Tuesday Aug 1, 2023

¡Bienvenidos a todos los socios y clientes nuevos!

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.

Resident commissioner slams DNER secretary over La Parguera incident, and Rodríguez Vega responds

By THE STAR STAFF

Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón on Monday blasted Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER) Secretary Anaís Rodríguez Vega for acting in what she said was an irresponsible manner following recent protests targeting the resident commissioner’s inlaws’ property at La Parguera in Lajas.

The resident commissioner also accused groups led by influencer Eliezer Molina of vandalism during the protests over alleged destruction of mangroves on the property. González Colón’s husband made certain claims to federal authorities on the matter.

“My husband accompanied his parents, who are elderly people and because my in-laws are not public figures, to claim their rights and make claims they consider legally pertinent to federal and state agencies,” the resident commissioner said at a press conference.

González Colón asked the DNER secretary to stop acting irresponsibly when making public statements about investigations into the matter that have not been completed. She said Rodríguez Vega made public certain internal agency documents about mangrove destruction that have not been provided to the parties involved.

Rodríguez Vega responded to the accusations later on Monday.

“Since the first day that I assumed the position [of interim DNER secretary prior to her eventual confirmation as secretary] … I have supported with actions my words to sanction all those violations of the environmental regulations and laws of Puerto Rico, as required by my ministerial duty and in accordance with public policy, established in our Constitution (Article VI, Section 19). All our actions are preceded by environmental and legal studies and analyses, regardless of who commits them …” the DNER secretary said in a written statement. “I deeply respect the opinions of all citizens, including those of the elected officials of the Government of Puerto Rico. However, it is important to remember that at the DNER we are committed to the protection and conservation of our natural resources, and this includes mangroves, which are vital to our biodiversity and resilience against climate change.”

“Our intervention was not a selective or irresponsible act, but rather a fulfillment of our duty as guardians of nature and the environment. If any activity has been carried out without proper permission, it is our obligation to intervene, regardless of who owns the property in question. At the DNER, we treat all complaints and active cases with deep seriousness,” Rodríguez Vega added. “The people demand transparency and the government is responding to that demand. No one who loves Puerto Rico and the conservation and protection of our nature should oppose it.”

The resident commissioner also harshly criticized the

DNER secretary’s handling of a fine issued against a group of people who held an illegal party in Salinas, calling it “a joke.”

Amid reports that González Colón’s in-laws had destroyed mangroves on a property in Lajas, demonstrators tried to destroy the property, which in turn led González Colón’s in-laws to go to federal authorities last week.

The resident commissioner stressed that the whole issue of La Parguera has a political and selective overtone and should not be exclusive to one family.

She noted the negative impact the situation could have on tourism in Lajas, and stressed that the property complies with all permits and questioned the exclusivity of the focus on her in-laws’ property.

“What a coincidence that it is only my father-in-law and not any other property? Look at the $1,500 fine they issued for a bubble party in Salinas. That’s a joke,” González Colón said. “However, questions are raised about a property belonging to an elderly couple that was destroyed. And they claim that this is the exercise and vision given to Puerto Rico on how private property is treated. I disagree with that. They even attacked police officers in that supposed demonstration.”

Regarding similar situations in other coastal areas of Puerto Rico, the resident commissioner argued that properties should not be subject to special treatment or unauthorized entry and demanded that government agencies equitably comply with the law.

González Colón went on to express her displeasure with the way private property is treated in Puerto Rico and regretted the violence and harassment directed at her in-laws.

“I have been in the public arena for more than 21 years. And I’ve never seen someone’s family get attacked so mercilessly,” she said. “Let them come to me, let them talk about me, I am the public figure. But why go against my in-laws, older adults -- to try to link it to me, right? I think that is low.”

Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón, at lectern

Resident commissioner files small business legislation to benefit PR residents with disabilities

By THE STAR STAFF

Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón said Monday that she has filed federal legislation for small businesses in Puerto Rico to have access to resources to comply with the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), which could benefit some 1.14 million adults on the island.

“We all know the accessibility problem that people with disabilities suffer in Puerto Rico. We have a lot of old construction with uncomfortable access for people in wheelchairs, parking without ramps to access shops, etc.,” González Colón said at a press conference. “In addition, we know the problems of the deaf community in being able to communicate properly and independently, if they don’t have a family member with them. To address this situation and improve the quality of independent life of people with disabilities in Puerto Rico, we presented the bill H.R. 4026 so that taxpayers in the territories can access these aids.”

The resident commissioner filed the measure in the U.S. House of Representatives after discussing alternatives for enforcing the stipulations of the ADA with Dignity Project Rep. Lisie Burgos Muñíz.

“Our commitment is to serve all communities,

including the deaf community that has been disadvantaged during this time, but now thanks to these bills if they become law, a community that has been invisible will be empowered,” Burgos Muñíz said.

The ADA, a federal civil rights law signed in 1990 by then-President George H.W. Bush, prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in all areas of public life. It requires modifications to infrastructure to be made to allow accessibility for people with disabilities and for businesses and nonprofits to ensure that they communicate effectively with people who have communication disabilities.

Although the ADA applies in Puerto Rico, credits and deductions do not apply since federal income taxes are not collected on the island.

The resident commissioner said doctors have expressed difficulties interviewing deaf patients who don’t feel entirely comfortable talking frankly with their parent or child in the office. By the same token, attorneys who serve people with communication disabilities often depend on a family member of a defendant in an interview that is supposed to be confidential. The doctors and lawyers note that the costs of hiring the services to have the degree of effective communication they would like are too much for the limited income they derive from their services.

BEA says Puerto Rico’s GDP grew 4% in 2021

By THE STAR STAFF

Puerto Rico’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 4% in 2021, according to new estimates from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

The information was provided by Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC) Secretary Manuel Cidre Miranda, who expressed optimism with the estimates. The Puerto Rico Planning Board had already indicated that the economy is on positive ground and that, although it is working to maintain that growth in the long term, the trend is very positive.

“The BEA has just published these results that confirm that Puerto Rico has been experiencing a gradual improvement in the economy, thanks to the efforts made by the administration of Governor Pedro Pierluisi and government agencies, together with the private sector, to maintain consumption, achieve more investment and increase tourism, among other aspects such as a prepared labor force and better employ-

ment opportunities,” Cidre Miranda said.

The BEA has a collaborative agreement with the DDEC, the Treasury Department and the Planning Board to share economic data that it uses for the estimates. The agreement is central to improving the accuracy of the projections and serves as the basis for the publications. The estimates also recognize a notable improvement in the quality of information that Puerto Rico has provided in recent years, including more up-to-date audited statements and more robust databases.

The BEA confirmed meanwhile that the main reason for growth was an increase in personal consumption, where Puerto Rico was the fourth jurisdiction in the United States to see this growth.

The estimates also indicate that there was a drop in exports from the island pharmaceutical industry. The decrease is part of what the industry experienced post-pandemic, where challenges in global distribution chains caused a reduction in export activity.

Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón

Economic Development and Commerce Secretary Manuel Cidre Miranda

Remembering a giant of his profession

Island journalists gather to honor the short but exemplary career of César Andreu Iglesias

By RICHARD GUTIERREZ richardsanjuanstar@gmail.com

Martial arts cinema icon Bruce Lee once said: “The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.”

César Andreu Iglesias, a highly renowned journalist who was born on July 31, 1915 and died on April 17, 1976 of a heart attack at the relatively young age of 42, most certainly lived a life worth remembering. He was honored Monday by the Journalists Association of Puerto Rico (ASPPRO by its Spanish initials) as the national day of the journalist was celebrated in Puerto Rico. The day, which also happens to be the day of the admired journalist’s birth, was specifically dedicated to Andreu Iglesias by the ASPPRO.

“Andreu Iglesias was considered to have this day dedicated to him because of his excellent work as a journalist,” Leila Andreu Cuevas, daughter of Andreu Iglesias and executive director of the ASPPRO, told the STAR. “And because of his expanded role with society and how many journalists identify themselves with him, he was more than just a journalist; he was a writer and activist. His column writing in the journal ‘El Imparcial’ was so impactful that the journal saw a decline after his passing.”

The association comes together every year on July 31 to commemorate Andreu Iglesias and his work by offering a speech in memory of his work and its impact on all Puerto Rican journalists. And in a sense, commemorating his birthday as the national day of the journalist.

“The national day of journalism began through legislation that was pushed by the Association in 1992,” ASPPRO President Damaris Suárez told the STAR. “It was then when the 31st of July was named as the national day of the journalist commemorating César Andreu Iglesias.”

Andreu Cuevas added, “I remember clearly when the association had to decide on who we had to dedicate the National Day of Journalism to. It was a very extended discussion, there are so many important journalists that Puerto Rico

has produced.”

“There were so many important figures to consider; however, the assembly finally made a decision and chose César Andreu Iglesias’ birthday as the day, because of how relevant to the times his journalism was.”

Monday’s event began around 10 a.m. at the Puerto Rico Memorial Cemetery. Many active and retired journalists gathered at Andreu Iglesias’ grave to take a moment and hear Nelson del Castillo, secretary of the Latin American Journalists Federation, give a speech dedicated to Andreu Iglesias and the National Day of the Journalist. Del Castillo spoke of Andreu Iglesias and his impact on Puerto Rican journalism, apart from his work as an independence activist and a member of the communist political party in Puerto Rico at the time.

Del Castillo also did not hide the fact that he was calling out certain people in the journalism industry with his speech.

“It is important to portray all sides of the image of César Andreu Iglesias, as a journalist, as a writer and social warrior from his revolutionary militant scene, because the more we talk about democracy in Puerto Rico, the greater the persecution against journalists from social media mercenaries, many of whom are paid with public funds or as contracted professionals from public entities to attack the integrity of those who don’t benefit them in their neofascist speeches and their lies,” del Castillo said.

After the speech, pictures were taken at the offering of flowers at the grave of Andreu Iglesias, and the group moved on to the Journalist Pantheon, where 15 journalists lay at rest. The pantheon was a donation by Miguel Such to Puerto Rican journalism in 1937. The Journalists Federation later took charge of the pantheon; however, once the federation dissolved, the ownership of the pantheon disappeared as well until the ASPPRO rediscovered the pantheon and assumed complete ownership.

“This pantheon was quite decrepit when we rediscovered it; however, we put some work into it to make it look presentable,” said Manolo Coss Pontón, a former executive director of the ASPPRO. “Part of the tradition in terms of coming here and commemorating all the other journalists, Andreu is passing by the pantheon and saying goodbye to our fellow journalists

as it is the National Day of the Journalist.”

Andreu Cuevas noted that “if a journalist that was part of the association doesn’t have a family or anyone to take care of their deceased body, they are taken into consideration for this pantheon.”

“The board of executives decides which journalists are buried here,” she said.

The ASPPRO was created in 1971 by a group of journalists looking at the future in terms of having an organization that was made by journalists for journalists, dedicated to protecting the rights of all class workers and the rights of journalism in Puerto Rico.

“Ever since then we’ve had many events and our main purpose is to create events that can unite journalists,” Suárez told the STAR. Apart from the National Day of the Journalist, ASPPRO is currently celebrating Press Week in Puerto Rico with multiple events that will take place through Friday.

“There’s not really a specific week where this is celebrated; we just celebrate it on the week of the 31st of July every year,” Suárez said. “The flower offering was only one of the events that will take place this week. Some of the events include open discussions about misinformation, another forum is a seminar titled: “Myths About Artificial Intelligence: Should We Fear It or Embrace It?” Many events will be in-person, while others will be held virtually.

“We’ve been doing this for 29 years, and as it is custom, we will close out the week by granting the National Journalism Award with nearly 30 finalists competing” Suárez said.

PDP appoints presidential delegates in four towns

By THE STAR STAFF

Popular Democratic Party (PDP) Secretary General Gerardo “Toñito” Cruz announced Monday the appointment of presidential delegates to promote and assist in the reorganization processes in the towns of Mayagüez, Ponce, San Germán and Trujillo Alto.

Cruz said “the electoral reorganization of the PDP is a priority for the president of the party.”

“We believe that strengthening our political structures in the municipalities is fundamental to the success and development of the PDP,” he said. “These presidential delegates will work tirelessly with our mayors, municipal presidents and local leadership to ensure our communities move toward a prosperous

and united future.”

The official said that for Mayagüez, Rep. Joel Sánchez was appointed, while Hormigueros Mayor Pedro García will be the presidential delegate in San Germán.

In Ponce, former judge Rafael Flores was appointed, while in Trujillo Alto the delegate is former electoral commissioner Guillermo San Antonio Acha. All will report to the secretary general to coordinate work and render plans.

“We are working tirelessly to ensure the execution and achievement of reorganization plans across the island,” Cruz said. “The president spoke with the mayors of Ponce and Trujillo Alto to inform them of his decision. Both have expressed their willingness to work hand in hand on the important reorganization work.”

The Journalists Association of Puerto Rico comes together every year on July 31 to commemorate the work of César Andreu Iglesias on his birthday. (Richard Gutiérrez/The San Juan Daily Star)

Bill introduced in Congress to establish special advisors for insular areas

By THE STAR STAFF

Congress has introduced bipartisan legislation that seeks to establish a special advisor for insular areas in each U.S. executive department, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, announced Monday.

“Our relationship with each of the U.S. Territories is unique and has needs that differ across federal agencies,” Grijalva said in a written statement.

The proposal, known as the Special Advisors for Insular Areas Act, aims to improve coordination and communication of federal policies for island territories, including Puerto Rico.

“The creation of positions within each agency specifi -

cally responsible for Island Areas should lead to greater community participation in policymaking,” added Rep. Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (D-Northern Mariana Islands).

Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón expressed her support, stressing that the law would be a good step toward addressing the specific challenges and needs of the territories.

“That’s why I’m supporting the Special Advisors for Island Areas Act, which would create an office in every department of the federal government to oversee matters that impact U.S. territories within its jurisdiction,” she said.

The legislation seeks to provide clarity on agency roles, improve policy implementation, and ensure that island territories are considered in national policymaking.

Number of bankruptcy filings in first half of 2023 higher than year-ago

By THE STAR STAFF

The number of bankruptcies in Puerto Rico was 2,051 from January to June, a slight increase from the same period last year.

According to a report from Boletin de Puerto Rico, some 1,935 bankruptcy petitions were filed from January to June 2022. Total debt in bankruptcy filings for the first half of 2023 totaled nearly $264.9 million, or 7.9% less than the $287.7 million recorded during the same six-month period of 2022,

the report showed.

Of the $264.9 million in the January-June period, about $130.7 million and $125.8 million were secured and unsecured debt, respectively, with almost $8.4 million classified as senior debt, the report said.

Between January and June, according to the report, 1,376 cases were filed under Chapter 13, while 647 bankruptcy cases were filed under Chapter 7. Meanwhile, some 26 Chapter 11 cases were filed between January and June, 23.8% compared to the 21 filed during the same period in 2022, the report said.

Healthcare challenges to be focus of CPA forum next week

By THE STAR STAFF

With the purpose of discussing emerging challenges and opportunities in the healthcare industry, the Certified Public Accountants Association of Puerto Rico (CCPA by its Spanish initials) will hold the XXII Annual Health Industry Forum next Thursday, Aug. 10 at the Caribe Hilton hotel.

“This Forum will discuss issues such as the transition of the Vital Program, the regulatory environment, population health and its social determinants, considerations in the evolution of health care models, and economic challenges, among other issues,” CCPA President Aixa González Reyes said.

Among the guests are Dinorah Collazo Ortiz, executive director of the Medicaid Program in Puerto Rico, and

Edna Y. Marín Ramos, executive director of the Health Insurance Administration (ASES). Both will participate in the discussion on the transition that the Vital Program is experiencing and the new opportunities that are being presented.

“We invite all people from the health industry to participate in this Forum, where emerging challenges and opportunities in regulatory and healthcare programs will be discussed,” González Reyes said.

The event will held from from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The link to register for the Forum is: https://www.colegiocpa. com/account/#calendar/event/76123. More information on the calendar of educational events and other CCPA activities can be found by visiting the CCPA digital platforms on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, under @colegiocpapr.

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.)

Why Trump is so hard to beat

of the rest of the Republican electorate, and the rest of the Republican electorate is not easy to unify.

The divided Republican Party

The MAGA base lends itself to easy description. The rest of the Republican electorate does not.

But broadly speaking, the rest of the Republican electorate can be divided into two groups.

consolidate the fractious opposition to Trump.

It has certainly been hard for DeSantis, the Florida governor.

At the start of the year, it seemed he figured out how to win both conservative and moderate skeptics of Trump by focusing on a new set of issues — the fight against “woke” and freedom from coronavirus restrictions. This seemed to excite establishment donors and even some independents every bit as much as conservative activists and Fox News hosts.

By NATE COHN

In the half century of modern presidential primaries, no candidate who led his or her nearest rival by at least 20 points at this stage has ever lost a party nomination.

Today, Donald Trump’s lead over Ron DeSantis is nearly twice as large: 37 points, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll of the likely Republican primary electorate released Monday morning.

Of course, there’s still plenty of time left before the Iowa caucuses in January. The candidates haven’t even set foot on a debate stage. And while no candidate has ever lost a nomination with so much support, no candidate with so much support has faced so many criminal indictments and investigations, either.

But even if it might be a mistake to call Trump “inevitable,” the Times/Siena data suggests that he commands a seemingly unshakable base of loyal supporters, representing more than one-third of the Republican electorate. Alone, their support is not enough for Trump to win the primary. But it is large enough to make him extremely hard to defeat — perhaps every bit as hard as the historical record suggests.

Here’s what we know about the depth of the support — and opposition — to Trump from our poll, and why it’s so hard to beat the former president.

The MAGA base, defined

It’s populist. It’s conservative. It’s blue collar. It’s convinced the nation is on the verge of catastrophe. And it’s exceptionally loyal to Trump.

As defined here, members of Trump’s MAGA base represent 37% of the Republican electorate. They “strongly” support him in the Republican primary and have a ”very favorable” view of him.

The MAGA base doesn’t support Trump despite his flaws. It supports him because it

doesn’t seem to believe he has flaws.

Zero percent — not a single one of the 319 respondents in this MAGA category — said he had committed serious federal crimes. A mere 2% said he “did something wrong” in his handling of classified documents. More than 90% said Republicans needed to stand behind him in the face of the investigations.

Perhaps DeSantis or another Republican will peel away a few of these voters, but realistically this group isn’t going anywhere, maybe not even if Trump winds up being imprisoned. This group is probably about the same as the voters — 37% — who supported Trump in the polls on Super Tuesday in 2016. It’s probably about the same as the group of Republicans — 41% — who supported him at his low point in January, in the wake of last November’s midterm elections.

This is an impressive base of support, but it still is not quite a majority of the Republican primary electorate. Most of the Republican electorate either doesn’t strongly support Trump in the primary or doesn’t support him at all. Most don’t have a “very favorable” view of the former president, either. In theory, it means there’s an opening for another candidate.

But with so much of the GOP electorate seemingly devoted to Trump, the path to defeating him is exceptionally narrow. It requires a candidate to consolidate the preponderance

There’s the group of voters who may not love Trump, but who remain open to him in the primary and in some cases support him over the alternatives. It’s a group that’s broadly reflective of the Republican electorate as a whole: It’s somewhat conservative, somewhat favorable toward Trump, somewhat favorable toward DeSantis, and split on whether to support the former president, at least for now.

There’s also a second group of voters who probably won’t support Trump. They represent about one-quarter of the primary electorate and they say they’re not considering him in the primary. These voters tend to be educated, affluent, moderate, and they’re often more than just Trump skeptics. A majority of these voters view him unfavorably, say he’s committed crimes and don’t even back him in the general election against President Joe Biden, whether that’s because they actually prefer Biden or simply wouldn’t vote.

These two groups of voters don’t just differ on Trump; they disagree on the issues as well. Trump’s skeptics support additional military and economic aid to Ukraine, and comprehensive immigration reform, while they oppose a six-week abortion ban. The persuadable voters, on the other hand, take the opposite view on all of those issues.

Yet to beat Trump, a candidate must somehow hold nearly all of these voters together.

The DeSantis challenge

It would be hard for any candidate to

It hasn’t turned out that way. The fight against woke has offered few opportunities to attack Trump — strange social media videos notwithstanding — while COVID has faded from political relevance.

Without these issues, DeSantis has become a very familiar kind of conservative Republican. As with the Ted Cruz campaign in 2016, DeSantis has run to Trump’s right on every issue. In doing so, he has struggled to appeal to the moderate voters who represent the natural base of a viable opposition to Trump.

DeSantis is faring poorly enough among Trump skeptics to give other candidates an opening, much as Cruz’s conservative brand created a space for the ultimately nonviable John Kasich, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush candidacies.

Overall, DeSantis holds just 32% of voters who aren’t considering Trump, with the likes of Chris Christie, Tim Scott, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy each attracting between 5% and 10% of the vote.

Among the “Never Trump” group of voters who don’t support Trump against Biden in a hypothetical general election rematch, DeSantis only narrowly leads Christie, 16% to 13%.

Of course, DeSantis’ challenge runs even deeper than divisions among his potential supporters. Republican primary voters don’t even believe he would do better than Trump in the general election against Biden, overturning an advantage that DeSantis backers might have taken for granted six months ago.

And DeSantis would face an entirely different set of challenges if he aimed his appeal at Trump’s deepest skeptics. He might alienate the mainstream conservative center of the Republican Party if he started to speak the moderate and anti-Trump language of Trump’s critics — and meet the same fate as Rubio and Kasich.

The promise of the DeSantis campaign was that he could appeal to the otherwise disparate Trump-skeptics factions of the Republican Party, and avoid the challenges that doomed Trump’s opponents eight years ago. So far, it hasn’t worked.

Phoenix’s month in hell: 31 days of extreme heat tests the city

By JACK HEALY

Patients with heat stroke and burns from the asphalt are swamping hospitals. Air conditioners are breaking down at homeless shelters. The medical examiner’s office is deploying trailer-sized coolers to store bodies, for the first time since the early days of COVID-19.

For 31 straight days — from the last day of June through Sunday, the second-to-last day of July — Phoenix has hit at least 110 degrees, not merely breaking its 18-day record in 1974, but setting a significant new one. The city smashed through another record last week, racking up the most 115-degree days ever in a calendar year, part of a global heat wave that made July Earth’s hottest month on record.

This has been Phoenix’s July in hell — an entire month of merciless heat that has ground down people’s health and patience in the city of 1.6 million, while also straining a regionwide campaign to protect homeless people and older residents who are most vulnerable.

“I’m so sick of this,” Rae Hicks, 45, said this past week as she sat with her 7-year-old son on the floor of a clammy cooling center in Tempe, their suitcases clustered around them.

It was 118 degrees outside, and they had nowhere to stay after the center closed down that evening, like thousands of other people around Phoenix left homeless by rising rents and a resurgence of evictions. The record heat has made their summer a desperate game of survival — bouncing between libraries, supermarkets and relief centers during the day, and sleeping in motels, cars or shelter beds at night to avoid the scorching streets.

With at least two more hot months ahead, some residents said they did not know how much more they could take.

“It’s wearing on people,” said Kevin Conboy, a physician assistant with Circle the City, a medical charity that treats homeless people across Phoenix. “Everyone’s temperatures are hovering at 100. Everyone. is complaining of feeling so fatigued, and tired.”

Even the group’s mobile medical buses are succumbing to the heat, forcing them out of service to get repaired.

The medical examiner in Phoenix has reported 25 heat-related deaths this year, and said it is also investigating an additional 249 deaths for ties to heat. There were a record-breaking 425 heat-related deaths last year across Maricopa County.

Hospitals around Phoenix also say they treated more people for heat ailments and burns in July compared with previous summers, infusing them with cold saline or packing them into ice-filled body bags that sometimes leak and cause nurses to slip in icy puddles.

“We are very full,” said Dr. Kara Geren, an emergency-medicine doctor at Valleywise Health Medical Center in central Phoenix. “We have everything from heat cramps to heat stroke and death.”

Geren said the emergency department was treating more homeless patients and drug users with heatrelated illnesses this summer, as well more people who burn their legs and backs by falling on pavement that can heat up to 180 degrees. This week, a woman in her 80s came to the hospital for burn treatment after falling outside her home, then lying on the searing pavement for two hours before anyone heard her calls for help.

Towering saguaro cactuses are collapsing from the heat, and the agaves, creosote bushes and stubby barrel cactuses that spangle highways are turning yellow. Hiking trails have been closed at midday for more than a month to protect hikers (and the paramedics who have to rescue them).

Even the local news media seemed to hit a breaking point this past week, when The Arizona Republic cried out: “Will the inferno never end?”

Austin Davis, who runs a tiny homeless-outreach charity called AZ Hugs, spends his days trying to an-

swer calls from unsheltered people desperate to avoid sleeping out in the heat.

“I can’t tell you how many people called me crying, asking for a hotel room, saying, I can’t make it through another day like this,” he said.

Many of Phoenix’s shelters are full, and waiting lists for publicly funded housing are weeks or months long, families said in interviews. They find Davis’ number scrawled on whiteboards at cooling centers, get it from shelter employees or other people on the street, and call in a last bid for help. On Thursday afternoon, he had 268 unread text messages.

“My family is sleeping in the park right now myself my husband and our 7 children,” read one. Davis responded by asking for birth dates, income levels and other information he would need to start connecting them with housing and shelter programs and signed off with two heart emoji. Another call came from Melissa Duckett, 40, who had been sleeping in her car with her wife and their 11-year-old son since being evicted in the spring. Duckett said they had been in a subsidized apartment, but had fallen behind on the rent when she got sick.

When the heat waves first started to bake central Phoenix in late June, they had talked about driving up to Flagstaff, where it was cooler. Then their car died in the heat. Their new respite was a trailer that Davis had fitted out with bunk beds and a working air conditioner as an emergency stopgap for families.

“We’re just going to be happy to be out of the heat,” Duckett said.

Andrea Cribbs, 40, holds her dog, Tinkerbell at a respite center in downtown Phoenix on July 28, 2023. Tinkerbell was given booties so he can walk outside without burning his paws on the pavement.

Stephanie Galindo cleans up after changing her son’s diaper while her daughter Emmy holds him in the bathroom of the Wesley Methodist Church cooling center on July 17, 2023, in Phoenix. The family has been spending the hot days at the center, as their trailer has no power.

The legacy dilemma: What to do about privileges for the privileged?

By EMILY COCHRANE, AMY HARMON, ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS and ANNA BETTS

When Kathleen James-Chakraborty received her acceptance letter to Yale University on April 17, 1978, there was little doubt in her mind that a crucial factor helped secure her spot: Her father and two great-grandfathers had all attended the school before her.

As a teenager, she was ambivalent. The legacy advantage in admissions gave her pause. But studying at Yale would offer a special connection to her father, who died of a heart attack days after learning James-Chakraborty had been accepted to his alma mater. It was a familiar place, with excellent opportunities. Ultimately, she enrolled.

Decades later, James-Chakraborty, now a professor of art history and an architectural historian at University College Dublin, is firm that the same legacy admissions practice that boosted her application long ago should no longer exist. Her son chose not to apply to Yale.

“I definitely think it should go,” JamesChakraborty said in an interview, adding “there’s no one building or one professorship, or whatever the parents may be in a position to donate, that justifies that.”

Like James-Chakraborty, students and alumni of many colleges and universities — not just ultra-elite ones — are now wrestling with the practice of legacy admissions, a debate with far broader implications after the Supreme Court last month gutted race-based admissions programs and forced colleges to reconsider their criteria for accepting students.

It has sparked some bracing introspection and complicated feelings.

About the role familial connections played in the success of many alumni. About whether the practice of legacy admissions, which has long favored white families, should be eliminated just as a more diverse generation of graduates is getting ready to send its own children to college. About how to reconcile the belief that privileges for the privileged are wrong with the parental impulse to do whatever they can for their own children.

With the end of race-based affirmative action, the practice of giving admissions preference to relatives of alumni is particularly under fire at the most elite institutions, given the outsize presence of their alumni in the nation’s highest echelons of power. A new analysis of data from elite colleges published last week underscored how legacy admissions have effectively served as affirmative action for the privileged. Children

of alumni, who are more likely to come from rich families, were nearly four times as likely to be admitted as other applicants with the same test scores.

President Joe Biden last month instructed the Education Department to examine how to improve diversity in admissions, including “what practices hold that back, practices like legacy admissions and other systems that expand privilege instead of opportunity.” Harvard University’s legacy admissions policy, which gives preference to the children of both alumni and donors, now faces a civil rights investigation after a complaint from liberal groups.

At least one college, Wesleyan University in Connecticut, decided to publicly end the practice this month, after the Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action. In an interview, Michael S. Roth, the school’s president, called it the removal of “a symbol of our old-fashioned exclusivity that is no longer appropriate.”

“Even though there are some more Black and Hispanic students who’d be eligible for it now because of the passage of time, it still predominantly favors white people and people of privilege,” he said.

Colleges have defended the practice — which began in the 1920s as a way for wealthy Protestants to protect collegiate spots from Catholic and Jewish applicants — as something that helps maintain financial support for their institutions and fosters community bonds.

Some alumni agree, arguing that family tradition has encouraged them to earn the qualifications for admission and that a new generation can do the same.

“In the real world, folks, this is how

things go,” said Rob Longsworth, an investment manager who was the seventh in his family to attend Amherst College. “But this is ultimately not a zero sum game. If other people want these things, go get them. Do the work to establish such a tradition in your family, if that’s what they want to do.”

Amherst ended preferences for the children of alumni less than two years ago, saying it wanted to be a leader in supporting access and equity.

Opponents of legacy admissions are careful to draw a distinction between the practice at predominantly white elite universities and historically Black ones, which rose out of racism and segregation to foster tradition and community for Black families. Legislation introduced on Capitol Hill this month aimed at outlawing legacy admissions — which currently lacks enough support to pass — would exclude those colleges from such a ban.

Some parents and academics who are Black and Hispanic argued that, since elite schools have only in recent decades begun to admit more students of color, it would be discriminatory to deprive their children of the advantage now that they can finally gain from it.

“It is pulling up the ladder behind them to not allow their kids to be legacy admits,” said Noliwe Rooks, a graduate of Spelman College, which is historically Black, and now a professor and chair of Africana Studies at Brown University. “It’s a few in number, but important symbolically.”

Many colleges in recent years have worked to recruit students whose families have never had a college graduate — essentially the opposite of legacy admissions. Even among those firstgeneration students, there are a range of feelings

about legacies.

Viet Nguyen, 28, who was the first in his family to attend college, recalls feeling his heart sink when he saw the question on his college applications, “Did either of your parents attend this university?’’

The founder of an organization devoted to ending legacy admissions, Nguyen graduated from Brown in 2017 and says he does not want any children he might have to receive legacy preference.

Questions like the one posed on his applications, said Nguyen, “makes a lot of first-generation students think they don’t have a chance.’”

Many alumni instinctively see the failings of legacy admissions elsewhere, but the good parts close to home.

Kially Ruiz graduated from Dartmouth College in 1998 and was a first-generation college student from the Dominican Republic. He is now the president of the Dartmouth Latino Alumni Association.

Ruiz said that legacy admissions should not “devolve into a kind of nepotism, or some type of unfair advantage” against applicants who are not legacies.

Still, he said, it is important to consider what a “very strong alumni community” means to a smaller college like Dartmouth.

“There’s a place for legacy admissions, in the sense that if the candidate is qualified and has merit,” he said. “Having that strong connection to the college is important for us.”

In the current climate, with race-based affirmative action struck down by the Supreme Court, some current students and recent graduates are feeling the sting, too.

Powell Sheagren, 23, who graduated last year from Swarthmore College, reveled in walking the same halls as his mother and his grandmother and exchanging stories about what had changed.

When he became more aware of the debate surrounding legacy admissions, Sheagren said, he winced, feeling the need to explain that he was a third-generation Swarthmore student for sentimental reasons, and that he was not there because of donations. It was the fall of affirmative action, he said, that cemented his desire for “the legacy door to close behind me.”

“You can split that hair — I can still value what I gained from the institution my family’s been to, and be against the system that tends to support rich, white people,” he said. Without legacy admissions, he added, “I could share these stories without this looming specter of, ‘Well, you didn’t earn your place here.’”

Wesleyan University in Middletown,Conn., on Nov. 14, 2022. Wesleyan University ended the practice of legacy admissions this month, after the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action.

Heat is costing the US economy billions in lost productivity

By CORAL DAVENPORT

As much of the United States swelters under record heat, Amazon drivers and warehouse workers have gone on strike in part to protest working conditions that can exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

On triple-digit days in Orlando, Florida, utility crews are postponing checks for gas leaks, since digging outdoors dressed in heavy safety gear could endanger their lives. Even in Michigan, on the nation’s northern border, construction crews are working shortened days because of heat.

Now that climate change has raised Earth’s temperatures to the highest levels in recorded history, with projections showing that they will only climb higher, new research shows the impact of heat on workers is spreading across the economy and lowering productivity.

Extreme heat is regularly affecting workers beyond expected industries such as agriculture and construction. Sizzling temperatures are causing problems for those who work in factories, warehouses and restaurants and also for employees of airlines and telecommunications firms, delivery services and energy companies. Even home health aides are running into trouble.

“We’ve known for a very long time that human beings are very sensitive to temperature, and that their performance declines dramatically when exposed to heat, but what we haven’t known until very recently is whether and how those lab responses meaningfully extrapolate to the real-world economy,” said R. Jisung Park, an environmental and labor economist at the University of Pennsylvania. “And what we are learning is that hotter temperatures appear to muck up the gears of the economy in many more ways than we would have expected.”

A study published in June on the effects of temperature on productivity concludes that although extreme heat harms agriculture, its impact is greater on industrial and other sectors of the economy, in part because they are more labor-intensive. It finds that heat increases absenteeism and reduces work hours, and concludes that as the planet continues to warm, those losses will increase.

The cost is high. In 2021, more than 2.5 billion hours of labor in the U.S. agriculture, construction, manufacturing and service sectors were lost to heat exposure, according to data compiled by The Lancet. Another report found that in 2020, the loss of labor as a result of heat exposure cost the economy about $100 billion, a figure projected to grow to $500 billion annually by 2050.

Other research found that as the mercury reaches 90 degrees, productivity slumps by about 25%, and when it goes past 100 degrees, productivity drops off by 70%.

Of the many economic costs of climate change — dying crops, spiking insurance rates, flooded properties — the loss of productivity caused by heat is emerging as one of the biggest, experts say.

“We know that the impacts of climate change are costing the economy,” said Kathy Baughman McLeod, director of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center and a former global executive for environmental and social risk at Bank of America. “The losses associated with people being hot at work, and the slowdowns and mistakes people make as a result are a huge part.”

Still, there are no national regulations to protect workers from extreme heat. In 2021, the Biden administration announced that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would propose the first rule designed to protect workers from heat exposure. But two years later, the agency still has not released a draft of the proposed regulation.

Seven states have some form of labor protections dealing with heat, but there has been a push to roll them back in some places. In June, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law that eliminated rules set by municipalities that mandated water breaks for construction workers, even though Texas leads all states in terms of lost productivity linked to heat, according to an analysis of federal data conducted by Vivid Economics.

Business groups are opposed to a national standard, saying it would be too expensive because it would probably require rest, water and shade breaks and possibly the installation of air conditioning.

“OSHA should take care not to impose further regulatory burdens that make it more difficult for small businesses to grow their businesses and create jobs,” David Addington, vice president of the National Federation of Independent Business, wrote

in response to OSHA’s plan to write a regulation.

Marc Freedman, vice president of employment policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said, “I don’t think anyone is dismissing the hazard of overexposure to heat.” But, he said, “is an OSHA standard the right way to do it? A lot of employers are already taking measures, and the question will be: What more do they have to do?”

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, Navistar is installing a $19 million air conditioning system at its IC Bus factory, which produces many of America’s school buses. Temperatures on the floor can reach 99 degrees. Currently, the plant is only cooled by overhead fans that swirl high above the assembly line.

Shane Anderson, the company’s interim manager, said air conditioning is expected to cost about $183 per hour, or between $275,000 and $500,000 per year — but the company believes it will boost worker productivity.

Other employers are also adapting.

Brad Maurer, vice president of Leidal and Hart, which builds stadiums, hospitals and factories in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee, said managers now bring in pallets of bottled water, which they didn’t used to do, at a cost to the company of a few thousand dollars per month.

Rising heat around Detroit recently caused his employees to stop working three hours early on a Ford Motors facility for several days in a row — a pattern emerging throughout his company’s work sites.

“It means costs go up, production goes down, we may not meet schedules, and guys and women don’t get paychecks,” Maurer said.

Labor experts say that as employers adapt to the new reality of the changing climate, they will have to pay one way or the other.

“The truth is that the changes required probably will be very costly, and they will get passed on to employers and consumers,” said David Michaels, who served as assistant secretary of labor at OSHA during the Obama administration and is now a professor at the George Washington School of Public Health. “But if we don’t want these workers to get killed, we will have to pay that cost.”

Evan Avant assembles the iron framework for a billboard in Oklahoma City, Okla., July 27, 2023. From meatpackers to home health aides, workers are struggling in sweltering temperatures, and it’s costing the U.S. economy billions in lost productivity.

Wall St finishes strong month on upbeat company earnings

Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek invested the smallest amount since 2019 during its last fiscal year, as it waited for when pricing got more to its liking. Now, it’s starting to see what it likes.

The S$382 billion ($287 billion) fund is seeing more investment opportunities. It invested in payment processor Stripe in March after passing on earlier fundraising rounds due to high valuation, said Jane Atherton, Temasek’s joint head for North America.

Temasek is also seeing deals at reasonable valuations,adjusted for risks, to invest alongside private equity firms in buyouts, as well as to buy assets from them, she said.

“We have been somewhat cautious in terms of the pace of our deployment,” Atherton said. “I would say we’re getting less cautious as we continue through the year.”

Temasek’s evolving view reflects a change that is becoming more apparent in some parts of the U.S. deals market in recent weeks: the gap between the price expectations of buyers and sellers -- a key reason behind what has been a moribund year of deals -- is closing, according to half a dozen private equity investors and deal advisers.

Buoyed by a recent market rally driven by technology and other growth stocks and the U.S. economy’s surprising resilience in the face of rate rises, buyers are becoming more confident than they were just weeks ago. Some are starting to think they can afford to pay more because they expect to increase the profits of companies they buy.

At the same time, some sellers, particularly listed companies, have come to realize that if their value didn’t move up much in this year’s stock market rally, the prices that they had seen at the highs in 2021 might not come back.

Peter Orszag, Lazard’s LAZ.N incoming CEO, said sellers were coming around to the view that the impact of the higher rate environment on valuations may be “a new normal, as opposed to a very temporary blip” that they can wait out.

“As you move through time, the realization that this is the reasonable baseline becomes more potent, and that’s what’s narrowing the gap,” Orszag said.

Among areas that could see increased activity are sectors such as healthcare, energy transition and technology. Private equity sales of the best portfolio companies and structured investments are becoming more active, too, the investors said.

One tech-focused investor, whose pipeline of deal opportunities is just about 20% of what it was two years ago, said the valuation convergence is leading to more talks. They added they expected to see a more pronounced pickup after Labor Day when people return from the summer holidays.

For banks, investors and companies, the change in sentiment, should it stick, is good news. Lower investment

MOST ASSERTIVE STOCKS

PUERTO RICO STOCKS

banking revenues dragged down profits at banks including Goldman Sachs GS.N and Morgan Stanley MS.N. Earlier this month investors latched onto any signs of hope, with comments from bank executives suggesting a recovery was afoot.

Any recovery, however, is tentative and the narrowing of the gap in expectations is not uniform across the market. Much uncertainty remains, including whether there is now too much optimism in the market.

“We’re at the very nascent stages of this,” said Jason Thomas, head of global research and investment strategy at Carlyle. “Perhaps this will fizzle out.”

For now, the market dynamic is putting some valuations back within historical norms after the wild pandemic-era gyrations, creating conditions for buyers and sellers to meet.

In the software sector, for example, firms historically traded around 6 times forward revenue. During the pandemic rally, the multiples expanded to as high as 17 times, before dropping to 5 times last year, the tech-focused investor said.

Those multiples have now traded back up above 6 times, allowing deals to happen that would not have at the end of last year, two of the investors said.

Tide of terror shifts in Haiti as US nurse and her child are abducted

By EMILIANO RODRÍGUEZ MEGA

An American nurse and her daughter have been abducted in Haiti, in the latest kidnapping episode to draw international notice, as a resurgence of violence grips the capital, Port-au-Prince.

In a brief statement Saturday, El Roi Haiti, a faith-focused humanitarian organization, identified the woman as Alix Dorsainvil, the group’s community nurse and the wife of the group’s director. She and her child were taken from El Roi’s campus near the capital Thursday, according to the statement.

No further details have been made public.

“We are aware of reports of the kidnapping of two U.S. citizens in Haiti,” a U.S. State Department official told The New York Times by email, adding that U.S. officials were working with their Haitian counterparts and declining to comment further on the matter.

Kidnappings in recent years had become a part of daily life in Port-au-Prince, where gangs have taken over many parts of the city. But recently the capital experienced a sharp decline in abductions, according to a report in early July from CARDH, a Haitian human rights group.

The reason: Violence was being met with violence. In a vigilante campaign known as “bwa kale,” civilians took up arms to reclaim some areas of the capital from gangs that have inflicted terror on them for nearly two years.

With the government overpowered and unable to protect its citizens, the movement began to round up and kill presumed gang members in gruesome executions — sometimes chopping off their limbs, other times dousing them with gasoline and burning them alive.

As vigilantism rose, gang violence appeared to subside.

“Fear has changed sides,” the CARDH report said.

But since the document came out, terror seems to have changed sides once more. In recent weeks, local groups

have documented a spike in kidnappings and killings of civilians. Between May and mid-July, at least 40 people were abducted and 75 killed. The case of Dorsainvil and her child, among others, might signal the end of Haiti’s brief period of respite.

Tensions soared last week when dozens of Haitians sought refuge in front of the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, attempting to flee the violence caused by the Kraze Baryè gang, a group that has been responsible for several highprofile kidnappings since June, including that of a famous radio host and her husband, the former head of Haiti’s electoral council.

Soon after, agents of the national police used tear gas to disperse the group of residents.

“The authorities are abandoning the population,” said

Pierre Espérance, executive director of the National Human Rights Defense Network, which last week called Vitel’Homme Innocent, the leader of Kraze Baryè, “the protégé” of high-ranking officers at the Haitian police, including its acting director general. “The gangs are protected by the state authorities and many members of the police force.”

On July 20, CARDH predicted a rise in violence if better security measures were not adopted. The group cited, among other reasons, the weakening of the “bwa kale” movement and the gangs’ need to make up income lost after the earlier drop in kidnappings. (According to rights groups, relatives of victims are often asked to pay up to $1 million in ransom.)

On Thursday, the State Department ordered nonemergency embassy personnel and their families to evacuate; it also advised all U.S. citizens in Haiti to leave “as soon as possible.”

To help address Haiti’s security challenge, the government of Kenya confirmed Saturday the possibility of leading a multinational force to the Caribbean country.

The plan would be to deploy a contingent of roughly 1,000 police officers to help train and assist Haitian police to restore normalcy and “protect strategic installations,” Kenya’s foreign minister, Alfred Mutua, said in a statement.

Jean Victor Généus, Haitian foreign minister, welcomed the proposal. “Haiti appreciates this demonstration of African solidarity,” he tweeted Monday, adding that the government will evaluate Kenya’s plan in the coming weeks.

Another kidnapping case drew worldwide attention in 2021, when 17 missionaries, mostly Americans, and their family members were abducted as they were leaving an orphanage in Port-au-Prince. Five hostages were released soon after; the rest managed to escape months later.

“The gangs do whatever they want, whenever they want,” Espérance said. “No one is safe, whether foreigner or Haitian.”

Deadly Russian missile strike hits apartments in central Ukraine

By MARC SANTORA

Aday after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine appeared to warn of more attacks inside Russia, two Russian missiles slammed into a residential building and university complex in his hometown, Kryvyi Rih on Monday, killing at least six people and injuring dozens of others, Ukrainian officials said.

The unusually pointed warning from Ukraine’s leader followed a series of apparent Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory, suggesting that Kyiv is stepping up its efforts to bring the war home to Russians. But Russia’s weapons have proved far deadlier for civilians, as they were again Monday in the steel-producing central Ukrainian city.

Serhii Lysak, the head of the region’s military administration, said six people had been killed and 75 injured. More than 20 of those were hospitalized, he wrote in a

message on Telegram.

Shortly after the attack, Zelenskyy posted video from the scene that showed smoke pouring from a building that had a gaping hole where several upper floors had been. Hours later he said a child and her mother were among the dead, and that it appeared Russia had used ballistic missiles in the strike.

Last month, a Russian strike killed at least 11 people in Kryvyi Rih, which is about 100 miles from the front line in Ukraine’s east.

Russian forces also shelled 130 towns and villages along the front line Monday, with some of the most intense fire directed at the southern port city of Kherson on the west bank of the Dnieper River, Ukrainian officials said. Four people were killed and 17 wounded in the shelling of the city, Andriy Yermak, the head of the presidential office, wrote on Telegram.

Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, was attacked hours after he warned that the war was “returning to the territory of Russia.”

An undated photo provided by El Roi Haiti, a faith-focused humanitarian organization, shows Alix Dorsainvil, the group’s community nurse and the wife of the group’s director, at right. Dorsainvil and her daughter have been abducted in Haiti, in the latest kidnapping episode to draw international notice, as a resurgence of violence grips the capital, Port-au-Prince.

A climate warning from the cradle of civilization

By ALISSA J. RUBIN

Every schoolchild learns the name: Mesopotamia — the Fertile Crescent, the cradle of civilization.

Today, much of that land is turning to dust.

The word itself, Mesopotamia, means the land between rivers. It is where the wheel was invented, irrigation flourished and the earliest known system of writing emerged. The rivers here, some scholars say, fed the fabled hanging gardens of Babylon and converged at the place described in the Bible as the Garden of Eden.

Now, so little water remains in some villages near the Euphrates River that families are dismantling their homes, brick by brick, piling them into pickup trucks and driving away.

“You would not believe it if I say it now, but this was a watery place,” said Sheikh Adnan al Sahlani, a science teacher here in southern Iraq near Naseriyah, a few miles from the Old Testament city of Ur, which the Bible describes as the hometown of the Prophet Abraham.

These days, “nowhere has water,” he said. Everyone who is left is “suffering a slow death.”

You don’t have to go back to biblical times to find a more verdant Iraq. Well into the 20th century, the southern city of Basra was known as the Venice of the East for its canals, plied by gondolalike boats that threaded through residential neighborhoods.

Indeed, for much of its history, the Fertile Crescent — often defined as including swaths of modern-day Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iran, the West Bank and Gaza — did not lack for water, inspiring centuries of artists and writers who depicted the region as a lush ancient land. Spring floods were common, and rice, one of the most water-intensive crops in the world, was grown for more than 2,000 years.

But now, nearly 40% of Iraq has been overtaken by blowing desert sands that claim tens of thousands of acres of arable land every year.

Climate change and desertification are to blame, scientists say. So are weak governance and the continued reliance on wasteful irrigation techniques that date back millenniums to Sumerian times.

A tug of war over water has also intensified water shortages for tens of millions of people across the region.

Another culprit is common to large swaths of the world: a growing population whose water demands continue to rise, both because of sheer numbers and, in many places, higher living standards, increasing individual consumption.

In Iraq, the fallout is everywhere, fraying society, spurring deadly clashes among villages, displacing thousands of people every year, emboldening extremists and leaving ever-more land looking like a barren moonscape.

Depleted, dirty rivers and groundwater are causing outbreaks of cholera, typhoid and hepatitis A. The creeping desert sands are swallowing farmland, forcing people to crowd into cities. Rivers and canals have dipped so low that Islamic State group militants cross them easily to attack villages and security outposts, and fish farmers have threatened government regulators who have tried to close them down for violating water restrictions.

The country is even changing underground.

In many areas, water pumped from below the surface is too salty to drink, the result of dwindling water, agricultural runoff and untreated waste. “Even my cows won’t drink it,” a farmer said.

For the rest of the Middle East and some other areas of the world, Iraq and its neighbors offer an unmistakable warning.

“Because of this region’s vulnerabilities, one of the most vulnerable on the planet, it is one of the first places that is going to show some kind of extreme succumbing, literally, to climate change,” said Charles Iceland, director of water security for the World Resource Institute.

Iraqis’ water comes from the government in red plastic barrels, in rations of about 160 gallons a month per family. Even when used sparingly, it barely lasts a week in the heat, said Sahlani, who lives in the village of Albu Jumaa.

As recently as the 1970s and 1980s, Iraq’s water ministry built artificial lakes and dams to hold the immense annual overflow from winter rains and gushing snow melt from the Taurus Mountains, the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates.

Even today, traces of Iraq’s greener past can be seen every spring. In the Anbar desert, a brief winter rain can turn the shallow valleys green and speckle them with flowers. Along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the water still nourishes trees beside the narrow banks, with bands of green fields on either side.

But even those bands have shrunk in recent decades.

Since 1974, Turkey has built 22 dams, hydroelectric plants and irrigation projects on the Tigris and Euphrates.

Then, in the early 2000s, Iran started building more than a dozen smaller dams and

tunnels on tributaries to the Tigris, devastating Iraqi provinces such as Diyala, which was known just 10 years ago for its peaches, apricots, oranges and dates. The tributaries from Iran are the only source of water in the province, other than the dwindling rainfall.

The impact has been drastic: The water flowing into Iraq has dropped almost 50% on the Euphrates and by about one-third on the Tigris since major dam building began in the 1970s, according to statistics from Iraq’s water ministry.

Hashem al-Kinani and his family have felt the changes firsthand. For generations, they farmed 20 acres east of Baghdad, on the Diyala border, facing one trial after another.

First, the American invasion and the ouster of Saddam Hussein bit into the state’s support of farmers. Then, in 2006, al-Qaida moved in and killed many local men, leaving their headless bodies in ditches. Hashem lost an uncle, and the family house was bombed by al-Qaida. Making matters worse, rainfall has become more erratic and gradually diminished. As the Iranian dams came on line, river water became too scarce to grow fruit.

Worldwide, countries share nearly 900 rivers, lakes and aquifers, according to the United Nations, and although a treaty exists to govern their use, fewer than half of all countries have ratified it. Notably absent from the list are upstream nations such as Turkey, Iran and China.

In 2021, Iraq’s water ministry threatened to drag Iran to the International Court of Justice for taking its water. But Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government, which is close to Tehran’s rulers, dropped the issue.

Now, the water flowing into eastern Iraq has been cut so much that flood plains have become parched fields. In some areas, Iraq’s rivers and irrigation canals have become so feeble that they barely dilute the wastewater running into them.

Iraq’s own growth has added to the strain: As its water dwindled, its population soared, from about 11.6 million in 1975 to more than 44 million today.

Pleas to Turkey to share more water have largely gone unheeded.

In the summer of 2022, at the height of last year’s drought, Turkey’s ambassador to Iraq responded to Iraq’s requests for more water by complaining that Iraqis were “squandering” it, calling on the Iraqi government to enact “immediate measures to reduce the waste.” This year, when a

similar request came, Turkey shared more water for a month before cutting back again.

Fixing Iraq’s outdated farming techniques — which waste as much as 70% of the water used for irrigation, according to a study done for Iraq’s water ministry — is paramount. But persuading farmers to change has been slow going.

Past the urban sprawl of northern Naseriyah, with its small auto repair shops and vegetable stands, the land empties out. Storm clouds gather in the late afternoon but then disperse without shedding a drop. Tufts of grasses, yellow and brown by late June, offer signs that crops grew here not so long ago.

The wind starts early each morning, blowing ceaselessly until dusk. It strips the topsoil, drying the land until all that is left is an earthen dust that piles on the quickly mounting dunes.

A short drive off the highway, deeper into the desert, lies Al Najim, a village being blown off the map. Thirty years ago, it had 5,000 people. Today there are just 80 left. The temperature hovered at 122 degrees.

Sheikh Muhammad Ajil Falghus, head of the Najim tribe, was born in the village. “The land was good, the soil was good,” he explained. Until the early 2000s, he said, “we grew wheat and barley, corn and clover.”

Now, all that grows are small groups of tamarisk trees planted as a bulwark against the sands.

“We are living now on the verge of life,” the sheikh said. “There is no agriculture, no planting possible anymore. This is the end of the line, the end of life. We wait for a solution from God, or from the good people.”

Boys searching for fish in the stagnant, shallow waters of a shrinking irrigation canal in a village on the outskirts of Najaf, Iraq.

Jonatan Ramos Director Funerario

At least 43 killed in blast at political rally in Pakistan

By CHRISTINA GOLDBAUM and ZIA URREHMAN

An explosion at a political rally on Sunday in northwest Pakistan killed at least 43 people and wounded 200 more, officials said, the latest sign of the deteriorating security situation in the country, where some militant groups have become more active over the past two years since finding a haven in neighboring Afghanistan under the Taliban administration there.

The blast occurred at about 4 p.m. in Bajaur, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, said Feroz Jamal, the provincial information minister. It targeted a political rally organized by Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, an Islamist party that is part of the governing coalition in Pakistan.

A video from the rally recorded before the explosion shows hundreds of men sitting outside beneath a cloth canopy as party officials addressed the crowd. As one district leader took the stage, enthusiastic party workers stood up, chanting, “Allah is great,” according to one rallygoer, Sharifullah Mamond, 19. Then an explosion rocked the crowd.

“I lost consciousness for a few minutes because of the power of the explosion,” Mamond said in a telephone interview from a hospital in Bajaur where he was being treated for minor injuries.

Provincial Police Chief Akhtar Hayat Khan told the local news media that the explosion was set off by a suicide bomber. Initial

evidence suggests that the bomber appeared to have been near the stage when he detonated the explosives, according to an intelligence officer in Bajaur who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Toll likely to grow

The death toll was expected to rise, officials said, and a rescue operation to recover the wounded was underway on Sunday evening. “The government is trying to shift critical patients to Peshawar and other hospitals through helicopters,” Jamal said. A state of

emergency was imposed in the hospitals in Peshawar, the provincial capital.

Among those killed was Maulana Ziaullah, a local leader of the political party who was onstage when the explosion occurred. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Officials said they suspected it might have been orchestrated by an Islamic State group affiliate in the region that is active in northwest Pakistan.

The group has previously targeted members of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl because of the close relationships the party’s local leaders maintain with the Taliban administration in Afghanistan, experts say.

The Islamic State group affiliate, known as the Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, has attacked the Taliban administration for not instituting what it considers a strict enough interpretation of Islamic principles in Afghanistan. In April 2022, the group renewed calls for the assassinations of religious scholars and activists associated with Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl in Pakistan.

That is part of ISIS-K’s “broader strategy to eliminate religious scholars from rival sects and religious parties,” said Riccardo Valle, director of research at The Khorasan Diary, an Islamabad-based news and research platform focusing on jihadist networks.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman, head of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, expressed sorrow and regret over the explosion in a statement published by the party’s media wing. Rehman called on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to thoroughly investigate the explosion.

A surge in militancy

The blast was the latest attack to rattle

Pakistan, where militant groups — including the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, and ISIS-K — have become more active in recent years. This year, the TTP has carried out several major attacks that have jolted Pakistanis’ tenuous sense of security. In January, TTP militants attacked a mosque in Peshawar, killing more than 100 people, and one month later they waged an hourslong assault on the police headquarters of Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi.

The attack Sunday “is yet another reminder that militancy remains ascendant in Pakistan, and insecurity is likely to rise in the coming months,” said Asfandyar Mir, a senior expert at the United States Institute of Peace.

“A few different groups — from the TTP to ISIS — are trying to carve out space for themselves in the country, and that creates incentives for each of these groups to try to distinguish themselves” in whom they choose to target, where those attacks happen and the scale of the violence they create, he added.

The rise of militant violence in recent months has stoked tension between Pakistan and the Taliban administration in Afghanistan. While Taliban security forces have cracked down on Islamic State group militants since seizing power in August 2021, Pakistani officials have accused the Taliban administration of providing a haven for the Pakistani Taliban. Taliban officials have denied that.

On Sunday, the Taliban administration also condemned the attack in Bajaur. “Such crimes are neither permissible nor justifiable in any way,” Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesperson for the administration, said on Twitter.

Political fallout

The attacks have also raised concerns that the deteriorating security situation could dampen political campaigning ahead of Pakistan’s next general election, expected in the fall, and dissuade people from voting.

The elections come after over a year of political turmoil since former Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted in a vote of noconfidence in April 2022 and a coalition government led by Sharif came to power. The elections this fall are considered a critical step toward establishing more political stability after a year of mass protests and a crackdown by the country’s powerful security establishment on Khan and his supporters.

The attacks “will play on the minds of the public and politicians both,” said Abdul Basit, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies who covers extremism and militancy in South Asia, adding, “It can result in dull election campaigns and low voter turnout, undermining the credibility of upcoming general elections.”

Outside a hospital on Sunday after an explosion in Bajaur, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

What happened to Japan?

By PAUL KRUGMAN

hope that at least some of my readers are too young to remember this, but in the early 1990s, many Americans — especially pundits, but also business leaders and a fair share of the general public — were obsessed with the rise of Japan. Two of the bestselling books of 1992 were Michael Crichton’s novel “Rising Sun,” about what he imagined to be the growing, sinister influence of Japanese corporations, and Lester Thurow’s “Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan, Europe and America.” It’s easy to forget now, but I like to remind people how airport bookstores were full of paperbacks with samurai warriors on their covers, purporting to teach you the secrets of Japanese management.

The timing of this Japan obsession was impeccable: It came at almost the exact moment Japan’s remarkable rise turned into a sustained decline in economic power.

These days, the focus of anxiety about global competition has shifted from Japan to China, which is a bona fide economic superpower; adjusted for purchasing power, its economy is already bigger than ours. But China has seemed to be faltering lately, and some have been asking whether China’s future path might resemble that of Japan.

My answer is that it probably won’t — that China will do worse. But to understand why I say that, you need to know something about what happened to Japan, which wasn’t at all the catastrophe I think many people imagine.

Here’s the story you may have heard: In the late 1980s,

Japan experienced a monstrous stock and real estate bubble, which eventually burst. Even now, the Nikkei stock average is significantly below the peak it reached in 1989. When the bubble burst, it left behind troubled banks and an overhang of corporate debt, which led to a generation of economic stagnation.

There’s some truth to aspects of this story, but it misses the most important factor in Japan’s relative decline: demography. Thanks to low fertility and unwillingness to accept immigrants, Japan’s working-age population has been declining quite rapidly since the mid-1990s. The only way Japan could have avoided a relative decline in the size of its economy would have been to achieve much faster growth in output per worker than other major economies, which it didn’t.

Given the demography, however, Japan hasn’t done too poorly. Adjusted for demography, Japan has achieved significant growth. It has seen a 45% rise in real income per relevant capita. The United States has done even better, but this hardly fits the narrative of Japanese stagnation.

Wait, there’s more. Managing an economy with a declining working-age population is difficult, because low population growth tends to lead to weak investment. This observation is at the heart of the secular stagnation hypothesis, which says that nations with weak population growth tend to have persistent difficulty in maintaining full employment.

Yet Japan has, in fact, managed to avoid mass unemployment, or indeed mass suffering of any kind. One indicator, the employed percentage of men in their prime working years, has remained high in Japan — indeed, consistently higher than that of the United States.

What about young people? Japan did see a rise in youth unemployment (ages 15-24) in the 1990s, but that rise has since been reversed.

“I hope that at least some of my readers are too young to remember this, but in the early 1990s many Americans — especially pundits, but also business leaders and a fair share of the general public — were obsessed with the rise of Japan,” writes New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. (Sam Whitney/The New York Times)

Tokyo likely can’t play the same role in global culture that Paris once did. But the Japanese are clearly having great success with sophisticated urbanism; if you think of Japan as a tired, stagnant society, you’re getting it wrong.

Which brings me to the question that I raised at the beginning of this newsletter: Will China be the next Japan?

There are some obvious similarities between China now and Japan in 1990. China has a wildly unbalanced economy, with too little consumer demand, kept afloat only by a hypertrophied real estate sector, and its workingage population is declining. Unlike Japan in 1990, most of the Chinese economy is still well behind the technological frontier, so it should have better prospects for rapid productivity growth, but there are growing concerns that China may have fallen into the “middle-income trap” that seems to afflict many emerging economies, which grow rapidly but only up to a point, then stall out.

Telephones:

Dr. Ricardo Angulo Publisher

So Japan’s economic performance since the days when everyone thought it would rule the world has actually been pretty good. It’s true that employment has been sustained in part through large deficit spending, and Japanese debt has shot up. But people have been predicting a Japanese debt crisis for decades, and it hasn’t materialized. In some ways, Japan, rather than being a cautionary tale, is a kind of role model — an example of how to manage difficult demography while remaining prosperous and socially stable.

And while this is hard to quantify, lots of people I’ve talked to say that Japanese society is far more dynamic and culturally creative than many outsiders realize. Economist and blogger Noah Smith, who knows the country well, said that Tokyo is the new Paris. Given the language barrier, I mostly have to take his word for it, although having been taken around Tokyo by locals, I can confirm that the city has a lot of vitality.

True, that same language barrier means that

Yet if China is headed for an economic slowdown, the interesting question is whether it can replicate Japan’s social cohesion — its ability to manage slower growth without mass suffering or social instability. I am very definitely not a China expert, but is there any indication that China, especially under an erratic authoritarian regime, is capable of pulling this off? Note that China already has much higher youth unemployment than Japan ever did.

So, no, China isn’t likely to be the next Japan, economically speaking. It’s probably going to be worse.

Gobernador presenta estatus de proyectos coordinados de energía

POR CYBERNEWS

S AN JUAN – El gobernador Pedro Rafael Pierluisi

Urutia, junto a la secretaria del Departamento de Energía Federal, Jenniffer Granholm, presentó el lunes, un resumen de las estrategias para transformar el sistema energético de la Isla, con el apoyo de la Administración Biden-Harris.

“Es importante que se sepa todo lo que se está haciendo, porque uno de los más importantes legados que dejaremos al pueblo de Puerto Rico es el de un sistema energético moderno, diversificado y resiliente, y con generación de energía a base de fuentes renovables”, sostuvo el gobernador en declaraciones escritas.

Pierluisi informó que hay 133 proyectos de mejoras al sistema energético en proceso de construcción, para un valor de más de dos mil quinientos millones

de dólares. Entre estos, un nuevo Sistema de Manejo de Energía, una asignación sin precedente para el manejo de la vegetación, moderna infraestructura de medición y la modernización de subestaciones grandes como las de Sabana Llana, Monacillo, Guánica, entre otras.

En el área de generación, destacan la adquisición de 11 nuevas unidades cuya inversión es de aproximadamente seiscientos millones de dólares, y 11 proyectos de energía renovable y cinco de almacenamiento a nivel industrial, pendientes en la Junta de Supervisión Fiscal y Administración Financiera.

“La meta es que estos proyectos estén operacionales para antes de que culmine el 2025, y así nos ayuden a lograr lo establecido en la Ley 17 de 2019, es decir, que 40 por ciento de la energía que estemos generando venga de fuentes renovables”, explicó el

gobernador.

Mientras, el Negociado de Energía de Puerto Rico publicó anuncios para contratar 1,000 MW adicionales de energía renovable y 500 MW adicionales de almacenamiento. Sobre los mil trescientos millones de dólares del Programa de Confiabilidad y Resiliencia Energética, el gobernador informó que se publicará un proceso competitivo para microrredes y proyectos de cogeneración, evaluando propuestas para la microrred del Centro Médico de Río Piedras y trabajando el prediseño de las microrredes de Vieques y Culebra.

En el tema de la energía distribuida, ya hay más de 86,300 sistemas solares privados interconectados a la red eléctrica, y el gobierno ha impactado a un total de 600 Pequeñas y Medianas Empresas. Además, se distribuirán quinientos millones de dólares para impactar más de 24 mil residencias con sistemas solares.

POR EL STAR STAFF

PONCE – El educador utuadeño, Javier Molina Pagán y candidato a senador por el Distrito Senatorial de Ponce por el Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP), propuso, una vez llegue al escaño, trabajar junto a los 15 alcaldes que componen la región para convertirlo en la segunda capital de Puerto Rico.

“Soy de Utuado, represento a la montaña con orgullo. Me tuve que desarrollar a través de muchos sacrificios y pasar por todas esas cosas que todavía al día de hoy las tengo que atravesar y mi familia. Pero específicamente es porque el gobierno siempre se concentra en lo que es el área metropolitana. Precisamente eso es una de las cosas por las que nosotros tenemos esta aspiración de llegar al Senado. Ya es hora que el distrito

senatorial de Ponce que compone 15 municipios nos convirtamos en la segunda capital. Lo que pasa es que muchas veces grandes intereses que están en el área metropolitana no quieren que este desarrollo se lleve a cabo. Y en la mano de nosotros, de los alcaldes, de los legisladores, seamos una voz fuerte en el Senado, la Cámara y en las posiciones que tengamos para exigir lo que nos corresponde“, afirmó Molina Pagán.

Molina Pagán ha sido superintendente escolar en Arecibo y actualmente es director de la Oficina de la Vejez del Municipio de Utuado. El Distrito de Ponce actualmente es el de mayor extensión territorial, compuesto por Adjuntas, Ciales, Guánica, Guayanilla, Jayuya, Juana Díaz, Lajas, Lares, Las Marías, Maricao, Peñuelas, Ponce, Sabana Grande, Utuado y Yauco.

Morovis ofrece pruebas de antígenos a Covid-19 en su Centro Municipal de Pruebas en el estadio Pepe Huyke

POR EL STAR STAFF

MOROVIS – La alcaldesa de Morovis, Carmen Maldonado González, informó que ante el alza registrada en casos de Covid-19, el centro Municipal de Pruebas de Antígenos continúa fijo de lunes a jueves de 9:00 de la mañana a 1:00 de la tarde en las facilidades del Coliseo José ‘Pepe’ Huyke.

“Las pruebas que estamos realizando son diagnósticas de Covid-19 y los ciudadanos que acudan a administrarse las mismas tienen los resultados el mismo día”, señaló la Alcaldesa. Dichas pruebas, libres de costo, están disponibles mientras duren.

Según el portal del Departamento de salud, el promedio de casos confirmados el pasado jueves en Puerto Rico era de 69, con un promedio de 613 casos probables mediante pruebas de antígenos.

Hay 131 casos de adultos hospitalizados con Covid-19 y 17 casos pediátricos. La región Metropolitana, Bayamón y Caguas son las de mayor prevalencia, según el portal. En mayo pasado, el doctor Marcos López Casillas, gerente de investigación del Fideicomiso de Salud Pública, señaló a la prensa que “estamos en una etapa diferente de la pandemia, sin duda. Pero recordemos que, aunque la declaración de emergencia ya no está en efecto, eso

no significa que el Covid-19 se haya ido”, advirtió. López, profesor de química de la Universidad de Puerto Rico en Humacao (UPR-H) añadió que los datos indican que el virus sigue vigente y mutando como siempre.

“Los especialistas han señalado que en la mayoría de los casos, los síntomas del Covid-19 incluyen manifestaciones leves catarrales y congestión nasal y en ocasiones con fiebre alta. Todos conocemos lo que significa este virus, y mi exhortación a los moroveños que tengan síntomas a que acudan a nuestro centro el en Pepe Huyke”, finalizó Maldonado González.

Se propone convertir el distrito senatorial de Ponce como la segunda capital de Puerto Rico

‘Annihilation,’ ‘Support the Girls’ and more streaming gems

By JASON BAILEY

This month’s rundown of off-the-radar picks on your subscription streaming services includes indies of all stripes, plus three documentary explorations of our changing media landscape.

‘Annihilation’ (2018)

You’d think that a science-fiction adventure featuring the “Star Wars” alums Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac, as well as Portman’s “Thor” co-star Tessa Thompson, would have been a giant hit. But Paramount Pictures seemed baffled by how to market a sci-fi picture about ideas and creeping dread (rather then lasers and intergalactic dogfights), dumping it onto Netflix overseas and into theaters with a shrug in the United States. They fear what they don’t understand; writer and director Alex Garland, adapting the novel by Jeff VanderMeer, crafts a thrilling yet thoughtful combination of head trip and hero’s journey that owes more to Andrei Tarkovsky than George Lucas. Stream it on Netflix.

‘On the Count of Three’ (2022)

The feature directorial debut of stand-up comic and sitcom star Jerrod Carmichael was one of many films all but disappeared by the pandemic; it premiered at the 2021, onlineonly edition of the Sundance Film Festival before quietly landing on Hulu more than a year later. But there’s much to recommend in “On the Count of Three,” the story of two longtime friends (played by Carmichael and Christopher Abbott) who vow to aid each other in ending their lives after a long day of cleaning up unfinished business. Its chief virtue is its leading actors — Abbott has been doing modest but devastating work on the indie scene for years, and Carmichael matches his co-star’s intensity and anguish — while Carmichael shows a sure hand for navigating the tonal shifts of Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch’s tricky screenplay. Stream it on Hulu.

‘White Bird in a Blizzard’ (2014)

The films of director Gregg Araki have been so (rightly) celebrated in recent years for their wild stylistic choices and unapologetic queer themes that it’s tempting to overlook his more tempered, mainstream affairs. But this combination of sun-baked noir, coming-of-age drama and Sirkian melodrama remains one of his most fascinating concoctions. Shailene Woodley turns in one of her finest performances to date as young Kat, whose mother, Eve (Eva Green, vamping marvelously), disappears under mysterious circumstances. Kat tries to

figure out what happened, but “White Bird” is less a detective story than an exploration of the tricky landscape of young adulthood, dramatized with a weary verisimilitude. Stream it on Max.

‘Violet & Daisy’ (2013)

This tale of two teenage girl assassins (Alexis Bledel and Saoirse Ronan) from writer and director Geoffrey Fletcher (the Oscarwinning screenwriter of “Precious”) suffers a bit from post-Tarantino preciousness. The MVP here is James Gandolfini, who co-stars as their would-be target, and plays the character with the weary melancholy of a man who knows his days are numbered, and has accepted it. He plays it as dry comedy, with just a touch of doomed inevitability, and that’s the right choice; the genuine tenderness and trust in his scenes with Ronan are a nice plus. “Violet & Daisy” hit theaters just 12 days before Gandolfini’s untimely death, and it serves as a poignant reminder of the wide range of roles he had yet to play. Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.

‘Slow West’ (2015)

Kodi Smit-McPhee’s Oscar-nominated turn in “The Power of the Dog” was not the actor’s first go-round in the Wild West; six years earlier, he co-starred with Michael Fassbender in this eccentric and affecting oater from writer and director John Maclean. Smit-McPhee plays Jay, a teenage Scottish immigrant traveling the West in search of his sweetheart from back home, with Fassbender as Silas, a frontiersman who takes the innocent and clueless Jay under his wing. MacLean creates a credibly dangerous world of threats both natural and seemin-

gly supernatural (Ben Mendelsohn, stealing the show as a menacing bounty hunter). Stream it on Max.

‘Support the Girls’ (2018)

Writer and director Andrew Bujalski

(“Funny Ha Ha,” “Computer Chess”) creates what looks, on its shiny surface, like a sunny workplace comedy along the lines of “Working …” or the Chotchkie’s scenes in “Office Space.” But he’s up to something much slyer, a smart examination of class and gender politics in one of their most pointed playgrounds: a Hootersstyle sports bar and grill, where customers leer at scantily clad servers while the manager, Lisa (Regina Hall), tries to keep temperatures cool (and maintain her own sanity). It’s a wise, winning comedy, with a particularly sparkling supporting turn by Haley Lu Richardson, a “White

Lotus” favorite. Stream it on Hulu.

‘Voyeur’ (2017)

The strange, twisted tale of motel owner Gerald Foos (who claimed to have spied on his customers for decades) and superstar journalist Gay Talese (who wrote about Foos in a controversial New Yorker article and book) is detailed by directors Myles Kane and Josh Koury in this riveting documentary. Voyeurism aside, the most compelling passages are less about what Foos did than how Talese’s seemingly sturdy news judgment failed him so spectacularly. Ultimately, “Voyeur” is less a character study than a prescient examination of a faltering media landscape, where a story that’s too good to be true is too often told anyway. Stream it on Netflix.

‘VHS Massacre’ (2016) / ‘VHS Massacre Too’ (2020)

Kenneth Powell and Thomas Edward Seymour’s first documentary on, per the secondary title, “Cult Films and the Decline of Physical Media” is a bit too ambitious for its slender 72-minute running time, attempting to follow too many strands and chase too many gimmicks. But the most direct material, on the logistics of the video business — from its golden age to this waning period — is invaluable, as Seymour seemed to realize when solo-directing the more successful follow-up, a straight-ahead history of exploitation films, their exhibition and the kind of oddities we’ve lost in this all-streaming, all-the-time era. The sequel is the better film, but both are informative and enlightening, with copious commentary from the people who make these movies, and those who love them. Stream parts one and two on Amazon Prime Video.

Natalie Portman in “Annihilation.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Tuesday, August 1, 2023 17

Randy Meisner, a founding member of the Eagles, dies at 77

By ALEX WILLIAMS

Randy Meisner, a founding member and the original bassist of the Eagles whose celestial tenor fueled hits such as “Take It to the Limit” and helped catapult the breezy country-rock band from the Los Angeles club circuit to the pinnacle of 1970s rock, died last Wednesday at a hospital in Los Angeles. He was 77.

The cause was complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the band said on its website.

“Randy was an integral part of the Eagles and instrumental in the early success of the band,” the group said.

“God, he had the most beautiful voice,” singer Vince Gill, who joined the Eagles in 2017, said in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times. Inheriting Meisner’s soaring vocal duties on “Take It to the Limit,” from 1975, in live performance is an unenviable task, he added: “Everybody to a man would say, ‘I’d sure rather hear Randy sing it,’ me included.”

In a band of egos, where the internal power plays and boozy blowouts seemed as common as string changes, the softspoken Meisner, an introvert who grew up on a farm in Nebraska, was never one to jostle for the spotlight.

There would not be much room for it on a stage that included, at various times, the band’s alpha dogs, Don Henley and Glenn Frey; feisty guitarist Don Felder, who joined the band in 1974; and, eventually, gonzo guitarist Joe Walsh, a hedonist even by 1970s rock standards who in 1975 replaced Bernie Leadon, an original member.

Meisner often expressed his preference for the band’s early days, when the Eagles were a harmonious outfit offstage as well as on.

“When we first started, we were really close, like brothers,” he was quoted saying in the 1998 book “To the Limit: The Untold Story of the Eagles,” by Marc Eliot. “We’d sit around, smoke a doob together, drink beer and have a good time.”

The peaceful, easy feelings were not

to last. From humble beginnings — the band’s first gig was backing Linda Ronstadt at Disneyland in 1971 — the Eagles quickly grew into a colossus, notching five Billboard No. 1 singles, starting with “Best of My Love” in 1974, and six No. 1 albums.

In 2018, with 38 million copies sold, “The Eagles: Their Greatest Hits” (1976) surpassed Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” to become the bestselling album of all time, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. At that point, “Hotel California” (1976), with sales of 26 million, was third on the list.

Meisner actually had the most stature of any of the original Eagles, having found himself at the heart of the booming country-rock scene in Los Angeles in the late 1960s as a member of the seminal bands Buffalo Springfield and Poco, as well as Rick Nelson & the Stone Canyon Band.

He handled lead vocals on three songs on the Eagles’ first album, from 1972, including the soaring “Take the Devil,” which he wrote with Leadon.

“There it was, the sound,” Glyn Johns, who produced the album, once said of the track. “Extraordinary blend of voices, wonderful harmony sound, just stunning.”

The collaborative spirit began to fade over the next two albums, “Desperado” (1973) and “On the Border” (1974), as Henley, the drummer, and Frey, the rhythm guitarist, came to dominate songwriting and vocal duties. “It’s just like on a

football team,” Henley once said. “Some people quarterback and some people block.”

Randall Herman Meisner was born March 8, 1946, in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, one of two children of Herman and Emilie (Haun) Meisner, who ran a farm growing corn, alfalfa and beans. He took up music at a young age.

He got his first acoustic guitar when he was 12 or 13 years old and, shortly after, formed a high school band, according to a 2016 interview with Rock Cellar magazine. “We did pretty good, but we didn’t win anything,” he said.

He was still a teenager when he joined another band and moved to Los Angeles, he told Rock Cellar. “We couldn’t find any work because there were a million bands out here.”

That changed — spectacularly so — with the Eagles. But even so, he was all too ready to leave at the band’s apex of fame.

“I was always kind of shy,” he said in a 2013 interview with Rolling Stone, noting that his bandmates had wanted him to stand center stage to sing “Take It to the Limit” but that he preferred to be “out of the spotlight.”

Then, he recalled, one night in Knoxville, Tennessee, he caught the flu. “We did two or three encores, and Glenn wanted another one,” he said, referring to Frey, who died in 2016.

“I told them I couldn’t do it, and we got into a spat,” Meisner said. “That was the end.”

He left the band in September 1977 (he was replaced by Timothy B. Schmit, who years earlier had also replaced him in Poco), but he rejoined his ex-bandmates when the Eagles were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.

A list of survivors was not immediately available. Meisner’s wife, Lana, was killed in an accidental shooting in 2016. Meisner continued to release solo albums after leaving the Eagles, and lodged three singles in the Billboard Top 40. Still, he had regrets. “I wish I could have left in a different way,” he said in a 2000 interview with Canadian radio host John Beaudin. Of the mudslinging among members, widely documented over the years, he added, “So you say things that you really don’t mean, you spill all the dirt and then years later, like now, it’s like, ‘Why the hell did I say that?’”

“We’re just people,” he said, “and when you get older, it’s like, why even think about it anymore? Enough is enough.”

Randy Meisner, center, with his fellow Eagles Joe Walsh, left, and Don Henley in 1977. He often expressed his preference for the band’s early days, when the Eagles were a harmonious outfit offstage as well as on.

From left, Mr. Meisner, Timothy B. Schmit, Glenn Frey, Don Felder, Mr. Henley (at the drums), Joe Walsh and Bernie Leadon, Eagles past and present, performed when the group was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.

This dish makes a case for eating your vegetables

By YEWANDE KOMOLAFE

The first bite I took was the naan — blistered and lightly brushed with softened ghee. It was airy, doughy, crispy all at once. I dragged a piece through a bowl of saag shrimp, took a bite and was stunned. It hit all the notes I’d always wanted from a vegetable-forward dish, a perfect interplay of ingredients. The brininess of tender shrimp heightened fresh sautéed spinach, ginger, garlic and chile.

I was at Le Taj in downtown Montreal with my husband, Mark, who has visited this elegant restaurant nearly every summer since 1988. Copper bowls full of korma, xacuti, bhindi, steamed rice and that wondrous saag shrimp crowded our table. Small bowls of pickles and chutneys were perched along the table’s edge.

The food memories lingered, as they do after all of my travels. I tend to wrap myself in a cocoon of nostalgia: “Remember how warm and buttery the kouign-amann was that morning?” “The perfect strawberries we had at Jean-Talon?” Back in Brooklyn, I recounted delicious details of our trip to Mark: “Remember the saag shrimp that night at Le Taj?” Vegetables rarely hold a candle to pastries in my mind’s eye. But this saag lodged itself in my consciousness, right alongside the buttery, sugary pastries I’m so fond of.

When I returned to Le Taj in May, the saag shrimp surpassed my recollection. The cuisine at Le Taj is primarily North Indian, as is the dish itself. (The proprietor, Vinod Kapoor, grew up in Mussoorie, in the northern state of Uttarakhand.) Albeit a reluctant restaurateur, he’s a near-nightly presence in the dining room, moving through it alongside Fayzul Islam and Gourmet Dorje, veteran waiters who have worked at the restaurant for more than 25 years. (They have been there as long as Mark can remember.) And over time, Kapoor has turned Le Taj into an institution.

A folder, tightly wrapped in brightly colored silk and studded with gems, the nightly dessert menu stands out, presented to diners at the end of the meal. Its boldness fits in perfectly among the sepia-toned reliefs that line the restaurant’s walls, a nod to Kapoor’s past as an art gallery owner and jewelry designer.

“I’m not a chef,” Kapoor said. “Before opening the restaurant, the only connection I had to restaurants was that I ate in one every night.”

He credited the saag shrimp, one of his favorite dishes on the menu, to Pourin Singh, the chef whom he described as “a master of his craft.”

Singh walked me through the recipe, beginning with a splash of a neutral oil in a pan set over a medium flame. Onions and cumin seeds are gently sautéed before pinches of ground spices, a ladle of a curry sauce from a base made that morning, several large shrimp, blanched spinach and a splash of cream are added. It’s straightforward enough, but Singh’s secret, I believe, is the freshness of his ingredients: the spices, the spinach, the shrimp and even the chopped tomato garnish.

Saag, thankfully, comes in so many ingenious variations. Leafy greens, such as spinach, amaranth, mustard

greens or fenugreek, make up the bulk. A heady blend of spices and aromatics enhances the flavor, while different proteins can be added to enhance the texture and flavor of the completed dish.

But saag shrimp convinced me that if ever I have to choose between a vegetable and a butter-laden pastry, I could respond without missing a beat, “I would rather have the saag.”

Saag shrimp

Recipe from Pourin Singh

Adapted by Yewande Komolafe

Saag comes in so many ingenious variations. Leafy greens, such as spinach, amaranth, mustard greens or fenugreek, make up the bulk. A heady blend of spices and aromatics provide the foundation, and different proteins can be added to enhance texture and flavor. This version, adapted from chef Pourin Singh’s recipe at Le Taj in Montreal, is made with plump shrimp, which add a complementary brininess. The secret to Singh’s version is the freshness of his ingredients: the spices, the spinach, the shrimp and even the chopped tomato garnish. Serve while still warm, alongside steamed fluffy basmati rice and fresh naan, topped with green chile chutney, tamarind chutney or fresh kachumbari for a lovely pop of acid and heat. — Yewande Komolafe

Yield: 4 servings

Total time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

For the spice blend:

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

For the shrimp:

1 pound peeled, deveined large shrimp, tails off

Salt

3 tablespoons ghee or neutral oil, such as grapeseed or safflower

1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds

1 large yellow onion, minced

1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, scrubbed and grated

3 garlic cloves, grated

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 medium fresh tomato, chopped

1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves and stems, chopped

1 pound fresh baby spinach, roughly chopped using a sharp knife or by pulsing in a food processor

1/2 cup heavy cream or unsweetened coconut cream

Steamed rice, naan, green chile chutney, tamarind chutney and fresh kachumbari, or a combination, for serving

Preparation:

1. Make the spice blend: In a small bowl, combine turmeric, ginger, cumin, coriander, cayenne, garlic powder and onion powder.

2. Toss the shrimp with 2 teaspoons of the spice blend and a light sprinkle of salt. Set aside.

3. Heat a large shallow skillet over medium-high. Add the ghee and cumin seeds, and toast until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the onion, cook until softened and translucent, stirring frequently, 5 minutes.

4. Add the remaining spice blend, stir and toast until fragrant, 30 seconds. Add the ginger, garlic and tomato paste. Stir and cook until the tomato paste deepens in color, about 1 minute. Reserve 1 tablespoon of the chopped tomato for garnish. Add the remaining chopped tomato, about half of the chopped cilantro and 1/2 cup water. Increase the heat to high and bring the sauce to a simmer. Cook the sauce, stirring until it thickens and reduces (about three-fourths of the original volume), 3 to 5 minutes. Season with salt.

5. Add the shrimp to the skillet all at once and stir to coat with the sauce. Add the spinach in two batches, wilting the first batch before adding the second, and season with salt. Cook on high heat, stirring occasionally, until spinach is softened, shrimp is cooked through and most of the liquid has evaporated, about 4 to 5 minutes. Stir in the heavy cream and adjust the seasoning to taste with more salt, if necessary.

6. Remove from heat and garnish with the reserved chopped tomatoes and the cilantro. Serve over steamed rice and warm, pillowy naan. Top the saag with green chile chutney, tamarind chutney or fresh kachumbari for a lovely pop of acid and heat.

A recipe for saag shrimp from a beloved Montreal restaurant convinced Yewande Komolafe that leafy greens can be just as good as croissants.

Heat affects older people more. Here’s how to stay safe.

people with these conditions are also at a heightened risk for heat-related problems.)

As people age, they also stop feeling as thirsty and so they tend to drink less. In hot conditions, that can cause them to become dehydrated faster, which is “hugely detrimental for temperature control,” Crandall said.

In addition, some older adults, particularly if they have some form of dementia or cognitive decline, may not perceive temperature changes as well. As a result, they won’t respond appropriately to heat, both biologically (through sweating) and behaviorally (by moving to someplace cool).

Finally, certain medications can affect people’s hydration, blood flow and even the sweat response, so be sure to ask your doctor about any medications you’re taking.

Of course, not everyone the same age responds to heat in the same way. Older adults who are physically fit are typically more resilient, Crandall said, because they have better blood flow and they sweat more than their sedentary peers.

How to stay safe

People often think that heat needs to be extreme (say, over 100 degrees) to cause illness, but in older adults, signs of heat exhaustion can emerge when temperatures are as low as 80 degrees.

“Twenty-year-olds can go out in 80-degree weather for hours and generally be OK,” said Dr. Angela Primbas, a geriatrician at UCLA Health. “That’s not true for older adults.”

By DANA G. SMITH

We are experiencing the hottest days in history. Heat waves have blanketed the Northern Hemisphere this week, with temperatures reaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit on three continents.

Extreme heat can be deadly for anyone, but older adults are uniquely vulnerable. In the heat wave that suffocated Europe in summer 2022, people age 65 and older accounted for approximately 90% of heat-related deaths.

Experts say that three factors combine to increase older adults’ risk: biological changes that occur naturally with age, higher rates of age-related chronic diseases and greater use of

medications that can alter the body’s response to heat.

Here’s how to gauge the risk for a heat-related illness for you or a loved one and how to stay safe.

How heat affects an aging body

The human body has two main mechanisms to cool itself: sweating and increasing blood flow to the skin. In older adults, those processes are compromised — they sweat less and they have poor circulation compared with younger adults.

“Because older individuals are not able to release the heat as well, their core temperature goes up faster and higher,” said Craig Crandall, a professor of internal medicine specializing in thermoregulation at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. “And we know that core temperature is the primary driver for heat-related injury and death.”

These changes don’t suddenly emerge when someone reaches 65; they start gradually in middle age, said Glen Kenny, a professor of physiology at the University of Ottawa. “It’s a slow decline,” he said. But you start to see noticeable differences “by the age of 40, no question.”

Physical exertion increases a person’s risk for heat illness because the body starts to generate even more heat. On hot days, Primbas said, older adults and people with serious health conditions should limit outdoor activities like walking and gardening to the cooler mornings and evenings, take frequent breaks and drink plenty of water. Listen to your body, too: If the activity starts to feel harder than normal, that’s a signal to stop and find a place to cool down.

Signs of dehydration or heat exhaustion include dizziness, lightheadedness, headache, a racing heart or feeling lethargic. Low energy — if someone is not talking or interacting as much as usual — is especially important to watch out for in people with cognitive impairment, who may not realize how hot they are or be able to express it.

While older adults face unique challenges when it comes to heat, the ways to cool down are the same for any age. If you or a loved one start to experience any of the above symptoms, the best thing you can do is to go somewhere that has air conditioning, Kenny said. The indoor temperature doesn’t have to be “subzero,” he added, just aim for 77 degrees or below. If air conditioning isn’t available in the home, check if there’s a local cooling center.

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Chronic conditions that are more common in old age, most notably cardiovascular disease and diabetes, can exacerbate these issues. A diseased heart isn’t able to pump as much blood, further reducing blood flow to the skin. And if the nerves become affected in people with severe diabetes, the body might not receive the message that it needs to start sweating. (Younger

In the absence of air conditioning, water is “extremely helpful in reducing our risk for heat-related injury,” Crandall said. He advised rubbing an ice cube over your skin, spraying yourself with cool water, drenching your shirt, or taking a cool shower or bath.

Whatever you do, take heat seriously. It’s the No. 1 cause of weather-related deaths in the United States, and many of those fatalities are preventable.

An elderly resident of Houston sits on her porch of her un-air conditioned home on a hot afternoon, July 7, 2023. Three factors combine to increase older adults’ risk in high temperatures: biological changes that occur naturally with age, higher rates of age-related chronic diseases and greater use of medications that can alter the body’s response to heat.

Se preparan planes de alimentación adaptados a tus necesidades de salud Plan de alimentación para perder peso y control de glucosa Educación en Diabetes, Charlas Educativas a Empresas Aceptamos la mayoría de los planes médicos y vitales

Eunice González LND RD ED Nutricionista-Dietista

Ave. Muñoz Marin, Mariolga Y-24 Caguas Ave. El Comandante, Carolina

González-Nutricionista

101 degrees in the ocean off Florida: Was it a world record?

By HIROKO TABUCHI

The reading from a buoy off Florida last week was stunning: 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit, or just over 38 Celsius, a possible world record for sea surface temperatures and a stark indication of the brutal marine heat wave that’s threatening the region’s sea life.

But determining whether that reading was in fact a world record is complicated.

First things first: The buoy’s reading is so off-the-charts; could it have been malfunctioning?

Allyson Gantt of the National Park Service, which monitors and maintains the buoy, said there was no reason to doubt the measurement. The data was consistent with high water temperatures seen in the area, Florida Bay, between the southern end of the Florida mainland and the Florida Keys, in recent weeks, she said.

Then, there’s the fact that that there is no official keeper of ocean temperature records. The World Meteorological Organization tracks land surface temperature records, but not ones set at sea.

Experts have pointed to a reading of 99.7 degrees Fahrenheit, recorded in the middle of Kuwait Bay in 2020 and reported in a 2020 research paper, as the world record to date.

Still, comparing the Kuwait reading, taken in the open sea, to a reading in shallow waters off the coast of Florida could be tricky.

Just like it’s easier to heat up a shallow bath than a deep one, the depth of the water is going to affect temperatures, said Jeff Masters, a former hurricane scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a co-founder

of Weather Underground, a Web-based weather service.

“And maybe your buoy is near a river and there is a discharge from the river,” he said. “Or, in the case of the Everglades, there’s a lot of seaweed in the water.” Organic matter like seaweed means more dark surfaces, which are going to absorb more heat. “So a lot of complications when you’re talking near the shore,” Masters said.

Out in the open ocean, it’s rare for surface temperatures to rise above roughly 90 degrees Fahrenheit, beyond which the water usually evaporates, said Frank Edgar Muller-Karger, a professor at the College of

Marine Science at the University of South Florida.

“But when you get to very, very shallow water, like over a coral reef or in a puddle of water, you can get up over that,” he said. “The sunlight is heating the water so much that it just can’t evaporate quickly enough.”

Whether or not temperatures off Florida broke a world record, 100 degrees is an alarming reading for seawater. Many parts of the country have broken or tied temperature records this month, and a warm front that’s making its way across the country is expected to bring more dangerously hot weather in coming days.

Scientists said on Tuesday that extreme temperatures recorded this month in the Southwestern United States, as well as southern Europe and northern Mexico, would have been “virtually impossible” without the influence of human-caused climate change.

Oceans have absorbed about 90% of the additional heat caused by humans as the world burns fossil fuels and destroys forests. When sea temperatures rise too high, it causes corals to expel the algae they need for sustenance, a process known as bleaching.

Corals typically experience the most heat stress in August and September. But the recent heat means they’re now becoming stressed much earlier in the year. If waters don’t cool quickly enough, or if bleaching events happen in rapid succession, the corals can die. By some estimates, the world has already lost half of its coral reefs since 1950.

Globally, about 44% of the world’s oceans are experiencing a marine heat wave, experts say, including areas off the East Coast of Canada and in the Mediterranean. And in Florida, as Masters put it: “If you took a dip in Manatee Bay, it would feel like a hot tub.”

Gantt of the National Park Service pointed to some good news: Sea temperatures are still decreasing by as much as 10 degrees at night, and salinity levels are lower at this time of year than they have been in many previous years. Both help to relieve some of the stress on local marine life.

That was a reminder of the important role the Everglades played in sending clean, fresh water into Florida Bay, she said.

The ocean at Key Biscayne Beach, in Key Biscayne, Fla., on July 18, 2023. The reading from a humble buoy off Florida last week was stunning: 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit, or just over 38 Celsius, a potential sea surface temperature world record — and a stark indication of the brutal marine heat wave that’s threatening the region’s sea life.

The San Juan Daily Star

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE MAYAGÜEZ ZAMARIE

PONCE FANTAUZZI Peticionaria EX-PARTE

Civil Núm.: MZ2023CV00665.

Sala: 307. Sobre: EXPEDICIÓN DE CARTAS TESTAMENTARIAS. AVISO DE ACREEDORES.

A: TODO POSIBLE

ACREEDOR DEL FINADO, RAMÓN ANTONIO PONCE FANTAUZZI, t.c.c. RAMÓN

PONCE FANTAUZZI o RAMÓN PONCE, QUIEN MURIÓ TESTADO EL 3 DE MARZO DE 2023 EN MAYAGÜEZ, PUERTO RICO.

POR LA PRESENTE se le informa a cualquier acreedor del finado Ramón Antonio Ponce Fantauzzi, t.c.c. Ramón Ponce Fantauzzi o Ramón Ponce, quien murió testado el 3 de marzo de 2023, en Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, que si tiene una acreencia en su contra deberá presentársela a su Albacea, Zamarie Ponce Fantauzzi, con los correspondientes comprobantes bajo juramento en su dirección postal en De Diego 55 Este, Oficina 206, Mayagüez, 00680, dentro del plazo de seis meses de publicado el aviso. Quedan advertidos los potenciales acreedores del causante de que si la Albacea dudase de la validez de su reclamación la rechazará, notificándoselo por escrito, quienes quedarán expeditos su derecho para incoar la acción contra la administración del caudal ante el tribunal competente. Asimismo, que la Albacea no le será personalmente responsable a un acreedor que no hubiese presentado la reclamación dentro del plazo aquí dispuesto por los caudales o dinero que hubiera entregado a cuentas de legítimas reclamaciones, legados o hijuelas antes de intentarse la acción, sin que ello afecte su derecho de ir directamente contra los herederos por el monto de su reclamación hasta el importe de lo recibido en pago de la herencia, si la misma no está prescrita. Arts. 594 y 595 del Código de Enjuiciamiento Civil, 32 L.P.R.A. §§2542 y 2543.

EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y Sello del Tribunal hoy día 14 de junio de 2023. LCDA. NORMA G. SANTANA IRIZARRY, SECRETARIA REGIONAL II. REBECA MEDINA FIGUEROA,

SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL I.

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Parte Demandante Vs. SUCESIÓN DE ANÍBAL CRUZ DE LEÓN T/C/C/ ANTONIO ANÍBAL CRUZ DE LEÓN Y SUCESIÓN DE MIGUELINA RIVERA CANCEL T/C/C MARĹA

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POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; CRIM

Parte Demandada

Civil Núm.: SG2022CV00347.

Salón Núm.: (207). Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA Y COBRO DE DINERO. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS.

A: SUCESIÓN DE ANÍBAL CRUZ DE LEÓN T/C/C/ ANTONIO ANÍBAL CRUZ DE LEÓN Y SUCESIÓN DE MIGUELINA RIVERA CANCEL T/C/C MARĹA RIVERA CANCEL COMPUESTA POR FULANO Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES

(CRIM): DEPARTAMENTO DE HACIENDA: Y AL

PÚBLICO EN GENERAL:

El Alguacil que suscribe, certifica y hace constar que en cumplimiento de Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que me ha sido dirigido por la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Mayagüez, procederé a vender en pública subasta y al mejor postor, por separado, de contado y por moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América. Todo pago recibido por el (la) Alguacil por concepto de subastas será en efectivo, giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del (de la) Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia. Todo derecho, título, participación e interés que le corresponda a la parte deman-

dada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar número noventa y nueve (99) según Plano de Inscripción del Proyecto de solares denominado San Isidro, radicado en el Barrio Rincón del término municipal de Sabana Grande, Puerto Rico. Dicho solar tiene un área de trescientos diecinueve metros cuadrados con noventa y ocho centésimas de metro cuadrados (319.98) y colinda por el NORTE, con la calle número cinco (5), distancia de doce metros con setenta centímetros (12.70); por el SUR, con el solar número ochenta y seis (86), distancia de doce metros con noventa y dos centímetros (12.92); por el ESTE, con el solar número noventa y ocho (98), distancia de veinticinco metros con cuatro centímetros (25.04); por el OESTE, con el solar número cien (100), distancia de veinticuatro metros con noventa y cuatro centímetros (24.94). Contiene una casa de concreto y bloques techada de zinc, que mide 21 pies de frente por 34 pies de fondo y consta de 3 cuartos dormitorios, sala, comedor, cocina, servicio sanitario, balcón y marquesina, con un valor de $8,000.00, mediante escritura número 20, otorgada en Sabana Grande, Puerto Rico, el día 3 de marzo de 1982, ante el notario José Antonio Morales, inscrito al folio 171 del tomo 151 de Sabana Grande, inscripción 2da. Consta inscrita al folio 171 del tomo 151 de Sabana Grande, finca número #8,195 Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de San Germán. La propiedad objeto de ejecución está localizada en la siguiente dirección: Bda. San Isidro, 99 Rodríguez Acosta St., Sabana Grande, P.R. 00637. Se informa que la propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravamen posterior, una vez sea otorgada la escritura de venta judicial y obtenida la Orden y Mandamiento de cancelación de gravamen posterior. (Art. 51, Ley 210-2015). En relación a la finca a subastarse, se establece como tipo mínimo de licitación en la Primera Subasta la suma de $42,000.00, según acordado entre las partes en el precio pactado en la Escritura de Hipoteca #157, otorgada en Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, el día 16 de agosto de 2008, ante el notario Luis Angel Velázquez Mass, e inscrita al folio 13 del tomo 331 de Sabana Grande, finca número 8,195, inscripción 9na. La PRIMERA SUBASTA, se llevará a cabo el día 12 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2023 A LAS

10:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en mis oficinas sitas en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Mayagüez, el tipo mínimo para la primera subasta es la suma de $42,000.00. Si la primera subasta del inmueble no produjere remate, ni adjudicación, se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 19 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2023 A LAS 10:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo sitio y servirá de tipo mínimo las dos terceras partes del precio pactada para la primera subasta, o sea, la suma de $28,000.00. Si la segunda subasta no produjere remate, ni adjudicación, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 26 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2023 A LAS 10:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar y regirá como tipo mínimo de la tercera subasta la mitad del precio pactado para la primera, o sea, la suma de $21,000.00. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo, para con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandante el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor, a saber: Suma Principal de $7,835.90, con intereses a 6.375% anual, desde el 1ro de octubre de 2021, hasta el presente y los que se continúen acumulando hasta su total y completo pago, más los cargos por demora que se corresponden a los plazos atrasados desde la fecha anteriormente indicada a razón de la tasa pactada de 5% de cualquier pago que éste en mora por más de quince (15) días desde la fecha de su vencimiento, más una suma equivalente a $4,200.00, por concepto de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, más cualquier otra suma que resulte por cualesquiera otros adelantos que se hayan hecho la demandante, en virtud de las disposiciones de la escritura de hipoteca y del Pagaré hipotecario. Para más información, a las personas interesadas se les notifica que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado, estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal, durante las horas laborables.

Este EDICTO DE SUBASTA, se publicará en los lugares públicos correspondientes y en un periódico de circulación general en la jurisdicción de Puerto Rico. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los referentes, 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

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

precio del remate. Se procederá a otorgar la correspondiente Escritura de Venta Judicial y el Alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial al nuevo dueño, si así se lo solicita dentro del término de veinte (20) días, de conformidad con las disposiciones de Ley. 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. Expedido en Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, a 14 de junio de 2023. NATALIA P. ALTIERI ACEVEDO, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR PLACA #218.

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ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE CAROLINA

REVERSE MORTGAGE

FUNDING LLC

Demandante Vs. SUCESION BENJAMIN LARACUENTE BATISTA

T/C/C BENJAMIN

LARACUENTE COMPUESTA POR

ALEXANDRA

LARACUENTE SANCHEZ, BENJAMIN ALBERTO LARACUENTE SANCHEZ, GUIDETTE LARACUENTE SANCHEZ; JOHN DOE

Y JANE DOE COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; SUCESION REBECA

SANCHEZ OQUENDO

T/C/C REBECA SANCHEZ

T/C/C REBECA SANCHEZ DE LARACUENTE T/C/C REBECA LARACUENTE COMPUESTA POR

ALEXANDRA

LARACUENTE SANCHEZ, BENJAMIN ALBERTO LARACUENTE SANCHEZ, GUIDETTE LARACUENTE SANCHEZ; JOHN ROE Y JANE ROE COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES Demandados

Civil Núm.: CA2022CV02950. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: LA PARTE DEMANDADA, AL (A LA) SECRETARIO(A) DE HACIENDA DE PUERTO RICO Y AL PÚBLICO

GENERAL:

Certifico y Hago Constar: Que en cumplimiento con el Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que me ha sido dirigido por el (la) Secretario(a) del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Carolina, en el caso de epígrafe, venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor, por separado, de contado y por moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América y/o Giro Postal y Cheque Certificado, en mi oficina ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Carolina, el 5 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2023, A LAS 10:15 DE LA MAÑANA, todo derecho título, participación o interés que le corresponda a la parte demandada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación:

“URBANA: Solar número 24 de la manzana “BH” con área de 373.75 metros cuadrados, solar radicado en la Urbanización Valle Arriba Heights, situada en el Barrio Sabana Abajo de Carolina. En lindes por el NORTE, con paseo público, en una distancia de 16.25 metros; por el SUR, con la Calle Número 110, en una distancia de 16.25 metros; por el ESTE, con solar 25, en una distancia de 23.00 metros; y por el OESTE, con el solar 23, en una distancia de 23.00 metros. Contiene una casa de concreto reforzado para una familia.” Finca número 31583A, inscrita al folio 98 del tomo 596 de Carolina Norte, Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección I. La Hipoteca Revertida consta inscrita al folio 213 del tomo 1029 de Carolina Norte, Finca 31583A, Registro de la Propiedad de Carolina, Sección I, inscripción 11ª. Propiedad localizada en: URB. VALLE ARRIBA HEIGHTS, BH24 CALLE 110, CAROLINA, PUERTO RICO 00983. Según figuran en la certificación registral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución está gravada por las siguientes cargas anteriores o preferentes: Nombre del Titular: N/A. Suma de la Carga: N/A. Fecha de Vencimiento: N/A. Según figuran en la certificación registral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución está gravada por las siguientes cargas posteriores a la inscripción del crédito ejecutante: Nombre del Titular: Secretario de la Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano. Suma

de la Carga: $225,000.00. Fecha de Vencimiento: 26 de junio de 2086. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad de la propiedad y que todas las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito ejecutante antes descritos, si los hubiere, continuarán subsistentes. El rematante acepta dichas cargas y gravámenes anteriores, y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se establece como tipo de mínima subasta la suma de $225,000.00, según acordado entre las partes en el precio pactado en la escritura de hipoteca. De ser necesaria una SEGUNDA SUBASTA por declararse desierta la primera, la misma se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Carolina, el 12 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2023, A LAS 10:15 DE LA MAÑANA, y se establece como mínima para dicha segunda subasta la suma de $150,000.00, 2/3 partes del tipo mínima establecido originalmente. Si tampoco se produce remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se establece como mínima para la TERCERA SUBASTA, la suma de $112,250.00, la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado y dicha subasta se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Carolina, el 19 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2023, A LAS 10:15 DE LA MAÑANA. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo para, con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandante, el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor ascendente a la suma de $114,917.45 por concepto de principal, más la suma de $61,574.92 en intereses acumulados al 5 de enero de 2023 y los cuales continúan acumulándose a razón de 5.060% anual hasta su total y completo pago; más la sumas de $18,211.23 en seguro hipotecario; $1,751.43 en seguro; $1,100.00 de tasaciones; $260.00 de inspecciones; $1,722.50 en adelantos de honorarios de abogado; más la cantidad de 10% del pagare original en la suma de $22,500.00, para gastos, costas y honorarios de abogado, esta última habrá de devengar intereses al máximo del tipo legal fijado por la oficina del Comisionado de Instituciones Financieras aplicable a esta fecha, desde este mismo día hasta su total y completo saldo. La venta en pública subasta de la referida propiedad se verificará libre de toda carga o gravamen posterior que afecte la mencio-

nada finca, a cuyo efecto se notifica y se hace saber la fecha, hora y sitio de la PRIMERA, SEGUNDA Y TERCERA SUBASTA, si esto fuera necesario, a los efectos de que cualquier persona o personas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha subasta. Se notifica a todos los interesados que las actas y demás constancias del expediente de este caso están disponibles en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables para ser examinadas por los (las) interesados (as). Y para su publicación en el periódico The San Juan Daily Star, que es un diario de circulación general en la isla de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones, así como para su publicación en los sitios públicos de Puerto Rico. Expedido en Carolina, Puerto Rico, hoy 30 de junio de 2023. JOSÉ R. CRISTÓBAL, ALGUACIL REGIONAL. HÉCTOR L. PEÑA RODRÍGUEZ, ALGUACIL PLACA #278.

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ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE VEGA BAJA

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante Vs. JOEL HERNANDEZ BERNARD, SU ESPOSA YAZMARY INES MARRERO ISAAC Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS Demandados Civil Núm.: D4CD2016-0064. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO (EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA). EDICTO DE SUBASTA. Al: PÚBLICO EN GENERAL.

A: JOEL HERNANDEZ BERNARD, SU ESPOSA YAZMARY INES MARRERO ISAAC Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES

COMPUESTA POR AMBOS; POPULAR MORTGAGE, INC., POR TENER HIPOTECA EN GARANTÍA DE PAGARÉ A SU FAVOR POR LA SUMA DE $10,000.00.

Yo, LUIS F. ORTIZ ROSA, Alguacil de este Tribunal, a

desconocidas que se designan con estos nombres ficticios, que puedan ser tenedor o tenedores, o puedan tener algún interés en el pagaré hipotecario a que se hace referencia más adelante en el presente edicto, que se publicará una sola vez. Se les notifica que en la Demanda radicada en el caso de epígrafe se alega que un pagaré hipotecario otorgado el 27 de abril de 2007, Zylkia Cristina Mont Perez otorga en San Juan, Puerto Rico, un pagaré hipotecario por la suma principal de $123,000.00, con intereses a razón deI 6.375% anual, a favor de la Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria Puerto Rico (hoy Oriental Bank), o a su orden, con vencimiento el 1 de mayo de 2037, ante el Notario

Claribel Toro Hernández, mediante el afidávit número 825, se extravió, sin embargo la deuda evidenciada y garantizada por dicho pagaré hipotecario no ha sido salda, por lo que la parte demandante solicita que se ordene la sustitución del mismo. En garantía de dicho pagaré el 27 de abril de 2007,

Zylkia Cristina Mont Perez constituyó hipoteca número 118 ante el Notario Claribel Toro Hernández en garantía del pago del pagaré antes descrito, inscrita en la finca 38004 al folio 47 del tomo 124 de Guaynabo, inscripción 7, Registro de la Propiedad de Guaynabo. Luego, el 28 de marzo de 2017

Zylkia Cristina Mont Perez otorgó escritura de modificación de hipoteca número 48 ante el Notario Juan A. Martínez Romero cancelando parcialmente el pagaré a $112,147.96 y los intereses a 3.5%, inscrita en la finca 38004 al sistema Karibe de Guaynabo, inscripción 8, Registro de la Propiedad de Guaynabo. La hipoteca que garantiza dicho pagaré grava la propiedad inmueble que se describe a continuación:

URBANA: QUiNTA VALLE

CONDOMINIUM: Apartamento número 1,403. Building South. Urban rectangular shaped three bedrooms unit with a total construction area of 865.45 square feet equivalent to 80.40 square meters, distributed in 798.06 square feet equivalent to 74.14 square meters of enclosed area and 67.40 square feet equivalent to 6.26 square meters. The main entrance is located on the South side. This apartment is located in “Edificio Sur” of the Condominium and occupies part of the fourteenth floor of the building. The maximum length of this unit is 25 feet 5 inches and the maximum width is 44 feet 4 inches. Its boundaries are: by the NORTH, in a distance of 44 feet 4 inches

equivalent to 13.52 meters, with the common wall that separates it from Apartment number 1,404 and the common interior areas; by the SOUTH, in a distance of 44 feet 4 inches equivalent to 13.52 meters, with exterior common areas; by the EAST, in a distance of 24 feet linches equivalent to 7.34 meters. with the common wall that separates it from Apartment number 1,402 and interior and exterior common areas and by the WEST, in a distance of 25 feet 3 inches equivalent to 7.70 meters, with the exterior common areas. This unit contains a kitchen, a living room, a dining room, three bedrooms with closet, two bathrooms and a covered porch. Finca 38004 inscrita al 120 del tomo 1094 de Guaynabo, Registro de la Propiedad de Guaynabo. POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los 30 días de haber sido diligenciado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. 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.

LCDO. JAVIER MONTALVO CINTRÓN

RUA NÚM. 17682

DELGADO FERNÁNDEZ, LLC

PO Box 11750, Fernández Juncos Station San Juan, Puerto Rico 00910-1750, Tel. (787) 274-1414 /

Fax (787) 764-8241

E-mail: jmontalvo@ delgadofernandez.com

Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, hoy 17 de julio de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SAN-

TA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA

REGIONAL II. SARA ROSA

VILLEGAS, SECRETARIA DEL TRIBUNAL CONFIDENCIAL I.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO

DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU-

NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN

REVERSE MORTGAGE FUNDING LLC.

Demandante Vs. SUCESION SACROVIR

A. RIVERA ZAYAS T/C/C

SACROVIR AUGUSTO

RIVERA ZAYAS T/C/C

SACROVIR RIVERA T/C/C

SACROVIR RIVERA

ZAYAS T/C/C SACROVIER RIVERA ZAYAS COMPUESTA POR CELIA SIERRA RONDON; JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE COMO POSIBLE HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES

Demandados

Civil Núm.: SJ2019CV11582.

Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA.

ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: LA PARTE DEMANDADA, AL (A LA) SECRETARIO(A) DE HACIENDA DE PUERTO RICO Y AL PÚBLICO

GENERAL:

Certifico y Hago Constar: Que en cumplimiento con el Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que me ha sido dirigido por el (la) Secretario(a) del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de San Juan, en el caso de epígrafe, venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor, por separado, de contado y por moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América y/o Giro Postal y Cheque Certificado, en mi oficina ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, el 30 DE AGOSTO DE 2023, A LAS

11:00 DE LA MAÑANA, todo derecho título, participación o interés que le corresponda a la parte demandada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación:

URBAN: Horizontal property: Apartment number one thousand one hundred fifteen (1115) is situated on the eleventh floor of the building Condominium Borinquen Towers III, in the Section which composes the Eastern part of the building. It consist of irregular rectangular shaped body measuring approximately fourteen feet eleven and a half inches (14’11 ½”) wide, by twenty four feet four inches (24’4”) long and open balcony of eleven feet eleven inches (11’11”) long, by five feet five inches (5’5”) wide, that is an are of THREE HUNDRED

EIGHTY ONE POINT TWENTY

SIX (381.26) SQUARE FEET, equivalent to THIRTY FIVE

POINT FORTY SEVEN (35.47)

SQUARE METERS; bounding on the NORTH with an exterior Wall which separates it from the common yard on the Northern side of the building where the balcony opens; on the SOUTH with an interior Wall which separates it from the common public

corridor to which the entrance door of the apartments opens and with an interior Wall which separates it from the common public stairway; on the EAST, with a party Wall which separates it from apartment number one thousand on hundred sixteen (1116); on the WEST with a party Wall which separates it from apartment number one thousand one hundred fourteen (1114). This apartment consists of a combination of living dining room with its closet, dressing room, one bathroom, a kitchenette with cabinets, storage closets and a thirty gallon capacity water heater. Le corresponde una participación de punto tres dos cero cuatro por ciento (.3204%) en los elementos comunes generales. Inscrita al folio 17 del tomo 704 de Monacillos, finca 22,262, Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección III. La Hipoteca Revertida consta inscrita al folio 46 del tomo 1009, finca 22,262 de Monacillos, Registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección III, inscripción 6ª. Propiedad localizada en: 1482 AVE. FD ROOSEVELT, COND. BORINQUEN TOWER III, APT. 1115, SAN JUAN, PR 00920-2708. Según figuran en la certificación registral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución está gravada por las siguientes cargas anteriores o preferentes: Nombre del Titular: DORAL FEDERAL SAVINGS BANK AND LOAN BANK. Suma de la Carga: $20,000.00. Fecha de Vencimiento: 1 de diciembre de 2007. Según figuran en la certificación registral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución está gravada por las siguientes cargas posteriores a la inscripción del crédito ejecutante: Nombre del Titular: Secretario de la Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano. Suma de la Carga: $133,500.00. Fecha de Vencimiento: 2 de mayo de 2090. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad de la propiedad y que todas las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito ejecutante antes descritos, si los hubiere, continuarán subsistentes. El rematante acepta dichas cargas y gravámenes anteriores, y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se establece como tipo de mínima subasta la suma de $133,500.00, según acordado entre las partes en el precio pactado en la escritura de hipoteca. De ser necesaria una SEGUNDA SUBASTA por declararse desierta la primera, la misma se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, el 7 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2023, A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA, y se establece como mínima para di-

cha segunda subasta la suma de $89,000.00, 2/3 partes del tipo mínima establecido originalmente. Si tampoco se produce remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se establece como mínima para la TERCERA SUBASTA, la suma de $117,5066,750.00, la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado y dicha subasta se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, el 14 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2023, A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo para, con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandante, el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor ascendente a la suma de $55,573.76 de principal, más los intereses sobre dicha suma en la cantidad de $16,566.51 los cuales continúan acumulándose a razón de la tasa de interés corriente, hasta su completo pago, más contribuciones, recargos y primas de seguro adeudados y la suma de $13,350.00 por concepto de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado. Dichas sumas están vencidas, son líquidas y exigibles. La venta en pública subasta de la referida propiedad se verificará libre de toda carga o 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 esto fuera necesario, a los efectos de que cualquier persona o personas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha subasta. Se notifica a todos los interesados que las actas y demás constancias del expediente de este caso están disponibles en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables para ser examinadas por los (las) interesados (as). Y para su publicación en el periódico The San Juan Daily Star, que es un diario de circulación general en la isla de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones, así como para su publicación en los sitios públicos de Puerto Rico. Expedido en San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy 20 de julio de 2023. PEDRO HIEYE GONZÁLEZ, ALGUACIL REGIONAL.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE PONCE BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante V. LA SUCESIÓN DE JULIO EURÍPIDES FERNÁNDEZ HERNÁNDEZ T/C/C JULIO FERNÁNDEZ

HERNÁNDEZ COMPUESTA POR CELIA ESTELLA FERNÁNDEZ; MARIVEE FERNÁNDEZ RENTAS; BENETTE MELINA FERNÁNDEZ RENTAS; JULIO ÁNGEL FERNÁNDEZ RENTAS Y MARIBERT FERNÁNDEZ RENTAS; DEPARTAMENTO DE HACIENDA; DEPARTAMENTO DE JUSTICIA

Demandados

Civil Núm.: VI2022CV00084.

406. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, S.S. A: CELIA ESTELLA FERNÁNDEZ Y MARIBERT FERNÁNDEZ RENTAS.

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

Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramaudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Se le apercibe que, de no contestar la demanda dentro del término aquí estipulado, se le anotará la rebeldía y se dictará sentencia sin más citarle ni oírle. Por la presente el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, conforme al caso de Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria vs. Latinoamericana de Exportación, Inc., 164 D.P.R. 689 (2005), le ordena que en el término de treinta (30) días, haga declaración aceptando o repudiando la herencia de la SUCESIÓN DE JULIO EURÍPIDES

FERNÁNDEZ HERNÁNDEZ

T/C/C JULIO FERNÁNDEZ

HERNÁNDEZ. Se le apercibe que de no expresar su intención de aceptar o repudiar la herencia dentro del término que se le fijó, la herencia se tendrá por aceptada. Los abogados de la parte demandante son: Lcdo. Guillermo A. Somoza Colombani, P.O. Box 366603, San Juan, PR 00936-6603. Tel. (787) 9190073, Fax (787) 641-5016. Expido este edicto bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal, hoy 4 de octubre de 2022. LUZ MAYRA CARABALLO GARCÍA, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. MARIELY FÉLIX RIVERA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL

TRIBUNAL.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE CAGUAS

FIRSTBANK

PUERTO RICO

Parte Demandante Vs. FRANCISCO MANUEL NICOLÁS

DEL RIO GARCED

Parte Demandada

Civil Núm.: CG2019CV03046. Salón Núm.: (704). Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA Y COBRO DE DINERO. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS.

A: FRANCISCO MANUEL NICOLÁS DEL RIO

GARCED: Y AL PÚBLICO

EN GENERAL:

El Alguacil que suscribe, certifica y hace constar que en cumplimiento de Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que me ha sido dirigido por la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Caguas, procederé a vender en pública subasta y al mejor postor, por separado, de contado y por moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América. Todo pago recibido por el (la) Alguacil por concepto de subastas será en efectivo, giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del (de la) Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia. Todo derecho, título, participación e interés que le corresponda a la parte demandada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Propiedad Horizontal: Apartamento residencial 108, localizado en la cuarta planta del módulo uno (1), Edificio A del Condominio Caminito localizado en la Carretera Estatal Puerto Rico guión ciento ochenta y nueve (PR-189), kilometro ocho punto seis (KM.8.6), en el Barrio Mamey del término Municipal de Gurabo, Puerto Rico, con la descripción, área y colindancias que se relacionan a continuación; por el NORTE, con elemento común; por el SUR, con elemento común; por el ESTE, con el apartamento 207; y por el OESTE, con el apartamento 107 y elemento común. Este apartamento está construido en hormigón reforzado y bloques. Consta de un nivel con su puerta de entrada y escalera del edificio por el lindero Oeste. Consta de sala-comedor, balcón, cocina con área de lavandería, un segundo baño, dos (2) dormitorios con sus closets, pasillo dos linen closets y dormitorio principal con baño y

closet. Este apartamento tiene como uso exclusivo y como anejo dos (2) estacionamientos colocados uno detrás del otro, identificados con el número trescientos treinta y nueve (339) con un área de trece punto setenta y cinco metros cuadrados (13.75 m.c.) y número trescientos cuarenta (340), con un área de doce punto veinticinco metros cuadrados (12.25 m.c.), identificados en el Site Plan y los planos aprobados del Condominio. El área de los estacionamientos anejos no será incluida en el cómputo del área superficial de este apartamento, ni en la determinación del porciento de participación en los elementos comunes del Condominio. El área total de la superficie interior del apartamento utilizada para determinar el por ciento de participación en los elementos comunes del condominio que incluye solo el área interior el balcón es noventa y seis punto setenta y cuatro metros cuadrados (96.74 m.c.). Área interior del apartamento: noventa y uno punto cuarenta metros cuadrados (91.40 m.c.). Área total del balcón: cinco punto treinta y cuatro metros cuadrados (5.34 m.c.). A este apartamento le corresponde una participación de cero punto cuatrocientos setenta y tres por ciento (0.473%) en los elementos comunes del Condominio. Consta inscrita al folio 77 del tomo 489 de Gurabo, finca número #18,987, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección Segunda de Caguas. La propiedad objeto de ejecución está localizada en la siguiente dirección: Condominio Caminito, Apartamento 108, Gurabo, P.R. 00778. Se informa que la propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravamen posterior, una vez sea otorgada la escritura de venta judicial y obtenida la Orden y Mandamiento de cancelación de gravamen posterior. (Art. 51, Ley 210-2015). En relación a la finca a subastarse, se establece como tipo mínimo de licitación en la Primera Subasta la suma de $139,689.00, según acordado entre las partes en el precio pactado en la Escritura de Hipoteca #264, otorgada en Humacao, Puerto Rico, el día 2 de noviembre de 2012, ante el notario Manuel U. Rivera Giménez, e inscrita al folio 77 del tomo 489 de Gurabo, finca número 18,987, inscripción 2da. La PRIMERA SUBASTA, se llevará a cabo el día 21 DE AGOSTO DE 2023 A LAS 9:45 DE LA MAÑANA, en mis oficinas sitas en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Caguas, el tipo mínimo para la primera subasta es la suma de $139,689.00. Si la primera subasta del inmueble no produjere remate, ni adjudicación, se celebrará una SEGUNDA

SUBASTA el día 28 DE AGOS-

TO DE 2023 A LAS 9:45 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo sitio y servirá de tipo mínimo las dos terceras partes del precio pactada para la primera subasta, o sea, la suma de $93,126.00. Si la segunda subasta no produjere remate, ni adjudicación, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 5 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2023 A LAS 9:45 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar y regirá como tipo mínimo de la tercera subasta la mitad del precio pactado para la primera, o sea, la suma de $69,844.50.

Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo, para con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandante el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor, a saber: Suma

Principal de $113,462.30, con intereses a 3.75% anual, desde el 1ro de marzo de 2018, hasta el presente y los que se continúen acumulando hasta su total y completo pago, más los cargos por demora que se corresponden a los plazos atrasados desde la fecha anteriormente indicada a razón de la tasa pactada de 4.00% de cualquier pago que éste en mora por más de quince (15) días desde la fecha de su vencimiento, más una suma equivalente a $12,699.00, por concepto de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, más cualquier otra suma que resulte por cualesquiera otros adelantos que se hayan hecho la demandante, en virtud de las disposiciones de la escritura de hipoteca y del Pagaré hipotecario. Para más información, a las personas interesadas se les notifica que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado, estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal, durante las horas laborables.

Este EDICTO DE SUBASTA, se publicará en los lugares públicos correspondientes y en un periódico de circulación general en la jurisdicción de Puerto Rico. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los referentes, 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. Se procederá a otorgar la correspondiente

Escritura de Venta Judicial y el Alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial al nuevo dueño, si así se lo solicita dentro del término de veinte (20) días, de conformidad con las disposiciones de Ley. 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 ocu-

pantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del deudor la ocupen. Expedido en Caguas, Puerto Rico, a 21 de julio de 2023. ÁNGEL

GÓMEZ GÓMEZ, ALGUACIL PLACA #593.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO

DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA SALA

SUPERIOR DE CAROLINA BRUNILDA VELEZ

CORTES, LYDIA L.

MALDONADO BASILLO T/C/C

Demandante V. ASSOCIATES

INTERNATIONAL

HOLDINGS CORP, JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE

Demandado(a)

Civil: TJ2023CV00125. Sala: 403. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: ASSOCIATES

INTERNATIONAL

HOLDINGS CORP, JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE.

(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 18 de julio de 2023, 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 19 de julio de 2023. En CAROLINA, Puerto Rico, el 19 de julio de 2023.

LCDA. KANELLY ZAYAS ROBLES, SECRETARIA. ANGÉLICA M. ROMERO CHAPARRO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU-

NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE PONCE

FINANCE OF AMERICA

REVERSE LLC

Demandante V.

SUCESION ADALBERTO

RODRIGUEZ MORALES

T/C/C ADALBERTO RODRIGUEZ COMPUESTA POR

ADALBERTO

RODRIGUEZ CORDERO, MAYTE RODRIGUEZ

CORDERO, JOHN DOE

Y JANE DOE COMO

POSIBLES HEREDEROS

DESCONOCIDOS; SUCESION MARIA

TERESA CORDERO

MARTINEZ T/C/C MARIA

T. CORDERO MARTINEZ

T/C/C MARIA CORDERO

MARTINEZ T/C/C MARIA

TERESA CORDERO

T/C/C MARIA T.

CORDERO T/C/C MARIA

CORDERO COMPUESTA

POR ADALBERTO

RODRIGUEZ CORDERO, MAYTE RODRIGUEZ

CORDERO, JOHN ROE Y JANE ROE COMO

POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES Demandados

Civil: PO2023CV00061. 406.

Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: ADALBERTO

RODRIGUEZ CORDERO; MAYTE RODRIGUEZ

CORDERO; JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE COMO

POSIBLES MIEMBROS DESCONOCIDOS DE SUCESION ADALBERTO RODRIGUEZ

MORALES; JOHN ROE Y JANE ROE COMO

POSIBLES MIEMBROS

DESCONOCIDOS DE SUCESION MARIA

TERESA CORDERO MARTINEZ.

P/C LCDA. FRANCES L. ASENCIO-GUIDO. TRADE

CENTRE SOUTH, SUITE 700, 100 WEST CYPRESS CREEK ROAD, FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 33309.

(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 12 de julio de 2023, 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 26 de julio de 2023. PONCE, Puerto Rico, el 26 de julio de 2023. CARMEN G. TIRÚ QUIÑONES, SECRETARIA. MARIELY FÉLIX RIVER, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE PONCE REVERSE MORTGAGE FUNDING LLC

Demandante V. SUCESION IRIS

YOLANDA PEREZ

ESTREMERA T/C/C IRIS

Y. PEREZ ESTREMERA

T/C/C IRIS PEREZ

ESTREMERA T/C/C IRIS

YOLANDA PEREZ T/C/C

IRIS Y. PEREZ T/C/C IRIS

PEREZ COMPUESTA

POR YOLANDA MATIAS

PEREZ, JUAN MATIAS

PEREZ, YANIRA MATIAS

PEREZ; JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE COMO

POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES

Demandado(a)

Civil: PO2022CV00894. 406.

Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: YANIRA MATIAS

PEREZ; JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESION IRIS

YOLANDA PEREZ

ESTREMERA T/C/C IRIS

Y. PEREZ ESTREMERA

T/C/C IRIS PEREZ

ESTREMERA T/C/C IRIS

YOLANDA PEREZ T/C/C IRIS Y. PEREZ T/C/C IRIS PEREZ.

P/C LCDA. FRANCES L. ASENCIO-GUIDO. TRADE

CENTRE SOUTH, SUITE 700, 100 WEST CYPRESS CREEK ROAD, FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 33309.

(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 5 de julio de 2023, 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 26 de julio de 2023. PONCE, Puerto Rico, el 26 de julio de 2023. CARMEN G. TIRÚ QUIÑONES, SECRETARIA. MARIELY FÉLIX RIVERA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE FAJARDO

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO

Demandante V. GOLDEN FINANCIAL SERVICES, INC H/N/C GOLDEN MORTGAGE BANKERS, RICARDO IZURIETA ORTEGA, SONIA BERRIOS PEREZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS, FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL PAGARE

Demandado(a)

Civil: FA2023CV00012. Sobre: CANCELACIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO POR LA VÍA JUDICIAL. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.

A: GOLDEN FINANCIAL SERVICES, INC

H/N/C GOLDEN MORTGAGE BANKERS

A LAS SIGUIENTES

DIRECCIONES: URB

BELISA, 1534 CALLE BORI, SAN JUAN, PR 00927-6116; PO BOX 8449, SAN JUAN PR 00910-0449;

RICARDO IZURIETA ORTEGA, SONIA BERRIOS PEREZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS A LAS SIGUIENTES DIRECCIONES: COND.

CLUSTER LAS VISTAS DE RIO MAR, APTO 1403, RIO GRANDE, PR 00745, URB. MONTIEHIEDRA, 146 CALLE GUARAGUAO, SAN JUAN, PR 009267101; URB CROWN HILLS, 138 AVE WINSTON CHURCHILL PMB 914, SAN JUAN, PR 009266013; 9410 AVE LOS ROMEROS, SAN JUAN, PR 00926; FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES TENEDORES DESCONOCIDOS DEL PAGARE.

(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 26 de julio de 2023, 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 26 de julio de 2023. En Fajardo, Puerto Rico, el 26 de julio de 2023. WANDA I. SEGUÍ REYES, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. ANA CELÍS MÁRQUEZ APONTE, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE AGUADILLA ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC, COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC

Demandante Vs. GENARO

CALDERON RAMOS

Demandado

Civil Núm.: AG2021CV00716.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO ORDINARIO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: GENARO CALDERÓN RAMOSBO CAMASEYES, SEC. MALEZA, CARR 467, KM 4 H, 3 IZQ, AGUADILLA, PR 00603. POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la 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. 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 sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia a los abogados de la parte demandante, la Lcda. Natalie Bonaparte cuyas direcciones son: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección natalie.bonaparte@ orf-law.com, y a la dirección notificaciones@orf-law.com.

EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, hoy día 16 de junio de 2023. En Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, el 16 de junio de 2023. SARAHÍ REYES PÉREZ, SECRETARIA. GISELA SERRANO PÉREZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

LEGAL NOTICE

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU-

NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN

REVERSE MORTGAGE FUNDING LLC

Demandante Vs. SUCESION VICTOR

MANUEL GONZALEZ

RIVERA T/C/C VICTOR M

GONZALEZ RIVERA T/C/C

VICTOR M GONZALEZ

T/C/C VICTOR GONZALEZ

COMPUESTA POR

FELIX JUAN GONZALEZ

FELIX; JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES Demandados Civil Núm.: BY2023CV01112. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. INTERPELACIÓN POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE COMO POSIBLES MIEMBROS DESCONOCIDOS DE SUCESION VICTOR MANUEL GONZALEZ RIVERA T/C/C VICTOR M GONZALEZ RIVERA T/C/C VICTOR M GONZALEZ T/C/C VICTOR GONZALEZ.

El Artículo 1578 del Código Civil de 2020, dispone: “Transcurridos treinta (30) días desde que se haya producido la delación, cualquier persona interesada puede solicitar al tribunal que le señale al llamado un plazo, para que manifieste si acepta la herencia o si la repudia. Este plazo no excederá de treinta (30) días. El tribunal apercibirá al llamado de que, si transcurrido el plazo señalado no ha manifestado su voluntad de aceptar la herencia o de repudiarla, se dará por aceptada.” Por la presente el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, conforme al Art. 1578, supra, y el caso Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria vs. Latinoamericana de Exportación, Inc., 164 DPR 689 (2005), les ordena que el término de treinta (30) días, hagan declaración aceptado o repudiando la herencia del causante VICTOR MANUEL GONZALEZ RIVERA T/C/C VICTOR M GONZALEZ RIVERA T/C/C VICTOR M GONZALEZ T/C/C VICTOR GONZALEZ. Se les apercibe que de no expresar su intención de aceptar o repudiar la herencia dentro del término que se le fijó, la herencia se tendrá por aceptada.

Greenspoon Marder, LLP

Lcda. Frances L. Asencio-Guido

R.U.A. 15,622 TRADE CENTRE SOUTH, SUITE 700 100 WEST CYPRESS CREEK ROAD FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 33309

Telephone: (954) 343 6273 Frances.Asencio@gmlaw.com

Expedido bajo mi firma, y sello del Tribunal, en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy día 6 de julio de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARA REGIONAL. VIVÍAN J. SANARÍA, SUB-SECRETARIA.

Australia gets the victory it needed against Canada

By TARIQ PANJA

The understudies delivered when it mattered.

Looking lost and lackluster without its star player and facing a humiliating group stage elimination in front of an expectant home crowd in Melbourne, Australia finally produced a performance worthy of reaching the knockout stage of the Women’s World Cup, advancing Monday night at the expense of the Olympic champion, Canada, 4-0.

It was the fate of star striker Sam Kerr, ruled out with a calf injury just a day before the opening game, that has hung like an immovable cloud over the Australian team throughout the tournament, reaching a fever pitch as the must-win game against Canada neared.

Without Kerr, the Chelsea forward who is considered one of the best players in the world, the Australians had barely resembled the team that had been discussed as potentially serious contenders for the championship. They stumbled to a barely merited narrow victory over Ireland before blowing a one-goal lead to lose to Nigeria.

Yet on Monday night, years of preparation and national pride on the line, Australia finally produced the type of performance that while necessary, seemed unlikely against one of the tougher teams in the tournament.

Nigeria joined Australia in the round of 16 after playing Ireland to a draw, 0-0.

That Australia’s journey continues will not only be a relief to its army of fans, but also to tournament organizers who faced the prospect of seeing both co-hosts eliminated within 24 hours of each other had Australia failed to get its job done. New Zealand on Sunday became the first host in the tournament’s history — it began in 1991 — to fail to make it through the group stage.

Yet despite all the pressure, Australia showed none of the nervousness and anxiety that plagued its earlier performances. Instead, it induced discomfort for Canada, a team that had experienced the pressures that come with playing in a home World Cup in 2015.

The dramatic backdrop to the game, the high stakes and the legacy defining 90 minutes were matched by the added drama of refereeing calls that first incorrectly ruled out Hayley Raso’s opening goal in the eighth minute and then failed to spot an offside as Mary Fowler put a ball into the net a few moments later. Both calls were corrected after video replays.

Canada failed to take advantage of the reversal of the goal that kept it within one score

of tying the game, and the team quickly slid further. It would have advanced to the round of 16 with a draw.

Calamitous defending at a corner six minutes before halftime allowed Raso to score for a second time and set Australia on its way for an evening that was only surprising in how serenely the co-host was able to coast through what had been discussed in local media as not only a make or break night for the team and the tournament for the future of the entire sport in Australia.

In Kerr, Australia had arguably its one truly global soccer star, making her absence bigger than it might have been for one of soccer’s heavyweight nations.

Speculation surrounding her readiness was also helped along by Australian management’s handling of the information surrounding her injured left calf. It called an unscheduled news conference Saturday, presenting Kerr to the surprise of local media. Kerr spoke positively, saying she was ready to play. A day later coach Tony Gustavsson, facing the imminent risk of losing his job had Australia tumbled out, refused to say whether Kerr would play, saying instead that a decision would be taken just hours before the game.

Beverly Priestman, the Canadian coach, said her team would not allow itself to be distracted by the “smoke” or “head games” around the selection.

Gustavsson, as had been most likely given how little Kerr had practiced, decided to keep her on the bench. But even that was bold considering the magnitude of the game and what defeat would have meant for his

own future, a fact he had acknowledged. In the end Kerr, wrapped up in the giant teal coat, was not needed as a substitute once Australia took control, allowing her to be a supporter for what will be remembered as one of the greatest nights in Australian soccer history.

She celebrated again when Fowler scored a third goal with 30 minutes left to play, again with a penalty in extra time and again as time expired.

To cap what is surely one of the most humbling nights Canadian soccer has faced, it allowed a fourth goal in injury time, as Steph Catley buried a penalty to bring yet another roar from the capacity crowd, which by then was already in full celebration.

Japan sprints past Spain in a matchup of contenders

As the goals piled up, and the Japanese celebrations grew more and more revelatory, it was hard not to wonder where the showdown everyone expected had gone.

Japan and Spain had been the class of their group at this World Cup, with each breezing to two early victories to quickly lock up places in the knockout round. Their collision Monday in Wellington, New Zealand — a meeting of two teams with offenses that scored easily and defenses that had yet to surrender a goal — held the promise of a good measuring stick of their relative strength, and of their respective cases as title contenders.

But that match never materialized: Japan scored early and often and cruised to a 4-0 victory that was as emphatic as it was surprising. Overrunning Spain’s defense with

lightning-quick counterattacks again and again, Japan, the 2011 World Cup champion, scored three times in the first half and never looked back.

Hinata Miyazawa sprinted behind Spain’s back line to slot home a low shot in the 12th minute for the first, and then Japan kept right on running. Riko Ueki added a second goal before the half-hour, and Miyazawa notched her second just before halftime.

The goals were the first Spain had surrendered in this World Cup, but its defeat may come with a silver lining. With the outcome in hand, Spain was able to withdraw its star midfielder, Alexia Putellas, who only recently returned from a serious knee injury, in the second half. And by finishing second in the group, it earned a date with Switzerland in the round of 16.

That could be a more attractive matchup for the Spanish than the one that looms for Japan against Norway, a dangerous team that shook off some early discord in the World Cup to score six goals against the Philippines on Sunday night.

What comes next felt like a problem for Tuesday, though: Japan may have been too busy celebrating to think about that Monday night. The cherry on top of its victory, a breakaway goal by substitute Mina Tanaka in the 82nd minute, was Japan’s 11th goal in three games, the most of any team in the field.

It was also a message that perhaps Japan, not Spain, might be the team to watch from here on out.

FIFA Women’s World Cup Group Stage

Monday’s Results

Japan 4, Spain 0

Zambia 3, Costa Rica 1

Republic of Ireland 0, Nigeria 0

Australia 4, Canada 0

Sunday’s Results

Morocco 1, South Korea 0

Norway 6, Philippines 0

Switzerland 0, New Zealand 0

Colombia 2, Germany 1

Today’s Games (all times Eastern Standard Time)

Vietnam vs. Netherlands (3 a.m., FS1)

Portugal vs. United States (3 a.m., FOX)

China vs. England (7 a.m., FOX)

Haiti vs. Denmark (7 a.m., FS1)

Wednesday’s Games

Argentina vs. Sweden (3 a.m., FOX)

South Africa vs. Italy (3 a.m., FS1)

Panama vs. France (6 a.m., FS1)

Jamaica vs. Brazil (6 a.m., FOX)

Australia players celebrating their fourth goal.

Finally on top, the Rangers hope to stay there

By SCOTT MILLER

Marcus Semien was a sophomore infielder at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2010 when Bruce Bochy was managing the San Francisco Giants to their first of three World Series titles in five years.

Two years later, Semien was visiting his girlfriend, now his wife, in Italy, and scrambling for Wi-Fi to watch as Bochy’s Giants were sweeping the Detroit Tigers. By the Giants’ third World Series title of that stretch, in 2014, Semien was a young infielder with the Chicago White Sox.

“I grew up in the Bay Area, so I’d seen what he did with those rosters in San Francisco,” Semien, now the heart and soul of Bochy’s first Texas Rangers team, said over the weekend. “In the beginning of the year, nobody thought they’d do anything,” he said, speaking about those Giants teams.

Then, speaking about the current Rangers club, he said: “I knew we had talent in this room. We obviously added some big arms and bullpen help, so I knew we were going to be good. And once we brought him in,” he said, referring to Bochy, “it was just kind of like the cherry on top.”

In what so far has been a winning and exhilarating season in Texas, the cherries on top continue to arrive. On deck now is Max Scherzer, for the stretch run, after the Rangers acquired him from the New York Mets on Saturday before Tuesday’s trading deadline. Then, on Sunday, they added left-handed starter Jordan Montgomery in a deal with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Texas has led or been tied for the lead in the American League West for all but one day this season. Entering Sunday, the team had the best run differential in the AL at plus-147, which was second best in the majors, and had won 17 games this season by a total of more than eight runs. That was the most such wins by a team by the end of July since at least 1900.

The Rangers are frisky, pesky and powerful. But the Houston Astros, last year’s World Series champions, welcomed back Yordan Alvarez, a slugger, and José Altuve, a former most valuable player, from the injured list last week and took two of three games from Texas. Two Rangers All-Stars, shortstop Corey Seager and catcher Jonah Heim, are on the injured list. And starting pitching, a major strength for the Rangers this season, has wilted in the July heat. The rotation’s 5.12

ERA this month ranked 23rd in the majors, and its 1.57 strikeout-to-walk ratio ranked last.

The foundation for success had been visible from Bochy’s home in the Nashville, Tennessee, area last winter when Chris Young, the Rangers’ president of baseball operations, spent seven hours talking the manager out of retirement. So, too, were a few of the challenges.

“When C.Y. and I talked, I knew that they were going to go out and get some help with some starting pitching,” Bochy said. “But as I looked at the club, I knew this is a team that would put runs on the board. Like everything, you know there will be the ebbs and flows over the season, but I knew there were really good position players on this team. I didn’t know they were as good as they are. Josh Jung, for example: I looked at some video and thought, man, this is a talented kid. But what he’s doing in his first year is really impressive.”

Jung, playing a solid third base, entered Sunday’s games leading all major league rookies in doubles (23), RBI (61) and hits (111). The Rangers, in fact, had 542 total bases by players who are 25 or younger, which ranked fourth in the majors behind youth-oriented teams in Kansas City, Arizona and St. Louis.

But the pitching.

The Rangers spent $244 million to boost this year’s rotation, adding Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney. The results have been mixed, especially after deGrom was felled by a

second Tommy John surgery after just six starts. Eovaldi, who is 11-3 with a 2.69 ERA, has been the staff leader, but a recent drop in velocity caused the Rangers to place him on the injured list Sunday with a right forearm strain. Still, Texas starters were ranked fifth in the AL with a 3.88 ERA.

Enter Scherzer.

The last time he teamed with Mike Maddux as his pitching coach, Scherzer, a right-hander, won Cy Young Awards for the Washington Nationals in 2016 and 2017.

Scherzer is 39 now, and the numbers suggest that the three-time Cy Young Award winner is not what he once was. Nor do the Rangers expect him to be.

But they believe enough glory remains in Scherzer’s right arm to help take them back to 2016 — the year of the Rangers’ most recent postseason appearance. Especially with their high-powered lineup.

Scherzer was 9-4 with a 4.01 ERA over 19 starts for the Mets this season. He surrendered 23 home runs and pitched through nagging neck and back pain, as well as an April suspension for having a foreign substance on his hand.

He has also pitched in 9 of 11 postseasons since 2011, for the Tigers, Nationals, Los Angeles Dodgers and Mets. He knows his way around the big stage and has been a respected and well-liked staff leader in whatever clubhouse he has called home.

As the Rangers worked to combat the Astros’ charge, it was Maddux, now

in his second stint as the Texas pitching coach after two years in St. Louis, who was sketching out the team’s rotation for the next several days. Scherzer’s impending arrival offered a new and welcome option.

Houston, which lost two of three games against the Tampa Bay Rays over the weekend, recently trimmed Texas’ divisional lead to one game, and it remains one game, the closest the Astros have been since May 22. The Rangers were swept in a weekend series in San Diego, and the emotional lift they were hoping for after last Wednesday’s testy and potentially monumental win at Houston seemed to have dissipated.

In that 13-5 comeback win, the normally mild-mannered Semien was ejected for a verbal altercation with Houston catcher Martín Maldonado a couple of innings after Semien felt Framber Valdez intentionally hit him with a pitch.

Semien, who entered Sunday leading the AL with 83 runs scored and ranked second in the majors with 237 consecutive games played, is Texas’ metronome. He is even-tempered, steady afield, a dependable leadoff hitter and has now played in 429 of a possible 430 games since signing with the Rangers before the 2022 season. After the emotional and wild victory on Wednesday, Texas starter Jon Gray approached Semien in the clubhouse and told him, “You gave me chills, man.”

“Personally, I’ve had so many battles with that ballclub, with the guys on that team,” said Semien, who played for Oakland from 2015 to 2020. “I was hit on purpose. Anybody who gets hit on purpose, a switch kind of flips, and I’m glad we finished that game the way we should have because it definitely woke us up. We’re in the race with those guys.

“I’ve been chasing Houston my entire career, it feels like.”

Now Scherzer joins the chase, after the acquisition of reliever Aroldis Chapman from the Kansas City Royals a month ago.

“It’s been bumpy in the bullpen,” Bochy said. “That’s been a real issue, and Mike and I have been working hard trying to get that worked out. It’s still a work in progress. Getting Chapman certainly has helped. But it’s a balanced club that plays the game right. They play the game hard and they’re playing to win, and that’s all you can ask.”

Marcus Semien, center, and the Texas Rangers have been in sole possession of first place in the A.L. West since May 6. Martín Maldonado and the Houston Astros are closing in.

Sudoku

How to Play:

Fill in the empty fields with the numbers from 1 through 9.

Sudoku Rules:

Every row must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

Every column must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

Every 3x3 square must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

Crossword

Answers on page 30

Wordsearch

Aries (Mar 21-April 20)

Jump on board the fast train and see how far it takes you, Aries. You’ll be surprised at how far you can go with minimal effort. Your grace and polite social mannerisms will help you navigate quickly to where you need to be. You have the wind at your back today. Make the most of this energy by aiming for the top and not resting until you get there.

Taurus (April 21-May 21)

Flexibility is an important part of today, Taurus. Take a relaxed, laid-back approach. Trying to ram your ideas through isn’t the best tactic. Having tunnel vision will restrict you in many ways. Keep an open mind and be receptive to others’ ideas and opinions. You have a lot of power readily available. It would be a shame to waste it by lacking the breadth of vision to see all your options.

Gemini (May 22-June 21)

Things coming at you from all sides are forcing you to make a move, Gemini. Don’t be pressured into something you don’t want to do. A nervous restlessness may urge you to act. Don’t let other people boss you around. Secure your position and be strong. Try not to be tempted into situations that you know are going to be bad for you.

Cancer (June 22-July 23)

Lock into the practical, grounding force of the day that is not only realistic but also flexible. Attend to details and organize yourself, Cancer. Be aware that you may need to alter your course a bit in order to fit the group dynamic. Try to work with those around you to achieve a common goal. Initiating the help of others is easier than you think as long as you stay focused and motivated.

Leo (July 24-Aug 23)

Today is one of those days in which prosperity is much closer than you think, Leo. You may know what you seek, but it’s up to you to take the first step toward going after it. You’re probably looking for solid answers to your deep, probing questions. Don’t let your inquisitive mind rest until you find answers that ring true for you.

Virgo (Aug 24-Sep 23)

Indecision may leave you helpless at a crossroads today, Virgo. Others may be just as undecided regarding which way to go. At the same time, you may feel pressured to take immediate action, and you’re tired of waiting for others to make the first move. Find the answers in simple solutions. There’s more than one correct way. Your choice is always the right one if you believe it to be so.

Libra (Sep 24-Oct 23)

Latch on to the expansiveness that comes when you connect with others in a social arena, Libra. Communication is a key aspect of the day. If you go with the flow you will land exactly where you need to be. Take the adventurous route and skip around from one thing to another. There’s no need to pin yourself down to one route or way of doing things.

Scorpio (Oct 24-Nov 22)

Connect with the stable, grounding energy of the day, Scorpio, but beware that tension may come in the form of fast talk and misinformation. People could be fickle and frantic. Wait for the dust to settle before you pick a road to travel. Impulsive decisions may lead you down paths that aren’t the best choice for you now. Relax and try not to think about it too much!

Sagittarius (Nov 23-Dec 21)

Any expansive feeling you experience may be rained on today. You could get the feeling that you’ve lost touch with reality. Make sure you connect with real life, Sagittarius, and do a bit of planning to balance your whimsical side. Things that you haven’t accounted for might crop up to serve as a reminder that you need to deal with real life.

Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 20)

Walk to the beat of your own drum, Capricorn. If you try to latch on to the smooth-talking, fastpaced information of the day, your voice could get lost in the crowd. But if you plant your feet firmly and try to plan, you might deprive yourself of spontaneous events that prove the most fulfilling. Chart your own course and don’t be afraid if no one else follows along.

Aquarius (Jan 21-Feb 19)

Connect with the fellow sitting next to you or perhaps the woman behind you in line at the store. He or she could share a piece of wisdom that changes your life forever. Be aware that you also could be that person who changes someone else’s life with a single thought or slice of wisdom that you’ve picked up in your travels. Communication is the key to expanding your world in many ways.

Pisces (Feb 20-Mar 20)

Your self-esteem may be challenged today by a fast talker or unpleasant situation, Pisces. Don’t accept things at first glance. There’s a much deeper meaning brewing below the surface, and you’d be foolish not to recognize that. Stick to your guns and stay grounded. Newfangled devices and big promises may not be all they’re advertised to be.

Speed Bump