01082021 NEWS AND SPORT

FRIDAY

McRib

i’m lovin’ it!

HIGH 78ºF LOW 64ºF

The Tribune

Volume:118 No.32, JANUARY 8, 2021

Established 1903

Weekend

THE PEOPLE’S PAPER: $1

Weekend

Friday, January 8, 2021 photography craft garden ing history music puzzles animals

WEEKEND: FROM WRITER TO ENTREPRENEUR

NO QUICK FIX TO END THE KILLING

By EARYEL BOWLEG Tribune Staff Reporter ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

WITH six people already dead just days into the new year, National Security Minister Marvin Dames conceded there will be “occasions like this when you have a spike” in killings.

Mr Dames also warned that there was no quick solution to stop the violence and that the country would have to wait for medium and long-term programmes to take effect to halt the killings.

Mr Dames also told reporters he thinks there is some truth to speculation that the rash of murders are gang-related,

while others have been the result of domestic disputes.

His comments came days after he highlighted a 22 percent drop in murders in 2020 compared with the previous year. However, during most of 2020, New Providence – where the vast majority of the country’s violence occurs – was under curfews and movement restrictions.

Since December 30, 11 people have been murdered.

“I think that there’s some truth to some of it,” Mr Dames told reporters when asked about speculation that many of the recent killings were gang-related.

SEE PAGE FIVE

“We hope that a definitive timeline would be provided soon,” Dr Pinder-Butler told The Tribune. “But we appreciate that a lot of different factors are involved with determining which vaccine would be procured for The Bahamas.”

Asked if there was a particular brand of vaccine the CPSA endorses, she said: “The Centres for Disease Control recommended two vaccines and a few others SEE PAGE FOUR

editor

pgs 04 + 05

PORT AIMS FOR 1.5M VISITORS

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

NASSAU Cruise Port yesterday said it has slashed its 2021 arrival estimates by more than one million passengers, or 42.3 percent, due to Carnival and its affiliates delaying their return beyond end-March.

Michael Maura, its chief executive, told Tribune Business that in a worstcase scenario cruise arrivals for this year could possibly fall by 1.5m compared to initial projections as the uncertainty created by COVID-19’s economic and health devastation continues to ravage the industry.

FULL STORY - SEE BUSINESS

GOOD IDEA OR BAD - IT’S TIME FOR RESOLUTIONS

SEE PAGE EIGHT

DOCTORS CALL FOR VACCINE TIMETABLE

By KHRISNA RUSSELL Tribune Chief Reporter krussell@tribunemedia.net

CONSULTANT physicians are hoping officials will soon release a timeline regarding when a COVID19 vaccine will be available for administration in the country.

However, Consultant Physician Staff Association president Sabriquet PinderButler said the decision has to be made with proper consideration.

Pages 07

The write stuff

Petura goes from freelancer to

Dames concedes efforts to rein back gun violence will need time to succeed

PANDEMIC SONG A HIT IN EUROPE

POISONED WATERS A STUDY of large reef and tiger sharks has rung an alarm bell - high levels of heavy metals have been foun in the muscle tissues of the ocean creatures, suggesting a high level in the marine environment. See page two for the full story.

GIRLS ESCAPE SCHOOL GATE ‘SNATCHING’

By DENISE MAYCOCK Tribune Freeport Reporter dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

GRAND Bahama Police arrested a man yesterday in connection with two alleged attempted child abductions at separate government primary schools in Freeport.

The first attempted abduction occurred shortly before 4pm at the Walter Parker Primary school, where a female student was approached by a man in a

silver Cobalt vehicle who told her that he was sent to pick her up.

According to reports, a similar incident was also reported at the Maurice Moore Primary School, where a man fitting the same description had attempted to abduct a second student.

The students alerted adults and the police were called.

Superintendent of Police Terecita Pinder confirmed

that shortly before 4pm officers received a report of an alleged attempted abduction of a young female student at the Walter Parker Primary.

“The person told her he was sent to collect her; he then said he would give her a dollar, but she refused to go with him,” Superintendent Pinder said.

Ms Pinder said the student told her guardian

Nassau & Bahama Islands’ Leading Newspaper

SEE PAGE SEVEN

CLUB MED STAFF ALL LAID OFF

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

SAN Salvador’s Club Med resort terminated its 190 staff amid warnings the resort may not re-open until 2022.

John Pinder, director of labour, said the government has been advised that it may remain closed throughout 2021 rather than re-opening in December as planned.

FULL STORY - SEE BUSINESS

REMEMBERING BUTCH - THE MAN WHO SHARED HIS HEART

SEE PAGE NINE

PAGE 2, Friday, January 8, 2021

THE TRIBUNE

THE NEXT EDITION OF THE TRIBUNE IS ON TUESDAY FOLLOWING THE NATIONAL HOLIDAY

A Private Graveside Service for

IRENE LOUISE MCQUAY-SMITH, 104 of Nassau Street, will be held on Wednesday, 13th January, 2021 at St. Agnes Church Cemetery, Nassau Street. Officiating will be the Venerable Archdeacon Keith Cartwright, assisted by other members of the Clergy.

Due to current Government regulations in respect of Covid-19, attendance is limited to ten (10) persons.

She was predeceased by her Husband: Robert Golden Smith; Son: Anthony Alphonso Smith and Adopted Sons: Burton Smith and Ormond Smith.

She is survived by 5 Daughters: Mizpah Wallace, Olive Smith, Vivienne (Garnet deceased), Maryanne Smith and Edith (Albert) Miller, 2 Adopted Daughters: Gloria Smith and Garnell Kemp; 4 Sons: Luther (Jeannine) Smith, Matthew Smith, Permanent Secretary Carl (Ebiana) Smith and Leonard (Sheila) Smith of Freeport, Grand Bahama; 1 Adopted Son: James Smith of Tarpum Bay, Eleuthera; 22 Grandchildren: Angelique Smith of Fort Myers, Florida, Dr. Kyle (Ingrid) Smith of Fort Myers, Florida, Michelle (Dwayne) Roper, Savannah Smith, Melissa Smith of US Virgin Islands, Loleta Dixon, Luther (Chrystalle) Smith, Jr., Captain Carlos (Alicia) Thompson of Dubai, Kayla Cumberbatch, Nicholia Lockhart, Nadia Lockhart, Frankie Bannister, W/DC 3701 Yolanda (Sambrino Sr.) Williams, Dr. Aisha Miller of Macon, Georgia, Keisha Miller, Attorney Ciji (Khalil) Smith-Curry, Dr. Carlese Smith, Celeste Smith, Orion (Jervanda) Smith of Freeport, Grand Bahama and Dr. Shannon Smith of Freeport Grand Bahama; 32 Great-grandchildren and 1 Great great-grandson; Cousins: Families of the late Charles and Ida Grant, Edison and Mary Armbrister, the Myrtle Sweeting, Rosie Grant, the late Reginald and Arimentha Sweeting, the late Ruth Stuart, Carolyn Bartlett, Bursell and Rose Bradshaw, Hillerina Thompson, the McQuay’s, Neighbors in Nassau Street, Quarry Mission Road, McQuay Street, Angel Road Eastwood, Archdeacon Keith Cartwright and other clergy of Saint Agnes Anglican Church, the Anglican Church Women and Anglican Church Men and congregations of St. Agnes Anglican Church, St Anne’s Anglican Church, Holy Trinity Anglican Church, St. Matthew’s Anglican Church and the Sunrise Choir, Dr. Agreta Eneas, Dr. Rod Cargill and a host of other relatives and friends.

May Her Soul Rest in Peace Friends may pay their last respects at Bethel Brothers Morticians & Crematorium, #44 Nassau Street on Tuesday 12th January, from 11 a.m. to 5:00pm.

Heavy metals found in high levels in sharks

By RASHAD ROLLE Tribune Senior Reporter rrolle@tribunemedia.net

ALARMINGLY high levels of 12 heavy metals, including mercury, have been found in the muscle tissues of large reef and tiger sharks in The Bahamas.

Researchers from the non-profit organisation Beneath the Waves (BTW) say the discovery has important implications for human health insofar as sharks are consumed by people.

“Over the last century, human activities have rapidly accelerated the influx of metals and metalloid entering the marine environment, posing potential risks to biodiversity and food security,” BTW said in a press statement yesterday.

“Evaluating muscle tissue of 36 individual sharks from six species, the results from this study provide the first amount of metal concentrations in sharks sampled in The Bahamas, a relatively

pristine marine ecosystem where sharks live risk-free in large marine protected areas. Sharks are not commonly consumed by humans in The Bahamas.

“As apex predators, sharks naturally bioaccumulate toxins in their bodies from eating other species of fish. While the impacts of shark health remain unknown, the concentrations of metals quantified as present in the study were determined to exceed the levels that are considered toxic for human consumption. The study also found that reef sharks, the more resident species, had higher mercury levels than tiger sharks, and that reef sharks’ mercury levels increased as they matured and grew larger.”

Dr Oliver Shipley, the study’s lead author, said understanding how humans affect sharks is critical for conservation efforts.

“Working in areas such as The Bahamas where shark abundance is relatively stable and healthy

due to effective long-term protection is important for us to be able to establish these baseline studies. If the levels are high in The Bahamas, imagine what they could be in other parts of the world where sustainability and environmental conservation are not a priority.”

Researchers said while the human risks of ingesting heavy metals by consuming Caribbean shark species are clear, more studies are needed to “understand the pathways for how these metals ultimately enter into the marine food web.”

Jamie Fitzgerald, the general operations manager for BTW, said smaller fish species more commonly eaten in The Bahamas are also known to have mercury and other metals. However, she said their study focused only on the tissues of sharks.

In 2011, The Bahamas banned shark fishing and prohibited the sale, import and export of shark products.

THE TRIBUNE

Friday, January 8, 2021, PAGE 3

PLP ‘will have full slate’ if early election is called

By LEANDRA ROLLE Tribune Staff Reporter lrolle@tribunemedia.net

PROGRESSIVE Liberal Party Chairman Fred Mitchell said yesterday Bahamians can look forward to soon seeing a “full slate” of PLP candidates as the party expects Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis will call an early election.

“The schedule is on schedule,” he told reporters outside the PLP’s headquarters, adding that all potential candidates will be confirmed by next month.

“The process started about a year ago and we expect by the first of February everything to be in place. We had a very dynamic experience in Grand Bahama so all of

the potential candidates in Grand Bahama have been interviewed.

“We expect that we’ll be in Eleuthera next week for two days and that should be the last island I believe.

Those people who are interested in running in Eleuthera, we know that the other side already has their paraphernalia, and everything ordered.

“So, we’re lined up in the same direction because the indications are this man intends to call an election before the next budget and so Bahamians are to be anticipating within the next six months a full slate of candidates, but also a full campaign unfolding.”

Dr Minnis has previously said he is not considering a snap election, noting that his government is focused

on saving lives amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, according to the PLP chairman, there are several signs suggesting that the prime minister is already gearing up to go into full campaign mode.

Mr Mitchell also believes the prime minister will call the next general election before the budget.

Asked which indicators have led officials to have this opinion, Senator Mitchell replied: “Well, the Bible tells you to be ready because you never know the hour or the day so that’s the first thing.

“The party wants to be ready. But from our private intelligence, we know that they’ve ordered their paraphernalia. It’s here. It’s been ordered.

“They have their slogans.

The prime minister is using the pandemic to campaign up and down the country so…now the issue, of course, is the budget is coming up, they’re going to have to cut public spending which may even mean cutting the public service so the idea is to while there is kind of a period of relative calm in this winter period, that they will use this and say look how well we have managed the pandemic, we have saved the nation.

“We need to continue to be at the wheel – that’s their campaign and they want to do it before the budget takes place because they know that when the budget take place, it’s going to be if not a billion and a half, two billion in borrowing again and cuts in the public service and public spending.

“And so what you do is you campaign that ‘everything is great, I managed everything great,’ you do it before the budget and then you hope you win and when you win, you just bring down the gear team and the bitter medicine and say ‘welp, sorry.’”

Former Cabinet minister George Smith, who sits on the PLP’s Candidates Committee, said last year the committee desires to run a fresh slate of candidates in the next election.

This desire is expected to run up against the ambitions of several candidates who lost in 2017 and wish to run again.

Asked about the matter yesterday, Mr Mitchell said he could not say which former PLP MPs will be chosen for candidacy as the

Candidates Committee has not made a decision on any of the matters.

Mr Mitchell also addressed reports that the party has not fulfilled its financial obligations from previous campaigns.

“Well, you know debt is assiduously attacked,” he said. “I’m sure there are still debts outstanding, but we honour our legitimate debts and debt is a thing that you continue to work with all of your life. You’ll never be rid of it and campaigns are expensive. We thank all of our benefactors for allowing us to be able to continue and we’ll work assiduously in trying to settle any outstanding debts. “ Constitutionally, the next election must be held by May 2022.

Nations, in the Organization of American States and other fora with policies engineered in those fora which undermined these principles. What unfolded on our television screens on January 6 in the US capital buttresses our view that in these international fora it is important to stand for values as opposed to the convenience of ad hoc positions, based on craven supplications to powerful men.”

Mr Mitchell, a former minister of foreign affairs and immigration, continued: “In this regard, the Venezuelan policy comes to mind. We point out that the European Union has now reversed its position on recognising the insurgent team in Venezuela as the legitimate government of that country; that legitimacy was based in part on scenes in Venezuela which looked similar to scenes that played out yesterday in

Washington, DC.” In view of this, the party chairman said the PLP is inviting the government to also rethink its policy and realign itself with traditional policies of noninterference in the internal affairs of another country.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Darren Henfield said yesterday the situation was unfortunate, but he is confident America will bounce back.

He said: “For us it was an anomalous event that we have not become accustomed to seeing in the United States of America.

It is still unfolding and ... we don’t know what is going to happen after. We have confidence in The Bahamas that America, being the bastion of democracy that it is and has become known for throughout the Free World, would work through these issues and settle down.

“I happened to be up at

about 4am or thereabout and watched the two houses of the United States come together – Democrats and Republicans – and put this issue to rest. So, we find that they were able to ratify the President-elect and the Vice President-elect and I am looking forward to working with this new administration.”

In a statement from CARICOM Chairman Dr Keith Rowley, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, described the incident as a gross affront to democracy.

The CARICOM statement read: “The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is deeply saddened and concerned at the unprecedented scenes that unfolded at the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, USA, during the certification of the votes of the presidential elections by the US Congress.

“The storming of the US Congress was a gross

affront to democracy and the rule of law in a country which has been viewed as a leading light of representative governance the world over. CARICOM looks forward to the restoration of order and the continuation of the process of transfer of power in a peaceful manner.”

Since the incident President Trump, who had his account locked by Twitter for allegedly inciting the riot, used a White House staff member’s Twitter account to promise there would be a smooth transition of power on January 20, the day President-Elect Biden takes office, and last night issued a video acknowledging the transition would take place.

Mr Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts have been suspended indefinitely, or at least until the transition of power is complete, Facebook officials said yesterday.

SMOKE fills the walkway outside the Senate Chamber as supporters of President Donald Trump are confronted by US Capitol Police officers inside the Capitol on Wednesday.

Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

By TANYA SMITHCARTWRIGHT tsmith-cartwright@ tribunemedia.net A DAY after the dust settled on Capitol Hill, Progressive Liberal Party chairman Senator Fred Mitchell called on the Bahamas government to condemn the violence in the United States by Trump supporters.

On Wednesday, as America’s Congress convened to ratify President-elect Joseph Biden Jr and Vicepresident-elect Kamala Harris, an angry mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol building in what was an attempt to bully Congress into overturning the November 2 election results.

The horrific event unfolded when the lawmakers were having their say over the authenticity of President-elect Biden’s

win in the state of Arizona.

Thousands of men and women bearing the American flag stormed the federal building, overpowering law enforcement and causing elected officials to flee to safety.

Just hours before the violence erupted President Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his son, Donald Trump Jr, spoke at a rally and urged their supporters to march on Congress.

Senator Mitchell said: “Consistent with the conduct and conventions of a free and democratic state, our government must be seen publicly to uphold the democratic norms, amongst them the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power. There is a lesson to be learned by the Minnis administration in all of this.

“The public is reminded that we warned our government about walking in lockstep in the United

MITCHELL: BAHAMAS MUST CONDEMN US VIOLENCE

PAGE 4, Friday, January 8, 2021

THE TRIBUNE

San Salvador residents call for more curbs as cases rise

By LEANDRA ROLLE Tribune Staff Reporter lrolle@tribunemedia.net

SOME San Salvador residents are calling for more restrictive measures to curb COVID-19 spread on the small island after four additional cases were recorded there on Wednesday, pushing the island’s total to six.

Police Superintendent Kenrib Neely, who heads the San Salvador and Rum Cay police division, told The Tribune yesterday that COVID-fears in the community have increased since the island recorded its first case last weekend after months of being virus free.

“Definitely, people have concerns health-wise,” he said.

“Everyone is wondering who the persons are... so there are concerns but we are doing a lot of monitoring of persons, especially those in quarantine.

“We’re trying to enforce law and ensuring that they stay in quarantine for a long time, so that’s why we haven’t had any cases so far until the first of January because we have been taking a proactive approach checking the seaports, the airports coming in just to ensure that persons follow all of the emergency orders and the Ministry of Health protocols.

“But some people are feeling that the island may be locked down shortly because the cases are rising and some are preparing.”

According to the latest COVID-19 Emergency Powers Order, commercial activities on San Salvador are allowed with physical distancing and sanitisation protocols. Social gatherings are also permitted with no more than 20 people.

Residents there can also move about freely as there are no curfew measures currently in place.

One local, who asked to be identified as Ms Smith, told The Tribune she believes more restrictions may be necessary to limit movement and stop further COVID-19 spread.

“I think there can be more restrictive measures like the curfew hours and just having more people stay at home and only

going if you have to go.

I’ll be happy if there was a lockdown because I’m concerned a bit,” she said.

Another resident, who did not want to be named, added: “It probably needs to be (more restrictions) and I would support anything to keep me from getting the virus. We are following everything that we can to make sure that we stay in good health.”

The Tribune was told the island’s first case had a recent travel history. However, it is not clear whether the other cases are contacts of the first.

Yesterday, Supt Neely said while most locals appear to be following the health regulations, there are a few who have been found

in breach of the COVID-19 emergency orders.

He said: “We’ve had a few (breaches) and we’ve dealt with it by law, but there’s no large amount when it comes to breaches.

We’ve had one or two incidents where persons came in especially by boat who did the antigen test and said it was the RT-PCR. “They did a test but did the wrong test when they came so we’re dealing with them. What I find is that they went to the clinic and they chose the cheapest one. The RT-PCR is like $125 and the antigen tests are like $20 and they give us the antigen one not knowing it’s the wrong one.”

“But, we are monitoring

the mailboat coming from Nassau, all of the flights, international and domestic just to ensure that passengers have all of the requirements like the RT-PCR tests.”

As of Wednesday, total COVID-19 cases in the country stood at 7,959 after health officials reported 14 new infections. Nine of those cases are located in New Providence, while four are in San Salvador. One case was listed as location pending.

Islands that have yet to record a confirmed case up to press time include Ragged Island, Harbour Island, Spanish Wells, Long Cay, Chub Cay, and Rum Cay, according to health officials.

Doctors call for vaccine timetable from page one are being worked on. CPSA is aware and continues to review the data as vaccine administration is fairly new in most countries so we are carefully monitoring this so that we can support/endorse a proper vaccine roll out in the country.”

Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Delon Brennen told The Tribune yesterday officials were looking at the possibility of giving the vaccines to priority groups once health professionals receive it.

He was asked how health officials planned to handle the first 80,000 vaccines the country is in line to receive.

Dr Brennen said he did not have a preference for a vaccine.

Last month, Health Minister Renward Wells said the government was engaged in its own talks with several vaccine producers.

At the time, he said Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis is “leading the charge” on those discussions and added the government will not import any vaccine that will put people at risk.

He previously reiterated that The Bahamas remains on the “queue” to receive 80,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine whenever it becomes available, which the government has already made a $250,000 down payment towards.

“The total cost is going to be about $1.6m,” he said at the time. “We’ve already paid $250,000 of that and so we’re

just waiting for the WHO (World Health Organisation) to approve whether it’s Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, I think the Chinese have about two vaccines out, the Russians have about two and a number of other countries such as Israel and other nations in Europe are developing vaccines as well, and whichever that WHO agrees to, that’s the one that we’re going to be using.”

He added: “But, The Bahamas is also in negotiations directly with the various known brands of vaccines that are being developed such as Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca. We’re speaking to them directly. We haven’t reached out to them directly. Interestingly enough, they’ve reached out to us and we’re doing our due diligence as a nation and the Prime Minister is actually leading the charge on that. “ On Wednesday the Ministry of Health released a statement clarifying that no one under the age of 18 years of age will be administered a COVID-19 vaccine until the World Health Organisation and scientific evidence say it is safe to do so and with the consent of parents.

The ministry also noted the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine will be “entirely voluntary”.

The ministry explained there are clinical trials currently underway on the vaccine relating to people 12 to 17 years of age. The vaccines being administered in the United States have not yet been approved for use in those under 16.

PLP: GOVT MUST ACT NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE

By LEANDRA ROLLE Tribune Staff Reporter lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Progressive Liberal Party is calling for the government to be more proactive in its COVID-19 response, saying a feasible action plan is needed to safeguard the country against a new, more contagious COVID-19 strain that’s already spreading worldwide.

During a press conference at the PLP’s headquarters yesterday, the party’s COVID task force said the Minnis administration needed to act now before it’s too late in preparation for a potential third wave of COVID-19.

As it relates to the COVID-19 vaccine, the PLP said there needs to be more transparency from the government on when a vaccine will be made available in the country

and who will be given the priority to receive the doses.

The party representatives said they’ve received reports that the Minnis administration is leaning more towards Astrazeneca, but said officials should secure doses of whichever vaccine is currently available to begin the inoculation process right away.

PLP task force co-chair and Senator Dr Michael Darville said: “We are very concerned about the fact that at this stage of the game, the government has not brought forth a definitive timeline of when we anticipate one of the vaccines coming into our country and this is on the backdrop that the Cayman (Islands) which is already in possession of a vaccine.

“I believe we need to reach out to Cayman and some of the British colonies

because we already have a close diplomatic relations with them to see if we could source some of the vaccine to stand the inoculation programme.”

The task force also said there needs to be a comprehensive educational campaign on the vaccine to better educate the public and clear up misinformation presented about the vaccine.

Meanwhile PLP task force co-chair Dr Melissa Evans said statistically, “the probability of this third wave coming to The Bahamas is very, very high.”

More than 30 countries, including the US, have already detected the mutation, which was first spotted in the UK. Another strain out of South Africa is also said to be spreading.

Dr Evans told reporters yesterday that with all the recent holiday travel to the

US, it’s a possibility that any of the new COVID strains could already be here in The Bahamas.

“I don’t know what the exact number is, the Ministry of Tourism would have all of that data, but if we saw 2,000 people entered the country, the probability factor is a third of those people could’ve been positive even though they PCR testing prior to coming in because we still have a window that they would’ve had prior to landing in The Bahamas,” she said.

Recommendations made by the group include the government widely consulting with the medical and business communities on the new strain, revising the current travel protocols as necessary to reduce the likelihood of imported cases, increased testing and ensuring that local hospitals are prepared to isolate any potential cases of the new

strain among other things.

Speaking on the country’s travel protocols, Dr Darville recommended that the government could even re-introduce the rapid antigen testing requirement upon arrival for visitors and residents in response to the new threat.

The idea was initially set to be implemented for the country’s November 1 reopening, but later scrapped by officials in October.

Instead, travellers are given the antigen test on day five of their stay.

“A lot of the protocols need to be adjusted,” Dr Darville said. “As you’re aware, this pandemic is not a static situation, it’s very fluid.

“There are mutations and as we begin to see these types of mutations that are highly contagious, it means now that we must tighten up. We must definitely be able to revise the

protocols.”

Asked if officials are able to detect the new strain with the current testing tools, PLP COVID-19 task force member Dr Lynwood Brown: “Regarding the genetic profile of the B117, symptomatically there’s no difference from the current one so we would not know what strain it is unless we do genetic profiling.

“We utilise the Carrick genetic profiling lab in Trinidad if we suspect that this particular strain is here and I believe all new positive COVID tests where persons have a travel history should at this point be genetically profiled to see if it is in fact the B117 strain… but to answer your question in a nutshell, do we have the facilities here to do it?

No, but do we have access to it? Yes, but it has to be suspected through the epidemiological profiling or contact tracing.”

THE TRIBUNE

Friday, January 8, 2021, PAGE 5

No quick fix to end the killing from page one “Few of them were domestic as well. I think that there’s some truth to it. I mean listen, this is something that we’ve been contending with for a bit. We have a problem with young men who have associated themselves with gangs – the police are fully aware – who are hell bent on creating problems, but I have (every confidence) that the police will deal with it and will deal with it in concert with laws of the land. I have (every confidence) in the police.”

Two men were found

dead on Pitt Road last December.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Solomon Cash told reporters on the scene it was suspected that one of the victims was involved in gang activities and small drug peddling.

At the scene of a murder this week in Montel Heights, police press liaison officer ASP Audley Peters explained that although there is some speculation “these incidents may be gang-related”, yet “we have not fully confirmed those assertions”.

When asked about his concerns over the number of killings at the start of

2021, the minister said, “You’re gonna have occasions like this when you have a spike.

“I continue to say we’re not there yet.

As a government, we would’ve taken a multipronged approach to this issue of crime… We’re working with other agencies and other initiatives.

We understand that there are no short term fixes to the problems that we face.

“What you see throughout our communities, as I continue to say, is a manifestation of decades of neglect. We ain’t gonna solve it overnight, and so

while we continue to work to bring the numbers down we recognise that there are other things that we must do and are doing…”

He highlighted things such as working with young people on programmes, improving the quality of life in communities and improving education standards for young people so that at the end of the day they are capable and can get jobs.

Mr Dames also said an area that needs to be addressed in the community is domestic violence.

He said he had a meeting with the new executive board of the National

Neighbourhood Watch Council and that will be the focus of their new platform for 2021 – working with families to reduce incidents of domestic violence.

He mentioned it was a key focus for the police on their agenda moving forward.

He added: “It’s always sad when someone is shot, someone loses their life, but we recognise that you know this is a work in progress and we have to continue to work towards reducing the numbers.

“There’s a whole lot of things we’re doing, but we understand that while we’re doing them now they’re long-term. The fix

is long-term – medium and long-term. In the shortterm, we’re getting things done, but we recognise some of these things will take root in the medium and long term and so you’re gonna see from time-totime periods where you have incidents of crime….

You may have a day you may have a murder. Tomorrow you may have another murder.

“The police are learning from those experiences in terms of, you know, how do you adjust your enforcement strategies and how do you improve your strategies. It’s a very dynamic business.”

MINISTER HAILS DRONES AS CRIME-FIGHTING TOOL

NATIONAL Security Minister Marvin Dames viewing a demonstration of one of the drones, inset, yesterday.

By EARYEL BOWLEG Tribune Staff Reporter ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

NATIONAL Security Minister Marvin Dames attended drone testing at the Royal Bahamas Defence Force Coral Harbour Base yesterday, which will be rolled out in law enforcement agencies soon.

The minister and some law enforcement officials saw a demonstration of one of the aerial vehicles that

will be a part of the drones programme. It was noted that the drones will be used by the prison and detention centre. Mr Dames said the initial contract was for 57 drones and they are for multiple uses.

“This is going to be a very, very good tool, for example, for police officers,” the minister said.

“You not only have a police car on mobile patrol, now you can imagine having a drone that is smart enough to detect a gunshot and

that is agile enough to manoeuvre to the scene of a crime and pick up a suspect vehicle speeding away from that crime and being able to track that vehicle until it is intercepted?

“This year you know once our officers would’ve been trained in customs, in the police, and the defence force...this will be a very, very important tool in the fight against crime. For example, committing crime will be that much more difficult.”

The drone demonstrated yesterday can stay airborne for eight hours at a minimum.

As for how soon the drones will be used, Mr Dames replied “very soon”.

“I’m expecting some time this quarter and I hope to have a meeting very shortly with the team to get a more definitive timetable on when we can begin to roll out, to phase and we’re looking at a phased roll out, will be the ideal thing so that we can begin.”

PILOT LAUNCHED FOR SINGLE-SEX CLASSES

By RASHAD ROLLE Tribune Senior Reporter rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE government has launched a small-scale pilot programme involving single-sex classes following a promise made by the Free National Movement in its last manifesto.

Education Minister Jeff Lloyd Lloyd, in 2017, said his party would “immediately” implement a pilot programme to separate boys and girls in classes and schools, adding he believed they learn differently and

that studies show young adults thrive better in single-sex classes.

This week, Mr Lloyd said a small-scale pilot programme was launched in the 20182019 school year and officials hope to ramp up the programme after the pandemic.

“We’ve not done it on a whole scale (level) but we did have an attempt at it in Grand Bahama and we are seeing in at least one district where that is bringing some benefits,” he said.

“We recognise that that is something that some of our young men and young

women need particularly in early grades.

“Obviously, the pandemic and there was (Hurricane) Dorian…as soon as we are able to kinda put our feet back flat on the ground again and really move the education system more aggressively without having the challenges that we are faced with in the last year, definitely we want to expand that pilot effort that we are seeing some good success in Grand Bahama with, we want to expand that throughout the system.

“We just did it with one

school to see how it would work and what is required in order for it to work.

We did it with grades five (and six) where I think it’s most needed with students coming into eight, nine, ten years of age, that prepubescent year when the recognition of male and female now becomes more acute. That has been shown to be very effective.”

Mr Lloyd has noted in the past that he once attended an all-boys school. He was also the executive director of an all-boys programme, YEAST, for over 13 years.

Photos: Donovan McIntosh/Tribune Staff

Death Notice For Bessie Margaret Virginia Gibson Serrette, 83 a resident of Turnquest Avenue Stapledon Gardens died at her residence on Thursday, December 31st, 2020.

Precious memories are held by her daughters: Shelley Oloumou, Patricia Bovil and Audrey Symonette; sons: Stephen III, Shawn, Sherwin and Shelton Serrette; sister: Ada Johnson; brother: Ellerson Gibson; numerous grand children; great grandchildren, nieces nephews, and a host of other relatives and friends.

Funeral arrangements are entrusted to THE NEW COMMONWEALTH FUNERAL HOME and will be announced at a later date.

PAGE 6, Friday, January 8, 2021

THE TRIBUNE

The Tribune Limited NULLIUS ADDICTUS JURARE IN VERBA MAGISTRI “Being Bound to Swear to The Dogmas of No Master”

LEON E. H. DUPUCH,

SIR ETIENNE DUPUCH,

jamaaltheartist@gmail.com

Publisher/Editor 1903-1914 Kt., O.B.E., K.M., K.C.S.G., (Hon.) LL.D., D.Litt .

Publisher/Editor 1919-1972 Contributing Editor 1972-1991

EILEEN DUPUCH CARRON,

C.M.G., M.S., B.A., LL.B. Publisher/Editor 1972-

Published daily Monday to Friday

Shirley & Deveaux Streets, Nassau, Bahamas N3207 TELEPHONES

News & General Information Advertising Manager Circulation Department Nassau fax Freeport, Grand Bahama Freeport fax

(242) 322-1986 (242) 502-2394 (242) 502-2386 (242) 328-2398 (242)-352-6608 (242) 352-9348

WEBSITE, TWITTER & FACEBOOK www.tribune242.com

@tribune242

tribune news network

Are single-sex classes a step forward - or back?

AS the FNM campaigned for election in 2017, then candidate Jeff Lloyd made a pledge. He said if the party was elected, it planned to “immediately” implement a pilot programme to try out single-sex classes.

“Boys and girls learn differently,” he said. “Young men and young females learn differently and they advance at different paces.”

Mr Lloyd spoke as the graduate of an all boys school – St Augustine’s College back in the 1960s – and was also involved with an all boys programme called YEAST for more than 13 years.

Single-sex education is an old idea that has gained more traction in recent years. As an old idea, it is also one that has been much researched over the years. One of the key criticisms by experts elsewhere is that it can’t just be a case of separating the children into different classrooms. If they do indeed learn differently, then they need different methods of teaching – and teachers able to deliver each method. In short, if a boy learns differently from a girl, then give each of them a syllabus custom-fit to let each flourish.

It may not have been the “immediate” pilot that Mr Lloyd pledged, but a pilot programme, described as smallscale and involving one school in Grand Bahama, was launched in the 2018-2019 school year.

Grand Bahama, of course, has had its troubles along the way. First Hurricane Dorian, then the pandemic. So it would be unwise to draw conclusively from such a disrupted pilot – but that doesn’t mean it can’t give some pointers.

Mr Lloyd says it has been shown to be “very effective”, although we would probably all feel a little more comfortable if that didn’t come from the same Education Minister who hailed the last round of exam results a success when they very clearly were not.

That said, if there has been signs of benefit to children then absolutely it is worth considering a wider pilot – something a little more than that “small scale”.

The results should not just be down to exam results – it should also take into account those harder to categorise benefits or costs that see students grow into a whole person. Does keeping children apart reinforce some of the less desirable characteristics? Does mixing children help them to be better integrated in society?

These are all questions to weigh as we come to a conclusion – even as we applaud the goal of improving children’s education. So if this showed positive signs? On to the next step – but one step at a time.

Heavy metals There has been much talk lately – with oil drilling in the news – of the need to keep our beautiful waters clean.

In today’s Tribune, we learn that those waters might not be as clean as we hoped anyway – and it’s a lesson we learn from some of the greatest creatures of the ocean: sharks.

Studies have found sharks in Bahamian waters carrying high levels of heavy metals in their tissue. Where did this come from? That is unclear. The bigger question is how do these toxins affect us? After all, fishing is a major industry here.

That’s why conservation issues are so important. What affects our environment affects the creatures within that environment, absolutely, but it also affects us.

There’s no instant solution – not even an instant way to identify where the problem lies. The answer here is the same as with the schools we talk about above – more research, this time for the benefit of us all.

Pump and dump EDITOR, The Tribune,

TO all the folks across the world on this mailing list I wish you a belated Merry Christmas and a Happy, safe, and prosperous New Year.

During this vacation, and with very little to do, I scrolled the computer for information on certain investment opportunities.

I came across an incident in South America where a woman formed a company, and told the public that she had discovered a mine where there was gold. She failed to say that there was not enough gold there to make the mining of it economically viable.

When forming the company she gave herself millions of share options priced at extremely low prices. She made sure that important people that could influence decision makers, and the public, were given the same share options.

To the unsuspecting investor this seemed to be a great opportunity. They bought stocks and the price went up. The lady then sold her stock options at the higher price, bailed out and left the unsuspecting investor holding the bag.

This seemed to me to be illegal and so I phoned a friend in South America who dealt in stocks and asked her to explain this all to me. She said, that’s called “Pump and Dump”.

In most countries it’s illegal, but she said, “Look it up. It can be Googled”.

So I did and here is what I found: “Pump and dump (P&D) is a form of securities fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements in order to sell cheaply purchased stock at a higher price. Once the operators of the scheme ‘dump’ (sell)

their overvalued shares, the price falls and investors lose their money. This is most common with small cap cryptocurrencies and very small corporations, i.e. ‘microcaps’.”

It went on to say that “while fraudsters in the past relied on cold calls, the Internet now offers a cheaper and easier way of reaching large numbers of potential investors through spam e-mail, bad data, social media and false information.”

I read this and was shocked to know that these people existed in the world.

But it is good to have a few days off of work to keep up to date on what’s happening around you.

Have a Happy New Year and stay safe, wear a mask and practise social distancing.

PIERRE V. L. DUPUCH Nassau.

December 30, 2020

Stop the guns EDITOR, The Tribune.

HOW to get guns out of the hands of Bahamians and deter them from ending every argument with brutal force - often lethal?

I have no answer to this dilemma, which continues to be a never-ending headache as level-headed Bahamians search for an answer and a cure.

However, I do remember

being told many years ago that murderers used to be hanged on the Eastern Parade — of course, I presume, to a large crowd drawn to the gruesome spectacle. It was so gruesome that hanging was later removed behind prison walls out of public view.

However, I suggest that one or two hangings held on the Eastern Parade in public view might be a

sufficiently bitter tonic to shock Bahamians – especially the youth – into putting down the guns and ending their violent ways. Just a thought that might shock young people back to sanity and possibly bring rapid results.

A WORRIED BAHAMIAN Nassau, January 5, 2021

Looking ahead for 2021 EDITOR, The Tribune.

WE MADE it into 2021.

Thanks be unto The Lord Jesus Christ. 2020 is now behind us and as we probe this New Year, there is much to be thankful for despite the ongoing ravages of the pandemic and the anemic economy. We Bahamians often play the fool but we are a resilient and determined breed of people.

We should all have a precise and achievable bucket list for this year. Mine would include: 1. Less political posturing by both of the major political parties and more focus on fleshing out their plans to carry the nation forward. The FNM has carriage of the government so one will have to look to it for clarity and a stated economic recovery regime and a workable and affordable health plan not just for Covid-19, but for a National Health Care Scheme.

2. The immediate liberalization and a clear policy on Crown Grants

LETTERS letters@tribunemedia.net to indigenous Bahamians who meet the basic requirements both here in New Providence and throughout the Family of Islands. Land ownership is critical for one having a true sense of belonging and ownership by having a piece of the rock; 3. The establishment of a mandatory pension contributory plan for civil servants. It cannot be and if it is it can no longer be a situation where those employees by the public contribute absolutely nothing towards their expected pensions. The pension fund, in this case, some safe is underfunded and unsustainable. Apart from being an enormous annual financial bill to the taxpayers, the whole concept of a noncontributory is abusive and an insult to the hard working taxpayers; 4. The relocation of the main prison to Andros or

some other larger Family Island. The current edifice should have been condemned and closed down generations ago. It is not fit for human habitation and is a clear and present danger to the health of the inmates and the staff.

Relocation to Andros would immediately result in hundreds of Androsians abandoning New Providence and returning home to develop and a new city/ township generating millions of dollars for the local economy; 5. Last, but not least, I would hope that all Bahamians, inclusive of yours truly, seek to develop a real spiritual connection to The Lord Jesus Christ. No, I did not say religious, I said spiritual.

Once we come to know and understand the concept of love in its deepest form, the rest will fall into place.

ORTLAND H. BODIE, JR Nassau, January 4, 2021

Zimbabwe horror EDITOR, The Tribune.

ZIMBABWE horror it is heartbreaking. Patients in Zimbabwe are sleeping rough on the floor in major hospitals.

Zimbabwe’s health system is at risk of being overwhelmed as a renewed surge in coronavirus infections has caused a shortage of beds and equipment at hospitals.

The hospitals and healthcare systems in Zimbabwe are highly under-resourced, yet the nurses are currently on strike and there is an acute shortage of doctors because of small wages. It

is disheartening to hear that Health officials confirmed 34 deaths, 1, 365 infections bringing figures to 418 fatalities, 17,194 infections per day. A small increase in cases puts pressure, citing that private hospitals are also overwhelmed with limited capacity, with those facilities requiring bookings and upfront payments of $2,500 to $5,000, which the poor and weak cannot manage to afford. When hospitals are overwhelmed and overflowing, ZANUPF government is no longer able to provide the traditional standards of care in

Zimbabwe.

Heartless president Emerson Mnangagwa has failed to ensure that patients continue to receive appropriate medical services by better distributing available resources across the country to prevent overwhelming specific hospitals, counties and regions. President Mnangagwa should be challenged by international leaders to improve management of hospitals.

KUDZAI CHIKOWORE London, England January 7, 2021.

THE TRIBUNE

Friday, January 8, 2021, PAGE 7

Nurse chief: Why have we still not been paid?

By TANYA SMITHCARTWRIGHT tsmith-cartwright@ tribunemedia.net THE president of Bahamas Nurses Union is disappointed her members have still not been paid money owed to them.

After saying the government failed to pay overtime and honorary gifts to the nurses for months leading up to the end of last year, BNU chief Amancha Williams gave officials until New Year’s Eve to pay up.

The nurses have still not been paid, she said.

“We spoke to the Minister of Health (Renward Wells) and he said that we will be paid by January which includes the overtime and everything else,” she said.

“I asked him if he could give us a date in January.

He didn’t give me a date. I asked for those words to be sent to us in writing. He has yet to send anything to us in writing and he has yet to respond to the date.

“This is the worst we have seen in any government — the way how they operate. We don’t want to see another government like this, ever. This is the worst the Bahamian people have seen it. People are begging and running down this government for something they have worked for.”

Asked if there will be industrial action from union members if the outstanding sums are not paid by their payday at the end of January, Nurse Williams said she does not discuss industrial action.

Instead she said: “If the overtime and honorary gifts are not paid out to our members by January, then we cannot promise anything. They had us to work and they did not tell us that they did not have any money. They waited until we finished working to tell us that you are not going to pay us because you have no money. You knew what was going to happen, but at the end of the day you mistreated us, the worker.

An honest day’s work is an honest day’s pay.

“We have families just like how every politician has families. They have not stopped the politicians’ monies, or their allowances, but they chose to stop the nurses’ overtime; they didn’t pay them. They

stopped the honorary gift; they didn’t give it. They disappointed us. This is not right and it is not fair.”

Nurse Williams, very frustrated on behalf of her union members, mentioned the plight of members at the Department of Public Health.

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen it. Especially for the Department of Public Health. They have been robbed, literally. Promotions are outstanding with files sitting on someone’s desk for almost six years.

Increments are also sitting on someone’s desk,” she said. “People who were hired at the Department of Public Health in 2018 are still waiting to be confirmed. This is now 2020 and they have yet to see a

confirmation letter.”

She pointed out the fact that The Bahamas might see a third wave of COVID-19 and said that many healthcare workers feared the possibility of it.

She said the same healthcare workers who are owed money will have to be the same ones working on the frontline if there is a third wave.

She concluded: “This country was never run like this before with one person getting all the bread. We shared bread. This is the worst we have ever seen it.

The nurses are not being unreasonable. They have waited over nine months to be paid overtime. This is an unfair and unjust government.”

Last month, Health

Minister Renward Wells insisted that the government will honour its commitment to provide honorariums to healthcare workers who offered their services during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr Wells explained that the government had only agreed to provide a $5,000 honorarium and $100,000 life insurance policy to those frontline workers who from the onset of COVID offered to provide care to infected patients.

However, he would not say when the money will be paid, suggesting this hinged on the country’s finances. At the time, he also said nurses had been paid overtime, but it was the doctors who were owed this payment.

A SPECIAL GIFT FOR THE FIRST BABIES OF THE SEASON

THE CHRISTMAS mothers, left, PCA Moss, Thelma Rolle- Fernander, mother Vanessa Poiter-Smith, mother Frankyn Pennerman, Sharon Johnson from Cookie Collection and Sister Sands; and right, the mothers of New Year Deatra Miller & Gedilia Jean (middle) with Kiwanis Club of Nassau members. From left: Kiwanian Felicia Burrows, community chairperson Desmona Armbrister, Lieutenant Governor Dominic Bain, President Shavon Peterson, Membership Co-Chairperson Doniqua Major, Kiwanian Robyn Seymour.

THE first mothers to have their babies in Princess Margaret Hospital on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day have received gifts to help as they welcome their newborns.

Frankyn Pennerman was the first to welcome a baby on Christmas Day,

with her baby boy arriving at 12.54am weighing 6lb 2oz, while the first baby girl of Christmas Day was born to Vanessa Poitier-Smith, weighing 8lb, at 1.20am.

The first baby of 2021 was a baby boy born to Geldilia Jean at 12.50am,

weighing 6lb 12oz. The first baby girl was born to Deatra Miller at 5.02am, weighing 7lb 13.4oz.

The hospital, in partnership with the Kiwanis Club of Nassau, continued its annual tradition of giving special recognition to the first babies

born.

New mothers received $200 gift certificates to Sandy’s Ltd, on behalf of the hospital and Sharon Johnson of Cookie Collections.

The New Year babies also received gift baskets from the Kiwanis club.

SLAPPED FOR REFUSING TO SHARE A JOINT MAN PUNCHED VICTIM

By FARRAH JOHNSON Tribune Staff Reporter fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

A TEENAGER who slapped a family friend in the face when she refused to share her joint with him was put on probation yesterday for three months.

Police said Anthony Ferguson Jr, 18, assaulted the woman while she was visiting his father’s residence on January 5. He admitted to the offence when he appeared before Senior Magistrate Derence Rolle Davis yesterday.

The court was told the complainant had known Ferguson Jr for “quite a while” and had visited his residence on the day in question to speak with his father.

She told police she had a “piece of backwood” which the accused asked her to share with him, but when she told him it was not enough to split, he told her to “carry her big (expletive)” since she was always begging him. The prosecution said he also told the woman not to ask him for anything ever again.

This sparked a verbal argument between the two which resulted in Ferguson Jr “tearing the woman’s head off,” the court was told. The accused was taken into custody a short time later.

When he was interviewed at a nearby station, he told officers he and the woman were involved in an argument and claimed he accidentally slapped her in her face in the heat of the moment.

During the hearing, Ferguson Jr told the magistrate the argument was actually over a joint and not a piece of backwood. He also claimed he only assaulted the woman because she turned as if she was going to swing at him, so he “accidentally” hit her in retaliation.

In response, Magistrate Rolle Davis told the accused that he should know that his behaviour was unbecoming of an 18-year-old. As a result, he placed him on probation for three months. If Ferguson is convicted of another

offence within that time, he will be fined $150 or sentenced to 10 days in prison.

In a separate hearing yesterday, a man who knocked another man unconscious after a heated exchange of words was warned to be of good behaviour.

Police arrested Ernest Morrison after he struck Roger Joseph in his head and face during a verbal argument on December 24.

He pleaded guilty to one count of assault during a hearing before Senior Magistrate Derence Rolle Davis.

The court was told that that day, Mr Joseph was walking in the Fox Hill area when Morrison approached him and told him he had a gun and he would shoot him with it. Mr Joseph then told the accused to get out of his face and continued to walk towards Fox Hill Park.

However, after he dismissed Morrison, the accused continued to follow and threaten him with the same remarks about the gun. The prosecution

said the complainant then told Morrison to “kiss his (expletive).” Ater he did this, the accused struck him in the head and face, which caused him to pass out. The court was told Mr Joseph told police he woke up in the hospital. As a result of his complaint, Morrison was arrested and questioned.

During his interview with police, he said Mr Joseph taunted him and swung at him first, so he punched him in retaliation. He also said after the complainant fainted he tried to help him because he did not expect the situation to escalate the way it did.

Yesterday, Morrsion told the magistrate he didn’t “usually hit people”, but after Mr Joseph “touched” him, that “sparked” something in him. He insisted if he knew what would have happened that day he would have “ran away”.

After listening to his explanation, Magistrate Rolle Davis warned Morrsion to be of good behaviour and discharged him.

WHO SAID HE WAS GAY

By FARRAH JOHNSON Tribune Staff Reporter fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

A MARRIED father-ofthree who beat up another man who told people he was a homosexual was put on six months probation yesterday.

Wilner Poliard, 31, appeared before Senior Magistrate Derence RolleDavis after he was accused of punching a man in his mouth on November 4.

The prosecution said the complainant was at his residence having a conversation with one of his tenants when they decided to walk down the road to purchase some items.

It was at that time that Poliard approached the man and confronted him to verify allegations of the complainant calling him a “sissy”. The court was told that the accused then punched the man in his mouth before hitting him in his head with a beer

bottle, which caused him to bleed heavily. After the victim filed an official complaint with police, officers conducted a line up which allowed him to positively identify Poliard as his attacker.

During the hearing, Poliard pleaded guilty to one count of assault. He also told the magistrate he was married and had three children and insisted the entire incident was a “misunderstanding”.

In response, Magistrate Rolle Davis told the accused if he knew he was not a “sissy,” the man’s words should not have affected him and he should not have approached him at all.

As a result, he accepted Poliard’s guilty plea and placed him on six months’ probation. He warned him that if he failed to be of good behaviour during that time, he would be fined $150 or sentenced to 15 days behind bars.

GIRLS ESCAPE SCHOOL GATE ‘SNATCHING’ from page one

what had happened who then went to the school and reported the incident.

Officers were called and made a check based on the description given by

the girl, who described the suspect as a fair-skinned man with a beard and afro hair. She also told police the suspect was driving a silver coloured Cobalt vehicle.

Supt Pinder said police received another

attempted abduction report by a crossing guard at the Maurice Moore Primary. The guard gave police a description of the suspect, she said.

“Officers searched and stopped a person fitting the description given of

the man at Walker Parker Primary. He was taken into custody and we are doing intensive investigation into the matter,” Supt Pinder said.

Supt Pinder said that both students did the right thing by not going with the

stranger and by alerting adults.

She is urging parents to continue to speak with their children about the dangers of talking to strangers.

“We want parents to tell them not to talk, or go with strangers, or accept money

from strangers. And to remain in the school compound until they are picked up. We also want those children that walk home, not to take track roads and to stay on the main road and to walk in groups,” she said.

PAGE 8, Friday, January 8, 2021

THE TRIBUNE

Good idea or bad - it’s time for resolutions A Comic’s View

By INIGO ‘NAUGHTY’ ZENICAZELAYA

IT’S a New Year once again, that time of year when we all make a myriad of bad self improvement promises to ourselves called ‘New Year’s Resolutions.’

You know the ones like “I will not eat 6 donuts a day”, I would never kid myself even attempting that one being the brand ambassador for Dunkin Donuts in the Bahamas, that’s just plain old bad for business.

All of these resolutions are good intentions, but how long do you think you will remain focused in order to achieve them?

Many of the top New Year’s resolutions are made by people who will keep them for as long as they are convenient, and the minute the resolutions become a challenge or unpopular in their peer group’s eyes (for various reasons) they are dropped like a hot potatoes.

Resolutions are made and forgotten as fast as campaign promises.

But why?

Why is it that we have no more moral stamina than a dead conch, when it comes to keeping our New Year’s resolutions?

All of the New Year resolution info sites (including Wikipedia) will tell you that only 8 out of every 100 people keep their New Year’s resolutions for an entire year, and the scary thing is, the number may

well be less than that.

Given, there is no way to actually record or count how many people keep their New Year’s resolutions, but the act remains the same.

In all honesty, the majority of all New Year’s resolutions are made just for us to look good in front of our friends as we down gallons of libations ringing in the New Year’s partying and are quickly forgotten very early in the New Year.

Have New Year resolutions become like hobbies, the ones we drop when they become too boring or inconvenient to do?

Why do we even make resolutions if you aren’t going to keep them?

It doesn’t matter whether your resolutions are funny, tongue-in-cheek, or serious ones.

However, it does matter if your word and resolve are so weak that you can’t even keep a promise to yourself.

The only one who really has an investment in and an affect on your resolutions, is you, so don’t fool yourself when ‘you’ tells ‘you’ that ‘you’ are going to be a better ‘you’ for your next year.

If you are going to make resolutions, at least make resolutions that you can stick to, at least that way you won’t need to comfort yourself by turning to the

food that you are trying to stop eating!

Face the New Year ahead of you with a new perspective; head on, by actually trying to live up to your New Year’s resolutions.

You won’t be doing this for anyone else, it’s all for you, to remind yourself that you actually have the guts to say you will do something and see it through.

Please see my personal New Year’s resolutions

below and please try to keep a straight face.

MY NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS • Run while juggling knives.

• Play baseball with a hand grenade and a loaded rocket launcher.

• Pillow fight with a bag of spare change.

• Talk with my mouth full of nails.

• Drink paint thinner

while smoking a cigarette.

• Try to perform stunts with my car on the local bridges.

• Throw my friends into the trunk of my car • Cause global warming single handedly • Wear a bacon costume and tease rabid ‘potcakes.’

• Send “funny” images of “epic fails” and “LOL” via SMS or chat to someone who I am currently talking on the phone with.

Until next week, good luck all of you with your New Year’s resolutions, all the best, health, happiness and success in 2021.

I will leave you with a quote from Mark Twain, which pretty much sums the whole whole thing.

“New Year’s Day, now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.” - Mark Twain

THE TRIBUNE

Friday, January 8, 2021, PAGE 9

Remembering Butch

The man who shared his heart and love to create a million memories

T

HIS week we lost a giant in the Caribbean tourism industry - Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, who brought vision and excitement, romance and luxury to the world of all-inclusive resorts.

Stewart, knighted by the Queen, founder of Sandals and Beaches, part owner or Air Jamaica, rescuer of tired properties and transformer of an industry that the region thrives on, passed away this week after a short illness. He was 79.

Below is from an interview I did with him in 2012.

He won my heart that day and held it for years to come. I was not alone in crying at learning the passing of this giant of industry and lover of fishing, the gregarious visionary devoted to family, a man The Bahamas shall always hold in a very special place. There were two essential principles, he said, that every property had to have beach and romance.

GORDON ‘BUTCH’ STEWART, APRIL 2012 It’s 4 o’clock on a steamy Saturday afternoon and Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart hasn’t stopped all day. He worked through lunch. As usual. He’s making plans for church, a 6:30 mass this evening. The phone rings again, he accepts a dinner invitation to an old friend’s house next door after mass.

He’s going to church tonight so he can go fishing early tomorrow morning without missing a catch, a prayer or a beat. Sunday afternoon he’ll be back at work, studying business reports, before flying off the next morning to Florida for a week when he will have to meet and handle the next round of offices and hotel visits and designers and chefs and marketing people and everything else that demands and wins his personal attention.

At 71, the best-known hotelier in the region, Butch Stewart, founder and father of the Caribbean’s most successful hotels, Sandals, shows no signs of slowing down.

Why should he? The hotelier without peer or pause loves what he does and it shows - in his properties, in Sandals’ accolades and awards, in over-the-top occupancy rates even in the most challenging economic times. And most especially it shows in the twinkle of his eyes.

Clear blue as the water below his balcony, warm and smiling, his eyes hold a world of positive promise. Here, they say, is a man happy with life, in love with his surroundings and their bright colours, not ready to rest, all of it a work in progress, still curious and very much alive.

We catch up with Butch Stewart at one of his homes, this one on Paradise Island in The Bahamas. Whistling distance from the omniscient pink presence of Atlantis, Stewart’s fourstorey home is a world unto itself, filled to overflowing with colour. We ride up a slick stainless steel elevator and that’s the last symbol of sterile we see. We reach the top level with an expanse of living space that stretches from view to view of the surrounding waters. Tall panes of glass, deep emerald green walls with a suede finish, oversized glass dish sculptures on the walls in hues of blues and purples and golds, a huge custommade circular carpet with red, tan and black swirls, custom-made upholstery on couches and chairs and pillows. And somehow all the colours and combinations work. Like living in the middle of happiness. For a moment, I envision Butch Stewart as a kid with finger paints and no supervision.

Just mischief in his eyes and the knowledge he’s going to get away with it. Not sure if it’s the disarming cherubic face or the colour itself but suddenly you can’t picture him in a place without colour. Not surprisingly, it’s one of the biggest fights he has with his team.

“Designers,” he says, as

if he’s speaking about unidentified flying organizers.

“They all want you to go towards the sophisticated colours, earth tones, beiges, greys. They say it’s elegant.”

He shakes his head as if those who like bland ought to be examined. “I like colour and I do have my arguments with designers.”

The very mention of designers is an example of how much the industry has changed since Stewart bought his first hotel in his homeland of Jamaica in 1981, not because he had any interest in hospitality but because the country was struggling and the family’s main business, appliances, could benefit from having a place to sell a surplus of air conditioners, fridges and other equipment to. It would not be the last time that Stewart’s purchasing power boosted, some would go so far as to say save, Jamaica from an economic tsunami.

“When we first started, you built a hotel room and said ‘What colour do you want to paint it?’ and you were done,” said Stewart.

“Now, there are bathroom and spa designers and space designers. We have designers for the gardens, the pools, the restaurants.”

One of his properties, the Sandals Grande Antigua Resort & Spa, has 11 restaurants. Sandals Royal Bahamian Spa Resort & Offshore Island in Nassau has 10 and every one is different.

Attention to design is not all that’s changed. Over the years, Sandals itself - a brand that has grown from the old Bay Roc and Carlisle Hotels in Montego Bay, Jamaica, to an empire of more than 4700 rooms in 22 hotels in five countries, serving more than one million guests a year, has catapulted from becoming the first all-inclusive resort when the term conjured up images of frugal to the butler-served all-inclusive where you never leave the property because there’s no place you’d rather be.

Branding has changed and the hotels have evolved from the mid-90s names like Classic and Signature to Luxury Included® as the slogan in the 2000s to the most recent incarnation of romance ultra-suites, Love Nests.

“That’s what it’s all about,” he says. He is not exaggerating. Five of his properties this year have enjoyed a repeat visitor rate of more than 50 percent.

The success has not gone to his head. With obvious pride in his three grown children, all success stories on their own with the oldest Adam now serving as CEO of Sandals, and Robert ‘Bobby’ as head of IT, he laments the cost of his daughter Jamie’s wedding, acknowledging that Father of The Bride was his favourite movie. “I felt so sorry for Steve Martin pouring out his last penny, I wanted to cry,” he says.

“Until my daughter got married and I felt so sorry for myself.” Crocodile tears about costs aside, he’s as proud of his pride as he is of his hotels. (Jamie’s since been featured in magazines including Haute).

The dichotomy of financial prowess with the treasuring of simple pleasures -- a good day’s fishing, a great meal, a stack of architecture, fashion and motor car magazines while flying on his private jet -- keep him grounded.

Even today, as afternoon gives way to early evening and it is almost time for church, we are in a room with a dozen couches and thick upholstered chairs and art work galore, but most of the interview takes place where Stewart is clearly accustomed to sitting -- at a plain, small square table in a corner with a view of his 73-foot Hatteras below. A

member of staff knows his habits, brings him a yogurt, no designer label, just plain Activia, a little bran on the side which stays there, and a black coffee.

The two local daily papers are laid out in the order he likes to read them.

When the phone rings, he picks it up. ‘A-lo,” he says, the Jamaican dialect making distinct singing notes of what would otherwise be an ordinary hello. No pretences. He calls another member of staff to bring him the new cell phone he requested.

It’s a bottom-of-the-line model with a single compelling feature. It makes calls. “That’s all I want,” he says. I tell him my husband shares his views of phones that do everything but the laundry. “He just wants one that when you use it, the person on the other end can say, ‘Datchu?”

“Your husband is a very smart man,” says Stewart. I’ll pass along the compliment.

GORDON ‘Butch’ Stewart, who died this week age 79.

WHEN ONE SCHOOL DOOR CLOSES, GRAYCLIFF OPENS ANOTHER IF anything serves to demonstrate how shockingly different 2020 was from any other non-wartime year, it could be what took place day after day in an historic restaurant in Nassau.

Thirty two children gathered every morning for a quickly formed Bain and Grant’s Town Virtual School, socially distanced, each provided with a learning device.

Their classroom – one of the world-famous Graycliff restaurants where the generous Garzaroli family, who have operated and maintained the treasured properties for decA STUDENT at the school ades, hired four teachers and in the Graycliff. made sure every child had a

hot breakfast and lunch along with staying current with their curriculum.

“Schools were closed and we worried about what would all these children who live near us do,” explains patriarch Enrico Garzaroli.

“So we opened the school in Humidor. We couldn’t operate a restaurant during the lockdown, but we could do something so we did.”

For daughter Roberta Garzaroli, a thank you poster with pictures of students and teachers taken throughout the months-long sessions “was the best Christmas present I ever got. It brought tears to my eyes.”

The upside of a down year

T

HERE’S always that annoyingly positive person who insists the glass is half full when you know d---- well it is half empty and doesn’t hold enough of anything to quench your thirst.

I’ve been accused of the former more than once but usually by people who don’t know me that well. Nevertheless, there must be something to that unwanted Pollyanna moniker because even I was able to come up with a few random thoughts about the positive, or up, side of a down year.

Here’s the positive that 2020 taught us.

• Casual Friday became Casual Monday through Friday, leading straight into the weekend and the week that followed, which saved wear and tear on clothes and allowed us to divert dry cleaning funds to more important uses like wine.

• Dress to impress only referred to above the waist.

• We learned that projecting is not predicting and that Netflix was an essential service which accounted for its 26% audience uptick and title best performing stock of the year.

• And we came to understand that you can be concise and precise simultaneously, especially at the 39th minute of a Zoom call.

• Speaking of Zoom, the hottest four-letter word in the spoken language, cell phone etiquette gave way to Zoom etiquette and the green room morphed into the green screen.

Mostly, we learned that even if there were times they got on our last nerve, it was good to have our family by our side.

May each of you find the positive in 2021.

PAGE 10, Friday, January 8, 2021

THE TRIBUNE

After the chaos, Trump finally faces reality WASHINGTON Associated Press WITH 13 days left in his term, President Donald Trump finally bent to reality Thursday amid growing talk of trying to force him out early, acknowledging he’ll peacefully leave after Congress affirmed his defeat.

Trump led off a video from the White House by condemning the violence carried out in his name a day earlier at the Capitol.

Then, for the first time on camera, he admitted his

presidency would soon end — though he declined to mention President-elect Joe Biden by name or explicitly state he had lost.

“A new administration will be inaugurated on Jan 20,” Trump said in the video. “My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power. This moment calls for healing and reconciliation.”

The address, which appeared designed to stave off talk of a forced early eviction, came at the end of a day when the cornered

TRUMP supporters try to break through a police barrier at the Capitol in Washington on Wednesday. president stayed out of sight in the White House.

Silenced on some of his favorite internet lines of communication, he watched the resignations of several top aides, including two Cabinet secretaries.

And as officials sifted through the aftermath of

the pro-Trump mob’s siege of the U.S. Capitol, there was growing discussion of impeaching him a second time or invoking the 25th Amendment to oust him from the Oval Office.

The invasion of the Capitol building, a powerful symbol of the nation’s

democracy, rattled Republicans and Democrats alike.

They struggled with how best to contain the impulses of a president deemed too dangerous to control his own social media accounts but who remains commander in chief of the world’s greatest military.

“I’m not worried about the next election, I’m worried about getting through the next 14 days,” said Republican Sen Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of Trump’s staunchest allies. He condemned the president’s role in Wednesday’s riots and said, “If something else happens, all options would be on the table.”

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared that “the president of the United States incited an armed insurrection against America.” She called him “a very dangerous person who should not continue in office. This is urgent, an emergency of the highest magnitude”.

Neither option to remove Trump seemed likely, with little time left in his term to draft the Cabinet members needed to invoke the amendment or to organize the hearings and trial mandated for an impeachment. But the fact that the dramatic options were even the subject of discussion in Washington’s corridors of power served as a warning to Trump.

Fears of what a desperate president could do in his final days spread in the nation’s capital and beyond, including speculation Trump could incite more violence, make rash appointments, issue ill-conceived pardons — including for himself and his family — or even trigger a destabilizing international incident.

The president’s video — which was released upon his return to Twitter after his account was restored — was a complete reversal from the one he put out just 24 hours earlier in which he said to the violent mob: “We love you. You’re very special.” His refusal to condemn the violence sparked a firestorm of criticism and, in the new video, he at last denounced the demonstrators’ “lawlessness and mayhem.”

As for his feelings on leaving office, he told the nation that “serving as your president has been the honor of my lifetime” while hinting at a return to the public arena. He told supporters “our incredible journey is only just beginning”.

Just a day earlier, Trump unleashed the destructive forces at the Capitol with his baseless claims of election fraud at a rally that prompted supporters to disrupt the congressional certification of Biden’s victory. After the storming of the Capitol and the eventual wee-hours certification of Biden’s win by members of Congress, Trump released a statement that acknowledged he would abide by a peaceful transfer of power on Jan 20.

The statement was

Photo: John Minchillo/AP posted by an aide and did not originate from the president’s own Twitter account, which has 88 million followers and for four years has been wielded as a political weapon that dictates policy and sows division and conspiracy.

Trump couldn’t tweet it himself because, for the first time, the social media platform suspended his account, stating that the president had violated its rules of service by inciting violence. Facebook adopted a broader ban, saying Trump’s account would be offline until after Biden’s inauguration.

Deprived of that social media lifeblood, Trump remained silent and ensconced in the executive mansion until Thursday evening. But around him, loyalists headed for the exits, their departures moved up to protest the president’s handling of the riot.

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao became the first Cabinet member to resign. Chao, married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, one of the lawmakers trapped at the Capitol on Wednesday, said in a message to staff that the attack “has deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside.”

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos followed.

In her resignation letter yesterday, DeVos blamed Trump for inflaming tensions in the violent assault on the seat of the nation’s democracy. “There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me,” she wrote.

Others who resigned included Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger; Ryan Tully, senior director for European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council; and first lady Melania Trump’s chief of staff Stephanie Grisham, a former White House press secretary.

Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former chief of staff-turnedspecial envoy to Northern Ireland, told CNBC that he had called Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “to let him know I was resigning. ... I can’t do it. I can’t stay.”

Mulvaney said others who work for Trump had decided to remain in their posts in an effort to provide some sort of guardrails for the president during his final days in office.

“Those who choose to stay, and I have talked with some of them, are choosing to stay because they’re worried the president might put someone worse in,” Mulvaney said.

Mulvaney’s predecessor in the chief of staff job, retired US Marine Corps general John Kelly, told CNN that “I think the Cabinet should meet and have a discussion” about Section 4 of the 25th Amendment — allowing the forceful removal of Trump by his own Cabinet.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer joined Pelosi in declaring that Trump “should not hold office one day longer” and urged Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet to act.

SPORTS PAGE 11

FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 2021

Coach Greene says he was ‘diagnosed with COVID-19’

By BRENT STUBBS Senior Sports Reporter bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

ROLANDO GREENE

DEBBIE FERGUSON “The key is to keep Megan healthy. Once she does that, she will be fine.”

As for Knowles, who was joining her former St Augustine’s College teammate in her first year at Kentucky, Greene said she suffered a slight injury just before Thanksgiving, but they managed to get her properly healed and ready to compete again.

“I haven’t seen her since she came back here either,” Greene said. “But I’m expecting great things from her. I’m one of those coaches, if I recruit you on a scholarship, I expect you to perform both academically and athletically.

“Jaida is a fine young woman. She’s just like (Megan) Moss.

“But I think they are going to be fine. We’re going to be fine as a programme. We just need to be patient and cook the broth

NCAA Basketball: Bahamians affected by cancellations, postponements

By RENALDO DORSETT Tribune Sports Reporter rdorsett@tribunemedia.net THE NCAA college basketball season continues to be in flux due to consistent cancellations and several Bahamian players continue to see their programmes affected.

Franco Miller Jr’s Florida Gulf Coast Eagles and Charles Bain’s Robert Morris Colonials both had games postponed this week due to positive tests within their respective programmes.

The Eagles have not played since December 22 and had their ASUN conference opening home series against North Alabama January 1-2 and a road trip to Liberty January 8-9 were postponed due to a positive COVID-19 result and contact tracing within the programme’s Tier 1 group.

The official ASUN opener for the Eagles will now be January 15-16 against Bellarmine at home at Alico Arena in Fort Myers, Florida.

JONQUEL JONES POSTS DOUBLE DOUBLE IN WIN

By RENALDO DORSETT Tribune Sports Reporter rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

T

heir season won’t start until next weekend but, by then, head coach Rolando ‘Lonnie’ Greene expects to be out of his coronavirus pandemic quarantine and back on the sidelines with his University of Kentucky Wildcats track and field team.

Greene, who now heads a Bahamian connection of coaches and athletes for the Wildcats after he left his coaching chores with the Boilermakers at Purdue University in 2018, has been confined to home for the past week as he recuperates from the symptoms of the deadly virus.

“The Bahamian girls have had great falls,” said Greene as he looks ahead to the participation of sophomore quarter-miler Megan Moss, freshman sprinter Jaida Knowles and volunteer assistant and professional hurdler Devynne Charlton as they prepare to compete in the McCravy Green Invitational (Indoors) next weekend.

“I haven’t seen them since they got back from the Christmas break because I was diagnosed with COVID-19. I have been quarantined and away from everybody. My assistants were handling everything.”

Prior to the break, Greene said Moss was in phenomenal shape and she constantly communicated with him on her progress when she was in Chicago over the Christmas holidays.

“She is in some phenomenal shape right now,” he said of the 18-year-old who was named The Tribune’s Junior Female Athlete of the Year after running her season’s best of 24.09 seconds in the 200m and 52.58 in the 400m before the pandemic struck in March.

NFL, PAGE 15

“While we are disappointed not to be playing this week, this is an unfortunate scenario that has played out through all of college sports this year,” said Eagles head coach Michael Fly. “I appreciate all the work our Athletics Sports Medicine unit, the University medical staff, and the Florida Department of Health have done to keep our student athletes and staff safe. We will undertake the appropriate measures so that we can return to play following the 14-day period.”

“Every missed opportunity to compete disappoints us. We want our student athletes to play,” said ASUN Commissioner Ted Gumbart. “Postponing play is the safe and responsible step, but always disappointing. We have plans to adjust and will work throughout the season to maximise the playing options for all ASUN student athletes.”

In his first season with the Eagles, Miller - the redshirt

SEE PAGE 12

MOSS the proper way and not get ahead of ourselves.”

As he reflected on his own personal battle with COVID-19, Greene asked Bahamians to protect themselves because “the virus is real.

“Don’t let no one tell this isn’t real. This stuff is real.

I have everything. Every symptom. I got so emotional the other day that I told my wife, LaTayna, that if I die, she will have enough money to take care of herself and the boys (Cameron, Isaiah and

SEE PAGE 12

KNOWLES

CHARLTON

JONQUEL Jones celebrated her 27th birthday with a double double the following night to lead another dominant performance for her UMMC Ekaterinburg Foxes in the Russian Premier League.

Jones finished with 20 points and 11 rebounds (both team highs) in a 99-42 win over Nika Syktyvkar Wednesday in Ekaterinburg, Russia.

She shot 6-11 from the floor, made her only three point attempt and also added three blocks with three assists in just over 25 JONES minutes.

The Foxes are the only undefeated team in the league at 10-0.

Eleven games remain in the regular season which concludes March 11.

Through six games, Jones is averaging 19.8 points, 10 rebounds, 2.8 assists, and 1.8 blocks per game.

The Foxes returned from the midseason break after they finished EuroLeague Group C first round play at 3-0 at the FIBA designated bubble in Girona, Spain.

The second EuroLeague group round hub matches will be played January 19-22.

Last season, Jones’ first with the club, Ekaterinburg captured their second consecutive and fifth EuroLeague title with a 91-67 win over Dynamo Kursk in Sopron, Hungary.

She appeared in eight games averaging 19.6 points and 7.6 rebounds per game.

UMMC has won five EuroLeague titles (2003, 2013, 2016, 2018 and 2019) and are perennial Final Four competitors.

SPORTS

PAGE 12, Friday, January 8, 2021

THE TRIBUNE

Father-daughter coaching matchup believed to be a first in Division-I

By DOUG FEINBERG AP Basketball Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Dave Magarity has coached over 1,000 games in his 40-plus years in men’s and women’s basketball. None have been like the two games he has this weekend when Army faces Holy Cross.

Standing on the other sideline coaching the Crusaders will be his daughter, Maureen, who took over that programme this year after spending the last decade at New Hampshire.

It’s believed to be the first coaching matchup of a father and daughter in Division I history.

“It’s going to be surreal,” said Dave Magarity who turns 71 this month.

“What’s unique about it — it goes without saying that not only is it possibly the first time it’s happened, but we’re in the same league.

It’s one thing if we were playing in a tournament or it would have been nice to play in the NCAA Tournament or NIT. We’re in the same league, in this crazy season, we play each other four times.”

The Magaritys were quick to point out that they’ve squared off before

in a few preseason closed scrimmages, but Maureen knows this weekend will be different.

The schools will first play at Army on Saturday before heading to Holy Cross on Sunday.

“I think this year does put a lot of things in perspective. playing against my dad, he’s done such a great job throughout his coaching career,” she said.

“To survive coaching this long speaks volumes about my dad and what he’s taught me. I’ll try not to be emotional walking into that game”.

Maureen grew up on the court at Marist watching her dad coach the men’s team there.

He spent 18 years there before stepping away from coaching for a couple years before coming back as an assistant on the women’s team at Army.

Maureen got her coaching start at Army, where she was an assistant for her father for a few years after he took over the programme in 2006 when head coach Maggie Dixon died of arrhythmia, probably caused by an enlarged heart. Maureen had been offered a job as an assistant

by Dixon before she died.

ARMY coach Dave Magarity watches from the bench during a first-round game against Syracuse in the NCAA women’s college basketball tournament in Syracuse, N.Y. March 18, 2016. (AP) She spent three years as an assistant at Army before getting the New Hampshire job.

Unfortunately, because of the coronavirus, the Magaritys’ family and friends can’t be in attendance for the historic game.

“I can’t help but be a little upset that because of the pandemic my kids can’t be there, my sister

and brother, my nieces and nephews and mom can’t come. His friends and my friends,” Maureen Magarity said.

“It’s going to be special, but kind of a bummer they can’ t be there.”

As far as who the family is rooting for, Maureen shared a story that her mom was hoping that the teams split the four meetings.

NEW Hampshire coach Maureen Magarity watches play against Baylor during an NCAA college basketball game in Waco, Texas, November 5, 2019. Magarity is now the coach at Holy Cross, which plays Army this weekend - a school coached by her father, Dave Magarity. The two schools will first play at Army on Saturday before heading to Holy Cross on Sunday. (AP)

BAHAMIANS AFFECTED BY NCAA CANCELLATIONS, POSTPONEMENTS FROM PAGE 11

MILLER JR

GREENE from PAGE 11 Jacob). That’s what I felt like, like I was dying. “I don’t have any breathing issues. I’m good. Don’t let those intellectuals try to tell

you otherwise. I’m a man of faith, but the virus is real.

I’m living it right now.”

On day four of going through the easy stages, Greene said he slipped and fell in his bathroom and suffered a bruised nose. He said he felt better whenever he got to use the bathroom.

sophomore guard - is averaging 6.7 points, 3.1 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game.

Bain and the Colonials had a January 2 matchup against Milwaukee postponed and now the series between RMU and IUPUI this weekend in Indianapolis, Indiana has been cancelled due to positive COVID-19 tests within the RMU programme.

Bain entered his senior season as RMU’s active leader in points (742) and rebounds (385) with a chance to become the 16th member of RMU 1,000point, 500-rebound club.

He has struggled this season and played in just three of six games. He has yet to score in double figures this season and has averaged 5.7 points and 4.3 rebounds per game thus far.

BAIN

“This stuff is real,” he stressed. “When I get through this, I will tell my full story of what I had to go through. I’ve documented everything and I will post it.

So protect yourself.”

With some very good assistants, including Bahamian “Golden Girl” Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie, who came over from the University of Houston, Greene said he was able to monitor everything from home as they worked with the athletes as they prepare for their first meet next weekend.

Also expected to compete in the meet is Charlton, who serves as a volunteer assistant, as she trains for the postponed 2020 Olympic Games that is expected to be held this year in Tokyo, Japan.

“I was really looking forward to her competing in the World Indoors, but this virus has got the whole world on a standstill, so they cancelled the World Indoors,” said Greene of Charlton, who came over

from Purdue University to train with her former Boilermakers’ head coach after she graduated.

“So all we can do is take our time and get ready for Tokyo. We’ll adjust training and just get ready for Tokyo. She’s doing exceedingly well. She will be just fine this year.”

Greene is also expecting to be “fine” after he completes his quarantine period this weekend. He said he probably won’t make any personal contact with the team until Monday or Tuesday just as a precaution.

“I don’t have to be there.

It’s just like we haven’t missed a beat,” he said.

“But the kids have been calling and texting asking me if I’m okay. So that has blessed my heart.

“Megan texted me and said coach I haven’t seen you since I got back. So it’s things like that has helped me to get through my ordeal. As a team, we will be okay.”

The 54-year-old Greene said unlike him, because of

his age, he’s more receptive to the symptoms than his athletes.

Kentucky is competing in a bubble with the other schools in the Southeastern Conference where they all have to compete on the same weekend.

“I thought we had a very good team to compete at Nationals this year, but delay doesn’t mean denial,” Greene said. “We still have a team to make a push at it.”

Kentucky’s home meet next weekend will only allow them to accommodate about 450 persons, including the athletes, coaches and officials, although they can hold over 3,000.

“They will warm up in the stadium and then come into the indoor stadium to compete,” Greene said. “It won’t be like the regular track meet. We won’t have a whole lot of people all over the place.

“The kids who are going to be competitive will be competitive. I remember Sydney Cartwright when

Want to increase your Sales?

Advertise your Business in The Bahamas leading newspaper in circulation, or on Tribune242.com. Call our Advertising Department on 502-2350/502-2394 for more information.

he was coaching in the Big Ten at Minnesota and I was at Arkansas. He said if you put horses on the track, they will run. So that stayed with me. The SEC is that type of league. You put them on the track and they will run. We are very competitive.”

Before he went to Purdue in 2012, Greene served previously for 16 seasons as an assistant in the SEC, so he said he’s quite familiar with the competitiveness of what is arguably the toughest in college sports.

After graduating with his B.S. from Murray State in 1989, Greene began his tenure with Missouri State University from 1991-95, the University of Minnesota from 1995-96 and the University of Arkansas from 2000-2012.

While he is expected to be back with the Wildcats when they host the McCravy Green Invitational next weekend, Kentucky has at least three more meets to compete in before they get ready for the SEC Championships, scheduled for February 25-27 in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

If all plans for the rest of the season go through and they have any qualifiers, the indoor season will conclude with the NCAA Indoor Championships March 11-13 also in Fayetteville, Arkansas.