Wednesday Apr 7, 2021

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

San Juan The

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Guess’ Short-Lived ‘Telfar’ Bag P21

Mayagüez Mayor Says He’s Not to Blame

Health Dept. Reports New Coronavirus Variant P5 IEEFA Reveals ‘Inappropriate’ Actions in LUMA Energy Selection

Sees ‘No Reasons’ to Resign, Claims He’s a Victim of ‘Fraudulent Scheme’

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NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 18

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Wednesday, April 7, 2021

The San Juan Daily Star

GOOD MORNING

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April 7, 2021

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

Energy regulator says LUMA’s 3-year budget is incomplete

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he Puerto Rico Energy Bureau (PREB) of the Public Service Regulatory Board has refrained from approving the budget of LUMA Energy, the private operator hired to manage the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s (PREPA) transmission and distribution (T&D) system, for the first three years of operation because it is incomplete.

The PREB, according to a statement issued Tuesday, asked LUMA Energy to submit on or before April 12 all the information required to properly evaluate its initial three-year budget. The approval of the budget is one of several conditions that must be met under its contract with PREPA for the company to take over management of the public utility’s T&D. LUMA filed a request with PREB on Feb. 24 to approve its initial budget as part of PREPA’s transition process. The contract is currently in the front-end transition phase but LUMA Energy is slated to take over control of operations on June 1.

However, the STAR learned that La Fortaleza is trying to advance the takeover date.

After a preliminary review of the proposed budget, the PREB concluded that it is incomplete, since “it lacks an in-depth discussion on key issues, supporting data, analysis and other necessary assessments for the Energy Bureau to make an adequate evaluation,” as determined in its Resolution and Order issued Monday.

The initial budget prepared by LUMA assumes that the company will operate for the first three years with the same basic rate approved by the PREB in January 2017, and implemented in May 2019 with retroactive effect to August 2016.

The PREB noted that its determination does not take care of LUMA’s request.

“Once LUMA delivers the required information on the initial budget presented, and without exhausting the possibility of new requirements, if necessary, the Bureau will establish a procedural calendar, which will include public and technical hearings, as well as accept public comments,” the PREB said.

The initial budget does not contain funding for the payment of PREPA’s bonded debt or for

the payment of an $894 million loan that PREPA may need from the central government to repay the LUMA Energy contract.

The budget submitted by LUMA Energy totals $3.6 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2022, which begins July 1, and goes up to $4 billion in FY 2023 and $4.1 billion in FY 2024. While the numbers include $650 million in federal funds for FY 2020, $1 billion in FY 2023 and $1.2 billion in FY 2024, the total numbers are similar to PREPA’s revenue requirement established by the PREB in 2017.

The regulatory entity indicated that it reserves its final decision on the initial budget and also warned that if its Resolution and Order is not complied with, it could make any appropriate determination within its legal and administrative powers to ensure that the public welfare and the stability of the power system are maintained. LUMA Energy is certified by the PREB as an electrical utility company and subject to its jurisdiction.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Sustainable energy advocacy group points out irregularities in selection of LUMA Energy

By THE STAR STAFF

T

om Sanzillo, director of finance for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), an entity that promotes sustainable energy, revealed at a hearing in the island House of Representatives irregularities in the procurement process that led to the 15year contract with LUMA Energy to operate the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s (PREPA) transmission and distribution (T&D) system.

The evaluation of bids and negotiation of the LUMA Energy contract was conducted by a five-member public partnership committee that was responsible for reviewing bids and scoring them according to various technical, operational and financial criteria. The final scores were used to select the winning bidder, Sanzillo told the House Committee on Economic Development, Planning, Telecommunications, Public-Private Partnerships and Energy.

A review of the individual evaluation documents, obtained via a public information request by the non-profit organization Cambio and shared with IEEFA, showed that four of the five members of the partnership committee arrived at identical numerical scores in 37 of the 38 categories. Three of the members even made the same numerical error in adding up their scores. Several of the members noted their scores were based on recommendations by FTI Consulting Inc., an off-island consulting firm hired by the Public-Private Partnerships Authority (P3A). FTI’s study, which Cambio received after a second request for information, provided specific scores related to financial metrics that appear to have been copied directly from the FTI report onto the scoring sheets, Sanzillo said.

The scoring sheets were then tabulated by the P3A, and the tabulated scores were used by the executive director of the P3A as the basis for a recommendation to vote in favor of LUMA Energy as the winning bidder.

“In the partnership committee’s final report, it is represented that on January 11, 2020, the committee met ‘to discuss the Definitive Proposals, determine next steps, and select LUMA as the Preferred Proponent,’” Sanzillo said. “However, documentation provided by the P3 Authority (see Exhibit C) shows that this ‘meeting’ was actually a unanimous, up-ordown vote over three emails to approve LUMA as the preferred proponent, based solely on the partnership committee’s scorecards.”

“While Puerto Rico law permits consultants to advise the partnership committee and the P3 Authority, the consultant-driven process that occurred here is, in my view, a completely inappropriate way to conduct a procurement process,” the IEEFA official said. “Partnership committee members should have exercised in-

dependent judgment in the review of the bids.”

Ralph Kreil, chairman of PREPA’s governing board, was part of the partnership committee but did not do any scoring. The members who provided scores were Omar Marrero, director of the Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority; Puerto Rico Energy Bureau Chairman Edison Avilés; former PREPA Executive Director José Ortiz; and Ottmar Chávez, former head of the Central Office for Recovery, Reconstruction and Resiliency. This prompted Committee Chairman Luis Raúl Torres to say he may refer them to the island Justice Department for failing in their fiduciary duties.

Torres also announced that the House had sufficient votes to approve a resolution to delay the LUMA Energy contract for a year.

The lower chamber is slated to vote today on the resolution.

LUMA Energy is a subsidiary of Quanta Energy Services and ATCO. According to federal lobbying disclosure forms, Quanta Energy Services engaged in federal lobbying from the second quarter of 2019 through the second quarter of 2020 on a subject that their disclosures simply listed as “PREPA.” “This period of time encompasses the period in which Quanta was competing for the T&D concession contract. Quanta held no other contracts with the government of Puerto Rico during this time and, to our knowledge, there is no other PREPA-related subject in which Quanta was engaged,” Sanzillo told the committee. “Yet lobbying the federal government in relation to a competitive solicitation process is specifically prohibited by the regulations of the Public-Private Partnerships Authority and explicitly stated in the RFP [request for

proposals], unless directed or permitted by the Authority. Did the P3 Authority direct or permit these activities?”

“As this committee is well aware, the chairman of the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau was one of the members of the partnership committee and also cast the deciding vote on the Bureau’s approval of the contract,” he added. “Thanks to the action of this committee, this issue is pending before the Office of Governmental Ethics and the Puerto Rico Supreme Court.”

Sanzillo noted that the LUMA co-venture between Quanta and ATCO consists of two companies with inadequate capitalization to raise private capital if federal funds fail to materialize, a possibility that is not contemplated in the contract at all. Quanta and ATCO have a combined market capitalization of $11.9 billion. The estimated investment levels needed in Puerto Rico electrical infrastructure are in the $20 billion range.

He said the LUMA Energy contract may not achieve the desired savings because it contains hidden costs. LUMA’s budget makes no provision for repaying the $894 million commonwealth loan that the federal Financial Oversight and Management Board has stated is necessary for PREPA to effectuate the transaction. LUMA’s budget, Sanzillo said, appears to be artificially constructed to meet the constraint of not raising rates, which he said may not be possible.

“That is, in order to keep its transmission & distribution system operational budget within current rates, LUMA assumes a certain level of cost savings due to efficiencies. By 2024, these ‘efficiencies’ are saving $110 million, or about 10% of LUMA’s total budget,” Sanzillo

said. “LUMA provides no explanation of where these savings are to come from, other than a vague mention of ‘loss reduction.’ There is also very little consequence to LUMA if they do not achieve these savings. If LUMA fails to stay within budget, its annual incentive payment would only be reduced by about $1 million.”

LUMA’s budget makes optimistic assumptions about the costs of PREPA’s Title III bankruptcy process, which are passed on to customers in rates, the IEEFA finance director pointed out. The budget assumes a total of $58.7 million in Title III and federal oversight board advisor costs in fiscal year 2022. This is an order of magnitude less than the oversight board’s claim in December 2020 that PREPA will have to fund $500 million in Title III exit costs, he said.

PREPA’s most recent version of its 10-Year Infrastructure Plan calls for spending $853 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds for new natural gas infrastructure, and $11 billion to strengthen and harden the centralized T&D system.

“It includes no money for renewable energy or storage,” Sanzillo said. “Meanwhile, LUMA has already stated its interest in subcontracting federally funded grid reconstruction work to its corporate affiliates. Will LUMA conduct bids competitively to give Puerto Rico the best price options?”

Sanzillo criticized the decision to scrap the collective bargaining agreements of the PREPA unions as a poor management decision that has set up an unnecessary conflict with PREPA’s workforce. Agreements between private grid operators and labor unions are common, he said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

5

Health Dept. reports new California variant in Puerto Rico

By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul@gmail.com

A

s the island continues to face an uptick in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, the Puerto Rico Health Department on Tuesday reported two new cases that involve another variant from California.

Although having similarities with the B.1.429 variant, the fourth variant to be detected on the island is being classified as B.1.427.

Via a written statement, Health Secretary-designate Carlos Mellado López said variants are common as “all viruses are prone to changes or mutations.”

“An example of this are the influenza viruses that change every year,” Mellado López said. “The SARS-CoV-2 virus is an RNA virus with mutations in all parts of the world. These changes give rise to variants of the same virus, as is our case.”

“We cannot control mutations, but what we can control is to follow prevention protocols step by step,” he added. “The key is to keep using face masks, ensure physical distancing and practice hand washing to avoid infections.”

At press time, the Health Department had identified 28 variant cases, of which 18 correspond to the UK variant (B.1.1.7), six cases to one of the California variants (B.1.429), two cases to the recently discovered California variant (B.1.427) and two

cases to the variant from Brazil (P.2).

The STAR reported Monday that the island had 21 coronavirus cases with variants, seven fewer than were announced Tuesday.

Mellado López said the Health Department has the collaboration of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) laboratory in San Juan, which is currently sequencing samples along with Ponce Health Sciences University, the institution that detected the first suspicious COVID cases that involved the UK variant.

He also said the agency is working with several laboratories on the island that collect samples and send them to the CDC laboratories in Atlanta.

The Health Department reported that of the 28 cases, 26 are considered a variant of concern, since the evidence indicates that it has a higher transmissibility.

A variant of interest, meanwhile, has specific genetic markers that have been associated with changes that allow the virus to spread at an enhanced rate. At the moment, the two cases of the Brazilian variant in Puerto Rico are identified as variants of interest.

According to an epidemiology report from the Health Department, 11 cases of variants have been identified in the Ponce region, seven cases in the San Juan metropolitan region, three cases in the Arecibo region, two cases in the Bayamón region, two cases in Mayagüez and another in Fajardo.

The date of sampling of those cases was between Jan. 11 and March 19.

“We care and want our people to take care of doing the right thing. In the inoculation process, we prioritize vaccination in older adults, and as a result we are seeing a significant drop in infections among older adults,” Mellado López said. “At the moment, we have only identified one person [with a variant] between 60 and 69 years old, eight cases in people between 50 and 59 years, seven cases between 40 and 49 years, four cases of people between 30 and 39 years, Also, seven people between the ages of 20 and 29 years were identified and, finally, a young person between the ages of 16 and 19.”

Chief of staff: Governor considering stricter measures amid COVID-19 uptick Says new EO will be announced before weekend

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

W

ith Puerto Rico facing a spike in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, La Fortaleza Chief of Staff Noelia García Bardales said Tuesday that Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia is contemplating new safety measures in the next executive order to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

García Bardales said the governor remains alert to any statistical changes in the COVID-19 data provided daily by the Puerto Rico Health Department as he considers possible adjustments in the next executive order. The current order expires next Monday.

No changes were announced during the press conference held at La Fortaleza. However, when asked if there will be changes in the next executive order, García Bardales replied that “it is certainly being evaluated.”

“The governor will be speaking soon. He has his ear to the ground,” she said, pointing

out that Pierluisi is aware of the case and hospitalization increases.

“He is analyzing the statistics and we certainly have to call for caution first,” the chief of staff said. “The fact that we have a million people vaccinated does not change the COVID-19 prescription; the prescription is still distancing, [wearing a] face mask and strengthening vaccine campaigns.”

“We have to be individually more responsible,” García Bardales added. “It is important that we understand that there may be several [coronavirus] variants already in Puerto Rico.”

On Monday, the STAR reported that Health Secretary-designate Carlos Mellado López said measures such as total lockdowns, shutting down schools, establishing greater capacity restrictions or imposing restrictions on alcohol consumption were not under consideration to mitigate the increase in COVID-19 cases.

At press time Tuesday, the Department of Health had reported five deaths from COVID-19, while 91 confirmed, 116 probable and 76 additional suspected cases were recorded from samples taken from March 21 until April 4.

As for hospitalizations, 304 people were

hospitalized, 20 more than in Monday’s report and 47 more than in Sunday’s report.

The hospitalization number is the highest the island has registered since January.

Among that number are 269 adult patients, 23 more than the previous day, and 35 pediatric cases, three fewer than in Monday’s report.

Sixty-one adult patients are under intensive care, five more than the previous day, along

with two pediatric cases.

There were 37 adult patients on ventilators, six more than in Monday’s report.

In total, a reported 2,136 people have died from COVID-19 in Puerto Rico since the pandemic began.

The report of deaths may vary as registrations and codifications of the causes of death are processed, which can take up to five days.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Mayagüez mayor says he won’t resign amid municipal fraud scandal Points out there are ‘no accusations or charges’ against him

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

M

ayagüez Mayor José Guillermo “Guillito” Rodríguez Rodríguez said Tuesday that he will not resign after federal authorities arrested seven people, including two of his counselors, and a U.S. District Court grand jury two weeks ago handed down charges on 33 counts of wire fraud and money laundering.

Rodríguez Rodríguez further insisted that he was the victim of a fraudulent scheme made behind his back, without his authorization or knowledge, even though some documents included his signature.

“There are no reasons for me to have to

resign,” the mayor said at a press conference that lasted more than two hours at the Batey Delfín in Barrio Quemado in Mayagüez. “I stood here with you with my head held high and my duty done. There are no accusations or charges against the mayor of Mayagüez.”

Rodríguez Rodríguez has said on several occasions that the documents used to carry out the transactions were not authorized by the board of directors of Mayagüez Economic Development Inc. (MEDI).

“At the board meeting, there were matters that were not on the agenda that were not discussed, nor were they approved by the board. The investigation began with a letter signed by the mayor and a letter signed by the secretary [of the MEDI board],” Rodríguez Rodríguez said. “When those two letters were presented, an order was issued to search for the letters with the mayor’s signature and the letters with the signature of the secretary of the [MEDI] board and those two letters, in

the hands of the FBI, were not signed by the mayor or the secretary of the board.”

On several occasions, he argued that he would not provide too many details, out of concern that the defendants would use such information against him.

Regarding the role of Kenneth Soto, who was one of the employees of the municipality who allegedly cleared the way for the transactions, the mayor said he is still an

employee of the municipality, but is out for personal reasons.

“Mr. Kenneth Soto has to explain under oath who gave him the document, what explanation he was given to say that this document had been approved by the board, that it was not true and under that ruse and deceit he signed the document,” Rodríguez Rodríguez said.

As for Vice Mayor Heriberto Acevedo, who also has been implicated in the scheme, the mayor said he still has his confidence despite the fact that the vice mayor authorized a fraudulent transaction.

The mayor also denied that the funds approved by the island Legislature -- $9 million for the Mayagüez Trauma Center -- were not affected because then-Gov. Alejandro García Padilla allegedly took the funds away from him to use them for the Trauma Center at Río Piedras Medical Center and for the purchase of a helicopter.

UTIER approves strike vote against LUMA Energy contract Union members to rally at Capitol during governor’s State of the Commonwealth speech

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

H

undreds of workers and retirees of the Electrical and Irrigation Industry Workers Union (UTIER by its Spanish acronym), which is the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s main union, were unanimously in favor on Tuesday of a strike vote against LUMA Energy’s 15-year transmission and distribution operation contract.

The decision was made during a general assembly of union members at Roberto Clemente Coliseum in San Juan in the midst of a 24-hour strike that began Monday.

UTIER President Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo told the STAR that the UTIER State Council will be calling the strike if it

becomes necessary as the union maintains oversight on LUMA Energy’s transition phase, which ends June 1 under the contract.

“What matters to us the most at this moment is to keep sending a message to the people of Puerto Rico that this contract is an agreement that will increase the price of electric power, it’s a contract that will leave the country without a power company, because If LUMA should decide to leave tomorrow, we won’t have an electric power company,” Figueroa Jaramillo said. “With the risks that Puerto Ricans are assuming and seeing how LUMA is not assuming them in this transaction, I think the country is waking up, and our goal is to keep that up.”

When the STAR asked what the strike vote would mean for UTIER amid the year-long demand, the union leader said “it is a great responsibility that was not to be dispatched lightly.”

“If the case is that the state council has the sponsors’ authorization to exercise the constitutional right to strike, we will do it with great responsibility and analysis,” he said. “We are not wearing straightjackets or having preestablished criteria. It’s a decision that we will take after extensive evaluation.”

As for what is next for UTIER after the strike vote declaration, Figueroa Jaramillo said union members will be conducting a protest today at 5 p.m. in front of the island Capitol, where Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia will be giving his first State of the Commonwealth speech.

“There are other activities that we are also discussing and preparing at the moment,” he said, adding that demonstrations will be coordinated before May Day.

Earlier in the general assembly, the UTIER president said the unanimous strike vote recognizes “the responsibility that we have in our hands, not only with the people, but with each man and woman who composes our membership.”

Attending the assembly was Pedro Ortiz, a priest, who called the strike vote “a defense of national patrimony” and said such a movement represents “a country that is rising to fight for justice.”

“I don’t want to limit my blessings to the UTIER assembly,” Ortiz said. “My wish is to extend them to the people of Puerto Rico who are fighting with you.”

He added that the union workers “are taking to the streets to fight for electric power to be in everyone’s benefit, and not for a few egotists.”

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The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

7

Biden plan spurs fight over what ‘infrastructure’ really means

By JIM TANKERSLEY and JEANNA SMIALEK

T

he early political and economic debate over President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion American Jobs Plan is being dominated by a philosophical question: What does infrastructure really mean?

Does it encompass the traditional idea of fixing roads, building bridges and financing other tangible projects? Or, in an evolving economy, does it expand to include initiatives like investing in broadband, electric car charging stations, and care for older and disabled Americans?

That is the debate shaping up as Republicans attack Biden’s plan with pie charts and scathing quotes, saying that it allocates only a small fraction of money on “real” infrastructure and that spending to address issues like home care, electric vehicles and even water pipes should not count.

“Even if you stretch the definition of infrastructure some, it’s about 30% of the $2.25 trillion they’re talking about spending,” Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“When people think about infrastructure, they’re thinking about roads, bridges, ports and airports,” he added on ABC’s “This Week.”

Biden pushed back Monday, saying that after years of calling for infrastructure spending that included power lines, internet cables and other programs beyond transportation, Republicans had narrowed their definition to exclude key components of his plan.

“It’s kind of interesting that when the Republicans put forward an infrastructure plan, they thought everything from broadband to dealing with other things” qualified, the president told reporters Monday. “Their definition of infrastructure has changed.”

Biden defended his proposed $2 trillion package, saying it broadly qualified as infrastructure and included goals such as making sure schoolchildren are drinking clean water, building high-speed rail lines and making federal buildings more energy efficient.

Behind the political fight is a deep, nuanced and evolving economic literature on the subject. It boils down to this: The economy has changed, and so has the definition of infrastructure.

A child care center in Queens on March 10, 2021. For proponents of President Joe Biden’s plan, anything that helps people to work and lead productive lives counts as infrastructure.

Economists largely agree that infrastructure now means more than just roads and bridges and extends to the building blocks of a modern, high-tech service economy — broadband, for example.

But even some economists who have carefully studied that shift say the Biden plan stretches the limits of what counts.

Edward Glaeser, an economist at Harvard University, is working on a project on infrastructure for the National Bureau of Economic Research that receives funding from the Transportation Department. He said that several provisions in Biden’s bill might or might not have merit but did not fall into a conventional definition of infrastructure, such as improving the nation’s affordable housing stock and expanding access to care for older and disabled Americans.

“It does a bit of violence to the English language, doesn’t it?” Glaeser said.

“Infrastructure is something the president has decided is a centrist American thing,” he said, so the administration took a range of priorities and grouped them under that “big tent.”

Proponents of considering the bulk of Biden’s proposals — including roads, bridges, broadband access, support for home health aides and even efforts to bolster labor unions — argue that in the 21st century, anything

that helps people work and lead productive or fulfilling lives counts as infrastructure.

That includes investments in people, like the creation of high-paying union jobs or raising wages for a home health workforce that is dominated by women of color.

“I couldn’t be going to work if I had to take care of my parents,” said Cecilia Rouse, the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. “How is that not infrastructure?”

But those who say that definition is too expansive tend to focus on the potential payback of a given project: Is the proposed spending actually headed toward a publicly available and productivity-enabling investment?

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has called the Biden plan a “Trojan horse. It’s called infrastructure. But inside the Trojan horse is going to be more borrowed money and massive tax increases.”

Republicans have slammed the provisions related to the care economy and electric vehicle charging options, and they have blasted policies that they have at times classified themselves as infrastructure.

“Many people in the states would be surprised to hear that broadband for rural areas no longer counts,” said Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to Biden in the White Hou-

se. “We think that the people in Jackson, Mississippi, might be surprised to hear that fixing that water system doesn’t count as infrastructure. We think the people of Texas might disagree with the idea that the electric grid isn’t infrastructure that needs to be built with resilience for the 21st century.”

White House officials said that much of Biden’s plan reflected the reality that infrastructure had taken on a broader meaning as the nature of work changes, focusing less on factories and shipping goods and more on creating and selling services.

Other economists back the idea that the definition has changed.

Dan Sichel, an economics professor at Wellesley College and a former Federal Reserve research official, said it could be helpful to think of what comprises infrastructure as a series of concentric circles: a basic inner band made up of roads and bridges, a larger social ring of schools and hospitals, then a digital layer including things like cloud computing. There could also be an intangible layer, like open-source software or weather data.

“It is definitely an amorphous concept,” he said, but basically “we mean key economic assets that support and enable economic activity.”

Some progressive economists are pressing the administration to widen the definition even further — and to spend more to rebuild it.

“The conversation has moved a lot in recent years. We’re now talking about issues like a care infrastructure. That’s huge,” said Rakeen Mabud, the managing director of policy and research at the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive advocacy group in Washington. But “there’s room to do more,” she said. “We should take that opportunity to really show the value of big investments.”

Some economists who define infrastructure more narrowly said that just because policies were not considered infrastructure did not mean they were not worth pursuing.

Still, Glaeser of Harvard cautioned that the bill’s many proposals should be evaluated on their merits.

“It’s very hard to do this much infrastructure spending at this scale quickly and wisely,” he said. “If anything, I wish it were more closely tied to cost-benefit analysis.”

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The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

He was charged in an anti-Asian attack. It was his 33rd arrest.

Volunteers hand out flyers advertising a program called Safe Walk, which provides walking companions for Asian New Yorkers concerns for their safety, in the Chinatown neighborhood of New York on March 26, 2021.

By NICOLE LONG, ASHLEY SOUTHALL and ALI WATKINS

T

ommy Lau, a Chinese American bus driver in New York City, was walking last month during his lunch break in Brooklyn when he noticed a man harassing an older Asian couple.

Lau, 63, stepped in front of the man to ask what he was doing. The man, Donovan Lawson, spat at Lau and punched him in the face, calling him an anti-Chinese slur, prosecutors said. Lawson, who is Black, was arrested and charged with a hate crime.

It was the 33rd arrest for Lawson, 26, who is homeless and mentally ill, authorities said. Four times, officers had been called to assist him because he appeared to be in the grip of a mental breakdown, and he was being monitored for treatment in a mental health program run by the Police Department.

He is not unique. Many of the people

charged recently with anti-Asian attacks in New York City have also had a history of mental health episodes, multiple arrests and homelessness, complicating the city’s search for an effective response.

The pattern has revealed gaps in the criminal justice system’s ability to respond effectively when racial bias overlaps with mental illness, even as the city has stepped up enforcement efforts against these crimes.

For instance, Lawson was one of at least seven people arrested after attacks on Asian city residents in the last two weeks of March, ending with a horrifying attack on a Filipino woman, who was kicked repeatedly in broad daylight in Manhattan by a man the police say was homeless and on parole after serving a prison sentence for killing his mother.

Of the seven people arrested, five had prior encounters with police during which they were considered “emotionally disturbed,” police parlance for someone

thought to be in need of psychiatric help.

Investigators believed the remaining two also had signs of mental illness.

Officials say those arrested are part of a population of mentally unstable people who cycle in and out of jail on minor charges and too often do not get the psychiatric attention they need. Many also struggle with drug addiction.

Dermot F. Shea, the New York City police commissioner, said in a television interview Friday that there were “always arrests prior to these tragic, tragic incidents, and we need to address this mental illness piece.”

So far, police have received reports of at least 35 anti-Asian hate crimes in New York this year, already surpassing the 28 reported all of last year, and far more than the three reported in 2019, police said.

Attacks against Asian Americans began to rise across the country last year as the pandemic raged and former President Donald Trump used racist slurs for the disease in an effort to blame China for the catastrophe.

Law enforcement officials said Trump’s rhetoric provided ammunition to people who scapegoated Asian Americans for spreading the virus, exacerbating racial tensions and spurring unprovoked attacks and harassment.

At the same time, the pandemic strained a criminal justice system that has long struggled to deliver treatment to mentally ill people who run afoul of the law.

Social services cut back in-person meetings. Unemployment soared. The number of single homeless adults reached record levels.

“People’s fuses were much shorter,” said Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a former high-ranking official in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. “If you were an angry person filled with hate, it seems like it didn’t take much to set you off.”

Hate crime incidents in New York generally tend to rise after divisive news events, experts on such prosecutions said, and most spring from spur-of-the-moment confrontations. After the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, for instance, Muslim Americans were targeted. After the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, anti-Semitic attacks rose.

State prison officials said that, because of privacy laws, they could not release infor-

mation about the health history of Brandon Elliot, the man arrested in connection with the brutal March 29 attack on the Filipino woman in Manhattan.

But police had been called to assist Elliot with a mental health episode in 2002, a few months before he stabbed his mother to death in front of his 5-year-old sister, according to a law enforcement official.

Questions have been raised about whether Elliot, who is Black, had been properly supervised after being paroled.

Elliot, 38, was living at a hotel in midtown Manhattan that has been serving as a homeless shelter, police said. Other residents said his behavior was sometimes erratic.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said last week that Elliot’s case highlighted a pervasive problem.

The state releases people from prison into the city “with no plan, no housing, no job, no mental health support,” he said.

In a statement, New York state’s Corrections Department said that every person released from prison has an individual treatment and rehabilitation plan and the mayor was “clearly not informed.” The Legal Aid Society, which is representing Elliot, urged the public “to reserve judgment until all the facts are presented in court.”

That some of the people arrested in recent anti-Asian incidents had a history of instability has brought little comfort to victims.

Lau, the bus driver in Brooklyn, said in an interview that he believed the punch he took from Lawson was rooted in a “breakdown in mental health issues.”

Still, he said, the slur Lawson had used fit a pattern of racism he has experienced since childhood, when his elementary schoolteacher called him Tommy instead of his given name, Kok Wah, to prevent his classmates from making fun of him.

“That’s how it is when you’re Asian, always being harassed by others,” Lau said.

“The pandemic made it worse.”

Regina Lawson, Lawson’s sister, said he showed signs of mental illness at a young age and received therapy until he grew older and his mother could no longer force him to go. The siblings are now estranged.

“There could be definitely a better way of dealing with someone other than waiting until they have a felony or really hurt someone to get them the support,” Regina Lawson said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

9

‘There was nothing anybody could do for these patients.’ Now there is.

By PAM BELLUCK

“I

can’t do this anymore,” Sonia Sein told herself, her family and her doctor.

For six years, she had endured a tube inserted in her windpipe, or trachea, to keep her alive, but her discomfort and distress were becoming more and more unbearable.

Largely confined to her New York City apartment, she needed home health aides and had to quit her career as a social worker for pregnant women. If she talked for over five minutes, she had to stop “because I couldn’t breathe.”

The tube was necessary because her trachea — the airway leading to the lungs — had become damaged after she spent weeks on a ventilator for a severe asthma attack in 2014. She had subsequently undergone six major surgeries and more than 10 smaller procedures, but with all conventional approaches to address her condition exhausted, she made plans to have the tube removed and receive only palliative care. “I don’t want to live like this,” she concluded.

Today, Sein, 56, dances and plays tag with her grandchildren and plans to resume working, possibly as an acupuncturist. She says she feels she has been given a “chance of being alive one more time.”

Her transformation follows a groundbreaking procedure she underwent in January: the first time, medical experts believe, a donor trachea has been successfully transplanted into another person.

The 18-hour procedure, conceived and led by Dr. Eric M. Genden Sr., chairman of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at Mount Sinai Health System in New York, is a milestone because — unlike kidneys, hearts and lungs — the trachea has defied decades of transplantation attempts.

“It’s very exciting,” said Dr. G. Alexander Patterson, a professor of surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, who was not involved in the case.

Thousands of people in the United States develop trachea problems each year from burns, birth defects, tumors and extended intubation on ventilators. The coronavirus pandemic will most likely create more cases because many COVID-19 patients have needed weeks on ventilators.

Hundreds of Americans are estimated to die each year because techniques like stents, surgery or lasers cannot heal their damaged tracheas, and they suffocate when airways narrow dangerously or collapse.

“There was nothing anybody could do for these patients,” said Genden, who became captivated by the problem in medical school 30 years ago after a patient with a tracheal tumor died. Guided by several mentors, he delved into research and animal experiments, developing a transplant approach.

Because immunosuppressant drugs are required to prevent rejection of the transplant, cancer patients would be eligible only if free of cancer for five years, Genden said. For other cases, though, doctors say the approach seems promising.

“It’s very significant,” said Dr. Pierre Delaere, a professor of head and neck surgery at University Hospital Gasthuisberg in Belgium, a trachea specialist not involved in the Sein case. Still, noting that previous attempts didn’t show documented success, he cautioned that longer-term results were needed before the technique should be embraced, adding, “Let’s see how it works and how you can do it in more patients.”

Sonia Sein, speaks with Dr. Eric M. Genden Sr., chairman of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, left, and Dr. Sander S. Florman, director of Mount Sinai’s Transplantation Institute, in New York on March 22, 2021.

The apparent success of Sein’s operation is also notable because the trachea field has been rocked for years by a sensational scandal.

That drama began about a decade ago, when Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, working at Sweden’s famed Karolinska Institute, garnered headlines and accolades for replacing damaged tracheas with plastic tubes seeded with patients’ stem cells that he cultivated in devices called bioreactors. The transplants, performed on patients from the United States and other countries, were heralded as inaugurating a regenerative medicine revolution.

But of 20 patients, including children, most ultimately died, and scientists said Macchiarini misrepresented data and exaggerated his technique’s effectiveness.

Genden said Macchiarini’s rise and fall profoundly affected his own path.

“Here’s this handsome Italian surgeon at the finest institution in the world, the Karolinska, and he’s everything I’m not: He’s got a beautiful head of hair, he drives a motorcycle, he’s got an accent, he’s incredibly charismatic and dynamic,” Genden said. “He says, ‘I’ve created this bioreactor and it’s stem cells and it makes tracheas.’

And it’s huge.”

Genden said that when he and colleagues questioned Macchiarini at a conference early on, “in his bigger-than-life way he says, ‘This is ridiculous, you don’t know what you’re talking about, it functions beautifully.’”

Genden thought his work had “become obsolete, so you basically shut down the lab,” he said, adding, “You can’t justify doing experimental surgery and immunosuppression when you see something else that looks perfect, so you realize, wow, we’re out of business.”

As Macchiarini’s work drew criticism, Genden revived his own idea but was uncertain about trying it. The scandal meant “there’s an amazing amount of scrutiny,” he said.

There was another reason to be daunted too: historical assumptions that tracheas weren’t transplantable.

“The trachea has been characterized as a simple tube, but it’s very complex,” Delaere said. About 11 centimeters long (just over 4 1/4 inches), one side curves like a halfpipe, composed of cartilage rings and ligaments. The other side is flat and mobile to move air to the lungs.

Any replacement trachea must be rigid or “it’ll collapse like

a straw in a McDonald’s milkshake,” Genden said. It must be lined with cilia, hairlike projections “like shag carpeting” that move and clean the air we breathe in, he said. And it needs a blood supply to connect to the patient’s vascular system.

Other trachea replacement attempts include transplanting part of a donor’s frozen, preserved aorta, the body’s main artery, and fabricating tracheas from patients’ own chest muscles and rib cartilage.

“Some of them have been successful, but they’re cumbersome in different ways and they’re not a trachea,” Patterson said. “It’s kind of a marginal substitute, and many patients need further interventions to maintain their airways.”

The “secret sauce” in his approach, he said, is transplanting not just the donor trachea but also its attached esophagus (food tube), thyroid gland and thyroid arteries.

Guided by a high-powered microscope, he used surgical thread half the diameter of a human hair. He opened and cleaned out the donor’s esophagus, laying it against Sein’s esophagus.

Genden also transplanted the cricoid, cartilage cuffing the trachea, supplanting Sein’s completely destroyed cricoid. The 9-centimeter transplant replaced all but 2 centimeters of her trachea.

The donor was a young man. The different gender was important, allowing Genden to use chromosomal analysis to detect whether Sein’s cells populated the new trachea. As of late March, 6.5% of cells in the donor trachea were hers, with the proportion increasing, he said.

He hopes the immunosuppressant drugs, which can create health risks, can be reduced or even stopped “if the entire graft becomes filled with Sonia’s cells.”

For Sein, the procedure was a long-sought dream. In 2017, after another hospital said everything possible had been tried, she felt desperate.

“I thought, ‘If they do a transplant for everything, they should do a transplant for trachea,’” she recalled. “I Googled ‘trachea transplant,’ and Dr. Genden popped up. So I called and called till I got an appointment.”

Genden said Sein beseeched him for the transplant, saying, “You need to do this for me, or I’m going to end my life.”

By early 2020, ethical approvals were in place, but the coronavirus pandemic held things up. By this year, Genden said, her condition had deteriorated so that “if we delay further, it’s not going to work out.”

On Jan. 12, Genden got a call: An appropriate donor had died. The next morning, with the donor and Sein in adjacent rooms, a team of over 50 medical personnel assembled.

Photographs document Sein’s trachea transformation: Her old windpipe looks raw and red, her new one smooth as porcelain.

“I can breathe,” she was amazed to discover. “I could feel it in my lungs.”

After several weeks in recovery, she is home. She visits Mount Sinai weekly for blood work. Genden examines the new trachea by inserting a scope in a hole he left in her neck, which he’ll eventually close.

Recently, Sein, covering the hole with her hand to speak, enthused about having the energy to cook sesame chicken for the first time and how she aims to visit relatives in Puerto Rico. Next month, she will turn 57.

“We would have been planning my funeral,” she said, “but now we’re planning a birthday party.”

10

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

The San Juan Daily Star

Supreme Court backs Google in copyright fight with Oracle

By ADAM LIPTAK

T

he Supreme Court on Monday sided with Google in a long-running copyright dispute with Oracle over software used to run most of the world’s smartphones.

The 6-2 ruling, which resolved what Google had called “the copyright case of the decade,” spared the company from having to face claims from Oracle for billions of dollars in damages.

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A sign at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., on Oct. 20, 2020. The Supreme Court on Monday, April 5 2021, sided with Google in a long-running copyright dispute with Oracle over software used to run most of the world’s smartphones.

The case, Google v. Oracle America, No. 18-956, concerned Google’s reliance on aspects of Java, a programming language, in its Android operating system. Oracle, which acquired Java in 2010 when it bought Sun Microsystems, said that using parts of Java without permission amounted to copyright infringement.

Google responded that free access to the software interfaces in question were crucial to the innovation economy.

Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, said that Google was protected by the “fair use” exception to copyright protections.

In 2016, a San Francisco jury found that Google had not violated copyright laws because it had made fair use of the code. But in 2018, a specialized appeals court in Washington, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, disagreed with that assessment.

“There is nothing fair about taking a copyrighted work verbatim and using it for the same purpose and function as the original in a competing platform,” Judge Kathleen M. O’Malley wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel.

The appeals court sent the case back for a trial to determine how much Google must pay in damages, and Google asked the Supreme Court to step in.

When the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, it said it would answer two questions: whether the 11,000 lines of software code at issue were copyrightable and, if they were, whether Google’s use of them was subject to the fairuse exception.

Breyer answered only the second question.

“Given the rapidly changing technological, economic and business-related circumstances, we believe we should not answer more than is necessary to resolve the parties’ dispute,” he wrote. “We shall assume, but purely for argument’s sake, that” the code “falls within the definition of that which can be copyrighted.”

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh joined

the majority opinion. Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate in the case, which was argued before she joined the court.

In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito Jr., said leapfrogging the first question was a grave analytical misstep. “The court wrongly sidesteps the principal question that we were asked to answer,” he wrote, adding that he would have ruled that the code was protected by copyright laws.

The majority’s approach was inexplicable, Thomas wrote, and its rationale — that technology is rapidly changing — was odd, as change “has been a constant where computers are concerned.”

Breyer used what he called a “far-fetched” analogy to describe what the contested code did. “Imagine that you can, via certain keystrokes, instruct a robot to move to a particular file cabinet, to open a certain drawer, and to pick out a specific recipe,” he wrote. “With the proper recipe in hand, the robot then moves to your kitchen and gives it to a cook to prepare the dish.”

Breyer wrote that the four fair-use factors set out in the Copyright Act all supported Google. The nature of the code, he wrote, “is inextricably bound together with a general system, the division of computing tasks, that no one claims is a proper subject of copyright.”

Google’s use of the code, he added, created something new. “It seeks to expand the use and usefulness of Android-based smartphones,” Breyer wrote. “Its new product offers programmers a highly creative and innovative tool for a smartphone environment.”

Nor did Google copy too much of Oracle’s code. The 11,000 lines of code at issue, he wrote, amounted to 0.4% of the relevant universe of code.

Finally, he considered the effect on the market. “The uncertain nature of Sun’s ability to compete in Android’s marketplace, the sources of its lost revenue and the risk of creativity-related harms to the public, when taken together, convince that this fourth factor — market effects — also weighs in favor of fair use,” Breyer wrote.

In dissent, Thomas said that last factor pointed in the opposite direction.

“By copying Oracle’s work, Google decimated Oracle’s market and created a mobile operating system now in over 2.5 billion actively used devices, earning tens of billions of dollars every year,” he wrote. “If these effects on Oracle’s potential market favor Google, something is very wrong with our fair-use analysis.”

Thomas wrote that Google had justified theft in the name of convenience.

“A Broadway musical script needs actors and singers to invest time learning and rehearsing it,” he wrote. “But a theater cannot copy a script — the rights to which are held by a smaller theater — simply because it wants to entice actors to switch theaters and because copying the script is more efficient than requiring the actors to learn a new one.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

11

Biden and Democrats detail plans to raise taxes on multinational firms

By JIM TANKERSLEY and ALAN RAPPEPORT

T

he Biden administration and top Democrats in Congress began detailing plans for significant changes to how the United States and other countries tax multinational corporations as they look for ways to raise revenues and finance President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure proposal.

On Monday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen threw her support behind an international effort to create a global minimum tax that would apply to multinational corporations, regardless of where they locate their headquarters. Such a global tax, she said, could help prevent a “race to the bottom” in which countries cut their tax rates in order to entice companies to move headquarters and profits across borders.

“Together, we can use a global minimum tax to make sure the global economy thrives based on a more level playing field in the taxation of multinational corporations,” she said.

The effort is aimed at “making sure that governments have stable tax systems that raise sufficient revenue to invest in essential public goods and respond to crises, and that all citizens fairly share the burden of financing government.”

At the same time, Democrats in Congress released their own proposal to add teeth to the de facto minimum tax that the United States already imposes on income earned abroad — one that would apply to American multinational companies regardless of what the rest of the world does. The proposal could raise as much as $1 trillion over the next 15 years from large companies by requiring that they pay higher taxes on profits they earn overseas, according to analyses of similar plans.

Yellen’s support for a global minimum tax could help catalyze an agreement being worked out through the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which seeks to reduce companies’ practice of booking profits in lowtax “haven” countries to avoid higher tax bills elsewhere. Negotiators are discussing a range of possibilities for such a plan, but they have not settled on several crucial details, including the rate of the minimum tax.

The focus on raising taxes for large companies comes as the Biden administration begins its push to sell a $2 trillion infrastructure plan and finance it with higher taxes. Biden’s proposal includes raising the U.S. corporate tax rate to 28% from 21% and a variety of changes to international tax law, all meant to force companies to pay more to the Treasury after a plunge in corporate tax revenues spurred by President Donald Trump’s signature 2017 tax cuts.

Democrats and White House officials say that their goal is to ensure companies pay their fair share and that they do not move jobs and profits abroad to avoid paying taxes in the United States.

But some tax experts, along with large business lobbying groups, say the proposals could hobble U.S. corporations on the global stage by forcing them to pay significantly higher tax rates than their competitors pay. That could be true even if global negotiators eventually agree to a worldwide minimum tax — because that tax rate could still be lower than what companies pay in the United States.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) speaks to reporters during a stall in votes on amendments to President Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief bill, at the Capitol in Washington on March 5, 2021.

If the Democratic plans succeed and Yellen and her global counterparts reach agreement, “there could be a cogent international tax system” with some effective incentives for investments in the United States, said Danielle Rolfes, a former international tax counsel for the Treasury Department in the Obama administration who is now a leader of KPMG’s international tax practice in Washington.

But, she said, “I would be concerned, if the rates get too high, that the U.S. might have competitiveness issues.”

Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, R-Pa., said Yellen’s call for a global minimum tax was an admission that Biden’s plan to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% would make U.S. companies less competitive.

“This is why Secretary Yellen is imploring other developed countries to punish their workers and businesses with their own tax increases,” Toomey said in a statement. “‘Race to the bottom’ is the way the Biden administration describes competition among developed countries to get to a tax code that attracts investment and maximizes growth.”

Biden dismissed that view Monday, saying U.S. companies could afford to pay a higher tax rate given many paid no taxes over the past several years.

“You have 51 or 52 corporations of the Fortune 500 that haven’t paid a single penny in taxes for three years,” he said.

“Come on, man. Let’s get real.”

The proposal would increase the rate of the 2017 minimum tax and change how it is applied to income that corporations earn in various countries overseas, effectively forcing many companies to pay the tax on more of their income, whi-

le offering new targeted tax relief linked to domestic investments.

The Senate plan comes from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who is in charge of writing tax legislation as chairman of the Finance Committee, and two Democratic colleagues: Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia.

But Republicans, the leading business lobbying group and some tax experts panned the proposal and defended the Trump system as one that worked.

The 2017 law “worked to improve a system that no one felt was working and struck a balance between the need for companies to be able to compete in the global economy while protecting the U.S. tax base,” said Caroline Harris, the vice president of tax policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“Today’s proposal to increase international taxes threatens to move us to a system even worse than where we started, to the detriment of economic growth, competitiveness and job creation.”

Tax experts expressed similar concerns about enforcing the kind of global minimum tax Yellen is calling for and about what that might mean for American companies.

“It’s administratively impossible to execute and it requires all countries in the world to hold hands,” said Peter Barnes, a lawyer at the tax firm Caplin and Drysdale who was previously a senior international tax counsel for General Electric.

“Unless they can get 90% of the world’s countries to adopt it, countries will view exempting themselves from the system as a great way to create a potentially significant competitive advantage.”

12

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

As China targets H&M and Nike, local brands see their chance

Chinese rivals to Western names have improved quality and marketing. Now the country’s defiance could give them an edge with young patriots.

By LI YUAN

T

im Min once drove BMWs. He considered buying a Tesla.

Instead Min, the 33-year-old owner of a Beijing cosmetics startup, bought an electric car made by a Chinese Tesla rival, Nio. He likes Nio’s interiors and voice control features better.

He also considers himself a patriot. “I have a very strong inclination toward Chinese brands and very strong patriotic emotions,” he said. “I used to love Nike, too. Now I don’t see any reason for that. If there’s a good Chinese brand to replace Nike, I’ll be very happy to.”

Western brands like H&M, Nike and Adidas have come under pressure in China for refusing to use cotton produced in the Xinjiang region, where the Chinese government

has waged a broad campaign of repression against ethnic minorities. Shoppers vowed to boycott the brands. Celebrities dropped their endorsement deals.

But foreign brands also face increasing pressure from a new breed of Chinese competitors making high-quality products and selling them through savvy marketing to an increasingly patriotic group of young people. There’s a term for it: “guochao,” or Chinese fad.

HeyTea, a $2 billion milk tea startup with 700 stores, wants to replace Starbucks. Yuanqisenlin, a 4-year-old low-sugar drink company valued at $6 billion, wants to become China’s Coca-Cola. Ubras, a 5-year-old company, wants to supplant Victoria’s Secret with the most non-Victoria’s Secret of products: unwired, sporty bras that emphasize comfort.

The anger over Xinjiang cotton has given

these Chinese brands another chance to win over consumers. As celebrities cut their ties to foreign brands, Li-Ning, a Chinese sportswear giant, announced that Xiao Zhan, a boy band member, would become its new global ambassador. Within 20 minutes, almost everything that Xiao wore on a Li-Ning advertisement had sold out online. A hashtag about the campaign was viewed more than 1 billion times.

Foreign brands are far from done in China. Its drivers helped power a jump in Tesla deliveries. IPhones remain immensely popular. Campaigns against foreign names have come and gone, and local brands that emphasize politics too much risk unwanted attention if the political winds shift quickly.

Still, interest in local brands marks a significant shift. Post-Mao, the country made few consumer products. The first televisions that most families owned in the 1980s were from Japan. Pierre Cardin, the French designer, reintroduced fashion with his first show in Beijing in 1979, bringing color and flair to a nation that during the Cultural Revolution wore blue and gray.

Chinese people of my generation remember their first sip of Coco-Cola and their first bite of a Big Mac. We watched films from Hollywood, Japan and Hong Kong as much for the wardrobes and makeup as the plot. We rushed to buy Head & Shoulders shampoo because its Chinese name, Haifeisi, means “sea flying hair.”

“We’ve gone through the European and American fad, the Japanese and Korean fad, the American streetwear fad, even the Hong Kong and Taiwan fad,” said Xun Shaohua, who founded a Shanghai sportswear company that competes with Vans and Converse.

Now could be the time for the China fad. Chinese companies are making better products. China’s Generation Z, born between 1995 and 2009, does not have the same atta-

chment to foreign names.

Even People’s Daily, the traditionally staid Communist Party official newspaper, is getting into branding. It started a streetwear collection with Li-Ning in 2019. That same year, it issued a report with Baidu, the Chinese search company, called “Guochao Pride Big Data.” They found that when people in China searched for brands, more than two-thirds were looking for domestic names, up from only about one-third 10 years earlier.

As with so much in China, it can be hard to tell how much of the guochao movement involves politics. Building up homemade brands fits snugly with the Communist Party’s desire to make the country more self-reliant. Officials also want Chinese people to shop more: Household consumption makes up only about 40% of China’s economic output, much less than it does in the United States and Europe.

Patriotism aside, entrepreneurs argue that their ventures rest on a solid business foundation. Similar trends happened in Japan and South Korea, both now home to strong brands. Local players better know the abilities of the country’s supply chains and how to use social media.

As ambitious as these businesspeople are, almost everyone I spoke to admitted that the Chinese brands still couldn’t compete with megabrands such as Coca-Cola and Nike.

Alex Xie, a marketing consultant, used the sportswear industry as an example. Nike holds a yearslong lead over Chinese brands in research and development. It enjoys a deep network of relationships in the sports world.

It works closely with athletes to develop better shoes, sponsors many events and teams, including China’s national soccer, basketball, and track and field teams.

“It simply has a much stickier relationship with its customers than any Chinese brand,” he said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

13 Stocks

Wall Street takes a breather, Treasury yields dip as eyes turn to Fed I

nvestors looking for ways to protect themselves from a potential market downturn and rising inflation have been warming to utilities, sometimes seen as bond substitutes, as attractive alternatives.

The S&P 500 utilities index has outperformed the broader market this month, rising 9.3% so far compared with a 4.3% gain in the benchmark index and leading gains among sectors for March.

Driving the gains may be a defensive move by investors to position themselves against a potential slide in equities, with worries mounting over higher inflation as seen in the jump in 10-year Treasury yields and over pricey stock valuations, some strategists say.

Utilities tend to do better in a downturn because they pay dividends and offer stability.

“It’s a little defensive positioning,” said Joseph Quinlan, head of CIO market strategy for Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank in New York.

“We have some clients who want to be more defensive but want to stay in the market.”

While the economy is expected to rebound sharply this year from the impact of the coronavirus, that optimism may be dampened by next year if unemployment remains elevated and growth slows more than expected.

Some investors say utilities also may be benefiting from hopes that there will be a bigger push toward green energy under the Biden Administration. President Joe Biden is expected to unveil next week a multitrillion-dollar plan to rebuild America’s infrastructure that may also tackle climate change.

“If you get any acceleration of the decarbonization rhetoric, that’s a positive for utilities,” said Shane Hurst, managing director and portfolio manager at ClearBridge Investments.

But whether the recent surge in utilities has further room to run is a matter of debate, and many strategists and investors, including Quinlan, still favor cyclicals that benefit from economic growth over defensive-leaning groups such as utilities.

The gains in utilities have come amid a rotation from technology and other growth stocks into so-called value stocks.

The Nasdaq Composite has fallen in March after four straight months of gains. (Graphic: S&P 500, sectors performance for March, ) While utilities still sharply lag gains for the year compared with many cyclical sectors, including energy, they are also considered inexpensive at this point by some investors.

After a weak performance in 2020, utilities “are just really, really cheap at the moment,” Hurst said. “And that is an attractive place to be when you’re in a market that’s very much earnings driven.”

The utilities sector is trading at 18.3 times forward earnings compared with a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.1 for the S&P 500 index and 26 for technology, according to Refinitiv’s data.

David Bianco, Americas chief investment officer for DWS, which has an overweight rating on utilities, said interest rates are still low, but utilities offer inflation protection because they would be able to raise their prices.

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14

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

The San Juan Daily Star

Johnson announces free virus tests and COVID status certificates

A COVID-19 vaccination site inside Salisbury Cathedral in Salisbury, England, on Jan. 23, 2021. More than 30 million people have gotten a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine in Britain.

By MARK LANDLER and STEPHEN CASTLE

P

rime Minister Boris Johnson offered Britons their first detailed glimpse of what a post-pandemic society might look like on Monday, announcing free twice-weekly coronavirus tests in England and COVID status certificates that would allow people with immunity into crowded nightclubs and sporting events.

The plans were the next step in the British government’s cautious reopening of the economy, and its first effort to tackle thorny questions about how to distinguish between people who are protected against the virus and those who are still vulnerable, as the country edges back toward normalcy.

“I will be going to the pub myself and cautiously but irreversibly raising a pint of beer to my lips,” Johnson said at a news conference at 10 Downing St., as he listed the next round of relaxed restrictions.

Trying to strike a balance between public health and personal liberties, he said Britain would design a system to certify the COVID status of anyone seeking to enter higher-risk settings.

While pubs and nonessential shops might be allowed to demand proof of COVID-free status, they will not be required to do so.

Britain has long resisted the idea of requiring people to carry identity documents, and for some in the country, this issue carries authoritarian overtones. The leader of the opposition

Labour Party, Keir Starmer, recently suggested that COVID “passports” could be against the “British instinct.”

Johnson acknowledged the sensitivities and pointed out that the certification plan would not be rolled out for a few months. The government plans to test the program in pilot locations, from a comedy club and nightclub in Liverpool to the FA Cup soccer final at Wembley Stadium.

“You’ve got to be very careful in how you handle this,” he said, “and don’t start a system that is discriminatory.”

Starting next week, the prime minister said nonessential shops, hairdressers and beer gardens in pubs, in England would be allowed to reopen. But he was far more cautious about foreign travel, declining to say whether the government would stick to its earlier target of May 17 for lifting a ban on overseas vacations.

Britain plans to classify countries according to a traffic light system, with visitors from green countries not required to isolate themselves, visitors from amber countries required to isolate at home for several days, and those from red countries required to continue quarantining in hotels.

With more than 31 million people having gotten at least one vaccine jab, and the country still largely in lockdown, Britain has dramatically driven down its new cases, hospital admissions and deaths from the virus. As a result, Johnson’s focus has shifted to managing a steadily more open society.

Among his most ambitious plan is to offer free rapid test-

ing kits to the entire population, so people can test themselves routinely. The kits, already used by hospitals and schools, will be available by mail or at pharmacies.

Public health experts applauded the gradual pace of government’s measures, which they said were appropriate for a country in which the virus was still circulating, even with declining death rates and a rapid vaccine rollout. But they expressed skepticism about the testing program, questioning whether people would have the incentive to put themselves through a test twice a week.

“Testing only works if people isolate, based on a positive result,” said Devi Sridhar, head of the global public health program at the University of Edinburgh. “But if they can’t go to work and will lose income, what’s the incentive to get tested?”

Britain’s experience with testing and tracing has been among the most abysmal parts of its pandemic performance.

Even now, experts said, it only isolates between a quarter and half of those who come into contact with people who test positive for the virus.

“There’s still no proper effort at supported isolation, and an obsession with testing rates with no apparent understanding of the purpose of testing,” said David King, a former chief scientific adviser to the British government who has been an outspoken critic of its response to the pandemic.

While King credited the government with finally becoming more cautious, he said, “the level of the virus in the country is so high that there is no reason to think we are out of this yet.”

The announcement on COVID certification follows weeks of contradictory signals. In February, Nadhim Zahawi, the minister responsible for the vaccine rollout, described its use for anything other than foreign travel as “wrong and discriminatory.”

Last month, Johnson suggested it might be up to individual pubs to decide whether to require COVID passports before serving customers.

Under the government’s current thinking, the certification would apply to people who are vaccinated, who recently tested negative for the virus, or who can prove natural immunity from having recovered from COVID. Opposition comes both from defenders of civil liberties on the left and libertarians on the right. Last week, more than 70 lawmakers last week signed a letter opposing the “divisive and discriminatory use” of COVID passports. They included more than 40 Conservative lawmakers who are part of the COVID Recovery Group, a caucus of lawmakers that has criticized lockdown measures.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Graham Brady, who chairs an influential group of Conservative backbenchers, argued that COVID passports make little practical sense because many young people will probably not have been offered a vaccination by the time the government plans to reopen much of the economy. Fundamental principles were also at stake, he said.

“At the beginning of last year, patient confidentiality was a sacred principle and the idea that other people could inspect our medical records was anathema,” Brady wrote. “Now the state is contemplating making us divulge our COVID status as a condition of going to the pub or cinema.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

15

Rift in Jordan’s royal leadership is soothed, palace says

By PATRICK KINGSLEY and RANA F. SWEIS

A

rare public rift within the Jordanian ruling family seemed to edge toward resolution late Monday, as the royal house first announced that King Abdullah II and his estranged half brother, Prince Hamzah, had agreed to mediation measures, and then released a statement in which the prince was quoted as pledging loyalty to the king.

The royal court said Prince Hassan — an uncle of the two men, and brother of former King Hussein — had helped settle their long-simmering dispute, which exploded into public view Saturday when Prince Hamzah was accused of having plotted to undermine the country’s security.

The uncle’s intervention seemed to quickly de-escalate a standoff that had sent jitters through Jordan’s foreign allies who value the kingdom as an oasis of relative calm in a tense region; as a key partner in military efforts to curb Islamist extremism; and as an important player in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Within hours of the mediation announcement, the palace released a second statement, bearing Prince Hamzah’s signature, in which he was quoted as praising the king and confirming his fealty.

“The interest of the nation comes above all else and we all should stand behind His Majesty in his efforts to protect Jordan and its interests of the nation,” the prince was quoted as saying.

The statement added, “In light of the developments of the past two days I put myself in the hands of the king, following the steps of my forefathers.”

Questions, however, hung over the apparent easing of the rift, which seemed as abrupt as the exposure of it two days earlier. The prince’s whereabouts Monday night, for example, remained undisclosed. He has not been seen in public since he claimed on Saturday to have been placed under house arrest.

Tensions between the two men boiled over Saturday, when the Jordanian government hinted that the prince, aided by unidentified foreigners, had been involved in a botched coup attempt.

The prince then fired back with a pair of self-filmed videos, in which he made an unusually forceful criticism of the country’s leadership but denied links to any putsch and said he had been placed under house arrest.

The prince’s apparent reconciliation statement Monday was a stark change from a tone of defiance in an audio recording released earlier by his supporters, which had suggested the prince would not be easily silenced.

The feud shocked both Jordanians and foreign observers. The Jordanian royal family has historically managed to keep its disagreements behind closed doors, a skill that contributed to the kingdom’s image as a bulwark of stability in a turbulent neighborhood.

The reconciliation signals should allow Jordan to return to the status quo, analysts said.

“The worst is behind us,” said Jawad Anani, a former chief of the royal court and an ex-foreign minister. “I’m sure the process will lead to some conciliatory decision where they

will go back to one unified family.”

When King Abdullah succeeded their father, King Hussein, in 1999, he appeared to have a good working relationship with his half brother — quickly appointing Prince Hamzah as his crown prince.

King Abdullah, 59, is the son of Hussein’s second wife, Princess Muna, while Prince Hamzah, 41, is the son of Hussein’s fourth wife, the American-born Queen Noor.

Their disagreement seems to date back to 2004, when the king removed the prince from his role as crown prince, later replacing Hamzah with his young son, Hussein.

Any resulting animosity was initially kept away from the public eye. But in recent years, Prince Hamzah became less cautious in his public pronouncements, criticizing Jordan’s governance and alleging widespread corruption among its political leadership.

In 2018, he demanded “real action against the rife corruption taking place, for the corrupt to be accountable and to build back trust between the state and the people.”

But none of this prepared Jordanians for the drama that unfolded over the weekend, when the government accused Prince Hamzah of involvement in a conspiracy to undermine the security of the state and arrested several of his aides.

The Jordanian foreign minister said the prince had been working with Bassem Awadallah, a former chief of the royal court who later became an adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

To clear his name, Prince Hamzah released two videos in which he denied any involvement in a conspiracy and claimed that he was held under house arrest — a charge the government denied. He also denounced the government for corruption, incompetence and authoritarian behavior, in an unusually strident condemnation.

“Even to criticize a small aspect of a policy leads to arrest and abuse by the security services, and it’s reached the point where no one is able to speak or express an opinion on anything without being bullied, arrested, harassed and threatened,” he said.

Freedom House, an American monitoring group that makes an annual report about each country’s rights record, recently downgraded its assessment of Jordanian democracy — from “partly free” to “not free.”

To many Jordanians, the allegations against Prince Hamzah seemed odd — even before his announced reconciliation with the king Monday evening. On public policy, Prince Hamzah and Awadallah do not share much common ground.

The prince presents himself as a campaigner for good governance, whereas Awadallah was often a target of government critics during his time in office. And while Prince Hamzah has taken care to present himself as a representative of Jordan’s native tribes, Awadallah is one of the many Jordanian citizens descended from families of Palestinian origin.

“The two did not have much in common,” said Anani, the former minister. “I don’t think it was a meeting of minds.”

Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, right, with a brother, Prince Hashem bin Hussein, at the opening of Parliament in Amman, Jordan, in 2006.

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Wednesday, April 7, 2021

The San Juan Daily Star

Netanyahu gets the first crack at forming a new government in Israel

By ISABEL KERSHNER

P

rime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was asked by the president Tuesday to try to form a new coalition government, offering a possible path for him to remain in office even as he stands trial on corruption charges.

It will not be easy and success is by no means guaranteed given the abiding divisions that have led to a political impasse, which has only gotten worse year by year.

While the country remains split along the traditional fault lines of secular and religious, right-wing and left-wing and Jewish and Arab, the main rupture has increasingly come to revolve around the polarizing figure of Netanyahu himself. He got the nod to form a new government one day after the opening of the evidentiary stage of his trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

A political survivor and Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Netanyahu has spent the last 12 years in office. But after four inconclusive elections in two years, he and his allies have failed to win enough sup-

port to ensure a parliamentary majority that could decisively end the country’s political deadlock.

Netanyahu now has 28 days to try to cobble together a coalition that could command a majority of at least 61 in the 120-seat parliament, with the possibility of an additional 14-day extension. If he fails, President Reuven Rivlin could task another candidate or refer the choice of a candidate to parliament.

In last month’s election, Netanyahu’s conservative Likud emerged as the largest party, with 30 seats.

Together with his allies in the right-wing and religious camps, he has 52 seats. That falls short of a majority, but still gives him a better shot than any of his opponents to form a governing coalition.

Still, even Rivlin expressed doubts about Netanyahu’s chances of success, a day after he met with representatives of all 13 parties elected to parliament and received their recommendations for the premiership.

“The results of the consultations, which were open to all, lead me to believe that no candidate has a realistic chance of forming a government that will have the confidence of parliament,” Rivlin said in a televi-

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the Likud campaign headquarters in Jerusalem last month. The president has asked him to form a new coalition government.

sed address Tuesday. But, he added, “The law obliges me to entrust one of the candidates with forming a government.”

In order to form the kind of “full-on right-wing government” Netanyahu promised his voters, the prime minister would need the support of another small right-wing party that has been sitting on the fence. He would also need the far-right flank of his potential coalition to agree to rely on the support of a small Arab, Islamist party that has become a potential kingmaker.

So far, Netanyahu’s partners on the far right have rejected that proposition. The other option is for Netanyahu to woo defectors from the opposite camp.

“We will have to be creative,” said Danny Danon, a former Likud minister who served as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. “Everything will be on the table. People will have to be flexible,” he said, “including Netanyahu.”

Netanyahu’s trial began in May and he has denied the charges against him. There is nothing in the current law to prevent a prime minister under indictment from remaining in office.

But the spectacle of a sitting prime minister appearing as a defendant in court is a painful precedent for Israel and critics have argued that a candidate under indictment should not be allowed to form a new government.

Rivlin referred to the legal and constitutional debate that has been roiling Israel, saying he was well aware of the criticism.

“The question of giving the role to a candidate facing criminal charges was one of intense political and public disagreement over the recent election campaigns,” he said. But as the president, who represents all Israelis, he said he should stay out of the argument.

“It is the role of the parliament to decide on the substantive and ethical question of the fitness of a candidate facing criminal charges to serve as prime minister,” he added.

Beyond the 30 seats for Netanyahu’s Likud party, the remaining 90 parliamentary seats are split among a dozen other parties. Yair Lapid’s centrist Yesh Atid party came in second, with 17 seats. All of the others numbered in the single digits.

“The president fulfilled his duty and he had no choice,” Lapid said shortly after Netanyahu was tasked with trying to form the government. “But giving the mandate to Netanyahu is a shameful disgrace that tarnishes Israel and casts shame on our status as a lawabiding state,” he added.

The anti-Netanyahu political bloc has so far proved too incoherent to act together to unseat Netanyahu. It is made up of parties with clashing agendas and some have ruled out sitting in a government with others.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

17

How do we stop the parade of gun deaths?

By NICHOLAS KRISTOF

I

n California, a 9-year-old child was one of four people shot dead at a real estate office Wednesday. Shortly before that, 10 people were massacred in a Colorado grocery store, and eight people were executed in Atlanta-area spas.

More Americans have died from guns just since 1975, including suicides, murders and accidents (more than 1.5 million), than in all the wars in U.S. history, dating back to the Revolutionary War (about 1.4 million).

No one is spared. In a typical year, more children from infancy through 4 years old are fatally shot in the United States (about 80) than police officers (about 50 or fewer).

The main challenge for effective policy is that the United States may now have more guns (around 400 million) than people (330 million). The United States has 4% of the world’s population but about 40% of the firearms in civilian hands.

When Europeans lose their tempers, they punch someone; Americans pull out a handgun. Foreigners express road rage by cursing; a driver in North Carolina recently expressed his by firing shots into another car, killing a mother of six.

Abroad, brutish husbands put wives in hospitals; American husbands put wives in coffins.

The guns used in highly publicized mass shootings get the most attention, and they reflect the changing American

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arsenal. I’m writing this on my family farm in Oregon where I grew up with firearms; there’s a .22 rifle in the closet. Those kinds of hunting rifles are rarely used in crimes, but in recent decades the “cool” weapons in some circles have become military-style semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15 and AK-47 and military-style pistols like the Glock 17 that were designed to kill people.

“Assault rifles are the weapons of choice when someone wants to kill as many people as possible,” noted Michael Weisser, a gun store owner, author, NRA member and self-described “gun nut” who has also sponsored a petition to ban assault rifles. “Since 2012 there have been 10 mass shootings resulting in 30 or more dead or wounded victims. Every single one of these shootings was accomplished with an AR or an AK.” I’m sympathetic to the aim, but also wary. I’m not sure it’s possible to get any gun legislation through Congress right now, and certainly not a ban on assault weapons. It’s also true that while liberals loved the assault weapons ban for the 10 years it was in effect, there is no strong evidence that it saved lives — but it did turn the AR-15 into a conservative icon, so that today there appear to be more AR and AK rifles in private hands than in the U.S. military. And most crime and deaths involve handguns, not rifles.

But there is a way to stem the tide of a new type of gun that is proliferating unchecked. President Joe Biden can use executive action to crack down on “ghost guns,” which avoid regulation and serial numbers because they are sold unfinished or as kits.

“Ghost guns have taken off, and they’re untraceable,” said Dr. Garen Wintemute, a gun violence expert at the University of California at Davis.

Law enforcement agencies recovered about 10,000 ghost guns in 2019, and they account for 30% of all firearms taken in gun trafficking investigations in California. Ghost guns have been used in at least three mass shootings in California, Wintemute said.

White nationalists have seized upon the chance to build secret arsenals through ghost guns. Last year, a supporter of the extremist boogaloo movement allegedly used a ghost weapon to kill a law enforcement officer, and the men accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, also had ghost guns.

A computer-controlled milling machine called the Ghost Gunner 3, the size of a laser printer, makes it even easier to produce ghost guns. It is now available for mail order for $2,120 and can churn out many imitation Glock handguns or AR-15 assault rifles in a day.

“Ghost Gunner 3 allows you to manufacture firearms with confidence and ease, in the privacy of your own home,” the website boasts. For those on a budget, “layaway options available.”

A vigil in Boulder, Colo., for the victims of the March 22 King Soopers supermarket mass killing.

Ghost guns evade the law because the federal government defines firearms so as not to include so-called 80-percenter guns, which are not quite finished but can be quickly turned into a finished weapon. The Ghost Gunner 3 uses 80-percenter units as the base for complete weapons.

If you order a disassembled couch kit from Ikea, you’re still ordering a couch, stated Daniel Webster, a gun policy expert at Johns Hopkins University. The Biden administration should take executive action to redefine a firearm to include kits and 80-percenters.

“This is a huge and important thing to address,” Webster said. “It’s a huge threat.”

We also need universal background checks, red flag laws, curbs on people with violent misdemeanor records acquiring weapons, and more. But given the difficulty of pushing meaningful gun safety legislation through Congress, I understand why Biden is focusing on infrastructure rather than firearms legislation: Significant reforms just won’t get through Congress even as more than 100 Americans die each day from guns.

But Biden should move urgently to take executive action, to reduce the threat of ghost guns, to gather better gun data and to publicize where weapons used in crimes come from.

States should also move forward. We can continue to lay the groundwork.

It’s also true that some of the most cost-effective steps to reduce gun violence don’t involve firearms directly and thus are less controversial. They include investments in “violence interrupters,” who stop urban cycles of violence, or support for programs like Becoming a Man that help at-risk youths build a better future.

All of this isn’t enough to stop the parade of gun deaths.

It’s frustratingly inadequate. But even modest steps are both urgently needed and an essential way forward.

18

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

The San Juan Daily Star

Jenniffer González anuncia $82.5 millones para Caguas, la emergencia del COVID-19, Head Start y salud Por THE STAR

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a comisionada residente, Jenniffer González Colón, anunció este martes la aprobación de $82,252,585 en fondos federales asignados por el Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos (HHS) para servicios de cuidado a niños, investigaciones y servicios de salud y de la Oficina de Servicio Forestal del Departamento de Agricultura de los Estados Unidos (USDA).

Además, parte de estos fondos son para atender la emergencia del COVID-19 dentro de los fondos aprobados dentro del nuevo paquete de ayudas por el coronavirus conocida como el America Rescue Plan (Ley Pública 117-2).

La Casa del Veterano de Juana Díaz recibirá $633,384 en fondos federales para mitigar los gastos de preparación ante la emergencia del COVID-19 como parte de la asignación aprobada en el Consolidated Appropriations Act. La oficina de Forest Services de USDA asignó $134,716 a Puerto Rico bajo el programa de “Secure Rural Schools” que provee apoyo las escuelas públicas, carreteras y otros servicios municipales.

El Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos de Estados Unidos, a través de la Administración de Recursos y Servicios de Salud (HRSA) asignó fondos federales para los Centros 330 para atender la emergencia del COVID-19 como resultado de los $7.6 mil millones asignados en el America Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) a los Centros de Salud Comunitarios.

Como parte de esta asignación, el Municipio de San Juan recibirá $668,750; el Hospital General de Castañer, Inc. recibirá 1,931,875 dólares; la Corporación de Servicios de Salud y Medicina Avanzada recibirá 5,276,625 dólares; Migrant Health Center Western Region, Inc. recibirá 5,223,250 dólares; el Centro de Salud de Lares,Inc. recibirá $3,207,625; Neomed Center, Inc. recibirá $7,702,000; el Community Health Foundation of Puerto Rico Inc. recibirá 1,779,250 dólares; el Concilio De Salud Integral De Loiza, Inc. recibirá 2,656,125 dólares; Camuy Health Services Inc. recibirá $2,890,500 dólares; la Corporación de Servicios Médico Primario y Prevención de Hatillo recibirá $3,957,625; Costa Salud

Community Health Centers Inc. recibirá $2,639,125; el Centro De Salud Familiar Dr. Julio Palmieri Ferri, Inc. recibirá $2,825,125; el Puerto Rico Community Network for Clinical Services, Research and Health Advancement (PRCONCRA) Inc. recibirá 500,000 dólares; el Morovis Community Health Center Inc. recibirá $2,523,375; Med Centro, Inc. recibirá $8,919,250; el Centro de Servicios Primarios de Salud Inc. recibirá $2,129,750; la Corporación de Salud Asegurada por Nuestra Organización Solidaria, Inc. (S.A.N.O.S.) recibirá $1,665,875; Servicios de Salud Primarios de Barceloneta, Inc. recibirá $2,614,875; HPM Foundation, Inc. recibirá $3,911,000; el Centro de Servicios Primarios de Salud de Patillas Inc. recibirá $3,676,000 y Prymed Medical Care, Inc. recibirá $2,427,375 dólares.

Estos centros son conocidos como Centros 330 porque reciben fondos del gobierno federal a través de la sección

330 del Public Health Service Act (PHSA) al solicitarlos al programa de Health Center Cluster, como organismo comunitario que ofrece servicios de atención primaria de salud integrales en áreas donde las barreras económicas o geográficas limitan el acceso a servicios de atención médica asequibles.

El Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos de Estados Unidos, a través de la Administración de Niños y Familias/Oficina de Head Start de HHS asignó varias partidas de fondos bajo el programa Head Start y Early Head Start en la categoría de servicios sociales, el Centro de Servicios a la Juventud, Inc. recibirá $7,353,198. Estos fondos asignados para Head Start son finales y solo queda en espera la fecha de desembolso de los mismos por parte de la agencia la cual varía dependiendo del programa.

Por otra parte, la Universidad de Puerto Rico Recinto de Ciencias

Médicas recibió una asignación de $2,600,000 por parte de la Oficina de Salud Pública y Ciencias/ Oficina de Planificación Familiar de HHS para servicios de salud dentro del programa de servicios de planificación familiar.

Bajo los fondos asignados por los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades/CDC-NCHHSTP National Center for Chronic Diseases Prevention & Health Promotion (DP), el Departamento de Salud de Puerto Rico recibirá $160,020 para investigaciones y estudios científicos bajo el programa RFA-DP-21-001 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS).

Asimismo, el Departamento de Salud de Puerto Rico recibirá $2,245,892 para vacunación e inmunización para niños en la categoría de salud por parte de los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades/CDC-NCIRD Centro Nacional para Enfermedades Respiratorias e Inmunizaciones (IP).

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

19

A pandemic opportunity: Geffen Hall’s overhaul accelerates

By ZACHARY WOOLFE

T

he coronavirus pandemic has dealt a devastating blow to performing arts institutions nationwide, closing their theaters and robbing them of ticket revenue. But for the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center, it has also offered a silver lining: the opportunity to accelerate the long-delayed renovation of David Geffen Hall.

With concerts in the hall canceled since March 2020, construction began in earnest over the past few months. Work is expected to continue for the next 1 1/2 years, with a reopening planned for fall 2022, the orchestra and center announced Monday.

That is 1 1/2 years ahead of schedule, although it comes with the trade-off that the Philharmonic will not be at Geffen for the wave of triumphant cultural homecomings expected around the country this fall, assuming the pandemic ebbs.

The orchestra will spend much of its coming season at Lincoln Center, with the majority of its performances at Alice Tully Hall or the Rose Theater, alongside forays to Carnegie Hall and other spaces. Although it plans to announce its full program in early June, Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic’s CEO, said in a video interview with other orchestra and center leaders that she anticipated smaller-scale and intermissionless concerts, at least at first.

It has been, Borda said, “the single most challenging season I’ve programmed.” But, she added, “I think there’s going to be an explosion of pent-up audience demand. How many more Zoom concerts can we stream?”

The Geffen Hall renovation is expected to cost $550 million, of which $500 million has been raised, Henry Timms, president of Lincoln Center, said in the interview. He added that “significant” individual donations had been pledged, but he was not ready to announce other naming gifts beyond the $100 million from entertainment mogul David Geffen that jump-started the project in 2015.

“Through 2020, quite rightly, people’s minds were elsewhere, and we had lots of other challenges as organizations,” Timms said. “But once we got to the end of the year, the opportunity became clear: Could we do this sooner? That became a period in which a lot of people stepped up to support the project, because they saw it as a recovery story, a way to invest in the economic and human recovery of the city.”

The old plan had called for progression in stages to limit disruption to the Philharmonic, which would never have lost a full season in the hall. Katherine Farley, chairwoman of Lincoln Center’s board, said the new timeline would not diminish the scope of the renovation, which aims to render the lackluster hall more aesthetically and acoustically appealing. Seating will wrap around the stage, which will be pulled forward 25 feet to what is currently Row J, bringing a greater sense of intimacy to what can feel like a cavernous shoe box. The new space will have about 2,200 seats, down from 2,738.

The walls will be resurfaced to improve the hall’s resonance, especially bass frequencies. The cramped lobbies and other public spaces will be expanded and improved by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, who in 2019 joined a team that

Renovations take place at David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center in New York, April 3, 2021. Dark since March 2020, the New York Philharmonic’s home will reopen in fall 2022, a year and a half ahead of schedule. also includes Diamond Schmitt Architects, which is working on the auditorium’s interior; Akustiks, an acoustical design firm; and Fisher Dachs Associates, a theater design firm.

The Philharmonic has not gone entirely dark during the pandemic. In late summer and early fall last year, it brought small groups of musicians around the city in a rented pickup truck for pop-up performances, and has said it will be back on the road this spring. Its NYPhil+ subscription streaming service was unveiled in February, featuring archival concerts and some fresh content. On April 14 and 15, a contingent of players will appear in front of small audiences at the Shed, 30 blocks south of Lincoln Center, with conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. (Jaap van Zweden, the Philharmonic’s music director, was not available because of commitments overseas, although he was in New York recently to tape two programs for NYPhil+.)

But its losses have been crushing. The orchestra has projected that the cancellation of its 2020-21 season resulted in $21 million in lost ticket revenue, on top of $10 million lost in the final months of its season last spring. (Some of that has been mitigated by emergency fundraising.) Even when live performances resume, despite Borda’s rosy predictions, the box office may not bounce back immediately.

The renovation of Geffen Hall — which opened in 1962 as Philharmonic Hall and was called Avery Fisher Hall starting in 1976 — has been pending and put off for years, cycling through plans and architects. At one point in the early 2000s, the exasperated Philharmonic plotted a return to its old home, Carnegie Hall; that plan fizzled, further damaging relations bet-

ween the orchestra and Lincoln Center, its landlord, which also uses the hall for its own musical presentations and corporate rentals. Concluding in 2012, a $1.2 billion redevelopment of the center left improvements all over — but the costly hall overhaul was not included.

Then, in 2015, Geffen restarted the project with the donation that gave the hall his name. Construction was supposed to start in 2019, but stalled well before that amid logistical problems and management turnover at both the Philharmonic and Lincoln Center. That plan had called for finishing the hall in time for the 2021-22 season. It was a schedule that the orchestra and center came to doubt was viable, but had they been able to stick to it, the renovated hall would have been ready to open just as the city hopes to emerge from the long pandemic closure.

Borda was hired in 2017 in large part to put the renovation back on track; in her previous job leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic, she had brought the construction of Walt Disney Concert Hall over the finish line. In New York, she pushed for a scheme less flashy and more achievable than some of the proposed options — one less likely to overrun its budget and designed to unfold in phases, limiting the stretches the Philharmonic would be exiled.

As for David Geffen, who expressed frustration at some of the earlier setbacks in the years since his gift, Farley said in the interview that she had just spoken to him earlier that day.

“He’s a guy who’s big on efficiency,” she said, “and loves the idea we’re building it in one shot.”

20

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Warhol a lame copier? The judges who said so are sadly mistaken.

By BLAKE GOPNIK

A

few years back, a bevy of art critics declared that Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 sculpture called “Fountain” — a store-bought urinal he had presented, unchanged, as art — was the most influential work of the 20th century. Andy Warhol’s 1964 Brillo Boxes — copies of scouring-pad cartons presented as art — could easily have come a close second. Philosopher Arthur Danto built an illustrious career, and a whole school of thought, around the importance of those boxes to understanding the very nature of artworks.

Last month, three federal appellate judges in New York City decided they knew more about art than any old critic or philosopher: Whether they quite meant to or not, their ruling had the effect of declaring that the landmark inventions of Duchamp and Warhol — the “appropriation” they practiced, to use the term of art — were not worthy of the legal protection that other creativity is given under copyright law.

The case they were considering arose in 2016 when, after the death of pop star Prince, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts licensed a 1984 Warhol silkscreen of the musician for use in a magazine’s commemoration. When photographer Lynn Goldsmith recognized that the Warhol image was based on a photo she had taken in 1981, she asserted that the foundation had infringed on her copyright.

Back in 2019, a trial court decided that Warhol’s use of Goldsmith’s photo was within the bounds of what copyright law calls “fair use.”

“Fair use” is supposed to set guidelines for when one creator is free to borrow from another, without permission or payment. It is meant to ensure that the same copyright law that protects one artist’s creation does not utterly stymie “the ability of authors, artists, and the rest of us to express them- or ourselves by referencing the works of others,” as the same appeals court in Manhattan once said, in a decision that allowed fine artist Jeff Koons to appropriate a fashion photo into one of his paintings.

Many creative products need to cite other works. Imagine a critic who wants to quote a poem to show how bad it is, or a cartoonist copying a Warhol to make fun of it.

Courts have found that this kind of copying is

Andy Warhol’s ”Prince,” which became the subject of a court case over copyright issues. allowed if, among other things, the original work is transformed enough in the process.

In other words, even if that cartoon looked quite a lot like the Warhol (it might need to, to work) so long as its goals and functions were quite different from the original, the “transformation” involved would absolve it of copyright infringement.

The court’s blessing as “transformative” is not necessary when an artist manages to get permission to use an image by someone else.

In the Goldsmith case, the original trial court found that in the process of going from her black-and-white photo to Warhol’s color-

ful silk-screen, the image of Prince had been so transformed that Warhol’s use should count as “fair.”

But the appeals court last month disagreed, ruling that Warhol’s reuse of the Goldsmith had not, in fact, been transformative enough. Any reuser’s work, said the appellate judges, “must reasonably be perceived as embodying an entirely distinct artistic purpose, one that conveys a ‘new meaning or message’” — the judges are quoting from an earlier Supreme Court decision — “entirely separate from its source material.”

Fair enough. That is just what happened when Warhol remade the Brillo com-

pany’s boxes: Once presented as art, in a gallery, they certainly had a new purpose and conveyed a new meaning and message compared to identical-looking boxes in a supermarket stockroom.

But then the appeals court sped in the wrong direction, insisting that for reuse to be “fair,” the transformation cannot be so minor that the reuser’s work “remains both recognizably deriving from, and retaining the essential elements of, its source material.” The judges went so far as to hold up collage — “works of art that draw from numerous sources” — as the norm for artistic transformation worthy of the name. Whereas Warhol’s Prince silk-screen, they said, “retains the essential elements of the Goldsmith Photograph without significantly adding to or altering those elements.”

But, in fact, to do truly original artistic work, the reuse often needs to stay very close to its source. Many great modern artists not only do not “draw from numerous sources” in copying from others, they do not make any kind of aesthetic change at all to the single image they are copying from.

If Warhol had introduced all sorts of fussy new aesthetics into his boxes, to make them look less like the Brillo originals — if he had collaged in some bits of labels from Ivory Soap and Rice Krispies — they would have failed to signify as shockingly important, transformative art. The sameness, the act of “retaining the essential elements” of an extant image, is Warhol’s entire M.O. as one of the most important of all modern artists.

His Campbell’s Soup paintings did not significantly change the company’s soup labels, except for some enlargement; his Marilyn silk-screens did not add a whole lot to 20th Century Fox’s black-and-white headshot of Marilyn Monroe, beyond sometimes adding crude color; ditto for his copies of the Mona Lisa.

The concept of “transformation” has been driving lawyers and judges crazy since the Supreme Court first introduced it in a 1993 case. It turns out that it is wildly difficult to figure out when and how function and meaning and message get changed in a culture — which, as far as art is concerned, is just how things should be. Art is all about finding new ways to worry away at precisely such issues. The hitch comes in imagining that courts could ever try to make hard and fast rules about them.

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Wednesday, July 24, 2019

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Wednesday, March 4, 2020

FASHION The San Juan Daily Star

The very short saga of the Guess bag that looked like a Telfar bag

By VANESSA FRIEDMAN

F

or decades, product plagiarism has been seen as the price of success in the fashion world: Make a hit bag or a viral dress and someone (sometimes many someones) will unabashedly rip it off, often almost overnight.

So when a handbag licenser for Guess Inc. decided to create a bag that looked an awful lot like the Telfar shopping bag, perhaps the greatest hit handbag of the last year, it probably didn’t seem like a big deal. Even though the Guess version features such similar double handles, similar shape and similar logo — an embossed “G” in a circle, like the embossed T-withina-C of Telfar. If you squint, you could get the two confused.

But they hadn’t reckoned with the Telfar tribe — or with what the designer, one of the few Black creatives at the head of his own fashion brand, and his work have meant to so many.

On Saturday, a protest wave began to build on social media calling out Guess for unabashedly copying the work of an independent designer of color at a time when the industry’s history of racism is finally being addressed.

A mere day later, the brand withdrew the product from sale — it had been offered on various third-party websites, including Macy’s and Hudson’s Bay — and issued a statement.

“Signal Brands, the handbag licensee of Guess Inc. has voluntarily halted the sale of its G-Logo totes.

Some on social media have compared the totes to Telfar Global’s shopping bags. Signal Brands does not wish to create any impediments to Telfar Global’s success and, as such, has independently decided to stop selling the Glogo totes.”

(Independently but after social media.)

And it all happened without Telfar Clemens himself or his creative director and business partner, Babak Radboy, ever making a public statement about

the issue or posting a photograph.

Indeed, Radboy didn’t even know Guess had decided to withdraw the totes until a reporter read the statement to him over the phone. (Clemens, who is Liberian American, had been in Liberia pretty much all of March and returned after the whole brouhaha was over.)

Radboy said he and Clemens had become aware of the Guess copy when a friend from Australia emailed them about the bag in February.

At the time, Radboy said, he and Clemens had decided not to pursue any action, in part because they “weren’t afraid of it — and we didn’t want to draw attention to it.”

Guess, Radboy said, had missed the whole point of the bag, which was not “about an object, but about the culture of the bag, the story around the bag and the phenomenon of the bag” — what the bag symbolized to the people who bought it, in other words, rather than the actual bag itself.

The fact that, for example, it represents its own kind of luxury, made for communities often previously marginalized by the fashion world; that it is now sold only direct-to-consumer on Clemens’ website. And each time a drop takes place, it sells out almost immediately, and the lucky few who manage to buy one often cheer about it online as if they’d won the lottery; and that it thus has become a sign of community.

None of that could be copied. So Radboy and Clemens never saw the Guess bag as a threat to their business. On the other hand, they did see a court case as a complicated effort and a probable long-term financial drain.

This is actually the second time the social web has risen up in arms over a perceived wrong to Clemens.

The last time was in July, when the Gap signed a deal with Kanye West, seeming to go back on its plan to collaborate with Clemens.

The reactions have been different from the callouts pursued by Instagram watchdog Diet Prada — they are

The Telfar shopping tote, one of the hit bags of 2020. When Guess began selling a bag that looked very similar, Telfar fans erupted on social media. broader and more personal.

Each time, Clemens and Radboy have stayed quiet, in part because they don’t like the narrative of themselves as victims of a big, bad corporation. As far as they are concerned, they are playing their own — and very long — game, and it is specifically not the fashion game. It has to do with building their own community and setting their own rules.

It’s an approach that has garnered a deeply loyal and highly activist fan base that, it is increasingly apparent, is more akin to the BeyHive or the Rihanna Navy than any fashion customer

group. The Guess licenser has also, for example, made a bag that looks a lot like a Prada bag, but it hasn’t drawn nearly the same outrage as the faux Telfar.

That loyalty, Radboy said, explains why he and Clemens thought, when it came to Guess, “the public could decide for us.” The public did.

“Love how we stood up for Telfar and got guess up outta here,” went a tweet in response.

“It’s a great, happy ending,” Radboy said. And a lesson, perhaps, for any other brand that happened to be watching.

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Wednesday, April 7, 2021

The San Juan Daily Star

Weighing the use of growth hormones for children

By JANE E. BRODY

A

n 8-year-old boy I know is small for his age, shorter and slighter than his friends, even smaller than his 5-year-old sister. Concerned about the increasing use and possible risks of growth hormone, I asked his mother if she had considered treating him with it. She replied, “Not really.

He’s built like his father, who was short and slight as a boy and didn’t shoot up until college.”

Their son, she said, has no sign of a hormone deficiency.

“He’s in the third percentile for height and has maintained the same growth trajectory for years, so there’s no reason to do something about it,” she said. “He’s very athletic, physically capable and can keep up with his friends in other ways.”

His father, at 41, is now 6 feet tall, though still very slender. He recalls being a reasonably athletic child but without the physical power of his friends, making up for what he lacked in mass with speed and agility.

“I enjoyed competitive sports and worked on skills others didn’t have,” he told me, and said he encourages his son to recognize and capitalize on the skills he has.

If only every parent with a short but healthy child approached the matter as sensibly. Experts estimate that 60% to 80% of children who are short for their age do not have a growth hormone deficiency or other medical condition that limits growth. But knowing there is a therapy available to increase height, some parents seek a medical solution for a perceived problem, even when there is no medical abnormality. They should also know, however, that new research has linked growth hormone treatment to serious adverse health effects years later.

Undue shortness may have many causes in addition to a deficiency of growth hormone, including malnutrition, Crohn’s disease or celiac disease, and potential medical conditions should be ruled out or, if present, treated. But

According to the Pediatric Endocrine Society, the decision to administer growth hormone for idiopathic short stature should be made on a case-bycase basis in which benefits and risks are carefully considered for each child.

What, then, are the benefits and risks? Although manufacturers have supported monitoring drug safety beyond the 10 years mandated by the U.S. government, reporting is voluntary and necessarily incomplete. However, a far more reliable assessment is available from Sweden, where population-wide data are routinely collected.

In JAMA Pediatrics in December, pediatric endocrinologists from Karolinska University Hospital reported that among 3,408 patients who were treated New research has linked growth hormone treatment to serious adverse health effects years with recombinant growth hormone as children and adolescents and followed later. for up to 25 years, the risk of developing in 10,000 children.

According to the Peheight is most often related to the child’s a cardiovascular event like a heart atgenetics. Like father or mother, like son diatric Endocrine Society, those affect- tack or stroke was two-thirds higher for or daughter. Given the height of my par- ed are usually much shorter than their men and twice as high for women than ents — a 5-foot-1 mother and a 5-foot- peers — well below the third percen- among 50,036 untreated but otherwise 6 father — I was not likely to become tile — and over time fall increasingly similar people. a forward for the New York Knicks at 4 behind.

The Swedish finding follows a reIn 2003, the Food and Drug Ad- port in June from a research team in feet 11.

Dr. Adda Grimberg, a pediatric ministration approved use of recombi- Tokyo that growth hormone promotes endocrinologist at Children’s Hospital nant human growth hormone for the biomedical pathways that stimulate the of Philadelphia, recalled that “20 years condition known as “idiopathic short development of atherosclerosis, the baago, families were focused on health. stature,” or short stature of unknown sis for most cardiovascular events.

Equally important for parents to They came in with a child who was cause, which is not a disease. But it has prompted a growing number of parents know is how much height their children not growing right and wanted to know if there was an underlying disease. to consider using the hormone to boost might gain from years of daily hormone Now, more and more, they’re focused the height of their children. The resulting injections. Although impossible to preon height. They want growth hormone, rush to therapy reflects concerns about dict in advance for an individual child, looking for a specific height. But this is a widespread societal bias against short- the average benefit for children with idnot like Amazon; you can’t just place an ness, rather than a true medical need, iopathic short stature is about 2 inches in adult height. Grimberg suggested that order and make a child the height you Grimberg said.

Parents considering treatment for if there is no measurable benefit within want.”

Originally, growth hormone was this otherwise medically benign condi- a year of therapy, parents should conused to treat children with an estab- tion should know what it entails: daily in- sider stopping it. lished deficiency, which can result in jections for years until the child’s growth In discussing the psychological asa host of serious health problems. Ca- is completed, rotating injection sites in pects of growth hormone therapy when davers were the initial limited source of the body to minimize scarring. Although no deficiency exists, experts have noted the hormone until 1985, when scientists few children experience side effects, that the practice perpetuates the notion succeeded in producing recombinant which can include severe headaches and that short stature is unacceptable, leadhuman growth hormone in the labora- hip problems, treatment requires repeat- ing to a spiraling demand for therapy. tory, greatly increasing the supply and its ed doctor visits, X-rays and blood work It is far better, one group suggested, to use to treat growth hormone deficiency. and, Grimberg said, “gives the child a help a short child develop coping skills Estimates of the incidence of this powerful message that there’s something than to buy inches through pharmacological means. deficiency range from 1 in 3,000 to 1 wrong with him that needs fixing.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

23

Where’s the water on Mars? Check the rocks.

By KENNETH CHANG

M

ars was once wet, with an ocean’s worth of water on its surface.

Today, most of Mars is as dry as a desert except for ice deposits in its polar regions. Where did the rest of the water go?

Some of it disappeared into space. Water molecules, pummeled by particles of solar wind, broke apart into hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and those, especially the lighter hydrogen atoms, sped out of the atmosphere, lost to outer space.

But most of the water, a new study concludes, went down, sucked into the red planet’s rocks. And there it remains, trapped within minerals and salts. Indeed, as much as 99% of the water that once flowed on Mars could still be there, the researchers estimated in a paper published in the journal Science.

Data from the past two decades of robotic missions to Mars, including NASA’s Curiosity rover and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, showed a wide distribution of what geologists call hydrated minerals.

“It became very, very clear that it was common and not rare to find evidence of water alteration,” said Bethany Ehlmann, a professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology and one of the authors of the paper.

Ehlmann, speaking at a recent news briefing at the Lunar and Planetary Science conference, said that as the rocks were altered by liquid water, water molecules became incorporated into minerals like clays. “Water is effectively trapped into the crust,” she said.

To get a sense of the amount of water, planetary scientists talk about a “global equivalent layer” — that is, if Mars were smoothed out into a uniform, featureless ball, how deep would the water have been?

The scientists estimated that the depth would have been 100 to 1,500 meters, or 330 to 5,000 feet.

The most likely depth was about 2,000 feet, they said, or roughly one-fourth as much water as is in the Atlantic Ocean.

The data and simulations also indicated that the water was almost all gone by 3 billion years ago, around the time on Earth when life consisted of single-cell microbes in the oceans.

“This means that Mars has been dry for quite a long time,” said Eva Scheller, a Caltech graduate student who was the lead author of the Science paper.

Today, there is still water equivalent to a global ocean 65 to 130 feet deep, but that is mostly frozen in the polar ice caps.

Planetary scientists have long marveled at ancient evidence of flowing water carved in the Martian surface — gigantic canyons, tendrils of winding river channels and deltas where the rivers disgorged sediments into lakes. NASA’s latest robotic Mars explorer, Perseverance, which landed last

An image provided by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center that depicts an ocean that might have once covered northern Mars. month in the Jezero crater, will be headed to a river delta at its edge in hopes of finding signs of past life.

Without a time machine, there is no way to observe directly how much water was on a younger Mars more than 3 billion years ago. But the hydrogen atoms floating today in the atmosphere of Mars preserve a ghostly hint of the ancient ocean.

On Earth, about 1 in 5,000 hydrogen atoms is a version known as deuterium that is twice as heavy because its nucleus contains both a neutron and a proton. (The nucleus of a common-variety hydrogen atom has only a proton, no neutrons.)

But on Mars, the concentration of deuterium is markedly higher, about 1 in 700. Scientists at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center who reported this finding in 2015 said this could be used to calculate the amount of water Mars once had. Mars probably started with a similar ratio of deuterium to hydrogen as Earth, but the fraction of deuterium increased over time as the water evaporated and hydrogen was lost to space, because the heavier deuterium is less likely to escape the atmosphere.

The problem with that theory, said Renyu Hu, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and another author of the current Science paper, is that Mars has not been losing hydrogen fast enough. Measurements by NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution orbiter, or MAVEN, have showed that the current rate, extrapolated over 4 billion years, “can only account for a small fraction of the water loss,” Hu said. “This is not enough to explain the great drying of Mars.”

That led to the new research concluding that a great

majority of water went into the rocks.

“This is a very interesting new study in which many processes are combined to provide alternative scenarios for the fate of water on Mars,” Geronimo Villanueva, one of the NASA scientists who performed the earlier deuterium measurements, wrote in an email. “This opens the possibility for an even wetter past, and that rocks on Mars now hold more water than we initially thought.”

The water, however, probably would not be of much use to settlers from Earth. “The amount of water that’s in a rock is very small,” Scheller said.

To release water trapped in minerals requires heating them to high temperatures. “We would have to sort of cook a very large amount of rock to have anything that would be helpful,” Scheller said.

Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX who dreams of sending colonists to Mars one day, has mused about detonating nuclear bombs on Mars to melt the ice caps and warm the planet, making it more hospitable. Those explosions would also release some of the water in the hydrated minerals, although Scheller declined to speculate how much.

Michael Meyer, the lead scientist for NASA’s Mars exploration program, said, “I’ll just mention that nuking a planet is usually not a good way to make it more habitable.”

On Earth, water is also absorbed in rocks, but it does not stay there indefinitely. The movement of Earth’s crust pushes rocks down into the mantle, where they melt, and then the molten rock — and water — comes back up through volcanoes. On Mars, volcanism, like liquid water, appears to have gone away long ago.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Science plays the long game. But people have mental health issues now.

By BENEDICT CAREY

W

hen I joined the Science staff in 2004, reporters in the department had a saying, a reassuring mantra of sorts: “People will always come to the science section, if only to read about progress.”

I think about that a lot as I say goodbye to my job, covering psychiatry, psychology, brain biology and big-data social science, as if they were all somehow related. The behavior beat, as it’s known, allowed tremendous freedom: I wrote about the mental upsides of binge drinking, playing the lotto and sports fandom. I covered basic lab research, the science of learning and memory, the experience of recurrent anguish, through the people who had to live with it. And much, much more.

Like most science reporters, I had wanted to report on something big, to have a present-at-the-creation run that would shake up our understanding of mental health problems. At minimum, I expected research that would help people in distress improve their lives.

But during my tenure, the science informing mental health care did not proceed smoothly along any trajectory. On the one hand, the field attracted enormous scientific talent, and there were significant discoveries, particularly in elucidating levels of consciousness in brain injury patients who appear unresponsive; and in formulating the first persuasive hypothesis of a cause for schizophrenia, based in brain biology.

On the other hand, the science did little to improve the lives of the millions of people living with persistent mental distress. Almost every measure of our collective mental health — rates of suicide, anxiety, depression, addiction deaths, psychiatric prescription use — went the wrong direction, even as access to services expanded greatly.

What happened? After 20 years covering the field, here and at the Los Angeles Times, I have a few theories, and some ideas on what might be required to turn things around.

Early on in my job, I started to field a steady stream of calls and emails, usually from parents asking for advice.

“My son is suicidal. We’ve tried everything. What do we do?”

“Our daughter is cutting herself, she’s out of control. Can you recommend a therapist, or someone to talk to?”

More than a few of these queries came

The mental health system, for all its caring professionals, is chaotic and extremely difficult to navigate. from colleagues at The Times. Others came from friends and family.

I always provided suggestions and referrals (with a disclaimer), and helped decode the psychiatric jargon, if needed. I also followed up later, to see how things were going.

This second conversation was a reminder, every time, that the mental health system, for all its caring professionals, is chaotic and extremely difficult to navigate. There are few systemwide standards, and vast and hidden differences in quality of care. Good luck finding an authoritative guide to navigating the full range of appropriate options.

In time, those seeking help became the lens through which I saw my job, and their questions became my own. What does a diagnosis of bipolar really mean, in a young child? Is this drug necessary? How trustworthy is the evidence?

One answer to that last question came in the mid-2000s, when the Food and Drug Administration held a series of hearings on whether antidepressant drugs, like Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft, backfired in a small number of users, causing suicidal thinking and behavior.

The hearings were hair-raising. Hundreds of family members who had lost a loved one crowded the rooms, their anger and expectation sucking up most of the oxygen; and some of the parents, it was clear, knew at least as much about the drugs as the doctors.

By 2006, the FDA had concluded that a so-called black-box warning on antidepressant drug labels was warranted, citing the suicide risk for children, adolescents and young adults. Many psychiatrists were dismayed by

the decision, insisting it would discourage the use of valuable medications.

The antidepressant wars, as this debate came to be known (it rages on today), also helped uncover the influence of industry money on academic psychiatry. The pharmaceutical industry paid researchers at brandname institutions to talk up drugs at seminars and conferences; it paid for “expert panels” to promote their use; and it often had outside firms write up the studies themselves, massaging the data.

This state of affairs made it virtually impossible to interpret psychiatric drug studies.

Some experiments were undoubtedly honest, rigorous efforts to document the diffuse effects of a medication. Others were no more than “infomercials,” in the phrase of the late Dr. Bernard Carroll, one of the most stubborn critics of his own profession — drug ads, in effect, dressed up as research. The infomercials were usually easy to spot, but not always; and without knowing the back story, the money trail, you couldn’t be sure what to believe.

When it came to judging governmentfunded research projects — a cleaner enterprise, presumably — I again asked the questions that people in crisis continually asked me. Is this study finding useful for my son, or my sister, in any way? Or, more generously, given the pace of research: Could this work potentially be useful to someone, at some point in their lifetime?

The answer, almost always, was no.

Again, this is not to say that the tools and technical understanding of brain biology didn’t advance. It’s just that those advances didn’t have an impact on mental health care, one way or the other.

Don’t take my word for it. In his forthcoming book, “Recovery: Healing the Crisis of Care in American Mental Health,” Dr. Thomas Insel, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, writes: “The scientific progress in our field was stunning, but while we studied the risk factors for suicide, the death rate had climbed 33%. While we identified the neuroanatomy of addiction, overdose deaths had increased by threefold.

While we mapped the genes for schizophrenia, people with this disease were still chronically unemployed and dying 20 years early.”

And on it goes, to this day. Government agencies, like the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute of Mental

Health, continue to double down, sinking enormous sums of taxpayer money into biological research aimed at someday finding a neural signature or “blood test” for psychiatric diagnoses that could be, maybe, one day in the future, useful — all while people are in crisis now.

I have written about some of these studies. For example, the National Institutes of Health is running a $300 million brain-imaging study of more than 10,000 young children with so many interacting variables of experience and development that it’s hard to discern what the study’s primary goals are. The agency also has a $50 million project underway to try to understand the myriad, cascading and partly random processes that occur during neural development, which could underlie some mental problems.

These kinds of big-science efforts are well-intended, but the payoffs are uncertain indeed. The late Scott Lilienfeld, a psychologist and skeptic of big-money brain research, had his own terminology for these kinds of projects. “They’re either fishing expeditions or Hail Marys,” he’d say. “Take your pick.”

When people are drowning, they’re less interested in the genetics of respiration than in a life preserver.

In 1973, the prominent microbiologist Norton Zinder took over a committee reviewing grants by the National Cancer Institute to investigate viruses. He concluded the program had become a “gravy train” for a small group of favored scientists, and advised slashing their support in half. A hard, Zinder-like review of current behavioral science spending would, I suspect, result in equally heavy cuts.

How can the fields of behavior and brain science begin to turn the corner, and become relevant in people’s lives? For one, prominent scientists who recognize the urgency will have to speak more candidly about how money, both public and private, can warp research priorities. And funders, for their part, will have to listen, perhaps supporting more small teams working to build the psychological equivalent of a life preserver: treatments and supports and innovations that could be implemented in the near future.

There’s a reason that so many people use binge drinking, playing the lotto and runaway eating to support their mental health: because the effects are reliable. Because they don’t require a prescription. And because they’re available, right now.

The San Juan Daily Star de 2021, a las 2:00 de la tarde en mi oficina sita en el lugar ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE antes indicado. La propiedad a PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE venderse en pública subasta se PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA describe como sigue: RUSTICA: SUPERIOR DE CAROLINA. Solar marcado en el plano de BANCO COOPERATIVO inscripción con el número Cuatro (4) sito en el BARRIO CAMDE PUERTO RICO PO RICO de Canóvanas, Puerto Demandante vs. con una cabida superficial CHARLIE CRUZ LUGO y Rico, de DIECINUEVE MIL QUINIENsu esposa RUTH NOEMI TOS TREINTA PUNTO OCHOMONGE SANTANA y la CIENTOS NOVENTA Y CUASociedad Legal de Bienes TRO (19,530.894) METROS Gananciales compuesta CUADRADOS, equivalentes a CUATRO PUNTO NUEVE por ambos MIL SEISCIENTOS NOVENTA Demandados Y DOS (4.9692) CUERDAS. CIVIL NÚM. FBCI201501754 En lindes por el NORTE, con (404). SOBRE: Ejecución de camino municipal; por el SUR, Hipoteca por la Vía Ordinaria IN con terrenos de Pepito Pagán y REM. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. solar número Uno (1) del plano Al: Público en General de inscripción; por el ESTE, con A: CHARLIE CRUZ LUGO terrenos de Artemio Rivera; y y su esposa RUTH NOEMI por el OESTE, con solar númeUno (1) marcado en el plano MONGE SANTANA y la ro de inscripción. La escritura de Sociedad Legal de Bienes hipoteca se encuentra inscrita Gananciales compuesta al folio 5 del tomo 443 de Canóvanas, Registro de la Popiedad por ambos; METRO de Carolina, Sección Tercera, ISLAND MORTGAGE, finca número 15,437, inscripción INC., por tener Hipoteca tercera. La dirección física de la en Garantía de Pagaré a propiedad antes descrita es: Sosu favor por la suma de lar Número 4, Rd. 957, Km. 0.5, $22,500.00; ESTADOS Barrio Campo Rico, Canóvanas, Rico. La subasta se lleUNIDOS DE AMERICA, Puerto vará a efecto para satisfacer a por tener Embargos la parte demandante la suma de anotados a su favor por $179,201.12 de principal, intelas sumas de $45,515.24; reses al 7% anual, desde el día $2,190.00; $21,019.91; 1ro. de octubre de 2014, hasta su completo pago, más la can$25,683.88; $957.78; tidad de $22,400.00 estipulada $2,287.72 Y $12,685.91. para costas, gastos y honorarios Yo, SAMUEL GONZALEZ ISA- de abogado y recargos acumuAC, Alguacil de este Tribunal, lados, todas cuyas sumas están a la parte demandada y a los líquidas y exigibles. Que la canacreedores y personas con in- tidad mínima de licitación en la terés sobre la propiedad que primera subasta para el inmuemás adelante se describe, y ble será la suma de $224,000.00 al público en general, HAGO y de ser necesaria una segunda SABER: Que el día 16 de abril subasta, la cantidad mínima de 2021 a las 2:00 de la tarde será equivalente a 2/3 partes en mi oficina, sita en el Tribu- de aquella, o sea, la suma de nal de Primera Instancia, Sala $149,333.33 y de ser necesaria Superior de Carolina, Carolina, una tercera subasta, la cantidad Puerto Rico, venderé en Pública mínima será la mitad del precio Subasta la propiedad inmueble pactado, es decir, la suma de que más adelante se describe $112,000.00. La propiedad se y cuya venta en pública subasta adjudicará al mejor postor, quien se ordenó por la vía ordinaria al deberá satisfacer el importe mejor postor quien hará el pago de su oferta en moneda legal y en dinero en efectivo, giro postal corriente de los Estados Unidos o cheque certificado a nombre de América en el momento de la del o la Alguacil del Tribunal de adjudicación y que todo licitador Primera Instancia. Los autos y acepta como bastante la titularitodos los documentos corres- dad y que las cargas y gravámepondientes al procedimiento nes preferentes, si los hubiese, incoado, estarán de manifiesto al crédito del ejecutante conen la Secretaría del Tribunal de tinuarán subsistentes, entenCarolina durante horas labora- diéndose que el rematante los bles. Que en caso de no produ- acepta y queda subrogado en la cir remate ni adjudicación en la responsabilidad de los mismos, primera subasta a celebrarse, se sin destinarse a su extinción el celebrará una segunda subasta precio del remate. La propiedad para la venta de la susodicha hipotecada a ser vendida en propiedad, el día 23 de abril de pública subasta se encuentra 2021, a las 2:00 de la tarde; y en afecta a los siguientes gravácaso de no producir remate ni menes posteriores: Hipoteca en adjudicación, se celebrará una Garantía de Pagaré a favor de tercera subasta el día 30 de abril Metro Island Mortgage, Inc., o a

LEGAL NOTICE

@

Wednesday, April 7, 2021 su orden, por la suma principal de $22,500.00, con intereses al 9.950% anual, vencedero el día 1ro. de noviembre de 2008, según consta de la Escritura Número 134, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 22 de octubre de 2003, ante el Notario Público Jorge A. Laborde Corretjer; inscrita al tomo Karibe de Canóvanas, Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección Tercera, finca 15,437, inscripción 4ta. Embargo Federal , por la suma de $45,515.24 contra Charlie Cruz Lugo, Seguro Social número xxx-xx-5887, Notificación número 237052916, Certificación del 4 de noviembre de 2016, anotado el día 12 de julio de 2016, al Asiento 2016010394-FED. Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección Tercera.

Embargo Federal , por la suma de $2,190.00 contra Charlie Cruz Lugo, Seguro Social número xxx-xx-5887, Notificación número 239952116, Certificación del 30 de noviembre de 2016, anotado el día 4 de enero de 2017, al Asiento 2016010917-FED. Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección Tercera. Embargo Federal, por la suma de $21,019.91 contra R. Monge Santana, Seguro Social número xxx-xx-2640, Notificación número 195735916 Certificación del día 22 de enero de 2016, anotado el día 17 de febrero de 2016, al Asiento 2016000789-FED. Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección Tercera. Embargo Federal por la suma de $25,683.88 contra R. Monge Santana, Seguro Social número xxx-xx-2640, Notificación número 228510016, Certificación del día 7 de septiembre de 2016, anotado el día 3 de octubre de 2016, al Asiento 2016008906-FED. Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Seción Tercera. Embargo Federal, por la suma de $957.78 contra R. Monge Santana, Seguro Social número xxx-xx- 5887, Notificación número 239952316, Certificación del día 30 de noviembre de 2016, anotado el día 28 de diciembre de 2016, al Asiento 2016-010918-FED. Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección Tercera. Embargo Federal, por la suma de $2,287.72 contra Ruth Monge Santana, Seguro Social número xxx-xx- 2640, Notificación número 252956217, Certificación del día 15 de marzo de 2017, presentada el día 10 de abril de 2017, al Asiento 2017-002746-FED. Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección Tercera. Embargo Federal, por la suma de $12,685.91 contra Ruth Monge Santana, Seguro Social número xxx-xx- 5041, Notificación número 331212118, Certificación del día 31 de octubre de 2018, presentado y anotado, el día 12 de diciembre de 2018, al Asiento 2018-011044-

staredictos@thesanjuandailystar.com

25

FED. Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección Tercera.

La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteirores. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente Edicto para conocimiento y comparecencia de los licitadores, bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, en Carolina, Puerto Rico, a 24 de marzo de 2021.

SAMUEL GONZALEZ ISAAC, ALGUACIL TRIBUNAL, SALA SUPERIOR DE CAROLINA. ***

money or other legal action requested in the Complaint, and you may lose your right to object to anything that is or may be incorrect in the Complaint.

A judgment may be enforced as provided by law. A judgment awarding money may become a lien against any real estate you own now or in the future, and may also be enforced by garnishment or seizure of property.

Dated this 16th day of March, 2021. von BRIESEN & ROPER, s.c.

LEGAL NOTICE Attorneys for Plaintiff BLC STATE OF WISCONSIN CIRPrime Lending Fund II, LLC. CUIT COURT MILWAUKEE Electronically signed by Mark COUNTY F. Foley BRANCH 18 Mark F. Foley, SBN: 1005627 Christopher E. Avallone, SBN: BLC PRIME LENDING 1095465.

FUND II, LLC., 411 E. Wisconsin Avenue Plaintiff, vs.

Suite 1000 EML OIL, LLC, Milwaukee, WI 53202 PRASHANT NAIR, P: (414) 287-1404 (Foley) EDWARD MICHAEL F: (414) 238-6520 (Foley) LICEAGA, A&E Holding P: (414) 287-1412 (Avallone) F: (414) 238-6664 (Avallone) LLC-Euclid SHell, A&E Email: Holding LLC, A&E mfoley@vonbriesen.com Holding LLC / A&E Real cavallone@vonbriesen.com

Estate II, A&E Holding LLC Lewis Citgo, EML Oil, LLC-College Shell, SUbway real estate, llc, AND shree om, inc. C/O pETE PATEL

Defendants Case No.: 21-CV-95. Case Codes: 30301 and 30404. PUBLICATION SUMMONS.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE GUAYNABO

APEX BANK

Demandante V.

ROLANDO ARMESTO VALDOR, ROSABEL THE STATE OF RIVERA VAZQUEZ Y LA WISCONSIN, to: SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE Edward Michael Liceaga BIENES GANANCIALES 377 Dorado Beach East POR ESTOS COMPUESTA Dorado 00646 Demandados Puerto Rico Civil Núm.: GB2019CV00308.

You are hereby notified that the Plaintiff named above filed a lawsuit or other legal action against you. You must respond with a written demand for a copy of the Complaint within 45 days from the day after the first date of publication. The demand must be sent or delivered to the court at: Clerk of Court Milwaukee County Courthouse 901 N. 9th Street Milwaukee, WI 53233; and to Plaintiff’s attorneys, whose address is: Mark F. Foley von Briesen & Roper, s.c.

411 East Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 1000 Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202 It is recommended, but not required, that you have an attorney help or represent you. If you do not demand a copy of the Complaint within 45 days, the court may grant judgment against you for the award of

(787) 743-3346

Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA (VÍA ORDINARIA). ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. AVISO DE PÚBLICA SUBASTA. El que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Guaynabo, hago saber a la parte demandada ROLANDO ARMESTO VALDOR, ROSABEL RIVERA VAZQUEZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES POR ESTOS COMPUESTA, y al PÚBLICO EN GENERAL; que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia expedido el día 4 de agosto de 2020, por la Secretaría del Tribunal, procederé a vender y venderé en pública subasta por el precio mínimo de $300,000.00 y al mejor postor, pagadero en efectivo, cheque de gerente o giro postal, a nombre del alguacil del tribunal, la propiedad que

se describe a continuación: 203 D La Ciudadela, Guaynabo, PR 00969, y que se describe de la siguiente manera: PROPIEDAD HORIZONTAL: URBANA: Apartamento número #203 de uso residencial ubicado en la segunda planta del Ala “D” del Condominio La Ciudadela, radicado en el barrio Frailes de Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de 162.21 metros cuadrados, equivalentes a 1,746.0601 pies cuadrados. Los lindes del primer y único piso son, por el Norte, donde ubica el balcón del apartamento, en una distancia de 14.02 metros lineales, con espacio exterior; por el Sur, en una distancia de 14.10 metros lineales con espacio exterior y con el apartamento #202 y área común; por el Este, en varios alineamientos que suman 13.26 metros lineales, con el apartamento #204, con elementos comunes y espacio exterior; y por el Oeste, en una distancia de 12.75 metros lineales con el espacio exterior. El primer y único piso del apartamento, consiste de sala, comedor, sala familiar, cocina, tres baños, balcón, tres (3) dormitorios cada uno con ropero y una lavandería. A este apartamento le corresponde una participación general de 1.066% en los elementos comunes del Condominio y una participación limitada a los costos y gastos del generador de 5.119%, según el documento. Según Acta Aclaratoria y de Ratificación #20, en San Juan, el 24 de septiembre de 2009, ante la Notario Ana L. Toledo Dávila, presentada al asiento 977 del diario 546, se aclara que le corresponde una participación general de 1.063% en los elementos comunes del Condominio y una participación limitada a los costos y gastos del generador de 5.049%. También tiene derecho en capacidad de titular al uso y disfrute de dos espacios de estacionamiento que están designados con su número. Consta inscrita la finca #48,916 al folio 145 del tomo 1359 de Guaynabo, Registro de la Propiedad de Guaynabo. La finca antes descrita se encuentra afecta a los siguientes gravámenes: (i) HIPOTECA constituida por Rolando Armesto Valdor y esposa Rosabel Rivera Vazquez, en garantía de un pagare, a favor de Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria de Puerto Rico, o a su orden, por $300,000.00, al 3.50% los primeros 4 años y luego al 5.875%, vencedero el 1 de marzo de 2052, según Esc. #128, en San Juan, a 27 de febrero de 2012, ante Raul J. Vila Selles, inscrita al folio

145 del tomo 1359 de Guaynabo, finca #48916, inscripción 2da. Modificada la hipoteca de la inscripción 2da., a $296,135.83, intereses al 3.85%, hasta el 1 de abril de 2019 y luego al 5.875% hasta el 1 de julio de 2056, según Esc. #114, en San Juan, el 29 de junio de 2016, ante Valerie Nicole Hernandez Hernández, inscrita al Sistema Karibe de Guaynabo, finca #48916, inscripción 3ra. y última. La hipoteca objeto de esta ejecución es la que ha quedado descrita en el inciso (i). Será celebrada la subasta para con el importe de la misma satisfacer la sentencia dicta el 7 de noviembre de 2019, mediante la cual se condenó a la parte demandada pagar a la parte demandante la suma de $285,837.65 de principal, más intereses que continuarán acumulándose desde el día 1 de agosto de 2017 hasta el saldo total al 3.85% anual, $588.04 de cargos por atraso, $30,000.00 de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, más cualquier otro desembolso que haya efectuado o efectúe la parte demandante durante la tramitación de este caso para otros adelantos de conformidad con el Contrato Hipotecario, incluyendo primas de seguro de hipoteca, prima de seguro de siniestro y cargos por demora.

La PRIMERA SUBASTA será celebrada el día 3 DE MAYO DE 2021 A LAS 11:15 DE LA MAÑANA, en la oficina del Alguacil, sita en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. Servirá de tipo mínimo para la misma la cantidad de $300,000.00, sin admitirse oferta inferior. De no haber remate ni adjudicación, celebraré SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 10 DE MAYO DE 2021 A LAS 11:15 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar, en la que servirá como tipo mínimo, dos terceras (2/3) partes del precio pactado para la primera subasta, o sea, $200,000.00. Si no hubiese remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, celebraré TERCERA SUBASTA el día 17 DE MAYO DE 2021 A LAS 11:15 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar en la que regirá como tipo mínimo, la mitad del precio pactado para la primera subasta, o sea, $150,000.00. El Alguacil que suscribe hizo constar que toda licitación deberá hacerse para pagar su importe en moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América, de acuerdo con la Ley y de acuerdo con lo anunciado en este Aviso de Subasta. Que se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes

anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes. Se entenderá, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la secretaría del tribunal durante las horas laborables. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Se entiende que cualquier carga y/o gravamen anterior y/o preferente, si la hubiere al crédito que da base a esta ejecución continuará subsistente, entendiéndose además, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción cualquier parte del remanente del precio de licitación.

La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Por la presente se notifica a los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante, o acreedores de cargos o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuestos al gravamen del actor y a los dueños poseedores, tenedores de, o interesados en título trasmisible por endoso al portador garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito del actor, y con los cuales no hubiese tenido el efecto la notificación del escrito inicial y del Mandamiento de requerimiento de pago para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les conviene o satisficiera antes del remate el importe del crédito de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogados, asegurados quedando subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. Vendida o adjudicada la finca o derecho hipotecado y consignado el precio correspondiente, una vez confirmada la venta o adjudicación, el alguacil que celebró la subasta procederá a otorgar la correspondiente escritura pública de traspaso en representación del dueño o titular de los bienes hipotecados, ante el notario que elija el adjudicatario o comprador, quien deberá abonar el importe de tal escritura.

El alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial al nuevo dueño, si así se lo solicita dentro del término de veinte (20) días a partir de la confirmación de la venta o adjudicación. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin

26 necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante u ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del deudor la ocupen. Y PARA CONOCIMIENTO DE LOS LICITADORES Y DEL PUBLICO EN GENERAL y para su publicación de acuerdo con la Ley, expido el presente Edicto bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal. En Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, hoy 12 de marzo de 2021.

FRANCES TORRES CONTRERAS, ALGUACIL #325, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE GUAYNABO.

el presente caso civil, a saber la suma de $92,361.09 por concepto de principal; $618.43 por concepto de intereses acumulados, $518.28 por concepto de cargos por demora los cuales al igual que los intereses continúan acumulándose hasta el saldo total de la deuda reclamada en este pleito; y la suma $10,205.50 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado; y demás créditos accesorios garantizados hipotecariamente. La adjudicación se hará al mejor postor, quien deberá consignar el importe de su oferta en el acto mismo de la adjudicación, en efectivo (moneda del curso LEGAL NOTICE legal de los Estados Unidos de ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO América), giro postal o cheque DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- certificado a nombre del alguaNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA cil del Tribunal. LA PRIMERA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN subasta se llevará a efecto el JUAN. día 3 DE MAYO DE 2021 A BANCO POPULAR DE LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en la oficina del referido Alguacil, PUERTO RICO, INC. localizada en el Centro Judicial Demandante v.

San Juan, San Juan, Puerto VIRGINIA GARCÍA COLÓN de Rico. Que el precio mínimo fijaDemandados do para la PRIMERA SUBASTA CIVIL NUM.: KCD2016-2395. es de $102,055.00. Que de ser SALA: 506. SOBRE: COBRO necesaria la celebración de una DE DINERO - EJECUCIÓN DE SEGUNDA SUBASTA la misma HIPOTECA. ESTADOS UNIse llevará a efecto el día 10 DE DOS DE AMERICA EL PREMAYO DE 2021 A LAS 9:30 SIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS DE LA MAÑANA, en la oficina UNIDOS ESTADO LIBRE ASOantes mencionada del Alguacil CIADO DE PUERTO RICO. que suscribe. El precio mínimo SS. AVISO DE SUBASTA. El para la SEGUNDA SUBASTA que suscribe, Alguacil del Triserá de $68,036.66 equivalenbunal de Primera Instancia, tes a dos terceras (2/3) partes Sala Superior, Centro Judicial del tipo mínimo estipulado para de San Juan, San Juan, Puerla PRIMERA subasta. Que de to Rico, hago saber, a la parte ser necesaria la celebración demandada y al PÚBLICO EN de una TERCERA SUBASTA GENERAL: Que en cumplila misma se llevará a efecto el miento del Mandamiento de día 17 DE MAYO DE 2021 A Ejecución de Sentencia expediLAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en do el día 22 de enero de 2020, la oficina antes mencionada del por la Secretaria del Tribunal, Alguacil que suscribe. El preprocederé a vender y venderé cio mínimo para la TERCERA en pública subasta y al mejor SUBASTA será de $51,027.50, postor la propiedad que ubica equivalentes a la mitad (1/2) y se describe a continuación: del tipo mínimo estipulado para URBANA: Solar radicado en la PRIMERA subasta. Si se la Sección Norte del barrio de declarase desierta la tercera Santurce de esta ciudad de subasta, se adjudicará la finca San Juan, Puerto Rico, con a favor del acreedor por la totauna cabida de 200.00 metros lidad de la cantidad adeudada cuadrados; colindando por el si ésta es igual o menor que NORTE, en 20.00 metros con el el monto del tipo de la tercera solar #130, propiedad de Juan subasta, si el Tribunal lo estima Angel Giusti; por el SUR, en conveniente; se abonará dicho 20.00 metros con el solar promonto a la cantidad adeudada piedad de Gloria Maria Giusti; si esta es mayor, todo ello a por el ESTE, en 10.00 metros tenor con lo dispone el Artículo con Ramón Torres Arroyo; por 104 de la Ley Núm. 210 del 8 el OESTE, 10.00 metros con la de diciembre de 2015 conocida calle Antonio Colton. Contiene como “Ley del Registro de la casa terrera de madera techaPropiedad Inmueble del Estado da de zinc. Inscrito al folio 11 Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico”. del tomo 437 de Santurce NorLa propiedad a ser ejecutada te, finca número #16,333 Rese adquiere libre de toda carga gistro de la Propiedad de Puery gravamen que afecte la mento Rico, Sección Primera de cionada finca según el Artículo San Juan. La propiedad ubica 102, inciso 6. Una vez confiren: 205 Colton St. Villa Palmemada la venta judicial por el Horas, San Juan, PR. El producto norable Tribunal, se procederá de la subasta se destinará a a otorgar la correspondiente satisfacer al demandante hasta escritura de venta judicial y se donde alcance, la SENTENCIA pondrá al comprador en posedictada a su favor el día 3 de sión física del inmueble de connoviembre de 2019 y notificada formidad con las disposiciones el 4 de diciembre de 2019, en

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

de Ley. Para conocimiento de la parte demandada y de toda aquella persona o personas que tengan interés inscrito con posterioridad a la inscripción del gravamen que se está ejecutando, y para conocimiento de todos los licitadores y el público en general, el presente Edicto se publicará por espacio de dos (2) semanas consecutivas, con un intervalo de por lo menos siete días entre ambas publicaciones, en un diario de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico y se fijará además en tres (3) lugares públicos del Municipio en que ha de celebrarse dicha venta, tales como la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía. Se les informa, por último, que: a.

Que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la secretaría del tribunal durante las horas laborables. b. Que se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes.

Se entenderá, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. EXPIDO, el presente EDICTO, en San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy día 26 de marzo de 2021. PEDRO HIEYE GONZALEZ, Alguacil, División de Subastas, Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de San Juan.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE CAGUAS.

ESTRELLA HOMES, LLC Demandante v.

CYNTHIA FERNÁNDEZ RODRÍGUEZ

Demandada CIVIL NÚM.: CG2019CV01797.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA (VIA ORDINARIA). ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. AVISO DE PÚBLICA SUBASTA. El que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Caguas, hago saber a la parte demandada CYNTHIA FERNÁNDEZ RODRÍGUEZ, y al PÚBLICO EN GENERAL; que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia expedido el día 8 de marzo de 2021, por la Secretaría del Tribunal, procederé a vender y venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor pagadero en efectivo, cheque de gerente o giro postal por el precio mínimo de $123,190.00 y al mejor postor la propiedad

que se describe a continuación, APARTAMENTO L-113, VISTA REAL II, BARRIO CAÑABONCITO, CAGUAS, PR 00725: Urbana: Propiedad Horizontal: Apartamento residencial de forma irregular, identificado con el número L guión ciento trece (#L-113), localizado en la primera planta del edificio L del Condominio Vista Real II, localizado en el Barrio Cañaboncito del término municipal de Caguas, Puerto Rico, con la descripción, área y colindancias que se relacionan a continuación: En lindes por el Norte, en cuarenta y cinco pies once pulgadas (45’ 11”), con pared común adyacente al apartamento ciento doce (112); por el Sur, en cuarenta y siete pies tres pulgadas (47’ 3”), con pared adyacente al apartamento ciento catorce (114); por el Este, en veintiun pies cinco pulgadas (21’ 5”), con elemento común; por el Oeste, en diecisiete pies cuatro pulgadas (17’ 4”), con elemento común. Tiene su puerta de entrada y salida por su lado Oeste, que da hacia el área de pasillo que conduce a las escaleras que le brindan acceso al edificio. Consta de balcón, sala-comedor, una habitación dormitorio con un closet en su interior, un pasillo interior, área de cocina, un closet pequeño, una alacena pequeña, una área de lavandería, un baño completo de uso general, una segunda habitación dormitorio, con un closet en su interior y una tercera habitación que es la principal “ master room” en la cual también se encuentra una área de “walk-incloset”, un baño completo y un closet adicional. El área total del apartamento y sus anejos es de mil quinientos siete punto veintiocho (1,507.28) pies cuadrados, equivalentes a ciento cuarenta punto cero ocho (140.08) metros cuadrados, que se distribuye de la siguiente forma: área del apartamento, novecientos noventa y siete punto veintiuno (997.21) pies cuadrados, equivalentes a noventa y dos punto sesenta y siete (92.67) metros cuadrados; área de patio, doscientos catorce punto diecisiete (214.17) pies cuadrados, equivalentes a diecinueve punto noventa y uno (19.91) metros cuadrados; área de estacionamiento, doscientos noventa y cinco punto noventa (295.90) pies cuadrados, equivalentes a veintisiete punto cincuenta (27.50) metros cuadrados. Le corresponde a este apartamento como anejo, el uso exclusivo y particular de dos (2) espacios de estacionamiento marcados con los números sesenta y siete (67) y sesenta y ocho (68), ubicados en las área de estacionamiento del condominio, según ilustradas en el “plot plan” del apartamento. A este apartamento le

corresponde como anejo el uso exclusivo y particular de un área privada de patio, según ilustrada en el correspondiente “plot plan” del apartamento, que se acompaña a la escritura matríz. A este apartamento además le corresponde una participación en los elementos comunes del Condominio de punto siete cero dos cinco dos tres (.702523%) porciento. Finca 60093 inscrita al folio 168 del tomo 1729 de Caguas, Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección I. La finca antes descrita se encuentra afecta a los siguientes gravámenes: (i) HIPOTECA A favor de Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria Puerto Rico o a su orden, por la suma de $123,190.00, con intereses a razón del 4.625% por ciento anual, con vencimiento el uno de septiembre del año dos mil cuarenta. Se tasa esta finca a los efectos de subasta en una cantidad igual a la suma principal del pagaré para que sirva de tipo mínimo en caso de ejecución. En virtud de la escritura 196, otorgada en San Juan, el día 23 de agosto del año 2010, ante el notario Mario Quintero Pintor, según inscripción 5ª, finca 60093, Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección I. La hipoteca objeto de esta ejecución es la que ha quedado descrita en el inciso (i). Será celebrada la subasta para con el importe de la misma satisfacer la sentencia dicta el 28 de diciembre de 2019, mediante la cual se condenó a la parte demandada pagar a la parte demandante la suma de $104,581.40 de principal, más intereses que continuarán acumulándose desde el día 1 de octubre de 2018 hasta el saldo total al 4.625% anual, $16.30 de escrow balance, $158.35 de cargos por atraso, $12,319.00 de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, más cualquier otro desembolso que haya efectuado o efectúe la parte demandante durante la tramitación de este caso para otros adelantos de conformidad con el Contrato Hipotecario, incluyendo primas de seguro de hipoteca, prima de seguro de siniestro y cargos por demora. La PRIMERA SUBASTA será celebrada el día 22 de abril de 2021 a las 10:00 de la mañana, en la oficina del Alguacil, sita en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Caguas, Puerto Rico. Servirá de tipo mínimo para la misma la cantidad de $123,190.00, sin admitirse oferta inferior. De no haber remate ni adjudicación, celebraré SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 29 de abril de 2021 a las 10:00 de la mañana, en el mismo lugar, en la que servirá como tipo mínimo, dos terceras (2/3) partes del precio pactado para la primera subasta, o sea, $82,126.66. Si no hubiese remate ni adjudicación en la se-

gunda subasta, celebraré TERCERA SUBASTA el día 6 de mayo de 2021 a las 10:00 de la mañana, en el mismo lugar en la que regirá como tipo mínimo, la mitad del precio pactado para la primera subasta, o sea, $61,595.00. El Alguacil que suscribe hizo constar que toda licitación deberá hacerse para pagar su importe en moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América, de acuerdo con la Ley y de acuerdo con lo anunciado en este Aviso de Subasta. Que se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes. Se entenderá, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la secretaría del tribunal durante las horas laborables. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Se entiende que cualquier carga y/o gravamen anterior y/o preferente, si la hubiere al crédito que da base a esta ejecución continuará subsistente, entendiéndose además, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción cualquier parte del remanente del precio de licitación.

La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Por la presente se notifica a los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante, o acreedores de cargos o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuestos al gravamen del actor y a los dueños poseedores, tenedores de, o interesados en título trasmisible por endoso al portador garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito del actor, y con los cuales no hubiese tenido el efecto la notificación del escrito inicial y del Mandamiento de requerimiento de pago para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les conviene o satisficiera antes del remate el importe del crédito de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogados, asegurados quedando subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. Vendida o adjudicada la finca o derecho hipotecado y consignado el precio correspondiente, una vez confirmada la venta o adjudicación, el alguacil que celebró la subasta procederá a otorgar la correspondiente escritura pública de traspaso en representación del dueño o titular de los

bienes hipotecados, ante el notario que elija el adjudicatario o comprador, quien deberá abonar el importe de tal escritura.

El alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial al nuevo dueño, si así se lo solicita dentro del término de veinte (20) días a partir de la confirmación de la venta o adjudicación. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante u ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del deudor la ocupen. Y PARA CONOCIMIENTO DE LOS LICITADORES Y DEL PUBLICO EN GENERAL y para su publicación de acuerdo con la Ley, expido el presente Edicto bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal. En Caguas, Puerto Rico, hoy 25 de marzo de 2021.

EDGARDO ALDEBOL MIRANDA #282, ALGUACIL, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE CAGUAS.

LEGAL NOTICE M&T 208184 ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAGUAS SALA SUPERIOR.

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante v.

Teresita Morales Pabón

Demandada CIVIL NÚM: CG2019CV01912.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. El Alguacil que suscribe por la presente CERTIFICA, ANUNCIA y hace CONSTAR: Que en cumplimiento de un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que le ha sido dirigido al Alguacil que suscribe por la Secretaría del TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAGUAS SALA SUPERIOR, en el caso de epígrafe procederá a vender en pública subasta al mejor postor quién pagará de contado y en moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América, giro postal o por cheque de gerente a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia EL DÍA 10 DE MAYO DE 2021, A LAS 9:15 DE LA MAÑANA en su oficina sita en el local que ocupa en el edificio del TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAGUAS SALA SUPERIOR, todo derecho, título e interés que tenga la parte demandada de epígrafe en el inmueble de su propiedad que ubica en Sabanera Del Río, 222 Camino De Guayacán, Gurabo, PR 00778 y que se describe a continuación: Rústica: Predio de terreno identificado con el número

doscientos veintidós (222) en el plano de la Urbanización Sabanera del Río, radicado en el Barrio Navarro del término municipal de Gurabo, con una cabida de mil noventa y nueve punto ochenta (1,099.80) metros cuadrados, equivalentes a cero punto dos mil setecientos noventa y ocho (0.2798) cuerda. En lindes por el Norte, en una distancia de cuarenta y dos punto treinta (42.30) metros, con el solar número doscientos veintiuno (221); por el Sur, en una distancia de cuarenta y dos punto treinta (42.30) metros, con el solar número doscientos veintitrés (223); por el Este, en una distancia de veintiséis (26.00) metros, con el área verde del solar que lo separa de la Calle Camino de Guayacán; y por el Oeste, con una distancia de veintiséis (26.00) metros, con el área verde de la urbanización. Enclava en este solar una estructura de una planta dedicada a vivienda. Este solar está afecto por una servidumbre para servicio telefónico con un ancho de uno punto cincuenta (1.50) metros y la cual discurre a lo largo de la colindancia Este y otra a favor de la Autoridad de Energía Eléctrica con un ancho y un fondo de uno punto cincuenta (1.50) metros localizada en el extremo Sureste del solar. La propiedad antes relacionada consta inscrita en el Folio 173 del Tomo 394 de Gurabo, finca número 14,706, en el Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección Segunda.

El tipo mínimo para la primera subasta del inmueble antes relacionado, será el dispuesto en la Escritura de Hipoteca, es decir la suma de $400,500.00.

Si no hubiere remate ni adjudicación en la primera subasta del inmueble mencionado, se celebrará una segunda subasta en las oficinas del Alguacil que suscribe el EL DÍA 17 DE MAYO DE 2021, A LAS 9:15 DE LA MAÑANA. En la segunda subasta que se celebre servirá de tipo mínimo las dos terceras partes (2/3) del precio pactado en la primera subasta, o sea la suma de $267,000.00.

Si tampoco hubiere remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta se celebrará una tercera subasta en las oficinas del Alguacil que suscribe EL DÍA 24 DE MAYO DE 2021, A LAS 9:15 DE LA MAÑANA. Para la tercera subasta servirá de tipo mínimo la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado para el caso de ejecución, o sea, la suma de $200,250.00. La hipoteca a ejecutarse en el caso de epígrafe fue constituida mediante la escritura número 270, otorgada el día 13 de diciembre de 2008, ante el Notario Susana I. Valtueña Ruiz y consta inscrita en el Folio 2149 del Tomo 499 de Gurabo, finca número 14,706, en el Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección Segunda,

The San Juan Daily Star inscripción cuarta. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo para con su producto satisfacer al Demandante total o parcialmente según sea el caso el importe de la Sentencia que ha obtenido ascendente a la suma de $351,034.43 por concepto de principal, más intereses al tipo pactado de 6.625% anual desde el día 1 de septiembre de 2017. Dichos intereses continúan acumulándose hasta el pago total de la obligación. Se pagarán también los cargos por demora equivalentes a 5.000% de la suma de aquellos pagos con atrasos en exceso de 15 días calendarios de la fecha vencimiento, la suma de $40,050.00 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, la suma de $40,050.00para cubrir los intereses en adición a los garantizados por ley y la suma de $40,050.00 para cubrir cualquier otro adelanto que se haga en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca, más intereses según provisto por la Regla 44.3 de las de Procedimiento Civil.

Que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al Procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la SECRETARIA DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAGUAS SALA SUPERIOR durante las horas laborables. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad del inmueble y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes.

Se entenderá que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio de remate.

La propiedad no está sujeta a gravámenes anteriores y/o preferentes según surge de las constancias del Registro de la Propiedad en un estudio de título efectuado a la finca antes descrita. Por la presente se notifica a los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante o acreedores de cargos o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca del actor y a los dueños, poseedores, tenedores de o interesados en títulos transmisibles por endoso o al portador garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito del actor que se celebrarán las subastas en las fechas, horas y sitios señalados para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les conviniere o se les invita a satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, otros cargos y las costas y honorarios de abogado asegurados quedando subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. Y para conocimien-

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

to de licitadores del público en general se publicará este Edicto de acuerdo con la ley por espacio de dos semanas en tres sitios públicos del municipio en que ha de celebrarse la venta, tales como la alcaldía, el Tribunal y la colecturía. Este Edicto será publicado mediante edictos dos veces en un diario de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas consecutivas. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores sujeto a lo dispuesto en los Artículos 113 al 116 de la Ley 210 del 8 de diciembre de 2015, según aplique. Expido el presente Edicto de subasta bajo mi firma, en Caguas, Puerto Rico, hoy día 25 de MARZO de 2021. FDO. ANGEL GOMEZ GOMEZ, ALGUACIL.

LEGAL NOTICE IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO.

HIBISCUSPR LENDCO, LLC., Plaintiff v.

RL DÍAZ PROPERTIES INC.; DÍAZ SEGUROS Y ASOCIADOS; RAMÓN LUIS DÍAZ RIVERA, THE ESTATE OF LILLIAM VÁZQUEZ SAAVEDRA, comprised by Xiomara Díaz Vázquez, Damaris Díaz Vázquez, Ricardo Luis Díaz Vázquez, and Ramón Luis Díaz Rivera

Defendants Civil No: 17-2255 (CVR). COLLECTION OF MONIES AND FORECLOSURE OF MORTGAGE IN REM. NOTICE OF SALE.

TO: DEFENDANT AND GENERAL PUBLIC

On March 29, 2019, this Court issued Default Judgment, and on the same date, Judgment was entered in favor of HibiscusPR Lendco, LLC. To date, Defendants have not satisfied the Judgment. Consequently, there is an outstanding balance as of March 7, 2019, Defendants owe Hibiscuspr the sum of $1,145,500.43 in principal; plus interests in the amount of $771,183.12 which continues to accrue until full payment of the debt at $241.83 per diem; plus late charges in the amount of $38,450.44; plus and any other advance, charge, fee, or disbursements made by Hibiscuspr, on behalf of the Defendants, in accordance with the Loan Agreement and other related loan documents, plus costs and agreed attorney’s fees in the amount of $116,000.00.

Pursuant to the said judgment and/or the Order of Execution of Judgment, the undersigned appointed Special Master was ordered to sell, at public auction

for U.S. currency in cash or certified check, without appraisement or right to redemption, to the highest bidder, at the office of the Clerk of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, Room 150 - Federal Building, Carlos Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, or at any other place designated by said Clerk, to cover the sums adjudged to be paid to the plaintiff, the following property: URBAN: Lot of land marked in the registration plan with the letter “B”, located in Caños of the municipality of Guánica, Puerto Rico (previously known as the Barrio Guánica), with an area of three thousand two hundred thirty-two meters thirty centimeters (3,232.30mc); bordered on the NORTH, in four continuous alignments of twenty-one meters sixty centimeters, thirtyseven meters forty centimeters, forty-two meters fifty-two centimeters and forty-five meters, by land of the Land Authority of Puerto Rico; by the SOUTH, in three continuous alignments of thirty-three meters fifty sixty centimeters, seventy eight meters eighty centimeters and fifty meters forty-two centimeters with State Highway 116 from Yauco to Guánica; by the EAST, in two continuous alignments of eight meters twenty centimeters and eight meters ten centimeters, with land of the Land Authority of Puerto Rico; and by the WEST, thirty meters fifty centimeters, with the Parcel “A” previously described.

Contains building of a single story of reinforced concrete and blocks”. The property described above is recorded at page 18 of volume 176, Property Number 2,226 of Guánica, Property Registry of Puerto Rico, San Germán Section. The Property which is described in the Spanish language as follows: URBANA: Parcela de terreno marcada en el plano de inscripción con la letra “B”, radicada en el Barrio Guánica, antes, hoy Canos del término municipal de Guánica, Puerto Rico, con una cabida de tres mil doscientos treinta y dos metros treinta centímetros (3,232.30 m.c.).

Colindado por el NORTE, en cuatro alineaciones continuas de veintiún metros sesenta centímetros; treinta y siete metros cuarenta centímetros; cuarenta y dos metros cincuenta y dos centímetros y cuarenta y cinco metros, con terrenos de la Autoridad de Tierras de Puerto Rico; por el SUR, en tres alineaciones continuas de treinta y tres metros sesenta centímetros; setenta y ocho metros ochenta centímetros y cincuenta metros cuarenta y dos centímetros, con la carretera estatal número ciento dieciséis que conduce de Yauco a Guánica; por el ESTE, en dos alineaciones continuas de ocho metros vein-

te centímetros y ocho metros diez centímetros, con tierras de la Autoridad de Tierra de Puerto Rico; y por el OESTE, en treinta metros cincuenta centímetros, con la parcela “A” descrita anteriormente.” The property is subject to the following liens:

BY ITS ORIGIN: Free of Liens.

BY ITS ORIGIN: It’s bound by step easements “VIA FERREA” in favor of the “GUANICA CENTRAL”. BY ITSELF: MORTGAGE in guarantee of note in favor of FIRSTBANK PUERTO RICO, or to its order, in the principal amount of $ 1,160,000.00, with a yearly interest rate of 12%%, due on presentation, as per Deed No. 189 on December 31, 2008 before Notary Public Antonio A. Hernández Almodóvar, recorded at page 18 of volume 176 of Guánica, 22nd inscription. At entry 2017104446-SG01, on November 14, 2017, Complaint was filed in favor of LSREF2 ISLAND HOLDING LTD against RL DÍAZ PROPERTIES, INC.; DÍAZ SEGUROS Y ASOCIADOS; RAMÓN LUIS DÍAZ RIVERA; y LILLIAM VÁZQUEZ SAVERRA; XIOMARA DÍAZ VÁZQUEZ, DAMARIS DÍAZ VÁZQUEZ, RICARDO LUIS DÍAZ VÁZQUEZ y RAMON LUIS DÍAZ RIVERA, Execution of Mortgage for the amount of $1,160,000.00, Civil No. 17-2255, United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, October 24, 2017, balance of $1,145,500.43. Potential bidders are advised to verify the extent of preferential liens with the holders thereof. It shall be understood that each bidder accepts as sufficient the title and that prior and preferential liens to the one being foreclosed upon, including but not limited to any property tax, liens, (express, tacit, implied or legal), shall continue in effect.

It being understood further that the successful bidder accepts them and is subrogated in the responsibility for the same and that the bid price shall not be applied toward their cancellation. The lien executed is over the property, and for the purposes of the first judicial sale the minimum bid amount is as follows: The amount of $1,160,000.00, as set forth in the mortgage deed, as amended, shall serve as the minimum bidding amount for the first public sale. Should the first public sale fail to produce an award or adjudication, twothirds of the aforementioned amount or $773,33.33 shall serve as the minimum bidding amount for the second public sale. Should there be no award or adjudication at the second public sale, the minimum bidding amount for the third public sale shall be $580,00.00.

Said sale to be made by the appointed Special Master is subject to confirmation by the

United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico and the deed of conveyance and possession to the property may be executed and delivered after the judicial sale. Upon confirmation of the sale, an order shall be issued canceling all junior liens. THEREFORE, public notice is hereby given that the appointed Special Master, pursuant to the provisions of the Judgment herein before referred to, will, on the 7th day of May, 2021, at 10:00 a.m., on the sidewalk in front of the main gate entrance of the United States District Court, Federal Building, 350 Chardon Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, will sell at public auction to the highest bidder the property described herein, the proceeds of said sale to be applied in the manner and form provided by the Court’s Judgment. Should the first judicial sale set hereinabove be unsuccessful, the second judicial sale of the property described in this Notice will be held on the 14th day of May, 2021, at 10:00 a.m., on the sidewalk in front of the main gate entrance of the United States District Court, Federal Building, 350 Chardon Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. Should the second judicial sale set hereinabove be unsuccessful, the third judicial sale of the property described in this Notice will be held on the 21st day of May, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. on the sidewalk in front of the main gate entrance of the United States District Court, Federal Building, 350 Chardon Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico.

The records of the case and of these proceedings may be examined by the parties at the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court, Federal Building, Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, this 26 day of March, 2021. ÁGUEDO DE LA TORRE, SPECIAL MASTER. ****

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE PONCE

AMERICAS LEADING FINANCE, LLC Demandante Vs

EMPRESA DE AUTOS CARLOS PADILLA HNC CAR STORE, INC., FIADORA X Demandado

ANIBAL BATISTA VEGA

Parte Interesada Civil Núm.: P02020CV01766.

Salón: 604. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO, INCUMPLIMIENTO DE CONTRATO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

27

A FIADORA X, PARA SER NOTIFICADOS POR EDICTO. P/C LIC ANA MARIA DESEDA BELAVAL. COND. EL CENTRO I, SUITE 801 500 LUIS MUÑOZ RIVERA AVE. SAN JUAN, PR 009184980.

(Nombre de las partes a las que se les notifica la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 18 de febrero de 2021, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 24 de marzo de 2021. En Ponce, Puerto Rico, el 24 de marzo de 2021. LUZ MAYRA CARABALLO GARCÍA, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. MADELINE RIVERA MERCADO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN SEBASTIAN

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante Vs.

SUCESIÓN DE ESTHER INGLES TRAVERZO COMPUESTA POR MARIA INGLES RODRIGUEZ, FULANO DE TAL Y ZUTANO DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS

Demandados Civil Núm.: SS2019CV00408.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO (EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA).

EDICTO DE SUBASTA.

Al: PÚBLICO EN GENERAL. A: SUCESIÓN DE ESTHER INGLES TRAVERZO COMPUESTA POR MARIA INGLES

RODRIGUEZ, FULANO DE TAL Y ZUTANO DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS.

Yo, ALEXIS J. SOTO PUJOLS, Alguacil Auxiliar #709, Alguacil de este Tribunal, a la parte demandada y a los acreedores y personas con interés sobre la propiedad que más adelante se describe, y al público en general, HAGO SABER: Que el día 7 DE MAYO DE 2021 A LAS 11:30 DE LA MAÑANA en mi oficina, sita en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de San Sebastián, San Sebastián, Puerto Rico, venderé en Pública Subasta la propiedad inmueble que más adelante se describe y cuya venta en pública subasta se ordenó por la vía ordinaria al mejor postor quien hará el pago en dinero en efectivo, giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del o la Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado, estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal de San Sebastián durante horas laborables.

Que en caso de no producir remate ni adjudicación en la primera subasta a celebrarse, se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA para la venta de la susodicha propiedad, el día 14 DE MAYO DE 2021 A LAS 11:30 DE LA MAÑANA y en caso de no producir remate ni adjudicación, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el 21 DE MAYO DE 2021 A LAS 11:30 DE LA MAÑANA en mi oficina sita en el lugar antes indicado.

La propiedad a venderse en pública subasta se describe como sigue: URBANA: Solar de forma irregular marcado con el número Nueve (9) del Bloque “C”, de la URBANIZACIÓN JARDINES DE GUATEMALA, en el Barrio Guatemala, radicado en el término municipal de San Sebastián, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de TRESCIENTOS SESENTA Y OCHO PUNTO NOVENTA Y UNO (368.91) METROS CUADRADOS. En linderos: NORTE, en DOCE PUNTO NOVENTA Y SEIS (12.96) METROS, con la Calle número Tres (3) de la misma Urbanización; SUR, en CATORCE PUNTO CERO SIETE (14.07) METROS, con terrenos de Sucesión Pérez; ESTE, en VEINTE PUNTO OCHOCIENTOS DOS (20.802) METROS, con el Río Guatemala; y por el OESTE, en VEINTIDÓS PUNTO CERO CERO (22.00) METROS, con el solar número Diez (10) de la misma Urbanización. La escritura de hipoteca se encuentra inscrita al folio 217 del tomo 569 de San Sebastián, Registro de la Propiedad de San Sebastián, finca número 10,331, inscripción Séptima. La dirección física de la propiedad antes descri-

ta es: C-9 CALLE 3, JARDINES DE GUATEMALA, SAN SEBASTIAN PR 00685-0000. La subasta se llevará a efecto para satisfacer a la parte demandante la suma de $47,924.45 de principal, intereses al 5.875% anual, desde el día 1ro. de octubre de 2017, hasta su completo pago, más la cantidad de $6,460.00 estipulada para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado más recargos acumulados, todas cuyas sumas están líquidas y exigibles. Que la cantidad mínima de licitación en la primera subasta para el inmueble será de $64,600.00 y de ser necesaria una segunda subasta, la cantidad mínima será equivalente a 2/3 partes de aquella, o sea, la suma de $43,066.67 y de ser necesaria una tercera subasta, la cantidad mínima será la mitad del precio pactado, es decir, la suma de $32,300.00. Si se declara desierta la tercera subasta se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si esta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta, si el Tribunal lo estima conveniente.

Se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si esta es mayor. La propiedad se adjudicará al mejor postor, quien deberá satisfacer el importe de su oferta en moneda legal y corriente de los Estados Unidos de América en el momento de la adjudicación y que todo licitador acepta como suficiente la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes preferentes, si los hubiese, continuarán subsistentes, entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. La propiedad a ser vendida en pública subasta se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Podrán concurrir como postores a todas las subastas los titulares de créditos hipotecarios vigentes y posteriores a la hipoteca que se cobra o ejecuta, si alguno o que figuren como tales en la certificación registral y que podrán utilizar el montante de sus créditos o parte de alguno en sus ofertas. Si la oferta aceptada es por cantidad mayor a la suma del crédito o créditos preferentes al suyo, al obtener la buena pro del remate, deberá satisfacer en el mismo acto, en efectivo o en cheque de gerente, la totalidad del crédito hipotecario que se ejecuta y la de cualesquiera otro créditos posteriores al que se ejecuta pero preferente al suyo. El exceso constituirá abono total o parcial en su propio crédito. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente Edicto para conocimiento y comparecencia de los licitadores, bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, en San Sebastián, Puerto Rico, a 4 de marzo de

28 CUATRO (14.04) METROS y en lindes por el NORTE, con Calle Antonio Figueras; por el SUR, con la Calle Puro Girau; por el ESTE, con propiedad LEGAL NOTICE de Francisco Aguirre y SuceESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO sión Benito Martínez; y por DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- el OESTE, con propiedad de NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA Félix Mauro Ginorio hoy FranSALA SUPERIOR DE ARECI- cisco Román. Contiene una BO. casa construida en concreto y BANCO POPULAR DE bloques de cemento, techada del mismo material que mide PUERTO RICO VEINTE PIES CUATRO PULDemandante vs.

GADAS (20’4”) de frente coRAMON REYES TORRES lindando con la Calle Antonio Demandado Figueras que es su frente por CIVIL NÚM. AR2019CV00717 TREINTA Y CUATRO PIES (403). SOBRE: COBRO DE DI(34’) de fondo. Consta de cuaNERO (Ejecución de Hipoteca tro (4) dormitorios, comedor, por la Vía Ordinaria). EDICTO cocina y baño. La escritura de DE SUBASTA. hipoteca se encuentra inscriAl: Público en General ta al folio 60 vuelto del tomo A: RAMON REYES 1043 de Arecibo, Registro de la Propiedad de Arecibo, SecTORRES Yo, ANGEL DE J. TORRES ción Primera, finca número PEREZ, Alguacil de este Tri- 8,849, inscripción vigésima. La bunal, a la parte demandada dirección física de la propiedad y a los acreedores y personas antes descrita es: Número 113, con interés sobre la propiedad Calle Antonio Figueroa, Arecique más adelante se describe, bo, Puerto Rico. La subasta se y al público en general, HAGO llevará a efecto para satisfacer SABER: Que el día 22 de abril a la parte demandante la suma de 2021 a las 10:30 de la ma- de $25,302.21 de principal, inñana en mi oficina, sita en el tereses al 8.50% anual, desde Tribunal de Primera Instancia, el día 1ro. de febrero de 2017, Sala Superior de Arecibo, Are- hasta su completo pago, más la cibo, Puerto Rico, venderé en cantidad de $3,280.00 estipulaPública Subasta la propiedad da para costas, gastos y honoinmueble que más adelante se rarios de abogado, más recardescribe y cuya venta en públi- gos acumulados, todas cuyas ca subasta se ordenó por la vía sumas están líquidas y exigiordinaria al mejor postor quien bles. Que la cantidad mínima hará el pago en dinero en efec- de licitación en la primera sutivo, giro postal o cheque certifi- basta para el inmueble será de cado a nombre del o la Alguacil $32,800.00 y de ser necesaria del Tribunal de Primera Instan- una segunda subasta, la canticia. Los autos y todos los do- dad mínima será equivalente a cumentos correspondientes al 2/3 partes de aquella, o sea, procedimiento incoado, estarán la suma de $21,866.67 y de ser de manifiesto en la Secretaría necesaria una tercera subasta, del Tribunal de Arecibo durante la cantidad mínima será la mihoras laborables. Que en caso tad del precio pactado, es dede no producir remate ni adju- cir, la suma de $16,400.00. Si dicación en la primera subasta se declara desierta la tercera a celebrarse, se celebrará una subasta se adjudicará la finca segunda subasta para la ven- a favor del acreedor por la totata de la susodicha propiedad, lidad de la cantidad adeudada el día 29 de abril de 2021, a si esta es igual o menor que las 10:30 de la mañana y en el monto del tipo de la tercera caso de no producir remate subasta, si el Tribunal lo estima ni adjudicación, se celebrará conveniente. Se abonará dicho una tercera subasta el día 6 de monto a la cantidad adeudada mayo de 2021, a las 10:30 de la si esta es mayor. La propiedad mañana en mi oficina sita en el se adjudicará al mejor postor, lugar antes indicado. La propie- quien deberá satisfacer el imdad a venderse en pública su- porte de su oferta en moneda basta se describe como sigue: legal y corriente de los EstaURBANA: Solar radicado en dos Unidos de América en el las Calles Santiago, hoy, Puro momento de la adjudicación y Girau y Santa Isabel antes, hoy que todo licitador acepta como Antonio Figueroa, de esta Ciu- suficiente la titularidad y que las dad de Arecibo, Puerto Rico, cargas y gravámenes preferenmidiendo DIEZ PUNTO DIE- tes, si los hubiese, continuarán entendiéndose CISIETE (10.17) METROS por subsistentes, su lado NORTE, o sea, la Calle que el rematante los acepAntonio Figueras; por el SUR, ta y queda subrogado en la en DIEZ PUNTO CERO DOS responsabilidad de los mismos, (10.02) METROS, o sea, la sin destinarse a su extinción el Calle Pedro Girau; por su lado precio del remate. La propiedad ESTE, en CATORCE PUNTO a ser vendida en pública subasCERO CUATRO (14.04) ME- ta se adquirirá libre de cargas TROS; y por su lado OESTE, y gravámenes posteriores. Poen CATORCE PUNTO CERO drán concurrir como postores a 2021. ALEXIS SOTO PUJOLS, Alguacil Auxiliar #709, ALGUACIL del TRIBUNAL, SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN SEBASTIAN.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

todas las subastas los titulares de créditos hipotecarios vigentes y posteriores a la hipoteca que se cobra o ejecuta, si alguno o que figuren como tales en la certificación registral y que podrán utilizar el montante de sus créditos o parte de alguno en sus ofertas.

Si la oferta aceptada es por cantidad mayor a la suma del crédito o créditos preferentes al suyo, al obtener la buena pro del remate, deberá satisfacer en el mismo acto, en efectivo o en cheque de gerente, la totalidad del crédito hipotecario que se ejecuta y la de cualesquiera otro créditos posteriores al que se ejecuta pero preferente al suyo. El exceso constituirá abono total o parcial en su propio crédito. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente Edicto para conocimiento y comparecencia de los licitadores, bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, en Arecibo, Puerto Rico, a 29 de marzo de 2021. ANGEL DE J. TORRES PEREZ, Alguacil, ALGUACIL TRIBUNAL SALA SUPERIOR DE ARECIBO.

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante v.

JOSE LUIS RAMOS RIVERA, SU ESPOSA ZULMA DOLLY GINORIO TORRES Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS; SANDRA LINETTE RAMOS GINORIO, SU ESPOSO, FULANO DE TAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Demandados Civil Núm: PO2018CV00579.

PROCEDIMIENTO IN REM SOBRE EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. AVISO DE PÚBLICA SUBASTA.

A: LOS CODEMANDADOS DE EPIGRAFE Y AL PÚBLICO EN GENERAL:

El Alguacil que suscribe por la presente anuncia y hace constar que en cumplimiento de una Sentencia dictada en el caso de epígrafe el 8 de mayo de 2019, notificada el 10 de julio de 2019 y publicada el 15 de julio de 2019; y de un Mandamiento de Ejecución emitido el día 6 de septiembre de 2019, que le ha sido dirigido por la Secretaria del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Ponce, procederá a vender en subasta, por separado, y al mejor postor con dinero

en efectivo, cheque de gerente o letra bancaria con similar garantía, todo título, derecho o interés de los demandados de epígrafe sobre el inmueble que adelante se describe. Se anuncia por la presente que la primera subasta habrá de celebrarse el dia 6 de mayo del año 2021 a las 2:15 de la tarde, en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Ponce, sobre el inmueble que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar 673 de la Urbanización La Rambla Extensión #2, del barrio Machuelo Abajo de Ponce, con una cabida de 540.00 metros cuadrados. Colindando por el NORTE, en 27.00 metros con el solar 672; por el SUR, en 27.00 metros con el solar 674 metros; por el ESTE, en 20.00 metros con el solar 649 y por el OESTE, que es su frente, en 20.00 metros con la calle “B” de la urbanización. ENCLAVA: Una casa de concreto armado, de una sola planta, la que mide 58’3” de frente por 31’4” de fondo, dividida en sala, comedor, cocina, cuatro cuartos dormitorios, dos cuartos de baño, marquesina y “porch” al frente. Finca número veintiún mil cuatrocientos cuarenta y dos (21442) inscrita al folio ciento sesenta y nueve (169) del tomo setecientos cincuenta y cinco (755) de Ponce, Registro de la Propiedad de Ponce, Sección I. Dirección física: 3132 Ave. Fagot, Urb. La Rambla, Ponce Puerto Rico 00731. El siguiente pagaré consta inscrito en la propiedad antes mencionada y es el que se pretende ejecutar: HIPOTECA: Por $155,944.00, con intereses al 4.00% anual, en garantía de un pagaré a favor de Popular Mortgage, Inc., o a su orden, que vence el 1ro de abril de 2042. Según escritura #30, otorgada en Ponce, el 20 de marzo de 2012, ante René Vázquez Rivera, inscrita al folio 219vto del tomo 2115 de Ponce I, inscripción 16ta.

CANCELACION PARCIAL Y MODIFICACION DE HIPOTECA: Cancelada parcialmente la anterior hipoteca, en la suma de $37,693.65, para un nuevo principal de $118,250.00. Se modifica el pago mensual a razón de $564.55, el interés será al 4% anual y vencerá el 1ro de enero de 2046. Según escritura #443, otorgada en Ponce, el 30 de diciembre de 2015, ante J. Francisco Sepúlveda Rivera, inscrita al tomo Karibe de la Sección I de Ponce, finca #21442 de Ponce I, inscripción 17ma. La referida hipoteca grava el bien inmueble antes descrito. Que según surge del estudio de título, la propiedad se encuentra afecta a lo siguiente: 1. CONDICIONES RESTRICTIVAS: Para viabilizar la adquisición del bien inmueble, la Autoridad para el Financiamiento de la Vivienda de Puerto Rico, bajo

las provisiones dispuestas en la guía de procedimientos para el Programa “Bono de Vivienda”, concedió a la parte compradora, la suma de $8,000.00, para sufragar los gastos de cierre y/o para aplicar al pronto pago de esta transacción. La parte compradora no podrá disponer de ninguna forma de la propiedad sin el previo consentimiento de la Autoridad. Estas condiciones tendrán vigencia durante el período restrictivo de asequibilidad de la propiedad de 10 años. 2. GRAVAMENES POSTERIORES: HIPOTECA: Por $44,808.39, a favor de El Secretario del Departamento de Desarrollo Urbano y Vivienda de los Estados Unidos de América. Según escritura #444, otorgada en Mayagüez, el 30 de diciembre de 2015, ante J. Francisco Sepúlveda Rivera, inscrita al tomo Karibe de la Sección I de Ponce, finca #21442 de Ponce I, inscripción 18va. RATIFICACION Y/O CONSENTIMIENTO DE HIPOTECA: La Autoridad para el Financiamiento de la Vivienda de Puerto Rico, expresa formalmente su consentimiento y ratifica la transacción de hipoteca a favor de Popular Mortgage, Inc., o a su orden, por la suma de $155,944.00, efectuada en la inscripción 17ma. Según escritura #62, otorgada en San Juan, el 25 de febrero de 2016, ante Javier B. Sepúlveda Rivera, inscrita en nota marginal, al tomo Karibe de la Sección I de Ponce, finca #21442 de Ponce I. AVISO DE DEMANDA: De fecha 18 de julio de 2017, dictada en el Caso Civil #JCD20170493, Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Ponce; Seguido por Banco Popular de Puerto Rico (demandante) versus José Luis Ramos Rivera, su esposa Zulma Dolly Ginorio Torres y la sociedad legal de gananciales compuesta por ambos (demandados). Se reclama el pago de la deuda garantizada con hipoteca que grava esta finca según inscripción 16ta, reducida a $117,045.68, más intereses y otras sumas, o la venta de esta finca en pública subasta. Anotada al tomo Karibe de la Sección I de Ponce, finca #21442 de Ponce I, anotación A, con fecha de 14 de agosto de 2019.

La subasta se llevará a cabo para con su producto satisfacer al demandante, total o parcialmente según sea el caso, de la referida sentencia que fue dictada por las siguientes sumas: $117,045.68 por concepto de principal, más recargos por atraso, más intereses al 4% anual los cuales se continúan acumulando hasta su completo pago, más $15,594.40 como cantidad estipulada para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados, así como cualquier otra suma que contenga el contrato de préstamo, según pacta-

NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA entrada por el lindero Sur, y por SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYA- ella se acceesa al área común MÓN. general del Condominio. Este BANCO POPULAR DE apartamento tiene un ara total de mil ochocientos dieciocho PUERTO RICO punto ochenta y dos (1818.82) Demandante VS pies cuadrados, equivalentes a SONIA LUISA ciento sesenta y nueve punto GARCÍA RIVERA cero treinta y cinco (169.035) Demandados metros cuadrados. En lindes CIVIL NUM.: BY2019CV05195. por el NORTE, con el ApartaSALA: 702. SOBRE: COBRO mento número ciento cuarenta DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN y cuatro (144) y con área coDE HIPOTECA. ESTADOS mún general del condominio UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL entre la que se encuentra el PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTA- área de ubicación de la puerta DOS UNIDOS ESTADO LIBRE de entrada al apartamento; por ASOCIADO DE PUERTO el SUR, con el Apartamento núRICO. AVISO DE SUBASTA. El mero ciento cincuenta y cuatro que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribu- (154) y con el Apartamento núnal de Primera Instancia, Sala mero ciento cincuenta y cinco Superior de Bayamón, Baya- (155); por el ESTE, con el Aparmón, Puerto Rico, hago saber a tamento número ciento cuarenla parte demandada, al PÚBLI- ta y dos (142); y por el OESTE, CO EN GENERAL; y a todos con área común general del los acreedores que tengan Condominio y con el Apartainscritos o anotados sus dere- mento número ciento cuarenta chos sobre los bienes hipoteca- y cuatro (144). Los linderos en dos con posterioridad a la ins- el segundo nivel del apartacripción del crédito del mento (cuarto piso del edificio) ejecutante, o de los acreedores son por el NORTE, con el Aparde cargas o derechos reales tamento número ciento cuarenque los hubiesen pospuesto a ta y cuatro (144); por el SUR, la hipoteca ejecutada y las per- con el Apartamento número sonas interesadas en, o con ciento cincuenta y cuatro (154) derecho a exigir el cumplimien- y con el Apartamento número to de instrumentos negociables ciento cincuenta y cinco (155); garantizados hipotecariamente por el ESTE, con el Apartamencon posterioridad al crédito eje- to número ciento cuarenta y cutado, siempre que surjan de cuatro (144); y por el OESTE, la certificación registral, para con área común general del que puedan concurrir a la su- condominio y con el Apartabasta si les convenga o satisfa- mento número ciento cuarenta cer antes del remate el importe y cuatro (144). Este segundo del crédito, de sus intereses, nivel se comunica con el primecostas y honorarios de aboga- ro a base de una escalera intedos asegurados, quedando en- rior del apartamento. Los lindetonces subrogados en los dere- ros del tercer nivel del chos del acreedor ejecutante: apartamento (quinto piso del Banco Popular de Puerto Rico; edificio), son por el NORTE, A cuyo favor aparece un Aviso con el Apartamento número de Demanda de fecha 6 de ciento cuarenta y cuatro (144) y septiembre de 2019, expedido con área común general del en el Tribunal de Primera Ins- Condominio; por el SUR, con el tancia, Sala de Bayamón, en el Apartamento número ciento caso civil número B0001-3820, cincuenta y cuatro (154) y con sobre Cobro de Dinero y Ejecu- el Apartamento número ciento ción de Hipoteca, seguido con- cincuenta y cinco (155); por el tra Sonia Luisa García Rivera, ESTE, con el Apartamento núpor la suma de $151,737.31, mero ciento cuarenta y dos anotado el día 28 de enero de (142) y con el Apartamento nú2020, al tomo Karibe de Baya- mero ciento cuarenta y cuatro món Sur, finca número 79,883, (144); y por el OESTE, con área anotación A. Que en cumpli- común general del Condominio. miento del Mandamiento de Este tercer nivel se comunica Ejecución de Sentencia expedi- con el segundo a base de una do el día 19 de marzo de 2021, escalera interior del apartamenpor la Secretaria del Tribunal, to. Este apartamento consta de procederé a vender y venderé sala-comedor, balcón, cocina en pública subasta y al mejor con closet, tres cuartos con clopostor la propiedad que se des- sets, tres baños, un medio cribe a continuación: URBANA: baño, closet de baño, un área Apartamento número ciento de lavandería, escalera interior, cuarenta y tres (143), localiza- un área techada en la azotea do en el tercer, cuarto y quinto del edificio, y un área de terraza piso del Edificio I del Condomi- descubierta en la azotea del nio Paseo Mónaco, situado en edificio la cual está delimitada el kilómetro dieciséis punto seis en su lindero por una pared. A (16.6) de la Carretera Estatal este apartamento le corresponnúmero ciento sesenta y siete de dos espacios sencillos de (167), Barrio Cerro Gordo del estacionamientos identificados Municipio de Bayamón. Este cada uno con el número ciento LEGAL NOTICE apartamento está construido en cuarenta y tres (143) en el área ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO hormigón reforzado. Tiene tres de estacionamiento ubicada al DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- (3) niveles, con su puerta de Este del edificio marcado I, J, K

do. Y PARA CONOCIMIENTO DE LAS PARTES INTERESADAS y del público en general, se advierte que los autos de este caso y demás instancias están disponibles para ser inspeccionadas en la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala Superior de Ponce, durante las horas laborables.

Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad del inmueble y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito del ejecutante, incluyendo el gravamen por las contribuciones sobre la propiedad inmueble adeudadas, si los hubiere, continuarán subsistentes, entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda responsable de los mismos sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate.

La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá Libre de Cargas y Gravámenes posteriores. Los tipos mínimos a utilizarse para la subasta son los siguientes: El inmueble antes descrito ha sido tasado en la suma de CIENTO DIECIOCHO MIL DOSCIENTOS CINCUENTA DÓLARES CON TREINTA Y CINCO CENTAVOS ($118,250.35) para que dicha suma sirva de tipo mínimo en la primera subasta a celebrarse. De no producirse remate ni adjudicación en la primera subasta del antedicho inmueble, se celebrará una segunda subasta en el mismo lugar antes mencionado, el día 13 de mayo del año 2021 a las 2:15 de la tarde, sirviendo como tipo mínimo para dicha segunda subasta, una suma equivalente a las dos terceras (2/3) partes del tipo mínimo pactado para la primera subasta, o sea, la suma de SETENTA Y OCHO MIL OCHOCIENTOS TREINTA Y TRES DÓLARES CON CINCUENTA Y SEIS CENTAVOS ($78,833.56) para la finca antes descrita. De no producirse remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta del antedicho inmueble, se celebrará una tercera subasta en el mismo lugar antes mencionado, el día 20 de mayo del año 2021 a las 2:15 de la tarde, sirviendo como tipo mínimo para dicha tercera subasta, una suma equivalente a la mitad (1/2) del tipo mínimo fijado para la primera subasta, o sea, la suma de CINCUENTA Y NUEVE MIL CIENTO VEINTICINCO DÓLARES CON DIECISIETE CENTAVOS ($59,125.17) para la finca antes descrita. En testimonio de lo cual, expido el presente aviso, el cual firmo y sello, hoy 13 de marzo de 2021, en Ponce, Puerto Rico. ARMANDO FIGUEROA COLLAZO #740, ALGUACIL, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE PONCE.

The San Juan Daily Star y L del condominio. Le corresponden a este apartamento como anejos, el estacionamiento número ciento cuarenta y tres (143) para dos automóviles, uno detrás del otro y el área de terraza que ubica en el tercer nivel del apartamento, todo según ilustrado en el Plot Plan y planos del condominio aprobados por ARPE. A este apartamento le corresponde una participación de cero punto seis mil cuatrocientos cuarenta y ocho por ciento (0.6448%) en los elementos comunes del Condominio. Inscrita al folio 38 del tomo 1,918, finca #79,883 de Bayamón Sur. Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección I de Bayamón. La propiedad ubica en: Cond Paseo Mónaco Apt. 143, Bayamón PR. El producto de la subasta se destinará a satisfacer al demandante hasta donde alcance, la SENTENCIA dictada a su favor, el día 16 de diciembre de 2019 y notificada el 16 de diciembre de 2019, en el presente caso civil, a saber la suma de $151,737.31 por concepto de principal; generando intereses a razón de 3.50% desde el 1ro de noviembre de 2016; cargos por demora los cuales al igual que los intereses continúan acumulándose hasta el saldo total de la deuda reclamada en este pleito, y la suma de $15,277.00 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado; y demás créditos accesorios garantizados hipotecariamente. La adjudicación se hará al mejor postor, quien deberá consignar el importe de su oferta en el acto mismo de la adjudicación, en efectivo (moneda del curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América), giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del alguacil del Tribunal. La PRIMERA SUBASTA se llevará a efecto el día 24 DE JUNIO DE 2021 A LAS 11:15 DE LA MAÑANA, en el quinto piso, Sala 503 del Centro Judicial de Bayamón, Bayamón, Puerto Rico. El precio mínimo fijado para la PRIMERA SUBASTA es por la cantidad de $152,770.00. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una SEGUNDA SUBASTA, la misma se llevará a efecto el día 1 DE JULIO DE 2021 A LAS 11:15 DE LA MAÑANA, en el quinto piso, Sala 503 del Centro Judicial de Bayamón, Bayamón, Puerto Rico. El precio mínimo para la SEGUNDA SUBASTA será de $101,846.66, equivalentes a dos terceras (2/3) partes del tipo mínimo estipulado para la PRIMERA subasta. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una TERCERA SUBASTA, la misma se llevará a efecto el día 12 DE JULIO DE 2021 A LAS 11:15 DE LA MAÑANA, en el quinto piso, Sala 503 del Centro Judicial de Bayamón, Bayamón, Puerto Rico.

El precio mínimo para la TER-

CERA SUBASTA será de $76,385.00, equivalentes a la mitad (1/2) del tipo mínimo estipulado para la PRIMERA subasta. Si se declarase desierta la tercera subasta, se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si ésta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta, si el Tribunal lo estima conveniente; se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si esta es mayor, todo ello a tenor con lo dispone el Articulo 104 de la Ley Núm.

210 del 8 de diciembre de 2015 conocida como “Ley del Registro de la Propiedad Inmueble del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico”. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquiere libre de toda carga y gravamen que afecte la mencionada finca según el Artículo 102, inciso 6.

Una vez confirmada la venta judicial por el Honorable Tribunal, se procederá a otorgar la correspondiente escritura de venta judicial y se pondrá al comprador en posesión física del inmueble de conformidad con las disposiciones de Ley. Para conocimiento de la parte demandada y de toda aquella persona o personas que tengan interés inscrito con posterioridad a la inscripción del gravamen que se está ejecutando, y para conocimiento de todos los licitadores y el público en general, el presente Edicto se publicará por espacio de dos (2) semanas consecutivas, con un intervalo de por lo menos siete días entre ambas publicaciones, en un diario de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico y se fijará además en tres (3) lugares públicos del Municipio en que ha de celebrarse dicha venta, tales como la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía. Los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante, o los acreedores de cargas o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca ejecutada y las personas interesadas en, o con derecho a exigir el cumplimiento de instrumentos negociables garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito ejecutado pueden concurrir a la subasta si les convienen o satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogados asegurados, quedando entonces subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. Se les informa, por último, que: a. Que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la secretaría del tribunal durante las horas laborables. b. Que se entenderá que todo licitador acepta

Wednesday, April 7, 2021 como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes.

Se entenderá, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. EXPIDO, el presente EDICTO, en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy día 30 de marzo de 2021. EDGARDO E. VARGAS SANTANA #193, Alguacil, División de Subastas, Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Bayamón.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE MAYAGÜEZ.

FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION T/C/C FANNIE MAE DEMANDANTE VS.

SUCESIÓN DE ANTONIO VELEZ BARBOSA Y LA SUCESIÓN DE LUCILA ALTAGRACIA HIDALGO TAVERAS T/C/C LUCILA ALTAGRACIA HIDALGO TAVERA COMPUESTA POR SUS HEREDEROS CONOCIDOS OSVALDO A. VELEZ HIDALGO Y JANICE VELEZ HIDALGO; FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE DICHAS SUCESIONES

DEMANDADOS CIVIL NÚM.: MZ2019CV00531.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EDICTO ANUNCIANDO PRIMERA, SEGUNDA Y TERCERA SUBASTA. El Alguacil que suscribe, funcionario del Tribunal de Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, por la presente anuncia y hace saber al público en general que en cumplimiento con la Sentencia dictada en este caso con fecha 28 de diciembre de 2020 y según Orden y Mandamiento del 1ro de marzo de 2021 librado por este honorable Tribunal, procederé a vender en pública subasta al mejor postor, y por dinero en efectivo, cheque certificado o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal con todo título derecho y/o interés de la parte demandada sobre la propiedad que se describe a continuación: RÚSTICA: Parcela marcada con el número Siete (7) en el plano de inscripción, radicada en el barrio Maravilla del término municipal de Las Marías, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de quinientos cincuenta y siete punto siete mil ciento cuarenta y ocho (557.7148) metros cuadrados.

En lindes por el NORTE, en treinta (30) metros, con el solar número ocho (8) del plano de inscripción; por el SUR, en treinta y tres punto ciento treinta y siete (33.137) metros, con el solar número seis (6) del plano de inscripción; por el ESTE, en catorce punto setecientos catorce (14.714) metros, con el remanente de la finca principal de la cual se segrega propiedad de Luis Santaliz Capestany; y por el OESTE, en trece punto ciento sesenta y cuatro (13.164) metros y siete punto ciento siete (7.107) metros, con carretera municipal. FINCA NÚMERO: 4,463, inscrita al folio 1 del tomo 193 de Las Marías, sección de San Sebastián. Dirección Física: BARRIO MARAVILLA REPARTO SANTALIZ CARR. 119 KM 0.7 LOTE 7 LAS MARÍAS, P.R. 00670.

Se anuncia por medio de este edicto que la primera subasta habrá de celebrarse el día 20 de mayo de 2021, a las 2:00 de la tarde, en mi oficina sita en el edificio que ocupa el Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala Superior de Mayagüez. Siendo ésta la primera subasta que se celebrará en este caso, será el precio mínimo aceptable como oferta en la Primera Subasta, eso es el tipo mínimo pactado en la Escritura de Hipoteca para la propiedad, la suma de $30,000.00. De no haber remanente o adjudicación en esta primera subasta por dicha suma mínima, se celebrará una segunda subasta el día 27 de mayo de 2021, a las 2:00 de la tarde, en el mismo lugar antes señalado en la cual el precio mínimo serán dos terceras (2/3) partes del tipo mínimo pactado en la escritura de hipoteca, la suma de $20,000.00. De no haber remanente o adjudicación en esta segunda subasta por el tipo mínimo indicado en el párrafo anterior, se celebrará una tercera subasta en el mismo lugar antes señalado el día 3 de junio de 2021, a las 2:00 de la tarde, en la cual el tipo mínimo aceptable como oferta será la mitad (1/2) del precio mínimo pactado en la escritura de hipoteca, la suma de $15,000.00.

Si se declare desierta la tercera subasta se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si ésta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo mínimo de la tercera subasta, si el tribunal lo estima conveniente. Se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si ésta es mayor.

Con el importe de esta venta se habrá de satisfacer el balance de la sentencia dictada en este caso el cual consiste en el pago de $18,028.76 de principal, más intereses convenidos al 4.00% anual más recargos hasta su pago, más el pago de lo pactado en la sentencia para costas, gastos y honorarios de

abogados. Se dispone que una vez celebrada la subasta y vendido el inmueble relacionado, el alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial a los nuevos dueños dentro del término de veinte (20) días a partir de la celebración de la Subasta. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante u ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del demandado/deudor la ocupen. El Alguacil de este Tribunal efectuará el lanzamiento de los ocupantes de ser necesario. Si la subasta es adjudicada a un tercero y luego se deja sin efecto, el tercero a favor de quién se adjudicó la subasta solo tendrá derecho a la devolución del monto consignado más no tendrá derecho a entablar recurso o reclamo adicional alguno (judicial o extrajudicial) contra el demandante y/o el acreedor y/o inversionista, dueño pagaré y/o su abogado.

Por la presente también se notifica e informa a Fulano de Tal y Sutano de Tal, personas desconocidas que puedan tener derechos en la propiedad o título objeto de este edicto. La Venta en Pública Subasta de la referida propiedad se verificará libre de toda carga y gravamen posterior que afecte la mencionada finca, a cuyo efecto se notifica y se hace saber la fecha, hora y sitio de la Primera, Segunda y Tercera Subasta, si eso fuera necesario, a los efectos de cualquier persona o personas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha Subasta. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes. Se entenderá que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento del caso de epígrafe están disponibles en la Secretaría de este Tribunal durante horas laborables y para la concurrencia de los licitadores expido el presente Edicto que se publicará en un periódico de circulación diaria en toda la Isla de Puerto Rico por espacio dos (2) semanas y por lo menos una vez por semana y se fijará, además, en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Alcaldía y la Colecturía de Rentas Internas del Municipio donde se celebrará la Subasta y en la Colecturía más cercana del lugar de la residencia de la parte demandada. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente que firmo y sello, hoy día 23 de marzo de 2021.

29

JOSE M CRESPO NAZARIO, junio de 2021, a la 1:30 de la ALGUACIL, SALA SUPERIOR tarde, en el mismo lugar antes señalado en la cual el precio DE MAYAGUEZ. mínimo serán dos terceras (2/3) LEGAL NOTICE partes del tipo mínimo pactado ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO en la escritura de hipoteca, la DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- suma de $46,666.67. De no NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA haber remanente o adjudicaSALA SUPERIOR DE HUMA- ción en esta segunda subasta CAO. por el tipo mínimo indicado en FEDERAL NATIONAL el párrafo anterior, se celebrará una tercera subasta en el misMORTGAGE mo lugar antes señalado el día ASSOCIATION T/C/C 8 de junio de 2021, a la 1:30 de FANNIE MAE la tarde, en la cual el tipo míniDEMANDANTE VS. mo aceptable como oferta será RAMÓN LUYANDO la mitad (1/2) del precio mínimo pactado en la escritura de hipoCABRERA T/C/C teca, la suma de $35,000.00. Si RAMÓN LUYANDO se declare desierta la tercera DEMANDADO CIVIL NÚM.: NG2018CV00057. subasta se adjudicará la finca SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO a favor del acreedor por la totaY EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTE- lidad de la cantidad adeudada CA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. si ésta es igual o menor que EDICTO ANUNCIANDO PRI- el monto del tipo mínimo de la MERA, SEGUNDA Y TER- tercera subasta, si el tribunal CERA SUBASTA. El Alguacil lo estima conveniente. Se aboque suscribe, funcionario del nará dicho monto a la cantidad Tribunal de Humacao, Puerto adeudada si ésta es mayor.

Rico, por la presente anuncia y Con el importe de esta venta hace saber al público en gene- se habrá de satisfacer el balanral que en cumplimiento con la ce de la sentencia dictada en Sentencia dictada en este caso este caso el cual consiste en el con fecha 8 de marzo de 2019, pago de $56,659.12 de princiy según Orden y Mandamiento pal, más intereses convenidos del 26 de julio de 2019 librado al 6.500% anual más recargos por este honorable Tribunal, hasta su pago, más el pago de procederé a vender en pública lo pactado en la sentencia para subasta al mejor postor, y por costas, gastos y honorarios de dinero en efectivo, cheque cer- abogados. Se dispone que una tificado o giro postal a nombre vez celebrada la subasta y vendel Alguacil del Tribunal con dido el inmueble relacionado, el todo título derecho y/o interés alguacil pondrá en posesión jude la parte demandada sobre dicial a los nuevos dueños denla propiedad que se describe a tro del término de veinte (20) continuación: RÚSTICA: Parce- días a partir de la celebración la marcada con el número 99 de de la Subasta. Si transcurren la comunidad rural Florida del los referidos veinte (20) días, barrio Río Blanco de Naguabo el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin con una cabida superficial de necesidad de ulterior procedi1,230.53 metros cuadrados, miento, que se lleve a efecto el en lindes por el NORTE, con desalojo o lanzamiento del ocuterrenos de Pedro Burgos; por pante u ocupantes de la finca el SUR, con la parcela 100 de la o de todos los que por orden o comunidad; por el ESTE, con la tolerancia del demandado/deuparcela 98 y la calle 9 de la co- dor la ocupen. El Alguacil de munidad; y por el OESTE, con este Tribunal efectuará el lanla parcela 108 de la calle 7 de zamiento de los ocupantes de la comunidad. FINCA NÚME- ser necesario. Si la subasta es RO: 9,016, inscrita al folio 50 adjudicada a un tercero y luego del tomo 160 de Naguabo, Re- se deja sin efecto, el tercero a gistro de Humacao. Dirección favor de quién se adjudicó la Física: Lote 99 Florida Bo. Rio subasta solo tendrá derecho a Blanco Naguabo, PR 00718. la devolución del monto consigSe anuncia por medio de este nado más no tendrá derecho a edicto que la primera subasta entablar recurso o reclamo adihabrá de celebrarse el día 25 cional alguno (judicial o extrajude mayo de 2021, a la 1:30 de dicial) contra el demandante y/o la tarde, en mi oficina sita en el el acreedor y/o inversionista, edificio que ocupa el Tribunal dueño pagaré y/o su abogado.

Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala Por la presente también se notiSuperior de Humacao. Siendo fica e informa a Fulano de Tal y ésta la primera subasta que se Sutano de Tal, personas descocelebrará en este caso, será el nocidas que puedan tener deprecio mínimo aceptable como rechos en la propiedad o título oferta en la Primera Subasta, objeto de este edicto. La Venta eso es el tipo mínimo pactado en Pública Subasta de la referien la Escritura de Hipoteca da propiedad se verificará libre para la propiedad, la suma de toda carga y gravamen posde $70,000.00. De no haber terior que afecte la mencionada remanente o adjudicación en finca, a cuyo efecto se notifica esta primera subasta por dicha y se hace saber la fecha, hora suma mínima, se celebrará una y sitio de la Primera, Segunsegunda subasta el día 1ro de da y Tercera Subasta, si eso fuera necesario, a los efectos

de cualquier persona o personas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha Subasta. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes.

Se entenderá que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento del caso de epígrafe están disponibles en la Secretaría de este Tribunal durante horas laborables y para la concurrencia de los licitadores expido el presente Edicto que se publicará en un periódico de circulación diaria en toda la Isla de Puerto Rico por espacio dos (2) semanas y por lo menos una vez por semana y se fijará, además, en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Alcaldía y la Colecturía de Rentas Internas del Municipio donde se celebrará la Subasta y en la Colecturía más cercana del lugar de la residencia de la parte demandada. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente que firmo y sello, hoy día 5 de febrero de 2021. MARIA DEL PILAR RIVERA RIVERA, ALGUACIL REGIONAL, SALA SUPERIOR DE HUMACAO. JENNISA GARCIA MORALES 796, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE HUMACAO.

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO DEMANDANTE VS.

SUCESIÓN DE EULALIO PEREZ CALDERON COMPUESTA POR SU VIUDA NORMA GARCÍA MARTÍNEZ, POR SÍ; FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS Y/O PARTES CON INTERÉS EN DICHA SUCESIÓN

DEMANDADOS CIVIL NÚM.: HU2019CV00929.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EDICTO ANUNCIANDO PRIMERA, SEGUNDA Y TERCERA SUBASTA. El Alguacil que suscribe, funcionario del Tribunal de Humacao, Puerto Rico, por la presente anuncia y hace saber al público en general que en cumplimiento con la Sentencia dictada en este caso con fecha 29 de enero de 2020 y según Orden y Mandamiento del 27 de marzo de 2020 librado por este honorable Tribunal,

30 procederé a vender en pública subasta al mejor postor, y por dinero en efectivo, cheque certificado o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal con todo título derecho y/o interés de la parte demandada sobre la propiedad que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar número Quince (15) del Bloque “M” radicado en la Urbanización Praderas del Este, localizada en el Barrio Santiago y Lima del término municipal de Naguabo, Puerto Rico, con cabida superficial de doscientos sesenta y cuatro punto cero cero metros cuadrados (264.00 m.c.). Colindando por el NORTE, en doce punto cero cero metros con el solar ocho del bloque “M” de la Urbanización; por el SUR, en doce punto cero cero metros con la calle número siete de la Urbanización; por el ESTE, en veintidós punto cero cero metros con el solar dieciséis del bloque “M” de la Urbanización; por el OESTE, en veintidós punto cero cero metros con el solar catorce del bloque “M” de la Urbanización. Enclava casa de hormigón y bloques de hormigón para fines residenciales. FINCA NÚMERO: 14,491, inscrita al folio 73 del tomo 245 de Naguabo, sección de Humacao. Dirección Física: URB. PRADERAS DEL ESTE M-15 NAGUABO, PR 00718.

Se anuncia por medio de este edicto que la primera subasta habrá de celebrarse el día 6 de mayo de 2021, a las 2:30 de la tarde, en mi oficina sita en el edificio que ocupa el Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala Superior de Humacao. Siendo ésta la primera subasta que se celebrará en este caso, será el precio mínimo aceptable como oferta en la Primera Subasta, eso es el tipo mínimo pactado en la Escritura de Hipoteca para la propiedad, la suma de $79,373.00. De no haber remanente o adjudicación en esta primera subasta por dicha suma mínima, se celebrará una segunda subasta el día 13 de mayo de 2021, a las 2:30 de la tarde, en el mismo lugar antes señalado en la cual el precio mínimo serán dos terceras (2/3) partes del tipo mínimo pactado en la escritura de hipoteca, la suma de $52,915.33. De no haber remanente o adjudicación en esta segunda subasta por el tipo mínimo indicado en el párrafo anterior, se celebrará una tercera subasta en el mismo lugar antes señalado el día 20 de mayo de 2021, a las 2:30 de la tarde, en la cual el tipo mínimo aceptable como oferta será la mitad (1/2) del precio mínimo pactado en la escritura de hipoteca, la suma de $39,686.50.

Si se declare desierta la tercera subasta se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si ésta es igual o menor que

el monto del tipo mínimo de la tercera subasta, si el tribunal lo estima conveniente. Se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si ésta es mayor.

Con el importe de esta venta se habrá de satisfacer el balance de la sentencia dictada en este caso el cual consiste en el pago de $66,280.28 de principal, más intereses convenidos al 6.00% anual más recargos hasta su pago, más el pago de lo pactado en la sentencia para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados. Se dispone que una vez celebrada la subasta y vendido el inmueble relacionado, el alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial a los nuevos dueños dentro del término de veinte (20) días a partir de la celebración de la Subasta. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante u ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del demandado/deudor la ocupen. El Alguacil de este Tribunal efectuará el lanzamiento de los ocupantes de ser necesario. Si la subasta es adjudicada a un tercero y luego se deja sin efecto, el tercero a favor de quién se adjudicó la subasta solo tendrá derecho a la devolución del monto consignado más no tendrá derecho a entablar recurso o reclamo adicional alguno (judicial o extrajudicial) contra el demandante y/o el acreedor y/o inversionista, dueño pagaré y/o su abogado.

Por la presente también se notifica e informa a Fulano de Tal y Sutano de Tal, personas desconocidas que puedan tener derechos en la propiedad o título objeto de este edicto. La Venta en Pública Subasta de la referida propiedad se verificará libre de toda carga y gravamen posterior que afecte la mencionada finca, a cuyo efecto se notifica y se hace saber la fecha, hora y sitio de la Primera, Segunda y Tercera Subasta, si eso fuera necesario, a los efectos de cualquier persona o personas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha Subasta. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes.

Se entenderá que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate.

Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento del caso de epígrafe están disponibles en la Secretaría de este Tribunal durante horas laborables y para la concurrencia de los licitadores expido el presente Edicto que

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

se publicará en un periódico de circulación diaria en toda la Isla de Puerto Rico por espacio dos (2) semanas y por lo menos una vez por semana y se fijará, además, en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Alcaldía y la Colecturía de Rentas Internas del Municipio donde se celebrará la Subasta y en la Colecturía más cercana del lugar de la residencia de la parte demandada. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente que firmo y sello, hoy día 1de febrero de 2020. MARIA DEL PILAR RIVERA RIVERA, ALGUACIL REGIONAL. JENNISA GARCIA MORALES #796, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR, SALA SUPERIOR DE HUMACAO.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE ARECIBO.

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO DEMANDANTE VS.

SUCESIÓN DE FRANCISCO CARDONA SOTO COMPUESTA POR SUS HEREDEROS CONOCIDOS REINALDO CARDONA, ELIZABETH CARDONA LÓPEZ Y FRANCISCO CARDONA, JR.; SUCESIÓN DE EFIGENIA LÓPEZ LÓPEZ COMPUESTA POR SUS HEREDEROS CONOCIDOS MIGDALIA VELAZQUEZ, ANA M. CRESPO, CARMEN R. STRACHAN, ELIZABETH CARDONA LÓPEZ, REINALDO CARDONA Y FRANCISCO CARDONA, JR.; FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS Y/O PARTES CON INTERÉS EN DICHA SUCESIÓN

DEMANDADOS CIVIL NÚM.: AR2019CV00970.

SOBRE: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA (IN REM). EDICTO ANUNCIANDO PRIMERA, SEGUNDA Y TERCERA SUBASTA. El Alguacil que suscribe, funcionario del Tribunal de Arecibo, Puerto Rico, por la presente anuncia y hace saber al público en general que en cumplimiento con la Sentencia dictada en este caso con fecha 28 de enero de 2020, y según Orden y Mandamiento del 22 de enero de 2021 librado por este honorable Tribunal, procederé a vender en pública subasta al mejor postor, y por dinero en efectivo, cheque certificado o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal con todo título derecho y/o interés de la parte demandada sobre la propiedad

que se describe a continuación: RURAL: RÚSTICA: Parcela radicada en el Barrio Aibonito del término municipal de Hatillo, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de cuatrocientos noventa y uno punto cuarenta y ocho (491.48) metros cuadrados y en lindes por el NORTE, en veinte punto doce (20.12) metros con el remanente de la finca principal; por el SUR, en veinte punto doce (20.12) metros con la Calle número tres (3); por el ESTE, en veinticuatro punto sesenta y nueve (24.69) metros con la calle número seis (6); y por el OESTE, en veinticuatro punto sesenta y nueve (24.69) metros con la parcela número cuarenta y cinco respectivamente. FINCA NÚMERO: 10,276, inscrita al folio 20 del tomo 195 de Hatillo, sección II de Arecibo. Dirección Física; BARRIO AIBONITO PARCELA BAYANEY, #47 CALLE C HATILLO PR 00659.

Se anuncia por medio de este edicto que la primera subasta habrá de celebrarse el día 25 de mayo de 2021, a las 9:00 de la mañana, en mi oficina sita en el edificio que ocupa el Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala Superior de Arecibo. Siendo ésta la primera subasta que se celebrará en este caso, será el precio mínimo aceptable como oferta en la Primera Subasta, eso es el tipo mínimo pactado en la Escritura de Hipoteca para la propiedad, la suma de $43,650.00. De no haber remanente o adjudicación en esta primera subasta por dicha suma mínima, se celebrará una segunda subasta el día 1 de junio de 2021, a las 9:00 de la mañana, en el mismo lugar antes señalado en la cual el precio mínimo serán dos terceras (2/3) partes del tipo mínimo pactado en la escritura de hipoteca, la suma de $29,100.00. De no haber remanente o adjudicación en esta segunda subasta por el tipo mínimo indicado en el párrafo anterior, se celebrará una tercera subasta en el mismo lugar antes señalado el día 8 de junio de 2021, a las 9:00 de la mañana, en la cual el tipo mínimo aceptable como oferta será la mitad (1/2) del precio mínimo pactado en la escritura de hipoteca, la suma de $21,825.00. Si se declare desierta la tercera subasta se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si ésta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo mínimo de la tercera subasta, si el tribunal lo estima conveniente. Se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si ésta es mayor. El Honorable Tribunal dictó Sentencia In Rem, declarando Con Lugar la demanda al incumplir la parte demandada con los términos del contrato hipotecario y ordenando la venta en pública su-

basta del inmueble antes descrito. A tenor con la Regla 51.3 (b) de Procedimiento Civil y el Artículo 99 de la Ley 210-2015, conocida como “Ley del Registro de la Propiedad Inmobiliaria del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico”, el tribunal ordenó que el Alguacil de este Tribunal luego de haberse efectuado la correspondiente publicación de edictos en un periódico de circulación general, proceda a vender en pública subasta al mejor postor la propiedad descrita en las Determinaciones de Hechos de la Sentencia y que del producto de dicha venta, proceda a pagar en primer término los gastos del Alguacil, en segundo término las costas y honorarios de abogados según concedidos en esta sentencia, en tercer término los intereses acumulados por esta sentencia, en cuarto término los recargos acumulados, en quinto cualquier suma antes indicada como sobregiro en la cuenta de reserva y en sexto término hasta la suma de $21,142.36 para cubrir el principal adeudado, disponiéndose que si quedare algún remanente luego de pagarse las sumas antes mencionadas el mismo deberá ser depositado en la Secretaría del Tribunal para ser entregado a los demandados previa solicitud y orden del Tribunal. Se dispone que una vez celebrada la subasta y vendido el inmueble relacionado, el alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial a los nuevos dueños dentro del término de veinte (20) días a partir de la celebración de la Subasta. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante u ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del demandado/deudor la ocupen.

El Alguacil de este Tribunal efectuará el lanzamiento de los ocupantes de ser necesario. Si la subasta es adjudicada a un tercero y luego se deja sin efecto, el tercero a favor de quién se adjudicó la subasta solo tendrá derecho a la devolución del monto consignado más no tendrá derecho a entablar recurso o reclamo adicional alguno (judicial o extrajudicial) contra el demandante y/o el acreedor y/o inversionista, dueño pagaré y/o su abogado. Por la presente también se notifica e informa a Fulano de Tal y Sutano de Tal, personas desconocidas que puedan tener derechos en la propiedad o título objeto de este edicto. La Venta en Pública Subasta de la referida propiedad se verificará libre de toda carga y gravamen posterior que afecte la mencionada finca, a cuyo efecto se notifica y se hace saber la fecha, hora y sitio de la Primera, Segunda

y Tercera Subasta, si eso fuera necesario, a los efectos de cualquier persona o personas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha Subasta. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes. Se entenderá que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento del caso de epígrafe están disponibles en la Secretaría de este Tribunal durante horas laborables y para la concurrencia de los licitadores expido el presente Edicto que se publicará en un periódico de circulación diaria en toda la Isla de Puerto Rico por espacio dos (2) semanas y por lo menos una vez por semana y se fijará, además, en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Alcaldía y la Colecturía de Rentas Internas del Municipio donde se celebrará la Subasta y en la Colecturía más cercana del lugar de la residencia de la parte demandada. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente que firmo y sello, hoy día 5 de febrero de 2021. WILLIAM LUGO GUZMAN #720, ALGUACIL, SALA SUPERIOR DE ARECIBO.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE CAGUAS.

LUNA ACQUISITION, LLC. DEMANDANTE VS.

FÉLIX RAFAEL CRUZ TORRES, SU ESPOSA ARELIS MEDINA LOZADA Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS; YADIRA GARCÍA RODRÍGUEZ

DEMANDADOS CIVIL NÚM.: CG2019CV02676.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EDICTO ANUNCIANDO PRIMERA, SEGUNDA Y TERCERA SUBASTA. El Alguacil que suscribe, funcionario del Tribunal de Caguas, Puerto Rico, por la presente anuncia y hace saber al público en general que en cumplimiento con la Sentencia dictada en este caso con fecha 24 de septiembre de 2020, y según Orden y Mandamiento del 8 de diciembre de 2020 librado por este honorable Tribunal, procederé a vender en pública subasta al mejor postor, y por dinero en efectivo, cheque certificado o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal con

todo título derecho y/o interés de la parte demandada sobre la propiedad que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar marcado con el número 213 de la Urbanización Veredas del Barrio Navarro, en el término municipal de Gurabo, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de cuatrocientos metros, cuarenta y tres decímetros cuadrados. En linderos: NORTE, en una distancia de 14.50 metros con el solar 212; SUR, en una curva con una distancia total de 20.78 metros con la calle 10; ESTE, en una distancia de 17.50 metros con la calle Veredas de las Palmas; OESTE, en una distancia de 25.00 metros con el solar 214. Sobre este solar enclava una estructura de hormigón y bloques destinada a uso residencial. FINCA NÚMERO: 14,450, inscrita al folio 45 del tomo 388 de Gurabo, sección II de Caguas. Nota aclaratoria: En el Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección II la descripción registral consta tal y como fue transcrita anteriormente. En la Escritura número 564, otorgada el 18 de agosto de 2003 se indica lo siguiente; Cabida superficial de cuatrocientos punto cuarenta y tres metros cuadrados, equivalentes a cero punto uno cero diecinueve. NORTE, en una distancia de 14.50 metros con el solar 213. Dirección Física: URB. VEREDAS 213 CALLE 10 GURABO PR 00778.

Se anuncia por medio de este edicto que la primera subasta habrá de celebrarse el día 10 de mayo de 2021, a las 9:00 de la mañana, en mi oficina sita en el edificio que ocupa el Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala Superior de Caguas. Siendo ésta la primera subasta que se celebrará en este caso, será el precio mínimo aceptable como oferta en la Primera Subasta, eso es el tipo mínimo pactado en la Escritura de Hipoteca para la propiedad, la suma de $224,000.00. De no haber remanente o adjudicación en esta primera subasta por dicha suma mínima, se celebrará una segunda subasta el día 17 de mayo de 2021, a las 9:00 de la mañana, en el mismo lugar antes señalado en la cual el precio mínimo serán dos terceras (2/3) partes del tipo mínimo pactado en la escritura de hipoteca, la suma de $149,333.33. De no haber remanente o adjudicación en esta segunda subasta por el tipo mínimo indicado en el párrafo anterior, se celebrará una tercera subasta en el mismo lugar antes señalado el día 24 de mayo de 2021, a las 9:00 de la mañana, en la cual el tipo mínimo aceptable como oferta será la mitad (1/2) del precio mínimo pactado en la escritura de hipoteca, la suma de $112,000.00. Si se declare desierta la tercera subasta se adjudicará la finca a favor del

acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si ésta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo mínimo de la tercera subasta, si el tribunal lo estima conveniente. Se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si ésta es mayor. El Tribunal dicta Sentencia declarando con lugar la demanda y por consiguiente condena a las partes demandadas, FÉLIX RAFAEL CRUZ TORRES, SU ESPOSA ARELIS MEDINA LOZADA Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS; YADIRA GARCÍA RODRÍGUEZ, a pagar a la parte demandante la suma de $162,000.68 de principal, más los intereses, los cuales se continuarán acumulando hasta el saldo total de la obligación, más otros cargos conforme al contrato de préstamo suscrito entre las partes.

Esta suma continúa acumulando intereses al interés anual convenido de 6.50% hasta su completo pago. La suma adeudada también continúa acumulando recargos. Además, se le impone a la parte demandada el pago de costas a favor de la parte demandante, mas 10% para honorarios de abogados, hasta el saldo total de la obligación. (La parte demandante ha señalado que según el pagaré suscrito tiene derecho a un 10% del valor del pagaré hipotecario para las costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados. En autos esta cantidad equivale a $22,400.00). Se dispone que una vez celebrada la subasta y vendido el inmueble relacionado, el alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial a los nuevos dueños dentro del término de veinte (20) días a partir de la celebración de la Subasta. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante u ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del demandado/deudor la ocupen.

El Alguacil de este Tribunal efectuará el lanzamiento de los ocupantes de ser necesario. Si la subasta es adjudicada a un tercero y luego se deja sin efecto, el tercero a favor de quién se adjudicó la subasta solo tendrá derecho a la devolución del monto consignado más no tendrá derecho a entablar recurso o reclamo adicional alguno (judicial o extrajudicial) contra el demandante y/o el acreedor y/o inversionista, dueño pagaré y/o su abogado.

Por la presente también se notifica e informa a Yadira Garcia Rodriguez, por ésta adquirir la propiedad objeto de ejecución, mediante la Escritura 48 de Cesión de Derechos, Reconociendo y Asumiendo Hipoteca, otorgada el 31 de mayo de 2018. La mencionada escritura

The San Juan Daily Star consta pendiente de inscripción al asiento 2018-056174-CA02, finca número 14,450 del Registro de la Propiedad, Sección II de Caguas. Además, se notifica e informa a Fulano de Tal y Sutano de Tal, personas desconocidas que puedan tener derechos en la propiedad o título objeto de este edicto. La Venta en Pública Subasta de la referida propiedad se verificará libre de toda carga y gravamen posterior que afecte la mencionada finca, a cuyo efecto se notifica y se hace saber la fecha, hora y sitio de la Primera, Segunda y Tercera Subasta, si eso fuera necesario, a los efectos de cualquier persona o personas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha Subasta. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes. Se entenderá que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento del caso de epígrafe están disponibles en la Secretaría de este Tribunal durante horas laborables y para la concurrencia de los licitadores expido el presente Edicto que se publicará en un periódico de circulación diaria en toda la Isla de Puerto Rico por espacio dos (2) semanas y por lo menos una vez por semana y se fijará, además, en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Alcaldía y la Colecturía de Rentas Internas del Municipio donde se celebrará la Subasta y en la Colecturía más cercana del lugar de la residencia de la parte demandada. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente que firmo y sello, hoy día 24 de marzo de 2021.

ALBERTO NEGRON ROMAN #435, ALGUACIL, SALA SUPERIOR DE CAGUAS.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE CAGUAS.

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Y SUN WEST MORTGAGE COMPANY, INC. COMO AGENTE DE SERVICIO DEMANDANTE VS.

SUCESIÓN DE MANUEL TIRADO PEREIRA, SUCESIÓN DE MARÍA TIRADO RAMOS Y SUCESION DE LIZETTE TIRADO TIRADO TODAS COMPUESTAS POR SUS HEREDEROS CONOCIDOS EMANUEL

QUIÑONES TIRADO Y STEFANIE SAURI TIRADO; FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS Y/O PARTES CON INTERÉS EN DICHAS SUCESIONES; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA

DEMANDADOS CIVIL NÚM.: CG2021CV00416.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R. ss.

A: SUCESIÓN DE MANUEL TIRADO PEREIRA, SUCESIÓN DE MARÍA TIRADO RAMOS Y SUCESION DE LIZETTE TIRADO TIRADO TODAS COMPUESTAS POR SUS HEREDEROS CONOCIDOS EMANUEL QUIÑONES TIRADO Y STEFANIE SAURI TIRADO; FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS Y/O PARTES CON INTERÉS EN DICHAS SUCESIONES Urb. Residencial Bairoa Calle 12 #CW-13 Caguas, P.R. 00725 -URB. RESIDENCIAL BAIROA, BO. BAIROA, SOLAR #13, MANZANA “CW”, CALLE 12, CAGUAS, PR 00725; -URB. BAIROA, CALLE 9 CN3, CAGUAS, PR 007251502.

Wednesday, April 7, 2021 ne derecho aceptar o repudiar la herencia. A esos efectos, de no rechazarla se tendrá la herencia por aceptada. Representa a la parte demandante, la representación legal cuyo nombre, dirección y teléfono se consigna de inmediato: BUFETE FORTUÑO & FORTUÑO FAS, C.S.P. LCDO. JUAN C. FORTUÑO FAS RUA NUM.: 11416 PO BOX 3908, GUAYNABO, PR 00970 TEL: 787- 751-5290, FAX: 787-751-6155 E-MAIL: ejecuciones@fortuno-law.com Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, hoy 26 de marzo de 2021. CARMEN ANA PEREIRA ORTIZ, Secretaria. Vilma Oyola Rivera, Sec Auxiliar del Tribunal.

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

WILMINGTON SAVINGS FUND SOCIETY, FSB, as trustee of FINANCE OF AMERICA STRUCTURED SECURITIES ACQUISITION TRUST 2019-HB1 DEMANDANTE VS.

Sucesión de María Pérez Hernández t/c/c María Pérez compuesta por Heriberto Centeno, Maria Judith Centeno Perez; Fulano de Tal y Sutano de Tal como posibles miembros desconocidos; Centro de Recaudaciones Municipales y a los Estados Unidos de América.

DEMANDADOS CIVIL NUM.: CCD2017-00070.

SALA: 402. SOBRE: Cobro de POR LA PRESENTE se le Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca emplaza para que presente por la Vía Ordinaria. EDICTO al tribunal su alegación respon- DE SUBASTA. siva dentro de los treinta (30) Al: Público en General días de haber sido diligenciado A: SUCESIÓN DE MARÍA este emplazamiento, excluyénPÉREZ HERNÁNDEZ dose el día del diligenciamienT/C/C MARÍA PÉREZ to. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través COMPUESTA POR del Sistema Unificado de MaHERIBERTO CENTENO, nejo y Administración de Casos MARIA JUDITH CENTENO (SUMAC), al cual puede accePEREZ; FULANO DE TAL der utilizando la siguiente direcY SUTANO DE TAL COMO ción electrónica: https://unired.

POSIBLES MIEMBROS ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, DESCONOCIDOS; en cuyo caso deberá presentar CENTRO DE su alegación responsiva en la RECAUDACIONES secretaría del tribunal. Si usted MUNICIPALES Y A LOS deja de presentar su alegación ESTADOS UNIDOS DE responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dicAMÉRICA. tar sentencia en rebeldía en su Yo, ANGEL DE JESUS TOcontra y conceder el remedio RRES PEREZ, Alguacil del Trisolicitado en la demanda, o bunal de Primera Instancia, cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en Sala de Arecibo, a los demanel ejercicio de su sana discre- dados, acreedores y al público ción, lo entiende procedente. en general con interés sobre la Se le apercibe que conforme al propiedad que más adelante se artículo 1,578 del Código Civil, describe, y al público en gene31 L.P.R.A. §11,021, usted tie- ral, por la presente CERTIFI-

CO, ANUNCIO y HAGO CONSTAR: Que el día 5 de mayo de 2021, a las 9:00 am en mi oficina, sita en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Arecibo, Arecibo, Puerto Rico, procederé a vender en Pública Subasta, al mejor postor, la propiedad inmueble que más adelante se describe y cuya venta en pública subasta se ordenó por la vía ordinaria mediante Sentencia dictada en el caso de epígrafe, la cual se notificó y archivó en autos el día 14 de septiembre de 2018. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado, estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría durante horas laborables. Que en caso de no producir remate ni adjudicación en la primera subasta a celebrarse, se celebrará una segunda subasta para la venta de la susodicha propiedad, el día 12 de mayo de 2021, a las 9:00 am; y en caso de no producir remate ni adjudicación, se celebrará una tercera subasta el día 19 de mayo de 2021, a las 9:00 am en mi oficina sita en el lugar antes indicado. Que en cumplimiento de un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que ha sido liberado por la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Arecibo, en el caso de epígrafe con fecha de 22 de octubre de 2019, procederé a vender en pública subasta y al mejor postor, todo derecho, título e interés que tenga la parte demandada de epígrafe en el inmueble de su propiedad ubicado en: D-7, 3 St. Regional zdev, Arecibo PR 00612., y que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar marcado con el numero D-7 del Plano de Inscripción del Proyecto VBC-29 del término municipal de Arecibo, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de 230 metros cuadrados con 24 centésimas de otro y en lindes; por el NORTE, con el solar D-21; por el SUR, con la calle 3; por el ESTE, con el solar D-6; y por el OESTE, con el solar D-8.

Finca número 21,677, inscrita al folio 110 del tomo 512 de Arecibo. Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección I de Arecibo. La subasta se llevará a cabo para satisfacer, hasta donde alcance, el importe de las cantidades adeudadas a la parte demandante conforme a la sentencia dictada a su favor, a saber: $54,900.00 de principal, más intereses acumulados al 28 de febrero de 2017, más la cantidad de $12,000.00, equivalente al 10% de la suma principal original pactada, estipulada para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado; más recargos acumulados hasta la fecha en que se pague la deuda; más cualquiera suma de dinero por concepto de contribuciones, primas de seguro hipotecario y riesgo, así como

cualesquiera otras sumas pactadas en la escritura de hipoteca, todas cuyas sumas están líquidas y exigibles. La hipoteca a ejecutarse en el caso de epígrafe fue constituida mediante la escritura número 66, otorgada el día 5 de junio de 2012, Bayamón, Puerto Rico, ante el Notario Público Roberto Soto Tapia y consta inscrita al tomo Karibe de Arecibo, finca número 12,677, Registro de la Propiedad de Arecibo, Sección I de Arecibo. Que la cantidad mínima de licitación en la primera subasta del inmueble antes descrito será la suma de $120,000.00 según se establece en la escritura de hipoteca antes relacionada. En caso de que el inmueble a ser subastado no fuera adjudicado en su primera subasta se ordena la celebración de una segunda subasta de dicho inmueble, en la cual, la cantidad mínima será una equivalente a 2/3 parte de aquella, o sea la suma de $80,000.00; desierta también la segunda subasta de dicho inmueble, se ordena la celebración de una tercera subasta en la cual, la cantidad mínima será la mitad del precio pactado para la primera subasta, es decir la suma de $60,000.00. La propiedad se adjudicará al mejor postor, quien deberá satisfacer el importe de su oferta en moneda legal y corriente de los Estados Unidos de América en el momento de la adjudicación, entiéndase efectivo, giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, y que las cargas y gravámenes preferentes, si los hubiese, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes, entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. La propiedad no está sujeta a gravámenes anteriores y/o preferentes según surge de las constancias del Registro de la Propiedad en un estudio de título efectuado a la finca antes descrita. Por la presente se notifica a los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante o acreedores de cargos o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca del actor y a los dueños, poseedores, tenedores de o interesados en títulos transmisibles por endoso o al portador garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito del actor que se celebrarán las subastas en las fechas, horas y sitios señalados para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les conviniere o se les invita a satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, otros cargos y

31

las costas y honorarios de abogado asegurados quedando subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. Entiéndase: Hipoteca Revertida en garantía de un pagaré a favor del Secretario Departamento de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $120,000.00, con intereses al 5.60% anual, vencedero el día 1 de enero de 2084, constituida mediante la escritura número 67, otorgada en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el día 5 de junio de 2012, ante el notario Roberto Soto Tapia, e inscrita al tomo Karibe de Arecibo, finca número 12,677, inscripción 7ma. Una vez efectuada la venta de dicha propiedad, el Alguacil procederá a otorgar la escritura de traspaso al licitador victorioso en subasta, quien podrá ser la parte demandante, cuya oferta podrá aplicarse a la extinción parcial o total de la obligación reconocida por la sentencia dictada en este caso.

La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Si el producto de la venta fuere insuficiente para satisfacer la cantidad reclamada, se procederá a la ejecución de la sentencia en contra de la parte demandada por el remanente de las sumas no satisfechas, mediante embargo y venta en ejecución de cualesquiera otros bienes propiedad de la parte demandada en cantidad suficiente para dejar cubierta y totalmente satisfecha a la parte demandante cualquier deficiencia o parte insoluta de la sentencia dictada a su favor según dispuesto en la sentencia dictada en este caso.

Se dispone, conforme con la sentencia dictada en este caso que, una vez efectuada la subasta y vendido el bien inmueble, los adjudicatarios sean puestos en posesión del mismo dentro del término de veinte (20) días por el Alguacil de este Honorable Tribunal y los actuales poseedores lanzados del referido inmueble. De ser ello necesario, el Alguacil podrá diligenciar el Acta de Subasta que se expida en horas laborales, de día, los 5 días de la semana y podrá romper cualquier cerradura o candado que dé acceso al inmueble objeto de este desalojo. Y para la concurrencia de licitadores y para el público en general, se publicará este Edicto de acuerdo con la ley, mediante edicto, en un periódico de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, una vez por semana, por espacio de dos (2) semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones, y para su fijación en tres (3) lugares públicos del municipio en que ha de celebrarse la venta, tales como la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía, y se le notificará además a la parte deman-

dada vía correo certificado con acuse de recibo a la última dirección conocida. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente Edicto de Subasta para conocimiento y comparecencia de los licitadores, bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, en Arecibo, Puerto Rico, a 10 de MARZO de 2021. ANGEL DE JESUS TORRES PEREZ, ALGUACIL, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE ARECIBO.

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

to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala Superior de BAYAMON.

PR RECOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT JV, LLC Demandante v.

ALEJANDRO FRANACCI FONTACHAM, FULANA DE TAL & LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Demandado(a) Civil Núm. BY2020CV03016 (702). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO, INCUMPLIMIENTO DE CONTRATO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

STEVEN ARTHUR A: ALEJANDRO PAULI SIMONPIETRI FRANACCI FONTACHAM, Y SU ESPOSA KARLA FULANA DE TAL & LA MICHELLE RIVAS RIVERA SOCIEDAD LEGAL Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR COMPUESTAR POR AMBOS ELLOS (Nombre de las partes a las que se le Demandante v.

FULANO DE TAL Y MENGANO DEL CUAL

Demandado(a) Civil Núm. SJ2021CV00869.

SALA 802. Sobre: CANCELACION DE PAGARE EXTRAVIAD EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: FULANO DE TAL Y MENGANO DEL CUAL

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 29 de marzo de 2021, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 31 de marzo de 2021. En SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, el 31 de marzo de 2021.

Griselda Rodriguez Collado, Secretaria. Elsie Pratts Melendez, Sec Auxiliar.

LEGAL NOTICE Estado Libre Asociado de Puer-

notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 30 de marzo de 2021, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto.

Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 31 de marzo de 2021. En BAYAMON, Puerto Rico, el 31 de marzo de 2021. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria. F/ELIBETH M. TORRES ALICEA, Sec Auxiliar.

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante v.

SUCESION DE CARMEN OJEDA NEGRON COMPUESTA POR FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, como posibles

32 herederos desconocidos

Demandado(a) Civil Núm. CA2019CV01311 (406). Sobre: INTERPELACION Y COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCION DE GARANTIAS. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, como posibles herederos desconocidos de la Sucesión de Carmen Ojeda Negron

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 29 de marzo de 2021, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto.

Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 29 de marzo de 2021. En CAROLINA, Puerto Rico, el 31 de marzo de 2021. MARILYN APONTE RODRIGUEZ, Secretaria. JANNETTE RAMIREZ BERNARD, Sec Auxiliar.

de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los DIEZ DÍAS siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representado usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia o Sentencia Parcial, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de TREINTA DÍAS contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha del 31 de marzo de 2021.

En Yauco, Puerto Rico, a 31 de marzo de 2021. LUZ MAYRA CARABALLO GARCÍA, Secretaria Regional. Por: f/DELIA APONTE VELÁZQUEZ, Secretaria Auxiliar I.

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante v.

SUTANO Y PERENCEJO DE TAL, posibles herederos desconocidos de EVELYN ORTIZ DE JESUS, con dirección e identidad desconocida.

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 17 de marzo de 2021, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 29 de marzo de 2021. En CAROLINA, Puerto Rico, el 29 de marzo de 2021.

LCDA. MARILYN APONTE RODRIGUEZ, Secretaria. MARY D. CARRASQUILLO BETANCOURT, Sec Auxiliar.

SUCESIONES de ANGEL TOMAS CORTIJO ROMAN t/c/c ANGEL T. CORTIJO ROMAN y de EVELYN ORTIZ DE JESUS compuestas por MARIVELIZ CORTIJO LEGAL NOTICE ORTIZ, JOSE ANGEL CORTIJO ORTIZ, SUTANO M&T Y PERENCEJO DE TAL, 80609 ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO posibles herederos DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUdesconocidos; ELSIE NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA AMARILYS CORTIJO CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAROLEGAL NOTICE LINA SALA SUPERIOR, ORTIZ t/c/c ELSIE A. Estado Libre Asociado de PuerESTRELLA HOMES LLC CORTIJO ORTIZ por si to Rico Tribunal General de Demandante v. y como herederos de Justicia Tribunal de Primera Marta Iris Cabrera ambas, SUCESIONES; Instancia Sala Superior MuRodríguez (Titular DEPARTAMENTO nicipal de Yauco en Sabana Registral); ahora La DE HACIENDA por Grande.

Sucesión de Marta Iris conducto de la DIVISION COOPERATIVA DE Cabrera Rodríguez DE CAUDALES AHORRO Y CREDITO compuesta por Luis RELICTOS; CENTRO DE CABO ROJO Cabrera Santiago y DEMANDANTE Vs DE RECAUDACION DE CORALY TORRES ROSAS INGRESOS MUNICIPALES Fulana y Fulano de Tal DEMANDADOS como posibles herederos (CRIM) Civil Núm.: YU2020CV00357. desconocidos Demandado(a) Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: CORALY TORRES ROSAS P/C LCDO. RAFAEL FABRE COLÓN.

El Secretario(a) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 30 de marzo de 2021, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia o Sentencia Parcial en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos

Civil Núm. CA2019CV02659.

Sala: (407). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO y EJECUCION DE HIPOTECA POR LA VIA ORDINARIA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: FULANO, MENGANO DE TAL, posibles herederos desconocidos de ANGEL TOMAS CORTIJO ROMAN t/c/c ANGEL T. CORTIJO ROMAN, con dirección e identidad desconocida.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Demandados CIVIL NÚM: CA2018CV01263.

SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. El Alguacil que suscribe por la presente CERTIFICA, ANUNCIA y hace CONSTAR: Que en cumplimiento de un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que le ha sido dirigido al Alguacil que suscribe por la Secretaría del TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAROLINA SALA

SUPERIOR, en el caso de epígrafe procederá a vender en pública subasta al mejor postor quién pagará de contado y en moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América, giro postal o por cheque de gerente a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia el DÍA 20 DE MAYO DE 2021, A LAS 1:30 DE LA TARDE en su oficina sita en el local que ocupa en el edificio del TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAROLINA SALA SUPERIOR, todo derecho, título e interés que tenga la parte demandada de epígrafe en el inmueble de su propiedad que ubica en 19 Begonia Urb. Los Angeles Carolina, PR 00979 t/c/c Solar #19, Bloque WJ, Urb. Reparto Los Angeles Extension 2 Bo. Cangrejos Arriba Carolina, PR 00979 y que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar número 19 del bloque ‘WJ’ del plano de Urbanización del Reparto Los Angeles, extensión número 2, sito en el Barrio Cangrejos Arriba de Carolina, con una cabida de 312.00 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el Norte, en 24.00 metros, con el solar número 20 de dicho bloque; por el Sur, en 24.00 metros, con el solar número 18 de dicho bloque; por el Este, en 13.00 metros, con el solar número 12 de dicho bloque; y por el Oeste, en 13.00 metros, con la calle ‘A’. Enclava una casa. TRACTO REGISTRAL: Se segrega de la finca 2958, inscrita al folio 60 del tomo 66 de Carolina. La propiedad antes relacionada consta inscrita en el Folio 239 del Tomo 36 de Carolina, finca número 1,506, en el Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección Primera.

El tipo mínimo para la primera subasta del inmueble antes relacionado será el dispuesto en la Escritura de Hipoteca, es decir la suma de $227,554.61.

Si no hubiere remate ni adjudicación en la primera subasta del inmueble mencionado, se celebrará una segunda subasta en las oficinas del Alguacil que suscribe el DÍA 27 DE MAYO DE 2021, A LAS 1:30 DE LA TARDE. En la segunda subasta que se celebre servirá de tipo mínimo las dos terceras partes (2/3) del precio pactado en la primera subasta, o sea la suma de $151,703.07. Si tampoco hubiere remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta se celebrará una tercera subasta en las oficinas del Alguacil que suscribe el DÍA 3 DE JUNIO DE 2021, A LAS 1:30 DE LA TARDE. Para la tercera subasta servirá de tipo mínimo la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado para el caso de ejecución, o sea, la suma de $113,777.31. La hipoteca a ejecutarse en el caso de epígrafe fue constituida mediante la escritura número 209,

otorgada el día 23 de junio de 2008, ante el Notario Rafael Maldonado Pérez y consta inscrita en el Folio 101 del Tomo 989 de Carolina, finca número 1,506, en el Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección Primera, inscripción octava.

Modificada la hipoteca antes relacionada en cuanto a los intereses que serán el 3.850% desde el 1 de agosto de 2014 al 1 de agosto de 2017, luego al 6.125% hasta su vencimiento que será el 1 de julio de 2054, los intereses son calculados por el principal de $207,276.05, mediante escritura número 245, otorgada en San Juan el 30 de junio de 2014, ante el notario público Juan Martínez Romero, e inscrita al tomo Karibe de Carolina, finca 1,506, inscripción 11va. Modificada la hipoteca antes relacionada en cuanto al principal que será $227,554.61, con intereses al 6.125% vencedero el 1 s julio de 2054, mediante la escritura número 175, otorgada en San Juan, el 29 de junio de 2016, ante el notario público Juan Martínez Romero, e inscrita al tomo Karibe de Carolina, finca 1,506, inscripción 13va. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo para con su producto satisfacer al Demandante total o parcialmente según sea el caso el importe de la Sentencia que ha obtenido ascendente a la suma de $204,814.87 por concepto de principal, más intereses al tipo pactado de 6.125% anual desde el día 1 de diciembre de 2017. Dichos intereses continúan acumulándose hasta el pago total de la obligación.

Se pagarán también los cargos por demora equivalentes a 5.000% de la suma de aquellos pagos con atrasos en exceso de 15 días calendarios de la fecha vencimiento, la suma de $22,500.00 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, la suma de $22,500.00para cubrir los intereses en adición a los garantizados por ley y la suma de $22,500.00 para cubrir cualquier otro adelanto que se haga en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca, más intereses según provisto por la Regla 44.3 de las de Procedimiento Civil. Que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al Procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la SECRETARIA DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAROLINA SALA SUPERIOR durante las horas laborables. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad del inmueble y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes.

Se entenderá que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio de remate.

La propiedad no está sujeta a gravámenes anteriores y/o preferentes según surge de las constancias del Registro de la Propiedad en un estudio de título efectuado a la finca antes descrita. Por la presente se notifica a los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante o acreedores de cargos o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca del actor y a los dueños, poseedores, tenedores de o interesados en títulos transmisibles por endoso o al portador garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito del actor que se celebrarán las subastas en las fechas, horas y sitios señalados para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les conviniere o se les invita a satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, otros cargos y las costas y honorarios de abogado asegurados quedando subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. Y para conocimiento de licitadores del público en general se publicará este Edicto de acuerdo con la ley por espacio de dos semanas en tres sitios públicos del municipio en que ha de celebrarse la venta, tales como la alcaldía, el Tribunal y la colecturía. Este Edicto será publicado mediante edictos dos veces en un diario de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas consecutivas. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores sujeto a lo dispuesto en los Artículos 113 al 116 de la Ley 210 del 8 de diciembre de 2015, según aplique. Expido el presente Edicto de subasta bajo mi firma, en Carolina, Puerto Rico, hoy día 31 de MARZO de 2021. FDO. SAMUEL GONZALEZ ISAAC, ALGUACIL.

CORPORATION H/N/C HF MORTGAGE BANKERS, FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL

(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 24 de marzo de 2021, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 30 de marzo de 2021. En GUAYNABO, Puerto Rico, el 30 de marzo de 2021.

LCDA. LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, Secretaria. F/MAIRENI TRINTA MALDONADO, Sec Auxiliar.

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

LIME HOMES, LTD. Demandante V.

SUCESIÓN DE IRMA ANGÉLICA PÉREZ PÉREZ T/C/C ANGÉLICA PÉREZ PÉREZ T/C/C IRMA A. PÉREZ PÉREZ T/C/C IRMA ANGÉLICA PÉREZ T/C/C IRMA PÉREZ LEGAL NOTICE PÉREZ COMPUESTA Estado Libre Asociado de Puer- POR MARITZA HUERTAS to Rico TRIBUNAL GENERAL PÉREZ, MIGUEL ÁNGEL DE JUSTICIA Tribunal de PriHUERTAS PÉREZ, LA mera Instancia Sala Superior SUCESIÓN DE IRMA de GUAYNABO. LUNA ACQUISITION, LLC MARGARITA HUERTAS PÉREZ COMPUESTA Demandante v.

POR JOSÉ DAVID FIRST FINANCIAL RÍOS HUERTAS, CARIBBEAN JOEL IVÁN RÍOS CORPORATION H/N/C HUERTAS; HONORABLE HF MORTGAGE SECRETARIO DE BANKERS, FULANO DE HACIENDA DEL TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL, ESTADO LIBRE ORIENTAL BANK Demandado(a) ASOCIADO DE PUERTO Civil Núm. GB2020CV00716.

RICO; HONORABLE SALA 201. Sobre: CANCELASECRETARIO DEL CION DE PAGARE EXTRAVIADEPARTAMENTO DE DO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENJUSTICIA DEL ESTADO TENCIA POR EDICTO. LIBRE ASOCIADO DE A: FIRST FINANCIAL PUERTO RICO CARIBBEAN

Demandados CIVIL NÚM.: DCD2016-2172 (701). SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. AVISO DE VENTA EN PÚBLICA SUBASTA. Yo, MARIBEL LANZAR VELAZQUEZ, Alguacil de la División de Subastas del Tribunal de Primera Instancia de Bayamón, a los demandados y al público en general les notifico que, cumpliendo con un Mandamiento que se ha librado en el presente caso por el Secretario del Tribunal de Bayamón, con fecha 24 de febrero de 2021 y para satisfacer la Sentencia por la cantidad de $54,795.91 de principal, dictada el 26 de diciembre de 2018 y notificada el 22 de febrero de 2019, procederé a vender en pública subasta, al mejor postor en pago de contado y en moneda del curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América, mediante efectivo, giro o cheque certificado a nombre del Alguacil de este Tribunal todo derecho, título e interés que hayan tenido tengan o puedan tener los deudores demandados en cuanto a la propiedad localizada en el Municipio de Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el bien inmueble se describe a continuación: URBANA: Propiedad Horizontal: Torres del Parque, Torre Norte, Apartamento Número 611 para fines residenciales, con un área superficial de setecientos noventa y tres punto setenta y ocho pies cuadrados (793.78 pc), equivalentes a setenta y tres punto setenta y cuatro metros cuadrados (73.74 mc.). En lindes: por el NORTE, en veinticinco pies cuatro pulgadas (25’4”) con el exterior del edificio; por el SUR, en veinticinco pies cuatro pulgadas (25’4”) con el apartamento número seiscientos doce (612); por el ESTE, en treinta y un pies cuatro pulgadas (31’4”) con el corredor del edificio; y por el OESTE, en treinta y un pies cuatro pulgadas con el exterior del edificio (31’4”), con el exterior del edificio. Consta este apartamento de sala-comedor, cocina, tres (3) cuartos dormitorio con sus respectivos guardarropas y un cuarto de baño. La entrada y salida a este apartamento se encuentra en su lado OESTE, la cual conduce a los ascensores que dan acceso al exterior del edificio. Le corresponde a este apartamento un espacio de estacionamiento identificado con el número 291 y 0.025706% de participación en los elementos comunes del edificio. Finca #72,587, inscrita al folio 121 del tomo 1736 de Bayamón Sur, Registro de la Propiedad de Bayamón, Segunda Sección. Con el importe de dicha venta se habrá de satisfacer a la parte demandante las cantidades adeudadas, según la Sentencia dictada en el caso de epígrafe, por el Tribu-

The San Juan Daily Star nal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Bayamón, cuyas cantidades son las siguientes: $54,795.91 de principal, intereses al 6.75%, los cuales continúan acumulándose hasta el saldo total de la deuda; recargos a razón de 5% de cada pago vencido no recibido dentro de los quince (15) días después de la fecha de vencimiento; más el 10% del principal del pagaré para cubrir costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados pactado.

El tipo mínimo para la subasta será la suma de tasación pactada, la cual es $69,000.00 según la escritura de hipoteca para la propiedad descrita. De declararse la subasta desierta, se procederá a una segunda subasta y servirá de tipo mínimo de 2/3 del precio mínimo antes mencionado; $46,000.00.

Si tampoco hubiere remate ni adjudicación en esta segunda subasta, se procederá a una tercera subasta, en la cual regirá como tipo mínimo ésta la 1/2 del precio mínimo antes mencionado; $34,500.00. La primera subasta se llevará a cabo el 10 de mayo de 2021, a las 10:45 de la mañana. De no comparecer postor alguno se llevará a efecto una segunda subasta el 17 de mayo de 2021, a las 10:45 de la mañana. De no comparecer postor alguno se llevará a cabo una tercera subasta el 24 de mayo de 2021, a las 10:45 de la mañana. La subasta o subastas antes indicadas se llevarán a efecto en la Sala 503 del Quinto (5to.) Piso del Centro Judicial de Bayamón. Del Estudio de Título realizado no surgen gravámenes preferentes y/o posteriores. Se advierte a los licitadores que la adjudicación se hará al mejor postor, quien deberá consignar el importe de su oferta en el mismo acto de la adjudicación en moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica y para conocimiento de la parte demandada y de toda(s) aquella(s) persona(s) que tengan interés inscrito con posterioridad a la inscripción del gravamen que se está ejecutando, y para conocimiento de los licitadores y el público en general y para su publicación en un periódico de circulación general, una vez por semana durante el término de dos (2) semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones, y para su fijación en tres (3) lugares públicos del municipio en que ha de celebrarse la venta, tales como, la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía y se le notificará además a la parte demandada vía correo certificado con acuse de recibo a la última dirección conocida.

La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores, previa orden judicial dirigida al Regis-

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

trador de la Propiedad de la sección correspondiente para la cancelación de aquellos posteriores. Se les advierte a todos los interesados que todos los documentos relacionados con la presente acción de ejecución de hipoteca, así como la de la subasta, estarán disponibles para ser examinados, durante horas laborables, en la Secretaría del Tribunal. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante, continuarán subsistentes; entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate.

Y para conocimiento de los demandados, de los acreedores posteriores, de los licitadores, partes interesadas y público en general, expido el presente Aviso para su publicación en los lugares públicos correspondientes. Librado en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, a 17 de MARZO de 2021. MARIBEL LANZAR VELAZQUEZ, ALGUACIL.

en Rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la Demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su discreción, lo entiende procedente. Favor de enviar alegación responsiva a: Tromberg, Morris & Poulin, LLC Lcda. Edmy Cortijo Villock R. U.A. 18,126 1515 South Federal Highway, Suite 100 Boca Ratón, FL 33432 Tel. 877-338-4101/Fax 561-338-4077 prservice@tmppllc.com De no recibir su contestación a la demanda dentro del término de treinta (30) días siguientes a la fecha de publicación de este edicto, la parte demandante podrá solicitar que se le anote la rebeldía, y que se dicte sentencia en su contra concediendo el remedio solicitado en la demanda , sin más citarle ni oírle. Se enviará al Demandado copia del Emplazamiento y la Demanda dentro del término de diez (10) días de esta publicación a su última dirección conocida. EXPEDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA, y el sello de este Tribunal, en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy día 23 de marzo del 2021.

LCDA. LAURA l. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, Secretaria Regional.

LEGAL NOTICE SANDRA I CRUZ VAZQUEZ, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO Sec Serv a Sala.

DE PUERTO RICO TRIBULEGAL NOTICE NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYADE PUERTO RICO TRIBUMON. LEGACY MORTGAGE AS NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE AIBONISET TRUST 20 l 9-GS2 TO. Demandante v.

PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. cual puede acceder utilizando EL PUEBLO DE PUERTO la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired.ramaiudicial.

RICO. SS. pr/sumac/, salvo que se repreA: FULANO Y sente por derecho propio, en MENGANO DE TAL, cuyo caso deberá presentar POSIBLES TENEDORES su alegación responsiva en la DESCONOCIDOS DE secretaría del tribunal. Si usted PAGARE deja de presentar su alegación Por la presente se le emplaza responsiva dentro del referido y notifica que debe contestar la término, el tribunal podrá dicdemanda incoada en su contra tar sentencia en rebeldía en su dentro del término de 30 días contra y conceder el remedio a partir de la publicación del solicitado en la demanda, o presente edicto . Usted debe- cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en rá presentar su alegación res- el ejercicio de su sana discreponsiva a través del Sistema ción, lo entiende procedente.

VAZQUEZ & ASSOCIATES Unificado de Manejo y AdminisLAW OFFICES tración de Casos (SUMAC), al LCOA. NICOLE MARIE cual puede acceder utilizando PEÑA CARTAGENA la siguiente dirección electróniRUA 20300 ca: https ://unired .ramajudicial.

379 Calle Cesar González pr/sumac, salvo que se repreHato Rey, San Juan, PR 00918 Tel (787) 766-0949 / sente por derecho propio. Si Fax (787) 771-2425 usted deja de presentar y noEmail: tificar su alegación responsiva vazquezyasociadospr@gmail.com dentro del referido término, el Se le apercibe que de no hacerTribunal podrá dictar sentencia lo, se podrá dictar Sentencia en en rebeldía en su contra y conrebeldía concediendo el remeceder el remedio solicitado en dio solicitado en la demanda, la Demanda, o cualquier otro, sin citarle ni oírle más. EXsi el Tribunal, en el ejercicio de TENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA Y su sana discreción, lo entiende EL SELLO DEL TRIBUNAL, en procedente. La abogada de la Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy día parte demandante: 25 de marzo de 2021. LCDA. LCDA. BELMA ALONSO GARCÍA LAURA I. SANTA SANCHEZ, PO BOX 3922 Sec Regional. EVELYN ROGUAYNABO PR 00970-3922 Tel… 787) 789-1826 y (787) 708-0566; DRIGUEZ PAGAN, Sec Serv Fax: (787) 790-3345 a Sala. oficinabelmaalonso@gmail.com Expido bajo mi firma y con el LEGAL NOTICE Sello Oficial del Tribunal, hoy 11 ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO de marzo de 2021. ELIZABETH DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUGONZALEZ RIVERA, Sec Re- NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA gional. ADA MERLY GARCIA, SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYASec Auxiliar del Tribunal I. MON.

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notificando copia de la misma al abogado (a) de la parte Demandante o a ésta, de no tener representación legal. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), el cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: http://unired.ramaiudicial. pr/sumac/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente.

VAZQUEZ & ASSOCIATES LAW OFFICES LCDA. NICOLE MARIE PEÑA CARTAGENA RUA 20300 379 Calle Cesar González Hato Rey, San Juan, PR 00918 Tel (787) 766-0949 / Fax (787) 771-2425 Email: vazguezyasociadospr@gmail.com Se le apercibe que de no hacerlo, se podrá dictar Sentencia en rebeldía concediendo el remedio solicitado en la demanda, sin citarle ni oírle más. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA Y EL SELLO DEL TRIBUNAL , en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy día 25 de marzo de 2021. LCDA. LAURA l. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, Secretaria Regional. Sandra I Cruz Vazquez, Sec Serv a Sala.

BANCO POPULAR DE AUTORIDAD PARA EL PUERTO RICO FINANCIAMIENTO DE LA Parte Demandante vs EDITH RAFAELA LEGAL NOTICE VIVIENDA DE PUERTO DORAL MORTGAGE LEGAL NOTICE HERNANDEZ FAJARDO ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO RICO; JANE DOE Y JOHN CORPORATION T/C/C ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO t/c/c EDITH RAFAELA DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUDOE COMO POSIBLES DORAL MORTGAGE, NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUHERNANDEZ y LUIS TENEDORES DE PAGARE LLC.; DORAL FINANCIAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYAMANUEL HERNANDEZ NAL EXTRAVIADO SALA SUPERIOR DE SALIMON. CORPORATION; FAJARDO t/c/c LUIS Demandados NAS. LIZ MARIE FEDERAL DEPOSIT MANUEL FAJARDO CIVIL NUM. BY2021CV01109.

BANCO POPULAR DE ORTEGA CLAUDIO INSURANCE Demandante Vs .

SOBRE: SUSTITUCION DE PUERTO RICO Demandante vs.

CORPORATION (FDIC) PAGARE HIPOTECARIO EXJOSE RAUL GUTIERREZ PARTE DEMANDANTE VS. TOMER KADOSH TRAVIADO. EMPLAZAMIENCOMO SÍNDICO t/c/c JOSE RAUL LA SUCESIÓN DE IVETTE Demandado TO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS DE DORAL BANK; GUTIERREZ MONTAÑES SÁEZ HERNÁNDEZ CIVIL NÚM. BY2021RF00472.

UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA EL RELIABLE FINANCIAL SALÓN: SOBRE: DIVORCIO Demandado PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTACOMPUESTA POR: SERVICES, INC. T/C/C (RUPTURA IRREPARABLE). CASO NÚM: BY2021CV00574.

DOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIMILDRED IVETTE SALÓN: 504.

SOBRE: LIQUIRELIABLE FINANCIAL EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO BURGOS SÁEZ, DACIÓN DE BIENES Y PARTIRICO. SS. SERVICES, LLC, H/N/C TO. CION DE HERENCIA. EMPLAVERÓNICA BURGOS A: TOMER KADOSH A: JOHN DOE Y JANE RELIABLE MORTAGE; ZAMIENTO POR EDICTO DEL SÁEZ, PEDRO BURGOS 18909 Lloyd Circle, Apt ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DOE, demandad os VÍCTOR MANUEL SÁEZ, FULANO Y desconocidos: RIVERA DAVID, AÚREA 1316, Dallas Texas 75252 DE PUERTO RICO. MENGANO DE TAL, Queden emplazados y notifiA: JOSE RAUL ALVARADO RIVERA Y POR LA PRESENTE se le emPOSIBLES HEREDEROS plaza para que presente al tricados que en este Tribunal se LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL bunal su alegación responsiva GUTIERREZ t/c/c JOSE DESCONOCIDOS, ha radicado Demanda sobre RAUL GUTIERREZ DE GANANCIALES a la Demanda que se acomPagaré Extraviado . Se adCELSO HERNÁNDEZ MONTAÑES COMPUESTA POR paña con este Emplazamiento, vierte que debe presentar al VILLARONGA POR SÍ Y Urb. Torrimar 1614, dentro de los treinta (30) días AMBOS; FULANO Y tribunal su alegación responsiEN LA CUOTA VIUDAL de haber sido diligenciado este va a la demanda dentro de los Alhambra, Guaynabo, MENGANO DE TAL, USUFRUCTUARIA, Emplazamiento, excluyéndoTREINTA (30) DIAS de haber POSIBLES TENEDORES Puerto Rico 00966.

DEPARTAMENTO se el día del diligenciamiento, POR LA PRESENTE se le emsido diligenciado este emplaDESCONOCIDOS DEL notificando copia de la misma zamiento, excluyéndose el día DE HACIENDA POR plaza para que presente al triPAGARÉ al abogado (a) de la parte De- bunal su alegación responsiva del diligenciamiento. Usted CONDUCTO DE LA Parte Demandada mandante o a ésta, de no tener a la Demanda que se acomdeberá presentar su alegación DIVISIÓN DE CAUDALES CIVIL: Al2021CV00058.

SOrepresentación legal. Usted paña con este Emplazamiento, responsiva en la secretaría del RELICTOS, CENTRO CANCELACIÓN DE deberá presentar su alegación tribunal. Si usted deja de pre- BRE: dentro de los treinta (30) días PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. EMDE RECAUDACIÓN DE responsiva a través del Sistema de haber sido diligenciado este sentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el PLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO Unificado de Manejo y Adminis- Emplazamiento, excluyéndo- INGRESOS MUNICIPALES ESTADOS tración de Casos (SUMAC), el tribunal podrá dictar Sentencia ENMENDADO. (CRIM) se el día del diligenciamiento, UNIDOS

DE AMERICA EL

PARTE DEMANDADA CIVIL NÚM. SA2020CV00045.

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

A: PEDRO BURGOS SÁEZ y MILDRED IVETTE BURGOS SÁEZ, HEREDEROS DE IVETTE SÁEZ HERNÁNDEZ a sus últimas direcciones conocidas: ESTANCIAS DE EVELYMAR, L-7 CALLE 11, SALINAS, PR 00751, 310 COCOA CT., KISSIMMEE FL 347583034, URB ESTANCIAS DE EVELYMAR, 1207 CALLE BAMBÚ, SALINAS, PR 00751-1419, PARCELAS JAUCA, 199 CALLE MARGINAL, SANTA ISABEL, PR 00757, PARCELAS JAUCA, 115 CALLE 2, SANTA ISABEL, PR 00757, URB. BRISAS DEL OASIS, C7 CALLE HECHIZADA, SANTA ISABEL, PR 00757, PARCELAS JAUCA, 571 CALLE 5, SANTA ISABEL, PR 00757, 509 E LITTLE DIPPER, KILLEEN, TX 765425887 Y 7109 MICHIGAN AVE., DETROIT, MI 48210-2248. FULANO y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS.

Queda usted notificado que en este Tribunal se ha radicado demanda sobre ejecución de hipoteca por la vía ordinaria en la que se alega se adeuda las siguientes cantidades: $67,318.09 de principal, más intereses sobre dicha suma al 3.75% anual desde el 1 de junio de 2017 hasta su completo pago, más $299.67 de recargos acumulados, más la cantidad estipulada de $6,945.10 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados, así como cualquier otra suma que contenga el contrato del préstamo La propiedad que garantiza hipotecariamente el préstamo es la siguiente: URBANA: Predio de terreno denominado como solar número 7 de bloque L en el plano de parcelación de la urbanización Estancias de Evelymar sita en el Barrio Pueblo del término municipal de Salinas Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de 298.173 metros cuadrados, equivalentes a 0.075 cuerdas.

En lindes por el NORTE: en

23.448 metros, con el solar número 6 del bloque L de la urbanización; por el SUR: en 23.440 metros con el solar número 8 del bloque L de la urbanización; por el ESTE: en 12.723 metros con la calle número 11 de la urbanización; por el OESTE: en 12.723 metros con camino municipal. Afecta a una servidumbre a favor de la Puerto Rico Telephone Company en 1.52 metros en su colindancia Este.

Enclava en dicha propiedad una casa propia para vivienda de una planta construida totalmente de hormigón. La propiedad, la escritura de hipoteca y su modificación constan inscritas al folio 52 del tomo 279 de Salinas, Finca 11466. Registro de la Propiedad de Guayama.

La escritura de hipoteca es la inscripción segunda y la modificación la inscripción tercera.

La demandante es la tenedora por endoso, por valor recibido y de buena fe del referido pagaré objeto de la presente acción.

Se interpela a los demandados para que acepten o renuncien a la herencia de la causante dentro de los 30 días subsiguientes a la fecha que fuesen emplazados o requeridos que contesten, para darle cumplimiento al Artículo 1578 del Código Civil entendiéndose que, si no se expresan dentro de dicho término, aceptan el caudal relicto; la renuncia se hará por instrumento público o por escrito judicial. La parte demandada deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal. Se le advierte que si no contesta la demanda, radicando el original de la contestación en este Tribunal y enviando copia de la contestación a la abogada de la parte demandante, Lcda. Belma Alonso García, cuya dirección es: PO Box 3922, Guaynabo PR 00970-3922, Teléfonos: (787) 789-1826 y (787) 708-0566, correo electrónico: oficinabelmaalonso@gmail.com, dentro del término de treinta (30) días de la publicación de este edicto, excluyéndose el día de la publicación, se le anotará la rebeldía y se le dictará Sentencia en su contra, concediendo el remedio solicitado sin más citarle ni oírle. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal, hoy 23 de marzo de 2021 en Salinas, Puerto Rico. MARISOL ROSADO RODRIGUEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. BRENDA L. RAMOS POMALES, SUBSECRETARIA(O).

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The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Steven Cohen sets high expectations for the Mets. Very high.

By DAVID WALDSTEIN

N

o one yet knows what kind of baseball team owner Steven Cohen will be once games have been played and performances can be measured along with wins and losses.

In Cohen’s first offseason at the helm, New York Mets fans have gotten a taste that their new owner, when properly motivated, can spend like George Steinbrenner. But will a bombastic and impatient side suddenly appear at the first sign of a losing streak? Or will he demonstrate a hands-off patience, the way Nelson Doubleday once did as the Mets’ owner?

It will take time to learn Cohen’s inseason tendencies, a process that began Monday night in Philadelphia, where the game played by a familiar script from previous seasons. A solid start by Jacob deGrom had the Mets staked to a lead through seven innings, only for the bullpen to collapse late in a 5-3 loss.

Just hours before the first pitch Monday, Cohen made clear that his expectations were high: As in, championships, plural.

During a video conference call with reporters, Cohen discussed his expectations and his choice to give star shortstop Francisco Lindor a 10-year, $341 million contract extension. The deal makes Lindor the cornerstone of the team, now and into a future that Cohen believes will include multiple golden trophies for a franchise that hasn’t won one since 1986.

“I think he is going to lead us to division titles, pennants and World Series championships,” Cohen said of Lindor in a prepared statement before taking questions from reporters. “He’s all in. I told you I’m all in, and this should leave no doubt.”

Cohen, a billionaire hedge fund manager, would not say later whether all of that would happen in 2021, but he added, “I do believe we are going to make the playoffs, and once you get into the playoffs, anything can happen, right?”

But how will Cohen react if those expectations are not met? Would Luis Rojas, the manager whose contract option for next year has not yet been picked up, or Sandy Alderson, the president of baseball operations, eventually pay the price if the team did not fulfill the new owner’s demands?

So far, whether through his jocular Twitter account or in interviews, Cohen evokes the image of the agreeable, avuncular kind

Bryce Harper and Rhys Hoskins of the Philadelphia Phillies both scored during a five-run eighth inning that led the team to a win over the Mets on Monday. of owner more than a stern taskmaster. But he has only been in charge of the team for five months, without seeing a single real atbat.

In that time, however, Cohen has done his part as owner. He signed Lindor to the largest contract in franchise history — and the largest ever given to a shortstop. He committed more than $90 million to several other players, including catcher James McCann and pitchers Taijuan Walker, Trevor May and Aaron Loup. (He also made a substantial offer to the offseason’s top free agent pitcher, Trevor Bauer, but Bauer chose instead to sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers).

It is now up to the rebuilt Mets to realize Cohen’s expectations.

“I can’t hit the ball, I’m not pitching,” Cohen said of his ability to impact the team.

“It’s ultimately up to the players. You can lay down all sorts of plans, you can acquire players, you can promote players, but ultimately it’s up to them to play.”

He added: “We are there to support them and to adapt if we need to adapt. But I think our organization has prepared the team to perform well, and obviously we need to be flexible as the season progresses, right? The goal is to win. That’s the mantra, and I know the players want to win, too.”

Cohen lauded Alderson for what he called a “phenomenal trade” that brought

Lindor to the Mets in January from Cleveland. Alderson, who was also on the call, returned the favor, remarking that the parameters under which he works have changed noticeably from those established by Fred Wilpon, Saul Katz and Jeff Wilpon, the triumvirate that sold the team to Cohen late last year.

“It’s different, certainly,” Alderson, who had been the Mets’ general manager from 2010 to 2018, said in an unmistakable reference to the Wilpon/Katz dynasty’s unwillingness to spend as lavishly as Cohen has.

“I’m much appreciative of the support that Steve has shown in a variety of different ways, including financially.”

Cohen said that he is finding his “sea legs,” as an owner, which prompted Alderson to hark back to comments that Cohen had made when he assumed control of the team in November.

At the time, Cohen warned that he would not spend irresponsibly like a “drunken sailor.” But in what is certainly more music to the ears of Mets fans, Cohen also declared, “We are going to act like a major market club.”

That has not always been the case in Flushing.

During the negotiations with Lindor, Cohen said, he had several social interactions with the player, forming a bond. Part

of that was a result of Cohen’s in-laws (the parents of his wife, Alex Cohen), who are from Caguas, Puerto Rico, the same town Lindor is from. Cohen called Lindor “special” several times on the call and said he had been optimistic a deal would be struck because of the enormous amount of money he initially put on the bargaining table.

Cohen eventually came up from his first offer, and Lindor came down from his initial ask, with the pair meeting near the middle. But in what could be seen as a warning to future free agents, Cohen said that pursuing something desirable cannot be done at any cost.

“Because of my experiences in the art market and the business world, I’ve learned to be very disciplined and I hope that was reflected in how I handled the negotiations,” he said of the discussions with Lindor. “No guarantee it was going to happen.

I wanted it to happen, but not at the expense of making a bad deal for myself.”

Alderson and Cohen also answered questions on other topics, including whether there had been any progress on discussions for contract extensions with Michael Conforto, deGrom and Noah Syndergaard.

Cohen said there had been general conversations with all relevant players but reported no notable progress or expectations with any of them yet.

Cohen said he supported the decision made by Rob Manfred, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, to move the AllStar Game out of Atlanta in protest of the new Georgia voting laws, which many say are aimed at restricting access to Black voters.

“I know the commissioner made a well-considered decision and I respect that,” Cohen said.

Cohen and Alderson were also asked about coronavirus vaccinations for players. Some, including on the Mets, have expressed reservations about taking the shots, which Alderson acknowledged. He encouraged the players to get vaccinated, as he has, he said, and added that medical staff will be on hand in Philadelphia to educate the players about the process.

Cohen added that there was hope that attendance at Citi Field, which for now is restricted to 20% because of the pandemic, will go up during the course of the season.

“I’m optimistic, given the pace of vaccinations, that the state and city will loosen up capacity restrictions as we go along.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

35

The all-new Mets follow an all-too-familiar script in loss

By DAVID WALDSTEIN

T

here was so much new that was on display for the New York Mets on Monday night — a new owner with a new superstar shortstop, a new catcher, two new relief pitchers and a new optimism for a brand-new season.

But a familiar old problem emerged late in the game that turned a potentially uplifting win into a demoralizing loss, souring the inauguration of the Steven Cohen era.

Jacob deGrom threw superbly over six strong innings and was even a force with the bat. For the first time in 60 years, a Mets pitcher had the team’s first hit of the season, and he proceeded to go 2 for 3 with an RBI. But the Mets bullpen melted down in the eighth inning, and for the 31st time in deGrom’s career the team blew a game that its ace had placed on a platter.

The Philadelphia Phillies scored five times in the eighth inning off Trevor May and Aaron Loup, two relievers added during the Mets’ busy offseason, and stunned the Mets 5-3 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.

It was the first time the Mets had lost on opening day since 2016 and only their 13th opening day loss since 1970. But once again, deGrom was left answering questions about how it felt to pitch well yet not get a win.

“I’ve said it many times before, the goal is to keep us in the game and give us

Jacob deGrom went 2 for 3 on Monday. He got the Mets’ first hit of the season and drove in a run. a chance to win,” deGrom said. “A couple of unfortunate things happened there in the eighth.”

Most unfortunate was that deGrom was no longer pitching, although that was probably the prudent decision. He was removed to protect his health even though he had only thrown 77 pitches, the last of which hit 100.1 mph.

The Mets had waited four days to play their first game of the season because their originally scheduled opening series in Washington was postponed because of a coronavirus outbreak among the Nationals players and staff members. That meant deGrom had not thrown to batters in 10 days, leading to a concern about

overextending, and possibly injuring, the best pitcher in baseball on the first day of the season.

DeGrom said he agreed with the decision, but only because of the off circumstances of the delayed start.

“If it was Thursday and normal rest, I don’t think there was any way I’m coming out of that game,” he said.

But it was not the seventh inning that was the problem. Miguel Castro handled that one without allowing a run. To that point the Mets had looked sharp, getting some excellent defense to go with another deGrom mini-gem. Francisco Lindor, the Mets’ new shortstop who officially signed his 10-year, $341 million extension earlier in the day, contributed by kicking off a crisp double play in the second inning and danced off the field with his teammates.

But everything unraveled in the eighth. May, whom the Mets signed as a free agent after he spent six years with the Minnesota Twins, gave up two singles and a walk to load the bases, and Mets manager Luis Rojas brought in the left-handed Loup to face Bryce Harper, the Phillies’ left-handed No. 3 hitter.

Loup hit Harper in the leg with a pitch, forcing in a run.

“Hitting the first batter started it all and set it off,” said Loup, who, by rule, had to stay in the game to face at least two more batters or get a double play. J.T. Realmuto singled to left and Alec Bohm

hit a bouncer to Luis Guillorme, who had been inserted for defense at third base.

But Guillorme’s attempt to force out the lead runner at home sailed wide.

James McCann, the Mets’ new catcher, stepped early toward Guillorme and was unable to adjust to catch the ball. It tipped off his glove and skipped behind him, allowing two runs to score. The final run scored on a sacrifice fly by Didi Gregorius.

“There was a lot of excitement leading up to this day, and it’s not the way you want it to end,” May said. “It was frustrating. I can’t imagine what it was like to watch it.”

The Mets put together a modest rally in the ninth off hard-throwing lefty José Alvarado, including Lindor’s first hit as a Met. With two outs, Kevin Pillar and Lindor singled and Michael Conforto ripped a single to right, scoring Pillar.

Joe Girardi, the Phillies’ manager, opted to leave Alvarado in to face the right-handed Pete Alonso, who tagged a pitch to deep right field. For a moment it seemed the Mets might take the lead, but instead it was another game deGrom should have won that the bullpen — and some suspect defense — gave away instead.

“Jake shouldn’t have to do everything himself. That’s not what teams are,” May said, and added, “You really want to go out and finish what he started, because it’s masterful most of the time.”

Coors Field chosen as replacement host for 2021 All-Star Game

By JAMES WAGNER

A

fter pulling the 2021 All-Star Game from suburban Atlanta because of a new Georgia voting law that is viewed as restrictive, Major League Baseball has found a new home for its marquee event: Coors Field in Denver.

The switch was confirmed by a person directly familiar with the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly because the official announcement was expected later Tuesday. ESPN first reported the new site.

Following days of mounting pres-

sure to take a stand, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced on Friday that he was removing the July 13 game from the Atlanta Braves’ stadium, Truist Park, while also removing the amateur draft from the venue, because he decided that “the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating.” In making his decision, Manfred spent a week talking and listening to, among others, MLB club owners, team and central office executives, and current and former players.

President Joe Biden joined the growing call for the relocation of the game because of the voting law, which he and civil rights groups predicted would have

an outsize impact on people of color.

Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola, two large sponsors of the Braves, decried the law a few days before MLB’s announcement.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and other Republicans have since lashed out at the league and Manfred.

The Braves said they were “deeply disappointed” by Manfred’s decision and called businesses, employees and fans in Georgia “victims” of his decision. MLB said it would continue with its plans to celebrate former Atlanta player and executive Hank Aaron, a Hall of Famer who died earlier this year, during the All-Star week festivities.

After Manfred’s announcement, officials from various states and cities lobbied to host the All-Star Game, including the mayor of Milwaukee, where Aaron began and ended his major-league career.

But in the end, MLB chose Denver. The Rockies last hosted the AllStar Game in 1998, with the American League winning, 13-8, in the highestscoring Midsummer Classic in MLB history.

The Los Angeles Dodgers, who were slated to host the 2020 All-Star Game that was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, will host the 2022 game.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Baylor denies Gonzaga a perfect season, winning NCAA men’s basketball title

By BILLY WITZ

T

here was a symmetry about Gonzaga’s arrival in the NCAA men’s basketball championship game — the unbeaten Zags bidding to be the first unblemished champion since Indiana, the state’s flagship basketball school, last accomplished the feat in 1976.

That Gonzaga, the small Jesuit school tucked away in the Northwest on the less urbane side of the Cascade Range, rolled up with a freewheeling offense, one that would appeal to the basketball cognoscenti’s “Hoosiers” sensibilities, was all the better.

A Gonzaga victory would have also put a bow on an anomalous season that was played through the coronavirus pandemic, when about one in five games — including a firstround matchup in this tournament — were called off and some teams went weeks without being able to play.

Baylor, though, had other ideas, laying waste to those plans with a wrecking ball defense and a hail of 3-pointers, emphatically ruining Gonzaga’s bid for a perfect season Monday night with an 86-70 victory at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis to claim the program’s first championship.

Baylor’s guard trio, advertised as the best in the country, was as good as its billing with Jared Butler scoring 22 points with seven assists, Davion Mitchell adding 15 points and five assists, and MaCio Teague contributing 19 points. And the Baylor defense held the Zags to a season-low point total.

As the final buzzer sounded, the Bears — who were eliminated by Gonzaga in the second round two years ago — bounded off the bench and onto the court, having vanquished the team they had long been eyeing.

“It’s harder to win it this year than ever before with the stoppages and testing and the sacrificing your social life just so you can play basketball games,” said Butler, the tournament’s most outstanding player after athletes spent more than three weeks in an Indianapolis hotel, playing in front of diminished crowds and precluded from coming in contact with their families. “Having no fans sometimes, it’s just hard to get up sometimes for these games.”

He added: “It was really cool to say we did that in the midst of adversity, in the midst of tribulations, and to bring it home for Baylor, it’s amazing.”

As Baylor celebrated, Gonzaga’s players huddled in front of their bench, arms draped over each other’s shoulders coming to grips with an unfamiliar emotion, experiencing their first loss in 14 months.

“You really do forget what it’s like to lose,” said Corey Kispert, Gonzaga’s senior forward.

“And every time it happens, it doesn’t feel good.”

Almost from the moment the season tipped off in late November, the Bears (28-2) had laid in the shadow of Gonzaga (31-1), and they entered the tournament as they entered the season — as the second-ranked team in the country.

As Baylor cruised past Houston in one semifinal Saturday night, Gonzaga had less than 48 hours to recover from an overtime slugfest with UCLA that was as draining emotionally as it was physically. They had staved off the No. 11-seeded Bruins only when Jalen Suggs banked in a shot from near half court at the buzzer.

The Zags looked out on their feet at the opening tip.

When the jump ball goes up at the start of a basketball championship game, the football stadiums where title events are now staged are typically pulsating with energy. But because of local health restrictions, this stadium floor was sheathed in half by a black curtain and only about 20% of the building’s seats were filled.

The official attendance was not announced.

If the energy wasn’t supplied by the crowd, the Bears brought their own, scoring the first nine points of the game, and Gonzaga never drew closer than eight. Baylor, the best 3-point shooting team in the country during the regular season, met its standard by making 10 of 23 shots behind the arc. The Bears also dominated the boards, out-rebounding Gonzaga by 38-22, and limited the breakneck Zags to 15 fast-break points.

“I never felt like we played with that weight all year,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. “I always felt like we were the aggressor and we were always — I call it attack mode. We just ran into a team tonight that was — they were the aggressor clearly.”

Baylor, which was in the championship game for the first time since 1948, became the second team from Texas to win a title — the other being Texas-Western, whose landmark victory in 1966 was the first achieved with an all-Black lineup.

If Gonzaga was trying to complete its rise from basketball backwater over the last two decades to a national champion, the Bears title capped an ascent from a far darker place.

When Baylor coach Scott Drew was hired 18 years ago, it was in the aftermath of one of the sport’s most notorious scandals that centered around one Baylor player murdering another and the coach at the time urging his other players to lie to investigators.

Baylor won 21 games in the first three seasons under Drew, who held tryouts for walkons in those early years. Twice the Bears had

been beaten in a regional final and last year they were set to enter the tournament as a top seed before it was wiped out by the pandemic.

“We weren’t going to have any regrets with this tournament,” Drew said. “We were going to leave it on the court.”

This rare matchup of the top-ranked teams was a long time coming.

The two coaches, Drew and Few, have a deep connection. Baylor has two assistants who have worked or played for Few; Gonzaga has one who has worked for Drew’s brother, Bryce. The coaches are avid fishermen — “he’s the king of fly fishing; I think I’m king of the bass fishing,” Drew said — and have teamed up as pickleball partners during their time in Indianapolis, sending text messages to each other with a prayer and good luck wishes before each game here.

Their scheduled game in Indianapolis on Dec. 5 was canceled 90 minutes before tipoff because of a positive test within Gonzaga’s traveling party.

As Drew and Few were riding back to their hotel after a news conference, they joked about meeting again in April. Still, they tried furiously to reschedule the game, in part because of their obligation to broadcast partners but also because they thought such a matchup would generate attention on the sport when many viewers were focused on football.

They considered Indianapolis; Las Vegas; Kansas City, Missouri; Phoenix; and Sioux Falls, South Dakota — also Fort Worth, Texas, although that was too close to a Baylor home game for Few. “Our futile human plans,” Few called the arrangements.

Baylor kept pace with Gonzaga for three months until it was thrown off course by the coronavirus. The Bears, who won their first 18 games, didn’t play for 21 days beginning in early February. When they returned, they barely escaped against Iowa State, the last-place team in the Big 12 Conference, and then lost at Kansas. They recovered to win their next four games before being beaten by Oklahoma State in the Big 12 tournament semifinals.

A lockdown defense had suddenly become leaky.

“You can’t be good at defense and not practice it for three weeks, four weeks, five weeks,” said Drew, whose team played so frequently when it returned that there was little time to practice until the week between postseason tournaments. At a time when coaches dial back on practice, Drew worked his players hard.

“Our players really bought in that our defense was slipping,” he said.

The Bears held their six tournament op-

ponents to an average of 61.7 points per game, throttling Gonzaga, Houston and Villanova, three of the top seven most efficient offenses in the country, according to statistical analyst Ken Pomeroy.

A sign of Baylor’s priorities came on the opening tip when it placed Mitchell, the national defensive player of the year, not on Suggs, the freshman who is expected to be one of the top picks in the NBA draft, but on Kispert, a sharpshooting forward who had been off his form for much of the tournament.

If Mitchell could neutralize Kispert, the Bears had the muscle, quickness and doggedness to handle everyone else. It quickly proved a shrewd assessment.

The Zags’ symphonic offense was knocked catawampus by Baylor’s relentless defense. And at the other end, Gonzaga’s defense offered scant resistance as a parade of Bears burst past their defenders leading to lay-ins and open, in-rhythm looks for the best 3-point shooting team in the country. Baylor made its first five 3-pointers and a little more than 7 minutes into the game had put Gonzaga in a 23-8 hole — its largest of the season.

“The start of the game was tremendous,” Butler said. “We didn’t look at the scoreboard — we just went out there and gave it our all.”

Such was a sign of Gonzaga’s desperation that the Zags — who found themselves behind by as many as 19 points — switched to a zone defense.

Each time Gonzaga surged in the second half, it could not string together enough stops to draw closer to the Bears. Suggs, after getting fouled on a layup for a pair of his teamhigh 22 points, exhorted the crowd and his teammates. But when Drew Timme picked up a pair of quick fouls, his third and fourth, and went to the bench with 11:36 left, it made the uphill climb even more arduous — and ultimately futile.

The feeling of falling short is a familiar one for Gonzaga, which lost to North Carolina in a taught final in 2017. Perhaps because this game wasn’t so close — or because of the extraordinary measures it took for college basketball to reach this point — Few maintained that the lone blemish would not ruin the season.

“Listen, I said you can’t go 31-0 and get to the last night and get beat and feel bad about it,” Few said, adding, “So I just said this will pass and you’ve got to give Baylor a ton of credit but just remember what an amazing, amazing year, what an amazing accomplishment even getting to this point it was.”

The point where an imperfect season fell short of a perfect ending.

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

37

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

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

Crossword

Answers on page 38

Wordsearch

GAMES

HOROSCOPE Aries

38

The San Juan Daily Star

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

(Mar 21-April 20)

Today’s edgy lunar ties suggest that patience could wear thin, making it difficult to sympathize, even though it’s expected of you. There might be a lot of things you don’t feel like doing, especially if they impinge on your freedom Aries, or seem too much trouble. But a budding romance may show promise, and this revelation can brighten the coming days considerably.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

You may feel intensely about something that appears trivial on the surface, but for some reason seems to trigger you. This could relate to a social situation, and for a while today you might wonder why this seems to have struck such a deep chord. Have you been pushing your feelings down, Libra? If so, a walk in nature can bring the tranquillity and space to be more accepting.

Taurus

(April 21-May 21)

Scorpio

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

Unless you make a concerted effort to be flexible, your plans could come to a halt due to a conflict of interests. If everyone wants something different, nothing much will get done. Yet in the heat of the moment, this might be far from your mind. Take some time out to mull this over and consider the consequences. A little co-operation can bring outstanding results.

A flash of understanding could revolutionize your life if you act on it, and give you a sense of purpose that may have been lacking. Mind, with volatile energies involved, acting on a whim might upset the status quo and find you doubting if you have done the right thing. Balance is key Gemini. Change is in the air, but adopting a steady approach is preferable to being too hasty.

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

With the Moon angling towards emancipated Uranus, you may crave change, and this could be related to a relationship that seems to be going nowhere. Do you both need more space? While this might be hard in the current climate, don’t give up on it just yet.

As Venus makes some upbeat aspects over coming days, you can find great pleasure in doing ordinary things together.

You may be picking up on subtle changes in mood and feelings that tell you a lot about the bond between you and another. A tie between fiery Mars and ethereal Neptune, encourages you to be consciously aware, rather than avoid the truth. If you are prepared to look at what is really going on, you might learn something about this person’s motives that you really didn’t know, Archer.

You can be your own best friend Cancer, if you listen to your feelings rather than push them under the carpet. With Venus in your sector of goals aligning with fiery Mars in a subtle zone, something may become obvious the more you reflect on it. If you feel excited when you think about it, it’s a good sign. Don’t let someone cast doubts on this, and put you off having a go.

You could say a lot more than you intend to, sending a mix of signals that can leave things a tad on edge. If an issue is heavy going, then it may be time to clear the air. Try to do so sensitively, as going too far might put even more pressure on both of you.

With Neptune in the mix, a compassionate outlook could assist, as long as you stay real and deal with it, Capricorn.

Leo

Aquarius

(July 24-Aug 23)

Ready for something fresh, Leo? If frustrations around your current situation are spilling over, you may want to relieve them as fast as you can. If tensions have been building, an impulsive move might seem to be the answer, but could you lose out? While today may try your patience, this is a temporary phase. Look to the long-term, and build a sound foundation you’ll be proud of.

Virgo

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

Keen for something to shift, so you can explore new opportunities? A Moon/Uranus tie could be the catalyst. Before you make a move, consider what is happening in your life now. How much wiggle room do you have? Don’t pile too much on your plate, as it might lead to overwhelm. Jettison what you can, and with a few tweaks to your schedule you’ll soon be able to go for it.

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

Your perception may be spot on today, so you might notice more of what is going on beneath the surface. An issue can come to a head, and things could be said in the heat of the moment. Try not to take them to heart, as there is also great potential for this to resolve fast. A potent lunar aspect could spotlight an opportunity that may be good for you, if you decide to consider it.

Pisces

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

You may have an opportunity to up your inner game, or find that a vivid dream brings the creative breakthrough you’ve been hoping for. A strong focus on a secluded sector might also bring a key issue into the open, and if so, this could be a turning point. If it has been a drain, it can be time to face it, and in doing so, find its hold over you gradually begins to diminish.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 37

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

39

CARTOONS

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

BC

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

For Better or for Worse

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Ziggy

40

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

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