, 2021, 12:00 noon at Woodlawn Gardens, Soldier Road. Officiating will be Pastor Ellison Greenslade You can join the family via zoom for the live streaming & Audio on: https://youtu.be/ki8J3hcRTel She was predeceased by her brother: Alcott Taylor.
Left to cherish her precious memories are her parents: Carlas and Elton Taylor; daughters: Garnequia Newbold, Lendesha and Lendeka Anderson; son: Dave Davant Mitchell-Taylor; grandchildren: Davante, Shavante, Dario, Kevario, Derek McKenzie, Jr., Samari, Davion; sisters: Bonita Taylor-Roberts, Kera and Bronya Taylor; adopted sister: Donna Darling; brothers: Keith Taylor, Elrod Taylor; sisters-in-law: Dacia Taylor, Annastacia Taylor; brother-in-law: Dwight Roberts Sr.; god children: Tobias Ferguson; nieces: Kaira Taylor, Mercedes Connell, Brittany, Brenell and Breanna Roberts; nephews: Elrod Jr., Kendrick, Rodrecco and Ethan Taylor, Corrections Officer Dwight Roberts, Marine Seaman Brandon Johnson; uncles: Rev. Clayton Taylor, Captain Eddins, Captain Limos, Captain Elvin Taylor, and Eroll Ward; aunts: Elra Taylor-Ward, Velna TaylorBurrows and Pamela Curtis of Ft. Lauderdale Florida, Janet Taylor, Donnell Taylor and Augusta Taylor; grand nieces and nephews: Kendesha, Shameka, Rodrecco Jr., Caleb, Kaelin Roberts, Terranique Beneby, Canaja Nottage, Bryniah Roberts, Rishae Burrows, Kymani Taylor and Kelani Thompson; cousins: Takita, Limos Jr., Rolanda and Ronaldo Taylor, Andrea, Sharon Brown, Sammy, Darron, Shervin and Steven Gay, Starlene Gay-Mark, Sandra Gay-Morley, Marvin Brooks, Dr. Anthone Ward, Earl and Errolinda Ward, Hudley, Nathan, Malcolm and Eden Taylor, Yvonne Ellis, Leona Major, Velma Brown, Shantell Levarity, Nicola and Verdell Brown, Alexandria, Alexis and Annique Burrows, Maxine and Marcella Taylor, Brenda Taylor- Cargill, Stephan, Captain Theodore, Levar, Reno, Eddina, Leslie, Shante and Robin Taylor, Captain Lincoln Neil Taylor and Nadia Taylor-Fountain; other relatives and friends including;: Katherine Musgrove, Samuel Musgrove, Lyden B. Curtis, Wayne Curtis, Vernie Rolle, Rodney Musgrove and Family, Dwayne Curtis, Glenda Edwards, Precious and Daren Hepburn, Karen Murphy, Sam Humes Descendants and Family, Ena Rolle Descendants and Family, Clara Dean Descendants and Family Elizabeth Rolle and Family, Telsene Storr and Family, Judy Forbes, Sirena Russell, Angel, Felisha, Trevor Williams, Jasmine, Tiffany, Princess Cleare, Theresa, Carol, Lavette, Monique, Vanette, Valarie, Shawn, Kemmie, D.J. Sky, Marie Coakley and Family, Treava Thompson and Family, Sitrah Tynes and Family, Nicole King and Family, Keva Wilkinson and Family, Craig and Simone Linton, Derek McKenzie, Sue Rolle, Ruth Smith and Family, Pratt Family, Helen Adderely and Family, Nazel Johnson and Family, Rodgers Family, Barbara Dorsett and Family, Tom Roberts and Family, McDonald Family, Poitier Family, Williams and Family, Denise King and Family, Mackey Family and The Entire Bamboo Town Family. The Entire Burrow Moss Town, Exuma Community and Mt. Thompson, Exuma Community, Pastor Elliston Greenslade and Member of Bible Truth Ministries, Pastor Lyden Clarke and Members of Philistine Church Exuma, Hon Chester Cooper and PLP Family of Exuma, Pinders Customs Brokerage, Sandals Emerald Bay, The Port Department, Store Away Blake Road, Resort World Bimini, and a host of other relatives and friends too numerous to mention. Viewing will be held in the “Serenity Suite” at Restview Memorial Mortuary and Crematorium Ltd., Robinson and Soldier Roads on (TODAY) Wednesday from 12:00 noon to 6:00 p.m.
The Bahamas and that those places in The Bahamas that do not have issues of COVID, we’re talking primarily of the southern islands, they can go faceto-face,” Mr Lloyd said yesterday. “Those (islands) where there is an issue with COVID, they will be allowed to go blended. I’ve stated that and so I don’t understand who would not understand that but I understand because again, we’ve been in constant communication with the health authorities.” “And as I’ve said yesterday, we have had a summer programme for those students who would’ve had some learning loss in the previous year and the very same prescriptions that have been given to us by the health (officials) that you have to maintain social distancing, wear masks, have the seven to 12 square feet spacing between students – those were obtained in the upcoming school year so there’s really nothing new about how we’re going to conduct the school year 2021/22.” “Now, in terms of repairs, those repairs are ongoing, and we fully expect that all schools will be ready and repairs will be completed in time for the August 30 presentation,” the minister added. Asked if he were concerned about the threats of industrial action, Mr Lloyd said he had none “whatsoever” and added that
MINISTER of Education Jeff Lloyd yesterday. Photo: Donovan McIntosh/Tribune Staff the ministry is currently administrators ready for focused on getting students school,” the Education and teachers ready for the Minister told reporters. school year. “This week, the admin“None whatsoever. istrators are in conclave. No concern whatsoever They are preparing because we are doing eve- themselves. Next week, rything we can and ought the teachers are in conto do to get our students clave, they are preparing and teachers and our themselves.”
DAMES: WE’RE TRYING TO FIND WAYS TO ENCOURAGE OFFICERS TO GET VACCINATED By LEANDRA ROLLE Tribune Staff Reporter lrolle@tribunemedia.net NATIONAL Security Minister Marvin Dames said yesterday his ministry is looking at several options to encourage more law enforcement officers to be vaccinated against COVID19 as hesitancy in taking the jab continues to be a challenge. While he was unable to give figures on how many officers have been vaccinated to date, Mr Dames said he understands a number of workers have received their first and second doses. However, he said there is a need for more to get inoculated amid high infection rates in the country and concerns about more contagious variants. “I know that there are officers who are getting vaccinated,” Mr Dames said before going to a Cabinet meeting yesterday. “We wish more would. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I’m working on getting those numbers. “We’re looking at ways to get more persons to get their jabs. That’s first and foremost and, you know, it’s just perplexing. People may have their views but at the end of the day, the science is clear and you know we’re looking at some options.” This comes as some jurisdictions are mandating vaccinations for frontline workers. Asked if the government is considering making vaccinations mandatory for law enforcement agencies, the minister did not give a definitive answer yesterday.
He only said officials are looking at ways to increase vaccination rates among law enforcement but did not detail what those possible initiatives might include. “Well, we’re exploring some options,” Mr Dames said when asked about the issue. “I don’t know if we’re there yet but we’re looking at some options which is one of the things that we want to ensure that our agencies are not decimated and the way this Delta variant is spreading throughout the world, we want to be proactive as we would’ve been at the beginning of this pandemic.” The push for vaccinations comes at a time when COVID-19 cases and virusrelated hospital admissions are surging. More than 16,000 cases have already been confirmed in the country since the start of the pandemic, with 2,966 infections still active as of August 15. In a recent TV interview, Royal Bahamas Defence Force Commodore Raymond King confirmed more than two dozen marines on Abaco were placed under quarantine after being exposed to two staff members who tested positive for the virus. “The way the vessels are constructed, persons live in close quarters, and so we are experiencing a surge in terms of where one or two persons onboard the various vessels, if they test positive, it requires us to quarantine the entire crew,” Commodore King said. “So, that affects us adversely in terms of having ships available to defend the borders and to be crewed up. Suffice to say that we have had a few ships
where you have had one or two cases on board, with consequent quarantine and a number of persons who also serve as crew members onboard those vessels.” Yesterday, Mr Dames conceded officials continue to meet and have discussions about COVID’s impact and the way forward. “We want people to get vaccinated. This is the key,” he said. “If you could imagine for example, let’s look at Defence Force vessels. Let’s say if we have four or five vessels out there and you have one or two persons on board those vessels, you have to shut down all of those vessels and so we’re looking at situations like that and we’re trying to avoid it. “But we are taking every step to ensure that we keep those numbers as low as possible and two, when one person is affected and you’re working with 100 persons that means 100 persons have to go into quarantine so we’re constantly looking at ways to ensure that our frontline officers are not adversely impacted,” Mr Dames added. At last report, 51,150 people have been fully vaccinated against the virus, while 68,323 have received their first shot. Yesterday, Mr Dames said officials are hoping to soon make vaccinations available for inmates at the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services. “I don’t have a date as yet although we would’ve discussed it and that’s certainly on the agenda,” he said when asked about the rollout of vaccinations for the group.
THE TRIBUNE
Wednesday, August 18, 2021, PAGE 5
Carnival waiting for permits for $200m cruise terminal By DENISE MAYCOCK Tribune Freeport Reporter dmaycock@tribunemedia.net CARNIVAL is awaiting the necessary project permits to begin construction of a $200m mega cruise terminal in East Grand Bahama, according to a statement released by the cruise line yesterday. “We have and continue to work with the appropriate ministries as part of
an ongoing process to be granted the necessary project permits as required by Bahamian law and regulations,” the cruise line said in a brief statement to this newspaper. In 2019, the cruise line signed a $100m deal with the Minnis administration for the ‘Grand Port’ project, which would create at least 1,000 construction jobs for Bahamians on the island. In 2020, Carnival
announced that it would double its investment. The project’s completion was expected in late 2021, however, Hurricane Dorian and the COVID-19 pandemic have delayed the plans. In a recent television interview on ZNS, Carnival’s President Christine Duffy had expressed optimism about the project. She said: “We are very hopeful we will get some
positive news soon. There was an open meeting on August 4, and our leader managing the project participated. I don’t know of any questions or issues raised to say we can’t get this, but again, we need to respect your laws and process, which is what we are doing. So, but hopefully next time when we speak it will be to celebrate good news.” More than 300 acres of
MORE THAN 16,000 BAHAMIANS STILL RECEIVING ASSISTANCE By KHRISNA RUSSELL Tribune Chief Reporter krussell@tribunemedia.net MORE than 16,000 Bahamians continue to receive weekly government assistance due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to Public Service Minister Brensil Rolle yesterday. The minister, who is also responsible for the National Insurance Board, said this is down from the 34,000 people who initially benefited from the programme at its peak last year. While the assistance initiative is set to end in September, Mr Rolle said a decision had not yet been made on whether it would continue beyond that time. “Thousands of ordinary Bahamians have benefitted from the programme particularly those individuals who worked in the touristic field that was totally shut down,” the minister told reporters outside Cabinet yesterday. “Many of these individuals have not in the past contributed to NIB but they’ve benefited through the programme because of the government’s commitment to making sure those persons had bread on the table or something to eat.” He also said: “That’s the government’s money. That’s money that the government makes and either had to divert from other projects and these funds were diverted to ensure that people had something to eat and some way to survive and so many of the projects
THE BAHAMAS Feeding Network team distributing food parcels last year. that the government may have planned had to be put on the shelf until this pandemic is over. “We know that over 16,000 individuals are now receiving a benefit from the government on a weekly basis.” At its peak period the programme paid out $16m every two weeks, he said. The initiative shed light on the frequency of employers failing to pay employees NIB contributions. “I want to encourage every single person to go on the NIB website to check to see whether or not funds are paid on your behalf. That’s very very critical,” Mr Rolle said. “One of the challenges we had during this
pandemic is that individuals would come to NIB expecting a benefit and they were normally told that ‘listen we don’t see you in our system no one has made a contribution for you’ so what I want every single Bahamian to do is to check to make sure that your employer is making the contribution on your behalf because they should be making a deduction from your salary on a weekly basis.” NIB, he said, is also in the process of seeing how best to go about creating new NIB smart cards. “We’ve already done an RFP (request for proposals) and we’re examining all those things before we take the next step,” he said.
RBDF ON STANDBY FOR HAITI SAILINGS from page one
The devastation came several weeks after Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated on July 7. Asked about the RBDF’s position in the event of increased immigrants to The Bahamas’ shores, Commodore King said: “The organisation’s strategic posture against possible influx of migrants in the southeastern Bahamas remains the same following the assassination of Haiti’s President weeks ago.
“That is, a layered security approach utilising dedicated defence force vessels and aerial reconnaissance via joint maritime interdiction operations with the Royal Bahamas Police Force Marine Unit, United States Coast Guard, and OPBAT. “The overriding maritime security plan is to maintain maritime domain awareness in the southeastern Bahamas; maritime domain control thereby restricting access to transnational criminal networks; whilst achieving maritime domain
dominance of our waters.” Last month, National Security Minister Marvin Dames said border patrols would increase due to concerns that political unrest emanating from the murder of President Moïse could trigger mass exodus from Haiti by residents there. The President was gunned down in his Portau-Prince home in the early morning hours of July 7. First Lady Martine Moise, who was also shot, was critically injured and hospitalised at the time. She has since recovered.
PLP SENATOR VICTIM OF ROBBERY ATTEMPT PROGRESSIVE Liberal Party Senator Jobeth Coleby-Davis was the victim of an attempted armed robbery yesterday. In a statement yesterday, the PLP said the party’s Elizabeth candidate was not harmed during the incident. “This morning Senator JoBeth Coleby- Davis, our candidate for the Elizabeth constituency was victim of an attempted armed robbery,” the party said. “We are incredibly grateful that she is safe and unharmed. We also would
SENATOR Jobeth Coleby-Davis. like to thank the Royal Bahamas Police Force for their assistance in this investigation. The public is reminded to be vigilant and watch their surroundings.”
The incident was captured on surveillance video and showed Mrs ColebyDavis parked in her car when another vehicle pulls up. A man emerges from the car and runs towards Mrs Coleby-Davis’ vehicle however she was able to drive away. This comes after Pinewood MP Rueben Rahming and his wife were robbed at gunpoint outside his home on the weekend. He was not harmed. However, the thieves escaped with stolen property.
land have been identified at Sharp Rock, East Grand Bahama, for the cruise terminal, which will be the largest Carnival cruise port in the world, with two berths capable of accommodating the largest cruise ships, its Mardi Gras brand of ships. The port, once completed, is estimated to bring one million annual cruise passengers to Grand Bahama, rejuvenating the
island’s tourism sector and its economy. The cruise line has a long cruise history of sailing in this country. In 2019, Carnival admitted to dumping plastic overboard in The Bahamas. Carnival Corporation agreed to pay $20m after pleading guilty to releasing food and plastic waste into the ocean in Bahamian territory.
PAGE 6, Wednesday, August 18, 2021
THE TRIBUNE
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We have failed to protect our healthcare system THE point of imposing restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 was to give our healthcare facilities the best chance possible to deal with the pandemic. We have failed. Princess Margaret Hospital is broken. A top doctor has said the hospital has “passed the breaking point”. If you’ve already passed the breaking point, it is broken. The latest daily dashboard tells us that 137 people are in hospital with COVID19 across the nation, and 19 of those are in intensive care. Those are the numbers, the reality is that PMH is “bursting at the seams” and a consultant in the Accident and Emergency section saying the hospital is at the point of collapse. What does that mean? In Dr Raquel Davis-Hall’s words: “People are dying. Young people are dying.” We lack the facilities to help people as the hospitals are overwhelmed. We don’t have the negative pressure rooms, leading Dr Davis-Hall to say “our efforts for these patients are limited.” That’s the very stark reality. People can’t be helped. People are dying. “We see patients come in, let’s say 12am, they’re breathing, and you could say in the next two hours those same persons can be dead,” says Dr Davis-Hall. From alive and breathing to dead from COVID inside two hours. Earlier this week, The Tribune published figures showing another stark reality – the vast majority of those in hospital are people who are not vaccinated. Not one fully vaccinated person is among those who have died. If you want to give the country the best chance, if you want to help these medics who are working their hardest to keep people alive, then you need to follow the protocols of washing hands, wearing masks, using sanitisers – and avoiding gatherings unless you really need to. If you want to give yourself the best chance, then get vaccinated. The hospital needs more than just
us playing our part. It needs nurses. It needs capacity – the recent tents donated by Samaritan’s Purse already full. It needs room for patients coming in from the Family Islands with nowhere to go. The government may have solved the conundrum of vaccine supply – now it needs to solve the problem of the hospital not having what it needs to beat this surge. The hospital is broken. We all have to play our part to fix it.
Trouble ahead?
Education Minister Jeff Lloyd says he is not concerned “whatsoever” over a prospect of industrial action as teachers have raised concerns ahead of the new school year. Not so fast, Mr Lloyd. Take a look across at the escalating problems in the health sector, with staff staging a sick-out and genuine anger over how honorariums were decided and paid. A lack of communication has been a big part of the problem there – so how is communication going between staff and the Ministry of Education? Well, according to the president of the Bahamas Union of Teachers, Belinda Wilson, the union has yet to even receive a plan from the Ministry of Education on the reopening of schools – and that reopening is just a week away for teachers. Teachers and other staff are entitled to have genuine concern about health and safety – we have a healthcare system collapsing under the strain and surging numbers of new cases. If we all have to pull together to get ourselves out of this pandemic, that starts with straightforward communication. Don’t be so dismissive – find out what the concerns are and address them. If you don’t, then don’t be surprised if schools face the same level of disruption the health sector is dealing with right now.
What has happened to missing boys? EDITOR, The Tribune. I AM distraught – I haven’t slept a wink after reading in The Tribune that two little Bahamian boys — six years old, no less – were deported to Haiti shortly before that island was hit by an earthquake. And their only sin? Although born in the Bahamas, their mother was a Haiti and the father was a Bahamian. Their parents were not married and so the stain of illegitimacy on the innocent youngsters made them Haitian, although to them the Bahamas was home! Talk about the sins of the father being visited on the sons – this is a case where the father, although a Bahamian, had not married the mother. I am sick and tired of children being held responsible
for their parents’ transgressions. What has made matters worse is, if in fact what I have been told is true‚ those boys were in the jurisdiction of the court. If this is true why were they – two sons of the Bahamian soil— put on a plane and shipped out of the Bahamas? I have since learned that their mother accompanied them. This doesn’t help – they should be in the Bahamas, the land of their birth. And now Haiti has been devastated. Where are these two frightened little six year olds? I think our government has a duty to find out and let us know. I never knew that there were persons in our country who could be accused of such inhumanity. I hope The Tribune will try to find out the fate of
these two frightened little six-year-olds. No, I am not Haitian. I am a full blown Bahamian going back many generations. But I, like those little boys, belong to the human race, which makes us equal in the eyes of God. I shan’t rest until I know the fate of those two innocent children. I hope their Bahamian father will find out and let us know. In the meantime, I pray for this unhappy family and hope that we will be told why these boys were shipped out and denied their birthright. Remember friends, the old Bahamian saying – “God don’t like ugly!” A CONCERNED BAHAMIAN Nassau, August 17, 2021
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Afghanistan: Asia’s pit of despair EDITOR, The Tribune. THE Taliban has control of Afghanistan once again. The power elites throughout the globe will act as though this is a surprise to them, inconceivable, unplanned and unwanted. The Taliban will consolidate its power in one of three ways. 1) Announce a joint partnership with the liberal/ moderate administration. This partnership can last a few years or a short time, allowing the Taliban to cleanse the government and nation of its enemies, and then consolidate its power. This time will be used to further their alliance with their neighbour Pakistan, whose leadership and military have advanced The Taliban’s momentum and vision. 2) In an all out effort to carry out their stereo typical Religious-Socio genocide. Yes, thousands will be killed, imprisoned, tortured and driven from their homeland to be dealt with later. 3) Develop direct partnerships with China. China has thirsted for Afghanistan’s mineral and petroleum deposits for a long time. Afghanistan will need revenue, while China has it in abundance. The Chinese are used to working with contrarian ideologies and extremist organisations like the Taliban. Where do you think The Taliban has gotten its weapons from? China through the Pakistan intermediary. This option will possibly lead to Chinese troops located in Afghanistan. If this happens the Chinese will do what most other super powers have done, try to colonize an uncontrollable nation. Who are The Taliban? A loose union of local militias united by two things, greed and religion. Much of The Taliban has raised revenue through
LETTERS letters@tribunemedia.net criminal enterprises such as the growth of and exportation of Opium and other plant-based drugs. Where there is private militias, you will always find crime. The Taliban is made up of many personal fiefdoms who are paid through illicit means. Death is their way, while Power is their game goal. America made the mistake of getting involved in anti-terrorist actions direct in Afghanistan without considering the history of this nation and its people. Furthermore America misunderstood the Afghanistan people, their hopes and strengths. Afghanistan has been colonized by many nations ranging from ancient Indian empires, The Mongols, France, Britain and, most recently, Soviet Russia and America. Not one power understood what an historian would, that Afghanistan exists for the Afghans and no other. These people live in the most perfect place to wage long term guerrilla warfare. Like Vietnam with its vast jungles, Afghanistan has flat plains always surrounded by severe mountains and a most inhospitable climate. The American military told their political bosses they could wage a successful war against The Taliban. These elected officials believed them and there you have it, another war the American war Machine can profit from. Many lives later America leaves this land, a land they should never have gone to. This time American President Biden may have done the math and accepted that a war in Afghanistan cannot be won. So now Afghanistan will remain the place of terror and death to its people for a time. Those who helped
the foreign armies will suffer. Perhaps The Taliban leadership will plan for the future. Hopefully not a future of war and terror, but a future that is centered upon the benefit of its people. Afghanistan will never be a democracy. Perhaps President Biden had realised this fact. Afghans know this, and move along with their lives centred upon their faith, family and survival. What can America, Canada and UK do to improve this situation? Well we have what Afghanistan needs, namely financial wealth, technology and with a open hand reaching out to these former enemies the possibility of friendship. Look what financial embargoes have done throughout the world. Make the average citizen within the embargoed nation suffer while their leadership enjoys booze, women and song. A true gesture of friendship will go a long way towards healing the hatred, ignorance and pain we and Afghanistan have suffered over the years. A different way of foreign policy needs to be developed and deployed throughout the world. Instead of the stick, a firm friendly hand. The foreign policy of Theodore Roosevelt used for the last hundred years by America, that of carrying a stick and being prepared to use it, has its place, but one can get more accomplished using honey instead of the stick. Stop seeing our present day enemies as monsters, but as potential clients and maybe friends. Afghanistan can become a money pit sucking in good elements that build a freer prosperous society, instead of sucking in revenue, death machines and precious lives. STEVEN KASZAB Bradford, Ontario August 16, 2021.
THE TRIBUNE
Wednesday, August 18, 2021, PAGE 7
PAIR IN HUMAN TRAFFICKING CASE TO LEARN TRIAL DATE By FARRAH JOHNSON Tribune Staff Reporter fjohnson@tribunenedia.net A MAN and woman who were accused of conspiring to sexually exploit two teenage girls through human trafficking will learn their new trial date on Friday. Chief Magistrate Joyann
Ferguson-Pratt has set a fixture hearing for the resumption of Jamalaya Roberts’ and Shamika Rolle’s human trafficking and child pornography case. Prosecutors alleged the pair conspired to engage in the trafficking of two 16-year-old girls earlier this year. At the time, they
accused Rolle of creating nude video recordings of the teenagers and then distributing nude images of the minors on to the internet. Both accused were further charged with intentionally and unlawfully possessing the nude images of the minors. After they denied the
allegations, their case was adjourned to May 19 for trial. However, during the first day of the proceedings, Rolle’s attorney requested an adjournment because she was in the last stages of her pregnancy and was not feeling well. During her status hearing
yesterday, Rolle told the magistrate that she had since given birth and was in a position to proceed with the matter. According to Rolle, her baby is now two-monthsold and staying with a family member while she remained in custody. As a result, Magistrate
Ferguson-Pratt adjourned the case to August 20 for a fixture hearing. Both Rolle and Roberts will learn the date for the resumption of their trial at that time. Crown attorney Eucal Bonaby and Sergeant Samantha Miah are prosecuting the matter.
Rape claim goes on after ‘victim’ dies from page one
In late 2014, Mr Bastian, then a senior officer at the Department of Immigration, was accused of sexually assaulting Mrs Bethel. At the time, it was reported he took her to his home and allegedly forced her to have sexual intercourse with him against her wishes. Mrs Bethel later launched a civil suit against the government after her rape case was tossed out of court. Mr Bastian was never convicted of the offence and has denied the rape, saying the sex was consensual. In May, Mrs Bethel died of COVID-19 complications at Princess Margaret Hospital a day after giving birth to her fourth child.
Wayne Munroe, QC, represents Mr Bastian in the proceedings, while the Attorney General, the Minister of Immigration, Director of Immigration and Commissioner of Police, who are listed as the first through fourth defendants in the action, are all represented by Crown attorney Kayla Green-Smith. Yesterday, she told Justice Charles that Mr Smith failed to provide copies of Mrs Bethel and her husband’s passports despite a request from the court during a previous sitting. “It’s clear the court raised the issue requesting copies of the passports and we also maintain that this issue certainly goes to their credibility, which we would note from our submission is very central to the case for the
first through fourth defendants,” she stated. In response, Mr Smith said he would take the request for the documents “under advisement” and consider whether or not it was in his client’s interest to produce them. He also said he believed it was an “unbelievable conflict” on the part of the Department of Public Prosecutions to take such a position on the matter. “It is absolutely incredible that the Office of the Attorney General who prepared a case, laid charges against Mr Bastian and prosecuted in the belief that Mrs Claudia Bethel was telling the truth against Mr Bastian in a criminal context where the standard of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt, it is incredible that
the same office can now be appearing against Mrs Claudia Bethel and trying to persuade the court that she’s a discredited, untrustworthy, lying witness,” he argued. “There are two major issues remaining: was Mrs Bethel lawfully arrested and detained or not (and) that mostly (concerns) the first through fourth defendants. And then secondly: did Mrs Bastian assault her and rape her. Now the issue of credibility may go to the issue of whether Mr Bastian did or did not rape her (because) as she says, it his word against her word. But it is no part of the (government’s) case to be discrediting Mrs Bethel in relation to allegations of rape when they represented her to try and prove a rape case against Mr Bastian.”
In response, Mrs GreenSmith said she did not want Mr Smith to “twist her words” or try to change what she relayed to the court. “I did not say that the passport is central to our case,” she asserted. “I said that credibility is central to our case and we maintain that. (Mrs Bethel) came and she lodged her complaint to the police, they investigated the complaint and the proper case was laid before the court in which she was found to be an unreliable witness in those proceedings. She now sues the government and we rightfully so did not represent Mr Bastian in these proceedings and we maintain that Mrs Bethel is an unreliable witness.” Yesterday, Mr Smith and
Mrs Green-Smith indicated they had both filed and served the closing submissions of their respective clients as ordered by the court. However, Mr Munroe’s chambers indicated they had yet to do so and requested a short-term adjournment in the matter. In response, Justice Charles said she was disappointed that no submissions had been filed on behalf of Mr Bastian and noted that she had no more space available in her court calendar for the remainder of the year. Still, she gave Mr Bastian’s attorneys until September 14 to file and serve their submissions. She said if they failed to do so by that time, the court would proceed with the submissions of the other parties.
ROTARY CLUBS DONATE $200,000 OF SUPPLIES TO HELP STUDENTS ROTARY Clubs donated over $200,000 worth of school supplies to the Ministry of Education on Monday to help students in Abaco as a part of the organisation’s ongoing Hurricane Dorian relief initiative. The educational supplies were presented during a ceremony at the Ministry of Education headquarters by the Rotary Bahamas Disaster Relief (RBDR), Bahamas District 7020 Rotary Clubs and Rotary Clubs of the Bahamas. “Today, Rotary is pleased to hand over more than 8,000 text and workbooks. These books are the latest edition to cover all subjects from grades one through 12,” Rotarian Kendal Strachan said. “In addition, we are presenting copying machines for each of the 14 schools including that of a riso duplicator which will be placed at the administrator’s office to facilitate the duplication of examination papers. “Together, these donations which are packed in these containers...will leave and go directly to the harbour and will be in Abaco (Tuesday). It is a goal of Rotary to ensure that every student from each of the schools from Abaco district
have access to the tools that are necessary for them to function.” Mr Strachan also revealed that a new generator will be donated to the Moore’s All Age School. “While at the all-age primary school in Moore’s Island, along with a donor there was a decision made and on behalf of our Olympic gold medalist Steven Gardiner, this 45KW generator will be taken and installed at the Moore’s Island all age school at a value of $50,000,” he said. For his part, past Rotary International president, Barry Rassin described Monday’s ceremony as a “wonderful day” for Rotarians and added the organisation remains committed to assisting Hurricane Dorian victims. “I just want to thank Rotary Club International for everything that they’re doing and we really appreciate it and we know the island still need help and I’m just thankful that you guys are looking out for Abaco and Freeport and Moore’s Island because I was there at one point and I know for sure what I went through in school in Moore’s Island just to get by so I just want to say thank you guys so much,” said Mr Gardiner.
A DONATION ceremony of school supplies and equipment by the Rotary Bahamas for the Abaco school district was on the grounds of the Ministry of Education on Monday. Photo: Ulric Woodside/BIS
REPEAT OFFENDER TO FACE INVESTIGATION By FARRAH JOHNSON Tribune Staff Reporter fjohnson@tribunenedia.net A MAGISTRATE yesterday ordered the Department of Social Services to conduct an investigation on a repeat drug offender who admitted struggling with marijuana addiction. Police arrested Michael Gibson after they found seven grams of Indian hemp on him on August 14. He pleaded guilty to one count of possession during his arraignment before Senior Magistrate Derence Rolle Davis. The court were told that officers on mobile patrol observed the accused driving west along Windsor
Lane. When they beckoned for him to stop, they observed the accused throwing a plastic bag into nearby bushes. The prosecution said when officers asked Gibson what he’d thrown, he replied: “Nothing.” However, when they took him to the area where he had thrown the object, they found a bag with three foil paper wraps containing marijuana. He was subsequently arrested and “took full responsibility” for the drugs in an interview with police. During the hearing, Gibson told the magistrate that he had recently found out that he was diagnosed with a serious disease and was “fighting hard with
marijuana addiction”. In response, Magistrate Rolle Davis also noted that the accused was recently convicted for selling drugs and was back before the court for a similar offence after spending time on remand. He told Gibson “at this point it appeared as if he was not afraid of going to jail”. As a result, he said he would have the Department of Social Services conduct a report on the accused to see why he was constantly appearing before the courts for the same crime. He subsequently deferred Gibson’s sentence to September 29 and remanded him into custody until that time.
PAGE 8, Wednesday, August 18, 2021
THE TRIBUNE
Learn, listen then explain and perhaps people will feel ready for the vaccine
RESIDENTS queuing at the Loyola Hall vaccination site. WE are tired of the COVID-19 pandemic and there is no end in sight. The Prime Minister made the ridiculous statement a few weeks ago that the pandemic is over for the vaccinated. That was far from the truth. While some of us have some protection, we are all still vulnerable to COVID-19 and its effects. We risk exposure on a regular basis because there are some things we just have to do in person, especially if we do not have the resources to assign tasks to other people or conduct all of our activities online. We are still experiencing tremendous loss. Many of us are expending an inordinate amount of energy either trying to get others to get vaccinated or arguing with people about whether or not the vaccine is safe, good, and/or necessary. Unfortunately, most seem to be going about it the wrong way if they actually want people to listen to them and get vaccinated. Over and over again, we go through periods of frustration with each other because we are not truly communicating. In the absence of proper awareness and education led by the government and due to our distrust of the government, we are left to figure things out for ourselves and try to bring others along with us. When they do not easily follow, there is annoyance and, in some cases, anger. We do not understand why our loved ones do not just take our word for it. We do not understand why they do not simply trust and use the same sources we have come to rely on. We do not actually want to have to face the questions they have, have the gaps in our own knowledge exposed, or explain how we have come to make different decisions for ourselves.
By Alicia Wallace
We want to proclaim that we know better and compel others to follow our lead. Those other people, of course, want to do the same. There are not enough people who are willing to change their minds, so their communication is only for pushing a message and receiving favorable responses. This, we should know by now, does not work. To be able to convince a person or group of people of something when they already believe something completely different, you have to understand what they believe and why. When information is available, you need to find out why they are not able to access it, refuse to access it, or do not accept other people’s interpretations, summaries, or material based on it. Is there a problem with the source? If so, what is the problem? Is it difficult to access? If so, how can it be made accessible? Who can be engaged to create new version or distribute the existing material? What has already been created based on the most accurate information available? Have people seen it, understood it, and used it in their decision-making process? If not, why not? Without this information, there is no way to know how to approach the topic with your audience. Know your audience In the case of the COVID-19 vaccines, it is important to know
how your audience views COVID-19. For example, if they do not think the virus is that bad, think it only adversely affects or kills older people, or that their immune system is great, your arguments about the effectiveness of the vaccine is not likely to work. You first need to disprove their ideas about the virus itself. One of the first things taught in marketing classes is you need to know your audience, and this applies to more than the business world. You need to know your audience when you are trying to convince anyone of anything. What works for one group of people may not work for another. Find out where they are, and then make sure you start there. Know the arguments Beyond knowing the point of departure—the place where your views and the audience’s views take separate paths—you need to know why your audience is going another way. Why do they think COVID-19 is not that bad? Why are they so sure it will not affect them? You need to know if they are paying attention to the news. Have they seen the numbers? Do they know how many people have contracted COVID-19, how many were symptomatic, how many were hospitalized, and how many died? Do they think those numbers are not correct? Why not? Sometimes there are subarguments that need to be addressed. If people think
the government is lying about COVID-19 cases, why is that? What would be the point of publicly sharing false data, and why would so many people go along with it? In some cases, it may be necessary to go deeper into these kinds of arguments to find out how they make sense to people, even if it is not possible to convince them that those arguments do not hold up. It is sometimes better to leave those arguments and redirect, especially if you can find common ground. If you are willing to leave the audience with the belief that the Bahamian government is falsifying data, it may be helpful to point to data from other parts of the world. If data is not a good place to work from, you may need to shift the discussion to personal experiences. Who do you both (or all) know who has been affected and is not elderly or immune-compromised? Have accurate information It is not enough to know something for yourself. Where did that knowledge come from? Not only do you need to know your sources, but you need to be clear about which sources are accessible and have the potential to be believable to your audience. If you are a PhD student getting your information from research papers, good for you. That is not going to be helpful to you in convincing an audience that is not made up of academics. First, they are often behind paywalls or required university library credentials. Second, they are usually not written for the general public. Are there other sources you can find and share? Can you use the complicated sources to create accessible information, and would people trust what
you produce? The information you share needs to be easy to understand, from a trusted source, and address the specific arguments presented by your audience. Listen to the concerns For some people, it is about more than understanding COVID-19 as a threat to our health, economies and social lives. It is about more than knowing what vaccines are, how they are developed, what they are meant to do and what may occur as a result of receiving them. People have other concerns, and it is not helpful to dismiss them or act as though people deserve to die for having them. If you listen to people’s concerns, you can respond to them, find another source to help, or convey those concerns to the people who can properly address them. Many of the concerns are likely connected to the lack of clear information about the development of vaccines and the idea—which is incorrect—that the vaccine was developed in a matter of months. Similar to the need to address sub-arguments from time to time, sometimes we need to take a few steps back. Vaccines became available, the government encouraged people to make appointments and get vaccinated, and no one actually explained in a clear, concise way that COVID-19 is not the first coronavirus. Scientists have been working on coronavirus vaccines long before this pandemic, and how the urgent need for vaccines is connected to the funding necessary to make those working hours possible. No one has explained what the approval for emergency use actually means. People have concerns. People have fears. They should not be brushed
aside, and people should not be rebuked for having gaps in their knowledge and refusing to be moved until they have better information. If you have a real conversation, you will be able to hear those concerns and find answers. Refer to experts and trustworthy sources You do not know everything. None of us do. You do not need to pretend to have all of the information that exists regarding COVID-19 and the vaccines. We are all constantly learning more about the virus and the vaccine. Our knowledge will continue to change as more information becomes available and as the virus mutates. Be okay with admitting that you do not have the answer to a question. Do not make answers up. Tell your audience about trusted sources and what qualified them to share the kind of information you are trying to find. It is a good idea to have a diverse set of sources, including newspapers, doctors, researchers, community health workers, government agencies, international non-government organizations, universities, and faithbased organizations. People want to hear from those they expect to know and from those they hear from regularly and trust with other issues. Show you care Your audience will know why you are starting the conversation. Make sure you know why, too. You need to start from a place of care. You care about their wellbeing. You care about your community. You care about the toll this is taking on everyone, especially the most vulnerable people among us. You want your audience to be and stay in good health. You do not want them to die, even if they are wrong. This is not a game you are trying to win. This is not about your ego. It is not about you being right and them being wrong. You want to contribute to people making the best possible decision for themselves, so you are choosing to engage them in a productive, empathetic way. You will listen at least as much as you speak. Your goal is not to win an argument. With some skill and a lot of care, you will not even have an argument. You are going to have a conversation with the hope that you will walk away with a better understanding of someone else’s perspective and maybe even another person or a group of people truly considering the vaccine as a real option.
THE TRIBUNE
Wednesday, August 18, 2021, PAGE 9
AN A.I. EXPERT EXPLAINS WHY IT’S HARD TO GIVE COMPUTERS SOMETHING YOU TAKE FOR GRANTED:
TECHTALK FACEBOOK CONSTRUCTING SOLAR-POWERED DATA CENTRE IN MESA MESA, Ariz. (AP) — Facebook is building a data centre in metro Phoenix that will use only renewable energy, the company announced last week. Once completed, the facility in Mesa “will represent an investment of more than $800 million and will support approximately 100 jobs,” Facebook said in a statement. The data centre will house routers, switches, servers, storage systems and other equipment. Power for the data centre will come from three new solar facilities that will be built in Pinal County in conjunction with the Salt River Project, the company said. Facebook said the Mesa facility will use 60% less water than the average data centre, and that the water will be recycled several times before it’s discharged for agricultural use. The company said it worked with the SRP to obtain water credits for the Mesa facility’s operations. “We will not draw water rights from the city of Mesa,” Facebook said in describing its sustainability efforts.
COMMON SENSE
By MAYANK KEJRIWAL, University of Southern California
(THE CONVERSATION) – Imagine you’re having friends over for lunch and plan to order a pepperoni pizza. You recall Amy mentioning that Susie had stopped eating meat. You try calling Susie, but when she doesn’t pick up, you decide to play it safe and just order a margherita pizza instead. People take for granted the ability to deal with situations like these on a regular basis. In reality, in accomplishing these feats, humans are relying on not one but a powerful set of universal abilities known as common sense. As an artificial intelligence researcher, my work is part of a broad effort to give computers a semblance of common sense. It’s an extremely challenging effort. QUICK – DEFINE COMMON SENSE Despite being both universal and essential to how humans understand the world around them and learn, common sense has defied a single precise definition. G. K. Chesterton, an English philosopher and theologian, famously wrote at the turn of the 20th century that “common sense is a wild thing, savage, and beyond rules.” Modern definitions today agree that, at minimum, it is a natural, rather than formally taught, human ability that allows people to navigate daily life. Common sense is unusually broad and includes not only social abilities, like managing expectations and reasoning about other people’s emotions, but also a naive sense of physics, such as knowing that a heavy rock cannot be safely placed on a flimsy plastic table. Naive, because people know such things despite not consciously working through physics equations. Common sense also includes background knowledge of abstract notions, such as time, space and events. This knowledge allows people to plan, estimate and organise without having to be too exact.
COMMON SENSE IS HARD TO COMPUTE Intriguingly, common sense has been an important challenge at the frontier of AI since the earliest days of the field in the 1950s. Despite enormous advances in AI, especially in game-playing and computer vision, machine common sense with the richness of human common sense remains a distant possibility. This may be why AI efforts designed for complex, real-world problems with many intertwining parts, such as diagnosing and recommending treatments for COVID-19 patients, sometimes fall flat. Modern AI is designed to tackle highly specific problems, in contrast to common sense, which is vague and can’t be defined by a set of rules. Even the latest models make absurd errors at times, suggesting that something fundamental is missing in the AI’s world model. For example, given the following text: “You poured yourself a glass of cranberry, but then absentmindedly, you poured about a teaspoon of grape juice into it. It looks OK. You try sniffing it, but you have a bad cold, so you can’t smell anything. You are very thirsty. So you” The highly touted AI text generator GPT-3 supplied “drink it. You are now dead.” Recent ambitious efforts have recognised machine common sense as a moonshot AI problem of our times, one requiring concerted collaborations across institutions over many years. A notable example is the four-year Machine Common Sense programme launched in 2019 by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to accelerate research in the field after the agency released a paper outlining the problem and the state of research in the field. The Machine Common Sense programme funds many current research efforts in machine common sense, including our own, Multi-modal Open World Grounded Learning and Inference (MOWGLI). MOWGLI is a collaboration between our research group at the University of Southern California and AI researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, University of California at Irvine, Stanford University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The project aims to build a computer system that can answer a wide range of commonsense questions. TRANSFORMERS TO THE RESCUE? One reason to be optimistic about finally cracking machine common sense is the recent development of a type of advanced deep learning AI called transformers. Transformers are able to model natural language in a powerful way and, with some adjustments, are able to answer simple commonsense questions. Commonsense question answering is an essential first step for building chatbots that can converse in a human-like way. In the last couple of years, a prolific body of research has been published on transformers, with direct applications to commonsense reasoning. This rapid progress as a community has forced researchers in the field to face two related questions at the edge of science and philosophy: Just what is common sense? And how can we be sure an AI has common sense or not? To answer the first question, researchers divide common sense into different categories, including commonsense sociology, psychology and background knowledge. The authors of a recent book argue that researchers can go much further by dividing these categories into 48 fine-grained areas, such as planning, threat detection and emotions. However, it is not always clear how cleanly these areas can be separated. In our recent paper, experiments suggested that a clear answer to the first question can be problematic. Even expert human annotators – people who analyse text and categorise its components – within our group disagreed on which aspects of common sense applied
to a specific sentence. The annotators agreed on relatively concrete categories like time and space but disagreed on more abstract concepts. RECOGNISING AI COMMON SENSE Even if you accept that some overlap and ambiguity in theories of common sense is inevitable, can researchers ever really be sure that an AI has common sense? We often ask machines questions to evaluate their common sense, but humans navigate daily life in far more interesting ways. People employ a range of skills, honed by evolution, including the ability to recognise basic cause and effect, creative problem solving, estimations, planning and essential social skills, such as conversation and negotiation. As long and incomplete as this list might be, an AI should achieve no less before its creators can declare victory in machine commonsense research. It’s already becoming painfully clear that even research in transformers is yielding diminishing returns. Transformers are getting larger and more power hungry. A recent transformer developed by Chinese search engine giant Baidu has several billion parameters. It takes an enormous amount of data to effectively train. Yet, it has so far proved unable to grasp the nuances of human common sense. Even deep learning pioneers seem to think that new fundamental research may be needed before today’s neural networks are able to make such a leap. Depending on how successful this new line of research is, there’s no telling whether machine common sense is five years away, or 50. (The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
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BOEING ASTRONAUT CAPSULE GROUNDED FOR MONTHS BY VALVE ISSUE
By MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Boeing’s astronaut capsule is grounded for months and possibly even until next year because of a vexing valve problem. Boeing and NASA officials said Friday that the Starliner capsule will be removed from the top of its rocket and returned to its Kennedy Space Center hangar for more extensive repairs. Starliner was poised to blast off on a repeat test flight to the International Space Station last week — carrying a mannequin but no astronauts
BOEING’S CST-100 Starliner.
— when the trouble arose. A similar capsule was plagued by software issues in 2019 that prevented it from reaching the space station. “We’re obviously disappointed,” said John Vollmer, vice president and programme
manager of Boeing’s commercial crew programme. “We will fly this test when we’re ready to fly it and it’s safe to do so.” Kathy Lueders, head of NASA’s human exploration office, said it’s “another example of why these demo missions are so very important to us ... to make sure we have the system wrung out before we put our crews on.” Boeing’s performance is in stark contrast to that of SpaceX, NASA’s other contracted taxi service. SpaceX has flown 10 astronauts to the space station in just over a year, with four more due to launch aboard the company’s Dragon capsule at the end of
October. Elon Musk’s company will mark another first next month when it launches a billionaire into orbit with three guests, two of them contest winners. Vollmer said moisture in the air somehow infiltrated 13 valves in the capsule’s propulsion system. That moisture combined with a corrosive fuel-burning chemical that had gotten past seals, preventing the valves from opening as required before the Aug. 3 launch attempt. As of Friday, nine of the valves had been fixed. The other four require more invasive work. Rain from a severe
thunderstorm penetrated some of the capsule’s thrusters at the pad, but engineers do not believe that is the same moisture that caused the valves to stick. Engineers are trying to determine how and when the moisture got there; it could have been during assembly or much later, Vollmer said. The 13 in question are among dozens of valves that are tied into thrusters needed to get the capsule into the proper orbit and to the space station, and to also re-enter the atmosphere at flight’s end. All the valves worked fine five weeks earlier and performed well in the 2019 test flight, Vollmer said.
Vollmer said it’s too soon to know whether the valves will need to be replaced or even redesigned. Aerojet Rocketdyne supplied the valves, along with the rest of the propulsion system. Given all the uncertainty, Vollmer was reluctant to say when Starliner might be ready for another launch attempt. Boeing will need to work around other space station traffic, as well as a NASA asteroid mission that’s due to launch on the same kind of rocket from the same pad in October. “Probably too early to say whether it’s this year or not,” Vollmer told reporters.
It is possible to reopen schools safely
PAGE 10, Wednesday, August 18, 2021
THE TRIBUNE
STILLMAN Middle School students in face masks walk through their campus courtyard to class during their first day back to school in Brownsville, Texas, yesterday. Photo: Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald via AP by BRANDON GUTHRIE Associate Professor of Global Health and Epidemiology, University of Washington JUST when schools were getting ready to reopen for the new school year, cases of COVID-19 started surging in the United States, driven in large part by the more contagious Delta variant. School administrators around the country are working to bring students back into the classroom safely, while still providing them with an enriching learning environment. As an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Washington, I have spent the past year and a half working with a group of epidemiologists and health professionals to
collect, review and evaluate the scientific evidence about COVID-19 for state and local public health agencies. Our group concluded that vaccines and masking work well for preventing COVID-19 outbreaks in schools, but other strategies like plexiglass barriers and temperature checks are probably not worth the effort. What works A COVID-19 vaccine is the single most important tool for preventing COVID-19 in schools, as well as nearly everywhere else. All the vaccines currently authorized for use in the U.S. have been shown to help prevent infections and protect against moderate and severe disease.
Some variants, such as delta, may be more likely to cause breakthrough infections but vaccinations have shown protection against symptomatic disease caused by delta The more people in a school who are vaccinated, the lower the risk of an outbreak in the school and the lower the likelihood that someone will develop severe disease if infections occur. COVID-19 vaccines are currently available to anyone age 12 or older, and it is possible that at least one of the vaccines will be authorized for younger school-age children in the later months of 2021 or early in 2022. Masks are important, too. Not everyone in a school can be or will choose to be vaccinated, and there is
also a risk of breakthrough infections, especially from the Delta variant. Masks reduce the risk of an infected person spreading the virus and provide some protection for the wearer against becoming infected. During the past academic year, mask-wearing was shown to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in schools. Masks also don’t disrupt the school day in the way that other measures might, such as keeping students in fixed cohorts or shortening the school day for split shifts. What probably isn’t worth the effort Other prevention measures have had limited effectiveness in some settings but likely are not worth the cost and effort
to implement in most schools. Plexiglass barriers, common in businesses and other venues, can be expensive and do little to prevent airborne transmission in school environments. In some situations, barriers like desk shields may actually increase the risk of transmission by reducing air circulation. Daily temperature checks and symptom screening have also not proven to be an efficient way to prevent COVID-19 in public settings. This approach misses asymptomatic cases, which are especially common among children and younger adults. Still, students, teachers and staff should stay home until they have a negative test if they are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 or have been exposed to someone with COVID-19. Other policies can reduce transmission but can be disruptive to students, like physical distancing of at least 6 feet or separating students into cohorts that are not permitted to mix. If students are wearing masks, and especially if most are vaccinated, these measures are unlikely to add much more protction. The CDC currently recommends three-foot spacing in schools when possible and multi-layered prevention measures when not possible. It’s also probably not worth testing everyone on a regular basis. Frequent testing is expensive, and real-world examples and mathematical models indicate that routine asymptomatic testing for COVID-19 in schools provides little additional benefit beyond widespread vaccination and masking. However, the CDC does include some asymptomatic testing in schools as one of the potential components of a layered prevention strategy. What to do about lunch When I talk to school administrators about reopening safely, one of the most common questions they ask me is how to run lunchtime, when students are gathered together and cannot always wear masks. Many schools included lunch during the past year without causing COVID-19 outbreaks, which suggests that lunch can be done safely. There is little direct evidence on the risk of transmission when comparing different approaches to the lunch problem, but there are some basic guiding principles. Students should wear masks whenever they are not actively eating.
As challenging as it is to manage a rambunctious lunchroom, shouting, singing and loud talking spread more virus and should be discouraged, especially without masks. And good ventilation, particularly in spaces where people are eating, is important. Students also need to keep their distance from one another while they eat. Schools may consider having more lunch periods, having children eat in their classrooms, or using other spaces in the school to reduce crowding. Risks outside of school The strongest driver of COVID-19 in children, teachers and families is not school – it’s the level of community transmission. Given what we currently know, schools can continue to operate in person without widespread transmissios linked to schools. When community transmission is high, schools should take extra care to stick to their prevention strategies. But the main way to protect students is to stop the spread of COVID-19 outside of school. What we still don’t know It’s not clear how the rise of the delta variant will affect the return to school. People infected with delta tend to spread the virus more than those infected with other strains, and breakthrough infections from this variant can cause large outbreaks when other prevention measures are not in place. Relying on vaccinations alone to control COVID-19 does not seem to be a winning strategy. More children are becoming infected during the delta variant surge. There have been sharp increases in July and August 2021 in the total number of children identified with infections and hospitalized for COVID19. But the number of cases in the general population has increased, too. There has only been a modest increase in the proportion of COVID-19 cases in children relative to other age groups, and that could be due to the fact that children are an increasing share of the unvaccinated. COVID-19 never fails to provide new surprises. Many aspects of the next school year remain unknown, but by learning from what worked and didn’t work over the past school year, we have evidence that in most situations students can safely return to school in person as long as these layered prevention measures are put in place and adhered to. • Originally published on theconversation.com
THE TRIBUNE
Wednesday, August 18, 2021, PAGE 11
Tropical storm feeds growing anger in quake-stricken Haiti LES CAYES, Haiti Associated Press HEAVY rain from Tropical Storm Grace forced a temporary halt yesterday to the Haitian government’s response to the deadly weekend earthquake, feeding the growing anger and frustration among thousands who were left homeless. Grace battered southwestern Haiti, which was hit hardest by Saturday’s quake, and officials warned some areas could get 15 inches of rain before the storm moved on. Intermittent rain fell in the earthquake-damaged city of Les Caves and in the capital of Port-au-Prince. The storm hit late on Monday, the same day that Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency raised the death toll from the earthquake to 1,419 and the number of injured to 6,000, many of whom have had to wait for medical help lying outside in wilting heat. Patience was running out in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation. Haitians already were struggling with the coronavirus, gang violence, worsening poverty and the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse when the quake hit. Bodies continued to be pulled from the rubble, and the smell of death hung heavily over a pancaked, three-story apartment
A MAN walks on the rubble of a collapsed hotel the morning after Tropical Storm Grace swept over Port Salut, Haiti, yesterday, three days after a 7.2 magnitude quake. Photo: Matias Delacroix/AP building. A simple bed sheet covered the body of a three-year-old girl that firefighters had found an hour earlier. Neighbour Joseph Boyer, 53, said he knew the girl’s family. “The mother and father are in the hospital, but all three kids died,” he said. The bodies of the other two siblings were found earlier. Illustrating the lack of government presence, volunteer firefighters from the
NATO CHIEF: AFGHAN LEADERS RESPONSIBLE FOR COLLAPSE BRUSSELS Associated Press NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday blamed a failure of Afghan leadership for the swift collapse of the country’s Western-backed armed forces, but he conceded the alliance must also address flaws in its military training. NATO has been leading international security efforts in Afghanistan since 2003 but wound up combat operations in 2014 to focus on training Afghanistan’s national security forces. NATO helped build up an army some 300,000 troops, but that force withered in the face of the Taliban offensive in just days. “What we have seen in the last few weeks was a military and political collapse at a speed which had not been anticipated,” Stoltenberg told reporters after chairing a meeting of NATO ambassadors. He said parts of the Afghan army “fought bravely”, but that “ultimately, the Afghan political leadership failed to stand up to the Taliban and to achieve the peaceful solution that Afghans desperately wanted”. “This failure of Afghan leadership led to the tragedy we are witnessing today,” said Stoltenberg, who over the years often insisted the Taliban would only succeed at the negotiating table and never clinch victory on the battlefield. A year ago, NATO’s “Resolute Support Mission” to train Afghan security forces involved
around 10,000 personnel from 36 countries. On Sunday, a NATO official said “there are no troops under NATO command in Afghanistan currently”. Despite the flaws exposed in Afghanistan by corruption and a lack of leadership, the 30-country military alliance believes training local security forces is the best way to combat extremists like the Islamic State group and to avoid putting Western troops in harm’s way. NATO is training troops and helping to build national security institutions in Iraq, Jordan and Tunisia, and has similar arrangements with Georgia and Moldova. It’s also agreed to provide security advice to conflict-torn Libya “when conditions permit”. “We need to continue to fight international terrorism,” Stoltenberg said, and insisted NATO’s efforts had helped to weaken the Al Qaeda network. He said NATO can avoid getting mired in combat operations if it trains local forces. But, he conceded, “the big question we have to ask in an honest and clear-eyed way is: why didn’t the forces we trained and equipped and supported over so many years, why were they not able to stand up against the Taliban in a stronger and better way than they did?” Stoltenberg said NATO’s short-term aim in “extremely serious and unpredictable” circumstances is to ensure personnel can get out safely, as well as those Afghans who helped them.
US TO RECOMMEND BOOSTER WASHINGTON Associated Press
AFTER struggling for months to persuade Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine, US health officials could soon face a fresh challenge: talking vaccinated people into getting booster shots to gain longer-lasting protection as the delta variant sends infections soaring again. As early as Wednesday, US health authorities are expected to recommend an extra dose of the vaccine for all Americans eight months after they get their second shot. That means the biggest
vaccination drive in US history is about to get even more extensive. The move is being driven by both the highly contagious variant and preliminary evidence that the vaccine’s protective effect starts dropping within months. Last week, US health officials recommended boosters for some people with weakened immune systems, such as cancer patients and organ transplant recipients. If the shots are expanded as expected to other Americans, among the first to receive them could be health care workers, nursing home residents and other older people.
nearby city of Cap-Hatien had left the body out in the rain because police have to be present before a body can be taken away. Another neighbour, James Luxama, 24, repeated a popular rumor at many disaster scenes, saying that someone was sending text messages for help from inside the rubble. But Luxama had not personally seen or received such a message. A throng of angry,
shouting men gathered in front of the collapsed building, a sign that patience was running out for people who have waited days for help from the government. “The photographers come through, the press, but we have no tarps for our roofs,” said one man, who refused to give his name. The head of Haiti’s office of civil protection, Jerry Chandler, acknowledged the situation. Earthquake assessments
had to be paused because of the heavy rain, “and people are getting aggressive,” Chandler said yesterday. Some children were orphaned in the quake and some youngsters were starting to go hungry, said Carl-Henry Petit-Frère, a field manager for Save the Children, which said in a statement that it was distributing what it could to people living on the streets without protection from the wind and rain.
“I see children crying on the street, people asking us for food, but we are low on food ourselves as well,” Petit-Frère said, adding that children were warned not to go into houses because they could collapse. “The organizations that are here are doing what they can, but we need more supplies. Food, clean water and shelter are needed most, and we need them fast.” About 20 soldiers finally showed up to help rescuers at the collapsed apartment building. Prior to that, the only help that arrived was from poorly equipped volunteers. “All we have are sledgehammers and hands. That’s the plan,” said Canadian volunteer Randy Lodder, director of the Adoration Christian School in Haiti. Sarah Charles, assistant administrator for the US Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, said its disaster response teams were forced to suspend operations as the storm arrived on Monday, but members were back yesterday to assess its impact and continue helping. “We do not anticipate that the death toll related to this earthquake will be anywhere near the 2010 earthquake, where more than 200,000 people were killed,” Charles told reporters.
SPORTS
PAGE 12, Wednesday, August 18, 2021
THE TRIBUNE
CHICAGO Cubs’ Andrew Romine, back, is tagged out by Cincinnati Reds’ Jonathan India (6) at second base during the ninth inning yesterday in Cincinnati. Romine was caught stealing. The Cubs won 2-1. (AP Photo/Aaron Doster)
Hendricks wins MLB-leading 14th, Cubs snap 12-game skid CINCINNATI (AP) — Kyle Hendricks became the first 14-game winner in the majors, Ian Happ homered and the Chicago Cubs snapped a 12-game losing streak with a 2-1 win over the Cincinnati Reds last night. Hendricks (14-5) gave up three hits in six innings — the only big one a two-out homer by Nick Castellanos in the sixth — as Chicago won for the first time since August 4 in Colorado. The Cubs are 3-15 since selling off their biggest stars at the trade deadline last month. Frank Schwindel had a run-scoring double for the Cubs in the third. Happ homered to right field leading off the sixth, one of his three hits. Codi Heuer retired Cincinnati in order in the eighth and ninth for his second major league save and first this season. Reds rookie Vladimir Gutiérrez (8-4) gave up
nine hits while striking out seven over 6 1/3 innings. YANKEES 5, RED SOX 3, 1ST GAME YANKEES 2, RED SOX 0, 2ND GAME NEW YORK (AP) — Luis Gil posted his third straight scoreless start to begin his career, Luke Voit and Giancarlo Stanton homered, and New York swept Boston in a doubleheader and moved percentage points ahead of the Red Sox for an AL wild-card spot. In the opener, Jonathan Loaisiga stranded the bases loaded in Boston’s final at-bat for a gutsy twoinning save after New York capitalised on a wild outing by Red Sox relievers. The Yankees have won five straight and 12 of 15 to narrowly overtake Boston for second in the AL East. Gil allowed three hits and four walks and struck out four over 4 2/3 innings. He
is the only major league pitcher since at least 1901 with no runs allowed and 15 or more strikeouts through his first three games, according to YES Network. Chad Green closed out the ninth for his fifth save and second in two days. Wandy Peralta (4-2) earned the win. Nathan Eovaldi (10-8) took the loss. RAYS 10, ORIOLES 0 ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Nelson Cruz homered twice, three pitchers combined on a four-hitter, and AL East-leading Tampa Bay extended Baltimore’s losing streak to 13 games. Cruz moved past Dave Kingman into 42nd place on the all-time home runs list with 443. His three-run shot off John Means during a five-run fifth inning made it 8-0, and he hit a two-run shot in the sixth against Tanner Scott.
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Chad Ellis (1-0) got his first major league win with three-hit ball over the final four innings. Mike Zunino homered in his fifth consecutive game for the Rays. Means (5-5) gave up seven runs (four earned) and eight hits in four-plus innings. BRAVES 2, MARLINS 0 MIAMI (AP) — Jorge Soler snapped a scoreless tie with a two-out RBI single in the eighth inning, and Atlanta beat Miami. Austin Riley hit his 26th homer, a solo blast off Marlins reliever Anthony Bender in the ninth. Freddie Freeman had two hits for the NL East-leading Braves, who won their fifth straight and 12th in 14 games. Atlanta also has won nine straight road games Chris Martin (2-3) got the win by pitching a scoreless seventh. Will Smith got his 26th save with a perfect ninth. Sandy Alcantara (7-11) allowed one run and five hits, with seven strike outs and one walk. NATIONALS 12, BLUE JAYS 6 WASHINGTON (AP) — Riley Adams homered and drove in three in his first game against his former team, Erick Fedde won for the first time in more than two months and Washington snapped a season-high, seven-game losing streak. Adams had three hits. Yadiel Hernandez went deep and drove in three for the Nationals, who had dropped 12 of their last 13. Teoscar Hernández homered for the third consecutive game for Toronto, which has lost four of five since reaching a seasonhigh 11 games over .500 on Wednesday. Fedde (5-8) allowed three runs on five hits, while striking out four. Toronto starter Alek Manoah (5-2) took the loss. He allowed seven runs in three innings. ANGELS 8, TIGERS 2 DETROIT (AP) — Jo Adell hit a tiebreaking grand slam in the ninth
inning for his first homer this season and Kurt Suzuki followed with a solo blast, lifting Los Angeles past Detroit. Miguel Cabrera, one home run away from No. 500, was 0 for 2 with two walks. Mike Mayers (3-4) struck out the side in the eighth inning on 10 pitches for the Angels and gave up only one hit in the ninth. Gregory Soto (4-3) retired just two batters in the ninth when he gave up six runs, five earned, on four hits and two walks. BREWERS 2, CARDINALS 0 ST. LOUIS (AP) — Corbin Burnes took a no-hitter into the sixth inning and Kolten Wong had three hits and was hit by a pitch against his former team as Milwaukee beat St. Louis. Burnes (8-4) allowed two hits and two walks while striking out three in six innings. He is 6-0 in his last 13 starts and has not lost since May 25, against San Diego. Josh Hader earned his 24th save in 25 chances. Adam Wainwright (11-7) allowed just two runs in six innings despite surrendering nine hits and two walks. Tommy Edman broke up Burnes’ no-hit bid with a single to left field in the sixth inning. MARINERS 3, RANGERS 1 ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Tyler Anderson allowed one run on three hits in six innings for his first win with Seattle in a win over Texas. Anderson (6-8) struck out four, walked none and retired his final 12 batters after giving up a third-inning home run to No. 9 batter Andy Ibanez. Luis Torrens homered for an insurance run with two outs in the ninth. Rookie Cal Raleigh scored Seattle’s first two runs, on sacrifice flies by Ty France in the third inning and Mitch Haniger in the fifth. Paul Sewald picked up his fifth save in seven opportunities. Taylor Hearn (2-4) allowed two runs in five innings in the loss.
ROYALS 3, ASTROS 1 KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Daniel Lynch allowed one run over seven innings, Hanser Alberto hit a two-run double in the sixth, and Kansas City beat Houston. Jake Brentz earned his second career save. Michael Taylor also drove in a run for the Royals, who topped the AL West leaders in two straight games. Lynch (3-3) gave up a two-out RBI single to Carlos Correa in the third inning. He allowed four hits and three walks, while striking out five. Framber Valdez (8-4) lasted 6 2/3 innings for Houston, permitting three runs on nine hits and a walk. WHITE SOX 9, ATHLETICS 0 CHICAGO (AP) — Oakland pitcher Chris Bassitt was carted off the field after he was struck on the side of his head by a line drive, casting a shadow over the Athletics’ loss to José Abreu and Chicago. With two on and no outs in the second inning, Brian Goodwin drove a ball up the middle. Bassitt (12-4) went down on the mound after he was hit, holding his head. He was attended to on the field before being helped into a cart while holding a towel to his face. The team said the 32-year-old Bassitt was “conscious and aware,” and was taken to a hospital. Abreu and Jake Lamb each hit a three-run homer for the AL Central-leading White Sox. INDIANS 3, TWINS 1 MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Eli Morgan threw six scoreless innings, Daniel Johnson hit a two-run homer and Cleveland held on to beat Minnesota. Morgan (2-5) allowed just three hits and struck out eight to win for the first time since June 28. Emmanuel Clase earned his 17th save in 21 chances. Bailey Ober (1-2) cruised through four innings before running into trouble in the fifth. Ober gave up three runs — two earned — and five hits in six innings.
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SPORTS
THE TRIBUNE
Wednesday, August 18, 2021, PAGE 13
Jones’ double double helps Sun snap Lynx’s 8-game win streak UNCASVILLE, Conn. (AP) — Jasmine Thomas scored 19 points, Jonquel Jones had 17 points and 13 rebounds, and Connecticut beat Minnesota 72-60 last night to snap the Lynx’s eight-game winning streak. Jones, who reached 2,000 career points, also had four assists and three steals. Thomas and Jones each made all five of their freethrow attempts to help Connecticut go 14 for 16. DeWanna Bonner added 18 points and Briann
January had 10 for Connecticut (16-6), which began a five-game homestand. Kaila Charles beat the third-quarter buzzer with a runner in the lane to extend Connecticut’s lead to 62-46. Sylvia Fowles scored 14 points and Kayla McBride added 12 for Minnesota (13-8). The Lynx turned it over 17 times and shot just seven free throws. The teams play each other again on Thursday night.
Wings 80, Sky 76 CHICAGO (AP) — Allisha Gray had 20 points and Arike Ogunbowale scored 10 of her 15 points in the second half to help the Dallas Wings beat the Chicago Sky 80-76 last night. Ogunbowale beat the shot clock with a long 3-pointer to give Dallas a 75-68 lead with 2:20 remaining. Allie Quigley made her sixth 3-pointer with 52.7 left to pull Chicago within two points, but Moriah Jefferson answered with a basket in the lane and the Wings led by two possessions the rest of the way. Isabelle Harrison had 15 points and six rebounds and
Jefferson had 11 points, five rebounds and eight assists for Dallas (10-13). The Wings outrebounded Chicago 45-32. Satou Sabally missed her second straight game for Dallas with an injury. Quigley led Chicago (1111) with 27 points in 26 minutes. Kahleah Copper added 16 points and Azura Stevens 14. Copper and Candace Parker each went down with apparent ankle injuries in the third quarter. Copper returned to the court early in the fourth, but Parker remained on the Chicago bench with ice wrapped around her left ankle.
CONNECTICUT Sun’s Jonquel Jones (25) is guarded by Minnesota Lynx’s Napheesa Collier (24) and Bridget Carleton (6) during a WNBA basketball game yesterday in Uncasville, Conn. (Sarah Gordon/The Day via AP)
WNBA TEAMS READY FOR SPRINT TO THE FINISH OF REGULAR SEASON By DOUG FEINBERG AP Basketball Writer NEW YORK (AP) — After a month break for the Olympics the WNBA is back with a sprint to the playoffs. The league had its firstever Commissioner’s Cup championship, which Seattle won in a rout of Connecticut. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert was excited for the inaugural Cup final and sees great things ahead for the new inseason tournament. “I was really pleased overall with how it went,” she said in a phone interview. “I’m still capturing all the feedback on it.” Engelbert had hoped that the tournament would give more significance to the first half of the season and would build rivalries and of course add more compensation to players. Seattle players each earned roughly $30,000 for the 79-57 victory, and Connecticut’s share was $10,000. “There were no major hiccups and I think now that players and media know what it is,” the Commissioner said. “This was going to be our pilot year to see what it is. We went out there and took some risks in putting this on. We hope to do more local activations in the community during the 10 games people play leading up to the championship. We couldn’t do it this year because of COVID. Next year we’ll be in a better position.” Engelbert said the league is still trying to find the right time to host the championship game in the future. With the league returning from an Olympic break last week, she thought the timing worked well this year as a tip-off to the second half of the season. “We’ll evaluate the where and when because of the FIBA World Cup as there’s no Olympic break in the middle,” she said. “Given the footprint of next season, it has to be a little earlier.” Now the teams are ready for the month-long race to the playoffs. POWER POLL This week’s WNBA poll: 1. Seattle (16-6): The Storm are on a pivotal fivegame road trip that has stops in New York, Washington and Minnesota. An overtime loss to Chicago came without Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart, who were
resting after playing in the Olympics. 2. Las Vegas (16-6): The Aces rallied from a 21-point deficit to beat Washington in the team’s first game back. With A’ja Wilson and Liz Cambage leading the way, Las Vegas is proving it may be the team to beat this season. 3. Connecticut (15-6): The schedule favours the Sun with five straight home games as the team hopes to catch one of the top two teams in the league and earn the double-bye in the playoffs. 4. Minnesota (13-7): The Lynx picked up right where they left off, winning an eighth consecutive game. Now they’ll be challenged on the road with two games in Connecticut and one in Chicago. 5. Chicago (11-10): The Sky are healthy and poised to make a run to the playoffs over the final month of the season. 6. Phoenix (10-10): The Mercury have their big three healthy and ready to go with Skylar DigginsSmith, Brittney Griner, and Diana Taurasi poised to lead the team to the playoffs. 7. Washington (8-11): The Mystics are finally starting to get healthy with the return of Myisha HinesAllen and Natasha Cloud to the lineup. Elena Delle Donne has started to practice and should return to the active roster soon. 8. New York (10-12): The break provided a chance for the Liberty to get healthy as Sabrina Ionescu and Natasha Howard are back at full strength. Howard scored 30 points in her return to the court after being sidelined in late May with an MCL strain. 9. Dallas (9-13): The Wings have dropped four in a row, including a blowout loss to Connecticut to open the second half of the season. 10. Los Angeles (7-13): The Sparks welcomed back Nneka Ogwumike and Kristi Toliver from injury and held on to win against Indiana, ending a six-game skid. Los Angeles is also playing back in Staples Center for the remainder of the season. 11. Atlanta (6-14): The Dream have dropped five straight games and have a new coach after Mike Petersen stepped aside because of health issues.
SEATTLE Storm forward Breanna Stewart holds the MVP trophy after the Commissioner’s Cup WNBA basketball game against the Connecticut Sun on August 12 in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York) Atlanta also signed Candice Dupree during the break to add veteran leadership to the young team. 12. Indiana (4-17): The Fever saw their three-game winning streak come to an end in Los Angeles. The team got a strong effort
from Kelsey Mitchell and Victoria Vivians, who had 10 points off the bench. NEW ADDITION Breanna Stewart welcomed a new baby into the family a day after winning a gold medal at the Olympics. Stewart and her wife,
Marta Xargay Casademont, revealed their daughter Ruby Mae Stewart Xargay was born via surrogate on August 9. SOLID VIEWERSHIP The Chicago Sky’s overtime victory over the Seattle Storm on Sunday was the
most watched WNBA regular season game since 2012, drawing 755,000 viewers. That high number came with Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart resting while recovering from the Olympics. “It was a great game, I was going crazy at home,” Bird said. “We consistently as a league are breaking records in terms of viewership and outdoing the expectations in a lot of different categories. Hopefully we can get a place where we aren’t outdoing them, but it’s expected to be done.” GAME OF THE WEEK: Lynx at Sun, Tuesday and Thursday. Two of the top four teams in the league will meet twice in three days. The Sun had their roster together to train for most of the Olympic break while the Lynx had stars Sylvia Fowles and Napheesa Collier playing in the Tokyo Games.
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KING’S OFFENCE, MITCHELL’S DEFENCE LEADS SACRAMENTO TO SUMMER LEAGUE TITLE By W.G. RAMIREZ Associated Press LAS VEGAS (AP) — Louis King slammed home a two-handed dunk with a little more than two minutes left in the third quarter of the NBA Summer League championship game, let out a monstrous roar and promptly flexed with authority. Fittingly, it was King who dominated for Sacramento and finished with 21 points to help the Kings cruise to a 100-67 victory over the Boston Celtics last night in front of a sparse, masked crowd that barely filled the bottom bowl, an uncommon scene for a title game that has packed the venue in recent years prior to the pandemic. It was Sacramento’s first Summer League title since 2014. “Our transition, that’s what started it, our defence and transition points, that’s what it came down to,” said King, who started his career
in Detroit after going undrafted from Oregon in 2019. “I feel like everything we’re doing now, that we’re doing all summer, and what we’ve been doing is just going to translate into our regular-season team. “We’ve got new guys, new faces and we just got to trust each other.” One of those new faces is defensive stopper Davion Mitchell, who was taken ninth overall in last month’s draft and was out to prove the franchise didn’t make a mistake in adding him to an already guard-heavy lineup that includes Tyrese Haliburton and De’Aaron Fox. It’s not as if the Kings needed a boost to an offense that ranked 11th in the league with 113.7 points per game last season. Instead, it was the guard’s defensive tenacity the Kings are hoping will help a lethargic defense that allowed 117.4 points per game, third-worst in the league.
“We loved what we saw and that’s why we drafted him,” Kings coach Luke Walton said. “We continue to try to bring a certain player in and the front office has done a nice job, and you watch Davion play and you see him win a national championship, you get his background and how he competes and how he leads and how he works, and that’s why we spent a top-10 pick on him.” While the Kings got additional contributions from Jahmi’us Ramsey (16), Matt Coleman III (14), and Ade Murkey (10), Mitchell chipped in with nine points but more importantly shut down Boston sharpshooter Payton Pritchard. Carsen Edwards had 15 points and Aaron Nesmith 12 for Boston. Pritchard finished with just six points after being limited to 3-of-9 shooting from the floor. “All my life I’ve played with a chip on my shoulder.
SACRAMENTO Kings players hold up the trophy after defeating the Boston Celtics in the NBA summer league championship basketball game last night in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher) I’ve kind of always been like the underdog, especially coming to Sacramento hearing that they’re not a really good defensive team,” Mitchell said. “That kind of just turned me on, like I really want to change the narrative, I want to be a defensive team because defense wins championships. So yeah, coming into Summer League I tried to show that and I think I did a really good job of that.”
After the Celtics took a 14-4 lead behind the strong play of Nesmith, who opened the game with eight points, the Kings stormed back quickly with a 20-6 run to take a four-point lead after one behind 10 points from King. The Kings, who had the edge in fast-break points (24-4), pulled away in the third quarter by outscoring Boston 26-13 to take a 70-49 lead into the final 10 minutes.
“I didn’t know what to expect out of this game,” coach Bobby Jackson said. “I knew it was going to be a really good game because looking at them on film they play fast, they shot a lot of 3s. In my meetings, I always told the guys they haven’t run across a defense like us, and if we buy into defending and have each other’s backs, the ball is going to fall. It was just an effort on the defensive side of the ball.”
ROCKETS’ BROOKS CLOSES SUMMER LEAGUE BY MAKING 9 3-POINTERS LAS VEGAS (AP) — Armoni Brooks made nine 3-pointers and scored 30 points to help the Houston Rockets close out their NBA Summer League schedule with a 95-92 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers yesterday. Brooks shot 9 of 17 from 3-point range and 10 of 19 overall. His final 3-pointer broke a 90-all tie and put the Rockets ahead for good with 40.1 seconds left. The 23-year-old Brooks played 20 games for the Rockets this past season and averaged 11.2 points. Houston went on a late 12-0 run to take control after trailing for most of the game. Josh Christopher scored 20 points and Justin Anderson added 19 for the Rockets. Antonio Blakeney scored 23 and Michael Beasley had 16 for the Trail Blazers. Portland’s CJ Elleby had 13 points and 10 rebounds. MAVERICKS 83, HEAT 82 Feron Hunt’s follow shot with 12.4 seconds remaining gave Dallas a victory over Miami that assured the Mavericks didn’t finish Summer League play winless. Carlik Jones, an undrafted rookie free agent from Louisville, scored
21 points for the Mavericks. Robert Franks had 18 points and Devontae Shuler added 16. KZ Okpala had 16 points for the Heat. Micah Potter, an undrafted rookie free agent from Wisconsin, provided 15 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks. Miami rallied from a 17-point deficit to grab an 80-79 lead on Okpala’s 3-pointer with 1:29 remaining. Hunt sank a pair of free throws to put Dallas back ahead with 44 seconds left, but Miami regained the lead on Potter’s putback with 26 seconds left. Dallas then pulled ahead for good when Hunt converted an offensive rebound off a missed shot from Carlik Jones. 76ERS 103, JAZZ 98 Jaden Springer, the 76ers’ first-round draft pick from Tennessee, scored 21 points to help Philadelphia beat Utah. The 28th overall draft pick shot 8 of 14 from the floor and 5 of 6 on freethrow attempts. Utah’s Paul White injured his knee in the first quarter. White slipped on the floor and had to be helped off the court. Jarell Martin had 23 points, 12 rebounds, four assists and four steals for
LOS Angeles Lakers’ Trevelin Queen celebrates after scoring against the Golden State Warriors during the second half of their NBA summer league basketball game last night in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher) the Jazz. Dakota Mathias scored 22 points. MaCio Teague added 17 points and 12 assists. Aaron Henry and Paul Reed scored 17 apiece for the the 76ers. Frank Mason III scored 15. RAPTORS 86, NETS 72 Matt Morgan scored 24 points and Toronto beat Brooklyn despite committing 22 turnovers. The Raptors didn’t play Scottie
Barnes, the No. 4 overall pick in the draft. The Nets rested rookie first-round draft picks Cam Thomas and Day’Ron Sharpe. Morgan shot 9 of 12 overall and 4 of 6 from 3-point range. Brandon Knight scored 15 points for the Nets, who shot just 31.7 percent. Knight, the No. 8 pick in the 2011 draft, has scored over 6,000 career points
but wasn’t part of any NBA team this past season. LAKERS 84, WARRIORS 76 Trevelin Queen scored 21 points and Los Angeles rallied from a 17-point deficit to beat Golden State. The Lakers outscored the Warriors 34-13 in the fourth quarter. Justinian Jessup scored 18 points, Kyle Guy had 16 and Moses Moody added 14 for the Warriors.
Golden State selected Moody out of Arkansas with the 14th pick in last month’s draft. The Warriors didn’t play rookie Jonathan Kuminga, the seventh overall pick in the draft. Los Angeles rallied to take a 74-72 lead on Vic Law’s jumper with 2:31 left. Moody tied the game by dunking with 2:09 remaining, but Law scored to put the Lakers ahead for good with 1:34 left. PELICANS 87, TIMBERWOLVES 59 Naji Marshall had 10 rebounds and 10 assists to go along with five points as New Orleans rolled past Minnesota to finish Summer League action unbeaten. The Pelicans didn’t play rookie first-round draft pick Trey Murphy. The Pelicans and Timberwolves both headed into this game with identical 4-0 records. The Boston Celtics and Sacramento Kings reached last night’s Summer League championship game instead because they also were unbeaten and had better point differentials. Daulton Hommes scored 17 points for the Pelicans. Isaiah Miller had 13 points for the Timberwolves, who shot just 29.2 percent.
Walker’s welcome: Kemba comes home to play for Knicks By BRIAN MAHONEY AP Basketball Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The “Welcome to New York” signs decorating the outside of Madison Square Garden and hanging behind him were nice, though unnecessary. Kemba Walker needs no introduction around here. He’s a New York native who was already playing at Madison Square Garden in high school and made a memorable buzzer-beater during a historic Big East tournament run while playing for Connecticut. Now he gets to see what he can do while playing there for the New York Knicks. “It’s going to be better,” Walker said. “Ten times better.” The Knicks held a news conference yesterday to announce the additions of Walker and Evan Fournier, his teammate last season with the Boston Celtics who was acquired in a sign-andtrade deal.
Fournier, like many around the NBA, called Madison Square Garden his favourite arena. But few players — Knicks or otherwise — can match Walker’s history in the building. The highlight video montage that played before the start of the news conference included Walker’s step-back jumper to beat Pittsburgh in the quarterfinals of the 2011 Big East tourney, when he led the Huskies to a stunning stretch of five wins in five days. “That was just a special, special run,” Walker said. They followed it by winning the NCAA championship, with Walker the Most Outstanding Player. He went on to play eight seasons with the Charlotte Hornets and thought there was a chance he would sign with the Knicks in 2019 as a free agent before instead going to Boston. Now, a decade after he lit up the arena, the arena was lit up with his picture. “I think everything is perfect.
Everything,” Walker said. “Perfect timing.” It happened after the Celtics traded him to Oklahoma City in June. Walker agreed to a buyout so he could sign elsewhere, though said the Knicks were his only choice. At 31, the 6-foot-1 Walker may no longer be the same player who has averaged 19.9 points and been selected to four AllStar Games. He struggled with knee pain in each of the past two postseasons, though said yesterday he feels great now. No matter what, his signing was popular in New York, where the Knicks have long searched for a point guard and may have finally found one right in town. Walker was besieged by messages from friends, old coaches and beyond following the news that he’d be a Knick. “I planned on telling everybody I only get four tickets,” Walker joked to a small crowd at MSG that
KEMBA Walker (15) celebrates scoring the winning goal with teammate Shabazz Napier, in the final seconds of the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Pittsburgh in the Big East Championship at Madison Square Garden in New York on March 10, 2011. (AP) included his mother and sister. Fournier agreed to his four-year deal worth about $78 million while in Tokyo, where he was France’s leading scorer in the Olympics. The French beat the United States in their opening game and lost to them in the final, matching their best finish with a silver medal. The swingman averaged 17.1 points last season for Orlando and Boston and should provide scoring punch for a Knicks team that defended well under Tom Thibodeau but was
searching for more offense in the offseason. Fournier spoke to Thibodeau during the tournament, with the coach not only wooing the player but also talking trash to him, telling Fournier that after he won a silver medal that he needed to come to New York and talk. “Unfortunately that’s what happened,” said Fournier, though he knew by then that the Knicks were his destination. “It was pretty clear to me that New York was going to be the team for me,” he said.
The Knicks announced Tuesday they had acquired Fournier along with a pair of second-round draft picks for cash considerations. They hoped at one time that Frank Ntilikina, Fournier’s teammate with the French national team, could be their point guard solution. But the last lottery pick of Phil Jackson just before he was ousted as Knicks president never developed and the search continued. It led them to Walker, who was on vacation when he learned he was dealt to Oklahoma City.
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Bucks stay home for Christmas, Hawks return to holiday slate By TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer THE Milwaukee Bucks are staying home for Christmas, which is becoming an annual perk for reigning NBA champions. The NBA released the schedule for the December 25 quintupleheader yesterday, and the Bucks will play host to the Boston Celtics in the second of the day’s games. It marks the eighth consecutive season in which the reigning champion has gotten to play at home for the holiday. Also set for Christmas this year: Atlanta opens the day at New York, Golden State visits reigning Western Conference champion Phoenix, Brooklyn plays at the Los Angeles Lakers, and Dallas goes to Utah in the day’s finale. The full season schedule will be released Friday afternoon, the NBA said. The league is returning to an 82-game season after playing a 72-game slate last season because of the pandemic, and it is expected that the Toronto Raptors — who spent last season playing home games in Tampa, Florida — will be allowed to play in their home city again this season. Atlanta’s Christmas game will be its first since 1989, ending what was the longest drought in the NBA among franchises with at least one Christmas appearance. Charlotte and Memphis
have yet to play on the holiday. For Lakers star LeBron James, though, Christmas appearances are just about an annual occurrence. And this year’s matchup will likely be of the historymaking variety. If James plays in the December 25 game against the Nets, it would be his 16th Christmas appearance and tie Kobe Bryant for the most in NBA history. If James starts that game, he would break a tie with Bryant for most Christmas
starts; Bryant came off the bench once. If James scores more than 12 points, he will also pass Bryant for the most Christmas points; Bryant has 395, James 383. And should the Lakers win, James would become the first player to appear in 11 Christmas victories, breaking a tie with Dwyane Wade. The Bucks, Lakers, Celtics, Nets, Warriors and Mavericks all played on Christmas last season. Utah and New York return for the first time since 2018,
BIG MAX: JOEL EMBIID SIGNS $196M EXTENSION WITH 76ERS By DAN GELSTON AP Sports Writer PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Joel Embiid has deep into the decade to try and win his first NBA championship with Philadelphia. Another big-money deal locked up, the All-Star nicknamed “The Process” wants to end his career a Sixers lifer. The 76ers kept their trust in Embiid and signed the 7-footer to a multiyear contract that a person familiar with the situation said was a four-year, $196 million extension, taking him through the 2026-27 season. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press because specific terms of the deal announced yesterday were not made public. “There’s no place like PHILADELPHIA!!! Excited to continue working towards bringing a title home and eventually retire here #PHILLY,” Embiid wrote on social media. His new deal will start in 2023-24. Embiid and the 76ers signed a $148 million, five-year extension that kicked in with the 2018-19 season. The 27-year-old Embiid was NBA MVP runnerup this season to Denver’s Nikola Jokic, making him eligible for the supermax contract extension. Embiid led the Sixers to the best regular-season record in the Eastern Conference. Under coach Doc Rivers, the Sixers lost in the second round to the Atlanta Hawks. The Sixers tweeted a photo of Embiid and team owner Josh Harris with the contract that said, “@ joelembiid isn’t going anywhere.” “Joel is the definition of elite — a role model in our community and a true MVP-calibre superstar on the court,” Harris said. “Since he was drafted in 2014, his rare blend of skills, charisma and leadership has
76ERS’ Joel Embiid (21) goes up for a dunk during the second half against the Atlanta Hawks in Philadelphia, February 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum) transformed this franchise. We couldn’t be more grateful and excited to continue watching him in a 76ers uniform.” Embiid, the No. 3 overall pick out of Kansas in the 2014 draft, shook off more injuries and averaged 28.5 points and 10.6 rebounds last season. He tore cartilage in his right knee during the playoffs but played through the injury and was unstoppable at times in the post. He scored 36 points in 28 minutes in a Game 3 first-round win over Washington. He followed that up with 39 points in Game 1 and 40 in Game 2 in the East semis. Embiid was 11 of 21 and scored 31 points in Philadelphia’s Game 7 home loss to the Hawks. “It just felt like this was going to be our year,” Embiid said after Game 7. “If there’s one thing I want to say, I gave everything I had. It’s not easy, especially when something always happens at the wrong time. I was ready, this whole playoffs, to just come in and dominate and do what I had to do. The meniscus happened.” Embiid averaged 24.8 points and 11.3 rebounds over his first five seasons in the NBA. Embiid, a native of Cameroon, sat out his first two seasons with injuries and has never played more than 64 games in a season over his career. He missed games this year with
a bone bruise on his left knee. Embiid has solidified his future in Philly at the same time fellow All-Star guard Ben Simmons faces an uncertain one with the team after an ugly postseason. The Sixers expected to pair Embiid and Simmons as cornerstones who could keep the team as a contender in the East for a decade. Instead, Simmons became the scapegoat for the Sixers’ early elimination from the playoffs and his name has been dangled in trade rumours all summer. Embiid, though, signed the kind of contract that locks him in as a Sixer through the prime of his career. Embiid, who became a father last year, joined Hall of Famers Shaquille O’Neal and David Robinson are the only players in NBA history to average at least 24 points and 11 rebounds in their first 260 games. Since entering the league, Embiid has 173 double-doubles, which ranks second all-time in franchise history since the 1983-84 season. Among players who have debuted since 1954-55, Embiid is the NBA’s alltime leader in points per 36 minutes, with an average of 29.3 points. Embiid was named to his third career All-NBA Second Team selection and earned an All-Defensive Second Team selection.
GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO, right, NBA Champion of the Milwaukee Bucks, who was named NBA Finals Most Valuable Player, with his mother Veronica, and brother Thanasis pose for a picture at the Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, in Athens, Greece, August 1. (AP Photo/Michael Varaklas) and Phoenix is getting its first Christmas game since 2009. OPENING WEEK The NBA also released the schedule of nationally televised games for opening week, and this season will begin where last season ended — in Milwaukee, with the Bucks celebrating a championship. Ring night in Milwaukee, as expected, is October
19, when the Bucks will open the season against Brooklyn and with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver expected to be in attendance, as per tradition, to hand out the jewellery. Milwaukee won a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference semifinals on the Nets’ home floor during its run to its first championship in 50 years. The other game on the slate for October 19
has Golden State playing at the Lakers. The nationally televised games on October 20 are Boston at New York and Denver at Phoenix. On October 21, it’ll be Dallas at Atlanta and the Los Angeles Clippers visiting Golden State. And the national doubleheader on October 22 has Brooklyn visiting Philadelphia and Phoenix playing at the Lakers.
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World U-20s take spotlight By BRENT STUBBS Senior Sports Reporter bstubbs@tribunemedia.net printers Camille Rutherford, Lacarthea Cooper and Carlos Brown, Wendell Miller and javelin thrower Keshawn Strachan will begin competition for Team Bahamas today as the World Athletics’ Under-20 Championships gets started in Nairobi, Kenya. Rutherford, coming off her double victory in the under-20 division of the North American, Central American and Caribbean Championships last month, will lead the charge for Team Bahamas in the first of five heats in lane six at 2:35am. She goes into the race with a personal best of 11.32 seconds. And Cooper, who missed the opportunity to travel to the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, because of COVID-19, will run out of lane five in the fourth heat at 2:59am with her PR of 11.71. The first four finishers in each heat and the next four fastest losers will advance
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to the semi-finals. The final will be contested on Thursday. “Being on this team is an accomplishment. Only the top athletes are here and if you are here, you are a strong athlete,” said Cooper, who will also contest the 200m with a PR of 24.09. “My expectation is to run 23 seconds in the 200 and run my PR in the 100m. I just want to make my family and friends and the Bahamas proud by bringing back the gold.” Miller, the Bahamas junior national 400m record holder, will compete out of lane eight in the second of six heats in the men’s 100m with a PR of 10.43 at 3:28am. And Brown, who has moved up from the under17 division, will be running out of lane three in the last of the heats with his PR of 10.57 at 4am. The first three finishers in each heat and the next six fastest losers will advance to the semi-finals. The final will take place on Friday. At 9:14pm, Strachan, the Bahamian junior national
SPRINTER LACARTHEA COOPER, left, and javelin thrower Keshawn Strachan are scheduled to begin competition for Team Bahamas today as the World Athletics’ Under-20 Championships get started in Nairobi, Kenya. record holder at 72.13 metres, will compete in the qualifying round of the men’s javelin as the sixth of nine competitors in Group A. The best qualifying standard of 73.00m or the 12 best performances will advance to the final on
Friday. “It feels pretty great to represent the Bahamas at the World Junior Championships and to compete against some of the best in the world,” he said. “For me, it’s a major accomplishment and my goal is to leave the championships with a new personal
best. I plan to give this competition everything I got.” The Bahamas will be represented by a nine-member team in the championships that will continue through Sunday. The other members of the team are Alexis Tilford-Rutherford in the women’s long jump, Rhema
Otabor in the women’s javelin, Lamont Moss in the 200m and Antoine Andrews in the 110m hurdles. “All I am doing is putting in the last few days of practice, trying to get as comfortable and relaxed as possible,” said Otabor, who will be in a straight final on Thursday at 2:40pm. “I’m just talking about a few hiccups in my technique with my coach (Corrington Maycock) to see how best we can fix it in time for the competition.” Otabor said Nairobi is very nice, a little colder than anticipated, but the people are very hospitable. And she’s looking forward to seeing her team-mates compete before she gets on the field to do her stuff. The team will be co-managed by Laketah Charlton and Sharon Gardiner and coached by Bernard Rolle, assisted by Darron Lightbourne and Corrington Maycock. The medical personnel are Dr Alvery Hanna, physiotherapist Michael Armbrister and COVID19 liaison officer Laura Charlton.
‘I don’t see myself as setting the pace, even though I am the first Olympic gold medallist in the 400m’ By BRENT STUBBS Senior Sports Reporter bstubbs@tribunemedia.net WHILE she’s proud holding the distinction of being the first Bahamian athlete to win both the Olympic and World Championship titles in the 400 metres, Tonique Williams said the performances from Team Bahamas at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in Japan must be commended. She was commending Steven Gardiner, who followed in her footsteps as the next Bahamian to achieve the double feat and Shaunae Miller-Uibo, who made history of her own as the first Bahamian to repeat as back-to-back champion in the women’s 400m.
Now retired and just doing some personal training of adults, Williams said she was even more impressed with the fact that her protégé, Doneisha Anderson, ran the first leg of the women’s 4 x 400m relay team, despite the fact that they didn’t complete the race in the heats after Anthonique Strachan stopped running on the anchor leg. “I don’t see myself as setting the pace, even though I am the first Olympic gold medallist in the 400m,” Williams said. “I don’t want to block out the achievement of Avard Moncur at the World Championships. “I say that because this has been a succession and we keep proving that the
Bahamas has a strong hold when it comes to 400m runners. Definitely with Stevie and Shaunae, we are seeing why we continue to excel. And with the women’s 4 x 4 competing, I think the future is brighter in terms of what we are going to be doing going forth in the 400m.” Moncur would claim the feat of being the first Bahamian to win a global title in the men’s 400m at the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton, Canada. Williams surpassed that by winning the first Olympic 400m gold in 2004 in Athens, Greece and came back the following year and clinched the world title in 2005 in Helsinki, Finland. At the Tokyo Olympics,
TONIQUE Williams delayed by a year because of the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Gardiner joined Williams as the second Bahamian and first male to post the
consecutive victories, adding to the World title he picked up in 2019 in Doha, Qatar. Miller-Uibo, however, was the first Bahamian to repeat as Olympic champion as she successfully defended her title she won in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. “They’ve done well,” Williams said. “I think they showed the depth of the quarter-milers that we have produced here in the Bahamas. I think the fact that we got a women’s 4 x 400m relay team qualified for the Olympics, speaks volumes.” Since acquiring Anderson at the age of 12 when she was attending AF Adderley Junior High School, Williams was able to help groom her into one of the top athletes, who transferred to St Augustine’s College. Anderson, now attending the University of Florida, got her breakthrough on the relay team that included collegians Megan Moss from the University of Kentucky and Brianne Bethel, a Grand Bahamian at the University of Houston. “Doneisha has always exhibited the talent where you knew that she would go far,” Williams said. “I think that she’s had a pretty good junior career and now she’s also showing signs of having a great college career. “With this being her first Olympic appearance, I’m hoping that within three years, Doneisha can actually qualify for the Olympic 400m and be able to be in that final.” Having gone through what she described as a “challenging upbringing,” Williams said Anderson will eventually have one of those great stories that the world will marvel at when she attains her level of success. “In 2019 prior to the pandemic, Doneisha was showing signs of having a really stellar year in college,” Williams said. “That was interrupted because of the pandemic. It was a little disappointing for us because we had hoped that she would have gone on to qualify for the individual 400m at the Olympics.”
Having had to deal with surgery as well last year, Williams said it was good to see Anderson make it back to be able to compete on the relay team in Tokyo. But Williams said as Anderson will be older and stronger, she’s confident that she will use the Olympic experience to propel her to where she needs to be. “I’m hoping she will take all of this back and she will come back next year and have the season of her life,” Williams projected. Denied the opportunity to compete on a 4 x 4 relay team during her era, Williams said she made up for it in the individual 400m. It’s the reverse for Anderson, but Williams is predicting that it will turn around for the 20-year-old rising star. “Regardless of how they performed, I think this is a beginning,” said Williams of the relay team. “For me, to have an athlete who helped that to happen, made me feel as if I made a contribution to what I wanted to take part in when I was a junior.” At the time, Williams ran on some relay teams with “Golden Girl” Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie, the late Vernetta Rolle and occasionally Ingrid Sears, a quartet that had so much talent as individuals and collectively as a team. “We just never got to the Olympic level and we were able to put our best team together,” she reflected. “Now to see that realised and to know that I had a hand in it, just warms my heart and I hope that the administration can continue this push to compete at this level. “It was heartbreaking not having a men’s 4 x 4 out there or the mixed relay 4 x 4 team out. I really believe we could have medalled with a team consisting of Shaunae, Stevie, Doneisha and Alonzo (Russell) or Ramon (Miller).” Like she’s doing with Anderson, Williams said she will continue to stress the importance of the 400m runners taking their rightful places as members of Team Bahamas on the international scene, either in the individual events or as members of the relay team.