First Steps Forward
Facebook via PR Farm Bureau Executive Director Vanessa Piñeiro
Photo by Héctor René Santos
Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times
2 GOOD MORNING
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.
Ernesto damages Puerto Rico’s fragile farming sector
By THE STAR STAFF
Puerto Rico’s agricultural sector suffered massive damages during the passage of Tropical Ernesto this week.
Agriculture, a vital part of Puerto Rico’s economy, was one of the sectors hit hardest by Ernesto, which has since strengthened into a hurricane. The severity of crop damage, to the extent that it had been determined by early Thursday, was reported by Agriculture Secretary Ramón González Beiro.
González Beiro said the damage sustained by the coffee crop, which has not yet been fully evaluated, could be significant with the harvest about to begin.
Regarding the recovery of farmers, the official has pledged to provide them with support, instilling a sense of optimism for the mitigation of losses.
Puerto Rico’s agricultural sector includes small family farms, large livestock operations, and plantations. In 2022, the island’s total agricultural sales were $703 million, with increased sales of poultry, coffee, plantains, bananas and other fruit. However, agriculture only supports less than 15% of Puerto Rico’s food supply, and the island imports 80% of its food. As a result, Puerto Rico’s agriculture is vulnerable to natural disasters such tropical storms and drought, which can damage crops and delay shipments from the mainland.
The principal food crops grown in Puerto Rico include starchy vegetables such as root crops, plantains and legumes, such as pigeon peas and lentils, along with horticultural products, such as tomatoes, peppers and fruits also being produced to a lesser degree.
LUMA urged to seek help from stateside brigades to restore power
By THE STAR STAFF
New Progressive Party (NPP) Reps. Carlos “Johnny”
Méndez Nuñez and Víctor Parés Otero asked LUMA
Energy, the private operator of Puerto Rico’s electric power transmission and distribution system, to be agile in restoring the electrical system after Hurricane Ernesto struck the island as a tropical storm earlier this week.
The legislators also asked LUMA to activate the American Public Power Association (APPA) brigades to restore electrical service if necessary.
“The time has come for LUMA to show sensitivity to the people of Puerto Rico. This atmospheric event was a very strong one, particularly for the eastern part of the island,” said Méndez Nuñez, who represents several northeastern and eastern towns in House District 36. “However, more than 724,073 customers do not have electricity service
and now, we still do not see a sense of urgency from this company. We call on LUMA to begin dispatching brigades to all areas that do not have electricity, framed in the safety of employees, so that service is restored as quickly as it is needed.”
Parés Otero, who represents San Juan District 4, joined his colleague’s request.
“It is time for LUMA to address the challenge sensitively and restore service as soon as possible,” he said. “I add that it is imperative that if LUMA does not have the personnel available for this work in a short time, then it must ask the executive director of the Electric Power Authority, my friend, Josué Colón, so that he, in his power by law, can ask APPA for the use of its brigades. There is no need to wait if the resources are there to restore service in hours.”
Brigades affiliated with the American Public Power Association participated in the restoration of Puerto Rico’s electrical grid after it was flattened by hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017. (Wikipedia)
Parés noted that at the time of the time of the press release there were 42,000 electricity customers without service in San Juan.
Flattened plantain trees are seen in Maunabo on Wednesday. (Facebook via PR Farm Bureau Executive Director Vanessa Piñeiro)
Commonwealth, federal officials assess damage from Ernesto
By JOHN McPHAUL jpmcphaul1@gmail.com
In the aftermath of Tropical Storm Ernesto, Puerto Rico government officials, along with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) personnel and other partners, continued to visit affected areas on Thursday to determine the next phase of response to the storm event, as Puerto Rico faces its lingering effects.
Earlier this week, President Joe Biden authorized an emergency declaration to grant federal disaster assistance (DFA), if required, and assist the island government in responding to and recovering from the impacts of Ernesto. FEMA is authorized to provide federal resources for life safety and life-sustaining activities throughout the island, should the government have a need.
“Residents of Puerto Rico recovering from Tropical Storm Ernesto should take precautions as they assess their damage and begin to clean up,” Federal Coordinating Officer Robert Little III said. “With thousands of people still without power, residents should be aware of the dangers of extreme heat.”
In other developments:
* Carolina District Sen. Marissa “Marissita” Jiménez Santoni joined the request of Canóvanas Mayor Lornna Soto Villanueva to the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) board of directors to address the problem of wastewater in the River Valley community of that municipality.
The senator also asked PRASA to expedite the processing of claims for damages that residents of the aforementioned community will submit in the coming days due to the overflow of sewage they have suffered.
“This event should serve as a lesson for some PRASA executives,” Jiménez Santoni said. “Our mayor made a timely and just request that the issue of sewage in the River Valley community be addressed before the passage of Tropical Storm Ernesto; however, they looked the other way and did not act with the urgency that the residents of this sector require and as a consequence, these families experienced the overflow of wastewater, a flood that could have been prevented.”
Soto had reported that dozens of families in the community had suffered damages as a result of PRASA management allegedly not turning on drainage pumps in time.
*Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia said earlier this week that classes in the public education system will begin on Monday.
“Regarding the education system, the decision we have made is that we will expect teaching and non-teaching staff to return to schools on Friday and our expectation is that school will resume next Monday,” Pierluisi said at a press conference late Wednesday.
“Essential personnel, that is, those in charge of response, must report to their respective workplaces in the government [Thursday],” he added. “Likewise, personnel dedicated to the maintenance of facilities must report to work tomorrow [Thursday] and agency officials are also called to work tomorrow. [...] That is the decision regarding the government. We hope that the rest of the public employees can report to work on Friday.”
* The Coast Guard reopened seaports in Puerto Rico on Thursday under Port Condition FOUR, allowing operations restricted to daylight hours on waterways.
Puerto Rico’s port facilities were opened to all commercial vessel traffic, al-
though operations were limited to daylight hours. Cargo operations were cleared to resume without restrictions, but mariners were advised to exercise caution due to the
possible presence of floating debris and to report any anomalies to the Coast Guard. Daylight restrictions for the ports in Puerto Rico have been lifted; all port facilities and navigable waterways in the jurisdiction may resume normal operations.
The Coast Guard also set Port Condition FOUR in the U.S. Virgin Islands on Thursday afternoon, reopening maritime ports there with the exception of Frederiksted port in St. Croix, which at press time remained closed under Port Condition ZULU pending further assessments.
* The National Weather Service (NWS) in San Juan on Thursday revealed the total amounts of precipitation following the passage of Tropical Storm Ernesto through Puerto Rico for the previous 48 hours.
According to data collected through 8 a.m. on Thursday, the regions most affected by heavy rains included areas in the south and southeast of Puerto Rico, where accumulations of up to 16 inches of rain had been recorded. The Cordillera Central area, between the northern part of Ponce and the south of Utuado, to the municipalities of Villalba, Coamo, Aibonito, Barranquitas and Orocovis, received between 10 and 12 inches of rain.
The rest of the central zone received between 5 and 10 inches of rain.
Some coastal municipalities, including the northern coast and southern municipalities such as Salinas and Guayama, received between 3 and 4 inches of rain.
The intense rainfall has caused significant flooding problems in several areas of the island, especially in mountains and valleys, where rivers and streams have reached critical levels.
* Ernesto, which was upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane as it moved away from Puerto Rico on Wednesday, was located about 180 miles east of Grand Turk Island on Thursday morning and continued to strengthen as it moved across the western Atlantic. It had sustained wind speeds of at least 74 miles per hour (mph) at the time of the upgrade, and wind speeds reached 80 mph Wednesday night. Ernesto was expected to continue strengthening with the possibility of becoming a major hurricane by Friday, according to the NWS.
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Backed up storm drains kept pump crews busy in San Juan earlier this week. (Facebook via San Juan, Ciudad Capital)
Toa Baja was one of several towns swamped by heavy rains from Tropical Storm Ernesto. (Facebook via Governor Pierluisi)
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A hurricane watch was issued for Bermuda, where hurricane conditions are possible by Saturday, the weather service said, according to The New York Times.
Although Ernesto was moving away from Puerto Rico, there was a risk of rainfall associated with the hurricane accumulating between 6 and 10 inches in the southern and eastern regions of the island, with maximum amounts of up to 12 inches, while in the northwest between 3 and 6 inches were expected. The risk of flooding and landslides
persisted into Thursday, especially in previously saturated areas.
Meanwhile, storm surge generated by Ernesto continued to affect the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and the Turks and Caicos Islands on Thursday, while extending toward the Bahamas and the east coast of the United States on Friday and into the weekend.
* Gov. Pierluisi said late Wednesday that it was too soon to evaluate the performance of LUMA Energy. Some 730,000 of the private operator’s customers were left without power on Wednesday. LUMA reported that the number had been reduced to 479,000 by Thursday morning.
“No, the instruction is the same one I gave since this started, which I verbalized publicly,” the governor said at a press conference. “Yes, that service must be restored as soon as possible. And this is not the time to be evaluating the execution, this is the time for everyone to be rowing in the same direction. What I am seeing is that LUMA is working in a coordinated manner with [power plant operator] Genera, and that is what I expect. What I am seeing is that the brigades are on the street, they are doing their job and if they have not done so it is because the weather has not allowed it. If I had reason to be dissatisfied I would say so, but this is not the time to be doing that. …”
Employees of the private consortium that manages the transmission and distribu-
tion network were unable to complete the aerial patrol with National Guard helicopters because weather conditions did not allow it. It is expected that the inspection process could be completed on Thursday.
As of press time Thursday, there was no specific timetable for when most power customers would have service. As of early Thursday, LUMA personnel had managed to energize four major transmission lines between Carolina and Fajardo and another 15 that were understood to not be facing problems.
“Until we finish the assessments, we will not be able to make a forecast,” said Alejandro González, LUMA’s director of operations. LUMA President & CEO Juan Saca said he hoped that Thursday would bring “a lot of progress” in the restoration of power. He added that “222 structures have been identified that were damaged, but so far we have not found a catastrophic situation from the point of view of what it will cost us to repair, but even so the helicopters had to return twice and we need to continue that work.”
PDP mayors seek probe into LUMA’s handling of tropical storm emergency
By THE STAR STAFF
Puerto Rico Mayors Association President Luis Javier Hernández Ortiz said Thursday he is compiling information received from member municipalities to verify how the emergency related to Tropical Storm Ernesto’s impact on the island was handled.
“Once again, the resilience of our country is demonstrated by the unwavering dedication of our municipal staff, who work tirelessly to serve our communities 24/7,” Hernández Ortiz said. “However, the recurring nature of these atmospheric events necessitates a reevaluation of our emergency response systems, particularly those of the central government and LUMA Energy. The urgency of this matter cannot be overstated.
Hernández Ortiz said the electrical system in Villalba, the municipality that he serves as mayor, went completely down when the storm had not yet arrived.
“At 5 o’clock in the morning [Tuesday], we were left without service,” he said. “It wasn’t a tree falling on the lines.”
Hernández Ortiz added that fellow mayors, such as in Isabela, Cayey, Aguada and other towns, reported that the power lines were not damaged significantly enough to have half a million customers in the dark throughout Puerto Rico. He further pointed out that the term “customer” or “sub-
scriber” refers to a house in which up to three people can ordinarily live.
“We are talking about practically the entire country,” the Villalba mayor said. “As has happened on previous occasions, we are concerned about the sick and bedridden, those who require respirators for life. Likewise, without electrical service in many places there is no drinking water due to lack of displacement pumps. This morning, after communicating with the mayors, the Mayors Association will officially request an investigation into LUMA Energy, with a copy [of the request sent] to Governor Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia and the director of the Emergency Management Bureau, Nino Correa.”
Hernández Ortiz added that there were Education Department (DE) shelters where the power plants did not work or were not connected.
“That happened in Trujillo Alto, Luquillo, Villalba and other towns,” said the leader of the body that groups Popular Democratic Party mayors, and at-large Senate candidate. “Having funds for these purposes, the DE has not fully complied. And we are in peak season; they have time to get the job done. It is a shame that more than $10 billion allocated by the federal government for the electrical system has not been applied effectively. It has been more than seven years since Hurricane Maria and we do not have even a glimmer of a solution to the energy crisis.”
Several roads in Utuado were closed due to flooding.
Flooding in Santa Isabel on Wednesday (Facebook via Puerto Rico Firefighters Bureau)
Puerto Rico Mayors Association President and Villalba Mayor Luis Javier Hernández Ortiz, right, said the electrical system in Villalba went completely down on Tuesday before the arrival of Tropical Storm Ernesto. (Israel Morales)
‘I’m looking for a job’: Biden jokes about life after the White House
By ZACH MONTAGUE
With just over 22 weeks left in charge of the country, President Joe Biden is looking for work.
Or so he told a room of dozens of online content creators whom he referred to as “the future” and his grandchildren’s preferred news source during a meeting at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Wednesday, trying on a new face as a statesman enjoying the twilight of his career.
“You break through in ways that I think are going to change the entire dynamic of the way in which we communicate, and that’s why I invited you to the White House, because I’m looking for a job,” he told the crowd, drawing big laughs.
At least outwardly, in recent days the president has shown a noticeably unencumbered and easygoing demeanor, filling up his calendar with events after a brief lull following his decision to drop his reelection campaign.
Aug. 14, 2024. With a jovial serenity, the president has more publicly embraced the idea of retirement as he heads into his final months in office.
On a trip to New Orleans on Tuesday to announce investments in developing new cancer treatments, a deeply personal project, Biden made clear he was still actively involved in the most serious matters of state, getting briefed on the conflicts in Ukraine and the
Gaza Strip every five hours. But he also made time to engage, twice
walking over to speak to assembled reporters whom he would often rush by during tenser times, and sticking around after the official visit for dinner at a seafood restaurant along with his wife and around a dozen staff members.
Since ending his campaign, the president has alternated between reminding people that he is still working on the weightiest of priorities even while turning to legacy projects, and embracing a more laid-back public events schedule.
When asked by a reporter this month if the multinational prisoner exchange he had helped negotiate had special significance given his looming retirement, Biden fired back that it was business as usual.
“I’d still get it done even if I was seeking a second term,” he said after the deal resulted in the freeing of 16 people held by Russia. “You’re stuck with me as president for a while, kid.”
Mingling with the younger generation Wednesday, Biden imagined an unlikely future — as an online content creator.
“You think — when I retire, where do you think I’m going?” he said. “I got contacts, man, you all think I’m kidding.”
Kennedy sought a meeting with Harris to discuss a Cabinet post
By REBECCA DAVIS O’BRIEN and REID J. EPSTEIN
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate whose standing has dropped in the polls, sought a meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss endorsing her in exchange for a promise of a Cabinet post, according to two people briefed on the outreach who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations. His effort has been unsuccessful. The news was first reported by The Washington Post.
“We’ve reached out repeatedly through the highest level intermediaries,” Kennedy wrote in a text message Wednesday night. “We’ve been told that they have no interest in talking with me.”
There was little chance the Harris campaign would engage with Kennedy. Public and private polling has found that as he spent the summer attacking President Joe Biden, he began to draw more support from voters
otherwise predisposed to back former President Donald Trump. Now Harris does better in some surveys when Kennedy is included than when she is tested in a head-to-head matchup with Trump.
Kennedy, long seen as a potential spoiler in the race, has slipped in polls and struggled to raise money, and he has appeared to consider potential offramps as speculation has grown about whether he might drop out and, if so, whether he would endorse Harris or Trump.
On Wednesday night, Kennedy wrote: “I’ve always argued that we should be willing to talk with each other across party lines. I’m willing to meet with leaders of both parties to discuss the possibility of a unity government.”
The Post reported last month that Kennedy had held talks with Trump about a possible Cabinet job, proposing a role in public health leadership, in exchange for his support. And in a leaked video of a phone call between the two men, Trump tried to cajole Kennedy to exit the race and endorse him.
“I would love you to do something,” the
former president said. “And I think it’ll be so good for you and so big for you. And we’re going to win.” Kennedy said little in response on the call. The two men also met in person in Milwaukee during the Republican National Convention.
Two people familiar with Kennedy’s campaign confirmed that advisers to Trump had raised the possibility of a Cabinet post with people close to Kennedy, but said the discussions were fluid and inconclusive. The political circumstances were also far different at the time, when Biden was still in the race and trailing well behind the former president.
A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kennedy has confronted a range of negative headlines and setbacks in recent weeks.
This month, he acknowledged he had left a dead bear cub in Central Park in Manhattan in 2014 because he thought it would be “amusing.”
That bizarre story overshadowed a more
serious challenge: a court case in Albany that this week removed him from the ballot in New York. A judge said he had used a “sham” address to maintain his New York residency.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate for president, at his home in Los Angeles, June 10, 2024. Kennedy was unsuccessful with his request to discuss endorsing the Democratic nominee in exchange for a top administration job, according to two people briefed on the outreach. (Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)
President Joe Biden speaks at the White House Creator Economy Conference in the Indian Treaty Room at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex in Washington, on Wednesday,
(Eric Lee/The New York Times)
Illinois woman is sentenced to 9 years for stealing $1.5 million in chicken wings
By ALEXANDRA E. PETRI
Aformer food service director for an Illinois school district was sentenced to prison for stealing more than $1 million worth of chicken wings that were billed to the district but never given to students, authorities said.
The former employee, Vera Liddell, 68, pleaded guilty to felony theft last Friday for stealing more than 11,000 cases of chicken wings valued at $1.5 million, according to a January 2023 court document filed by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
Judge Michele Pitman of the Circuit Court of Cook County’s 6th Municipal District sentenced Liddell to nine years in prison in the Illinois Department of Corrections, according to a sentencing document.
“The massive fraud began at the height of COVID during a time when students were not allowed to be physically present in school,” the 2023 document prepared by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office said. “Even though the children were learning remotely, the school district continued to provide meals for the students that their families could pick up.”
But stolen food was never provided to the students, the prosecutor’s office said.
The guilty plea was part of a deal reached with the prosecutor’s office, said Patrick O’Byrne, one of Liddell’s attorneys. O’Byrne said that Liddell expressed “a great deal of remorse” for her actions.
“She feels incredibly distraught, terrible about what she did,” he said. “She can’t even believe she did it.”
According to the 2023 court document, Liddell was hired as a consultant in July 2020 for the Harvey School District 152 in Harvey, Illinois, south of Chicago, after serving as the district’s food service director. Liddell was helping to onboard the new food service director and was the sole person placing orders, the document said.
From July 2020 through February 2022, Liddell “engaged in a pervasive embezzlement scheme” by placing hundreds of unauthorized orders for food items, primarily chicken wings, with the school district’s main purveyor, Gordon Food Service, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office wrote.
The orders were separate from the district’s regular orders, and Gordon Food Service, thinking they were legitimate purchases, billed the district, which then paid the invoices, the document said.
During a midyear audit in January 2022, the district’s business manager discovered the food service department had already surpassed its annual budget by $300,000.
“Upon closer review, she discovered individual invoices signed by Liddell for massive quantities of chicken wings, an item that was never served to students because they contain bones,” the court
document said.
Surveillance video showed that Liddell used the district’s cargo vans to pick up the cases of chicken wings from Gordon Food Service, but “the food was never brought to the school or provided to the students,” the document said. It also showed that Liddell signed for the items and billed them to the district.
In one order placed in early October 2021, Liddell received 132 cases of chicken wings valued at approximately $17,480.76, according to a criminal complaint filed in March 2023. It was unclear what happened to the chicken wings after Liddell picked them up.
Liddell was arrested and charged in January 2023.
Dr. Reginald Lawrence, superintendent of the Harvey School District 152, declined to comment Tuesday. Gordon Food Service did not respond to requests for comment.
In a post on social media Monday, Chris Jones, defensive tackle for the Kansas City Chiefs, offered to pay $1.5 million in an effort to gain Liddell’s freedom. Her attorneys had said that she could not pay restitution because she had a gambling problem.
“I’ll pay for the wings that she stole to get her free,” Jones wrote.
O’Byrne and Gregory LaPaPa, one of Liddell’s lawyers, said they had not heard from Jones, his agent or the Chiefs.
A representative for Jones had yet to comment, and representatives for the Chiefs did not respond to request for comment Wednesday evening.
The Cook County Jail, in the South Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago, March 27, 2023.
Vera Liddell is being held at the Cook County Jail, where she will begin her nine-year sentence after pleading guilty to stealing $1.5 million worth of chicken wings. (Jamie Kelter Davis/The New York Times)
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Brock Pierce, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur, at The Monastery Club, one of his hotels in Old San Juan, on June 22, 2024. Pierce arrived in Puerto Rico seven years ago, promising to use crypto magic to revitalize the local economy. Now he’s mired in legal disputes and fighting with his business partners. (Erika P. Rodríguez/The New York Times)
By DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY and LAURA N. PÉREZ SÁNCHEZ
On sun-drenched days in 2022, cryptocurrency entrepreneur Brock Pierce liked to take his friends sailing to the island of Vieques, about 75 miles from his home in Puerto Rico. Pierce wanted to show off a property that he described as “the most important passion in my life”: a once-glamorous beachside resort that he had recently bought for more than $15 million.
In its heyday, the resort, a W Hotel, boasted a 6,000-square-foot spa, restaurants run by a Michelin-starred chef and sweeping views of the ocean; it was a key source of tourism jobs in Vieques. Then, in 2017, the hotel was damaged by Hurricane Maria, forcing it to close. Pierce planned to reopen it, using his crypto riches to revitalize both the glistening property and the local economy.
A former child actor, Pierce knew how to put on a show. On the trips to Vieques, he would anchor his Italian-made yacht at a local harbor, then lead his guests to the gates of the shuttered W, along a stretch of beach where wild horses roamed.
The unraveling of a crypto dream
“This was my massive personal bet,” Pierce said recently. “This was where my heart was.”
But Pierce’s display of opulence was something of an illusion. Like many other grandiose projects that he has started in Puerto Rico, the hotel’s revival is now mired in unpaid bills and legal quarrels. Last fall, Pierce lost the W in a dispute with another investor. The hotel is still closed, its windows smashed and its floors covered in mold and horse dung. A $17,000 lounge chair is collecting dust in the empty atrium.
When he moved to Puerto Rico in 2017, Pierce, an investor in a range of experimental crypto ventures, made headline-grabbing promises to revive the local economy, with the help of a tech-bro brain trust. Best known for his role in the creation of tether, one of the world’s most popular digital currencies, Pierce led a wave of industry migrants to Puerto Rico, many of whom started buying land and trumpeting a project they called Puertopia — the transformation of the U.S. territory into a hub for crypto investors and technology startups.
Puerto Rico was a convenient place to cash in on crypto profits. In 2012, the local government passed legislation to turn the archipelago into a tax haven for wealthy transplants. Under a law now known as Act 60, people who move there can apply for a benefit that allows them to pay nothing in capital gains taxes. The measure was aimed at increasing investment in the Puerto Rican economy, which has struggled to overcome two decades of financial crisis.
But Pierce’s vision of a crypto-fueled economic turnaround has yet to materialize, according to hundreds of pages of court records and interviews with more than two dozen people familiar with his efforts in Puerto Rico. His business partners have turned on him, and some colleagues say he is running out of cash. There is no clear evidence that the arrival of tech entrepreneurs has helped the local economy. Instead, the Act 60 arrivals have become symbols of a new era of exploitation.
With the arrival of Pierce and other wealthy newcomers, Puerto Ricans observed a new rupture, as housing prices surged, especially in coastal towns, displacing local families. On a stretch of wall outside the W, a group of local artists has painted a mural that shows Pierce, dressed in a crimson tunic, holding a sign shaped like the bitcoin logo. “Colonialismo,” the caption reads.
On a recent Friday evening in Old San Juan, Pierce, 43, settled down for a cup of coffee at the Monastery, a masonic lodgeturned-hotel that has served as an unofficial
home base for crypto migrants in Puerto Rico. He wore a wide-brimmed orange hat and an oversize white T-shirt, emblazoned with the words “bruised never broken.” With a sweeping gesture, he pointed out the window, which overlooks a bustling cobblestone thoroughfare called Calle del Cristo.
“This is some of the first colonial Spanish conquistador infrastructure that was developed,” he explained. “The first formal road with bricks in all of the Western Hemisphere.”
Now, the view belongs to Pierce: He bought the Monastery in 2018 for $4.8 million.
Pierce arrived in Puerto Rico with an eclectic resume: The son of a homebuilder and a church officer in Minnesota, he was a child actor who had a short-lived career in the “Mighty Ducks” movies and starred in a film called “First Kid” with comedian Sinbad. As an adult, he became an early investor in several prominent crypto projects, ultimately achieving a net worth estimated at $700 million to $1 billion.
After Act 60 passed, arrivals from the United States became a visible presence in restaurants and nightclubs throughout Puerto Rico. Pierce was easily one of the most recognizable. He could often be spotted walking the streets of Old San Juan — a short, energetic man in a T-shirt and leather vest, a chain dangling from his neck.
Pierce bought two houses in a gated community in Dorado, a wealthy enclave where he settled with his partner, an entrepreneur named Crystal Rose, and his mother, Lynette Calabro.
Pierce hobnobbed with local politicians and hosted extravagant parties, where the guests sometimes took drugs, according to two people who attended the events.
For a while, Pierce managed to charm some of the locals with his openness and curiosity. He had the chameleonic instincts of a skilled actor. “If it was serious people, he’d act seriously,” said Hugo de la Uz, a local maritime expert who helped manage Pierce’s yacht. “If it was crazy people, he’d act crazy.”
Pierce expressed interest in nearly every world religion, cultivating a kind of hippie spirituality. “I feel connected to him, because he has a spiritual depth,” said Carli Muñoz, a Puerto Rican pianist who has socialized with Pierce in San Juan.
But the good vibes only went so far. “I’ve made myself sure not to go into business with him,” Muñoz said.
Since he moved to Puerto Rico, Pierce has bought at least 14 properties, according to real estate records. Some, including the Monastery, were already functioning businesses. But Pierce also announced plans to convert much of his portfolio into new projects, including an art gallery and a community center. None of those ventures has come to fruition. A hospital in the city of Humacao that he bought late last year has struggled.
Over and over, Pierce has found local Puerto Ricans to help him with development projects — only for many of those collaborators to later say that he exploited them, failing to pay
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The San Juan Daily Star
The former W Hotel in Vieques, Puerto Rico, on June 20, 2024. Brock Pierce’s dream of reopening the W Hotel in Vieques never materialized. (Erika P. Rodríguez/The New York Times)
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bills or cutting them out of deals. At the same time, he has battled in court with another Act 60 arrival, Joseph Lipsey III, who seized control of the W last year, claiming that Pierce had defaulted on a loan.
Pierce has denied that he deceived anyone. But at least three lawsuits against him are pending in the local courts.
Pierce likes to present himself as a kind of geopolitical mover and shaker. In 2020, he ran for U.S. president as an independent, collecting a little under 50,000 votes. He boasts of “engagements” in El Salvador and Panama, and one evening in June, his assistant announced that Pierce was joining a Zoom call with the president of Palau, a tiny archipelago in the western Pacific.
But Pierce’s main focus is Puerto Rico, where he has become a leading spokesper-
son for Act 60. After he moved, he told Rolling Stone that he would rebuild the economy “with money that we saved from the IRS in a Robin Hood fashion.” The publicity helped turn Puerto Rico into a popular destination for the crypto set: These days, about 2,600 people receive the Act 60 tax break.
The local backlash against Pierce started almost as soon as he arrived. “Gringo go home,” someone wrote in red paint on the side of a three-story building Pierce took over that once housed a children’s museum in Old San Juan. But behind the scenes, Pierce was expanding his real estate empire. He recruited a prominent local hotel developer, Gonzalo Gracia, to help him find buildings in Puerto Rico that he could rehabilitate and convert into tourist attractions.
Soon, Pierce’s business dealings began to deteriorate into legal disputes with local partners.
NOTICE OF NAMES OF PERSONS APPEARING AS OWNERS OF CERTAIN UNCLAIMED PROPERTY HELD BY
Digital art on display at the Lighthouse NFT Gallery in Old San Juan, on June 22, 2024. (Erika P. Rodríguez/The New York Times)
On his walk in San Juan last month, Pierce sought to offer a visual demonstration of his success in Puerto Rico. He led two Times reporters to a building he had bought in 2019, a sparsely furnished space dotted with TV screens. The property, he declared, housed the world’s first art gallery dedicated to non-fungible tokens, the digital artwork known as NFTs. The images on display included a fluorescent dinosaur, perched amid a forest of giant cactuses, that Pierce said his 5-year-old daughter had designed using an artificial intelligence tool. But what he failed to mention was that a luxury real estate firm had put up a notice listing the building for sale and had held an open house. Confronted with that fact, Pierce acknowledged that he had recently tried to sell the gallery. It was never fully opened, he explained, and has struggled to make money.
MORTGAGE GUARANTEE INSURANCE COMPANY
The persons whose names and last known addresses are set forth below appear from the records of the above-named company to be entitled to abandoned property in amounts of fifty dollars or more:
Abreu, Nicolas & Picart Wanda Arias, Robinson & Tejeda Angela
Baez-Pizarro, Reinaldo G Blasco, Marisol
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Espinosa, Julio & Acosta Ana L Figueroa, Hector M & Garcia Damaris T Fontanez, Graciano & Chiclana Alicia Garcia Perez, Wilnelia Garcia, Jose & Rivera Naida Garcia, Nelida Giorgi, Samuel Gonzalez, Abigail & Ortiz Felix Gonzalez, Evelyn A Gonzalez, Wilfredo & Guasp Cecilia Hernandez, Zulma
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16-18, 2024 9
Yields surge as data renews economic confidence
U.S. Treasury yields surged on Thursday after strong economic data all but eliminated fears about a hard economic landing and curtailed expectations that an aggressive Federal Reserve easing was coming next month.
The Commerce Department said retail sales rose 1.0% last month after a downwardly revised 0.2% drop in June. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales advancing 0.3% after they were initially reported as unchanged in the previous month.
Also out was news that 227,000 Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, fewer than the 235,000 expected and the upwardly revised 233,000 claims the prior week.
The data restored confidence that was jolted by a surprisingly weak employment report a couple of weeks ago, and reinforced a picture of improving inflation from July Producer Price Index and Consumer Price Index releases this week.
“This will take 50 basis points in September off the table. (I) still think that 25 basis points make sense, just because inflation continues to ease and we got a couple of good reports, PPI and CPI adding to that,” said Steve Wyett, chief investment strategist at Bok Financial in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“We have the all-important employment data before the next Fed meeting, but this should reduce the feelings that the economy is imminently going into a recession.”
Thursday’s rise in the two-year note yield looked set to be the biggest daily jump in about four months. The 10year yield initially was tracking to its biggest basis point gain in weeks before paring slightly.
“While it’s pretty large for a one-day move, in the context of the move lower in yields over the most recent period here, it’s really just a little bit of a giveback, and to us makes sense,” said Scott Pike, senior portfolio manager at Income Research & Management in Boston.
Subsequent news that July U.S. industrial production fell 0.6%, more than the 0.3% fall expected, barely affected the yield trajectories, since manufacturing is a smaller part of the economy than the 70% made up by the consumer.
Divided sentiment since the Aug. 2 jump in July’s unemployment rate to 4.3% between traders betting on a 50 basis point cut out of the Sept. 17-18 Federal Open Market Committee meeting and a more cautious 25 bps cut has resolved for now, favoring the latter.
Fed funds futures indicate traders see the odds of a 25 bps cut in the 5.25%-5.5% policy rate at about 76%, up from 65% late Wednesday, according to LSEG calculations.
Meanwhile St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem and Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic on Thursday lined up behind the possibility of an interest rate cut at the U.S. central bank’s policy meeting next month, reversing their previous skepticism about lowering borrowing costs too soon.
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“Now that inflation is coming into range, we have to look at the other side of the mandate, and there, we’ve seen the unemployment rate rise considerably off of its lows,” Bostic said in an interview with the Financial Times.
“But it does have me thinking about what the appropriate timing is, and so I’m open to something happening in terms of us moving before the fourth quarter.”
The yield on the benchmark U.S. 10-year note rose 10.6 basis points to 3.928%, wrapping up with the biggest absolute gain in a week.
The 2-year note yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations, reached its highest since Aug. 2, and was last up 15.9 basis points at 4.1055%, which would be the biggest since a 22.2 bp surge on April 10.
The 30-year bond yield rose 7.7 basis points from late Wednesday to 4.1856%.
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The closely watched gap between yields on two- and 10-year Treasury notes, considered a gauge of growth expectations, was at negative 18 bps, deepening an inversion from its late Wednesday reading of negative 12.8 bps.
The San Juan Daily Star August
August 16-18, 2024 10
The San Juan Daily Star
Ukraine captures Russian town, Zelenskyy says
By CONSTANT MÉHEUT
Ukrainian troops took full control of the Russian town of Sudzha, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said Thursday, in what would be Ukraine’s first capture of a Russian urban center since its troops launched a surprise attack into the country 10 days ago.
Sudzha, a small town about 6 miles from the border, quickly fell into the path of Ukrainian troops sweeping into Russian territory over the past week. Military experts had said in recent days that Ukrainian forces had seized most, if not all, of the town. And Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst from the Black Bird Group based in Finland, on Thursday called it “very likely” that it was “now controlled by Ukraine.”
Ukrainian troops entered Sudzha a few days into the assault and appeared to have slowly cleared the town and its outskirts of any defenders over the past week, according to military analysts. Videos posted online in recent days by Ukrainian soldiers showed troops in the town, and Ukrainian state television broadcast a report from Sudzha on Wednesday showing soldiers tearing down a Russian flag from a building.
Displaced Russians from the Kursk border regions register at the Kursk State Circus, which is functioning as a temporary aid point to receive humanitarian aid and temporary accommodation, in Kursk, Russia, on Aug. 14, 2024. (Nanna Heitmann/The New York Times)
Satellite imagery showed at least two dozen structures were damaged or destroyed in the town and a neighboring village.
Before the assault, Sudzha had about 5,000 residents, many of whom fled, according to residents who joined tens of thousands of others evacuating from parts of the border region. Zelenskyy said Wednesday that “hundreds of Russian soldiers” had surrendered in the region since the start of the
attack, though Ukrainian authorities have declined to share precise details.
The capture of Sudzha could further lift the spirits of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers who have already been buoyed by Ukraine’s daring, and so far relatively successful, incursion after months of losing ground at home. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top commander, said in a statement Thursday that his troops now con-
trolled an area of about 450 square miles in Russia, a claim that could not be independently confirmed.
Despite a slower pace of advance in recent days, the Ukrainian attacks have continued unabated. On Wednesday, Ukraine said it launched a large drone attack on four military airfields deep inside Russia — including several in or near the Kursk region — hitting and damaging at least two bases.
Ukraine has made many such drone strikes on Russian targets far from the front line, but analysts said the latest appeared to be one of the largest yet. It included 117 drones launched toward multiple Russian regions, including those housing airfields, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday. It did not mention any damage.
Satellite imagery verified by The New York Times showed that Russian air bases in Savasleyka and Borisoglebsk, about 400 and 150 miles from the border, had sustained damage, including two hangars that were destroyed and a warehouse that sustained damage.
It was unclear whether any aircraft had been hit. Images from two other airfields that Ukraine’s military claimed it had attacked did not show major damage.
Spain is thirsty. Here’s how it gets water.
By STANLEY REED and RACHEL CHAUNDLER
On a fiery hot day in late June, tourists filled the cafes and hotel rooms along Spain’s Mediterranean coast, including in Torrevieja, a small city of tightly stacked apartment blocks running along a curved beach.
The seasonal population surge in this dry, sun-baked region might strain water resources were it not for a set of buildings overlooking a pink-tinged lagoon nearby.
These low-slung structures house a vast network of pipes, pumps and tanks in a plant that performs a kind of alchemy crucial to the economy of this part of Spain: drawing huge volumes of water from the sea, removing the salt and creating more than 60 million gallons of fresh water a day.
Acciona, a Spanish company that built
the plant, says the facility can supply water for 1.6 million people through the process known as desalination. For much of the year, though, the output is largely used to nurture oranges, lemons and other crops for consumers in Northern Europe.
But when the crowds of tourists arrive in the summer, more water is diverted into the city’s pipes for showering and other domestic use, said Ana Boix, deputy manager of the plant. “We have a very high-quality water from a source of supply that is endless,” she said.
The Torrevieja plant is the largest of its kind in Europe, and similar plants dot the Spanish coastline. They have helped enable rampant coastal development in parched areas and to support an agricultural industry that is considered among the world’s most proficient at managing water.
With nearly 100 big plants, Spain is the
largest user of desalination in Europe and one of the world’s largest. In many other countries, including Australia, China and Israel, reliance on desalination for drinking water and other needs is increasing.
Christopher Gasson, publisher of Global Water Intelligence, which tracks the industry, said that about 500 million people rely at least partly on purified salt or brackish water and that the number could rise sixfold to 3 billion by midcentury. Around the world, there are about 1,500 large plants — those that can produce about 2.6 million gallons a day — with roughly $14 billion being spent annually to operate the existing fleet and build new ones.
Several factors may make further growth almost inevitable. Coastal cities are attracting more people, outstripping natural water supplies. And climate-related droughts are becoming more common and intense, prompt-
ing governments to opt for desalination plants as an insurance policy against not only water shortages but also potential social unrest.
“I think that water will continue to be a singular point of stress, particularly in the era of climate change,” said Peter S. Fiske, executive director of the National Alliance for Water Innovation, a research body funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
With supply pressures increasing and regulations tightening, businesses, too, may need to invest in desalination as a way of making sure their factories can keep functioning.
In addition, the costs of operating the energy-intensive desalination technology — called reverse osmosis, which is standard at large plants including the one at Torrevieja — are being brought down by pairing water purification with cheap solar energy, encouraging the building of new plants.
The lack of water resources among the countries along the Persian Gulf, combined with their wealth of both petroleum and sunshine, makes building desalination plants an obvious choice. “Desal tends to be needed where the sunshine is,” Gasson said, using an abbreviation for desalination.
Saudi Arabia is the largest market for these installations, followed by the United Arab Emirates. Access to converted seawater has helped give rise to gleaming, futuristic metropolises in places like Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.
“Desalination allowed this spaceshiplike settlement,” said Karim Elgendy, a climate analyst at Chatham House, a London research organization.
There are concerns that the dependence of countries like Saudi Arabia on desalination could leave their citizens scrambling for water if the coastal plants malfunctioned or were attacked. Desalination “is the only way to continue having large population centers” in the region, said Karen E. Young, a senior research scholar at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy.
Some analysts say worries about water scarcity and the large sums invested in desalination plants are likely to lead to breakthroughs that are cheaper, cleaner and more flexible. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, ruler of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, is offering a $119 million prize to encourage innovation in the field.
“You might call it, actually, the ChatGPT moment for water,” said Adri Pols, CEO of a Dutch water startup called Desolenator, referring to the immensely popular artificial intelligence chatbot. His company offers solar-powered plants that can be
packed into shipping containers and sent to businesses and farms.
Customers do grumble that desalination remains more costly than rainwater and comes with other drawbacks. The Spanish government subsidizes the bulk of the costs, but Mariano Saez, a farmer in the region near Torrevieja, says the 45 euro cents he pays per cubic meter to produce 30,000 metric tons a year of citrus fruit is still too expensive.
Spain’s rivers should be reengineered to deliver more water from other regions that would be “cheaper and healthier than the water from the desalination plants,” he said. But some analysts say that approach would be impractical and divisive.
“Economic development will continue and needs a water supply,” said Jorge Olcina, a professor of geography at the nearby Alicante University.
The Spanish government recently announced a 90 million euro (about $98 million) expansion of the Torrevieja plant, which cost around 200 million euros.
Santiago Martín Barajas, a representative of Ecologistas en Acción, an environmental group, said the concentrated salt water that flows into the sea from the plants could harm marine life, including damaging the sea vegetation where fish breed. Barajas said desalination should be limited to supplying drinking water, mainly during times of drought, and should not be used to water crops.
Acciona, the company that built the plant in Torrevieja, employed environmental consultants who regularly tested the sea and sediment around the pipes outside the city’s sea wall, where the plant’s waste flows, to check that increased salinity was within prescribed limits.
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A section of the desalination plant in Torrevieja, Spain, where concentrated waste gets pumped beyond the seawall, June 26, 2024. To supply water for a number of needs, from tourism to agriculture, Spain and other dry nations are increasingly relying on desalination plants that convert seawater into fresh water. (Emilio Parra Doiztua/The New York Times)
Naftali Bennett needs to topple two regimes
By BRET STEPHENS
The last time I’d met with Naftali Bennett was at his home north of Tel Aviv not long after the attacks of Oct. 7 and just before Israel’s army went into the Gaza Strip. The former Israeli prime minister was worried about a blood bath. He also had a plan to avoid it.
Bennett, whose short-lived term of office from 2021 to 2022 was notable for the ideological breadth of his government, sketched a four-part concept: Seize Gaza’s peripheries without trying to occupy its cities. Provide Palestinians with food, water, medicine and safe havens but not the fuel that Hamas needs to operate its tunnels. Use an “ongoing and persistent series of targeted ground raids” to gradually degrade and destroy Hamas’ military over months or years. Offer safe passage out of Gaza for Hamas fighters willing to surrender, probably in exchange for the release of Israel’s hostages.
Benjamin Netanyahu ignored the advice. After 10 months of grinding war, Israel has achieved none of its major objectives. Hamas is not defeated. Its leader, Yahya Sinwar, is still at large and making demands. Scores of hostages remain in captivity. Tens of thousands of Israelis cannot return to their homes. The country is as divided as before and more isolated than ever. And Israelis are girding for a major, multifront war against Iran and its proxies.
So what would Bennett have Israel do now? With polls showing him drawing even with or beating Netanyahu as the person Israelis want as their prime minister, his views matter.
“I see words that send one message and actions that are the contrary,” Bennett told me last week when I saw him in New York. He was referring to Netanyahu’s conduct of the war in Gaza. But Bennett was also thinking about Israel’s approach to Iran, which is now closer than ever to a nuclear breakout, despite years of Netanyahu’s public vows that he would never allow the Islamic republic to get this close to a bomb.
Regarding Gaza, Bennett saw two defensible courses of action. The first — his clear preference — is a short, sharp, decisive surge of forces that can knock out Hamas: “If you’re in a boxing ring and you just hit your opponent and he’s just wobbling, you zero in and give him another punch,” Bennett said. The second option is to cut a hostage deal, declare a cease-fire and “fight another day.” That’s the Biden administration’s clear preference; for Israel, it hinges on questions of its ordnance stockpiles and how long it can sustain a high-intensity war.
What Netanyahu is doing is something else. He is talking out of both sides of his mouth — alternating between promises of “total victory” and an immediate deal to bring Israel’s hostages home. At the same time, he is waging a low-intensity war of attrition, reminiscent of William Westmoreland’s Vietnam strategy against an enemy that continually replenished itself, with no end in sight.
“I know there is a body count of Hamas combatants,” Bennett said. “When you count bodies, you are assuming a finite number of combatants. But you have a population of
1 million to draw on,” he added, referring to Hamas. “They could have recruited another 10,000 in the meantime. That’s not how you win a war.”
Then there is Netanyahu’s other dismal failure: Iran. For years, Bennett has warned of Tehran’s “octopus strategy,” in which the regime “builds proxies and tentacles across the Middle East and the world, for that matter, and funds, arms and directs them, yet hardly pays a price.” For more than 20 years, the arms of the octopus — in Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Iraq and Yemen — have grown strong while Netanyahu insisted that the focus had to be on Iran’s nuclear programs.
“What we got was both,” Bennett lamented. Tehran built “an empire of rockets and terror” ringing Israel. But Netanyahu also whiffed on the decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities when there was still a realistic chance of destroying them in their relative infancy. Now Iran has become a de facto nuclear-threshold state, able to “quickly produce weaponsgrade uranium, at multiple facilities, if it chooses to do so,” as an unclassified U.S. intelligence document recently noted.
If Iran were able to deploy nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles — or share them with a proxy like Hezbollah — the Jewish state would be on a road to extinction. The only policy that can reverse it, Bennett warned, is “to topple the Iranian regime before it fully acquires a nuclear weapon.”
He isn’t imagining Iraq-style regime change, with foreign divisions marching toward the capital. Israel can’t do it, and Americans won’t.
What he has in mind, instead, is what happened to the Soviet Union in the 1980s. That, too, was an old regime, “rigid and disconnected,” he said, “profoundly corrupt and incompetent and despised by its own people.” In part, the Soviet Union fell of its own weight. But it was also kicked in its heels — by collapsing oil revenues, a slow bleed in Afghanistan, covert Western support for dissident movements like Solidarity and a clarity of vision that the goal of Western policy was the collapse of the communist empire, not the management of a delicate status quo.
The opportunity with Iran, as Bennett sees it, is that “the head of the octopus is much weaker, much more vulnerable and feeble, than its arms. So how foolish are we to engage in war with the arms when we could engage with the head?” That would mean a resumption of serious economic sanctions — thanks to administration waivers, Iran today exports nearly four times as much oil as it did four years ago — and empowering Iran’s powerful opposition movement, particularly with communications gear.
That’s an effort only an American president can lead. What about the immediate crisis with Iran?
I asked Bennett about the timing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran. After a long pause, he replied, “It’s very hard to cherry-pick particular actions if there’s no broad strategy.” But he also warned Iran that it had “huge vulnerabilities, especially in its energy sector, which is highly concentrated in a few bottlenecks that can be dealt
Then incoming Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett addresses the Knesset in Jerusalem, June 13, 2021. “The former Israeli prime minister was worried about a blood bath. He also had a plan to avoid it.” (Dan Balilty/The New York Times)
with. They should be afraid right now and not the 10 million Israelis. This whole passive method in which our enemies take the lead is not the Israeli way.”
Bennett left the prime minister’s office vowing to stay away from politics for at least a decade. He left me with little doubt that he’s on the verge of getting back in, with the aim of toppling the ruling coalition through parliamentary maneuvers this year and going for elections. He pledged a thorough housecleaning that could help unite Israelis once again.
“All the senior leadership of Israel, political and military, needs to be replaced,” he said. To defeat one regime, another one must first be beaten.
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The San Juan Daily Star August 16-18, 2024 13
Caguas
POR CYBERNEWS
abre centro de recopilación de daños tras tormenta Ernesto
CAGUAS – El alcalde de Caguas, William Miranda Torres, anunció la apertura de un centro de recopilación de información sobre daños en el municipio, con el objetivo de referir los casos de necesidad de los ciudadanos afectados por el paso de la tormenta Ernesto a las agencias correspondientes.
“El centro de recopilación de daños es un espacio donde los ciudadanos pueden registrar los daños sufridos, lo que nos permitirá referir la información a agencias estatales y federales. Además, ofreceremos apoyo emocio-
nal a quienes lo necesiten y proporcionaremos referidos y coordinaciones complementarias. El centro también contará con la presencia de representantes del programa de asistencia nutricional del Departamento de la Familia”, explicó Miranda Torres en comunicación escrita. Los ciudadanos también podrán acudir al centro para recargar sus dispositivos electrónicos.
El centro de recopilación de daños está ubicado en el Centro de Bellas Artes Ángel O. Berríos y estará abierto de 8:30 de la mañana a 4:00 de la tarde. El estacionamiento en la facilidad también estará disponible para quienes asistan al centro.
Comercios cumplen mayoritariamente con la orden de congelación de precios emitida por DACO
FAJARDO
– El secretario del Departamento de Asuntos del Consumidor (DACO), Francisco González de la Matta, junto con un equipo de inspectores, visitó hoy establecimientos comerciales en el área este de la isla para verificar el cumplimiento de la orden de congelación de precios emitida tras el paso de la tormenta Ernesto.
“Hasta el momento, según las inspecciones realizadas en las cinco regiones del DACO, los comercios
Asociación de
Sestán cumpliendo con la orden de congelación de precios. Desde el inicio de los operativos el pasado martes, ya se han visitado más de 200 comercios en toda la isla con cerca de 50 inspectores en la calle fiscalizando”, informó González de la Matta.
Además de verificar el cumplimiento de la congelación de precios, el DACO también está asegurando que los establecimientos ofrezcan alternativas de pago a los clientes, garantizando un acceso justo y equitativo a productos y servicios esenciales.
El secretario exhortó a la ciudadanía a reportar cualquier violación a la orden o presentar confidencias a través de la página web de DACO (www.daco.pr.gov) o llamando al 787-722-7555, extensión 14049.
El operativo ha incluido farmacias, supermercados, ferreterías, colmados, estaciones de gasolina y tiendas de artículos para mascotas, estas últimas incluidas por primera vez en una orden de congelación de precios. La orden comenzó el 13 de agosto y tiene un término de 10 días, aunque podría acortarse o extenderse dependiendo de la evolución de la situación provocada por la tormenta.
Comercio al
Detal
presentará
estudio sobre impacto económico y social en Puerto Rico
AN JUAN – La Asociación de Comercio al Detal (ACDET) llevará a cabo su cumbre anual “Retail Out Of The Box” el próximo 22 de agosto de 2024 en el Centro de Convenciones de Puerto Rico. Esta edición, dedicada a la fuerza laboral de la industria, contará con la presentación por primera vez de un estudio sobre el impacto económico y social de la industria de ventas al detal en la Isla.
“El propósito de este estudio es desarrollar y documentar el perfil del impacto que tiene la industria de ventas al detal en la sociedad y poder facilitar estadísticas e información confiable para diversos sectores que toman decisiones en el país y fines educativos”, explicó Lymaris Otero, directora ejecutiva de ACDET. El estudio, realizado por
Advantage Business Consulting, medirá no solo las contribuciones económicas, sino también su impacto en comunidades, poblaciones jóvenes, mujeres, adultos mayores, y temas de inclusión.
La cumbre es un espacio clave para fortalecer relaciones comerciales, explorar nuevas estrategias globales, e impulsar la innovación dentro del comercio al detal en un entorno digital altamente competitivo. Además de la presentación del estudio, el evento incluirá un panel de discusión sobre los retos y tendencias del sector, una charla sobre ciberseguridad enfocada en los empleados, y presentaciones de los candidatos a la gobernación de Puerto Rico.
José González, presidente de ACDET, destacó la misión de la organización en mantener un clima económico favorable para la industria y promover el desarrollo económico y la libre empresa en el
sector del comercio al detal.
Desde 2017, la cumbre ha sido un evento destacado en el sector, atrayendo a más de mil asistentes y alcanzando una exposición mediática significativa. Para más información, los interesados pueden visitar www.acdetpr.com/eventos o contactar a través de info@acdetpr.com.
Gena Rowlands, actress who brought raw drama to her roles, dies at 94
By ANITA GATES
Gena Rowlands, the intense, elegant dramatic actress who, often in collaboration with her husband, John Cassavetes, starred in a series of introspective independent films, has died. She was 94.
The death was confirmed by the office of Daniel Greenberg, a representative for Rowlands’ son, director Nick Cassavetes. No other details were given.
In June, her family said that she had been living with Alzheimer’s disease for five years.
Rowlands, who often played intoxicated, deranged or otherwise on-the-verge characters, was nominated twice for best actress Oscars in performances directed by Cassavetes. The first was the title role in “A Woman Under the Influence” (1974), in which her desperate, insecure character is institutionalized by her blue-collar husband (Peter Falk) because he doesn’t know what else to do. Critic Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times that Rowlands was “so touchingly vulnerable to every kind of influence around her that we don’t want to tap her because she might fall apart.”
Her second nomination was for “Gloria” (1980), in which she starred as a gangster’s moll on the run with an orphaned boy.
But it was “Faces” (1968), in which she starred as a young prostitute opposite John Marley, that first brought the CassavetesRowlands partnership to moviegoers’ attention. Critics spread the word; Renata Adler described the film in The New York Times as “a really important movie” about “the way things are,” and Ebert called it “astonishing.”
That was followed by more Cassavetes films. In “Minnie and Moskowitz” (1971), Rowlands played a museum employee who eventually lets herself fall in love with a parking lot attendant (Seymour Cassel). In
“Opening Night” (1977), she was an actress haunted by the ghost of a fan who had died violently. Her final film collaboration with her husband was “Love Streams” (1984), in which the two played brother and sister.
Rowlands won two Primetime Emmy Awards for performances in television movies. She won the first for the title role in “The Betty Ford Story” (1987) and the second for her portrayal of a destitute widow who takes in a homeless woman in “Face of a Stranger” (1991). She also received a 2004 Daytime Emmy for her work in “The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie,” a drama about an eccentric widow and a self-destructive teenager.
She received five other Emmy nominations, the first for her role as the mother of a young man with AIDS in “An Early Frost” (1985), one of the first mainstream scripts to deal with the epidemic, and the last for a 2009 guest appearance on detective series “Monk.”
Rowlands sometimes said that if she had not married Cassavetes, her career might have taken a very different turn: She could have been the blonde in romantic comedies. But, she contended, physical beauty was so common in Hollywood that it was irrelevant. When People magazine named her one of the
most beautiful people in the world (she was 69) and asked for beauty tips, she suggested: “Sunglasses are the secret. Sunglasses and a little lipstick will take you to the market.”
Virginia Cathryn Rowlands was born June 19, 1930, in Madison, Wisconsin, the daughter of Edwin M. Rowlands, a banker and state legislator, and Mary Allen (Neal) Rowlands, a painter who later acted in films under the name Lady Rowlands. In 1939 the family moved from Cambria, a Madison suburb, to Washington, where Edwin Rowlands worked in the Agriculture Department during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration.
Virginia graduated from high school in Arlington, Virginia, and attended the University of Wisconsin, but she dropped out to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, where she began her acting career. Although she vowed not to marry or have children, she changed her mind after she met Cassavetes, a recent academy graduate. They married in 1954 and were together until his death at 59 in 1989.
Rowlands’ television debut was on the series “Top Secret” (1954), which consisted of 15-minute stories about undercover agents. In 1955, she made guest appearances on eight television productions, including a “Robert
Montgomery Presents” version of “The Great Gatsby” in which she played Myrtle Wilson, Tom Buchanan’s declasse mistress.
The next year she made her only appearance on Broadway, starring opposite Edward G. Robinson in Paddy Chayefsky’s “Middle of the Night,” a play about a 50-ish garment manufacturer who has a romance with a woman in her 20s. Brooks Atkinson, reviewing the play in The New York Times, called her performance “especially good.”
Then Hollywood called. MGM signed her, and she made her feature film debut as José Ferrer’s wife in “The High Cost of Loving,” a 1958 comedy. Other early movies included “Lonely Are the Brave” (1962), a contemporary western with Kirk Douglas; “The Spiral Road” (1962), in which she played the God-fearing fiancee of a young doctor (Rock Hudson); and “A Child Is Waiting” (1963), in which she starred as the mother of an autistic boy, alongside Judy Garland and Burt Lancaster. That was the first film in which Rowlands was directed by her husband.
She always returned to television. In the 1960s, she was seen on “Bonanza,” “77 Sunset Strip,” “The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.,” “Dr. Kildare” and other series, and in several dozen episodes of the nighttime soap opera “Peyton Place” as seductive socialite Adrienne Van Leyden, who eventually dies after falling down the stairs at the Peyton mansion.
In later years, Rowlands appeared in a segment of the film “Paris, Je T’Aime” (2006), opposite Ben Gazzara, and starred opposite James Garner in “The Notebook” (2004), a film directed by her son, Nick Cassavetes, about a long marriage that can conquer anything but dementia. Her final screen appearances were in “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks” (2014), a comic drama about a retiree and her handsome young instructor, and “Unfortunate Circumstances” (2014), a comedy short in which she played a psychotherapist. In 2015, she received an honorary Oscar.
Rowlands married Robert Forrest, a retired businessman, in 2012.
“We made half our movies in the house,” Rowlands recalled, explaining her children’s upbringing, in an interview with The St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1997. “And every time the children would come out of the bathroom with a toothbrush, they would fall over a cable. They assumed everyone lived like that.”
Actress Gena Rowlands, center left, arrives on the red carpet for the 88th Academy Awards ceremony at Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Feb. 28, 2016. Rowlands, the intense, elegant dramatic actress who, often in collaboration with her husband, John Cassavetes, starred in a series of introspective independent films, died on Aug. 14, 2024. She was 94. (Monica Almeida/The New York Times)
The San Juan Daily Star August 16-18, 2024 15
WHO declares global emergency over new mpox outbreak
By APOORVA MANDAVILLI
The rapid spread of mpox, formerly called monkeypox, in African countries constitutes a global health emergency, the World Health Organization declared Wednesday.
This is the second time in three years that the WHO has designated an mpox epidemic as a global emergency. It previously did so in July 2022. That outbreak went on to affect nearly 100,000 people, primarily gay and bisexual men, in 116 countries and killed about 200 people.
The threat this time is deadlier. Since the beginning of this year, Congo alone has reported more than 15,600 mpox cases and 537 deaths. Those most at risk include women and children under 15.
“The detection and rapid spread of a new clade of mpox in eastern DRC, its detection in neighboring countries that had not previously reported mpox, and the potential for further spread within Africa and beyond is very worrying,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, using the initials for the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The outbreak has spread through 13 countries in Africa, including a few that had never reported mpox cases before. On Tuesday, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared a “public health emergency of continental security,” the first time the organization has taken that step since the African Union granted it the power to do so last year.
“It’s in the interests of the countries, of the continent and of the world to get our arms around this and stop transmission as soon as we can,” said Dr. Nicole Lurie, executive director for preparedness and response at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a nonprofit that finances vaccine development.
Facing the threat of global spread, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has urged clinicians and the public in the United States to be alert for the virus.
The WHO’s designation of a “public health emergency of international concern” is intended to prompt member countries to begin preparing for the virus’s appearance and to share vaccines, treatments and other key resources with poorer nations.
“We need concerted international action to stem this recent, novel outbreak,” said Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at Yale University who served on the WHO’s mpox committee in 2022.
The outbreak that year stayed mostly within tight sexual networks among gay and bisexual men. A combination of behavioral changes and vaccination tamped down the spread.
In the United States, for example, the toll dropped to about 1,700 cases last year from more than 30,000 in 2022.
The version of mpox that has been circulating in Congo has always been more virulent and currently has a death rate of about 3%, compared with 0.2% in the 2022 outbreak. The infection can produce fever, respiratory symptoms, muscle aches and swollen lymph nodes, as well as a rash on the hands, feet, chest, mouth or genitals.
Until recently, it spread mainly through consumption of contaminated meat or close contact with infected animals and people. Most of the deaths have been in children, who in this region of Africa are already beset by malnutrition and infectious diseases including cholera, measles and polio.
Should the outbreak spread globally, children in developed countries are likely to be less vulnerable to severe illness, experts have said.
Last year, for the first time, scientists discovered sexual transmission of this version of mpox, with cases split about equally among young men and women. According to genetic analyses, sometime around September, the virus gained mutations that enabled it to spread more readily among people. It has done so partly through heterosexual prostitution.
This viral type has not surfaced outside
Africa. Overall, there have been more than 17,500 presumed and confirmed mpox cases in 13 countries, according to Africa CDC. Most of the cases and deaths have occurred in Congo.
Given the rapid spread, the declaration of a global health emergency was justified, said Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who served on the 2022 mpox panel.
“I think we learned a great deal about the speed with which this virus can spread,” she said.
Amid rising numbers, Congo has approved two mpox vaccines: a Japanese product called LC16 and Jynneos, a vaccine made by Bavarian Nordic that was used in 2022 in the United States and Europe. But Congo has yet to institute an immunization plan.
On Aug. 9, the WHO invited vaccine manufacturers to apply for an emergency use listing, a prerequisite for international groups such as Gavi, a global vaccine alliance, to purchase and distribute the shots in low-income nations.
Bavarian Nordic has donated 15,000 doses of Jynneos to be distributed in African countries. But that is a tiny fraction of the 10 million doses needed to control the outbreak, according to Africa CDC.
“The challenge is that these vaccines are not sufficient,” even if countries try to protect only the people at highest risk, said Dr. Dimie Ogoina, a Nigerian scientist and chair of the WHO’s mpox emergency committee.
LC16 was used in Japanese children in
People
to receive the
Aug. 1, 2022. The rapid spread of mpox in African countries constitutes a global health emergency, the World Health Organization declared this week. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)
the 1970s. Clinical trials funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations are now evaluating whether Jynneos can protect children and people who have already been exposed to the virus, Lurie said.
The organization is also supporting the development of a new mRNA vaccine made by BioNTech that would protect against mpox and related viruses, such as smallpox.
“This outbreak has been smoldering for quite a long time, and we continually have missed opportunities to shut it down,” Lurie said. “I’m really glad that everybody is now paying attention and focusing their efforts on this.”
Celebrando en este año 2024 mis 30 años de servicio en las bienes raíces. Agradezco y comparto este logro con mis amigos, clientes, colaboradores, y con mi familia, que siempre me han apoyado y confiado en mí... ¡Bendiciones! VENTA DE PROPIEDADES
CAGUAS-URB. TURABO GARDENS I- 4H, 2B, sala, comedor y amplia cocina, buen patio con pequeña terraza, marq ext. y balcón. $149,000
VENDIDA
VENTA APARTAMENTOS SAN JUAN -TERRAZAS DE SAN JUAN 3H, 2B, 2 parking, fac. rec. con gimnasio y piscina con servicio de agua y luz siempre. $263,000 OMO
VENDIDA
CAGUAS-CONDOMINIO
VENDIDA
BORINQUEN PARKEstá ubicado en el primer piso. Tiene 3H, 1B, S,C,C,
laundry, balcón, un parking (1), control de acceso $100,000 ALQUILER APARTAMENTOS RIO PIEDRASCRISTAL PARKApartamento 3H, 2B, Completamente Equipado y amueblado. Incluye Mantenimiento Renta $1,400 CAGUAS-HACIENDA SAN JOSE PUERTA DEL PARQUEPenthouse 3H, 2B, 3 estacionamientos. Apto Completamente equipado con enseres. Incluye Mantenimiento. Renta $2,500.
ATENCIÓN:
Tengo cliente Cualificado y con dinero en mano para comprar en área de Juncos
wait
mpox vaccine at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center in San Francisco,
August 16-18, 2024 16
The
After breaking free, world’s largest iceberg is stuck spinning in circles
By REMY TUMIN
For more than 30 years, the world’s largest iceberg was stuck in the Antarctic. Five times the size of New York City’s land area and more than 1,000 feet deep, the mammoth piece of ice finally became loose in 2020 and began a slow drift toward the Southern Ocean.
Now, A23a, as it’s known, is spinning in place.
After leaving Antarctic waters, the iceberg got stuck in a vortex over a seamount, or an underwater mountain. Imagine a piece of ice about 1,500 square miles in area and as deep as the Empire State Building spinning slowly but steadily enough to fully rotate it on its head over the course of about 24 days.
The iceberg is spinning near the South Orkney Islands, about 375 miles northeast of the Antarctic Peninsula, “maintaining a chill 15 degree rotation per day,” the British Antarctic Survey, the United Kingdom’s polar research institute, said on social media.
“It’s basically just sitting there, spinning around, and it will very slowly melt as long as it stays there,” said Alex Brearley, a physical oceanographer and head of the Open Oceans research group at the British Antarctic Survey. “What we don’t know is how quickly it will actually come out of this.”
A23a has been embroiled in drama since the start, a trait it picked up from its parent-berg.
A23, which was even bigger than A23a, was one of three icebergs that broke off, or calved, from the Filchner Ice Shelf in 1986. At the time of the calving, A23 was home to a Soviet Union research center and researchers eventually had to abandon the base. A23a broke off later that year and hit bottom in the Weddell Sea, where it would remain for 34 more years.
In 2020, A23a finally freed itself, and in December, it began to move out of Antarctic waters on a long meander through the Southern Ocean. It took Brearley and a research vessel almost an entire day to circle it during a visit in December. They were awestruck.
“It looks like land, that’s the only way to describe it,” Brearley said.
But by spring, A23a caught the spins. Using satellite imagery, the British Antarctic Survey first observed the iceberg spinning in April.
Large Antarctic icebergs are designated by A, B, C and D depending on where in Antarctica they originate, and they
receive a number only once they’ve reached a big enough size. Their sequential order shows how long A23a has topped the list of world’s biggest icebergs: A76 calved in 2021, for instance, but melted two years later.
The iceberg is in an area of the Southern Ocean known as Iceberg Alley, a popular spot for icebergs. Typically, large icebergs move through quickly and get sucked into the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the largest ocean current in the world. The blocks of ice eventually get shot out eastward to warmer waters, where they begin to melt and disintegrate. Brearley described the transition as “a warm bath of water” only a couple of degrees above freezing.
Not A23a. Instead, the gigantic iceberg got caught in what’s known as a Taylor column, a current that forms around seamounts. Standard flow diverges around the underwater mountain and creates a stagnant cylinder of fluids above the seamount, slowly rotating the water counterclockwise around the bump.
The bump A23a is swimming over is about 100 kilometers across (about 62 miles) and rises up from the deep sea floor to a height of about 1,000 meters (3,280 feet), Brearley said, calling it “a pretty cool geophysical phenomenon.”
How frequently these Taylor columns form or how often icebergs get stuck in them is not known, Brearley said, and there is not enough satellite data or underwater mapping to fully understand the phenomenon’s frequency.
It’s also unclear how long the iceberg will stay in place. But one thing is clear: The largest iceberg in the world will not melt and flood the southern hemisphere.
Melting icebergs that originate from floating ice shelves like A23a do not themselves significantly contribute to global sea level rise, said Brearley, because the ice is already floating in the ocean. Climate scientists are concerned that the deterioration of large portions of ice shelves will make the continent’s glaciers more vulnerable to warming.
Brearley pointed to a 2015 study that observed a robotic float, part of a fleet of instruments that drift in ocean currents to measure water temperature, trapped in a Taylor column for four years just to the northeast of A23a’s current location.
If A23a spends an extended time in the vortex, the iceberg could melt significantly and affect plankton and other organisms in the marine food chain in the area, Brearley said.
Christopher A. Shuman, a glaciologist and research professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, surmised that A23a would eventually go the way of other large icebergs — toward the island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic and melt. He pointed to iceberg A68a, which in 2020 spun for months a little farther west from where A23a is now before being freed.
Whatever happens, “the margins of Antarctica” and their mysteries will continue to fascinate us, Brearley said. He noted a tagline used among glaciologists: What happens in Antarctica doesn’t stay in Antarctica.
“This is one of the ways that Antarctica reaches out to the rest of the world,” he said.
A photo provided by Chris Walton, British Antarctic Survey, shows the world’s largest iceberg, named A23a, near Antarctica in April 2024. It’s unclear how long A23a will spin in place. (Chris Walton, British Antarctic Survey via The New York Times)
San Juan Daily Star
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA
CENTRO JUDICIAL DE HUMACAO SALA SUPERIOR BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO
Parte Demandante Vs. JUAN EDGARDO
VILLEGAS SERRANO T/C/C JUAN VILLEGAS y GLORIA YVETTE
MIRANDA TORRES
Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: HU2022CV00307. Sala: 208. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. AVISO DE PÚBLICA SUBASTA.
El Alguacil que suscribe por la presente anuncia y hace constar que en cumplimiento de la Sentencia de 29 de febrero de 2024 la Orden de Ejecución de Sentencia del 24 de abril de 2024 y el Mandamiento de Ejecución del 24 de abril de 2024. En el caso de epígrafe, procederé a vender día 17 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2024, A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA en la Oficina del Alguacil de Subastas, localizada en Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Centro Judicial de Humacao, Sala Superior, en la Avenida Nicanor Vázquez, Humacao, Puerto Rico (frente al Centro de Bellas Artes), al mejor postor en pago de contado y en moneda de los Estados Unidos de América, cheque de gerente o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal; todo título, derecho o interés de la parte demandada sobre la siguiente propiedad:
URBANA: Solar número 1 en el bloque L de la Urbanización Brisas del Valle localizada en el Barrio Rio del término municipal de Naguabo, Puerto Rico, con cabida superficial de 499.1850 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, en 20.347 metros con el solar #12 del bloque L; por el SUR, en 20.621 metros con la calle #11 y solar 11 del bloque K; por el ESTE, en 19.881 metros con el solar #2 del bloque L; y por el OESTE, en 29.704 metros con el Remanente. Sobre este solar enclava una residencia de un nivel la cual está compuesta de sala-comedor, cocina, 3 cuartos un baño y marquesina. Inscrita al folio 67 del tomo 239 de Naguabo, Finca 13767. Registro de la Propiedad de
Humacao. La hipoteca consta inscrita al 67 vuelto del tomo 239 de Naguabo, Finca 13767. Registro de la Propiedad de Humacao. Inscripción segunda. Dirección Física: BRISAS DEL VALLE L1 NAGUABO PR 00718. Número de Catastro: 52-256-011-307-79-000. El tipo mínimo para la primera subasta será de $46,500.00. De no haber adjudicación en la primera subasta se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA, el día 24 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2024, A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar, en la cual el tipo mínimo será de dos terceras partes del tipo mínimo fijado en la primera subasta, o sea,$31,000.00 De no haber adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA, el día 1 DE OCTUBRE DE 2024, A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar, en la cual el tipo mínimo será la mitad del precio pactado, o sea, $23,250.00 Si se declarase desierta la tercera subasta, se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si ésta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta, si el tribunal lo estima conveniente. Se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si ésta es mayor. Dicho remate se llevará a cabo para con su producto satisfacer a la demandante el importe de la Sentencia por suma de $26,794.78 de principal, más intereses sobre dicha suma al 6.5% anual desde el 1 de enero de 2023 hasta su completo pago, más recargos acumulados, los cuales continuarán en aumento hasta el saldo total de la deuda, más la cantidad estipulada de $4,650.00 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados, así como cualquier otra suma que contenga el contrato del préstamo, incluyendo pero sin limitarse a gastos de mantenimiento, inspecciones y otros adelantos “corporate advances”. Surge del Estudio de Título Registral que sobre esta propiedad pesa el siguiente gravamen posterior a la hipoteca que por la presente se pretende ejecutar: HIPOTECA: Constituida por Juan Edgardo Villegas Serrano y Gloria Yvette Miranda Torres (ambos solteros), en garantía de un pagaré a favor de La Autoridad para el Financiamiento de la Vivienda de Puerto Rico, o a su orden, por la suma de $20,000.00, sin intereses y vencedero el 10 de junio de 2013, según consta de la escritura #348, otorgada en San Juan, el 10 de Junio de 2003, ante la notario Irma J. Plana-
deball Marrero, inscrita al folio 68 del tomo 239 de Naguabo, finca #13767, inscripción 3ra. AVISO DE DEMANDA: Pleito seguido por Banco Popular de Puerto Rico vs. Juan Edgardo Villegas Serrano también conocido como Juan Villegas y Gloria Yvette Miranda Torres, ante el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Humacao, en el caso civil número HU2022CV00307, sobre cobro de dinero y ejecución de hipoteca, en la que se reclama el pago de hipoteca, con un balance de $29,399.71 y otras cantidades, según Demanda de fecha 9 de marzo de 2022. Anotada al Tomo Karibe de Naguabo. Anotación A. Se notifica al acreedor posterior o a su sucesor o cesionario en derecho para que comparezca a proteger su derecho si así lo desea. Se les advierte a los interesados que todos los documentos relacionados con la presente acción de ejecución de hipoteca, así como los de Subasta, estarán disponibles para ser examinados, durante horas laborables, en el expediente del caso que obra en los archivos de la Secretaría del Tribunal, bajo el número de epígrafe y para su publicación en un periódico de circulación general en Puerto Rico por espacio de dos semanas y por lo menos una vez por semana; y para su fijación en los sitios públicos requeridos por ley. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante, continuarán subsistentes; entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate y que la propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores tal como lo expresa la Ley Núm. 210-2015. Y para el conocimiento de los demandados, de los acreedores posteriores, de los licitadores, partes interesadas y público en general, EXPIDO para su publicación en los lugares públicos correspondientes, el presente Aviso de Pública Subasta en Humacao, Puerto Rico, hoy 17 de Julio de 2024. JENNISA GARCÍA
MORALES, ALGUACIL REGIONAL. WILNELIA RIVERA
DELGADO, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR PLACA #249, ALGUACIL DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, CENTRO JUDICIAL DE HUMACAO, SALA SUPERIOR.
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Parte Demandada
Civil Núm.: CG2023CV02615. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA Y COBRO DE DINERO. ANUNCIO DE SUBASTA. El suscribiente, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia de Puerto Rico, Sala de Caguas, a los demandados de epígrafe y al público en general hace saber que los autos y documentos del caso de epígrafe estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables y que venderá en pública subasta al mejor postor, en moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América en efectivo, cheque certificado, o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, en mi oficina en el Centro Judicial de Caguas, Puerto Rico, el derecho que tenga la parte demandada en el inmueble que se relaciona más adelante para pagar la SENTENCIA por $80,476.21, de balance principal, los intereses adeudados sobre dicho principal y computados al 5 ¼ % anual desde el primero (1ero) de abril de 2020, hasta su total pago y completo pago; cargos por demora devengados, más la suma de $8,400.00 estipulada para honorarios de abogado, pactada en la escritura de hipoteca; y cuales quiera otras sumas que por cualesquiera concepto legal se devenguen hasta el día de la subasta. La propiedad a venderse en pública subasta se describe como sigue: RÚSTICA: REMANENTE: Predio de terreno radicado en el Barrio Cerro Gordo de San Lorenzo, con una cabida de cero punto mil doscientos cincuenta y cuatro (0.1254) cuerdas, iguales a cuatrocientos noventa y dos
punto ochenta (492.80) metros cuadrados. En lindes por el Norte, con Antonio Alverio, en diecinueve punto nueve mil setecientos siete (19.9707) metros; por el Sur, con carretera municipal en veintiuno punto ocho mil quinientos dieciocho (21.8518) metros; poro el Este, con Antonio Alverio, en veintidós punto seis mil seiscientos diez (22.6610) metros y por el Oeste, con predio número dos (2), en veintiséis punto siete mil cuatrocientos veintiocho metros. Inscrita al folio doscientos setenta (270) del tomo doscientos cincuenta y tres (253) de San Lorenzo, finca número trece mil cero cincuenta y dos (13,052), Registro de Caguas, Sección III. Dirección Física: PR 916 km 3.4, Cerro Gordo WD, San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico 00754. La PRIMERA SUBASTA se llevará a cabo el día 29 DE AGOSTO DE 2024, A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA y servirá de tipo mínimo para la misma la suma de $184,000.00 sin admitirse oferta inferior. En el caso de que el inmueble a ser subastado no fuera adjudicado en la primera subasta, se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 9 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2024, A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA, y el precio mínimo para esta segunda subasta será el de dos terceras partes del precio mínimo establecido para la primera subasta, o a sea la suma de $122,666.66. Si tampoco hubiera remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 16 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2024, A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA, y el tipo mínimo para esta tercera subasta será la mitad del precio establecido para la primera subasta, o sea, la suma de $92,000.00. El mejor postor deberá pagar el importe de su oferta en efecto, cheque certificado o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal. Si se declarase desierta la tercera subasta, se dará por terminado el procedimiento, pudiendo adjudicarse el inmueble al acreedor hipotecario dentro de los diez días siguientes a la fecha de la última subasta, si así lo estimase conveniente, por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada conforme a la sentencia, si ésta fuera igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta y abonándose dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si ésta fuera mayor. Se avisa a cualquier licitador que la propiedad queda sujeta al gravamen del Estado Libre Asociado y CRIM sobre la propiedad inmueble por contribuciones adeudadas
y que el pago de dichas contribuciones es la responsabilidad del licitador. Que se entenderá por todo licitador acepte como suficiente la titulación y que los cargos y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes en entendiéndose que el rematador los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse su extinción al precio rematante. Todos los nombres de los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante, o de los acreedores de cargas o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca ejecutada y las personas interesadas en, o con derecho a exigir el cumplimiento de instrumentos negociables garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito ejecutado, siempre que surgen de la certificación registral, para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les convenga o satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogados asegurados, quedando entonces subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Y para conocimiento de licitadores, del público en general y para su publicación en un periódico de circulación general diaria en Puerto Rico y en los sitios públicos de acuerdo a las disposiciones de la Regla 51.7 de las de Procedimiento Civil, así como para la publicación en un periódico de circulación general diaria y en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas con antelación a la fecha de la primera subasta y por lo menos una vez por semana. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento indicado estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante las horas laborables. (Art. 102 (1) de la Ley núm. 210-2015). Expedido el presente en Caguas, Puerto Rico, a 5 de agosto de 2024. Mariangely Rosado Román, ALGUACIL DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE CAGUAS.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE GUAYNABO BANCO POPULAR DE
PUERTO RICO
Demandante V. SUCESIÓN JAVIER ROJAS PUCCINI Y SUCESION DE OLGA RIVERA FRANCHESCHI, COMPUESTAS POR JAVIER ROJAS RIVERA, EILEEN ROJAS RIVERA, FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES Y LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA
Demandados Civil Núm.: GB2022CV00233. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS E.E. U.U., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. Yo, HUGO BASCÓ MEDINA, ALGUACIL PLACA #807, Alguacil del Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala de Guaynabo, al público HAGO SABER: Que en cumplimiento de un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que se me libró con fecha de 12 de junio de 2024, por la Secretaria de este Tribunal, en el caso de epígrafe, venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor con dinero en efectivo, cheque de gerente y/o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal o letra bancaria con similar garantía, todo título, derecho o interés de la parte demandada de epígrafe sobre la siguiente propiedad perteneciente a la parte demandada, la cual se describe a continuación: “URBANA: Solar número veintidós (22) del Bloque H de la Urbanización Terranova radicada en el Barrio Santa Rosa del término municipal de Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. Con una cabida superficial de cuatrocientos cinco punto ochenta y seis (405.865) metros cuadrados, equivalente a punto mil treinta y tres (.1033) cuerdas. Colinda por el NORTE, en veinticinco punto cero cero (25.00) metros, con el solar número veintitrés (23) del Bloque H; por el SUR, en dos (2) alineaciones de veintiuno punto cincuenta (21.50) metros y cinco punto cincuenta (5.50) metros con la calle número tres (3) de la Urbanización; por el ESTE, en dieciséis punto treinta y uno (16.31) metros en el solar número veintiuno (21) del Bloque H; y por el OESTE, en doce punto ochenta y seis (12.86)
metros con la calle número cuatro (4) de la urbanización. Contiene una casa para fines residenciales. Número 32,051, inscrita al folio 170 del tomo 862 de Guaynabo. Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Guaynabo. Dirección física: 22-H Calle 4, Terranova, Guaynabo Puerto Rico 00926. La finca 32,051 está gravada con la siguiente hipoteca cuya ejecución se solicita en la subasta objeto de este edicto: Hipoteca Revertida en garantía de un pagaré Popular Mortgage, Inc., o a su orden, por la suma principal de $340,000.00, con intereses al 7% anual, vencedero el día 6 de mayo de 2082, constituida mediante la escritura número 446, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico el día 30 de junio de 2009, ante el notario Néstor Machado Cortés, e inscrita al folio 161 del tomo 1,426 de Guaynabo, finca número 32,051, inscripción 2da. La propiedad está afecta a los siguientes gravámenes: A. Hipoteca Revertida en garantía de un pagaré a favor de Secretario de la Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano de Estados Unidos, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $510,000.00, con intereses al 7% anual, vencedero el 6 de mayo de 2082, constituida mediante la escritura número 447, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 30 de junio de 2009 ante el notario Néstor Machado Cortés, e inscrita al folio 181 del tomo 1,426 de Guaynabo, finca número 32,051, inscripción 3ra. B. Aviso de Demanda de fecha 15 de marzo de 2022, expedido en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Guaynabo, en el Caso Civil número GB2022CV00233, sobre Ejecución de Hipoteca, seguido por el Banco Popular de Puerto Rico; versus Sucesión de Javier Rojas Puccini, compuesta por Javier Rojas Rivera, Eileen Rojas Rivera, Fulano de Tal y Sutano de Tal como posibles herederos desconocidos; Centro de Recaudación de Ingresos Municipales y Estados Unidos de América por la suma de $286,938.02 más intereses y otras sumas adicionales o en su defecto la venta de Publica Subasta, anotado el día 26 de mayo de 2022, al tomo Karibe de Guaynabo, finca 32,051 Anotación “A”. La venta se llevará a cabo para con su producto satisfacer a Banco Popular de Puerto Rico por la hipoteca de $340,000.00 total o parcialmente. 1. La venta se llevará a cabo para con su producto satisfacer a Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, total o par-
The
cialmente el importe de la Sentencia emitida el 16 de abril de 2024, notificada y archivada en autos el mismo día. El importe de la Sentencia dictada en el caso de epígrafe, ascendente a las siguientes cantidades: $631,642.75 al 30 de septiembre de 2023, más intereses al tipo pactado de 7% anual, los cuales continúan acumulándose hasta el pago total de la deuda, más una suma de $34,000.00, para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, más la cantidad de $34,000.00, para cubrir cualquier otro adelanto que se haga en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca y una suma equivalente a $34,000.00, para cubrir intereses en adición a los garantizados por ley así como cualquier otra suma que se haga en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca. El precio mínimo de licitación con relación a la antes descrita propiedad y la fecha y hora de cada subasta es como sigue: PRIMERA SUBASTA: Se celebrará el día 10 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2024 A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA. PRECIO MÍNIMO: $340,000.00. SEGUNDA SUBASTA: Se celebrará el día 17 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2024 A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA.
PRECIO MÍNIMO:
$226,666.66. TERCERA SUBASTA: Se celebrará el día 24 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2024 A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA. PRECIO MÍNIMO:
$170,000.00. Las subastas de dicha propiedad se llevarán a efecto en mi oficina situada en e local que ocupa este Tribunal en el Centro Judicial de Guaynabo, advirtiéndose que el que obtuviere la buena pro de dicha propiedad consignará en el acto del remate el importe de su oferta en moneda legal, en adición a los gastos de la subasta, siendo éste el mejor postor. En cualquier momento luego de haberse comenzado el acto de la subasta, el Alguacil podrá requerir de los licitadores que le evidencien la capacidad de pago de sus posturas. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante el titulo del inmueble y las cargas o gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito del ejecutante, si los hubiere continuarán subsistiendo, entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda responsable de los mismos sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se le apercibe a los tenedores de gravámenes posteriores al que se ejecuta que, para proteger cualesquiera derechos que tengan sobre el inmueble, deberán comparecer a la subasta, pues de no hacerlo así y de no igualar el precio de venta del gravamen hipotecario que se ejecuta, el Tribunal ordenará la cancelación de todos
los gravámenes posteriores. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquiere libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Si se declara desierta la tercera subasta se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si ésta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo mínimo de la tercera subasta, si el Tribunal lo estima conveniente. Se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si ésta es mayor. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento del caso de epígrafe están disponibles en la Secretaría del Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala Superior de Guaynabo, durante horas laborables. Para conocimiento de la parte demandada y de toda persona que tenga interés inscrito con posterioridad a la inscripción del gravamen que se está ejecutando, si alguna, y para la concurrencia de licitadores y para el público en general el presente edicto se publicará en un diario de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico una vez por semana por un término de dos (2) semanas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre cada publicación. Se fijará además, en tres (3) lugares públicos del Municipio donde ha de celebrarse la subasta, estos lugares serán la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía de dicho Municipio. Se notificará a la parte demandada copia del edicto de subasta mediante correo certificado con acuse de recibo a su dirección que obra en autos. Una vez efectuada la correspondiente venta judicial, otorgaré la escritura del traspaso al licitador victorioso, quien podrá ser la parte demandante, cuya oferta podrá aplicarse a la extinción parcial o total de la obligación reconocida por la Sentencia. Colocaré al licitador victorioso en posesión física de la Propiedad mediante e lanzamiento de los ocupantes en el término legal de veinte (20) días desde la fecha de la venta en pública subasta. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el Tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante o ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del deudor la ocupen. El Registrador de la Propiedad cancelará, libre de derechos, todo gravamen posterior a la fecha en que se otorgó la hipoteca que ha sido ejecutada mediante esta acción, y procederá a la inscripción de la venta a favor del comprador en subasta libre de todo gravamen posterior a la fecha en que se otorgó la hipoteca que ha sido ejecutada mediante esta ac-
ción. Expido el presente edicto bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Guaynabo. En Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, a 3 de julio de 2024. HUGO BASCÓ MEDINA, ALGUACIL PLACA #807, ALGUACIL DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA SUPERIOR DE GUAYNABO. ***
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE SAN JUAN. TEODORO DEL ROSARIO RODRIGUEZ DEMANDANTE VS. NORA RAMOS VIERA DEMANDADA CIVIL NUM: SJ2024RF01014. SOBRE: DIVORCIO - RUPTURA IRREPARABLE. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO.
ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS. A: NORA RAMOS VIERA
COMUNIDAD CAPETILLO 1070 CALLE 12 ESOUINA PARQUE, SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO 00925 o sea la parte demandada arriba mencionada. POR LA PRESENTE, se le notifica que ha sido presentada en este Tribunal, por la parte demandante, una acción sobre divorcio. Es el abogado de la parte demandante: LCDO. FELIPE BRAVO GARCIA RUA #8483
P. 0. BOX21090
SANJUAN, P. R. 00928
TEL./FAX: (787)764-2275
Se le advierte que este edicto se publicará en un periódico de circulación general una (1) sola vez, y que sino contesta la demanda dentro del término de treinta (30) días de haberse publicado el original de esa contestación ante el Tribunal de Primera Instancia de Puerto Rico, Sala Superior, Sala de San Juan, con copia a la parte demandante, se podrá dictar Sentencia en Rebeldía en contra suya, concediendo el remedio solicitado en la Demanda.
EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y Sello del Tribunal, hoy día 8 de AGOSTO de 2024. GRISELDA RODRIGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA REGIONAL.
DALIA RODRIGUEZ ESTRADA, SECRETARIA DE SERVICIOS A SALA..
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN
ELISA ORTEGA HERNÁNDEZ Y EDDIE
ANTONIO MORALES
MORALES
EX-PARTE
PETICIONARIOS
Civil Núm.: BY2024CV03725. Sobre: EXPEDIENTE DOMINIO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. A: PERSONAS IGNORADAS, SUCN. ISIDRO ORTEGA HERNÁNDEZ, COMPUESTA POR DASHIRA ORTEGA DE LA CRUZ, 2459 FUNSTON ST., HOLLYWOOD, FLORIDA 33020 Y SUCN. ALBERTO ORTEGA CABRERA, COMPUESTA POR: ALVA IRIS ORTEGA LUGO, ALBERTO ORTEGA LUGO Y MILAGROS ORTEGA
LUGO, 1609 EAST, 174 ST. #10B, BRONX, NY 10472. Por la presente se le notifica a usted que se ha presentado ante este Tribunal el expediente arriba mencionado, con el fin de justificar e inscribir a favor de la Promovente, el dominio que tiene sobre la siguiente finca: “RÚSTICA”: Predio de terreno radicado en el barrio Guadiana del término municipal de Naranjito, Puerto Rico, identificado en el plano de mensura como solar número uno (1), con una cabida superficial SETECIENTOS NOVENTA Y UNO PUNTO NUEVE MIL
OCHOCIENTOS NOVENTA Y DOS METROS CUADRADOS (791.9822 m.c.), equivalentes a CERO PUNTO DOS MIL QUINCE CUERDA (0.2015 cda). En lindes por el NORTE, en una distancia cuarenta y dos punto trescientos sesenta y uno metros, con calle número cuatro; por el SUR, en una distancia de treinta y ocho punto ciento ochenta y seis metros, con la sucesión de José Atanacio Ortega; por el ESTE, en una distancia de veinticinco metros, con la calle número seis; y por el OESTE, en una distancia de quince punto seiscientos metros, con Alberto Ortega Lugo. Alega la parte Peticionaria que adquirió la finca descrita mediante documento privado para el mes de noviembre de 1998. Es abogado de la parte Peticionaria: LIC. JORGE M. DIAZ
RODRIGUEZ, PO BOX 852, NARANJITO, P.R. 00719-0852, TELEFONO: (787) 869-4042, jorgemdiazrodriguez@gmail. com. Este Tribunal ordenó que se publique la pretensión por tres veces durante el término de veinte días en un periódico de circulación general diaria, para que los que tengan algún
derecho real sobre el inmueble descrito, las personas ignoradas a quienes pueda perjudicar la inscripción, Dashira Ortega De la Cruz y a la Sucn. de Alberto Ortega Cabrera, compuesta por Alva Iris Ortega Lugo, Alberto Ortega Lugo y Milagros Ortega Lugo, y en general, a todos los que desearen oponerse, entre ellos los colindantes, puedan efectuarlo dentro del término de veinte días a partir de la última publicación del presente edicto. Por tanto, libro la presente en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy día 28 de junio de 2024. LCDA. LAURA I SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. LUISA I. ANDINO AYALA, SUB-SECRETARIA.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA
SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMON.
GARAY MANUEL ORTIZ VILLANUEVA
EX-PARTE
CIVIL NUM.: BY2024CV03618. SOBRE: PETICIONARIO EXPEDIENTE DOMINIO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. SS. A: PERSONAS IGNORADAS, Francisco Ortiz y Sucesión de Víctor M. Ortiz. Por la presente se le notifica a usted que se ha presentado ante este Tribunal el expediente arriba mencionado, con el fin de justificar e inscribir a favor de la Promovente, el dominio que tiene sobre la siguiente finca: “RÚSTICA” : Predio de terreno radicado en el barrio Guadiana del término municipal de Naranjito, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de TRES MIL NOVECIENTOS TRENTA PUNTO TRES MIL NOVECIENTOS CINCUENTA Y SEIS METROS CUADRADOS (3,930.3956 me), equivalentes a UNA CUERDA (1.0000 cda). En lindes por el NORTE, en cuatro alineaciones de uno punto tres mil ciento veintidós metros (1. 3122 m.) , uno punto cinco mil trescientos noventa y dos metros (1.5392 m.), dieciséis punto cinco mil quinientos diez metros (lÍ6. 5510 m.) y diez punto ocho mil doscientos setenta y seis metros (10 .8276 M.) , con José Cruz Ortiz; por el SUR, en cinco alineaciones de 10.228m., 10,1984 m, 11.1560 m., 13,0314 m. y 6. 7480 m, con la carretera estatal 8826 y una alineación de 2 6. 34 67 m, con José Cruz Ortiz; por el ESTE, en dos alineaciones de 5.7428 y 8.6943 metros, con José Cruz Ortiz y en una lineación de 65. 4347 metros,
con Carlos Estrada y Francisco Ortiz y por el OESTE, en una alineación de 73. 4263 metros con Francisco Ortiz. Alega la parte Peticionaria que adquirió la finca descrita mediante Resolución de declaratoria de herederos del 25 de febrero de 2005 y Relevo de Hacienda del 28 de marzo de 2023. Es abogado de la parte Peticionaria: LIC. JORGE M. DIAZ RODRIGUEZ, PO BOX 852, NARANJITO, P.R. 00719-0852, TELEFONO: (787) 869-4042, jorgemdiazrodriguez@gmail. com. Este Tribunal ordenó que se publique la pretensión por tres veces durante el término de veinte días en un periódico de circulación general diaria, para que los que tengan algún derecho real sobre el inmueble descrito, las personas ignoradas a quienes pueda perjudicar la inscripción, y en general, a todos los que desearen oponerse, entre ellos los colindantes, puedan efectuarlo dentro del término de veinte días a partir de la última publicación del presente edicto. Por día 26 libro la presente en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy de 2024. Lcda. Laura I Santa Sanchez, Secretaria. Por: LUISA l. ANDINO AYALA, Sub-Secretario.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN
ESTEBAN DE JESUS NIEVES SOTO Y VANESSA GASCOT MORENO EX-PARTE PETICIONARIOS Civil Núm.: BY2024CV03793. Sobre: EXPEDIENTE DOMINIO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. A: PERSONAS IGNORADAS, ELOY HUERTAS Y/O SUCN. ELOY HUERTAS Y MARTINA CRUZ ORTIZ, CAMINO ZOOLÓGICO, BUZÓN 1587, MAYAGÜEZ, PUERTO RICO 00682. Por la presente se le notifica a usted que se ha presentado ante este Tribunal el expediente arriba mencionado, con el fin de justificar e inscribir a favor de la Promovente, el exceso de cabida que tiene sobre la siguiente finca: “RÚSTICA”: Predio de terreno radicado en el barrio Guadiana del término municipal de Naranjito, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial DOS MIL SEISCIENTOS SETENTA Y DOS PUNTO SETENTA Y NUEVE METROS
CUADRADOS (2,672.79 m. c.), equivalentes a CERO PUNTO SEIS MIL OCHOCIENTOS CUERDA (0.6800 cda), y en lindes por el NORTE, con Eloy Huertas; por el SUR y OESTE, con remanente de la finca principal de la cual se segrega, y por el ESTE, con predio dedicado a uso público. Practicada la mensura correspondiente, la propiedad quedó con la siguiente descripción: “RÚSTICA”: Parcela de terreno de forma irregular, radicada en el barrio Guadiana del término municipal de Naranjito, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de CINCO MIL CIENTO OCHENTA Y NUEVE PUNTO OCHO MIL TREINTA Y CINCO METROS CUADRADOS (5,189.8035 m. c.), equivalentes a UNO PUNTO TRES MIL CINCUENTA Y DOS CUERDA (1.3052 cda), en lindes por el NORTE y ESTE, con doce alineaciones que suman ciento ocho punto cinco mil trescientos cincuenta y ocho metros, con Eloy Huertas; por el SUR, en cinco alineaciones que suman sesenta y nueve punto cuatro mil quinientos cuarenta y ocho metros, con camino municipal y por el OESTE, en seis alineaciones que suman ciento veinticinco punto cuatro mil quinientos ochenta y uno metros, con terrenos propiedad de Martina Cruz Ortiz. Alega la parte Peticionaria que adquirió la finca descrita mediante escritura pública de compraventa, ante el Notario Rafael A. Malavé Lebrón, el día 29 de abril de 2022, en Bayamón, Puerto Rico documento privado para el mes noviembre de 1998. Es abogado de la parte Peticionaria: LIC. JORGE M. DIAZ RODRIGUEZ, PO BOX 852, NARANJITO, P.R. 00719-0852, TELEFONO: (787) 869-4042, jorgemdiazrodriguez@gmail.com. Este Tribunal ordenó que se publique la pretensión por tres veces durante el término de veinte días en un periódico de circulación general diaria, para que los que tengan algún derecho real sobre el inmueble descrito, las personas ignoradas a quienes pueda perjudicar la inscripción, Eloy Huerta o Sucn. Eloy Huertas, Martina Cruz Ortiz, y en general, a todos los que desearen oponerse, entre ellos los colindantes, puedan efectuarlo dentro del término de veinte días a partir de la última publicación del presente edicto. Por tanto, libro la presente en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy día 2 de julio de 2024. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. LUIS ANDINO AYALA, SUB-SECRETARIA.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA
SALA SUPERIOR DE AIBONITO DOMINGO RÍOS CRUZ SUCESIÓN ANA MARÍA LUNA MALDONADO T/C/P ANA MARÍA LUNA T/C/P ANA M. LUNA MALDONADO EX-PARTE PETICIONARIOS Civil Núm.: AI2024CV002714. Sobre: EXPEDIENTE DE DOMINIO. EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.
A: PERSONAS IGNORADAS, SUCN. MANUEL MARTÍNEZ RIVERA, MARÍA DÍAZ Y/O MARTA DÍAZ Y SUCN. JUANA CRUZ REYES. Por la presente se le notifica a usted que se ha presentado ante este Tribunal el expediente arriba mencionado, con el fin de justificar e inscribir a favor de la Promovente, el dominio que tiene sobre la siguiente finca: “RÚSTICA”: Predio de terreno radicado en el barrio Palomas abajo del término municipal de Comerío, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de DOSCIENTOS SETENTA Y CINTO PUNTO SIETE MIL OCHOCIENTOS OCHO METROS CUADRADOS (275.7808 m.c.), equivalentes a CERO PUNTO CERO, SETECIENTOS DOS CUERDA (0.0702 cada), colindando por el NORTE, en tres alineaciones que suman veintiuno punto dos mil quinientos ochenta y cuatro metros, con calle Georgetti; por el SUR, en cuatro alineaciones que suman veintitrés punto seis mi setenta y nueve metros, con la sucesión de Manuel Martínez Rivera; por el ESTE, en una alineación de dieciocho punto dos mil quinientos setenta y nueve metros, con María Diaz; y por el OESTE, en dos alineaciones, una alineación de diez metros punto cero, ciento diez metros, con área dedicada a uso público y una alineación de siete punto ocho mil doscientos setenta y ocho metros, con área de estacionamiento en la calle Georgetti. Alega la parte Peticionaria que adquirió la finca descrita mediante documento privado para el mes de febrero de 1977. Es abogado de la parte Peticionaria: LIC. JORGE M. DIAZ RODRIGUEZ, PO BOX 852, NARANJITO, P.R. 00719-0852, TELEFONO: (787) 869-4042, jorgemdiazrodriguez@gmail.com. Este Tribunal ordenó que se publique la pretensión por tres veces durante el término de veinte días en un periódico de circulación general diaria, para que los
que tengan algún derecho real sobre el inmueble descrito, las personas ignoradas a quienes pueda perjudicar la inscripción, Sucn. Manuel Martínez Rivera, Sucn. Juana Cruz Reyes y María Díaz t/c/p Marta Díaz, y en general, a todos los que desearen oponerse, entre ellos los colindantes, puedan efectuarlo dentro del término de veinte días a partir de la última publicación del presente edicto. Usted deberá presentar su posición a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired.ramajudicial. pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su posición en la secretaría del tribunal. Por tanto, libro la presente en Aibonito, Puerto Rico, hoy día 17 de julio de 2024. ELIZABETH GONZÁLEZ RIVERA, SECRETARIA REGIONAL.
KEISHLA ENID COLÓN MATEO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYAMON SALA SUPERIOR DE TOA ALTA.
JUAN MANUEL
MENDOZA GARCIA
Demandante V. USDA RURAL DEVELOPMENT Y OTROS
Demandado(a)
Caso Núm.: BY2024CV02648. (Salón 201B). Sobre: CANCELACION O RESTITUCION DE PAGARE EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.
JOSE E GARCIA SOTO GARCIASOTO.ESQ@GMAIL.COM FREDDIE LUPE YORRO BO. PAJAROS SECTOR TRES CALLES CALLE SILVIA REXACH #17 ALTOS, TOA BAJA, PUERTO RICO 00949
JAVIER REYES MENDOZA
7843 SKY RANCH ROAD EAST OTTO NEW YORK APO, AE, ESTADOS UNIDOS 14729
JOHN DOE NO CONSTA, TOA ALTA, PUERTO RICO, 00954
RICHARD DOE
NO CONSTA, TOA ALTA, PUERTO RICO, 00954
USDA RURAL DEVELOPMENT
654 AVE MUNOZ RIVERA EDIF
654 PLAZA SUITE 601 SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO 00918
XAVIER REYES MENDOZA
16231 N EDRIGE PARKWAY UNIT A TEXAS APO, AE, ESTADOS UNIDOS 77377
A: XAVIER REYES
MENDOZA, JAVIER
REYES MENDOZA, JOHN DOE, RICHARD DOE
(Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto)
EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 06 de agosto de 2024, 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 06 de agosto de 2024. En TOA ALTA, Puerto Rico, el 06 de agosto de 2024. LAURA I SANTA SANCHEZ, SECRETARIA. F/MARITZA BONILLA HERNANDEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA
CENTRO JUDICIAL DE ARECIBO SALA SUPERIOR DE ARECIBO
LONGBRIDGE
FINANCIAL LLC
Demandante V. TERESA RIOS GONZALEZ TCP TERESA RIOS Y OTROS
Demandado(a)
Caso Núm.: AR2024CV00072. (Salón: 402 - CIVIL SUPERIOR). Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA: PROPIEDAD RESIDENCIAL. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.
FRANCES L. ASENCIO GUIDOFRANCES.ASENCIO@GMLAW.COM. A: JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE COMO POSIBLES MIEMBROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESION JUAN ANTONIO REYES RIOS
T/C/C JUAN A. REYES
RIOS T/C/C JUAN REYES
RIOS T/C/C JUAN A. REYES.
(Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto)
EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 01 de agosto de 2024, 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 08 de agosto de 2024. En Arecibo, Puerto Rico, el 08 de agosto de 2024. VIVIAN Y. FRESSE GONZÁLEZ, SECRETARIA. ALEXANDRA ÁLVAREZ NATAL, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA
CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYAMÓN SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO
Demandante V. SUCN JAVIER RIVERA VEGA Y OTROS
Demandado(a) Caso Núm.: TB2023CV00096.
(Salón: 702). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO - ORDINARIO Y OTROS. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.
DUNCAN R. MALDONADO
EJARQUE - EJECUCIONES@CMPRLAW.COM.
A: KEVIN JAVIER RIVERA T/C/C KEVIN JAVIER RIVERA RODRÍGUEZ.
(Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto)
EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 08 de agosto de 2024, 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 12 de agosto de 2024. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el 12 de agosto de 2024. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. MIRCIENID GONZÁLEZ TORRES, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE SAN JUAN SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN
COOPERATIVA DE AHORRO Y CRÉDITO
AGUAS BUENAS
Demandante V. JOSÉ ENRIQUE MEDINA RIVERA T/C/C JOSÉ E. MEDINA RIVERA
Demandado(a)
Caso Núm.: SJ2023CV10499. (Salón: 504 CIVIL). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO - ORDINARIO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. JOSÉ R. GONZÁLEZ RIVERA - JRG@ GONZALEZMORALES.COM. JUAN ÁNGEL SANTOS BERRÍOS SANTOSBERRIOSLAW@GMAIL. COM. RICARDO ANDRES ACEVEDO BIANCHI - ACEVEDOBIANCHI@ GMAIL.COM.
A: JOSÉ ENRIQUE
MEDINA RIVERA T/C/C
JOSÉ E. MEDINA RIVERA. (Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 07 de agosto de 2024, 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 08 de agosto de 2024. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 08 de agosto de 2024. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA. MARILY LÓPEZ MARTÍNEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYAMÓN SALA SUPERIOR DE GUAYNABO CARLOS MANUEL FRANCO MACHADO
Demandante V. EXPARTE
Demandado(a) Caso Núm.: GB2024CV00074. (Salón: 202). Sobre: USUCAPIÓN. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. JAIME RODRÍGUEZ RIVERABUFETE.RODRIGUEZRIVERA@ GMAIL.COM. A: TERESA VILLEGAS RODRÍGUEZ O SU SUCESIÓN
DESCONOCIDA Y PRESUNTA COMPUESTA POR A, B Y C; GONZALO VILLEGAS RODRÍGUEZ O SU SUCESIÓN DESCONOCIDA Y PRESUNTA COMPUESTA POR D, E Y F; FRANCISCA VILLEGAS RODRÍGUEZ O SU SUCESIÓN
DESCONOCIDA Y PRESUNTA COMPUESTA POR G, H E I; FRANCISCO COTTO VILLEGAS O SU SUCESIÓN DESCONOCIDA Y PRESUNTA COMPUESTA POR J, K Y L; JUAN DOMINGO
COTTO VILLEGAS O SU SUCESIÓN
DESCONOCIDA
Y PRESUNTA COMPUESTA POR S, T Y U; FRANCISCO
COTTO VILLEGAS O SU SUCESIÓN DESCONOCIDA Y PRESUNTA COMPUESTA POR V, W Y X; JUAN CARLOS FRANCO ALMEIDA, ADA MERA FRANCO GONZÁLEZ Y CUALQUIERA PERSONA IGNORADA QUE PUEDA TENER INTERÉS EN ESTE CASO. (Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 31 de julio de 2024, 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 06 de agosto de 2024. En Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, el 06 de agosto de 2024. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. SARA ROSA VILLEGAS, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYAMÓN SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN
COOPERATIVA DE AHORRO Y CRÉDITO DE AGUADILLA
Demandante V. LUIS MANUEL HERNÁNDEZ ROBLES
Demandado(a)
Caso Núm.: BY2024CV01057. (Salón: 504). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO - ORDINARIO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO ENMENDADA. JOSÉ F. GIRAUD MEJÍASJGIRAUD@MCMLAWPR.COM. A: LUIS MANUEL HERNÁNDEZ ROBLES. (Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 16 de julio de 2024, 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 08 de agosto de 2024.
Notas de la Secretaría: SE ENMIENDA SEGÚN ORDEN DEL 6 DE AGOSTO DE 2024. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el 08 de agosto de 2024. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. VIVIAN J. SANABRIA ORTIZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE SAN JUAN SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN
FIRSTBANK PUERTO RICO
Demandante V. SUCESION DE ANGEL LUIS BERBERENA
MALDONADO Y OTROS
Demandado(a)
Caso Núm.: SJ2023CV09632. (Salón: 508 CIVIL). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO - ORDINARIO Y OTROS. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.
MARJALIISA COLÓN VILLANUEVAMCOLON@WWCLAW.COM. A: JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESION DE ANGEL LUIS BERBERENA MALDONADO. (Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 07 de agosto de 2024, 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 07 de agosto de 2024. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 07 de agosto de 2024. Griselda Rodríguez Collado, Secretaria. Martha Almodovar Cabrera, Secretaria Auxiliar Del Tribunal.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA
SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN
CASCADE FUNDING MORTGAGE TRUST HB2
Parte Demandante Vs. LA SUCESIÓN DE GWENDOLYN KAY PAGE GOETZ, Y OTROS
Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: SJ2023CV11011. Sala: 604. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. INTERPELACIÓN POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE. UU., ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS. A: EFRAÍN SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ; BRAYANA SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ; HEATHER ANN SANTIAGO GUZMÁN; BRIAN SANTIAGO GUZMÁN, FULANO DE TAL Y FULANA DE TAL, COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON INTERÉS EN LA SUCESIÓN.
“ORDEN: Examinada la moción presentada por la parte demandante, y examinados los autos del caso, el Tribunal declara HA LUGAR la solicitud de interpelación judicial de la parte demandante a los herederos, EFRAÍN SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ; BRAYANA SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ; HEATHER ANN SANTIAGO GUZMÁN; BRIAN SANTIAGO GUZMÁN, FULANO DE TAL y FULANA DE TAL, como posibles herederos desconocidos con interés en la Sucesión, conforme lo dispuesto en el Artículo 959 del Código Civil de Puerto Rico, 31 L.P.R.A. sec. 2787. Se ORDENA a EFRAÍN SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ; BRAYANA SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ; HEATHER ANN SANTIAGO GUZMÁN; BRIAN SANTIAGO GUZMÁN, FULANO DE TAL y FULANA DE TAL, como posibles herederos desconocidos con interés en la Sucesión, a que dentro del término legal de treinta (30) días contados a partir de la fecha de la notificación de la presente Orden, ACEPTEN O REPUDIEN la participación que le corresponda en la herencia de GWENDOLYN KAY PAGE GOETZ. Se les APERCIBE a los herederos antes mencionados que de no expresarse dentro de ese término de treinta (30) días en torno a su aceptación o repudiación de herencia, la herencia se tendrá por aceptada. También se les APERCIBE a los herederos antes mencionados que luego del transcurso del término de treinta (30) días antes señalado contados a partir de la fecha de la notificación de la presente Orden, se presumirá que
han aceptado la herencia de los respectivos causantes y por consiguiente la propiedad objeto de este caso responde por las cargas de dicha herencia conforme a lo dispuesto en el Artículo 959 del Código Civil de Puerto Rico, 31 L.P.R.A. sec. 2785 y su jurisprudencia interpretativa en Banco Comercial de P.R. v. García, 51 D.P.R. 735 (1937); B.B.V.A. v. Latinoamericana, 164 D.P.R. 689 (2005). Se ORDENA a la parte demandante proceder a notificar la presente Orden mediante un edicto a esos efectos una sola vez en un periódico de circulación diaria general de la Isla de Puerto Rico, enviándose copia de este mediante correo certificado a la parte interpelada a sus últimas direcciones conocidas. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy, 8 de agosto de 2024. Griselda Rodríguez Collado, Secretaria Regional. Marily López Martínez, Secretaria De Servicios A Sala.
LEGAL NOTICE
EDICTO SOBRE RECUSACIÓN DE ELECTORES POR MOTIVO DE DOMICILIO Y OTRAS CAUSALES
SAN JUAN 002 CITACIÓN A VISTA A LOS SIGUIENTES ELECTORES
A: Yazmin Marie Arreche Ortiz, número electoral 6209788, número de recusación 10310 y Nirvana Araujo Tua, número electoral 6850336, número de recusación 10309.
POR LA PRESENTE, se notifica que ha sido presentada una solicitud de recusación de electores por motivo de domicilio y otras causales hacia su persona, y se ha señalado
VISTA PARA EL MIERCOLES, 28 DE AGOSTO DE 2024 A LAS 5:30PM EN LAS OFICINAS DE LA COMISIÓN LOCAL, LOCALIZADAS EN: CALLE ARTERIAL B 550 DE HATO REY, PUERTO RICO. LA DIRECCIÓN FÍSICA DE LA JUNTA DE INSCRIPCIÓN PERMANENTE ES CALLE ARTERIAL B 550 DE SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO. EL NÚMERO DE TELÉFONO DE LA JUNTA DE INSCRIPCIÓN ES EL 787-777-8682. SE APERCIBE
A LOS ELECTORES QUE, DE NO COMPARECER A LA VISTA EN LA FECHA Y HORA SENALADA, SE PROCEDERÁ CON LA MISMA SIN MAS CITARLE, NOTIFICARLE, NI OIRLE. FIRMADA POR HON. JUAN A. LEÓN GONZÁLEZ, PRESIDENTE DE LA COMISIÓN LOCAL EL 7 DE AGOSTO DE 2024.
LEGAL NOTICE
EDICTO SOBRE RECUSACIÓN DE ELECTORES POR
MOTIVO DE DOMICILIO Y OTRAS CAUSALES SAN JUAN 001
CITACIÓN A VISTA A LOS SIGUIENTES ELECTORES A: Reyes, Gabriel A, número electoral 6850294, número de recusación 29383 y Reyes Viera, Jorge M., número electoral 6850293, número de recusación 29384, Viera Rodríguez, Margie E. número electoral 6850292, número de recusación 29385, Meléndez Santiago, Patricia Isable, número electoral 6502730, número de recusación 29248, Natal Albelo, Eduardo José, número electoral 6355959, número de recusación 29249, Pérez Alicea, Margarita Angeli, número electoral 4343764, número de recusación 29250, Santana Cosme, Mariana, número electoral 6066806, número de recusación 29251, Valcarcel De Jesus, Javier, número electoral 4406352, número de recusación 29252, Vazquez Diaz, Endel José, número electoral 3715674, número de recusación 29253, Aponte Ramirez, Isis Yerzirah, número electoral 3703150, número de recusación 29238, Canetti Ruiz, Mariana, número electoral 632662, número de recusación 29239, Carmona, Diaz, Myraida Desiree, número electoral 6485768, número de recusación 29240, Currais Rodriguez, Vivian, número electoral 6430674, número de recusación 29241, Izcoa Flores, Carlos A, número electoral 2543484, número de recusación 29244, Fernandez Nevarez, Karla Nycol, número electoral 6394319, número de recusación 29245, Maldonado Latorre, Leonardo Ignacio, número electoral 6204983, número de recusación 29246, Luhring Rodríguez, Keila Liz, número electoral 4405208, número de recusación 29247, Dumont Olivero, Gerardo Gabriel, número electoral 6355959, número de recusación 29242 y
Fromm Martínez, Olga Viviana, número electoral 3725076, número de recusación 29243. POR LA PRESENTE, se notifica que ha sido presentada una solicitud de recusación de electores por motivo de domicilio y otras causales hacia su persona, y se ha señalado VISTA PARA EL JUEVES, 29 DE AGOSTO DE 2024 A LAS 6:00PM EN LAS OFICINAS DE LA COMISIÓN LOCAL, LOCALIZADAS EN: CALLE ARTERIAL B 550 DE HATO REY, PUERTO RICO. LA DIRECCIÓN FÍSICA DE LA JUNTA DE INSCRIPCIÓN PERMANENTE ES CALLE ARTERIAL B 550 DE SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO. EL NÚMERO DE TELÉFONO DE LA JUNTA DE INSCRIPCIÓN ES EL 787-7778682. SE APERCIBE A LOS ELECTORES QUE, DE NO COMPARECER A LA VISTA EN LA FECHA Y HORA SENALADA, SE PROCEDERÁ CON LA MISMA SIN MAS CITARLE, NOTIFICARLE, NI OIRLE. FIRMADA POR HON. ALFRIDA M TOMEY IMBERT, PRESIDENTE DE LA COMISIÓN LOCAL EL 9 DE AGOSTO DE 2024.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN L&S, LLC; ROBERT M. LAVIE
Plaintiff Vs. SANTOS CARDENAS CONSUELO; GISELLE GUERRERO; PARADISE REAL ESTATE GROUP, LLC; COMPANY ABC; INSURANCE COMPANY
XYZ; JOHN & JANE DOE
Defendants
Caso Núm.: SJ2023CV05415. Sobre: DECLARATORY JUDGMENT; BREACH OF CONTRACT; UNJUST ENRICHMENT; AND TORT DAMAGES. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.
A: CONSUELO SANTOS
CARDENAS - 1394 CALLE AMÉRICO SALAS, SAN JUAN, PR 00907.
POR LA PRESENTE se le notifica que ha sido presentada en este Tribunal por la parte Demandante una Demanda al amparo de daños y perjuicios por los hechos que se detallan en la misma, la cual puede ser examinada en la secretaría de este Tribunal. REPRESENTA al Demandante el Lcdo. Víctor M. Rivera Ríos con dirección en Avenida Fernández Jun-
cos #1420, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00909, teléfonos (787) 727-5710, fax (787) 268-1835, e-mail: victorriverarios@rcrtrblaw.com. Se le advierte que este edicto se publicará en un periódico de circulación general una sola vez y que si no comparece en el término de treinta (30) días desde su publicación, los querellantes podrán solicitar que se dicte sentencia en rebeldía, declarándose con lugar la querella, sin más citarle ni oírle. EXPEDIDO, bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal, hoy día 5 de agosto de 2024. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA. ADELLE RIVERA APONTE, SECRETARIA DE SERVICIOS A SALA.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN L&S, LLC; ROBERT M. LAVIE
Plaintiff Vs. SANTOS CARDENAS CONSUELO; GISELLE GUERRERO; PARADISE REAL ESTATE GROUP, LLC; COMPANY ABC; INSURANCE COMPANY XYZ; JOHN & JANE DOE
Defendants Caso Núm.: SJ2023CV05415. Sobre: DECLARATORY JUDGMENT; BREACH OF CONTRACT; UNJUST ENRICHMENT; AND TORT DAMAGES. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO. A: PARADISE REAL ESTATE GROUP, LLC3 A CALLE ACUARELA SUITE G-15, GUAYNABO, PR 00969.
POR LA PRESENTE se le notifica que ha sido presentada en este Tribunal por la parte Demandante una Demanda al amparo de daños y perjuicios por los hechos que se detallan en la misma, la cual puede ser examinada en la secretaría de este Tribunal. REPRESENTA al Demandante el Lcdo. Víctor M. Rivera Ríos con dirección en Avenida Fernández Juncos #1420, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00909, teléfonos (787) 727-5710, fax (787) 268-1835, e-mail: victorriverarios@rcrtrblaw.com. Se le advierte que este edicto se publicará en un periódico de circulación general una sola vez y que si no comparece en el término de treinta (30) días desde su publicación, los querellantes podrán solicitar que se dicte sentencia en rebeldía, declarándose con
lugar la querella, sin más citarle ni oírle. EXPEDIDO, bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal, hoy día 5 de agosto de 2024. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA. ADELLE RIVERA APONTE, SECRETARIA DE SERVICIOS A SALA. LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE CAGUAS
LIME RESIDENTIAL LTD.
Parte Demandante Vs. JUAN CARLOS
ORTIZ GIERBOLINI, MARIA MARGARITA CEDEÑO RIVERA Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS
Parte Demandada
Civil Núm.: ECD2016-0777. 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: JUAN CARLOS
ORTIZ GIERBOLINI, MARIA MARGARITA
CEDEÑO RIVERA Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS: ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA; Y AL PUBLICO 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: RÚSTICA: Predio de terreno ubicado en el Barrio Arenas, Carretera setecientos treinta y cuatro 734), kilómetro dos (km 2), hectómetro tres (hm3), interior del término municipal de Cidra, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de mil novecientos sesenta y cinco punto mil nove-
cientos setenta y cinco metros cuadrados (1,965.1975 mc), equivalentes a cero punto cincuenta cuerda (0.50 cds). En lindes por el NORTE, con terrenos del señor Julián De Jesús; por el SUR y ESTE, con el remanente; por el OESTE, con área a dedicarse a uso público. Consta inscrita al folio 89 del tomo 483 de Cidra, Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección Segunda, finca número 17,817, Inscripción Primera. La propiedad objeto de ejecución está localizada en la siguiente dirección: Carr. 734 Km. 2.6 Int., Sector Macelo, Bo. Arenas, Cidra, P.R. 00739. Según figura en el Estudio de título, la propiedad objeto de ejecución está gravada al siguiente Gravamen posterior a la inscripción del crédito ejecutante: Embargo Federal contra Juan Ortiz, seguro social xxx-xx-3396, por la suma de $11,316.22, notificación número 411201120, Certificación de fecha 28 de febrero de 2020, anotado el día 26 de mayo de 2020, al Asiento 2020-002148-FED del Sistema Karibe. Fecha límite de Renovación el día 3 de julio de 2029. Se le notifica al acreedor posterior anteriormente identificado para que pueda concurrir a la subasta si les convenga o satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogados asegurados, quedando entonces subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. Se 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 $66,000.00, con intereses al 9.25% anual, vencedero el día 1 de diciembre de 2030, constituida mediante la escritura número 68, otorgada en Caguas, Puerto Rico, el día 29 de noviembre de 2000, ante el notario Rabell Echegaray Fernando, e inscrita al folio 89 del tomo 483 de Cidra, finca número 17,817, Inscripción 2da. La PRIMERA SUBASTA, se llevará a cabo el día 5 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2024 A LAS 9:00 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 $66,000.00. Si la primera subasta del inmueble no produjere remate, ni adjudicación, se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 12 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2024 A LAS 9:00 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 $44,000.00. Si la segunda subasta no produjere remate, ni adjudicación, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 19 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2024 A LAS 9:00 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 $33,000.00. 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: La suma de principal de $60,343.40, más intereses a razón de 9.250% anual, desde el 1ro de noviembre de 2009, así como los intereses acumulados y por acumularse a partir de esa fecha y hasta su total y completo repago; cargos por demora equivalentes al 5.000% de aquellos pagos con atrasos en exceso de 15 días calendarios de la fecha de vencimiento; más $6,600.00 para el pago de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado como suma pactada a dichos efectos en el pagaré; $6,600.00 para cubrir cualquier otro adelanto que se hagan en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca y $6,600.00 para cubrir los intereses en adición a los garantizados por ley más intereses según provisto en la sentencia al amparo de la Regla 44.3 de las de Procedimiento Civil. 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 ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia
del deudor la ocupen. Expedido en Caguas, Puerto Rico, a 6 de agosto de 2024. ALEJANDRO URBINA ROQUE, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR PLACA #997.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE SAN JUAN ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC, COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC. Demandante Vs. MADELINE VELEZ CRUZ Demandado
Civil Núm.: SJ2024CV02959. Salón: 903. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO - R.60. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. A: MADELINE VELEZ CRUZ1 RES SAN FERNANDO APT. 113, SAN JUAN, PR 00921.
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:// www.poderjudicial.pr/index. php/tribunal-electronico/, 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, el Lcdo. Jan Miguel Otero Martínez cuyas direcciones son: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección jan.otero@orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orf-law.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy día 13 de junio de 2024. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 13 de junio de 2024. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. CARLA RIVERA CLIMENT, SECRETARIA DE SERVICIOS A SALA.
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
Sudoku Wordsearch
August 16-18, 2024 22
A skill with a huge advantage is becoming taboo for young players
By JASON LLOYD / THE ATHLETIC
Francisco Lindor is a natural right-handed batter who desperately wanted to be a switch-hitter as a child so he could be more like his favorite players. His brother and cousin were switch-hitters, as was his favorite player, Hall of Fame second baseman Roberto Alomar.
Lindor’s father, Miguel, fought against the idea because Lindor was such a good hitter from the right side. Why make yourself worse by doing something unnatural? It did not make sense.
“That was the way my dad forced me to practice,” Lindor said. “If I did everything right, then I could hit from the left side.”
Now Lindor is part of a dwindling subset of players. Switch-hitters are a dying breed in the major leagues, particularly among Americans.
Of the roughly 550 batters to log a plate appearance through the end of June, only 58 were switch-hitters, according to Stathead. It continues a trend from last season, when MLB’s switch-hitters plummeted to their lowest numbers in 50 years.
Only 26 of those are American-born players, one more than last year, which had the lowest number among Americans in nearly 60 years.
While Latino players are often encouraged to switch-hit as children, it has become almost taboo among young players in the United States. Manager Scott Servais of the Seattle Mariners spent 11 years as a right-handed catcher in the majors. He believes being a switch-hitter is the biggest advantage in sports.
“Youth baseball in our country has changed dramatically over the last 15 years,” Servais said. “The focus ultimately comes down to college scholarships or getting into pro ball, and the lack of patience in letting those things develop in young players. So they get on select teams and they’re traveling all over the country and Mom and Dad are paying a lot of money to put you in front of all the
top coaches. Why would we ever put you in a situation where you might fail? And you’re going to fail. Switch-hitting is really hard. It’s really hard when you’re young. And they’re afraid of failure.”
Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh is unsure which side of the plate is his natural side. Raleigh, like the Baltimore Orioles’ Adley Rutschman, is that rare combination of a switch-hitting catcher with power. He has always been right-hand dominant in everyday activities, but from his earliest memories in baseball, he could swing the bat from both sides of the plate because his father made him do it that way.
“Every day I thank the Lord my dad made me a switch-hitter,” Raleigh said. “Because I see some of this nasty stuff that’s being thrown up there.”
The number of switch-hitters in baseball has been declining for the past decade and finally bottomed out last year, when only 63 of more than 650 players logged at-bats from both sides of the plate. That was down from a high of 111 switch-hitters in 1998. American-born switchhitters peaked at 78 in 1987, according to Stathead.
Carlos Beltrán was a rookie with the Kansas City Royals during baseball’s switch-hitting peak. He played 20 years and hit 438 home runs as one of the best switch-hitters of
his era. He began toying with the idea after playing winter ball in Puerto Rico with Bernie Williams, who also switch-hit. Beltrán struggled so much staying back on off-speed pitches and breaking balls that he wanted to give up and go back to hitting solely right-handed. Kevin Long, now the Philadelphia Phillies’ hitting coach, was with Beltrán in the minors and encouraged him to stick with it.
“Thank God for Kevin Long,” Beltrán said. “He said: ‘We are so close. Let’s stay with it. Keep trying.’ I was grateful that I had a coach that believed that what I was doing was the right thing. And he didn’t let me really go back to the right side. I don’t know what my career would have been if I only would have been a right-handed hitter.”
Since Beltrán played, baseball has become more specialized, even at the youth levels, as hitters chase data and cutting-edge metrics. The changes make some of the past greats bristle.
“This generation has lost the ability to hit,” former Cincinnati Reds star Eric Davis said. “You have a lot of guys today who are caught up in exit velocity and launch angle, and they’re not being taught how to hit. They’re not good hitters. So the game is not going to bless them unless you develop a skill to play the game for a long time. And switch-hitting for some guys is an avenue to play the game for a long time.”
Rutschman, Lindor and Cleveland’s José Ramírez are among the game’s best switchhitters today. Ramírez made his sixth All-Star
team this year and Rutschman made his second. Lindor did not make the team, but his season was good enough to justify another All-Star bid.
Reds third baseman Jeimer Candelario is one of the few American-born switch-hitters, but he skews the numbers a bit. He counts on the U.S. side because he was born in New York City, but his father moved the family to the Dominican Republic when he was 5 to open a baseball academy. Candelario worked on a plan developed by his father to hit from both sides of the plate every day as a child.
Latino players made up about 30% of major league rosters last year. They made up more than 60% of switch-hitters.
“It’s not easy,” Candelario said. “Not every day is going to be perfect, but it’s the consistent work every single day. If you don’t fall in love with it, you’re not going to have success. You have to love it.”
Not everyone believes in the concept. New York Mets hitting coach Eric Chavez, who batted .268 with 260 home runs over 17 years as a left-handed-hitting third baseman, marvels at what Lindor can do, but he does not encourage others to try it.
“You’re two different people, two different swings,” he said. “Because the body moves differently. You’re right-hand dominant, now you come to the left side and your right hand is on the bottom. You’re training two different swings.”
Alex Miklos played Division I baseball at Kent State, where he was a three-year captain and led the nation in triples in 2014. He is an owner of BioSport Athletics, a baseball and softball facility in suburban Cleveland that opened two years ago and has trained more than 900 athletes. He estimates that roughly half of the players who have trained at BioSport are position players. Out of those 450 to 500, he said about 10 have asked about switch-hitting and three or four have worked on it consistently.
“There’s no such thing as being too early. The earlier the better,” Miklos said. “But there’s definitely too late.”
Whether the number of major league switch-hitters begins to increase again, particularly in the United States, will depend on how it is handled in the youth leagues going forward. The data is not encouraging.
Of about 140 of baseball’s best prospects listed on FanGraphs’ preseason list, from Class AAA to rookie ball, 34 were switch-hitters who had yet to make their MLB debut. Eight were Americans.
New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor celebrates his home run against the Florida Marlins during the home opener at Citi Field in Queens on Friday, April 7, 2023. (Hilary Swift/The New York Times)
The San Juan Daily Star
Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 21
