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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.
House to close special session Wednesday unless consensus is reached
By THE STAR STAFF
Rafael “Tatito” Hernández Montañez, the outgoing speaker of the island House of Representatives, warned on Monday that unless the New Progressive Party (NPP) lawmakers reach a consensus on the measures called for in the extraordinary session, he would end the session “sine die” this Wednesday.
Hernández Montañez said the House was not going to pass any measures on Monday to give all parties the space for a dialogue.
“If some middle ground is reached before December 11, we will work,” Hernández Montañez said at a press conference at the Capitol. “If not, we will close on Wednesday the 11th ‘sine die’.”
Governor-elect Jenniffer González Colón objects to
the session and has asked lawmakers to abstain from participating.
The House leader said a large portion of the initiatives submitted by outgoing Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia still need to be filed in the House. Among them, he mentioned a $250 million incentive for taxpayers, a measure on incentives in urban centers, and changes in the public housing policy. All of them must first pass through the Senate before reaching the House.
In total, the governor called for votes on 10 measures. Hernández Montañez noted that Senate Bill 1497 has not reached the House, while House Bill 2197, filed on Oct.3, received its first reading Monday, but is not urgent. In addition, House Joint Resolution 696 -- approved in June -- is pending action in the Senate. Other bills, such as House Bill 2199, filed on Dec. 5, also are not urgent, the speaker said.
Hernández Montañez insisted that without the support of the NPP, the bills will not be able to advance, so he is giving time for conversations between the delegations and the outgoing governor. If there is no communication or agreement in the next 48 hours, he said, the House will close the extraordinary session on Dec. 11.
“Out of respect, we give space to the Senate and the NPP,” Hernández Montañez said. “If there is some meeting point between now and Wednesday, then we will present a work plan for the following days. Suppose there is no agreement, dialogue or understanding about the measures. In that case, we will finish the work on Wednesday, December 11.”
The Senate, meanwhile, announced on Monday that its work on the extraordinary session has been postponed until next Monday, Dec. 16.
MVC candidate Prados concedes in District 3 House race
By THE STAR STAFF
Eva Prados Rodríguez, the Citizen Victory Movement (MVC by its initials in Spanish) candidate for the San Juan District 3 seat in the island House of Representatives, conceded victory Monday to the New Progressive Party (NPP) incumbent, José “Cheito” Hernández Concepción.
“Just as in 2020, we won in the regular polling places on the day of the elections, but we didn’t win on election day,” Prado said in a written statement. “The results of the vote by mail, with its irregularities and lack of transparency and credibility, gave the advantage again to the NPP candidate.”
Prado had led by a thin margin of 82 votes in the days following Election Day, before mail-in votes had been tallied.
The attorney thanked those who supported her second
run for the House seat.
“The communities of District 3 should know that they will always have an ally in their struggle for a better quality of life,” she said.
Outgoing House Speaker Rafael “Tatito” Hernández Montañez, at lectern
Eva Prados Rodríguez
Comptroller finds mismanagement, $708 million deficit at ASEM
By THE STAR STAFF
The Puerto Rico Comptroller’s Office warned Monday that the Medical Services Administration (ASEM by its acronym in Spanish) could lose the Río Piedras Medical Center unless it manages its fiscal affairs adequately as it faces a $708 million deficit.
The comptroller made the remarks in a report analyzing the ASEM’s purchases and disbursements during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report details significant non-compliance in managing state and federal funds,
amounting to $10.7 million used to acquire medical materials and equipment.
In addition, the report indicates that 92% of the purchase orders lacked clauses on penalties for late deliveries, and 27% did not include delivery dates. In addition, as of Dec. 31, 2023, ASEM had accumulated debt of $1.05 billion, a situation aggravated by the need for monthly reconciliations in its accounts payable.
“The accumulated deficit of ASEM, which amounts to $708 million, reflects serious failures in internal controls and budget planning, including the absence of allocations for the payment of a line of
credit of $284 million taken in 2010, whose current balance amounts to $448 million,” the report states.
The document warns that unless corrective measures are undertaken, ASEM could lose ownership of the 149 acres of land where the Puerto Rico Medical Center is located and which serves as collateral for the aforementioned line of credit.
Among other recommendations, the comptroller urged Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia, the legislative leaders, and the director of the Office of Management and Budget to intervene to address the noted deficiencies and guarantee ASEM’s financial stability.
The comptroller’s report details significant non-compliance on the part of the Medical Services Administration in managing state and federal funds, amounting to $10.7 million used to acquire medical materials and equipment. (asem.pr.gov)
ASORE files appeal to stop single-use plastics ban as written
By THE STAR STAFF
The Puerto Rico Court of Appeals accepted the request of the Puerto Rico Restaurants Association (ASORE by its acronym in Spanish) to halt the ban on the sale of single-use plastics temporarily.
ASORE asked the middle court to stop the Official Interpretation 2024-01 of the Department of Consumer Affairs (DACO) and the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER) of Regulation 9570 on single-use plastics. The court gave DACO and the DNER 30 days to present their arguments in favor of the ban.
“This resolution of the Court of Appeals is a significant step toward a more considered and fair implementation of the law,” ASORE President Carlos Budet said. “It reaffirms our
The Puerto Rico Restaurants Association said the review appeal it filed is a call to comply with the legal procedure to amend a regulation that imposes a ban on the sale of single-use plastics and thus ensure that it fulfills its purpose without harming the restaurant sector.
position that the clarity and viability of the regulation are essential to avoid harming the operation and sustainability of the businesses we represent.”
ASORE’s decision to resort to the judicial forum comes after numerous attempts by the association to discuss and clarify significant issues with DACO and the DRNA, Budet said.
“Despite our numerous conversations and consultations, we are faced with a hasty implementation that does not consider the operational reality of restaurants and commercial establishments,” he said. “Our efforts to clarify these issues have not resulted in the modifications necessary for a fair and viable implementation.”
According to ASORE, the review appeal filed is a call to comply with the legal
procedure to amend the regulation and thus ensure that it fulfills its purpose without harming the restaurant sector.
“Our commitment to environmental regulations is firm, but it is essential that the government is also prepared and has provided clear and applicable guidance,” Budet said.
ASORE is fully willing to collaborate with the authorities to develop a fair, effective and equitable regulation, thus ensuring the protection of the interests of the environment, the consumer, and the industry, he added.
“We hope that this legal action will encourage all parties to review and improve the regulation so that it truly fulfills its purpose without negatively affecting this industry that contributes so much to the country’s economy,” Budet said.
Outgoing mayor of Villalba leaves $6.3 million deficit
By THE STAR STAFF
The outgoing mayor of Villalba and at-large senator-elect, Luis Javier Hernández Ortiz, said Monday that he will leave an accumulated deficit of $6.3 million at the end of his administration.
That is despite efforts to reduce the $13 million deficit he inherited upon his election in 2012.
“The elimination of the Equalization Fund by the Fiscal Oversight Board [sic] represented a loss of $6.3 million annually, equivalent to 53 percent of the current municipal budget,” Hernández Ortiz said in a message posted on his social networks.
The mayor noted that during his administration he managed to reduce the deficit by more than 50% and achieve operational surpluses in several fiscal
years, including one of $2.5 million at the end of fiscal year 2023. However, the accumulated deficit remains at $6.3 million, according to the most recent financial draft.
“We ended operations with a surplus of $2,550,399, which allows us to reduce the inherited deficit to $2.6 million,” said Hernández Ortiz, who attributed the reduction to rigorous administrative measures and a reorganization of municipal operations.
Regarding recovery from natural disasters, Hernandez Ortiz said the municipality has completed nearly 60 percent of the projects approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and has left $40 million on track for future works.
“We left an administration with solid foundations and a significantly smaller deficit than the one we inherited,” he said.
PREPA bondholders rip fiscal board’s court battles, propose settlement
By THE STAR STAFF
Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) bondholders, including GoldenTree Asset Management LP, Assured Guaranty Inc. and National Public Finance Guarantee Corp., collectively, criticized the Financial Oversight and Management Board for refusing to accept a United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruling that found that the bonded debt is a perfected lien on the utility’s net revenues.
The parties are slated to attend an omnibus hearing this week as part of the bankruptcy process.
“On November 13, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit confirmed its June 12 ruling that PREPA’s $8 billion plus of revenue bonds are secured by a properly perfected lien on PREPA’s past, present and future net revenues. Make no mistake, the bondholders won, and the Financial Oversight and Management Board (the “Board”) lost,” the bondholders said. “We expected such a clear vindication of creditor rights to result in good faith negotiations towards a resolution of PREPA’s bankruptcy case. Instead, in its recent public statement the Board has made clear that it intends to distort and ignore the clear holdings of the First Circuit’s decisions in favor of pursuing more avoidable litigation to the detriment of PREPA and the people of Puerto Rico.”
The bondholders said they have proposed to resolve the PREPA case on terms that will promptly advance the interests of Puerto Rico in having a reliable power system, while ensuring that electricity charges
Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority bondholders said they have proposed to resolve the utility’s bankruptcy case on terms that will promptly advance the interests of Puerto Rico in having a reliable power system, while ensuring that electricity charges are fair and affordable.
are fair and affordable, and that bondholders’ rights are respected.
Investors who hold over 60% of PREPA’s revenue bonds have offered a prompt end to the PREPA bankruptcy premised on what they present as five simple points:
“(1) We will accept 50-year replacement bonds that have virtually no risk of future default;
(2) the amount of those bonds would be set on the basis of reasonable up-to-date load and other projections (the Board has failed to update PREPA’s fiscal plan since 2023 or even provide updated projections);
(3) we would get additional bonds for the shortfall between what we are owed and the amount of the replacement bonds—but
these bonds would only get paid from excess cash flow, if there is any, and would be retired in 50 years whether or not the bondholders have been paid anything;
(4) we will provide $2.5 billion of new 50-year revenue bond funding to begin paying for the desperately needed repair and improvement of PREPA’s electric generation and distribution system; and
(5) for the duration of the replacement and new 50-year bonds, electric costs would be set and held at a level the Board has stated would be fair and affordable, subject to being increased only to fund cost overruns or needed capital expenditures not covered by our new bonds or the $15 billion of FEMA funding (which the Board
has failed to utilize).”
The bondholders declared that “by choosing to continue to fight and refusing to accept the First Circuit’s multiple rulings, PREPA’s seven-year bankruptcy case and the oversight board’s tenure in Puerto Rico is further extended; PREPA is deprived of access to the public bond market; and most importantly, PREPA is unable to do what is needed to provide reliable electric power to the people and businesses of Puerto Rico.”
“And all the while, the people of Puerto Rico are forced to bear the burden of paying the Board’s high-priced advisors’ fees,” they added. “Such fees exceed $1.5 billion in the aggregate for all Puerto Rico bankruptcy cases, and as a result of the Board’s litigation strategy costing more than $50 million per year, now exceed $400 million for PREPA alone. If the Board had brought PREPA’s bankruptcy to a rational conclusion, these amounts would have been sufficient to service over $1.5 billion of new PREPA bonds that could now be providing the people of Puerto Rico what they actually want and really need—a reliable electric power system.”
“With PREPA under the board’s direction since 2017, seven years have now been lost.,” the bondholders continued. “Hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars have been wasted. PREPA has been unable to improve its performance according to industry-accepted metrics, enhance its financial transparency, or meaningfully access the unprecedented $15 billion in congressional funding aimed at upgrading and hardening the power grid in Puerto Rico.”
Health Dept. urges flu vaccinations as holiday season progresses
By THE STAR STAFF
With the increase in family gatherings and community activities during the Christmas holidays, the Puerto Rico Department of Health has reinforced its call to get vaccinated against influenza, emphasizing the need to protect the most vulnerable populations, such as children, older adults and people with chronic conditions.
To facilitate access to the vaccine, the Department of Health, in collaboration with various providers, has organized vaccination clinics throughout the island during December. The activities, which
cover municipalities such as San Juan, Río Grande, Humacao, Ponce, Aguada, Orocovis, Manatí and Toa Baja, among others, are designed to reduce the risk of serious complications and keep communities healthy during the holiday season.
“The influenza vaccine is the most effective tool to prevent serious complications and hospitalizations, especially in vulnerable people,” Chief Medical Officer Dr. Iris Cardona said.
More information on vaccination activities and locations can be obtained by calling 787-522-3985 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., or by visiting the Department of Health’s social media channels.
Chief Medical Officer Dr. Iris Cardona
Trump signals an aggressive opening, threatening ‘jail’ for Cheney and others
By PETER BAKER
President-elect Donald Trump outlined an aggressive plan for opening his second term in an interview that aired Sunday, vowing to move immediately to crack down on immigration and pardon his most violent supporters while threatening to lock up political foes such as Liz Cheney.
In his first sit-down broadcast network interview since being reelected, Trump said that on Day 1 of his new administration next month, he would extend clemency to the hundreds of his backers who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and try to bar automatic citizenship for children born in the United States to immigrant parents.
Without giving a time frame, Trump also indicated that he would fire FBI Director Christopher Wray, out of personal pique because “he invaded my home” and was insufficiently certain at first whether Trump’s wound during an assassination attempt this year was caused by a bullet or shrapnel. And he said that members of Congress who investigated his role in the Jan. 6 attack should be thrown behind bars.
“For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail,” Trump said of Cheney, a Republican who represented Wyoming, and the rest of the bipartisan House committee that looked into the attack. Speaking with Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” on NBC, he said he would not direct his new attorney general or FBI director to pursue the matter but indicated that he expected them to do it on their own. “I think that they’ll have to look at that,” he said, “but I’m not going to” order them to.
At the same time, Trump seemed to signal that he would not appoint a special counsel to investigate President Joe Biden and his family, as he once vowed. And he signaled that he would not take the most assertive position on several other issues, saying that he would not seek to fire the chair of the Federal Reserve or restrict the availability of abortion pills. And although he vowed to end birthright citizenship, Trump said he would try to work with Democrats to spare immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, known as Dreamers, from deportation.
“I’m really looking to make our country successful,” Trump said when asked about investigating Biden and his family. “I’m not looking to go back into the past. I’m looking
to make our country successful. Retribution will be through success.”
Trump sought to downplay fears of Kash Patel, a far-right loyalist he plans to nominate to take over the FBI, who has vowed to “come after” the president-elect’s perceived enemies and named about 60 people he considered “members of the executive branch deep state” as the appendix to a 2023 book.
“No, I don’t think so,” Trump said when asked whether Patel would pursue investigations against political adversaries. But the incoming president left the door open to it. “If they were crooked, if they did something wrong, if they have broken the law, probably,” he said. “They went after me. You know, they went after me, and I did nothing wrong.”
Trump repeated his debunked claim that the Jan. 6 committee destroyed evidence, even though the evidence remains posted online. In a statement, Cheney said the president “lied about the Jan. 6 select committee” and that there would be “no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis” to prosecute its members.
“Donald Trump’s suggestion that members of Congress who later investigated his illegal and unconstitutional actions should
be jailed is a continuation of his assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic,” she said.
Trump’s threat came as Biden’s top aides are debating whether he should issue blanket pardons before leaving office to people such as Cheney who have drawn the president-elect’s ire. Biden and his team have grown increasingly concerned that the selection of Patel indicates that Trump will follow through on his threats of “retribution” against those who have crossed him.
To install Patel, Trump would have to fire Wray, who has a 10-year term under a law meant to avoid politicizing the FBI. Wray was originally appointed by Trump in 2017, but the president-elect made clear he was personally aggrieved against him for the FBI search of his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, in 2022 for classified documents that he had improperly taken after leaving the White House, even though the search warrant was approved by a judge.
“I can’t say I’m thrilled with him,” Trump said. “He invaded my home. I’m suing the country over it. He invaded Mara-Lago. I’m very unhappy with the things he’s done.”
He also cited Wray’s comment after the assassination attempt in July that it was not
initially clear whether Trump was hit by a bullet or shrapnel. “When I was shot in the ear, he said, ‘Oh, maybe it was shrapnel,’” Trump said. “Where’s the shrapnel coming from? Is it coming from — is it coming from heaven? I don’t think so.”
Trump did not explicitly say he would fire Wray, but he left little doubt about it. “It would sort of seem pretty obvious that if Kash gets in, he’s going to be taking somebody’s place, right?” he said.
He also said, however, that he does not plan to fire Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve and another Trump appointee with whom he has grown disenchanted. “No, I don’t think so,” Trump said. “I don’t see it.”
The president-elect said that on his first day in office, he would sign a raft of executive actions on the economy, energy and the border. Two specifics that came up during the interview were issuing pardons for Jan. 6 attackers and ending birthright citizenship for children born in the United States.
Asked if he would consider pardoning “everyone” who attacked the Capitol, Trump said, “Yeah. But I’m going to be acting very quickly.” Pressed, he added, “First day.” He did say that “there may be some exceptions,” those who were “radical, crazy.” But asked about those convicted of assaulting police officers, he defended them. “Because they had no choice,” he said. And he suggested those convicted were being mistreated. “They’ve been in there for years, and they’re in a filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open,” he said.
In fact, only a handful of Capitol riot inmates are left in the Washington jail and most of those are serving significant sentences for violent crimes. Federal judges in Washington have taken a tough stance against Trump’s promises to grant clemency.
President-elect Donald Trump on stage while being honored at the the Fox Nation Patriot Awards, at the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts in Greenvale, N.Y., Dec. 5, 2024. In his first sit-down broadcast network interview since winning re-election, Trump vowed to pardon Capitol attackers and to try to end automatic citizenship for children of immigrants. (Dave Sanders/The New York Times)
Police arrest ‘strong person of interest’ in health care CEO’s killing
By ANDY NEWMAN, CHELSIA ROSE MARCIUS, WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM, MARIA CRAMER and MICHAEL WILSON
Aman has been arrested on gun charges and for questioning in connection with last week’s killing of a health insurance executive in midtown Manhattan that prompted a search up and down the East Coast, the New York Police Department said.
The man being questioned was identified as Luigi Mangione, 26, the police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, said at a news briefing Monday afternoon. He was arrested in a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after an employee recognized him and called authorities about 9:15 a.m.
“He was sitting there eating,” Joseph Kenny, the Police Department’s chief of detectives, said at the briefing.
Mangione was carrying a gun, a silencer and other false identification cards similar to those they believe the killer used in New York, according to one of the law enforcement officials and a person briefed on the investigation. Mangione showed police the same fake New Jersey identification that the man believed to be the gunman presented when he checked into a hostel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on Nov. 24, a senior law enforcement official said.
The gun appears to be a so-called ghost gun, assembled from parts that may have been made from a 3D printer, Kenny said.
In an image provided by the NYPD, the suspect in the killing of Brian Thompson is seen in the back of a taxi on the morning of the shooting, Dec. 4, 2024. The Police Department has released two new images of the man it believes fatally shot the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, including one showing him in the back seat of a taxi on the day of the shooting. (NYPD via The New York Times)
Mangione was also carrying a handwritten manifesto that criticized health care companies for putting profits above care, according to two law enforcement officials.
He was born and raised in Maryland, and has lived in San Francisco and Honolulu, police said.
On social media, a man named Luigi Mangione
posted pictures of his travels with friends and family. A person with the same name attended a private high school in the Baltimore area, where he wrestled and became valedictorian, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020 with degrees in engineering, according to a school commencement program.
Mangione is in custody on local charges, the official said, possibly related to presenting the fake identification to police. He has not been arrested or charged in connection with the killing.
New York police investigators are traveling to Altoona, in western Pennsylvania, about 280 miles from the city, according to one of the law enforcement officials.
Police had been looking for the gunman since Wednesday morning’s attack on Brian Thompson, 50, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, outside a hotel in midtown. They believe the killer left New York by bus shortly after.
The person now in custody arrived in Altoona on a Greyhound bus, a senior law enforcement official said. Thompson’s killer is also believed to have taken a Greyhound when he arrived in New York City 10 days before the shooting.
The killing set off a search that stretched well beyond New York City and commanded days of national attention. Here’s what else to know:
— New photographs released: Police over the weekend released two images they said showed the suspect, including one of him in the back seat of a taxi on the day of the shooting. They examined thousands of hours of footage from surveillance cameras to glean information about the man’s movements over the course of what they believed were his 11 days in New York City, starting with his arrival on a bus that originated in Atlanta on Nov. 24. They also recovered bullet casings at the scene with the words “depose,” “deny” and “delay” written on them — a possible reference to terms used by insurers to avoid paying claims.
— A recovered backpack: Officers also recovered a backpack in Central Park on Friday that they believe the man may have discarded as he cycled away from the scene of the shooting toward the Upper West Side, before he caught the cab. They had yet to publicly confirm if the backpack belonged to the man or contained any items of value to the investigation. Police found Monopoly money in the backpack, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.
Why was Thompson in Manhattan?
The shooting occurred as Thompson arrived early at the hotel to prepare for a UnitedHealthcare investors’ day gathering.
Such events, which are common for publicly traded companies, give major shareholders and analysts who track the companies a chance to hear from executives and to ask questions.
The New York Hilton Midtown, one of New York City’s largest hotels, is in a busy tourist area, close to the Museum of Modern Art and Rockefeller Center, where the famous Christmas tree was lit Wednesday night.
Officers with the New York Police Department search an area in Central Park in Manhattan, on Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. The gunman’s apparent getaway route, cycling north into Central Park before exiting and hailing a taxi on the Upper West Side, may have helped him elude capture because the park has many areas with no cameras. (Jeenah Moon/The New York Times)
The San Juan Daily Star
A $400 billion clean energy program is racing to get money out the door
By BRAD PLUMER
At the heart of the Biden administration’s efforts to advance clean energy is a $400 billion lending program that has backed dozens of projects across the nation, including battery factories in Ohio and Tennessee, the revival of a shuttered nuclear reactor in Michigan and a novel rooftop solar expansion in Puerto Rico.
Now, the Loan Programs Office at the Department of Energy is hustling to get money out the door before Donald Trump returns to the White House.
Trump hasn’t outlined his plans for the Energy Department. But some Republicans in Congress and advisers like Vivek Ramaswamy are already scrutinizing the loan office as they hunt for ways to slash federal spending. The conservative policy blueprint known as Project 2025 recommended that the loan office be “eliminated or reformed.”
Facing the prospect of drastic changes, the Biden administration has been working to finalize as many loans as possible before the changeover in January.
Under President Joe Biden, the office has announced roughly $54 billion in loans or loan guarantees, which is still just a small portion of its lending authority. Of that, $19 billion was announced in the weeks after the election, including a conditional loan to help Rivian build an electric car factory in Georgia and a loan guarantee for an enormous power line in the Midwest.
Yet the office has closed only $13.5 billion of the deals to date — the rest are conditional commitments that could be delayed or halted by a new administration.
“They see the writing on the wall,” said Kennedy Nickerson, a former policy adviser to the loan programs office and now a vice president for energy at Capstone, a research firm. “They want to get out as much money as possible just to safeguard as much progress as they can.”
Some companies worry about being left in limbo.
“We’d prefer to get this done sooner rather than later,” said Andy Marsh, CEO of Plug Power, a company that aims to convert renewable electricity into hydrogen fuels. In May, Plug received a condi-
tional commitment for a $1.6 billion loan guarantee to build up to six facilities, but it has yet to finalize the deal. “It’s easier to keep the momentum going if we don’t have to start all over with a new team.”
EVgo, an electric car charging company that was awarded a $1 billion loan guarantee in October, said in a statement that it was “working diligently” to close its deal.
The election results loomed over an annual gathering convened by the loan program in Washington this past week, where 1,800 people across the clean energy industry discussed everything from electric car charging networks to sustainable aviation fuels.
Many executives said they hoped the Trump administration would keep the loan program running. Even if the office de-emphasized climate change, it would still have hundreds of billions of dollars in loan authority left to support technologies like nuclear power or critical mineral mining that could boost U.S. energy security and reduce reliance on China, they said.
“If we have any sort of significant slowdown over the next four years, China is going to have our lunch, dinner and breakfast,” said James Calaway, the chair
of Ioneer, a firm trying to open a lithium mine in Nevada with the help of a notyet-final $700 million federal loan. (China currently dominates global production of lithium, a key ingredient in batteries.)
Building new industries
The Loan Programs Office was created in 2005 to help emerging energy technologies, which often have trouble getting conventional financing, become commercially viable. It gained notoriety after it lent $535 million in 2009 to Solyndra, a solar firm that went bankrupt two years later. But it also gave a crucial $465 million loan in 2010 to Tesla, which later grew into an electric vehicle powerhouse.
Mostly dormant during the first Trump administration, the office was revived under Biden. It initially had $40 billion in loan authority, but that ballooned to more than $400 billion in 2022 when Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act.
Jigar Shah, an outspoken former solar entrepreneur who has called clean energy the “largest wealth-creation opportunity of our lifetime,” has led the office over the past four years and used its financial muscle to reshape the American energy landscape.
The program has access to thou-
sands of experts at the Energy Department who can scrutinize novel technologies that commercial banks find too bewildering.
In recent years, it has focused on building up a domestic supply chain for electric vehicles to counteract China’s stranglehold on battery production. More than half of the office’s deals since 2021 — almost $34 billion — have gone toward electric vehicle and battery factories or companies that produce key components like graphite.
An uncertain future
Some experts wonder if a Trump administration might retain the program but reorient it to serve a different agenda. That could mean less money for electric vehicles, which Trump has bashed, and more money for technologies like carbon capture or geothermal, which some of Trump’s energy advisers have supported.
“It’s very obvious that doing big things is a bipartisan effort,” Shah said. “I’m super excited about how much interest there is from the incoming administration to keep a lot of this going, whether it’s doing nuclear, enhanced geothermal, carbon capture, aviation fuels.”
Asked about the Trump administration’s plans, Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the transition team, said in an email that “the Department of Energy led by Chris Wright will roll back the Biden administration’s burdensome regulations on our energy industry and ensure every taxpayer dollar at the agency is being used to deliver on President Trump’s promise to restore America’s energy dominance.”
Some companies that haven’t finalized their loans say their projects should hold bipartisan appeal.
In Indiana, Wabash Valley Resources is planning to produce low-carbon fertilizer by burying the emissions from its factory 7,000 feet underground. The company has received a conditional commitment for a $1.5 billion loan guarantee, but it might not be finalized before January.
“I can see why some people worry, but we don’t worry,” said Nalin Gupta, the company’s CEO. “We think this project will sell itself,” he said, adding that it would help reduce ammonia imports from China and help revitalize a former coal community that was carried by Trump in November.
A worker with a hydrogen fuel cell on the assembly line at Plug Power, a company that received a conditional commitment for a $1.6 billion loan guarantee in May 2024, in Latham, N.Y., Feb. 7, 2018. Some fear Donald Trump could freeze the Energy Department’s loan office, which supports electric vehicles, geothermal, nuclear and other novel technologies. (Nathanial Brooks/The New York Times)
Stocks
Technology stocks weigh on Wall Street ahead of inflation data
Wall Street’s main indexes fell on Monday, driven by a drop in AI leader Nvidia that pressured tech stocks, while investors awaited a key inflation report later this week.
Nvidia fell 1.9% after China’s market regulator launched an investigation into the chipmaker over suspected violation of antimonopoly law, dragging the information technology sector down 0.4%.
Advanced Micro Devices dropped 5.0% after BofA Global Research downgraded its rating on the stock, weighing on the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which slipped 0.5%.
“The market was taken a bit by surprise regarding China’s investigating (Nvidia) as a possible antimonopoly-law violation. So that’s one thing that’s putting a little damper on the market,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research in New York.
At 1:47 p.m. EST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 85.08 points, or 0.19%, to 44,557.44, the S&P 500 lost 20.07 points, or 0.33%, to 6,070.20 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 47.70 points, or 0.24%, to 19,809.92.
Eight out of 11 S&P 500 sectors lost ground, led by declines in consumer discretionary stocks.
Comcast slid 9.2% after forecasting a loss of more than 100,000 broadband subscribers in the fourth quarter, dragging down the communication services sector by 1.0%.
Hershey surged 12.6% to lead S&P 500 gainers, following a report that Cadbury parent Mondelez was exploring an acquisition of the chocolate maker. Mondelez shares fell 1.3%.
Investors are anticipating the consumer price index (CPI) data set for release on Wednesday, along with the producer price index (PPI) on Thursday, ahead of the Federal Reserve’s meeting on Dec. 17-18.
Bets of a 25-basis-point rate cut at the upcoming meeting shot up to more than 85% after data on Friday showed a rise in the unemployment rate to 4.2% in November, indicating an easing labor market.
Several Fed officials, including Chair Jerome Powell, emphasized caution regarding the central bank’s approach to easing monetary policy due to the economy’s resilience.
Wall Street’s main indexes started December on a positive note, with the benchmark S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq both gaining in their first week, while the blue-chip Dow ended the week slightly lower.
U.S. stocks soared in November after Donald Trump won the presidential election and his party secured control of both houses of Congress, raising expectations for a more business-friendly policy agenda.
On Monday, Workday rose 6.1% after S&P Dow Jones Indices said last week the company would be added to the S&P 500 index.
MOST ASSERTIVE STOCKS
Interpublic Group climbed 5.9% following a report that marketing giant Omnicom was in advanced talks to acquire the advertising company. Omnicom shares fell 9.2%.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.09-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 193 new highs and 19 new lows on the NYSE.
The S&P 500 posted 21 new 52-week highs and 2 new lows while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 110 new highs and 46 new lows.
Dow said on Monday it would sell a 40% stake in some U.S. Gulf Coast infrastructure assets to a fund managed by
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Macquarie Asset Management for $2.4 billion as it looks to focus more on its core chemicals business.
Shares of Dow were up about 5% at $44.14 in premarket trading after the company said it would receive up to about $3 billion in cash proceeds if Macquarie decides to increase its equity share to 49% within six months of closing the deal.
Dow said the transaction was part of its actions to evaluate its ownership of non-product producing assets across its global portfolio, including power and steam production and pipelines.
By CHRISTINA GOLDBAUM and VIVIAN YEE
The rebels who ended the Assad family’s brutal rule in Syria began asserting control over the capital Monday, announcing that a new government would begin work immediately as its fighters took up positions outside public buildings and directed traffic in a show of their newly claimed authority.
Major questions remained unanswered, including who would lead the new rebel government, as millions of Syrians and the wider world struggled to process the stunning end to the Assad family’s decades-long reign. Euphoria around the ouster of President Bashar Assad over the weekend mixed with uncertainty about the future of the country and the intentions of the rebels who now hold the capital, Damascus.
The rebels, led by an Islamist leader with the nom de guerre of Abu Mohammed al-Golani, face the complex task of extending their control over a country with deep ethnic, sectarian and religious divisions. Their military leadership said in a statement on Telegram that rebel forc-
Tuesday, December 10, 2024 9
A defaced poster depicting ousted President Bashar Assad at an abandoned border checkpoint in Masnaa, Syria, on the border with Lebanon, on Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. (Daniel Berehulak /The New York Times)
es were “about to finish controlling the capital and preserving public property,” and that a new government would begin work “immediately” after being formed. It did not specify who would lead the new government.
New York Times reporters entering Syria on Monday via Lebanon saw abandoned Syrian military tanks, empty
checkpoints and ripped-up posters of Assad littering the main highway to the capital, Damascus.
Syrians who had fled a 13-year civil war clogged the roads from Turkey and Lebanon to return home, as did people who had been displaced within the country.
But some who had supported the Assad government fear they could face retribution. And on Monday, there were early signs of the lawlessness — broken windows of cars and shops — that many fear could spiral and grip the country.
Here’s what to know:
— Prisons: Hundreds of Syrians were rushing on Monday to Sednaya Prison, a complex near Damascus that was notorious for torture and executions, in the hopes of finding missing loved ones.
— Israel: Israeli forces entered Syrian territory over the weekend, taking up what officials described as temporary defensive positions. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar also said Israel had struck Syrian chemical weapons and missile sites in an effort to keep extremists from seizing them. While many in Israel are concerned about who will succeed Assad,
his fall is also seen as the crowning consequence of a yearlong Israeli campaign against Iran and its interests.
— Assad in Russia: Moscow will not disclose Assad’s location in Russia, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies Monday. He added that President Vladimir Putin had made the decision to offer exile to Assad and his family, but there were no immediate plans for the two men to meet.
— Arab pivot: Arab nations had been working hard to bring Assad back into the fold, assuming he was there to stay. They were badly mistaken, and now find themselves thinking through the implications of a post-Assad world in the Middle East, where Iran’s influence is crumbling and the power of Turkey and Israel has been enhanced.
— Turkey: Turkey backed the rebel group that toppled the Assad regime. Its military also fired on U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in northern Syria over the weekend. That illustrates how the interests of Turkey and the U.S. diverge over support for the Kurds, who have been instrumental U.S. partners in fighting the Islamic State group.
Rebels assert control in Damascus as questions loom over their plans Syrians displaced by war rush to return home
By RAJA ABDULRAHIM and MUHAMMAD RAJ KADOUR
As rebels swept through towns and cities across Syria on their push to the capital, Damascus, displaced people followed close behind.
Roads and highways where tanks and armored vehicles had driven just a day earlier were packed with bumper-to-bumper traffic Monday as thousands of Syrians who had been displaced inside their country for years tried to get back home. They drove in cars and trucks piled high with the belongings they had accumulated — mattresses, and bags of clothes and blankets.
“We were like fish out of water when we left,” said Yasmeen Ali Armoosh, 30, speaking this past week from the dilapidated home they have rented for years in the town of Binnish, in northwestern Syria. “We felt suffocated.”
She and her family had withstood years of airstrikes from Syrian and Russian warplanes,
she said, and had refused to leave their home in Saraqib, a town in northwestern Syria that became an opposition stronghold soon after the civil war began. But once government forces captured Saraqib in 2020, Armoosh’s family fled — fearful, she noted, of what living under a brutal dictatorship again could mean.
The 13-year civil war in Syria caused one of the “largest displacement crises in the world,” according to the United Nations.
Some 7.2 million Syrians were displaced from their homes inside the country, mostly to rebel-held areas, while more than 6 million fled and became refugees.
The rebel offensive that ultimately drove President Bashar Assad from power Sunday has prompted an untold number to start making their way back, crowding some border crossings with neighboring countries.
In Binnish, Armoosh, a teacher, was only around 10 miles from her hometown for around four years, but she said that it felt like living in another country.
On Nov. 29, she was feverishly messaging with dozens of friends about the rebel advance. One friend wrote, “Yasmeen, they liberated Saraqib, you’re finally returning home.”
The day after, as rebels pushed on from Saraqib toward the city of Aleppo, Armoosh went with her brother and two friends to see what had become of their hometown.
Driving on the road leading to Saraqib was a familiar comfort, she said.
Armoosh was relieved to find her house is still standing — many homes have been destroyed during the war — but government soldiers had used it as some kind of outpost, she said.
Pro-Assad graffiti was written on the wall, and the floors were littered with bullet casings, she said.
Armoosh and her family will need to work to make it habitable again, but it is still home.
“A person’s homeland is where their home is, where their friends are,” she said.
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Massacre in Haiti’s capital leaves nearly 200 dead, UN says
Police officers from Kenya take part in a Multinational Security Support Mission in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sept. 21, 2024. More than 180 people were killed in a massacre, thought to have been the personal vendetta of a gang boss, that began Friday in the Wharf Jeremie section of Cité Soleil, a sprawling slum in Port-au-Prince, the United Nations human rights chief said. (Adriana Zehbrauskas/The New York Times)
By FRANCES ROBLES
More than 180 people were killed in a massacre over the weekend in one of the poorest neighborhood’s of Haiti’s capital, the United Nations human rights chief said Monday.
A leading Haitian human rights group described the killings as the personal vendetta of a gang boss who had been told that witchcraft caused his son’s fatal illness.
The slaughter began Friday in the Wharf Jeremie section of Cité Soleil, a sprawling slum in Port-au-Prince, according to the National Human Rights Defense Network, a civil rights group based in the capital.
Older people who practiced Vodou appeared to have been targeted, according to the group. That assessment was backed by another rights organization and a Cité Soleil resident.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, told reporters in Geneva that at least 184 people had been killed.
Nearly 130 of those who were killed were older than 60, according to the U.N., adding that gang members burned bodies and flung them into the sea.
The brutality of the killings reflects a country enduring an “accelerating spiral into the abyss,” said William O’Neill, the
U.N.’s human rights expert for Haiti.
Haiti has been convulsed by violence since early this year, when rival gangs banded together in a coalition called Viv Ansanm (“Living Together”) to attack government institutions, including police stations, prisons and hospitals.
The National Human Rights Defense Network said that one of the gang leaders, Monel Felix, ordered the killings in Wharf Jeremie after being told by a priest that Vodou was responsible for his son’s illness. The child died Saturday afternoon, according to the widely respected rights group.
The group said that Felix, who is also known as Micanor Altes, Alfred Mones and by the nickname King Micanor, and his gang affiliates used machetes and knives to commit the massacre, according to the rights organization.
A resident of Cité Soleil, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, said the killings began Friday night and targeted people who practice Vodou. In some homes, five or six people were killed, the resident said.
The Committee for Peace and Development, another Haitian civil organization, said the dead included some younger people, including several motorcycle-taxi drivers who were gunned down while trying to save others.
“Mutilated bodies were burned in the streets,” according to a statement by the National Human Rights Defense Network.
Pierre Espérance, the network’s executive director, said the number of confirmed dead was likely to rise.
“The senseless loss of lives and the pain endured by families demand not only our deepest condolences but immediate action,” he said. “We cannot continue to stand by as gangs terrorize the population like this.” Felix could not be reached for comment, and there was no evidence that he had made any kind of public statement about the killings.
Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé said “every resource” of the state would be used to restore peace.
“This monstrous crime constitutes a direct attack on human-
ity and the republican order,” he said in a statement. The “machinery of the state will be deployed in all its force and with the greatest speed to track down, capture and bring to justice the perpetrators and accomplices of this unspeakable carnage.”
Wharf Jeremie is one of the most impenetrable gang strongholds in the capital, and police generally do not go there. The lack of a law enforcement presence delayed the reporting of the massacre, experts who were following the developments said.
Vodou, which originated in West Africa, is one of Haiti’s official religions. Its practitioners believe that all living things have spirits, including animals and plants. Brought to Haiti by slaves, Vodou is largely misunderstood in Western popular culture and coexists with Christianity as one of several recognized faiths.
The National Human Rights Defense Network said it was not the first time that Felix had been accused of killing older people who practice Vodou. He is believed to have been responsible for the killings in 2021 of 12 elderly female practitioners, the rights group said.
About 5,000 people in Haiti have been killed this year and more than 700,000 displaced as a result of gang-related violence, according to the United Nations. In the spring, the gangs succeeded in forcing out a prime minister.
A separate gang massacre two months ago in a farming town about 60 miles north of Port-au-Prince left at least 115 people dead, human rights groups said.
The bloodshed has continued despite the presence of a U.N.-backed police force, known as the Multinational Security Support Mission, which is composed largely of officers from Kenya.
Last month was a particularly deadly one in Haiti. Three U.S. airliners were struck by gunfire while taking off or landing from Haiti’s main airport in Port-au-Prince.
The airport is still closed, and American Airlines decided it would not return to the country at least through next year, the Miami Herald reported.
The massacre underscored the need to bolster the Kenya mission and provide it with adequate resources, O’Neill said.
A spokesperson for the mission said Sunday that he was not aware of the killings in Wharf Jeremie. A spokesperson for the Haitian National Police said he had no further information.
5 quick takes on regime change in Syria
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
For the past few weeks, I have been arguing that Israel has inflicted the equivalent of a Six Day War-level defeat on Iran and its resistance network, and that this would have vast consequences. Well, irony of ironies, the Assad family in Syria took power in 1971, in part because of Syria’s devastating defeat in the 1967 war. What goes around comes around.
Hold on to your hats, though; you haven’t seen anything yet. Here are five quick observations.
Funniest statement by any world leader so far: That award goes to … President-elect Donald Trump for his social media post: “Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!” Attention Mr. Trump: Syria is the keystone of the entire Middle East. It just collapsed like a blown-up bridge, creating vast new dangers and opportunities that everyone in the region will seize upon and react to. Staying out of this is not on the menu, especially when we have several hundred U.S. troops stationed in eastern Syria. We need to figure out our interests and use the events in Syria to drive them, because everyone else will be doing just that.
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Biggest U.S. interest: This is also a no-brainer. It’s that this uprising in Syria in the long run triggers a pro-democracy uprising in Iran. In the short run, it is sure to trigger a power struggle between the moderates there — President Masoud Pezeshkian and his vice president, former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif — and the Revolutionary Guard hard-liners. We need to shape that struggle. The events in Syria, on top of Iran’s military defeat by Israel, have left Iran naked. This means that Iran’s leaders will now have to choose — quickly — between rushing for a nuclear bomb to save their regime or getting rid of the bomb in a deal with Trump, if he takes regime change off the table. That is why, Mr. Trump, to put it in your typeface: WE CAN’T HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.
A celebration after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government collapsed on a road that leads to the Masnaa border crossing with Syria, in Bar Elias, Lebanon, Dec. 8, 2024. Assad’s overthrow could mean Russian bases in Syria are closed and Iran’s pathway to Hezbollah is cut off — and newly vulnerable Iran may have to decide between negotiating with President Donald Trump and racing to build a nuclear bomb. (Daniel Berehulak /The New York Times)
Biggest known unknown: Who are the rebels who took over Syria and what do they really want? A pluralistic democracy, or an Islamic state? History tells us that in these movements the hard-line Islamists usually win out. But I am watching and hoping it will be otherwise.
My biggest worry expressed in a single headline: That goes to Haaretz in Israel: “Post-Assad Syria Is in Danger of Being Run by Out-of-control Militias.” We are at a moment in the history of the Middle East where there are many countries that I would describe as “too late for imperialism, but they failed at self-government.” I am talking about Libya, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Sudan. That is, no foreign power is going to come in and stabilize them, but they have failed at being able to manage their own pluralism and forge social contracts to create stability and growth. We have never been here before in the post-World War II era — a moment when so many countries have descended into this Hobbesian state of nature, but in a much more connected world.
This is why, having just spent the past week in Beijing and Shanghai, I repeatedly told my Chinese interlocutors: “You think we are enemies. You are wrong. We have a common enemy: Disorder. How we collaborate to shrink the World of Disorder and grow The World of Order is what history will judge us both for.” (Not sure they got it, but they will.)
Best Russian aphorism to sum up the challenge that regional and global powers now face in fixing Syria: “It is easier to turn an aquarium into fish soup, then to turn fish soup into an aquarium.”
Alcalde de Peñuelas acepta derrota electoral
POR CYBERNEWS
PEÑUELAS – El alcalde de Peñuelas, Gregory Gonsález Souchet, reconoció el lunes su derrota en las elecciones generales y expresó su agradecimiento a
Gobierno de Puerto Rico
DEPARTAMENTO DE DESARROLLO ECONÓMICO Y COMERCIO
Oficina de Gerencia de Permisos
AVISO PÚBLICO
SOLICITUD DE PERMISO PARA LA EXTRACCIÓN DE MATERIALES DE LA CORTEZA TERRESTRE
De conformidad con las disposiciones de la Ley Núm. 132 de 25 de junio de 1968, según enmendada, conocida como Ley para Reglamentar la Extracción de Arena, Grava y Piedra, y el Reglamento Conjunto para la Evaluación y Expedición de Permisos Relacionados al Desarrollo, Uso de Terrenos y Operación de Negocios (Reglamento Conjunto), vigente, Ley Núm. 1612009, según enmendada, conocida como “Ley para la Reforma del Proceso de Permisos de Puerto Rico” y cualquier otra disposición de ley aplicable, la Oficina de Gerencia de Permisos (“OGPe”) informa que ha sido radicada para su consideración una Solicitud de Permiso para la Extracción de Materiales de Corteza Terrestre, según adelante se detalla:
CASO NÚM.: 2016-117535-PCT-011809
TIPO: (RENOVACION)
PETICIONARIO: INDUSTRIAS ARENERAS B & M, INC. DIRECCIÓN POSTAL: PO BOX 775, JUNCOS PR 00777
LUGAR DE EXTRACCION: FINCAS PROPIEDAD DE EXPEDITO TORRES HERNANDEZ (FINCA NUM. 14,931) Y DE ISMAEL BORGE ROSA (FINCA NUM. 9,990) UBICADAS EN EL BO. CAYAGUAS, CON ACCESO A TRAVÉS DE LA PR-9912, KM 0.2 DEL MUNICIPIO DE SAN LORENZO MATERIAL PARA EXTRAERSE: ARENA GRANODIORÍTICA, CAPA VEGETAL CANTIDAD DIARIA PARA EXTRAERSE: 1,000 METROS CÚBICOS DIARIOS TÉRMINO DE VIGENCIA: TRES (3) AÑOS NATURALES USO DE EXPLOSIVOS: NO
Con el propósito de recopilación de información o comentarios que pueda ser considerada para la evaluación de la solicitud, por este medio se notifica al público en general, entidades gubernamentales y/o partes interesadas, sobre la acción propuesta. Las personas que tengan información o comentarios que puedan ser útiles en la evaluación de la acción propuesta, o que deseen solicitar la celebración de una vista pública, podrán hacerlo en cualquier fecha dentro de los treinta (30) días calendario siguientes a la fecha de publicación de este Aviso.
CTodo comentario o solicitud deber presentarse haciendo referencia al número de solicitud, y ser enviados a través de notificaciones_ogpe@ddec.pr.gov o al PO Box 41179, San Juan, PR 00940-1179. En la solicitud o comentarios deberá hacerse constar en detalle los hechos en que funda su derecho a comparecer y ser escuchada y si interesa oponerse a lo solicitado, haciendo constar los motivos o fundamentos por los cuales no debe concederse el permiso solicitado. Transcurrido el término de treinta (30) días, no se considerará ninguna solicitud a estos efectos y la OGPe procederá con la evaluación y trámite del documento presentado.
Cualquier persona podrá requerir examinar el expediente o solicitar copia de este mediante solicitud (SCE) a través del Single Business Portal en la página www.sbp.ogpe.pr.gov o en cualquier oficina de la OGPe.
En San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy 25 de noviembre de 2024.
la comunidad que lo apoyó durante su gestión.
En un mensaje publicado en sus redes sociales, el primer ejecutivo destacó que, aunque finaliza un capítulo marcado por logros compartidos y desafíos superados, el amor por su pueblo permanece intacto.
“Han sido años de entrega, donde cada proyecto y cada decisión tuvo como norte nuestro amor por este pueblo”, expresó Gonsález Souchet.
Asimismo, extendió sus mejores deseos al alcalde electo, Josean González Febres y lo exhortó a cuidar de Peñuelas con la misma dedicación.
El exalcalde agradeció a su equipo de trabajo, a su familia y a los ciudadanos que le acompañaron a lo largo de este periodo, asegurando que su cariño y gratitud hacia la gente de Peñuelas se mantendrán presentes. “El amor por Peñuelas no termina, porque servir a mi gente es parte de lo que soy”, concluyó.
Segundo Festival Deportivo de Las Américas en Cayey integra a la
POR EL STAR STAFF
CAYEY – El alcalde de Cayey Rolando Ortiz Velázquez celebró el éxito del Segundo Festival Deportivo de las Américas realizado en las facilidades deportivas municipales de dicha ciudad y de la Universidad de Puerto Rico en Cayey, con miles de participantes de todas las edades. Los trabajos se realizaron en disciplinas como el deporte de fútbol, voleibol, béisbol infantil, taekwondo, atletismo, boxeo y tenis de campo, entre otros, como tenis de mesa y ajedrez.
“Particularmente esperanzador fue ver todo este componente deportivo municipal com atletas de tantas zonas de la ciudad de Cayey. También nos visitaron participantes de los Centros de Transición y Servicios del Departamento de la Familia (DF).
Llegaron de diferentes pueblos de Puerto Rico para el tercer día del Festival Deportivo Las Américas en Cayey”, señaló el alcalde.
Los visitantes de Aibonito, Bayamón, Cayey, Ponce, Río Grande y Aguadilla celebraron además con una premiación llena de color y tradición con los Reyes de Oriente. Los Centros de Transición y Servicios del Departamento de la Familia son centros diurnos se promueve el desarrollo, fortalecimiento y mantenimiento de las destrezas de vida diaria y la vida laboral, sobre la base del bienestar físico
tercera edad
y emocional de las personas. En los mismos se fomenta la inclusión social de los participantes mediante experiencias de exposición social, cultural, deportiva y recreativas en la comunidad.
Durante la incumbencia de Ortiz Velázquez, se ha desarrollado una amplia obra pública deportiva, tanto en infraestructura como en la iniciativa ‘Deporte para Todos’, que recientemente añadió golf con instructores certificados para ofrecer clases a los niños de los residenciales públicos interesados en esta disciplina. Para información adicional, sobre el Primer Festival Deportivo de las Américas, los interesados en información adicional pueden comunicarse al 787-383-7347 o acceder a las plataformas cibernéticas Cayey Ciudad Verde en Facebook, X, Instagram y You Tube.
Autorizado por la
The San Juan Daily Star
The San Juan Daily Star Tuesday, December 10, 2024 13
For Taylor Swift, it’s the end of the ‘Eras’
By VICTOR MATHER and SARAH BERMAN
Anyone with an ear tuned to the world of pop music knew the Eras Tour was going to be a big one.
It was Taylor Swift’s first tour in almost five years, the longest gap of her career. And Swift, long the biggest star in pop music, had become even bigger, transcending the Top 40 to become a cultural phenomenon.
Now, almost two years later, Swift started the final show of the tour Sunday night in Vancouver, British Columbia, with her standard opener, “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince.”
“It’s a pretty cool night to be in Vancouver, huh?” she asked.
Meghan O’Keefe of Philadelphia was attending her fifth Eras show Sunday night. She paid only $15 for the tickets, but they came with a catch. No view. “They’re behind the stage, but I am here,” she said. “I totally didn’t expect that.” (She ended up being allowed to move to a full-view seat.)
The tour included extensive music, not just from Swift’s most recent album, “Midnights,” but from her entire career, from the country of “Fearless” to the pop of “1989” and the indie pop of “Folklore.”
While the set list stayed fairly static, Swift added “surprise songs” every night; at Sunday’s final concert they were “A Place in This World,” “New Romantics,” “Long Live,” “New Year’s Day” and “The Manuscript.”
The first concert came in March 2023 in Glendale, Arizona, and it was even bigger than anyone imagined: 3 hours, 15 minutes without intermission and more than 40 songs.
Tickets vanished in seconds, then quickly popped up on the secondary market at 10 times the price. Fans who couldn’t obtain or afford tickets came to the venues anyway, content to commune with others like them and sing along with the amplified music coming from inside.
And the excitement just kept building, with frenzied anticipation in every city, attendance records broken and vast economic impacts in regions and even entire countries.
Destination Vancouver, a tourism agency, estimated the concert series poured $157 million into the local economy.
“It’s turned the city upside down,” said Jarrett Vaughan, a business school professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. “For one person to have such a big impact, it’s really unprecedented.”
Dozens of downtown businesses jumped on the Swift bandwagon, advertising drink specials tied to the
Eras tour. Overhead signs at the nearest transit station, Stadium-Chinatown, were temporarily styled in a Swiftinspired friendship bracelet font.
The Terry Fox Memorial in downtown Vancouver, which honors a college student who lost a leg to cancer and who ran halfway across the country with an artificial limb to raise money for cancer, was overshadowed by a towering tribute to Swift’s album “Red.” Fans lined up to pose for photos with the giant glowing red sign. Twelve similar pop-up installations took over scenic spots across the city.
A few blocks from the concert venue, BC Place, on Saturday night, the perimeter was barricaded with dump trucks and lots of police officers.
Sequin, fringe, fur, cowboy boots and flower crowns could be seen in every direction. A group of fans wearing matching pink tinsel arrived on a local water taxi. Some of the boats were outfitted with oversize friendship bracelets draped over the sides.
Outside a maze of pink tape where concertgoers waited to be let into the venue, a woman held a cardboard sign that said “I need a ticket.” By 7 p.m., the spectacle was in full swing, as screaming fans could be heard more than a block away.
Melissa Pallin, 39, of Portland, Oregon, said she spent about $1,900 per ticket for a family of four but that it was worth it. Her family drove nine hours to celebrate her daughter’s 16th birthday, which comes on Dec. 12, one day before Swift’s.
Val Iddings, 43, of Rapid City, South Dakota, said her family has followed the Eras tour across several time zones, from her home state to Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Denver, and now Vancouver. Her daughter Kaylee, 18, attended her first Swift concert at age 2.
As much as the tour’s success was expected, much happened over its course that could not have been anticipated.
Ticket snags led to lawmakers demanding that Ticketmaster clean up its act and even threatening to break the company up. The Justice Department opened an antitrust investigation and a Senate subcommittee held hearings.
Things changed during the tour.
When it began in March 2023, Swift was still in a six-year-long relationship with British actor Joe Alwyn. But a month later, reports began to circulate that the relationship was over.
NFL star Travis Kelce attended one of the Eras concerts but said he did not get a chance to give Swift a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it.
Nevertheless, by the fall dating rumors were swirling and Swift began to attend Kansas City Chiefs games.
She popped up often enough that
The two-years-long tour was Swift’s first in almost five years, the longest gap of her career, and transformed her into not just the biggest star in pop music, but also a cultural phenomenon. (Alana Paterson/The New York Times)
some football fans hyperbolized that she was being shown on TV more than the players. Swift and Kelce remain together.
In July 2023, she released “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” and in August onstage in Inglewood, California, she announced “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” which was released in October.
In October 2023, some of the fans shut out by high ticket prices and sold-out concerts were able to see the film “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” which Swift got into theaters through AMC, a theater company, rather than a movie studio. It grossed more than $250 million worldwide.
The Eras Tour got a shake-up in April 2024 when Swift released a new album, “The Tortured Poets Department.” When the tour resumed in May after a twomonth break, she had added a new era.
In Vancouver on Saturday night, Kelly Rogers, 42, and Bac Walker, 32, said they hadn’t planned to come to the show but they drove from Everett and Kent, Washington, after scoring tickets Thursday night.
They threw together last-minute costumes inspired by the “Anti-Hero” music video. They wore flowered sheets over their heads, along with heart-shaped sun glasses. “We didn’t have time to put together something super cute,” Rogers said, “so we decided to stay warm.”
A variety of boots worn by fans before the next-to-last concert of Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour, outside BC Place stadium in Vancouver, Canada, Dec. 7, 2024. (Alana Paterson/The New York Times)
Jonica Tebo shows off a sweater coat with a crocheted panel that she created, outside BC Place stadium before the nextto-last concert of Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour, in Vancouver, Canada, Dec. 7, 2024.
Meet Lamb Chop, America’s hottest dog toy
By ALEXANDRA E. PETRI
Most toys that cross Foxie’s path rarely last. Rope toys are torn to shreds. Squeaky ones fall silent in her paws. Stuffies lose their eyes and ears once Foxie’s 12-pound frame gets hold of them.
But when Andy Batdorf and his partner gave their senior Yorkie-Maltese mix a soft, miniature lamb wearing a birthday hat, Foxie was different. She played with the squeaky toy gently and even wanted to carry it outside on a walk. Batdorf recalled wondering whether Foxie’s tenderness toward Lamb Chop was because they looked similar — both white and fluffy.
“Her maternal instincts kicked in,” Batdorf, 35, said. “She treats it like her own little pup.”
One of the hottest dog toys in America is a squeaky stuffed animal toy named Lamb Chop. On the surface it doesn’t look unique, but it has taken a mysteriously strong hold on the country’s dogs and their owners: Millions are sold annually, and it is consistently one of the top-selling toys on Chewy, Petco and Amazon, where listings get thousands of rave reviews.
Dog owners throw Lamb Chop-themed parties and photo shoots. They dress their dogs as Lamb Chop for Halloween and buy them Lamb Chop beds to sleep in alongside dozens of their Lambys, as they are affectionately called. One dog owner even has a commissioned painting of his dog walking through a forest with Lamb Chop. The dogs, from rat terriers to Rottweilers, seem to be equally enthralled.
“There definitely does seem to be some kind of bond that I can’t really explain,” Batdorf said, adding that Foxie’s Lamby remained intact, remarkably, more than a year later.
The roots of its popularity date back decades.
Shari Lewis, a ventriloquist and entertainer, introduced an inquisitive puppet with a mop of curly hair named Lamb Chop in the ’50s and featured it on “The Shari Lewis Show” from 1960 to 1963. Then in the ’90s, Lewis brought the puppet to a new generation with “Lamb Chop’s Play-Along” on PBS. Lewis won Emmys and received acclaim for episodes about topics including bullying and how to stop biting your nails.
The puppet had already inspired a children’s toy when, in 2010, the pet product
company Multipet International Inc. brought Lamb Chop to the dog toy market in the form of a 10-inch-tall toy with five squeakers. Lamb Chop was a runaway hit. Demand surged in just a few years, and the company started producing a 6-inch mini Lamb Chop and a jumbo, 24-inch Lamb Chop, as well as introducing seasonal editions.
“Every day we’re like, ‘What’s the next Lamb Chop?’” said Dean Hirschberg, vice president of marketing at Multipet. “That’s what we think about 24/7.”
The toy’s design, price (typically retailing under $5 for the mini to under $20 for the jumbo) and variety help keep Lambymania alive.
If you name an occasion, there’s likely a Lamb Chop toy celebrating it. Alexandrine Higuera estimates that her terrier-poodle mix Troy has more than 20 Lamb Chops, from a Halloween Lamby to his favorite, Independence Day Lamby.
“Any holiday you can think of, they’ll make a Lamb Chop, and then we just get it for him,” Higuera, 29, said.
But much of it is owners’ nostalgia for the Lamb Chop of their childhoods.
Some 32% of dog owners are millennials, beating out other generations in dog ownership, according to the American Pet Products Association. Many of them watched Lamb Chop growing up in the early
terview over Google Meet. “It makes people feel good to share me.”
According to Chewy, an online retailer for pet products, the Lamb Chop dog toy is the most popular plush dog toy, and the second-most-popular dog toy of any kind, getting more than 13,000 online reviews, with an average rating of 4.5 stars.
Thousands of customers have it on autoship, with many buying more than five every year, said Allen Hughes, president of retail at Chewy. Petco, the big-box pet supplies retailer, also cites Lamb Chop as the bestselling dog toy overall.
“Lamb Chop leads some kind of cult,” said Broti Gupta, 30, whose post on the social platform X about her 6-year-old Husky Niko’s love of Lamb Chop was shared widely in February. She added, “There is just something hypnotic about this really soft and cuddly toy.”
Asked about the cult following around Lamby toys, the puppet Lamb Chop said with a mischievous tone: “Yes, I am a cult leader. I control the dogs.”
Dogs approached by The New York Times could not say exactly why they loved Lamb Chop, though many perked up and tilted their heads at hearing “Lamby.”
’90s.
Mia Christopher has a Lamb Chop zone in her living room — with more than 60 of the toys piled up for her dog Daisy, a three-legged senior rescue who dives into the pile each day.
Christopher, who still has her Lamb Chop dolls from childhood, recently threw Daisy a Lamb Chop-themed “gotcha day party” to celebrate her adoption two years ago. There was a Lamb Chop cake, cups and a vintage tablecloth. Daisy wore a Lamb Chop harness and collar, while her sister, Dot, another senior rescue, wore a denim vest with Lamb Chop detailing and patches. A friend’s child dressed up as Lamb Chop to surprise the canine guests, some of whom wore their own Lamb Chop apparel.
“Wait, did I just totally subconsciously throw my inner 6-year-old their dream birthday party?” Christopher, 36, said. “I’m just someone who loves ephemera and things from my childhood. It’s fun to be able to share that.”
Today, Lewis’ daughter, Mallory Lewis, has taken on the voice behind the beloved puppet. (The elder Lewis died in 1998.) Both she and Lamb Chop say they are happy about the toy’s success.
“People love me because I make them feel safe, and I remind them of a simpler time in their lives,” Lamb Chop said in a recent in-
Not all dogs have taken so kindly to Lamb Chop. Some dog owners said their friends or family members had dogs that preferred balls or other toys, and others on social media described their dogs going “feral” at the sight of Lamb Chop, wearing it down to shreds.
Indeed, Lewis said she received many pictures of decimated Lambys and guiltylooking dogs. Still, she said she was grateful that the Lamb Chop dog toy helped keep “my mother’s legacy alive, and our family’s legacy alive.”
There is a new legacy being formed for many dog owners as well.
Shannon Ritter said her golden retriever Charles had no shortage of favorite toys — his stuffed blueberry or the soccer balls he chased, for example.
But when Charles became sick last November, it was Lamby he took to each veterinary and specialist appointment.
“It was always the Lamb Chop that he went for,” Ritter, 56, said. “It was the Lamb Chop he wanted at the end.”
When the Ritter family had to make the difficult decision to put Charles to sleep, they put him to rest with his cherished toy, which he held onto in his final moments.
“It was very emotional, but it made me feel a little bit better,” Ritter said, “knowing he had Lamb Chop with him.”
A dog with a Lamb Chop toy in New York, Dec. 3, 2024. Beloved by generations of children as a famous TV puppet, the plush lamb has now earned elite status among an unlikely fan base. (Tony Cenicola/The New York Times)
The San Juan Daily Star Tuesday, December 10, 2024 15
Sex, a hex and a sick child offer clues to an epidemic’s birth
By STEPHANIE NOLEN
On Sept. 30, 2023, an anxious father brought his 5-year-old son to the hospital in Kamituga, a muddy, bustling town carved out of the thick forest in eastern Congo. The boy had a high fever and oozing sores on his torso and face.
Nurses diagnosed chickenpox. They admitted him to the pediatric ward and tried to manage his fever.
Days passed, and the child’s health did not improve. His fever climbed higher and the lesions spread.
Perplexed, the pediatric staff called Dr. Steeve Bilembo, who was managing urgent care. He and a trusted nurse colleague, Fidèle Kakemenge, examined the boy and named, and then quickly eliminated, possibilities: not chickenpox, not measles, not rubella, not a bad case of dermatitis.
The spreading sores meant it wasn’t malaria or typhoid or cholera.
“And then at one point, we said, ‘Could it be mpox?’” Bilembo recounted. “Although we have never seen it — only in books.”
They looked it up, and quickly confirmed that the child had all the symptoms of mpox. Yet, it made no sense. Although mpox was first discovered in Congo in 1970, and has been endemic in the country ever since, the disease circulated in remote villages in the center of the country — 2,000 kilometers (more than 1,200 miles) away. It was unknown in the east.
How could a boy who had never left Kamituga have mpox?
It as the start of a medical mystery that would reveal swift and startling changes in a virus once considered a familiar foe, lead to the declaration of a global public health emergency and draw scientists from around the world on a dayslong journey along a muddy, rutted track that is the only way to reach Kamituga.
Fifteen months later, the new strain of the virus has spread to six other countries through East and southern Africa, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and individual cases have turned up in Europe, Asia and North America, as well. The virus seems to have adapted to spread more easily and quickly between people. More than 62,000 cases of mpox have been reported in Africa this year, three-quarters of them in Congo.
An estimated 1,200 people have died
of mpox, which kills about 2.5% of those it infects in Congo.
The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global emergency in August, and authorized the use of a first-ever vaccine and a rapid test for mpox in an effort to try to contain the spread.
But that day in early October 2023, it was just Bilembo and Kakemenge. They scraped fluid from the child’s lesions and sent it off for testing in Goma, the only city in the east with a lab that could do it: two days to travel 175 miles on the back of a motorbike courier, and then a daylong boat trip up Lake Kivu. Long before the results finally came back two weeks later, confirming that Kamituga Reference Hospital had its first case of mpox, they were already convinced.
They had taped big sheets of paper to the wall in an empty supply room, and stayed up all night mapping out all the ways the child might have been infected. Mpox transmission in Congo was believed to start most often with an infected animal, which passed the virus to a hunter, or to a child through a bite. But the child’s family said they did not hunt, and he had not been bitten.
Then, Bilembo said, the father mentioned that he had seen an ailment similar to his son’s, not too long before. The father is a traditional healer, who uses natural remedies and magic spells, and he told the hospital staff he had been called to cure a local businessman of an affliction after he was cursed by jealous competitors.
The father told Kakemenge that the curse had caused the man to break out in oozing lesions that so disfigured him that he looked “like a monster.” He said he had tried to heal the man by rubbing his limbs with an ointment he made.
When they heard this, Bilembo and Kakemenge took a marker and drew a dotted line on their paper from the infected child to the businessman with the curse. The man, named Julien, was the 35-year-old owner of a popular nightclub in Kamituga called Mambegeti, the word for the buckets in which they sold bottles of beer. Julien also ran an adjoining business, a maison de tolerance, as it is known here — a collection of bedrooms rented by servers at the bar who also sell sex.
About a dozen women worked there, most of whom Julien was said to have recruited from other regions of Congo, Rwan-
da and Burundi, even a few from Tanzania and Uganda. They came to this hardscrabble town of about 300,000 people because it’s surrounded by gold mines. When the miners are paid, they come into Kamituga ready to spend 75 cents for some time behind the thin cotton curtains that separate the women’s rooms.
The next day, contact tracers from the hospital went to the nightclub to inform its employees that a suspected mpox case had been traced to the house. They learned that Julien had been ill for a couple of weeks and, the day before, had left for Bukavu, the regional capital.
The club manager said several of the young women who worked there also had fevers and lesions. So, as it happened, did he. The men who run the maisons de tolerance typically collect a “tax,” having sex with all the women who worked in their bars, Kakemenge explained.
As for trying to trace how mpox had arrived in Kamituga? Julien, their index case, had vanished, and the trail had gone cold.
They didn’t know that in Bukavu, Julien had gone to stay with his uncle — a man who happened to be a doctor, and a regional public health official. He made an on-the-spot diagnosis for his nephew.
“He said, ‘You have mpox,’” Julien recalled. He asked to be identified only by his first name, to protect his privacy.
The doctor called a team from the hospital to collect samples from Julien’s sores, and sent them to Kinshasa for testing. Julien agreed to be isolated in the hospital when
his diagnosis was confirmed, but he refused treatment.
“The truth is that it was sorcery: Someone put this curse on me,” he said. “And it was the traditional healers who cured me.”
Julien recovered about five weeks after he first fell ill.
In Kamituga, the child slowly recovered as well.
By the time confirmation came from the far-off lab that it was mpox, these first mysterious cases had become an epidemic.
In Kinshasa, researchers at the National Institute of Biomedical Research sequenced the genome of the virus infecting Kamituga patients, and realized it differed significantly from the one that had caused mpox outbreaks in Congo for years.
They labeled it a new subclade, a sort of genetic cousin of the familiar virus, and scrambled to try to understand how it differed: Were the genital lesions a sign of sexual transmission? How was the virus now moving so quickly between people? By the middle of this year, the new subclade had turned up in neighboring countries — Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda — traveling with migrant workers from the mining town. The international spread of the virus brought the sudden glare of attention to Kamituga.
Now, the hospital has an efficient mpox treatment center, run by Alliance for International Medical Action, or ALIMA, where patients are isolated and cared for through their illness. The virus is moving through the general population, and hitting children hard.
There is a small laboratory where mpox tests undergo genetic analysis on site: Cases are confirmed within an hour or two. Until a few weeks ago, not a single person in Congo had ever been vaccinated against mpox; now about 50,000 people have.
Today, everyone in Kamituga is familiar with the disease and on the lookout for signs. Here, it’s known as mambegeti, after Julien’s nightclub. He has since shut it down, and opened a new club, called Mercato.
“They say people here were the first in the country to be vaccinated, maybe first in the world,” said Marie Bayaya, who braids hair on the front step of a wooden shack hair salon not far from the entrance of the hospital. “It’s because of mambegeti that our town is known, now.”
An estimated 1,200 people have died of mpox, which kills about 2.5% of those it infects in Congo. (ALIMA)
MERA subasta. Si se declarase desierta la tercera subasta, se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si ésta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta, si el Tribunal lo estima conveniente; se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si esta es mayor, todo ello a tenor con lo dispone el Articulo 104 de la Ley Núm. 210 del 8 de diciembre de 2015 conocida como “Ley del Registro de la Propiedad Inmueble del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico”. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquiere libre de toda carga y gravamen que afecte la mencionada finca según el Artículo 102, inciso 6. Una vez confirmada la venta judicial por el Honorable Tribunal, se procederá a otorgar la correspondiente escritura de venta judicial y se pondrá al comprador en posesión física del inmueble de conformidad con las disposiciones de Ley. Para conocimiento de la parte demandada y de toda aquella persona o personas que tengan interés inscrito con posterioridad a la inscripción del gravamen que se está ejecutando, y para conocimiento de todos los licitadores y el público en general, el presente Edicto se publicará por espacio de dos (2) semanas consecutivas, con un intervalo de por lo menos siete días entre ambas publicaciones, en un diario de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico y se fijará además en tres (3) lugares públicos del Municipio en que ha de celebrarse dicha venta, tales como la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía. Se les informa, por último, que: a. Que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la secretaría del tribunal durante las horas laborables. b. Que se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes. Se entenderá, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. EXPIDO, el presente EDICTO, en Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, hoy día 7 de noviembre de 2024. CALIXTO RIVERA GHIGLIOTTY, ALGUACIL #283, DIVISIÓN DE SUBASTAS, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA SUPERIOR DE MAYAGÜEZ. ***
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE SAN JUAN.
JORGE A.
CASTRO QUESADA
Demandante v. MARILYN MONTAÑEZ GALARZA
Demandado (a) CIVIL NÚM: SJ2024CV10048. SOBRE: DESAHUCIO POR FALTA DE PAGO Y COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO DESAHUCIO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU. EL PUEBLO DE PUERTO RICO. SS.
A: MARILYN MONTAÑEZ GALARZA COND COSTA CONDADO 1420 CALLE WILSON, SAN JUAN, PR 00907
Por la presente se le notifica que se ha radicado una Demanda Desahucio y Cobro de Dinero contra MARILYN MONTAÑEZ GALARZA. De acuerdo con las disposiciones del Artículo 623 del Código de Enjuiciamiento Civil, queda citado(a) para que comparezca al juicio. El juicio se celebrara: por videoconferencia
Fecha:
12 de diciembre de 2024. Hora: 9:00 AM.
La parte demandada deberá notificar la dirección del correo electrónico a donde se le enviará la invitación o enlace para acceder a la vista por videoconferencia. De interesar comparecer por videoconferencia deberá hacer dicha notificación enviando un correo electrónico al Tribunal a la siguiente dirección electrónica Lidzaida. ramos@poderjudicial.pr o llamando al (787)641-6363 ext. 2423. Se advierte que, en la eventualidad de no contar con las herramientas tecnológicas para la celebración de una videoconferencia, deberá comparecer de manera presencial en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, Salón de Sesiones número 508 en la fecha y hora indicada. Se le advierte que, de no comparecer al juicio, por sí o por legítimo apoderado, se podrá dictar sentencia sin más citarle ni oírle, declarando ha lugar la demanda y ordenando su lanzamiento y el de las personas que ocupen el inmueble. También se podrá ordenar el pago de cualquier cantidad adeudada según alegado en la demanda. Expedido bajo mi firma, y el Sello del Tribunal, el 9 de diciembre de 2024. Griselda Rodríguez Collado, SECRETARIO(A) REGIONAL. Brenda L. Báez Acabá, SECRETARIO(A) AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE PONCE. BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO
DEMANDANTE VS. SUCESIÓN DE JUAN VÁZQUEZ MONTE.
T/C/C JUAN V ÁZQUEZ
MONTES T/C/C JUAN M. V ÁZQUEZ MONTE
T/C/C JUAN M. V ÁZQUEZ
MONTES COMPUESTA 1
POR SU VIUDA YOLANDA
ORTIZ DÍAZ POR SÍ; SUS HEREDEROS CONOCIDOS COMO JUAN GABRIEL
VÁZQUEZ, ORTIZ Y JUAN
MANUEL VÁZQUEZ:
ORTIZ; FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS Y/O PARTES CON INTERÉS EN DICHA SUCESIÓN
DEMANDADOS
CIVIL NÚM.: PO2024CV00417.
SOBRE: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA, ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA EL PRESIDENTE DE EE.UU. EL ESTADO LIBRE
ASOCIADO DE PR.
A: SUCESION DE JUAN
VAZQUEZ NONTE T/C/C
JUAN VAZQUEZ NONTES
T/C/C JUAN M VAZQUEZ
ONTE T/C/C JUAN M VAZQUEZ MONTES COMPUERTA POR
SU VIUDA YOLANDA
ORTIZ DIAZ POR SI; SUS HEREDEROS
CONOCIDOS COMO JUAN GABRIEL
VAZQUEZ ORTIZ Y JUAN
MANUEL VAZQUEZ
ORTIZ; FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL
COMO HEREDEROS
DESCONOCIDOS Y/O PARTES CON INTERES EN DICHA SUCESION -LA PLENA, BARRIO CAPITANEJO, M-15 CALLE BELLA VISTA, PONCE PR 00731 -BRISAS DE MARA VILLA, M-15 CALLE BELLA VISTA, MERCEDITA PR 00715
-5479 COPPEL HEADLINE, SAN ANTONIO TX 78222
POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los treinta (30) días de haber sido diligenciado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://www. poderjudicial.pr/index.php/ tribunal-electronico/, salvo que el caso sea de un expediente físico o que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación
responsiva en la Secretaría del tribunal y notificar copia de la misma al (a la) abogado(a) de la parte demandante o a ésta, de no tener representación legal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Además, se le apercibe que, en los casos al amparo de la Ley Núm. 57-2023, titulada Ley para la Prevención del Maltrato, Preservación de la Unidad Familiar y para la Seguridad, Bienestar y Protección de los Menores, entre los remedios que el Tribunal podrá conceder se incluyen la ubicación permanente de un (una) menor fuera del hogar, el inciso de procesos para la privación de patria potestad, y cualquiera otra medida en el mejor interés del (de la) menor. (Artículo 33, incisos by f de la Ley Núm. 57-2023). Se le advierte de su derecho a comparecer acompañado(a) de abogado(a) en los casos que proceda. Se le advierte de su derecho a comparecer acompañado(a) de abogado(a) en los casos que proceda. De ser el demandado un heredero de una sucesión, se le apercibe a los herederos antes mencionados que de no expresarse dentro de ese término de treinta (30) días, en tomo a su aceptación o repudiación de herencia, la herencia se tendrá por aceptada. También se le 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 publicación de este edicto, se presumirá que han aceptado la herencia del(los) causante(s) y, por consiguiente, responden por las cargas de dicha herencia conforme dispone el Artículo 1,578 del Nuevo Código Civil, 31 L.P.R.A. sec. 11,021 Representa a la parte demandante, la representación legal cuyo nombre, dirección y teléfono se consigna de inmediato: BUFETE FORTUÑO & FORTUÑO FAS, C.S.P. LCDO. JUAN C. FORTUÑO FAS RUA NUM.: 11416 PO BOX 3908, GUAYNABO, PR 00970
TEL: 787- 751-5290, FAX: 787-751-6155
E-MAIL: ejecuciones@fortuno-law.com
Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, hoy 4 de diciembre de 2024. Carmen G Tiru Quiñones, Sec Regional. Marieli Felix Rivera, SubSecretaria.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA
SALA SUPERIOR DE HUMACAO
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE RURAL DEVELOPMENT A/C/C LA ADMINISTRACIÓN DE HOGARES DE AGRICULTORES
Demandante Vs. JOSÉ ESQUILÍN MALDONADO, SU ESPOSA ZULEIKA
MARIE ORTIZ FÉLIX T/C/C ZULEIKA M. ORTIZ FÉLIX Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS
Demandados
Civil Núm.: HU2024CV01551. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA (IN REA). EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS. A: JOSÉ ESQUILÍN MALDONADO, SU ESPOSA ZULEIKA MARIE ORTIZ FÉLIX
T/C/C ZULEIKA M. ORTIZ FÉLIX Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE BIENES GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS - URB. VERDEMAR (Urb. Verdemar), CALLE 5 #91, PUNTA SANTIAGO, HUMACAO, PR 00741; DIRECCIÓN POSTAL: HC-04, BOX 4067, LAS PIEDRAS, PR 00771. POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los treinta (30) días de haber sido diligenciado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día del diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://www. poderjudicial.pr/index.php/ tribunal-electronico/, salvo que el caso sea de un expediente físico o que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la Secretaría del tribunal y notificar copia de la misma al (a la) abogado(a) de la parte demandante o a ésta, de no tener representación legal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Además, se le apercibe que, en los casos al amparo de la Ley Núm. 57-2023, titulada Ley para la Prevención
del Maltrato, Preservación de la Unidad Familiar y para la Seguridad, Bienestar y Protección de los Menores, entre los remedios que el Tribunal podrá conceder se incluyen la ubicación permanente de un (una) menor fuera del hogar, el inciso de procesos para la privación de patria potestad, y cualquier otra medida en el mejor interés del (de la) menor. (Artículo 33, incisos b y f de la Ley Núm. 57-2023). Se le advierte de su derecho a comparecer acompañado(a) de abogado(a) en los casos que proceda. Se le advierte de su derecho a comparecer acompañado(a) de abogado(a) en los casos que proceda. Representa a la parte demandante, la representación legal cuyo nombre, dirección y teléfono se consigna de inmediato: BUFETE FORTUÑO & FORTUÑO FAS, C.S.P. LCDO. JUAN C. FORTUÑO FAS RUA NÚM.: 11416 PO BOX 3908, GUAYABO, PR 00970 TEL.: 787-751-5290, FAX: 787-751-6155 E-MAIL: ejecuciones@fortuno-law.com
Expedido bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, hoy 3 de diciembre de 2024. EVELYN FÉLIX VÁZQUEZ, SECRETARIA. LAURA DE JESÚS GONZÁLEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYAMÓN SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN
POPULAR AUTO LLC
Demandante V. MELISA LÓPEZ SUÁREZ
Demandado(a) Caso Núm.: VA2024CV00159. (Salón: 402 SUPERIOR CIVIL). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO - ORDINARIO Y OTROS. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDITO. JEAN PAUL JULIÁ DÍAZJPJULIA@RMMELA W.COM. A: MELISA LÓPEZ SUÁREZ. (Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 04 de diciembre 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 de 06 de diciembre de 2024. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el 06 de diciembre de 2024. ALICIA AYALA SANJURJO, SECRETARIA. IXIA CÓRDOVA CHINEA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN
TRACY MONTEIRO HERNANDEZ
Demandante Vs. VIVIANE MONTEIRO HERNANDEZ
Demandado
Caso Núm.: BY2024RF02075. Sobre: CUSTODIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. A: VIVIANE MONTEIRO HERNANDEZRESIDENCIAL LAS GARDENIAS, EDIFICIO 5, APARTAMENTO 110, BAYAMÓN, PUERTO RICO 00959-5203 O SEA, LA PARTE ARRIBA MENCIONADA. POR LA PRESENTE, se le emplaza para que presente al Tribunal su alegación responsiva a la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días de haber sido diligenciado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día de! diligenciamiento. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://www.poderiudicial. pr/index.php/tribunal-electronico/, salvo que el caso sea un expediente físico o que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la Secretaría del Tribunal y notificar copia de la misma al (a la) abogado(a) de la parte demandante o a ésta, de no tener representación legal.
LCDA. MARGARITA GÓMEZ VÁZQUEZ
Número del Tribunal Supremo: 8,806 URB. FOREST VIEW, I-2 BAJOS CALLE ESPAÑA, BAYAMON, P.R 00956
TEL. (787) 740-7190
EMAIL: licmargaritagomez@gmail.com
Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el Tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el Tribu-
nal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Además, se le apercibe que, en los casos al amparo de la Ley Núm. 57-2023, titulada Ley para la Prevención del Maltrato, Preservación de la Unidad Familiar y para la Seguridad, Bienestar y Protección de los Menores, entre los remedios que el Tribunal podrá conceder se incluyen la ubicación permanente de un (una) menor fuera de! hogar, el inicio de procesos para la privación de patria potestad, y cualquier otra medida en el mejor interés del (de la) menor. (Artículo 33, inicios b y f de Ley Núm. 57-2023). Se le advierte de su derecho a comparecer acompañado(a) de abogado(a) en los casos que proceda. NOTIFÍQUESE. Dada en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, a 6 de diciembre de 2024. ALICIA AYALA SANJURJO, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. WILMARY RODRÍGUEZ RIVERA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
LEGAL NOTICE
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO LIME HOMES, LTD. Plaintiff V. MARCELO TORCHIO GOMEZ Defendants Civil Action Num.: 19-cv-01833. (JAG). Matter: Foreclosure of Mortgage. NOTICE OF SALE. To: MARCELO TORCHIO GOMEZ: AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC: WHEREAS: On January 24th, 2023, Default Judgment was entered and grated day in favor of Plaintiff to recover from defendants the principal amount of $250,423.40, plus interests at a rate of 2.50% per annum since November 1, 2018, which continues to accrue until the debit is paid in full, late charged on the amount of 5.00% of each and any monthly installment not received by the note holder within 15 days after the installment is due, all advances made in accordance with the mortgage note including, but not limited to, insurance premiums, taxes and inspections as well as 10% ($17,460.00) to cover costs, expenses, and attorney’s fees guaranteed under the mortgage obligation. The records of the case and of these proceedings may be examined by interested parties at the Office of the Clerk of the United States District Court, Room 150 or 400 Federal Office Building, 150 Chardon Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. WHEREAS: Pursuant to the terms of the aforementioned Judgment, Order of Execution, and the Writ of Execution thereof, the undersigned Special Master or its appointee was ordered to sell at public auction for U.S. currency in cash or certified check without appraisement or right of redemption to
the highest bidder and at the following address: Rondapro, 441 Calle E, Frailes Industrial Park, Guaynabo, 00969, Puerto Rico (18.3698414, -66.1125080), to cover the sums adjudged to be paid to the plaintiff, the following property described in Spanish: URBANA: Propiedad Horizontal: Condominio Los Pinos de Carolina Norte. Apartamento: G-3 Oeste. Cabida: 55.58 metros cuadrados. Colindando el mismo por el NORTE, con el apartamento G dos Oeste; por el SUR, con el apartamento G cuatro Oeste; por el ESTE, con el patio central Sur del Condominio; y por el OESTE, con el pasillo central del piso, por donde tiene su puerta de entrada el apartamento por cuyo pasillo tiene salida el apartamento al vestíbulo central y a las demás áreas comunes del piso terrero de ambos edificios del condómino y a sus patios circundantes y a la calle en la colindancia Norte del solar. Le corresponde un área de estacionamiento marcado con el número y letra del apartamento. Enmendada la descripción Registral de este apartamento en cuanto a lo siguiente: que por error o inadvertencia en las operaciones Registrales al momento de individualizar este apartamento conforme a la escritura número 770, al Registro expresó incorrectamente el número del apartamento como 3-G Oeste, cuando lo correcto es que dicho apartamento fue descrito en la referida escritura como el apartamento G-3, Oeste, quedando nuevamente descrita la propiedad conforma a dicha escritura como se describió nuevamente al comienzo; según Instancia suscrita el día 20 de septiembre de 2015, ante la notario Frances I. Ascencio Guido, inscrito al tomo Karibe de Carolina, finca número 31,628, inscripción 7ma. The property is recorded at Page 127 of Volume 598 of Carolina, Property Registry of Puerto Rico, and lot number 31,628, First Section of Caguas. The deed of mortgage is recorded at Page 213 of Volume 941 of Carolina, Property Registry of Puerto Rico, and lot number 31,628, 6th inscription. Property address: Condominio Los Pinos, Apartamento G-3, Carolina, Puerto Rico 00979. The deed of mortgage is recorded at Page 213 of Volume 941 of Carolina, Property Registry of Carolina, Sixth Section. WHEREAS: This property is subject to the following liens: Senior Liens: NONE. Junior Liens: NONE. Other Liens: NONE. Potential bidders are advised to verify the extent of preferential liens with the holders thereof. It shall be understood that each bidder accepts as sufficient the title and that prior and preferential liens to the one being foreclosed upon, including but not limited to any property tax, liens, (express, tacit, implied or legal) shall continue in effect it
being understood further that the successful bidder accepts them and is subrogated in the responsibility for the same and that the bid price shall not be applied toward their cancellation. THEREFORE, the FIRST PUBLIC SALE shall be held on the JANUARY 10, 2025 AT 9:30 A.M. The minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum of $174,600.00. In the event, said first auction does not produce a bidder and the property is not adjudicated, a SECOND PUBLIC AUCTION shall be held on the JANUARY 17, 2025 AT 9:30 A.M., and the minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum $116,400.00, which is twothirds of the amount of the minimum bid for the first public sale. If a second auction does not result in the adjudication and sale of the property, a THIRD PUBLIC AUCTION will be held on the JANUARY 24, 2025 AT 9:30 A.M., and the minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum of $88,300.00, which is one-half of the minimum bid in the first public sale. Should there be no award or adjudication at the third public sale, the property may be awarded to the creditor for the entire amount of its debt if it is equal to or less than the amount of the minimum bid of the third public sale, crediting this amount to the amount owed if it is greater. The undersigned Special Master shall not accept in payment of the property to be sold anything but United States currency (cash), or certified checks, except in case the property is sold and adjudicated to the plaintiff, in which case the amount of the bid made by said plaintiff shall be credited and deducted from its credit; said plaintiff being bound to pay in cash or certified check only any excess of its bid over the secured indebtedness that remains unsatisfied. WHEREAS: Said sale to be made by the undersigned Special Master subject to confirmation by the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico and the deed of conveyance and possession to the property will be executed and delivered only after such confirmation. Upon confirmation of the sale, an order shall be issued cancelling all junior liens. For further particulars, reference is made to the judgment entered by the Court in this case, which can be examined in the Office of Clerk of the United States District Court, District of Puerto Rico. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, this 6 day of December, 2024. JOSEL RONDA, SPECIAL MASTER.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE CAROLINA SALA SUPERIOR DE CAROLINA
LESLLY LOPEZ OLIVERAS Y OTROS
Demandante V. SUCESION DE GLORIA
WINDA LOPEZ LEMA
COMPUESTA POR: ROSE
D. LEMA, BARBARA LEMA Y JAMES M. LEMA Y OTROS
Demandado(a) Caso Núm.: CA2024RF00637. (Civil: 408). Sobre: AUTORIZACIÓN JUDICIAL Y OTROS LIONY I. ANDRIÁN ENCHAUTEGUI EXPEDIENTESADRIAN@GMAIL. COM.
A: SUCESION DE GLORIA
WINDA LOPEZ LEMA COMPUESTA POR ROSE
D. LEMA, BARBARA LEMA Y JAMES M. LEMA. (Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 21 de noviembre 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 de 03 de diciembre de 2024. En Carolina, Puerto Rico, el 03 de diciembre de 2024. KANELLY ZAYAS ROBLES, SECRETARIA. KEILA GARCÍA SOLÍS, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE GUAYNABO THE MONEY HOUSE, INC. Demandante V. LA SUCESIÓN DE ROMUALDO RIVERA ANDRINI, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDO COMO ROMUALDO RIVERA, COMPUESTA POR MAURICIO RIVERA
FURQUET, RICARDO RIVERA FURQUET, CARLOS RIVERA
FURQUET, GERARDO RIVERA FURQUET Y FULANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS
DESCONOCIDOS CON INTERÉS EN LA SUCESIÓN; CENTRO DE RECAUDACIÓN DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM) Y ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA
Demandados Civil Núm.: GB2022CV00697. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. A: LA PARTE DEMANDADA, AL (A LA) SECRETARIO(A) DE HACIENDA DE PUERTO RICO Y AL PÚBLICO
GENERAL:
Certifico y Hago Constar: Que en cumplimiento con el Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que me ha sido dirigido por el (la) Secretario(a) del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Guaynabo en el caso de epígrafe procederá a vender en pública subasta al mejor postor en efectivo, cheque gerente, giro postal, cheque certificado en moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América al nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, en mi oficina ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Guaynabo, el 14 DE ENERO DE 2025 A LAS 10:20 DE LA MAÑANA, todo derecho título, participación o interés que le corresponda a la parte demandada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Propiedad Horizontal: Apartamiento número diez E (10-E), apartamiento localizado en el piso número diez (10), de forma irregular, situado en la esquina sureste del edificio denominado Condominio Torrimar Plaza (antes Altomar) y que consta de sala-comedor, tres (3) cuartos dormitorios con sus respectivos closets, uno de los cuales sirve de vestidor; dos (2) cuartos de baño, uno de los cuales tiene el lavamanos fuera de las paredes del área del baño, cocina con espacio para lavandería y closet de almacenamiento, además de un plafón lumínico colgante; en el espacio de la cocina se encuentran dos conductos de ventilación cuya área no se incluye en el área del apartamento, un balcón con espacio para la unidad de condensación de aire acondicionado central del apartamiento, en el pasillo, el cual tiene plafón colgante, se encuentran dos closets, uno de los cuales está ocupado por el calentador de agua y el evaporador del aire acondicionado central del apartamiento, todas las dependencias del mismo se comunican interiormente. Este apartamiento tiene acceso a
través de un vestíbulo común y un pasillo de uso común limitado que comunica directamente con la sala-comedor. Tiene un área aproximada de mil cuatrocientos siete punto cero pies (1407.0) pies cuadrados, equivalente a ciento treinta punto setenta y seis metros cuadrados, y colinda por el NORTE, con pared que lo separa del Apartamiento diez “F”; por el SUR, con el patio delantero, parte del mismo pavimentado para estacionamiento y área de rodaje de vehículos que lo separa del bloque número siete de la Urbanización Alturas de Torrimar; por el ESTE, con el patio lateral derecho donde se encuentra el área de parque, que lo separa del solar comercial de Alturas de Torrimar; y por el OESTE, con pared que lo separa del cuarto del incinerador y espacio para los dos ascensores. Le corresponde un derecho en común proindiviso de uno punto dieciocho por ciento (1.18%) y el espacio de estacionamiento con el número (41). Inscrita al folio 102 del tomo 579 de Guaynabo, finca número 24,188, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Guaynabo. La propiedad está localizada en #40 Calle 10, Torrimar Plaza Cond., Apt. 10-E, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico 00969. La propiedad objeto de ejecución no está gravada por cargas preferentes a la inscripción del crédito ejecutante. Según figura en la certificación registral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución está gravada por cargas posteriores a la inscripción del crédito ejecutante que se describe a continuación: HIPOTECA en garantía de pagaré a favor de El Secretario de la Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano, o a su orden, por la suma de $280,500.00 con intereses al 4.225% anual y vencimiento 30 de abril de 2089. Constituida por la escritura 68 otorgada en Guaynabo el 15 de marzo de 2016 ante el notario Rosa E. Permuy Calderón. Inscrita el 7 de abril de 2016, al Tomo Digital Karibe de la finca 24188 de Guaynabo, inscripción 9ª. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad de la propiedad y que todas las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito ejecutante antes descritos, si los hubiere, continuarán subsistentes. El rematante acepta dichas cargas y gravámenes anteriores, y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se establece como tipo mínimo de subasta la suma de $280,500.00, según acordado entre las partes en el precio pactado en la escritura de hipoteca. De ser necesaria una SEGUNDA SUBASTA por declararse desierta la primera, la misma se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Guaynabo, el 21 DE ENERO
DE 2025 A LAS 10:20 DE LA MAÑANA, y se establece como mínima para dicha segunda subasta la suma de $187,000.00 dos tercios (2/3) partes del tipo mínimo establecido originalmente. Si tampoco se produce remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se establece como mínima para la TERCERA SUBASTA, la suma de $140,250.00 la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado y dicha subasta se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Guaynabo el 28 DE ENERO DE 2025 A LAS 10:20 DE LA MAÑANA. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo para, con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandante, el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor ascendente a las siguientes cantidades: $113,696.94 por concepto de principal, más la suma de $56,832.12 en intereses acumulados al 31 de enero de 2024 y los cuales continúan acumulándose a razón de 3.284% anual hasta su total y completo pago; más la sumas de $19,299.08 en seguro hipotecario; $456.85 en seguro; $88.90 de contribuciones; $500.00 de tasaciones; $500.00 de inspecciones; $405.00 en tarifas de título; más la cantidad de 10% del pagaré original en la suma de $28,050.00, para gastos, costas y honorarios de abogado; así como cualquier otra suma que se haga en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca, todo ello de acuerdo a los términos de la Sentencia dictada, la cual es final y firme. Se notifica a todos los interesados que las actas y demás constancias del expediente de este caso están disponibles en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables para ser examinadas por los (las) interesados (as). Y para su publicación en el periódico The San Juan Daily Star, que es un diario de circulación general en la isla de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones, así como para su publicación en los sitios públicos de Puerto Rico. Expedido en Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, hoy día 4 de diciembre de 2024. ALG. HUGO BASCÓ MEDINA, PLACA #807, ALGUACIL DE SUBASTAS, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, CENTRO JUDICIAL DE GUAYNABO, SALA SUPERIOR. LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE GUAYNABO MORTGAGE ASSETS MANAGEMENT, LLC
Demandante V. LA SUCESIÓN DE HARRY BRAY PÉREZ, TAMBIÉN CONOCIDO COMO
HARRY BRAY Y COMO BRAY COMPUESTA POR HARRY SEGUNDO BRAY LEAL, ENRIQUE MANUEL BRAY LEAL; FULANO DE TAL Y FULANA DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS CON INTERÉS EN LA SUCESIÓN; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS
MUNICIPALES; ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA
Demandados Civil Núm.: GB2023CV00027. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. A: LA PARTE DEMANDADA, AL (A LA) SECRETARIO(A) DE HACIENDA DE PUERTO RICO Y AL PÚBLICO
GENERAL:
Certifico y Hago Constar: Que en cumplimiento con el Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que me ha sido dirigido por el (la) Secretario(a) del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Guaynabo en el caso de epígrafe procederá a vender en pública subasta al mejor postor en efectivo, cheque gerente, giro postal, cheque certificado en moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América al nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, en mi oficina ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Guaynabo, el 14 DE ENERO DE 2025 A LAS 9:40 DE LA MAÑANA, todo derecho título, participación o interés que le corresponda a la parte demandada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar radicado en la Urbanización Torrimar, situada en el Barrio Pueblo Viejo de Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, marcado con el número diecisiete (17) de la Manzana once (11), con un área de seiscientos (600.00) metros cuadrados; en lindes por el NORTE, con el Solar número dieciséis (16), en treinta (30.00) metros; por el SUR, con el Solar número dieciocho (18), en treinta (30.00) metros; por el ESTE, con el Solar número veintisiete (27), en veinte (20.00) metros; y por el OESTE, con la Calle número cinco (5), en veinte (20.00) metros. Enclava una casa. Consta inscrita al folio 230 del tomo 200 de Guaynabo, finca número 13,310, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Guaynabo. Propiedad localizada en: 11-17 Salamanca St., Torrimar Dev., Guaynabo
PR 00966. La propiedad objeto de ejecución no está gravada por cargas preferentes a la inscripción del crédito ejecutante. Según figura en la certificación registral, la propiedad objeto de ejecución está gravada por cargas posteriores a la inscripción del crédito ejecutante que se describe a continuación: HIPOTECA en garantía de pagaré a favor de El Secretario de la Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano, o a su orden, por la suma de $630,000.00 con intereses al 5.560% anual y vencimiento 18 de junio de 2075. Constituida por la escritura 74 otorgada en San Juan el 7 de septiembre de 2010 ante el notario José García Noya. Inscrita el 19 de mayo de 2011, al folio 198 del tomo 1457 de Guaynabo, finca 13310, inscripción 7ª. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad de la propiedad y que todas las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito ejecutante antes descritos, si los hubiere, continuarán subsistentes. El rematante acepta dichas cargas y gravámenes anteriores, y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se establece como tipo mínimo de subasta la suma de $630,000.00, según acordado entre las partes en el precio pactado en la escritura de hipoteca. De ser necesaria una SEGUNDA SUBASTA por declararse desierta la primera, la misma se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Guaynabo, el 21 DE ENERO DE 2025 A LAS 9:40 DE LA MAÑANA, y se establece como mínima para dicha segunda subasta la suma de $420,000.00 dos tercios (2/3) partes del tipo mínimo establecido originalmente. Si tampoco se produce remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se establece como mínima para la TERCERA SUBASTA, la suma de $315,000.00 la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado y dicha subasta se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Guaynabo el 28 DE ENERO DE 2025 A LAS 9:40 DE LA MAÑANA. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo para, con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandante, el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor ascendente a las siguientes cantidades: $304,773.69 por concepto de principal, más la suma de $359,406.41 en intereses acumulados al 25 de abril de 2024, y los cuales continúan acumulándose a razón de 5.560% anual hasta su total y completo pago, y otros gastos acumulados. La suma global vencida, líquida y exigible, al incluir intereses y otros gastos acumulados, asciende a $715,676.76, más la cantidad líquida estipulada en los documentos del préstamo para costas, gastos y honorarios de
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Dodgers’ use of deferred deals masks reality of their advantage
By EVAN DRELLICH / THE ATHLETIC
To Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations for the Los Angeles Dodgers, complaints about the $1 billion in salary deferrals given out by the team’s owners are “kind of a lazy narrative.”
Fans of 29 teams seem to believe that the World Series-champion Dodgers can sign every player they want by pushing salary payments into the future. The Dodgers, rival fans say, are using deferrals to build a super team.
But Friedman does not have a projected $309 million payroll for luxury-tax purposes in 2025, the highest in the league per Cot’s Contracts, because of some play-now, paylater plans. In the case of the Dodgers, a rich team is absolutely getting richer, and deferrals might help a bit, but they mask what’s really going on.
The Dodgers are doing what the best bigmarket clubs always do: They are outspending everyone, unapologetically.
As The Associated Press reported, from 2028 to 2046, the team will owe seven players more than $1 billion combined, although Shohei Ohtani’s contract accounts for roughly two-thirds of that total.
“If you set the Shohei contract aside, the rest are within the norm and standard operating procedure that a lot of teams have done,” Friedman said. “The Shohei one is just jarring to people because it’s so different, and I think the others just unfairly get lumped into that. But I think it’s kind of a lazy narrative. I don’t spend too much time on it, and I’m not really worried about it.”
Some of the consternation is probably owed to the opaque nature of how deferrals actually work.
Deferrals are explicitly allowed in the collective bargaining agreement between players and owners. Although owners attempted to remove them during the 2021-22 negotiations, it wasn’t a big issue at the time. Deferrals are also accounted for in baseball’s luxury tax system.
For example, the Dodgers delivered just $2 million of Ohtani’s $70 million salary in 2024, with the remaining $68 million to be paid out a decade later. Yet, MLB considers Ohtani’s salary for luxury-tax purposes to be $46 million. That number isn’t arbitrary; it’s a calculation of what Ohtani’s salary is worth today.
Deferred money also cannot be deferred for as long as some might think. According to the collective bargaining agreement, virtually all of the deferred money has to be put aside no more than a year and a half after the relevant season.
If a player’s 2024 salary was deferred, it doesn’t matter whether he’s to be paid out in 2030 or 2040 or later — the team needs to put that money aside no later than July 2026 and keep it cordoned off until payment is made.
That means that by July 2026, the Dodgers have to account for virtually all of the remaining $68 million that Ohtani is owed for the 2024 season, even though he will still be eight years away from collecting it. By July 2027, they will have to do the same thing for his 2025 salary, and so on.
With any deferred contract, there’s a key number to review: the estimated present-day value of the deal. That figure allows for easy comparison of contracts both with and without deferrals.
“It’s all net present value,” Scott Boras, the agent of LA’s newly acquired pitcher Blake Snell, said at Dodger Stadium this past week.
Any of those present-value figures show that the Dodgers are still paying huge money. Ohtani’s average annual salary for tax purposes, $46 million, is a record, although Juan Soto could break it.
The five-year, $182 million deal that Snell signed included $66 million deferred and a $52 million signing bonus. His deal is worth $157 million in present value as calculated by baseball’s luxury-tax system, a $31.4 million hit annually.
Ultimately, Snell wasn’t ripped away from another team because the Dodgers were willing to do deferrals and other teams weren’t.
He signed in LA because, as Boras put it, “he received a market-value offer from the team he desired the most.”
“If you get a $52 million signing bonus, deferrals are good,” Boras quipped.
Friedman said that deferrals have been most useful in closing deals, but he stops short of describing them as a full-fledged strategy.
“It’s just a lever,” he said.
The Dodgers would be expected to flex their financial muscle regardless of whether deferrals were allowed. The owners proposed getting rid of them when the 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement was negotiated, while the players wanted them to remain. Those positions will probably be the same when the next deal is negotiated, although clearly some owners don’t mind the system.
Other owners, however, feel strongly that it’s the wrong way to do business.
Arte Moreno of the Los Angeles Angels was not interested in the structure the Dodgers gave Ohtani — a unique player who himself wanted deferrals in part for potential tax benefits.
“In sport, we want the excitement of intellect to operate,” Boras said when asked if deferrals should remain. “When we have rules that prevent certain owners from doing certain things, you get the vanilla of what you see in the NBA and the NFL. Here you have chances for Goliaths. Goliaths, I think in the game, are always good. Why? Because the answer is: There’s love and hate, and that’s part of sport. I think it makes it more exciting.”
Savvy ownership groups can actually make some money by delaying payments.
ed” means a team “must have funded, for the duration of and without interruption in each year, the current present value of the then outstanding deferred payments, discounted by 5% annually.”
Owners have some choice in how they hold the money, though. Teams can invest deferred salary — although they have to be careful what investments they choose — and keep the returns.
What’s unclear right now is whether the heavy use of deferrals is a Dodgers phenomenon or something that will spread throughout the league. Players elsewhere have occasionally taken such deals before, but there have never been so many examples on one club.
The collective bargaining agreement says a team’s deferred salary “must be fully funded by the club, in an amount equal to the present value of the total deferred compensation obligation, on or before the second July 1 following the championship season in which the deferred compensation is earned.”
The agreement goes on to say that “fully fund-
At first glance, it would seem that deferrals are a tool mostly reserved for both the top players and the most well-heeled teams. It’s easier for top players to defer money, since they have more of it, and it’s easier for bigmarket teams to sign top players. The Dodgers’ cash flow allows them to be creative in a way other owners might consider impossible. Not every team would be as comfortable giving Snell a $52 million signing bonus, even with $66 million in deferrals. But there’s still probably room for others with less financial might to play in the sandbox.
At the end of the day, complaints about the Dodgers and deferrals might be a repackaging of an age-old gripe in the sport: that a big-market team, and any team, can spend as much or as little as it wishes.
The San Juan Daily Star
Blake Snell, seen here delivering a pitch as a starter for the San Francisco Giants, signed a five-year, $182 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers that included $66 million deferred and a $52 million signing bonus. (Reddit via X)
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