Category Archives: Progress

The overarching question about the direction of the Wizards is even if things do work out even if they progress this season, add a lottery pick, retain Davis Bertans, and bring back a healthy John Wall; how will they pass the bar set by prior iterations of the team? How would they become a contender?

Its a question they will face in the near future as long as Bradley Beal and John Wall are on the roster and one that is magnified as the Wizards sit at ninth in the Eastern Conference heading into the All Star Break, two games in the loss column behind the Orlando Magic. With the playoffs being reasonably within reach, the idea of a quick turnaround may be more plausible than it seemed prior to the season. As Ted Leonsis asked this past summer,

To what end however? Wouldnt the Wizards be trending towards a repeat of the Wizards of 2014-2018, a core group that reached the Eastern Conference Semifinals on three occasions but ultimately last exited the postseason after a first round series loss to the Toronto Raptors in 2018? How does that reconcile with Tommy Sheppards comments after getting the full-time general manager role in July that I dont ever wanna say, Lets go get the eighth spot. Thats not the big picture at all.

A person could argue that point and time may prove that to be true, but going in there are noteworthy differences in what Sheppard is building compared to the group(s) we watched most recently frequent the postseason.

There are only two players left from the team that lost game six to the Toronto Raptors in the spring of 2018 John Wall and Bradley Beal. Wall, as we all know has missed the majority of game action since that series with a variety of injuries, most notably an Achilles tear. In that time, the dynamic of the team has shifted to it being Beals team. As the roster around him evolves, his imprints are all over this teams successes and failures.

Beyond Beal, however, is where the major differences lie. The prior iteration of the Wizards was a team with a bloated payroll and established veterans who were known commodities and in some cases were on their last legs in the NBA.

That version of the Wizards was handcuffed by a front office which cashed in all of their chips to put that team together. They traded a lottery pick for Markieff Morris, they used all of their cap room in the summer of 2016 on players who ultimately did not have a material impact (Ian Mahinmi) or players who required additional assets attached to them to move their money (i.e. Andrew Nicholson and Jason Smith).

As a result, as other teams continued to add to their core, the Wizards core grew old, injured, and never had the pipeline of young players, draft picks, or cap space necessary to complement or improve upon their core. They didnt have the assets to go get Kawhi Leonard or Jimmy Butler when the opportunity arose, nor did they have the cap space to take on contracts for additional draft capital or depth. That team was capped out and stuck in reverse.

An easy narrative is that this team faces a similar fate because of Walls Supermax contract. Ultimately that may prove to be true but it ignores some realities. This team isnt going to go from a 30-win team to contender status overnight. Yes, management has asked why cant this be quick but was that taken too literally? Does management really expect them to go from 30 to their first 50-win season in decades overnight? Or do they think that the bottoming out doesnt have to take years that they can quickly get back to the playoffs behind Brad and continue to build around that nucleus in a way the prior iteration of the Wizards could not?

Washingtons actions seem to suggest just that. While some thought the Wizards were going to cash-in on Mahinmis contract to bring in a high salary veteran player to put next to Wall and Beal and create a new big 3, they did the opposite. They transacted to take another flier on a prospect Jerome Robinson.

The Wizards want the turnaround to be quick, otherwise they would have looked to trade Beal, but they are not any shortcuts. What does this mean?

We can only take our best guesses but the Wizards actions seem to indicate that instead of taking the bandage approach for a third piece that likely would result in a poor mans version of the prior Wizards Big 3, they are building what they hope is a deep, cost-efficient roster with players who have room for development around their Supermax and Max contract players.

Since the Wizards have not mortgaged future draft capital to get to this point, they will have the opportunity to add to that core or eventually consolidate young players and/or picks in a trade for an all-star type at the appropriate time.

The three younger centers on the Wizards roster, Bryant, Wagner, and Pasecniks make a combined $12 million in salary next season, less than ten percent of the expected room below the luxury tax line. Their starting power forward, Rui Hachimura will have three years left on his rookie contract which will average slightly north of $5.1 million annually over that time. Troy Brown Jr., Jerome Robinson, Isaac Bonga, and Admiral Schofield also will be in their rookie deals for the foreseeable future. Their 2020 draft pick, will result in ideally another rotational player on a rookie scale deal for possibly the next four seasons.

Theyve put volume and manageable contracts around their back-court to the point where they can splurge (within reason) on Davis Bertans because as many as three starters and four of the five primary reserves seven/tenths of their top ten rotation players could conceivably be on rookie deals or fixed contracts at less than $10 million annually.

None of this means a thing if the players dont develop. The front office is taking on a difficult task rebuild on the fly around their back-court and to do so they will have to hit and hit big on more than one of these margin moves. However unlike the prior iteration of the team, theres actually a chance that a 20-year old develops into more than they are today then there was of those veteran teams breaking through their limited ceiling.

And if it doesnt work, Washington still took the marginal steps necessary to start, or continue a rebuild, depending on where you think this team is at right now. They dont have to get rid of Troy Brown or Rui Hachimura to start a rebuild; they would be part of that rebuild.

Beal has signed an extension which allows the Wizards to play this out, even if he does eventually grow impatient and request a trade down the road, they are in position to get a massive return for Beal one that may not even require a step back based on the track record weve seen with teams like the Pacers, Thunder, and Pelicans as they have quickly recovered after trading away a star.

Washington will also have flexibility for the future, which previous Wizards teams often didnt have. Why cant this be quick? does not mean the front office expects a Finals appearance in June 2021. What I think it means is that the Wizards will use the next few years to position themselves to be a contender in a way their predecessors could not. Maybe they hit it big with their next draft pick. Or maybe they dont.

Maybe they have to wait on the Wall contract to mature to add the last piece or maybe he becomes a valuable contributor to the team once again. Maybe Beal becomes an elite player they need him to be to make this work or maybe he doesnt. Thats not the point here.

There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical and just a few weeks ago, the Wizards franchise player was expressing frustration after a disappointing loss to the 19-win Chicago Bulls.

We dont know which way any of this will go but what we do know is theyre no longer stuck in reverse. They are moving forward and thats the big difference between this team and the team we last saw in the postseason walking off the then-Verizon Center floor after game six versus the Raptors just two seasons ago.

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The Wizards are making incremental progress, which is just fine. - Bullets Forever

US-based biomedical research organisation CHDI Foundation and IBM Research have released a joint research paper revealing the development of a new artificial intelligence-based predictive model that helps determine when patients will begin to experience symptoms of Huntington's disease (HD), and how quickly these symptoms will progress.

HD is a neurodegenerative disease that causes the progressive breakdown of brain nerve cells. But unlike other neurodegenerative diseases, HD is caused by a single gene mutation "with a striking correlation to age of motor symptom onset", according to CHDI Foundation chief clinical officer Cristina Sampaio.

"People with HD may be identified and tracked from an early age long before the onset of manifest symptoms. As a result, HD may also be a good entry point for gaining insight into the mechanisms of and the development of treatments for other neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis," she told ZDNet.

The published paper, titledResting-state connectivity stratifies premanifest Huntington's disease by longitudinal cognitive decline rate, was released after three years of joint work between the two organisations and is the second paper to be published by the pair.

IBM Watson researcher Guillermo Cecchi said the paper focused on identifying how existing functional MRI (fMRI) data can be used to train artificial intelligence (AI) models to assess whether there is a change in a patient's motor and cognitive performance.

"Part of what we're trying to do is pinpoint with more accuracy what determines a particular patient with certain genetics will experience symptoms early in life or later in life," he said.

See also:IBM unveils new AI model to predict potentially harmful drug-to-drug interactions(TechRepublic)

He continued to explain how there was also the goal of uncovering people that were at higher risk of developing symptoms earlier, so they could eventually be a target for early intervention and monitoring in order to better understand the effects and outcomes of any new drug.

"Having that in mind, what we did was show that we can take a single brain scan and have accuracy about whether that particular patient belongs in the rapidly declining population or it belongs in the slowly declining population," Cecchi said.

"The way you know whether someone is slowly or rapidly declining is by looking at them over several years, so three, four, five years, and then you measure their motor symptoms and you can see over the course of five years whether the motor symptoms were changing slowly or changing very rapidly.

"But then you would need those five years to determine whether someone is deteriorating fast or slow, so what we're showing here is all you need is a single scan -- a functional MRI -- to have very good accuracy to determine whether that particular patient belongs to the fast declining or slow declining group."

Sampaio agreed that functional MRI can provide a "rich source of information", but noted its "technical complexity, until recently, has limited its broad application".

"In our study, we show that a single cross-sectional fMRI data point can predict future progression of cognitive and motor signs and symptoms of HD. Prognostic biomarkers that predict future events, like the fMRI in our study, are used to enrich for clinical-trial participants with certain pathological features to maximise the likelihood of success," she said.

"Our study results are a first step for HD clinical trials. We now need to further validate to develop fMRI as a robust prognostic biomarker in premanifest HD."

Read:Intel and GE Healthcare's X-ray machine uses embedded AI to prioritize scans (TechRepublic)

For the research, Cecchi said based on a "couple of hundred" scans, the AI model produced around an 80% accuracy output rate.

Moving forward, IBM Research and CHDI plan to replicate the study in other hospitals.

"We show that we can take data from one hospital, learn about it, and apply it to data acquired in another hospital, and still be robust and obtain the same results," Cecchi said.

Cecchi said the goal would be to eventually have the model approved by medical bodies globally and for it to be used as a standard in the field when it comes to not only HD, but other neurodegenerative diseases as well.

Similarly, a joint study by the Epilepsy Centre at Kuopio University Hospital, the University of Eastern Finland, and Neuro Event Labs resulted in the group successfully developing an AI algorithm to help quickly and automatically assess the severity of myoclonus jerks from video footage.

The model can be used to identify and track key points in the human body of myoclonus -- brief, involuntary muscle twitching -- which is the most progressive drug-resistant symptom in patients with myoclonus epilepsy type 1.

As part of the study, 10 clinical video-recorded test panels were used and it showed that the automatic method using the model correlated with the clinical evaluation. It was also able to quantify the smoothness of movement and detect small-amplitude and high-frequency myoclonic jerks by detecting and tracking predefined key points in the human body during movement.

Updated 13 February 2020, 9:37AM (AEDT): Correction it is CHDI Foundation.

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CHDI Foundation and IBM tracking the progress of Huntington's disease using AI - ZDNet

AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost says Honda has made big progress with its power unit over the winter and has targeted a top five finish in the constructors championship for his team.

We are very optimistic for this season, he explained. First of all, the car showed very good results in the wind tunnel.

For a second Honda, our friends in Japan, in Sakura, made big progress during the winter months from the performance side as well as from the reliability side.

Third, we have two good drivers. They showed that already last year, we just missed the middle of the podiums.

AlphaTauri will also continue to use some of the same hardware as Red Bull. We have a very close relationship with Red Bull Technologies. We have the complete rear suspension from them, we have the gearbox from them, the hydraulics, the front suspension. That means also from the mechanical side, we are very competitive.

Toro Rosso equalled its best constructors championship position in its final season last year with sixth place. Tost expects the team can go one better this year.

Tost said the team is waiting for further details of the new rules for the 2021 F1 season before advancing its work on the new regulations which will come into force next year.

We started in October last year with a concept group working on the 21 car, he said. Now we must wait until the technical regulations will be finalised. I hope this will be the case [in] March.

And then from month to month, more and more people, our engineers will jump over to the 21 project. But we must not forget this season 2020 and we also want to develop this car because as I just mentioned a few minutes ago, we must be competitive and we must really show good results.

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F1: Tost targets top five after "big progress" from Honda - RaceFans

Parents who disagree with marks their children receive on school report cards sometimes argue the grading system is not fair and should be altered. Few suggest grades ought to be done away with entirely.

That would be crazy. Childrens progress in school has to be measured somehow. That seems obvious.

So why, then are some reportedly suggesting Ohios system of report cards for schools ought to be scrapped? That makes no sense, either.

Controversy over how report card data is used to determine whether students should be permitted to transfer out of public schools and to state-subsidized charters has brought the topic up again. Critics of the system point out that it takes money from some public schools that do well in many regards but fall short in a few.

That is a valid criticism. But some are using it as an argument in favor of eliminating the school report card system. It is unfair to public schools, they argue.

No, it is not. Just like individual teachers grading systems, it may require changes in the interest of accuracy and fairness. But parents and taxpayers in general deserve a look into how well schools serving their children are doing.

Ohio legislators may want to fine-tune the report card process. Like any other complex system, this one ought to be re-examined regularly. No doubt it can always be improved upon and that should be done. But eliminating it is, in two words, ridiculous and irresponsible.

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Reports cards needed to gauge students' progress | News, Sports, Jobs - The Review

Elise Amendola/Associated Press

Though the potential trade to send right fielder Mookie Betts from the Boston Red Sox to the Los Angeles Dodgers hasn't gone through yet, there has been "progress," according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network.

Heyman added the "sides seem hopeful."

The deal was initially expected to include the Minnesota Twins, who were giving up pitcherBrusdar Graterol, but concerns over his medical history stalled talks. Chad Jennings of The Athletic reported Saturday the Twins "are out of the Betts/[David] Price trade talks."

However, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the three teams remain active in discussion, but it's possible there are two separate deals: one between the Twins and Dodgers and another between the Dodgers and Red Sox.

Alex Speier of theBoston Globe reported that the Red Sox are "considered unlikely to end up with Graterol."

Los Angeles was initially expected to receive Betts and pitcher David Price while sending outfielder Alex Verdugo to Boston and pitcher Kenta Maeda to the Twins, but the Graterol reports "spooked" the Red Sox, perJeff Passanof ESPN.

From Passan: "The Red Sox, sources said, were spooked by a medical review of Graterol, the hard-throwing 21-year-old right-hander who has undergone Tommy John surgery and missed time in 2019 because of a shoulder injury."

Heyman reported Sunday that Graterol could now end up with Los Angeles as part of a separate deal for Maeda, noting that other team doctors have "no big issue" with the pitcher's medical reports.

PerCaesars Palace, the Dodgers' World Series odds rose from 7-1 to 4-1 after reportedly acquiring Bettsa four-time All-Star, four-time Gold Glove winner and 2018 AL MVPand Price.

Los Angeles has won104,92 and106 games the past three seasons and reached twoWorld Series but it still looking to win its first title since1988.

Link:

MLB Rumors: 'Progress' in Mookie Betts Trade; Red Sox and Dodgers 'Hopeful' - Bleacher Report

Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry is still rehabbing from surgery to repair a broken hand he suffered back in October.

On Wednesday, head coach Steve Kerr gave an update on Currys status, saying that he has been getting more conditioning as of late:

Hes jumped into a few of our non-contact, offensive 5-on-0 stuff, said Kerr, via Anthony Slater of The Athletic. But hes coming around. Well have another update I guess, a more thorough update, on March 1. But right now, everything is going smoothly and hes just trying to build his conditioning base and keep getting better.

Kerr added that there were no plans to get Curry into contract drills before March 1. The Warriors star has said hes aiming for a return in early March.

Curry struggled in the four games he played this season, averaging 20.3 points, 6.5 assists, 5.0 rebounds and 1.3 steals over 28.0 minutes per game while shooting 40.9 percent from the floor, 24.3 percent from 3-point range and 100 percent from the free-throw line.

Of course, that is an incredibly small sample size, and Currys numbers almost surely would have leveled out had he remained healthy.

The 31-year-old is in his 11th NBA season and will miss out on All-Star festivities for the first time since 2013.

Curry won back-to-back league MVP awards in 2015 and 2016, also capturing the NBA scoring title in the latter year after registering 30.1 points per game.

The sharpshooter is also not the only key member of the Warriors backcourt sidelined due to injury, as fellow guard Klay Thompson has been recovering from a torn ACL he suffered during last years NBA Finals.

Read more here:

Warriors news: Stephen Curry's rehab progress updated by Steve Kerr - ClutchPoints

There wasn't enough red on the screens Wednesday to quality as a "sell the news" reaction, but the lack of progress on "good news" is a little worrisome.

Apple (AAPL) held onto its gains and managed to close up more than 2% at an all-time high, but there wasn't the wild chasing that would have likely occurred if the stock was less extended.

The Fed was about as dovish as could possibly be without actually cutting rates, but the market failed to gain any traction. Fed ChairJerome Powell, however, made it clear that the Fed will continue to expand its balance sheet into the second quarter of 2020.

The S&P 500 closed at the lows of the day on slightly negative breadth of 3,500 gainers to 3,900 advancers.

In the background is some continued concern about the coronavirus. Powell mentionedthe virus that is quickly spreading as a risk, but stated that it was too early to quantify its impact.

When the market has strong, positive news, but fails to make any real progress; that is a warning sign, but it is still early and we need to see the reaction to reports Wednesday night from Microsoft (MSFT) and Facebook (FB) .

Microsoft beat on both the top and bottom lines and is trading up initially about 2%. This is very similar to what Apple did last night. The test will be holding onto those gains as the news is digested.

Facebook is ahead, but not to the extent of Microsoft or Apple, and the stock is trading down sharply with a loss of around 6%.

The Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) is down following that news. We'll see how this develops, but the big risk here is that good news will not be enough to push this market even higher. The conditions were good for more upside today but market players used up plenty of energy for little progress.

Have a good evening. I'll see you tomorrow.

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Lack of Progress on 'Good News' a Concern for Market - TheStreet

With recent success in the expansion of North-South rail, in some ways it feels like there is momentum finally building for an East-West line. However, Gov. Charlie Baker seemed to throw some cold water on that last week during the opening of a handicapped-accessible platform at Springfield Union Station, saying that any East-West rail option would be contingent on favorable findings in an ongoing feasibility study.

An insight into what East-West is up against came in the form of a recent column from Boston Globe writer Joan Vennochi, who seemed to believe she had ventured out from the comfort of the metropolis into the wilds of Western Mass. Her piece, ostensibly about a possible solution to Bostons housing and congestion crisis, identified Western Mass as a possible new hot neighborhood of Boston that is, if anyone from Boston ever wanted to go to Western Mass. Its clear from the tone of her piece, which reads as if Western Mass were a Somerville-sized community containing Tanglewood, UMass Amherst, and all of Hampden County well within walking distance of one another, that Vennochi doesnt know much about the area.

Vennochi, who implied that most in Boston would view a trip to our part of the state as a mercy mission, came out to Exit 5 on the Pike on the invitation of state Sen. Eric Lesser of Longmeadow, a key East-West rail proponent. As Lesser seems to have figured out, she is exactly the type of person our part of the state needs to convince if were going to have a good shot at East-West rail. Vennochi quoted Lesser as saying that Western Mass needed evangelists.

As off-putting as I found some of Vennochis piece, dripping with the Boston-centric thinking she advocates dropping, I agreed completely with its central premise the Eastern and Western parts of this state need to be better connected than they are now. In some ways, the very fact that I found Vennochis probably well-meaning article insulting is a case-in-point Eastern and Western Mass feel disjointed. Meanwhile, they have a lot to offer one another: quality of life on the Western Mass side and economic opportunities in the East.

East-West rail would not solve every problem, but it would create more of a meaningful link, economically and physically among the different parts of the state. For my own part, I use the Pike a lot less since robotic cameras that investigative reporting has shown have been misused for surveillance replaced the toll booth operators. Rail offers the promise of a better, more consistent connection, provided that the ticket price is affordable.

East-West rail is something to keep an eye on, and I encourage all interested to attend a public meeting next month on Wednesday, Feb. 12, from 6 to 8 p.m. at UMass Center at Springfield, 1500 Main St., Springfield.

Last year, David Daley wrote in the Advocate about how tax preparation giants, including H&R Block and Intuit (which owns TurboTax), had used their lobbying power to effectively kill the countrys free file program. By law, those who make less than $66,000 per year should have access to a free tax filing program. However, as ProPublica reported, those free filing programs were hidden from Google and other search engines and very difficult to find.

With tax season approaching, ProPublica last month reported that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has reformed the free file program following the news organizations reporting. Companies can no longer hide their free products from search engines and the IRS dropped an agreement not to compete with TurboTax. Free tax programs are subject to different requirements, but the program can now easily be found at https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile. Thanks, investigative reporting! And happy tax filing.

Dave Eisenstadter can be reached at deisen@valleyadvocate.com.

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Editorial: The slow progress of East-West rail - Valley Advocate

Key lawmakers maintainedTuesday that they are makingprogress in their efforts to put together the country's first comprehensive online privacy bill after hitting several bumps in Congress late last year.

At the tech-funded State of the Net conference in Washington, D.C., lawmakers on the relevant House and Senate committeessignaledtheyaregrapplingwith the same obstacles that resulted in Democrats and Republicans putting out separate versions of a privacy bill last year but insistedthey're still dedicated tobipartisan negotiations.

"Im continuing to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get a bill that will get us across the finish line," Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger WickerRoger Frederick WickerHillicon Valley: UK allows Huawei to build 5G in blow to Trump | Lawmakers warn decision threatens intel sharing | Work on privacy bill inches forward | Facebook restricts travel to China amid virus Lawmakers claim progress on online privacy bill GOP senator asks tech audience for sympathy over Trump impeachment trial's no phone rule MORE (R-Miss.) said during his keynote address.

Last year, Wicker and his Democratic counterpart on the committee, ranking member Sen. Maria CantwellMaria Elaine CantwellHillicon Valley: UK allows Huawei to build 5G in blow to Trump | Lawmakers warn decision threatens intel sharing | Work on privacy bill inches forward | Facebook restricts travel to China amid virus Lawmakers claim progress on online privacy bill Senators fret over lack of manpower to build 5G MORE (D-Wash.),offered dueling versions of legislation to create more privacy for Americans online. Cantwell's legislation "was a pretty goodbill," Wicker said, but "any privacy bill will need bipartisan support to become law."

Cantwell, alongside a group of Democratic members of the committee, released a proposal in December that included several provisionsseen as non-starters for Republicans. Cantwell's bill would allow individuals to sue companies for violating their privacy rights, a provision called the "private right of action," while Wicker's bill would not allow individual people to sue.

Meanwhile,Wickers bill would override any state privacy laws, including the tough California law that went into effect in January, a provision that has been the target of Democratic skepticism.

"Theres always room for conciliation and compromise," Wicker told reporters on Tuesday afternoon as he defended his bill. "Clearly, theres going to have to be some give-and-take. I think everyone wants a good, strong protection for consumers."

Meanwhile, the top Republicanworking on acomprehensive privacy bill in the House, Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (Wash.), acknowledged "other efforts" to work up a privacy bill "have fallen apart this Congress."

"But it needs to happen," McMorris-Rodgers, the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee focused on privacy, said during a discussion at the conference.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee in December unveiled afirst draft oftheir bipartisanfederal privacy bill, though they left several controversial issues off the table. They have solicited broadfeedback on the staff-level draft over the past month.

The chairwoman of the consumer protection subcommittee, Rep. Jan SchakowskyJanice (Jan) Danoff SchakowskyHillicon Valley: UK allows Huawei to build 5G in blow to Trump | Lawmakers warn decision threatens intel sharing | Work on privacy bill inches forward | Facebook restricts travel to China amid virus Lawmakers claim progress on online privacy bill House Democrats may call new impeachment witnesses if Senate doesn't MORE (D-Ill.), saidthey have received over 90 comments so far "and they're still coming in."

"A lot of people on all sides are really not happy," Schakowsky said. "We're in the process right now of processing all of that."

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Lawmakers claim progress on online privacy bill | TheHill - The Hill

Mediation over Puerto Ricos central government debt is making progress, a Puerto Rico Oversight Board attorney said Wednesday.

Puerto Rico bankruptcy judge Laura Taylor Swain ordered parties involved with the central government debt types to go into mediation in July.

Board attorney Martin Bienenstock said it was possible that in the coming month there would be an announcement manifesting mediation progress. Bienenstock, a partner at Proskauer Rose, made the comment in Wednesdays Title III omnibus bankruptcy hearing in the U.S. District Court for Puerto Rico.

Bienenstock also said he hoped the board would make a Title VI bankruptcy filing for the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company sometime after March.

In the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act, Title III lays out a traditional court-supervised bankruptcy process. Title VI lays out a process for creditors to negotiate and approve agreements before the board presents them to the court.

Also on Wednesday, Swain ordered some changes to how she will deal with issues around revenue bonds, with bonds from the Highways and Transportation Authority, Puerto Rico Infrastructure Finance Authority, and Convention Center District Authority affected.

Swain said that instead of holding a hearing about all revenue bond topics on Feb. 27, there would be a preliminary hearing on March 5 and maybe March 6 and that it would only covers issues of standing and security interest. She said she wanted a meet and confer meeting with parties by Feb. 7.

Swain indicated that she would push back arguments around lifting stays on litigation for the revenue bonds to a date after March 6.

Judge Barbara Hauser told the hearing that her mediation team planned to make recommendations concerning the treatment of the revenue bonds in its anticipated Feb. 10 report.

Finally, Swain gave leave to bond insurer Ambac Assurance to amend a motion concerning the application of the automatic stay to the revenues securing the PRIFA rum tax bonds. Board lawyers had opposed Ambacs motion to be allowed to submit its supplement.

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Progress reported in Puerto Rico debt mediation - Bond Buyer