The San Juan Daily Star, the only paper with News Service in English in Puerto Rico, publishes 7 days a week, with a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday edition, along with a Weekend Edition to cover Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
By THE STAR STAFF
The federal Title III bankruptcy court will hold a disclosure statement hearing today to determine the adequacy of the document’s contents in explaining the plan to restructure close to $10 billion in Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) debt. The hearing will take place over a day after the Financial Oversight and Management Board submitted late Sunday to the court a second amended version of the debt adjustment plan. A protest organized by PREPA workers and others opposing rate hikes to pay the debt is expected to take place in front of the federal court today.
At least 12 groups of creditors are expected to object to the disclosure statement as they have said PREPA’s debt adjustment plan is unconfirmable and in violation of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA). Opponents argued, mainly, that the disclosure statement provides no basis for the wide disparities in recoveries among holders of the same bonds. Creditors in the same class are supposed to receive the same amount in recoveries.
Lawyers Zoé Negrón and Rolando Emmanuelli said in a recent podcast that PREPA’s restructuring is more important than the commonwealth restructuring, because the cost of energy impacts the entire island economy. At today’s hearing U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain is expected to hear arguments on the adequacy of the contents of the disclosure statement, but the plan will not be confirmed until the summer.
The oversight board has not been able to reach a settlement with bondholders and monoline insurers of bonds, except for National Public Finance Guarantee Corp. It has settled with fuel line lenders and Vitol, among others.
Currently, PREPA is in mediation with several bondholders that hold $3.9 billion (or over 47% of all uninsured bonds) and monoline insurers of insured bonds, but has not included many other bondholders. Therefore, the oversight board has formulated the latest amended debt adjustment plan to try to foster settlement of bond claims and to provide a settlement opportunity for all bondholders, including those who have not participated in the mediation.
The new plan proposes to cut PREPA’s more than $10 billion of debt and other claims by almost half, to approximately $5.68 billion. The new plan offers to pay only 56 cents for settling bondholders and bond insurers if they win all litigation related to the validity of the security of their claims and only 50 cents on the dollar if they settle their claims. Bondholders have said
PREPA can pay more.
A so-called legacy charge for certain electric power customers not currently benefiting from subsidized electricity rates would be, on average, about $19 a month. The PREPA legacy charge, which will be used to pay bondholders, would exclude qualifying lowincome residential customers from a connection fee and kilowatt-hour (kWh) charge for up to 500 kWh per month. For non-subsidized residential customers, the proposed PREPA legacy charge would be: a flat $13 per month connection fee, and 75 cents per kWh for up to 500 kWh per month of electricity provided by PREPA, and 3 cents per kWh for electricity above 500 kWh per month.
For commercial, industrial, and government customers, the proposed PREPA legacy charge would entail: a connection fee of between $16.25 for small business customers, $20 per month for smaller industrial companies, and $1,800 per month for large businesses proportional to their current rate. They would pay between 97 cents and 3 cents per kWh per month for electricity provided by PREPA.
“No one is saved from these rate hikes,” the attorney Emmanuelli said. “Even those who have energy subsidies will feel the rate hikes in the increase of products that we buy because this is going to increase the cost of living.”
The debt adjustment plan also proposes to convert the power utility’s pension system from a defined contribution to a defined benefit plan. It also would raise the retirement age and eliminate cost of living adjustments for the pension system. Pension officials have said the retirement system, which is owed almost $900 million, could become insolvent by May.
On Monday, Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia said he was not going to allow cuts to pensions.
The new debt adjustment plan proposes to cut the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s over $10 billion of debt and other claims by almost half, to approximately $5.68 billion.
Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia and Housing Secretary William Rodríguez Rodríguez gave 100 Puerto Rico families the keys to new houses built under the Housing Repair, Reconstruction or Relocation Program (R3).
Funded with Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program funds, the R3 Program has served more than 7,500 families, of which 5,000 have received a completely rebuilt or repaired house.
“The R3 Program, which rebuilds, repairs or relocates families whose homes were affected or destroyed by hurricanes Irma and Maria, is one of the most important tools to guarantee decent housing for our people,” the governor said. “Through the program, we have rebuilt over 5,000 residences in the past two years, and over 1,200 additional properties are under construction. I am honored to be part of this moment in which we are handing over the keys to their homes to over 100 Puerto Rican families, marking a moment of great importance for their well-being and future.”
Rodríguez stated that “without a doubt, this day is significant for all of us who work in the Department of Housing and for each family that today receives the keys to a safe home.”
“Since we came to lead the department, our priority has been to streamline all processes so that the recovery
funds serve their purpose,” he said. “With this delivery, we see the result of long months of work; today, we celebrate with each family.”
After achieving full access to recovery funds and gaining the federal government’s trust, Rodríguez said, the governing administration has made adjustments that allow for significant numbers of home deliveries. Among the adjustments established at the programmatic level are a change in the chronology of the process, allowing the execution of three steps simultaneously. Design and permitting are now concurrent with the environmental assessment.
The Housing secretary added that “this is the satisfactory culmination of a process that began with the painful impact of the hurricanes but has ended with the satisfaction of a better quality of life for thousands of Puerto Ricans.”
Pierluisi noted that at the start of his administration, there were fewer than 500 residences delivered.
“Today, we can say that we have served 7,500 families because we have acted with agility and efficiency to make use of the federal funds that we have available, and thanks to the relationship we have with the administration of President Biden that has allowed us to make processes more flexible to move ahead on the reconstruction,” the governor said.
Given the complaints that the Toa Alta municipal administration has removed land in the Bucarabones Valley Agricultural Reserve without authorizations or permits from the relevant agencies, in clear violation of agricultural and environmental laws and regulations, Rep. Yazzer Morales Díaz announced Monday the filing of a resolution to investigate the situation urgently.
“Within the geographical demarcation of the Municipality of Toa Alta, spaces have been designated to be conserved as natural areas of ecological and agricultural importance. Among these, we can mention the Bucarabones Valley Agricultural Reserve,” Morales Díaz said. “However, it has become common knowledge that the current municipal administration of Toa Alta has dedicated itself to removing part of the topsoil from the reserve without having the authorizations, endorsements or permits of the regulatory agencies of Puerto Rico, in clear violation of the applicable environmental laws and regulations.”
“The Mayor alleges that he has permits granted by the Land Authority and the Department of Agriculture; presumably, they are to enter the farm,” the New Progressive Party (District 9, Toa Alta and Bayamón) lawmaker said. “However, the aforementioned government entities are not called upon to grant permits to extract topsoil or perform other types of construction, such as the one intended to be done in Toa Alta within the lands of a nature reserve. This is something we have to investigate deeply.”
The measure orders the House Agriculture Committee to conduct the referenced investigation and submit a detailed report within 120 calendar days.
Various news media have reported that the Municipality of Toa Alta is currently using heavy machinery to create a road in the agricultural reserve, which is classified as protected rustic land because of its high natural fertility.
Agronomist Ian Pagán Roig said that due to the removal of topsoil and deforestation -- the latter done without any permission from the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources -- agricultural
land and numerous streams, including the Bucarabones River itself, have already been impacted. In fact, he added, the affected lands are public lands that belong to the Puerto Rico Land Authority.
The legislator noted that the situation arose after highway PR-861 suffered two cave-ins during Hurricane Fiona and after a
landslide that was never addressed following Hurricane Maria. The increased volume of traffic on the only alternate route, highway PR-2, supposedly pushed the Municipality of Toa Alta to venture to create the environmentally chaotic situation, which endangers one of the few agricultural reserves in the town, Morales Díaz said.
The Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER) will not be able to convert the site where the Mayagüez Zoo is located into “something else” because the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) lent the agency the land in “usufructo” (use and enjoyment) to build the zoo and will not allow other uses, the spokeswoman for the Save the Dr. Juan A. Rivero Zoo Foundation told the STAR.
Linnette Matos said Monday that she was at a recent meeting in which UPR officials said they will try to get the land back if the zoo is closed. UPR officials only said to the STAR that they do not have access to the zoo.
DNER Secretary Anaís Rodríguez Vega said in a radio interview that the agency will permanently close the Dr. Juan A. Rivero Zoo and transfer all animals that are in good condition to different sanctuaries in the continental United States.
Rodríguez Vega said the agency decided to develop a “new concept” in the space occupied by the zoo.
“There is going to be a reconstruction and recovery project and, with that, a completely new concept, where it is envisioned not having animals,” Rodríguez Vega said.
She did not provide reasons for the closing, but Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia said they wanted to avoid problems with federal officials. Federal agents and personnel from various agencies and veterinarians visited the facility over the weekend.
“Because we want to avoid unnecessary controversies. There have been accusations [for animal cruelty)] for a long time,” the governor said in response to questions from the press. “The same federal authorities had made accusations in the past. Among others, the [U.S.] Fish and Wildlife Service, and the federal Department of Agriculture. At one point, during the past administration, there was even a special commission that made findings and recommendations to us.”
Pierluisi said action will also be taken with the animals found in the Cambalache area. Those who can be moved to other places will be moved; those who cannot will remain in the facilities under veterinary care and if the federal authorities authorize it, some of them may be euthanized.
He noted that officials are coordinating efforts with a sanctuary in the state of Colorado.
The area will be turned into an educational or recreational facility, he said. Matos, the zoo foundation spokeswoman, said the government can’t do whatever it wants
with the property because it does not own it. She also said there have never been any criminal charges brought against the zoo.
Opened in 1954, the zoo sits on about 86 forested acres in the town of Mayagüez. About 600 species of animals made it their home. It eventually featured everything from an aviary to arthropods.
Over the decades, its quality declined. By the early 2010s, unhappy visitors complained about dirty bathrooms; small, unkempt cages; undernourished animals; an ostrich missing its feathers; and lions with open wounds.
In 2017, a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture made certain observations. The document noted that the zoo’s fencing was inadequate, it was storing expired medication for its animals, and observers had spotted evidence of rodents.
Then, in September of that year, hurricanes Irma and Maria hit Puerto Rico, battering the zoo’s protective fencing, toppling trees, uprooting asphalt and cement, and wrecking the fiber-optic network, security cameras, air conditioners, power poles and inflicting other damage.
The zoo shut down and has not reopened in five years.
The decision to shutter the zoo forever came after different animal rights groups protested in front of the zoo,
demanding the closure of the “cruel place.” The island Legislature is also evaluating a bill that would virtually ban zoos in Puerto Rico.
“At Vínculo Animal PR, along with other animal organizations, we have not stopped pointing out the horror of this place and we have presented innumerable alternatives for sanctuaries so that all animals can have a dignified life,” said Sahir Pujols, president of Animal Link PR. “For this reason, beyond protests and press releases, we also participated in the public hearings in favor of [Senate Bill] 1041 held last week where evidence was found that the DNER does not have the capacity to maintain the zoo.”
Matos defended the zoo caretakers against allegations of animal cruelty.
“The caretakers have always taken care of the animals,” she said. “We have never seen any mistreatment.”
The closing of the zoo represents the loss of a significant research, educational and tourism facility for the region, Matos added.
The Foundation has always been available to provide medication and veterinary care to the animals. However, the DNER has rejected help from the Foundation since March of last year, Matos said.
Nonetheless, she was surprised by the government’s decision to close the zoo permanently because the Foundation has provided alternatives to the agencies, including establishing a public-private partnership with UPR and the Foundation to operate and maintain the zoo.
Matos noted contradictions in what the DNER secretary said because on the one hand, she said there will not be a zoo but on the other, they will also keep animals.
“It appears that they don’t know what they are doing,” Matos said.
Mayagüez’s interim mayor, Jorge Ramos Ruiz, said he learned of the closing through the media.
He said La Fortaleza Chief of Staff Noelia García told him that they are still in the process of evaluating each and every one of the species, and then making an individual determination on how to proceed with each of the animals.
“The Mayagüez Zoo has always been an axis of economic and tourist development in the region, so sustainable alternatives should be sought to continue using existing facilities,” Ramos Ruiz said, “this always taking into account the well-being of our animals. The Municipality of Mayagüez and this mayor, we have always been and we will be willing to collaborate in that effort.”
With laughter, New Progressive Party (NPP) President Gov, Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia reacted on Monday to the general assembly held a day earlier by the Popular Democratic Party (PDP) in Trujillo Alto.
“What I saw is that the call and attendance was weak,” the governor said in response to questions from the press.
“It speaks for itself. According to the media themselves and the newspaper reports I saw, they barely reached 2,000 people there; that is very weak.”
On Sunday, the PDP held its general assembly in which the members of the new governing board of the “red party” were chosen and ballot positions were established for the May 7 party presidential vote.
The STAR reported Monday that the PDP had not completed balloting for the new governing board of di-
rectors as of press time Sunday. As of press time Monday, the party had not responded to a request for a list of new governing board members.
This Sunday, the New Progressive Party will hold an assembly at Roberto Clemente Coliseum in Hato Rey to, among other things, ratify the party’s vice presidents, namely Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González Colón, Sen. Thomas Rivera Schatz and Rep. Carlos “Johnny” Méndez Núñez.
As part of his agenda to advance statehood in the U.S. capital, Rep. José Aponte Hernández was to leave Monday afternoon for Washington, D.C. for a series of meetings with members of Congress.
Fellow New Progressive Party (NPP) Reps. Ángel Morey Noble and José “Che” Pérez Cordero were to travel with the former speaker of the island House of Representatives.
“Continuing our efforts in favor of equal rights for the residents of Puerto Rico, today we will be leaving for the federal capital, where we will hold a series of meetings with members of Congress, as well as officials, both from the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, to emphasize the urgency of completing the process that began in 1917 with the signing of the federal Jones-Shafroth (Jones) Act,” Aponte said.
“This is a new Congress, divided, as
the Senate is controlled by Democrats and the House of Representatives by Republicans,” he added. “In both bodies,
the majority is only a handful of votes. Puerto Rico, being a colony, the oldest in the world, does not have the right to
vote; that is what we want to change. Both Republicans and Democrats need to understand that the time has come to give us the equal rights that can only be achieved with statehood.”
“Our message will be one: the issue of Puerto Rico has to be one of the priorities of the congressional leadership from both national parties,” said Aponte Hernández, who also serves as the NPP’s assistant secretary for ideological affairs. “It is time to conclude the path that began on March 2, 1917; it is time to grant us statehood.”
The trip comes during the week that commemorates American Citizenship Day. The two-time NPP secretary general will be back on the island to participate in Thursday’s events celebrating American citizenship.
As part of the activities, the NPP’s Statehood Mission Institute will be making a radio broadcast between 4 and 6 p.m. on Borinquen Radio 680 AM, as well as on the social network Facebook.
After the expanded distribution of Medalla Light in the mainland United States during the past year, Cervecera de Puerto Rico announced on Monday its first new distribution territory in 2023 with the arrival of Puerto Rican beer in Ohio and North Carolina.
“For everyone on the Brewery team, it is a source of great joy to share the news that our product will be available in two other states in the [eastern] United States, an effort we started five years ago and which already totals 18 states
or territories,” said Jorge Bracero, chief marketing officer of Cervecera de Puerto Rico, in a written statement. “In each new market we receive a great reception from retailers and consumers, which encourages us to move forward. Once again we are confident that our product will receive a great reception for its solid reputation and quality.”
Medalla Light will be available in 10-ounce cans, and in 7 oz. and 12 oz. bottle packs. In the case of Ohio, where an estimated 130,75 Puerto Ricans reside, Medalla Light will be distributed to various establishments by The House of LaRose, a company with a solid five-year history that serves more than 200,110 customers in eight counties in northeastern Ohio.
“The LaRose family has operated our [distribution] business believing that both customers and employees are essential to long-term success,” said James P. LaRose, president and chief operating officer. “We are proud and excited that Medalla Light is now a part of our history.”
Meanwhile, the company Que Chulada (QC) will be responsible for the distribution of Medalla Light in North Carolina, where the Puerto Rican community, as well as other lovers of good beer, is served by some 80,000 establishments. QC’s leading team has many years of experience in the market and currently serves more of it than any other merchant in North Carolina.
“We are very excited about the idea of working with Cervecera de Puerto Rico,” QC owner Licelot Ortiz said. “The Puerto Rican community has had growth in recent
years in our state and is a great community that supports their brands and products.”
Medalla Light is also distributed in Florida, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Wisconsin, Tennessee, Illinois and Georgia.
New intelligence has prompted the Energy Department to conclude that an accidental laboratory leak in China most likely caused the coronavirus pandemic, although U.S. spy agencies remain divided over the origins of the virus, U.S. officials said Sunday.
The conclusion was a change from the department’s earlier position that it was undecided on how the virus emerged.
Some officials briefed on the intelligence said that it was relatively weak and that the Energy Department’s conclusion was made with “low confidence,” suggesting its level of certainty was not high. While the department shared the information with other agencies, none of them changed their conclusions, officials said.
Officials would not disclose what the intelligence was. But many of the Energy Department’s insights come from its network of national laboratories, some of which conduct biological research, rather than more traditional forms of intelligence like spy networks or communications intercepts.
Intelligence officials believe the scrutiny of the pandemic’s beginnings could be important to improving global response to future health crises, although they caution that finding an answer about the source of the virus may be difficult or even impossible given Chinese opposition to further research. Scientists say there is a responsibility to explain how a pandemic that has killed almost 7 million people started, and learning more about its origins could help researchers understand what poses the biggest threats of future outbreaks.
The new intelligence and the shift in the department’s view was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.
Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, declined to confirm the intelligence. But he said President Joe Biden had ordered that the national labs be brought into the effort to determine the origins of the outbreak so that the government was using “every tool” it had.
In addition to the Energy Department, the FBI has also concluded, with moderate confidence, that the virus first emerged accidentally from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a Chinese lab that worked on coronaviruses. Four other intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council have concluded, with low confidence, that the virus most likely emerged through natural transmission, the director of
national intelligence’s office announced in October 2021.
Sullivan said those divisions remain.
“There is a variety of views in the intelligence community,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “Some elements of the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, some on the other. A number of them have said they just don’t have enough information to be sure.”
Sullivan said if more information was learned, the administration would report it to Congress and the public. “But right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question,” he said.
Some scientists believe that the current evidence, including virus genes, points to a large food and live animal market in Wuhan as the most likely place the coronavirus emerged.
Leaders of the intelligence community are set to brief Congress on March 8 and 9 as part of annual hearings on global threats. Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, and other senior officials would most likely be asked about the continuing inquiry into the virus’s origins.
How the pandemic began has become a divisive line of intelligence reporting, and recent congressional reports have not been bipartisan.
Many Democrats have not been persua-
ded by the lab leak hypothesis, with some saying they believe the natural causes explanation and others saying they are not certain that enough intelligence will emerge to draw a conclusion.
But many Republicans on Capitol Hill have said they believe the virus could have come from one of China’s research labs in Wuhan. A congressional subcommittee, created when Republicans took over the House in January, has made examining the lab leak theory a central focus of its work, and is expected to convene the first of a series of hearings in March.
“Evidence has been piling up for over a year in favor of the lab leak hypothesis,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., who sits on the House Intelligence Committee and leads a new House committee on China. “I am glad
some of our agencies are starting to listen to common sense and change their assessment.”
Today, Gallagher will hold the new committee’s first hearing, looking at the threat the Chinese Communist Party poses to the United States. Future hearings, Gallagher said, will look at biosecurity and China’s efforts to influence international organizations like the World Health Organization.
“Where our committee can have a role is teasing out what this communicates about the DNA of the Chinese Communist Party, an organization that was willing to cover up the origins of the pandemic and thereby cost us critical days, months and weeks and millions of lives in the process,” Gallagher said in an interview Sunday.
Chinese officials have repeatedly called the lab leak hypothesis a lie that has no basis in science and is politically motivated.
Early in the Biden administration, the president ordered the intelligence agencies to investigate the pandemic’s origins, after criticism of a WHO report on the matter. While there was material that had not been thoroughly examined by intelligence officials, the review ultimately did not yield any new consensus inside the agencies.
The March 2021 report by the WHO said it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus emerged accidentally from a lab. But China appointed half the scientists who wrote the report and exerted major control over it. U.S. officials have been largely dismissive of that work.
The intelligence agencies have said they do not believe there is any evidence that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was created deliberately as a biological weapon. But they have said that whether it emerged naturally, perhaps from a market in Wuhan, or escaped accidentally from a lab is the subject of legitimate debate.
At least a dozen people were injured in Oklahoma after two tornadoes rushed through the state Sunday evening, authorities said.
Forecasters said one tornado was reported near Norman, Oklahoma, about 20 miles south of Oklahoma City, and another in the west-central part of the state.
The tornadoes were part of a powerful storm system that packed severe gusts as it moved northeast from the Texas Panhandle.
At a news conference Monday morning, Chief Kevin Foster of the Norman Police Department said at least 12 people had been injured during the storms, although none of the injuries were life-threatening.
Foster said the storms had left a trail of destruction across Norman, damaging homes, businesses and schools. Several roads were also closed because of downed power lines, he said.
The storms were so powerful that a vehicle was flipped on top of another, according to News9, a local television station. Video from another local news outlet,
KOCO-TV, showed buildings, including a barn with horses still inside, that had their roofs ripped off by the storms.
The National Weather Service office in Norman, which had been closely monitoring the weather system, concluded Sunday evening’s storm coverage: “Well it’s been a day.”
A third tornado toppled trees and power lines and damaged a home in Liberal, Kansas, according to Marc Chenard, a me -
teorologist for the weather service.
As of Monday morning, more than 16,000 customers in Oklahoma were without power, according to PowerOutage.us, which aggregates data from utilities across the United States. A small number of electrical outages were also reported in Missouri and Texas.
Wind gusts of 114 mph were recorded in Hall County, Texas, Chenard said. The weather service also reported widespread
gusts ranging from 70-90 mph in southwest Oklahoma.
In McLean, a town 75 miles east of Amarillo, Texas, people were warned by the weather service Sunday evening to take cover from a possible tornado.
The storm system had been expected to develop into a derecho, a windstorm extending more than 240 miles with a line of fast-moving thunderstorms, according to the weather service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman.
The weather service had described the storm, which affected a large portion of Oklahoma, as posing a “moderate” risk, the second-highest ranking.
The flurry of advisories, watches and warnings for severe weather that were issued across the state have all since expired. However, breezy conditions were expected to continue through the afternoon.
The weather threat will shift toward the Midwest, with parts of Illinois and Ohio under a slight risk of severe thunderstorms, the Storm Prediction Center said. The thunderstorms may produce damaging wind gusts across the Ohio Valley and may also spawn tornadoes across the state.
Two backcountry skiers who had gone missing Saturday in southern Colorado were found buried under
the snow Sunday after rescue teams used cellphone records and followed ski tracks to locate their bodies, authorities said.
The skiers, both men, were reported missing just after 9 p.m. Saturday and
their bodies were found under several feet of snow by 4 a.m. Sunday, the Colorado Search & Rescue Association said in a statement. They were south of the Vallecito Reservoir, a recreation area about 20 miles northeast of Durango, Colorado, that is part of the San Juan National Forest and is close to the border between Colorado and New Mexico.
The two skiers, whose identities had not been released by Sunday night, left for the outing about 7 a.m. Saturday and were expected to return at noon the same day.
BALANCEO, ALINEAMIENTO, PROGRAMACIÓN DE SENSORES DE GOMAS, MECÁNICA LIVIANA, REPARAMOS AROS
The La Plata County Sheriff’s Office located a truck that the skiers had been driving on the southern end of the lake, and ground and helicopter crews continued the search, the statement from the rescue group said.
The helicopter crew spotted the ski tracks at 11:42 p.m. Saturday, having employed a radar signal that is part of rescue technology used to locate people buried
under snow or lost outdoors.
Avalanche danger had been deemed “moderate” for the area Saturday, rating a 2 on a scale of 1-5, according to a forecast from the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.
Also in the southern mountains of Colorado, a snowmobiler was caught, carried and injured by an avalanche at Wolf Creek Pass, the Colorado Avalanche Information Center said Sunday.
So far, 12 people have died as a result of avalanches in the United States in the 2022-23 winter season, with three of those incidents reported in Colorado. Those previous deaths from avalanches in Colorado involved snowmobilers, climbers and people touring the backcountry.
For the 2021-22 winter season, 17 deaths caused by avalanches were reported in Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, down from 37 in the previous season.
When the Supreme Court hears arguments today in a challenge from six Republican-led states to President Joe Biden’s plan to wipe out more than $400 billion in student debt, the first question it will explore is not whether the plan is lawful. It will be whether the states are even entitled to sue.
For most of American history, partisan lawsuits by states challenging federal programs were rare. That changed after a 2007 Supreme Court decision gave states “special solicitude” in determining when they have standing to sue, and the trend has been amplified by a rising partisan divide among state attorneys general.
“State politicians are using state standing as a way of waging what are political or policy battles against the current administration in court as opposed to through the political process,” said Jonathan H. Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University. “There is good reason to think that this special solicitude stuff has kind of gotten out of hand and it needs to be curtailed. But it’s hard to curtail it in a way that doesn’t come across as opportunistic for one side or the other.”
Partisan lawsuits by states challenging federal actions, which thrust the judiciary into all manner of political controversies and boost its power, have exploded in recent years, said Paul Nolette, a political scientist at Marquette University. He said the surge in such cases started after 2014, in the final years of Barack Obama’s presidency.
“It’s a reflection of the overall increase in polarization in American politics,” he said.
There were 12 multistate lawsuits brought by Republican state attorneys general against the administration in Obama’s first term and 46 in his second term, according to data compiled by Nolette. In former President Donald Trump’s single term, Democratic attorneys general filed 155 such suits. And Republican attorneys general have filed 56 such suits against the Biden administration so far.
The lawsuits have addressed matters
ranging from fuel emissions to transgender rights, from the census to the border wall, from migratory birds to horse racing.
Still, states can sue only when they can show they have suffered direct and concrete injuries. And while the Supreme Court may have relaxed that requirement, it has not abandoned it.
In the student loan case, Adler said, “the standing question is probably going to dominate the oral argument.”
The lead lawsuit against the program, which forgives up to $20,000 in debt for millions of federal borrowers, was filed by the six states: Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina. They argue that Biden overstepped his authority under a 2003 federal law that allows the education secretary to modify financial assistance programs for students “in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency.”
Judge Henry E. Autrey of the U.S. District Court in St. Louis dismissed the suit on standing grounds.
“While plaintiffs present important and significant challenges to the debt relief plan,” the judge wrote, “the current plaintiffs are unable to proceed to the resolution of these challenges.”
A federal appeals court blocked the program, focusing on the possibility that a nonprofit entity that services federal loans, the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, might fail to make payments to Missouri if the program were allowed to proceed.
In the Supreme Court, the states are also arguing that the loan forgiveness program would cause their tax revenues to fall. “If those arguments are accepted, it would broaden state standing in extraordinary ways,” said Tara Leigh Grove, a law professor at the University of Texas and the author of a law review article on lawsuits states have brought against the federal government.
The 2007 decision, Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, was a liberal victory that required the Bush administration to address climate change by a 5-4 vote. It included a cryptic phrase, saying that states are “entitled to special solicitude in our standing analysis.”
That elicited one of Chief Justice
John Roberts’ most memorable dissents. Relaxing standing requirements “because asserted injuries are pressed by a state,” the chief justice wrote, “has no basis in our jurisprudence.”
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito joined the chief justice’s dissent, as did Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016.
Two law professors who say Biden’s student loan forgiveness program is unlawful nonetheless filed a brief supporting the administration and urging the justices to reject the states’ challenge on standing grounds.
“There is danger in countenancing extravagant theories of state standing that have exploded in the wake of this court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA,” wrote the professors, Samuel L. Bray of the University of Notre Dame and William Baude of the University of Chicago.
“In the last decade,” they wrote, “state attorneys general have relied on that case’s under-explained language about ‘special solicitude,’ producing a barrage of suits with tenuous standing theories against administrations of the opposing political party. Overbroad readings of that case should be forcefully rejected by this court, lest state standing
be allowed to transform the role of the federal judiciary.”
The professors were critical of the only theory of standing endorsed by the appeals court, concerning the Missouri loan authority, saying it “would not be taken seriously in ordinary contexts.”
Questions about state standing also played a prominent role in the November argument over immigration enforcement guidelines issued by the Biden administration that had set priorities for deciding which unauthorized immigrants should be arrested and detained.
Texas and Louisiana sued to block the guidelines, which they said allowed many immigrants with criminal records to remain free while their cases moved forward, imposing burdens on the states’ social service and justice systems.
Lower courts blocked the guidelines. In a Supreme Court brief, Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar, representing the administration, wrote that something extraordinary was afoot.
“For most of our nation’s history, a suit like this would have been unheardof,” she wrote. “Courts did not allow states to sue the federal government based on the indirect, downstream effects of federal policies.”
During the height of the pandemic, hungry and housebound customers clamored for Home Run Inn Pizza’s frozen thin-crust pies. The company did everything to oblige.
It kept its machines chugging during lunch breaks and brought on temporary workers to ensure it could produce pizzas at the suddenly breakneck pace.
More recently, demand has eased, and Home Run Inn Pizza, based in suburban Chicago, has reversed some of those measures. But it does not plan to lay off any full-time manufacturing employees — even if that means having a few more workers than it needs during its second shift.
“We have really good people,” said Nick Perrino, chief operating officer and a great-grandson of the company’s founder. “And we don’t want to let any of our team members go.”
Despite a year of aggressive interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve aimed at taming inflation, and signs that the red-hot labor market is cooling off, most companies have not taken the step of cutting jobs. Outside of some high-profile companies mostly in the tech sector, such as Google’s parent Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft, layoffs in the economy as a whole remain remarkably, even historically, rare.
There were fewer layoffs in December than in any month during the two decades before the pandemic, government data shows. Filings for unemployment insurance have barely increased. And the unemployment rate, at 3.4%, is the lowest since 1969.
“We haven’t seen any layoffs whatsoever,” said Janis Petrini, co-owner of an Express Employment Professionals staffing agency office in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
For Federal Reserve policymakers, the surprising strength of the job market is a source of both optimism and concern. The low rate of unemployment suggests that a recession
is not imminent, but also that the Fed has not achieved its aim in slowing down the economy.
For workers, the picture is clearer: For now, at least, the historically strong job market remains intact.
Economists say a variety of factors could be driving employers to hold on to workers. Some may be scarred by how difficult and costly it has been in recent years to recruit and train employees. Some may be worried about finding themselves short-handed if they need to hire quickly after a fleeting downturn — as was the case when the economy reopened rapidly early in the pandemic. Others may still be trying to make up for staffing shortfalls after the pandemic’s upheaval. The leisure and hospitality industry, for instance, is still about a half-million jobs below its pre-pandemic level.
More fundamentally, the pandemic, and the persistently tight labor market that ensued, may have profoundly reshaped how the nation’s employers think about staffing levels and hiring.
“When the economy came back very strongly in 2020, then a lot of firms were trying to hire again and they couldn’t,” said Matt Notowidigdo, an economics professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. “That experience might still be sitting with people.”
At Home Run Inn Pizza, in Woodridge, Illinois, Perrino said attracting and retaining workers, particularly for shifts that can start in the wee hours of the morning or last late into the night, was proving extraordinarily difficult. (Besides its frozen pie business, the company also has a handful of restaurants in the Chicago area.) That, along with his sense of loyalty to his
employees — “I don’t think we’ve ever done a layoff in our company history,” he said — has contributed to his desire to hold on to his fulltime staff members, including 135 people in manufacturing.
“Finding talented labor that wants to stay and wants to be committed to the longterm success of the company — that’s been very challenging,” he said.
For some companies, particularly those in consumer-facing service businesses such as leisure and hospitality, the logic for avoiding layoffs is simpler: Demand is still strong, and they need the help.
John Keener, a restaurateur in Charleston, South Carolina, said his establishments, which include two Charleston Crab House locations and the A.W. Shuck’s Seafood Shack, had effectively been understaffed since the early days of the pandemic.
To attract employees, he raised wages, offered more generous benefits and started advertising open jobs on LinkedIn, Yelp, Facebook and Instagram, he said. When that wasn’t enough, he figured out how to work with less, altering menus so he could have fewer prep cooks and giving servers hand-held electronic devices so they could beam orders directly to the kitchen without leaving the floor.
The persistent strength of consumer demand — and the continued hiring that it has driven — has been vexing for policymakers at the Federal Reserve. Fed officials worry that the strong job market is contributing to inflation, with employers raising wages to attract scarce workers, then raising prices to cover their higher labor costs. That could force the central bank to raise interest rates even more aggressively, ultimately raising the risks of a painful recession.
But the low rate of layoffs also points to the possibility of a rosier scenario. Higher interest rates typically result in higher costs and weaker sales, which often leads to layoffs. If companies respond instead by paring hiring or raises — while holding onto existing employees — that could allow the labor market to cool without widespread job losses.
Economists caution that although companies may be clinging to their workers, that could change in a hurry if abstract fears of a recession morph into an actual decline in sales. Economists warn that a recession, if it comes, will almost certainly force companies to cut jobs en masse — no matter how reluctant they may be after their recent experience with a tight labor market.
“That’s the risk,” Notowidigdo said, referring to companies’ strategy of holding onto workers even as business slows. “You might end up with multiple rounds of layoffs in the future if the recession turns out to be more severe than expected.”
U.S. stocks eked out a slight gain on Monday as investors engaged in some bargain hunting after last week’s losses, the biggest percentage declines of 2023 for Wall Street’s main benchmarks, as jitters persisted about coming interest rate hikes to tame stubbornly high inflation.
All three main stock indexes climbed more than 1% shortly after the opening bell, in part due to an easing in Treasury yields, and all three closed well off their session highs.
Stocks steadily gave up gains throughout the session as U.S. Treasury yields moved off the day’s lows.
“On the heels of the worst week of the year, first threeweek losing streak for the S&P since December, a little green is a welcome change but again the reality is market participants are trying to square the circle with exactly how long the Fed will leave rates high, and is a 50 basis point hike really on the table at the next meeting,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group in Omaha, Nebraska.
“It’s led to a good deal of uncertainty, and we have seen that when there is uncertainty there can be selling and volatility.”
According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 gained 12.19 points, or 0.31%, to end at 3,982.23 points, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 72.14 points, or 0.63%, to 11,467.08. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 72.46 points, or 0.22%, to 32,889.38.
Last week, the Dow Industrials fell by the biggest weekly percentage since September, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq had their biggest weekly percentage fall since December as economic data and comments from U.S. Federal Reserve officials heightened expectations the central bank will become more aggressive in raising interest rates.
Economists at UK-based banks Barclays and NatWest believe the Fed could ramp up the pace of its interest-rate rises in March with a half-point hike. Morgan Stanley said it no longer sees a cut by the Fed this year and expects a slower pace of 25 basis points when the central bank does begin lowering rates.
Fed funds futures show traders are pricing in a third 25 bps hikes this year and see rates peaking at 5.4% by September.
Fed Governor Philip Jefferson said he had “no illusion” inflation would quickly fall back to target and was committed to keeping restrictive monetary policy in place for as long as needed.
Data showed new orders for key U.S.-made capital goods increased more than expected in January while shipments of core goods rebounded, suggesting that business spending on equipment picked up.
Easing yields helped growth stocks rebound while Tesla jumped after the electric automaker said its plant in Brandenburg near Berlin was producing 4,000 cars a week, three
weeks ahead of schedule according to a recent production plan reviewed by Reuters.
Seagen Inc surged after the Wall Street Journal reported that Pfizer was in early talks to acquire the biotech firm. Pfizer’s shares dipped.
U.S. railroad operator Union Pacific climbed as Chief Executive Lance Fritz said he would step down. Hedge fund Soroban Capital Partners had called for his ouster.
Many of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors rose. Higher crude prices pushed energy to be one of the biggest gainers on the day, and also helped the index halt a losing run at seven. This tied its worst stretch since an eight-session skid in March 2017.
Among the fallers was communication services, which recorded its fifth straight decline, matching another five-loss streak in October. It was weighed by Netflix Inc, which slipped on reports that the streaming service was cutting subscription prices in 30 countries.
Among other stocks, eBay Inc slid after warning of dour demand in the first half of 2023 due to strained consumer spending in the United States and Europe.
One week after President Joe Biden visited Kyiv to reaffirm enduring support against the Russian invasion, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited the Ukrainian capital Monday to emphasize the United States’ commitment to providing the money Ukraine needs to operate its government as the war enters a second year.
The trip — during which Yellen announced the transfer of $1.25 billion in economic and budget assistance to Ukraine — is part of a concerted diplomatic push by the Biden administration to show support for Ukraine while maintaining pressure on Russia. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit two former Soviet republics this week and is expected to urge them to maintain their distance from Russia as well as China.
U.S. officials are closely watching the relationship between Moscow and Beijing, which the Biden administration has warned is considering sending lethal military assistance to Russia. China this week will host a state visit from the president of Belarus, a key Kremlin ally.
Here are other developments:
— Yellen, who arrived in Kyiv as air raid sirens rang out overnight, stayed in the capital for roughly 12 hours. She met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, attended a wreath-laying ceremony and visited a school that was rebuilt with U.S. aid
money.
— The visit came amid an intensifying public debate in the United States over whether the country can afford to continue to provide billions of dollars to Kyiv. Zelenskyy thanked the United States for “powerfully supporting” Ukraine since
the invasion began, not just with weapons but with financial aid. “We really appreciate it,” he said after meeting with Yellen.
— Ukraine’s military said early Monday that Russia had launched 14 Iranianmade attack drones at targets across the country overnight. The strikes left at least two people dead in the western city of Khmelnytskyi, according to local officials. Eleven of the 14 drones were shot down by air defenses, Ukrainian officials said.
— China’s Foreign Ministry said the United States was being “hypocritical” with its warnings against sending weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Sunday that Western allies were sending a “clear message” to China that it would be a mistake to give Russia weapons because they would be used to attack civilians.
— Blinken was traveling Monday to Central Asia, where he will visit Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan before heading to India for a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of 20 nations. It is unclear whether Russia and China will send top diplomats to the G-20 meeting, and, if so, whether they and Blinken will meet.
A5.2-magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkey on Monday, killing at least one person and trapping others in collapsed buildings three weeks after a devastating quake struck the same region, leaving more than 50,000 people
dead in the country and in neighboring Syria.
The latest quake struck just after noon Monday, south of the city of Malatya, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Malatya is the capital of the province of the same name, one of 11 Turkish regions affected by the Feb. 6 tremor.
Yunus Sezer, the head of Turkey’s emergency response agency, said at least one person had been killed and 69 injured in the latest quake. He urged people in the affected region not to enter damaged buildings for fear of aftershocks or further collapses. The agency said 29 buildings in Malatya had collapsed and five people had been rescued from the
rubble. Rescuers were also searching for survivors from seven other buildings.
One previously damaged building collapsed, trapping in the rubble a father and daughter who had returned to their apartment to collect their belongings in the town of Yesilyurt, near the new quake’s epicenter, according to Haberturk TV, which was broadcasting from the scene. Both father and daughter were later rescued.
In the town of Dulkadiroglu, in the hard-hit province of Kahramanmaras, six workers who had returned to their metal workshop to retrieve kitchenwares were still inside when the quake hit, according to Haberturk. One of the men was killed, four others were injured and one escaped unscathed.
The temblor Monday was the latest to shake the fault-crossed region since the
powerful 7.8-magnitude quake on Feb. 6, which was followed by a powerful aftershock hours later. The original earthquake and aftershock ravaged the region, toppling more than 100,000 buildings and leaving more than 1 million people homeless in Turkey alone.
The quake also devastated communities across the border in Syria, striking an area where 12 years of civil war had already damaged many buildings and where millions of displaced people had already been living in a humanitarian crisis.
The overall death toll has climbed steadily over the past three weeks, surpassing 50,000 in Syria and Turkey by Monday. Turkey, where the original earthquake was centered, has reported 44,374 deaths and the toll in Syria is at least 6,000, according to the United Nations.
Awooden boat carrying 130 to 180 migrants broke apart against rocks near a beach town in southern Italy early on Sunday, drowning at least 59 people, including a newborn and other children, authorities said.
Eighty people survived the wreck, according to Italy’s coast guard, which said helicopters, ships and water scooters were still being used to look for more survivors in what remained “particularly hostile weather conditions.” The death toll was expected to rise.
The migrants were mainly from Afghanistan, but also from Iran and Pakistan, and had been crossing from Turkey, authorities said.
The wreck drew expressions of grief and demands for action from leaders across the political spectrum in Italy, where migration has long been a central topic of debate. The far-right-led coalition government recently enacted additional restrictions on charities crewing migrant rescue vessels, although these organizations have not operated in the waters off Calabria, the region where the latest tragedy occurred.
In video footage released by police, chunks of wooden beams and boards could be seen lying next to a structure resembling a boat’s keel on the beach of Steccato di Cutro, a small seaside town on Calabria’s eastern coast. Italian news outlets showed survivors covered in thermal blankets sitting in a field near the beach, while a priest blessed the bodies of their dead companions, hidden under white bags nearby.
Bodies were recovered at Steccato di Cutro, but also to the south, authorities said. Calabria, which forms the tip of Italy’s boot, is geographically the easiest destination for migrant vessels traveling from Turkey. It was the landing place of about 15% of the 105,000 migrants who arrived in Italy last year, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, called the shipwreck the “umpteenth tragedy in the Mediterranean that can’t leave anyone indifferent.”
He called on the international community to tackle the causes of migration, adding in an unusually harsh statement: “It is equally indispensable that the European Union finally takes on concrete responsibility” to control migration and take it out of the hands of human traffickers.
During prayers on Sunday, Pope Francis
mentioned the shipwreck’s victims off Calabria, thanking all those who had participated in rescue operations and those who would offer shelter.
“I pray for them,” he said, referring to the migrants on the Calabrian shores. “For those who are lost, and for those who have survived.”
His words were echoed by Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, who expressed in a statement her “deep sorrow” but added
that those lives were “broken by traffickers,” hinting at her government’s efforts to stop departures.
Italy’s interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, said, “It is a huge tragedy that shows the absolute need to act firmly against irregular migration channels.” It was “essential” to stop sea crossings which, offering migrants the “illusory mirage of a better life” in Europe, enriched traffickers and “cause tragedies like today’s,” he added.
The members of Italy’s coalition government have long campaigned against immigration and have proposed anti-immigration policies. Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, had often pushed for a “naval blockade” at sea to impede arrivals.
The measures she has brought forward in government so far appear more limited in scope.
Arguing that the presence of charity boats in the central Mediterranean encourages migrants to make the crossing, Meloni’s Cabinet recently passed a code of conduct for migrant aid vessels that would limit their time at sea.
Under the new law, ships have to seek access to a port and sail to it “without delay” after each rescue. Authorities have increasingly assigned such vessels access to ports in northern Italy, far from the migration routes.
After a shipwreck off the Sicilian coast in 2013, where 368 migrants died when their boat capsized, Europe launched a wideranging search-and-rescue operation that lasted for years.
Once funds ran out, however, that mission reduced its scope, and countries’ governments have been reluctant to take on additional search-and-rescue responsibility, leaving most of the patrolling in the central Mediterranean to nongovernmental organizations.
Although only a small fraction of migrants arriving in Italy do so in vessels operated by such organizations, they have become a target for successive Italian governments seeking to demonstrate action against migration. The rescue organizations, in turn, have argued that restricting their operations only increases the dangers facing migrants.
The central Mediterranean is historically one of the deadliest routes for migrants trying to reach Europe. In 2022, 1,417 people died during the crossing, according to the International Organization for Migration. Deaths were particularly high this month, with 158 already recorded in the weeks before Sunday’s wreck, compared with 132 in February last year.
On Sunday, the International Organization for Migration urged countries to reinforce the system of search and rescue at sea, calling it “insufficient,” and to open regular immigration channels.
“This is not an emergency in numbers,” the organization wrote on Twitter. “It is humanitarian.”
By CHRISTINA GOLDBAUM and YAQOOB AKBARY
When the temperatures plunged far below freezing in Niaz Mohammad’s village last month, the father of three struggled to keep his family warm. One particularly cold night, he piled every stick and every shrub he had collected into their small wood stove. He scavenged for trash that might burn, covered the windows with plastic tarps and held his 2-month-old son close to his chest.
But the cold was merciless. Freezing winds whistled through cracks in the wall. Ice crept across the room: It covered the windows, then the walls, then the thick red blanket wrapped around Mohammad’s wailing son.
Soon the infant fell silent in his arms. His tears turned to ice that clung to his face. By daybreak, he was gone.
“The cold took him,” Mohammad, 30, told visiting journalists for The New York Times, describing the details of that horrible night.
Afghanistan is gripped by a winter that Afghan officials and aid group officials are describing as the harshest in over a decade, battering millions of people already reeling from a humanitarian crisis. As of Monday, more than 200 people had died from hypothermia and more than 225,000 head of livestock had perished from the cold alone, according to Afghan authorities. That does not take into account a vast and rising human toll from malnutrition, disease and untreated injuries as clinics and hospitals around the country have come under stress.
While Afghanistan has endured natural disasters and economic desperation for decades, the harsh temperatures this winter come at a particularly difficult moment. In late December, the Taliban administration barred women from working in most local and international aid organizations — prompting many to suspend operations, severing a lifeline for communities reliant on the aid.
Despite weeks of negotiations between humanitarian officials and the government, the Taliban’s top leadership appears unwilling to reverse the ban. That has left the aid community divided over what a principled response looks like: shutting off aid to millions in need, or trying to continue without women in their ranks, thus greatly reducing their agencies’ reach in Afghanistan.
The Afghan Ministry of Disaster Management has tried to fill the gap, officials say, working with local organizations to provide some food and cash assistance. But the response has been hampered by difficulty reaching far-flung communities (some accessible only by military helicopter), and by financial sanctions from foreign governments.
In recent weeks, some nongovernmental organizations have negotiated with local officials to secure exemptions to the ban, letting them continue to operate with female aid workers in certain provinces. But many donors have balked at the authorities’ discrimination against women, who have effectively been shut out of most aspects of public life, education and employment. Some, particularly among European countries, even privately weighed cutting most funding for Afghanistan in response, according to diplomats and international humanitarian workers.
The temporary cutback in aid has already been felt across Afghanistan, which fell into a humanitarian crisis after Western troops withdrew in August 2021. Soon after, sanctions crippled the banking sector, food prices soared and hospitals filled with malnourished children. Today around half of the country’s 40 million people face potentially life-threatening levels of food insecurity, according to the United Nations. Of those, 6 million are nearing famine.
In Mohammad’s village, in the Qadis district of northwestern Afghanistan, the low temperatures devastated people already living on the edge of survival. The district center in Qadis is home to just 4,000 or so families, living in low, mud-brick homes webbed by dirt alleys. The town sits between desert dunes and snow-topped mountains.
In recent years, the province — one of the nation’s poorest — has suffered from a crippling drought that wilted fields and famished farm animals. An earthquake last year razed entire villages. After the Western-backed government collapsed along with the economy, many men in Qadis left for Herat, an economic hub around 100 miles away, or for Iran, looking for work. Few found it.
When the first wave of cold tore through last month, it pushed the town to the brink. Five hundred patients a day went down with pneumonia or other cold-related ailments or injuries, flooding the town’s health clinic in record numbers, according to Dr. Zamanulden Haziq, the clinic’s director.
One resident, Taza Gul, 50, stepped outside at dawn to find her husband stretched out in the snow. He had fallen on his way to their outhouse at night, hours earlier. As she brushed the snow off him, she saw one arm and one leg had turned blackish-blue; he died soon after.
In a village nearby, Gul Qadisi, 62, spent nearly a month desperately trying to secure medical care for her 1-year-old grandson, who developed a relentless cough that left him gasping for air. The roads were too clogged with snow for any cars to take them to a clinic or hospital. Finally she managed to get him to the regional hospital in Herat, where the children’s intensive care unit, run by Doctors Without Borders, was crowded to double its capacity, with two or three sick children for every bed. Doctors told her she had barely made it in time. The child had been near death from pneumonia.
“This winter was the worst winter, the worst I have ever experienced,” she told Times journalists this month, her grandson recovering in a hospital bed at her side.
More than 100,000 people took to the streets of Mexico on Sunday to protest new laws hobbling the nation’s election agency, in what demonstrators said was a repudiation of the president’s efforts to weaken a pillar of democracy.
Wearing shades of pink, the official color of the electoral watchdog that helped end one-party rule two decades ago, protesters filled the central square of the capital, Mexico City, and chanted, “Don’t touch my vote.”
The protesters said they were trying to send a message to the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who backed the measures and lives in the national palace on the square’s edge.
They were also speaking directly to the nation’s Supreme Court, which is expected to hear a challenge to the overhaul in the coming months. Many see the moment as a critical test for the court, which has been a target of criticism by the president.
Protesters also chanted Sunday morning, “I trust in the court.”
Hours before the demonstration officially began, attendants, many wearing crisp collared shirts and Panama hats, lined up outside upscale cafes and sat for breakfast on a terrace overlooking the seat of government.
But on the streets, the mood was anxious.
“I paid my own expenses and my stay, but it doesn’t bother me, I’d do that and more for my country,” said Marta Ofelia González, 75, who flew in from Mazatlán, on the coast of Sinaloa state, and wore a straw visor to block the punishing sun.
She came, she said, because she fears “we will lose democracy and become a dictatorship.”
The president argues the changes will save millions of dollars and improve the voting system. Electoral officials, though, say the overhaul will make it difficult to guarantee free and fair elections — including in a crucial presidential election next year.
“This is our last hope,” said Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, a former leftist member of Congress and one of the demonstration’s organizers. “We want to defend the court’s autonomy so it can declare these laws unconstitutional.” Otherwise, Acosta Naranjo said, “we will have to hold an election with a partial and diminished arbiter.”
It was not immediately clear how many people protested across the country — demonstrations had been organized in more than 100 cities — although the numbers in Mexico City alone were above 100,000, organizers and local officials said.
Looming over the protests was the recent conviction in a New York City courtroom of Genaro García Luna, a former top Mexican law enforcement official, who was found guilty of taking bribes from cartels — a verdict widely viewed in Mexico as damaging to one of the opposition parties associated with the demonstration Sunday.
García Luna served in high-profile security roles for more than a decade under two conservative National Action Party presidents — Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón — both of whom publicly called for citizens to attend the protest.
The streets where protesters roamed Sunday were lined with posters bearing García Luna’s face and the word “guilty.”
The president has suggested that the protesters are motivated by the desire to put the country back in the hands of the corrupt leaders of the past.
“They’re going to show up because there are vested, corrupt interests that want to return to power to continue stealing,” López Obrador said at a recent news conference.
“So don’t try to say ‘it’s that we care about democracy, it’s that democracy is being damaged.’”
It was the second time in about four months that Mexicans had demonstrated in support of the election watchdog, which the president and his supporters say has become a bloated bureaucracy captured by political interests.
“It has too much power, perverted power,” said Pedro Miguel, a journalist at La
Jornada, a leftist newspaper, who describes himself as a “militant” of the president’s political project. Miguel criticized the agency for paying its governing members too much, including a bonus after stepping down.
“This is a march in defense of that bonus and those miserable salaries,” he said of the demonstration Sunday.
The measures, passed by the legislature last week, will cut the agency’s staff, undermine its autonomy and limit its capacity to punish politicians who break electoral law.
Electoral officials say the overhaul will also eliminate the majority of workers who directly oversee the vote and install polling stations across the country.
“It threatens the validity of elections themselves,” said Lorenzo Córdova, the departing president of the agency, in an interview.
The protest comes as the country gears up for the start of the 2024 presidential campaign, amid serious questions about whether a battered and inchoate opposition has the wherewithal to win over disenchanted voters.
“It’s an important test of how much they’re able to mobilize their base,” said Blanca Heredia, a professor at Mexico’s Center for Research and Teaching in Economics, referring to the parties opposing López Obrador, known by his initials, AMLO.
The crowd was big enough Sunday, analysts said, to suggest that many Mexicans are eager to support their institutions — and vent their anger at the president.
González, of Mazatlán, said she had not voted for López Obrador “because my brain still works.”
It remains unclear whether the opposition can use that bitterness to its electoral advantage.
“All they have is that anti-AMLO sentiment,” Heredia said of the parties opposing López Obrador. “If they want to gain more voters that aren’t just anti-AMLO, they’re going to need a positive project — a plan for the country.”
That history is worth mentioning for a specific reason and a general one. The specific reason is that a Christian college in rural Kentucky, Asbury University, has just experienced an old-school revival — a multiweek outpouring that has kept students praying and singing in the school chapel from morning to night, drawn ten of thousands of pilgrims from around the country, captured the imagination of the internet and even drawn the attention of The New York Times.
The general reason is that whatever the Asbury Revival’s long-term impact, the history of Finney and Jefferson is a reminder that religious history is shaped as much by sudden irruptions as long trajectories, as much by the mystical and personal as by the institutional and sociological.
quote you chapter and verse on the reasonability of theism, but in the causal chain of history I’m a Christian because 2,000 years ago a motley group of provincials in Roman Palestine believed they’d seen their teacher heal the sick and raise the dead and then rise transfigured from the grave — and then because, two millenniums later, as a child in suburban Connecticut, I watched my own parents fall to the floor and speak in tongues.
Whether these experiences correspond to ultimate reality will not be argued here. My points are about observation and expectation.
By ROSS DOUTHAT
In an 1822 letter to the physician Benjamin Waterhouse, Thomas Jefferson expressed his confidence that traditional Christianity in the young United States was giving way to a more enlightened faith, much like Jefferson’s own in its rejection of the divinity of Jesus Christ. “I trust,” he wrote, “that there is not a young man now living in the U.S. who will not die an Unitarian.”
Less than a year earlier, on “a Sabbath evening in the autumn of 1821” in upstate New York, a young man named Charles Grandison Finney began a multiday interplay of prayer and mystical experience that led to a moment when, he wrote later, “it seemed as if I met the Lord Jesus Christ face to face ... He stood before me, and I fell down at his feet and poured out my soul to Him. I wept aloud like a child, and made such confessions as I could with my choked utterance.”
This experience set Finney on a path that would help bury Jefferson’s confident hypothesis — toward leadership in an age of revivalism, the Second Great Awakening, that forged the form of evangelical Christianity that would bestride 19thcentury America and also encouraged a proliferation of novel sects with supernatural beliefs entirely distant from Jefferson’s Enlightenment religion.
Secular experts writing about religion tend to emphasize the deep structural forces shaping practice and belief — the effects of industrialization or the scientific revolution, suburbanization or the birth control pill. Religious intellectuals tend to emphasize theological debates and evangelization strategies. (Should Christians be winsome or combative? Should churches adapt to liberal modernity or resist its blandishments?)
These analytical tools are always important; the sociological doesn’t disappear just because the mystical has suddenly arrived. In last weekend’s column, for instance, I suggested a link between the apparent crisis in teenage mental health and the decline of organized Christianity, and this past week my Times colleague Ruth Graham, reporting from Asbury, notes that accounts of healing at the revival are “overwhelmingly about mental health, trauma and disillusionment.” Nor, in the shadow of the numinous, does strategy cease to matter: The encounter on the road to Damascus created Paul the Apostle, but his career thereafter was all organizing, preaching, letterwriting and shoe (or sandal) leather.
But the experiences themselves remain irreducibly unpredictable. Why Asbury? Why Saul of Tarsus? Why Charles Grandison Finney?
A unique religious culture exists across the Mountain West because one of Finney’s upstate New York contemporaries believed he received a revelation from the angel Moroni. Arguably the most important movement within global Christianity today exists because of a revival that began with an African American preacher and his followers praying together in a shabby part of Los Angeles in 1906. And I can
When it comes to the religious future, you should follow the social trends, but also always expect the unexpected — recognizing that every organized faith could disappear tomorrow and some spiritual encounter would resurrect religion soon enough.
If you’re trying to discern what a post-Christian spirituality might become, then what post-Christian seekers are experiencing and what (or whom) they claim to be encountering matters as much as any specific religious label they might claim.
And if you’re imagining a renewal for American Christianity, all the best laid plans — the pastoral strategies, theological debates and long-term trendlines — may matter less than something happening in some obscure place or to some obscure individual, in whose visions an entirely unexpected future might be taking shape.
SAN JUAN – Como parte del evento Puerto Rico Alzheimer Disease Research Symposium, facultativos del Recinto de Ciencias Médicas (RCM) de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, revelaron una preocupación con la migración masiva de la juventud puertorriqueña y cómo esto podría afectar, a largo plazo, a las personas de 65 años o más que padecen o podrían padecer la enfermedad de Alzheimer y demencias relacionadas (ADRD por sus siglas en inglés). Esto, ante el continuo descenso de profesionales de la salud y cuidadores para tratar la ADRD.
La prevalencia de la ADRD, continúa incrementando en Puerto Rico. Utilizando los datos de Medicare como base, la cifra estimada para el 2022, fue de casi 116,000 casos. Se proyecta que para el 2050, este número aumente a más del doble.
ientras que la prevalencia de ADRD y enfermeda-
des comórbidas como la diabetes, hipertensión, y trastornos de metabolismo de lípidos (como los niveles altos de colesterol o triglicéridos) son significativamente más altos en las mujeres puertorriqueñas mayores de 65 años que en los hombres de la misma edad. Así mismo, la prevalencia de estas enfermedades es significativamente mayor entre los adultos mayores de
Puerto Rico cuando se comparan con las cifras a nivel de todo Estados Unidos.
Durante la actividad, profesionales que atienden esta condición en el país, enfatizaron en la necesidad de contar con datos más precisos sobre la prevalencia de ADRD en la isla para poder planificar con precisión los servicios y el financiamiento que se necesitarán para atender adecuadamente las necesidades de las personas con ADRD.
“Para esto, se necesita un plan sistemático de captación de datos de salud de toda la población de la isla, que manejan las compañías de planes médicos. Por esto, el Recinto de Ciencias Médicas buscará establecer colaboraciones con el Departamento de Salud y las aseguradoras para recoger dicha información. Como Recinto estamos preparados para asistir con la recopilación, organización y análisis de estos datos”, expuso el doctor José Carrión Baralt, profesor de la Escuela Graduada de Salud Pública del RCM.
SAN JUAN – La alcaldesa de Morovis y tesorera de la junta de la Asociación de Alcaldes de Puerto Rico, Carmen Maldonado González, puso por escrito a la Junta de Supervisión Fiscal (JSF) su reclamo de agilidad para la aprobación de medidas fiscales para la continuidad de las operaciones de los municipios de Puerto Rico. En una carta enviada a David Skeel, presidente de la entidad, Maldonado González señaló que “es un asunto de vital importancia que finalmente la JSF apruebe las medidas fiscales que los municipios necesitan. Esperar a que la crisis agrave para tomar acción no le hace bien a ninguna de las partes, pero a quien más daño se hace es a la ciudadanía más necesitada en todo Puerto Rico”.
En su misiva, Maldonado González señaló que existen varias medidas que se les han presentadas previamente a la Junta y que aún no han sido aprobadas. Mencionó algunas de ellas y presentó otras adicionales que deberían ser aprobadas por la Junta de manera urgente.
1) Previamente se había solicitado establecer una moratoria varios años en la eliminación gradual de la Transferencia del ELA al Fondo de Equiparación, conforme a los Planes Fiscales del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico y del Centro de Recaudación de Ingresos Municipales (CRIM).
2) Establecer un nuevo Fondo de Reestructuración Municipal que otorgue financiamientos específicos
para asistir con los esfuerzos de reestructuración de los municipios más afectados por la reducción del Fondo de Equiparación.
3) En relación con la aportación al Plan de Salud Vital (de la Administración de Seguros de Salud de Puerto Rico (ASES), es necesario eliminar el requisito establecido en la Sección 9(d) de la ‘Ley de la Administración de Seguros de Salud de Puerto Rico’ Ley Núm. 72 de 7 de septiembre de 1993, según enmendada, en lo que respecta a que los municipios aporten al financiamiento del Plan de Salud Vital establecido en tal Ley. Ello debería ser cubierto por el Gobierno de Puerto Rico.
4) Que la Legislatura de Puerto Rico y el Gobernador aprueben una Ley que establezca que los Municipios reciban algún por ciento (%) específico del impuesto de ocupación (room tax) que generen las plataformas digitales que se utilizan como mercado común de publicación, publicidad y reservas para alojamiento de forma económicas a través del internet (las del tipo de alquiler a corto plazo).
5) Que se permita e inicie lo antes posible, un proceso legal para reestructurar las deudas de los municipios de Puerto Rico.
6) Que se le otorgue facultad legal a los Municipios para intervenir, opinar y votar en decisiones sobre decretos o exenciones contributivas que pueda otorgar el Gobierno de Puerto Rico y que pueda afectar adversamente los ingresos y finanzas en general de los Municipios.
7) Que permitan y promuevan que el Gobierno de
Puerto Rico desembolse, inmediatamente, el millón de dólares ($1,000,000) para cada uno de los setenta y ocho (78) municipios de Puerto Rico según fuera aprobada la Resolución Conjunta de la Cámara 387, firmada por el Gobernador de Puerto Rico desde el 5 de enero de 2023, con el propósito de financiar la fase inicial de la respuesta gubernamental ante el paso del huracán Fiona.
8) Enmendar el Fondo de Consolidación de Servicios Municipales, de manera que se flexibilice el uso y los procesos conducentes al uso de tales fondos.
The Screen Actors Guild handed its top award for outstanding cast Sunday night to “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the hit sci-fi comedy that recently dominated the Directors and Producers Guild awards and now appears to be a strong best picture front-runner at the Oscars. Three of the four individual acting trophies went to “Everything Everywhere” cast members, too.
But will they also prevail with Oscar?
The safest bet to repeat is “Everything Everywhere” comeback kid Ke Huy Quan, who won the supporting-actor trophy from SAG and has been collecting statuettes in that category all season. During Sunday’s show, which aired live on YouTube and will stream exclusively on Netflix next year, the 51-year-old Quan delivered his most touching speech yet.
After rising to fame as a child actor in popular films like “The Goonies” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” Quan found few roles available for Asian actors and moved behind the camera, working in stunt choreography. Still, he paid his SAG dues every year, hoping and biding his time for the resurgence he’s finally experiencing.
“To all those at home who are watching, who are struggling and waiting to be seen,” Quan said, “please keep on going because the spotlight will one day find you.”
In an upset victory, Quan’s co-star Jamie Lee Curtis won the supporting-actress statuette over Golden Globe winner Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) and BAFTA winner Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), suggesting that this may be the season’s most fluid acting race.
“I know you look at me and think nepo baby, and I totally get it,” said a thrilled Curtis. “But the truth of the matter is I’m 64 years old and this is just amazing!”
Later in the night, “Everything Everywhere” leading lady Michelle Yeoh won a crucial best-actress prize over “Tár” star Cate Blanchett, whom she acknowledged as a titan from the stage.
“Thank you for giving me a seat at the table because so many of us need this,” Yeoh told the crowd. “We want to be seen and we want to be heard, and tonight you have shown us that it is possible.”
Though the SAGs have honored Asian performers from TV shows, Yeoh was the first Asian woman to win best actress in a movie category, and Quan was the first Asian male actor to win for movies as well.
The only film actor to win who didn’t hail from “Everything Everywhere” was Brendan Fraser, who mounted a best-actor comeback with his transformational performance in “The Whale.” Though “Elvis” star Austin Butler earned best-actor prizes at BAFTA and the Golden Globes, Fraser wasn’t expected to win at the latter show, since he had publicly accused the former Globes head Philip Berk of groping him in 2003 and had said he wouldn’t attend the ceremony. (Berk denied the accusation.)
Like many of the night’s winners, Fraser spoke about the ups and downs of a Hollywood career: “I’ve rode that wave lately, and it’s been powerful and good,” he said, “and I’ve also had that wave smash me right down to the ocean floor.”
SAG’s track record with the Oscars is suggestive but spotty. Last year, all four SAG winners triumphed at the Oscars and Jessica Chastain’s SAG win for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” helped her vault to the front of a wideopen best-actress category. But the year before that, only two of the four SAG winners repeated at the Oscars.
But the strongest takeaway from this year’s SAG ceremony is that “Everything Everywhere,” which cost only $14.3 million
and took in more than $100 million worldwide, is almost certainly headed for a bestpicture victory: Of the films that earned top honors at the DGAs, the PGAs and the SAGs — that is, all three major guilds — only Ron Howard’s “Apollo 13” (1995) failed to go the distance with Oscar.
When the season began, the “Everything Everywhere” directors Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan were surprised that their quirky film was generating awards chatter. But with two weeks left until Hollywood’s biggest night, the real surprise would be if anything but “Everything Everywhere” becomes the Oscars’ ultimate victor.
Here’s the complete list of winners: FILM
Outstanding Cast
“Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Actor in a Leading Role
Brendan Fraser, “The Whale”
Actress in a Leading Role
Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Actor in a Supporting Role
Ke Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Actress in a Supporting Role
Jamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Stunt Ensemble in a Movie
“Top Gun: Maverick”
TELEVISION
Ensemble in a Comedy Series
“Abbott Elementary”
Ensemble in a Drama Series
“The White Lotus”
Actor in a Comedy Series
Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear”
Actress in a Comedy Series
Jean Smart, “Hacks”
Actor in a Drama Series
Jason Bateman, “Ozark”
Actress in a Drama Series
Jennifer Coolidge, “The White Lotus”
Actor in a TV Movie or Limited Series
Sam Elliott, “1883”
Actress in a TV Movie or Limited Series
Jessica Chastain, “George & Tammy”
Stunt Ensemble in a TV Series
“Stranger Things”
SAG Life Achievement Award
Sally Field
Michelle Yeoh celebrating with James Hong at the SAG Awards on Sunday night. The San Juan Daily StarFor about six weeks in the summer of 2021, an activist working with the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere, or DxE, gained undercover access to one of the largest chicken slaughterhouses in California, a Foster Farms facility in the Central Valley city of Livingston.
Using hidden infrared cameras that can see in the dark, the DxE activist captured video showing a production line moving too quickly — about 140 chickens are killed every minute on each of the four slaughtering lines in Livingston — to offer any kind of humane death for the animals. Live birds are seen thrown, crushed, left for dead and suffocated under piles of dead birds. Some aren’t properly stunned before they’re killed. And while the DxE footage doesn’t show this, inspectors working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture have reported seeing evidence that birds at the Livingston facility had been dunked alive in a boiling water tank for defeathering.
Foster Farms denies any wrongdoing; in a statement, a spokesperson told me that allegations of inhumane treatment “are without merit and a disservice to the thousands of Foster Farms team members that are dedicated to providing millions of families in the Western United States and beyond with a quality nutritious product.”
But the footage presents an ethical challenge to a society that claims to care for animal welfare: What should happen to people who try to save these chickens?
Two DxE activists, Alexandra Paul and Alicia Santurio, will go on trial next month on charges of misdemeanor theft for taking two chickens from a truck outside the Livingston slaughterhouse in September 2021. They argue that what they did was not steal but rescue — that after trying other ways to protect chickens at the Livingston facility, they took the only option left to them, no different from breaking a window to rescue a puppy locked in a hot car.
Over the past few years DxE has conducted a string of such “open rescues,” in which activists record themselves, often in daylight, taking a small number of chickens, pigs, beagles and other animals from facilities where they have documented inhumane treatment. In addition to saving the lives of the animals, the rescues are an attempt to provoke law enforcement into pursuing criminal trials against the rescuers — trials in which the activists want to publicize the unseen brutality that pushed them to act.
Their larger goal is to establish a “right” to rescue animals that face inhumane treatment in agriculture. In any context other than factory farming, treating animals the way we see chickens treated in the Foster Farms slaughterhouse videos would be considered blatant cruelty. Many would also consider it cruel to stand by while someone else handled animals this way. “If there’s someone in my neighborhood watching me boil birds alive, we’d say this is monstrous behavior,” Wayne Hsiung, a co-founder of DxE, told me.
Shouldn’t the same be true of animals we’re going to eat? Don’t we have a moral obligation to do whatever we can to save animals from inhumane factory-farming facilities, or, at the very least, to not punish people who do try to help?
I’m not a vegan, or even a vegetarian, but as I’ve written before, vegans and animal welfare activists deserve society’s immense respect rather than mockery because they are clearly right about the big issues: that industrial-scale animal farming is an incomprehensible cruelty many of us try our best not to think about, lest it ruin our lunch; that the animals we grow to eat are biologically no less complex and deserving of dignity and humane treatment than the animals we keep as pets; and that the production of cheap and plentiful meat has been an environmental and public health catastrophe whose obvious solution — eat less meat! — nevertheless remains culturally and politically verboten.
In these rescues, activists are again putting themselves on the line to establish a worthy principle.
They may succeed, too. Last fall, a Utah jury acquitted Hsiung and another DxE activist, Paul Darwin Picklesimer, of burglary and theft for taking two sick piglets from a farm owned
by Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest producer of pork. Even though the judge in the case barred much evidence of animal cruelty from being shown, jurors accepted the activists’ essential argument that they were rescuing animals, not stealing.
These cases turn the abstract suffering of farm animals into questions about specific animals suffering in specific ways. The pigs rescued from Smithfield were visibly severely ill. According to DxE, one of the chickens taken from Foster Farms died within days of the rescue, and the other required intensive veterinary care to recover. The one who died was given the name Ethan. Jax, the chicken who survived, is at a sanctuary in California. Even meat lovers don’t want to eat sick animals.
DxE submitted its Foster Farms findings to law enforcement and animal welfare authorities. California’s animal cruelty laws make it a felony to subject an animal to “needless suffering,” “unnecessary cruelty” and to cause it to be “cruelly killed.” While there is an exception that allows animals to be killed for food, there’s nothing in the law that exempts farm animals from humane treatment; it is just as illegal in California to mistreat a chicken at a slaughterhouse as a kitten in your own house.
But DxE says it has no knowledge that officials took any action in response. Paul told me she felt that she had no choice but to personally rescue any birds that she could. She says she has turned down a plea deal that would have involved no jail time; if convicted, she could face up to six months in jail.
“I want to go to trial because I want to elevate the stories of these chickens,” Paul told me. She added that “the only reason that people know what’s happening to animals in these places — in factory farms, in labs or behind circus doors — is because of animal rights activists.”
For that reason alone, they should be praised, not punished.
ment Friday that the company was “very excited” about the authorization. “I can’t thank our employees and partners enough for seeing this through, and of course, for the FDA’s recognition,” he said.
Lucira Health did not immediately respond to questions about its manufacturing capacity or how much the test would cost consumers.
The combination test correctly identified 99% of negative and 90% of positive flu A samples, according to the FDA. It also detected 100% of the negative and 88% of the positive COVID samples. The agency said it expected the company to continue to test on the flu B strain, which was not prevalent this year.
The product is a molecular test, which means it detects and amplifies the genetic material of the viruses, as a PCR test does. These tests are generally more sensitive than antigen tests, and at-home molecular tests have been more expensive than rapid antigen tests.
By CHRISTINA JEWETT and EMILY ANTHESThe Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency authorization for the first over-the-counter, at-home combination flu and COVID test late last week, just two days after the company that makes the test announced that it had filed for bankruptcy protection based, in part, on the agency’s lengthy approval timeline.
The single-use test works with a self-collected nasal swab and provides a result in about 30 minutes, according to the FDA. The test is meant to be used by people 14 and older, or by an adult collecting a sample from someone age 2 or older.
The test’s developer, Lucira Health, based in California’s Bay Area, announced its bankruptcy plan on Wednesday, noting that it had expected its emergency-use authorization for the test in August before the onslaught of the flu season. The company said the agency’s authorization process “became protracted,” and said it had high expenditures as it moved forward with manufacturing the combination tests. Without revenue that the company expected from pro-
jected sales of the tests during this year’s flu season, Lucira decided that it would pursue a sale of its business but continue operations to serve customers, according to its news release. The bankruptcy plan was reported earlier in The Wall Street Journal.
In a statement issued Friday, Dr. Jeff Shuren, director of the FDA’s device division, called the test “a major milestone in bringing greater consumer access to diagnostic tests that can be performed entirely at home.”
But even though public health experts and scientists welcomed the test authorization, it remained unclear when such a combined test would be widely available for sale to consumers. And that uncertainty compounded concerns that others have voiced about the Biden administration’s plans to end the coronavirus public health emergency in May, which could complicate access to testing.
People with private insurance and those on Medicare, who have been eligible for eight free at-home tests per month, may have to pay out of pocket for the tests once the emergency ends.
Erik Engelson, Lucira’s chief executive, said in a state-
The new test will be the first of a series of combination diagnostics in different stages of development that will scan for multiple ailments at once, said Wilbur Lam, a pediatric hematologist and bioengineer at Emory University who has helped federal officials with test development and validation.
“Now we’re in this new era that’s honestly pretty exciting,” Lam said. “It’s exciting for a health care provider, it’s exciting for the technology developers, and I think exciting for the public because we have this new test. And this is only the beginning.”
Through the pandemic, some public health experts have criticized the FDA for being slow to approve at-home COVID tests and the federal government for failing to make the tests more widely available to Americans at little or no cost. Even once at-home tests were approved, fluctuating demand prompted manufacturers to ramp down production, contributing to shortages of rapid tests when the virus came surging back.
During the first years of the pandemic, flu activity was unusually low. But last fall, with most pandemic precautions gone, the flu reemerged in alarming numbers early in the flu season. Over the last several months, Americans have had to contend with waves of multiple viruses, including influenza, the coronavirus and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT
COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
MTGLQ Investors, L.P.
Plaintiff V. JEFTE PEREIRA MENDOZA, CARMEN
RIVERA VALDEZ AND THEIR CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP
Defendants
Civil Núm.: 18-CV-1227.
(DRD). Re: COLLECTION OF MONIES, FORECLOSURE OF MORTGAGE. NOTICE OF SALE.
To: JEFTE PEREIRA MENDOZA, CARMEN RIVERA VALDEZ AND THEIR CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP, ANY OTHER PARTY WITH INTEREST OVER THE PROPERTY MENTIONED BELOW; GENERAL PUBLIC.
WHEREAS: Judgment was entered in favor of plaintiff to recover from defendants the sum of $108,910.18 in principal, interest rate of 11.980% per annum since May 5, 2016. Such interest will continue to accrue until the debt is paid in full. The defendants also owe plaintiff late charges in the amount of 5.000% of each and any monthly installment not received by the note holder within 15 days after the installment was due as well as any advances made under the mortgage note including but not limited to insurance premiums, taxes and inspections as well as 10% or $11,917.90 of the original principal amount to cover costs, expenses, and attorney 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, 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 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 office of the Clerk of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, Room 150 –Federal Office Building, 150 Carlos Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, to cover the sums adjudged to be paid to the plaintiff, the following property
(as described in the Property Registrar in the Spanish language): URBANA: Solar marcado con el número 8 del bloque V de la Urbanización Los Flamboyanes del Barrio Hato Nuevo, Sector Buena Vista, en el término municipal de Gurabo, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de cuatrocientos cincuenta y cinco metros, cincuenta y seis decímetros cuadrados. En linderos: NORTE, con la carretera municipal número 27, en una distancia de 14.00 metros; SUR, con la calle número 24, en una distancia de 14.00 metros; ESTE, con el solar número 7 del mismo bloque, en una distancia de 32.50 metros; OESTE, con “Green Belt Area”, en una distancia de 32.58 metros. The mortgage deed is recorded at page 233 of volume 325 of Gurabo, property #12,942 Property Registry of Caguas, Section II. 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 14TH DAY OF MARCH OF 2023, AT: 9:00 AM. The minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum of $119,179.08. 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 21ST DAY OF MARCH OF 2023, AT: 9:00 AM, and the minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum $79,452.72, which is two-thirds 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 28TH DAY OF MARCH OF 2023, AT: 9:00 AM, and the minimum bid that will be accepted is the sum of $59,589.54, 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 mini-
mum bid of the third public sale, crediting this amount to the amount owed if it is greater. The Special Master shall not accept in payment of the property to be sold anything but United States currency 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 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 3rd day of February of 2023. PEDRO A. VÉLEZ-BAERGA, SPECIAL MASTER, SPECIALMASTERPR@GMAIL.COM, 787-6728269.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE MANATĺ FIRSTBANK PUERTO RICO
Parte Demandante Vs. SUCESIÓN DE ÁNGEL LUIS ROSADO
SANTIAGO COMPUESTA
POR MELINDA ROSADO; IVELISA ROSADO; MARĹA ISABEL MUÑIZ
SÁNCHEZ; FULANO Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO
POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; CRIM
Parte Demandada
Civil Núm.: MT2022CV00187.
Salón Núm.: (102). Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA Y COBRO DE DINERO. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA. EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE
ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS.
A: SUCESIÓN DE ÁNGEL LUIS ROSADO
SANTIAGO COMPUESTA
POR MELINDA ROSADO; IVELISA ROSADO; MARĹA ISABEL MUÑIZ
SÁNCHEZ; FULANO Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM): DEPARTAMENTO DE HACIENDA: Y AL PÚBLICO EN GENERAL: El Alguacil que suscribe, certifica y hace constar que en cumplimiento de Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que me ha sido dirigido por la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Manatí, procederé a vender en pública subasta y al mejor postor, por separado, de contado y por moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América. Todo pago recibido por el (la) Alguacil por concepto de subastas será en efectivo, giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del (de la) Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia. Todo derecho, título, participación e interés que le corresponda a la parte demandada o cualquiera de ellos en el inmueble hipotecado objeto de ejecución que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Casa de hormigón de una planta, tres dormitorios y un baño. Bloque 4, Lote 15, Jardines de Mónaco, Manatí, Puerto Rico. Radicada en el Barrio Coto Sur y Río Arriba Saliente del término de Manatí, Puerto Rico, con una cabida superficial de 325.00 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, en 25.00 metros, con el solar número 16; por el SUR, en 25.00 metros, con el solar número 14; por el ESTE, 13.00 metros, con la calle B; y por el OESTE, en 13.00 metros, con los solares número 6 y 7. Enclava casa de hormigón para fines residenciales. Consta inscrita al folio 140 del tomo 300 de Manatí, finca número #12,053, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Manatí. La propiedad objeto de ejecución está localizada en la siguiente dirección: Jardines de Monaco, #452 Calle Grace, Manatí, P.R. 00674. Se informa que la propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravamen posterior, una vez sea otorgada la escritura de venta judicial y obtenida la Orden y Mandamiento de cancelación de gravamen posterior. (Art. 51, Ley 210-2015). En relación a la finca a subastarse, se establece como tipo mínimo de licitación en la Primera Subasta la suma de $101,083.00, con intereses al 4.25% anual, vencedero el día 1 de septiembre de 2045, constituida mediante la escritura número 214, otor-
gada en Hatillo, Puerto Rico, el día 22 de agosto de 2015, ante el notario Frederick J. Baraga Huyke, e inscrita al tomo Karibe de Manatí, finca número 12,053, inscripción 8va. La PRIMERA SUBASTA, se llevará a cabo el día 10 DE MAYO DE 2023 A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en mis oficinas sitas en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Manatí, el tipo mínimo para la primera subasta es la suma de $101,083.00. Si la primera subasta del inmueble no produjere remate, ni adjudicación, se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 17 DE MAYO DE 2023 A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo sitio y servirá de tipo mínimo las dos terceras partes del precio pactada para la primera subasta, o sea, la suma de $67,388.66. Si la segunda subasta no produjere remate, ni adjudicación, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 24 DE MAYO DE 2023 A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar y regirá como tipo mínimo de la tercera subasta la mitad del precio pactado para la primera, o sea, la suma de $50,541.50. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo, para con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandante el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor, a saber: Suma Principal de $89,684.17, con intereses a 4.25% anual, desde el 1ro de septiembre de 2021, hasta el presente y los que se continúen acumulando hasta su total y completo pago, más los cargos por demora que se corresponden a los plazos atrasados desde la fecha anteriormente indicada a razón de la tasa pactada de 4% de cualquier pago que éste en mora por más de quince (15) días desde la fecha de su vencimiento, más una suma equivalente a $10,108.30, por concepto de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, más cualquier otra suma que resulte por cualesquiera otros adelantos que se hayan hecho la demandante, en virtud de las disposiciones de la escritura de hipoteca y del Pagaré hipotecario. Para más información, a las personas interesadas se les notifica que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado, estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal, durante las horas laborables. Este EDICTO DE SUBASTA, se publicará en los lugares públicos correspondientes y en un periódico de circulación general en la jurisdicción de Puerto Rico. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los referentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes.
Se entenderá que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se procederá a otorgar la correspondiente Escritura de Venta Judicial y el Alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial al nuevo dueño, si así se lo solicita dentro del término de veinte (20) días, de conformidad con las disposiciones de Ley. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante u ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del deudor la ocupen. Expedido en Manatí, Puerto Rico, a 23 de enero de 2023. Wilfredo Rodríguez Carrión, Alguacil Confidencial Placa #135.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE ARECIBO SALA SUPERIOR DE ARECIBO
BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO
Demandante V. LISSETTE REILLO COLÓN; SUCESIÓN DE JOSÉ CORTÉS
MARTI COMPUESTA
POR “JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE” COMO
POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE DICHA SUCESIÓN; CENTRO DE RECAUDACIONES DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM)
Demandados Civil Núm.: AR2022CV00697.
Sala: 102. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. AVISO DE SUBASTA. El que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Arecibo, Arecibo, Puerto Rico, hago saber, a la parte demandada y al PÚBLICO EN GENERAL: Que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia expedido el día 31 de enero de 2023, por la Secretaría del Tribunal, procederé a vender y venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor la propiedad que ubica y se describe a continuación: RÚSTICA: Parcela marcada con el número novecientos cincuenta y tres (953) en el Plano de parcelación de la
comunidad rural Angostura del Barrio Afuera del término Municipal de Barceloneta, Puerto Rico, con un área superficial de 76.30 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, con la calle 4; por el SUR, con el camino de acceso; por el ESTE, con camino de acceso; y por el OESTE, con la parcela 954. Inscrita en la finca número 10,713, al folio 190 del tomo 182 de Barceloneta, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Manatí. Además, el Alguacil que suscribe, hago saber a todos los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante, o de los acreedores de cargas o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca ejecutada y las personas interesadas en, o con derecho a exigir el cumplimiento de instrumentos negociables garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito ejecutado, siempre que surjan de la certificación registral, para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les convenga o satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, costas y honorarios de abogados asegurados, quedando entonces subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante:
a. Hipoteca en garantía de un pagaré a favor de Autoridad para el Financiamiento de la Vivienda de Puerto Rico, por la suma principal de $15,000.00, sin intereses, vencedero el día 29 de diciembre de 2012, constituida mediante la escritura número 963, (no expresa lugar de otorgamiento), el día 29 de diciembre de 2004, ante el notario Rafael A. Ojeda Diez, e inscrita al folio 120 del tomo 284 de Barceloneta, finca número 10,713, inscripción 2da., y última., como Asiento Abreviado extendida las líneas el día 23 de septiembre de 2015, en virtud de la Ley número 216 del día 27 de diciembre de 2010. (Fue presentado el día 17 de enero de 2005 al Asiento 794 del Diario 287). Condiciones bajo el Programa La Llave para tu Hogar, por un término de 8 años. b. AL ASIENTO 1685 DEL DIARIO 326, se presentó el día 17 de julio de 2015, Demanda de fecha 8 de junio de 2015, expedida en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Manatí, en el Caso Civil CD15-390, seguido por el Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, contra Lissette Reillo Colón y José Cortés Marti, solteros, por la suma de $10,436.74. c. AL ASIENTO 2016-012304 DEL SISTEMA KARIBE, se presentó el día 9 de marzo de 2016, Demanda de fecha 21 de enero de
2016, expedida en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Manatí, en el Caso Civil CD1627, seguido por el Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, contra Lissette Reillo Colón y José Cortés Marti, solteros, por la suma de $10,436.74, más intereses y otras sumas. El producto de la subasta se destinará a satisfacer al demandante hasta donde alcance, la SENTENCIA dictada el 7 de diciembre de 2022 y notificada el 7 de diciembre de 2022, en el presente caso civil, a saber la suma de $9,752.81 por concepto de principal; generando intereses a razón de 8.50% desde el 1ro de noviembre de 2017; cargos por demora los cuales al igual que los intereses continúan acumulándose hasta el saldo total de la deuda reclamada en este pleito, y la suma de $4,590.00 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado; y demás créditos accesorios garantizados hipotecariamente (“Sentencia”). La adjudicación se hará al mejor postor, quien deberá consignar el importe de su oferta en el acto mismo de la adjudicación, en efectivo (moneda del curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América), giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del alguacil del Tribunal. La PRIMERA SUBASTA se llevará a efecto el día 17 DE MAYO DE 2023
A LAS 10:15 DE LA MAÑANA, en el Centro Judicial de Arecibo, Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Que el precio mínimo fijado para la PRIMERA SUBASTA es de $11,725.00. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una SEGUNDA SUBASTA la misma se llevará a efecto el día 24 DE MAYO DE 2023 A LAS 10:15 DE LA MAÑANA, en la oficina antes mencionada del Alguacil que suscribe. El precio mínimo para la SEGUNDA SUBASTA será de $7,816.66, equivalentes a dos terceras (2/3) partes del tipo mínimo estipulado para la PRIMERA subasta. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una TERCERA SUBASTA la misma se llevará a efecto el día 1 DE JUNIO DE 2023 A LAS 10:15 DE LA MAÑANA, en la oficina antes mencionada del Alguacil que suscribe. El precio mínimo para la TERCERA SUBASTA será de $5,862.50, equivalentes a la mitad (1/2) del tipo mínimo estipulado para la PRIMERA subasta. Si se declarase desierta la tercera subasta, se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si ésta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta, si el Tribunal lo estima conveniente; se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si esta es mayor, todo ello a tenor con lo dispone el Articulo
SALA DE SAN JUAN CASCADE FUNDING
MORTGAGE TRUST HB2
Demandante Vs. LUIS ÁNGEL SANTORI MAYORAL, T/C/C LUIS
A. SANTORI MAYORAL, T/C/C LUIS SANTORI MATORAL, T/C/C LUIS
A. SANTORI Y A LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA
Demandados
Civil Núm.: SJ2019CV11325.
Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA.
Al: PÚBLICO EN GENERAL.
A: LUIS ÁNGEL SANTORI
MAYORAL, T/C/C LUIS
A. SANTORI MAYORAL, T/C/C LUIS SANTORI MATORAL, T/C/C LUIS
A. SANTORI Y A LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA.
Yo, ERIK F. OSUNA ACEVEDO, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, a los demandados, acreedores y al público en general con interés sobre la propiedad que más adelante se describe, y al público en general, por la presente CERTIFICO, ANUNCIO y HAGO CONSTAR: Que el día
23 DE MARZO DE 2023, A LAS
11:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en mi oficina, sita en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de San Juan, San Juan, Puerto Rico, procederé a vender en Pública Subasta, al mejor postor, la propiedad inmueble que más adelante se describe y cuya venta en pública subasta se ordenó por la vía ordinaria mediante Sentencia dictada en el caso de epígrafe, la cual se notificó y archivó en autos el día 9 de septiembre de 2021. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado, estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría durante horas laborables. Que en caso de no producir remate ni adjudicación en la primera subasta a celebrarse, se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA para la venta de la susodicha propiedad, el día 30 DE MARZO DE 2023, A LAS 11:30
DE LA MAÑANA; y en caso de no producir remate ni adjudicación, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 10 DE ABRIL DE 2023, A LAS 11:30 DE LA MAÑANA en mi oficina sita en el lugar antes indicado. Que en cumplimiento de un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que ha sido liberado por la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de San Juan, en el caso de epígrafe con fecha de 8 de febrero de 2023, procederé a vender en pública subasta y al mejor postor, todo derecho, títu-
lo e interés que tenga la parte demandada de epígrafe en el inmueble de su propiedad ubicado en: 261 Coll & Toste St. Baldrich Dev. San Juan PR00918, y que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar número 351 de la Manzana letra “O” de la Urbanización Reparto Baldrich, radicado en el Barrio Hato Rey, del término municipal de Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, con una cabida de cuatrocientos veintisiete punto setenta y cinco (427.75) metros cuadrados, y con las siguientes medidas y colindancias; por el NORTE, en catorce (14.00) metros, con parte del Solar trescientos cuarenta (340) y con pared del Solar trescientos cuarenta y uno (341) ambos de la Urbanización; por el SUR, en quince (15.00) metros con la Calle San Rafael, hoy Calle Coll y Toste; por el ESTE, en veintinueve punto cincuenta (29.50) metros, con el Solar trescientos cincuenta (350) de la Urbanización y por el OESTE, en igual medida, con el Solar trescientos cincuenta y dos (352) de la Urbanización. Enclava una casa de concreto reforzado que consta de 4 dormitorios, cocina, pantry, cuarto sanitario, sala, comedor y marquesina la cual lleva el 261 de la Calle Coll y Toste. Finca número 6,422 inscrita al folio 93 del tomo 345 de Río Piedras Norte. Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección II de San Juan. La subasta se llevará a cabo para satisfacer, hasta donde alcance, el importe de las cantidades adeudadas a la parte demandante conforme a la sentencia dictada a su favor, a saber: $131,563.28, de principal más intereses pactados sobre esta suma al tipo de 5.56% anual para un total de $249,807.66 a la fecha de 31 de diciembre de 2019, cual continúa acumulándose hasta su total y completo pago, más la cantidad de $34,650.00, equivalente al 10% de la suma principal original pactada, estipulada para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado; más recargos acumulados hasta la fecha en que se pague la deuda; más cualquiera suma de dinero por concepto de contribuciones, primas de seguro hipotecario y riesgo, así como cualesquiera otras sumas pactadas en la escritura de hipoteca, todas cuyas sumas están líquidas y exigibles. La hipoteca a ejecutarse en el caso de epígrafe fue constituida mediante la escritura número 56 otorgada el día 31 de marzo de 2009, San Juan, Puerto Rico, ante el Notario Público Alfonso J. Gomez Roubert y consta inscrita al folio 187 del tomo 1572 de Río Piedras Norte, finca número 6,422, Registro de la Propiedad de Rio Piedras Norte, Sección II de San Juan. Por la presente se notifica a los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre
los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante o acreedores de cargos o derechos reales que los hubiesen pospuesto a la hipoteca del actor y a los dueños, poseedores, tenedores de o interesados en títulos transmisibles por endoso o al portador garantizados hipotecariamente con posterioridad al crédito del actor que se celebrarán las subastas en las fechas, horas y sitios señalados para que puedan concurrir a la subasta si les conviniere o se les invita a satisfacer antes del remate el importe del crédito, de sus intereses, otros cargos y las costas y honorarios de abogado asegurados quedando subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. Entiéndase: Hipoteca en garantía de un pagaré a favor del Secretario de la Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $346,500.00, con intereses al 5.560% anual, vencedero el día 14 de enero de 2094, constituida mediante la escritura número57, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 31 de marzo de 2009, ante el notario Alfonso J. Gomez Roubert, e inscrita al folio 187 del tomo 1572 de Río Piedras Norte, finca número 6,422, inscripción 12va., Que la cantidad mínima de licitación en la primera subasta del inmueble antes descrito será la suma de $346,500.00 según se establece en la escritura de hipoteca antes relacionada. En caso de que el inmueble a ser subastado no fuera adjudicado en su primera subasta se ordena la celebración de una segunda subasta de dicho i nmueble, en la cual, la cantidad mínima será una equivalente a 2/3 parte de aquella, o sea la suma de $231,000.00; desierta también la segunda subasta de dicho inmueble, se ordena la celebración de una tercera subasta en la cual, la cantidad mínima será la mitad del precio pactado para la primera subasta, es decir la suma de $173,250.00. La propiedad se adjudicará al mejor postor, quien deberá satisfacer el importe de su oferta en moneda legal y corriente de los Estados Unidos de América en el momento de la adjudicación, entiéndase efectivo, giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, y que las cargas y gravámenes preferentes, si los hubiese, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes, entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. La propiedad no está sujeta a gravámenes anteriores y/o preferentes según surge de las constancias del Registro de la Propiedad en un estudio de título efectuado a la finca antes descrita. Una vez
efectuada la venta de dicha propiedad, el Alguacil procederá a otorgar la escritura de traspaso al licitador victorioso en subasta, quien podrá ser la parte demandante, cuya oferta podrá aplicarse a la extinción parcial o total de la obligación reconocida por la sentencia dictada en este caso. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Si el producto de la venta fuere insuficiente para satisfacer la cantidad reclamada, se procederá a la ejecución de la sentencia en contra de la parte demandada por el remanente de las sumas no satisfechas, mediante embargo y venta en ejecución de cualesquiera otros bienes propiedad de la parte demandada en cantidad suficiente para dejar cubierta y totalmente satisfecha a la parte demandante cualquier deficiencia o parte insoluta de la sentencia dictada a su favor según dispuesto en la sentencia dictada en este caso. Se dispone, conforme con la sentencia dictada en este caso que, una vez efectuada la subasta y vendido el bien inmueble, los adjudicatarios sean puestos en posesión del mismo dentro del término de veinte (20) días por el Alguacil de este Honorable Tribunal y los actuales poseedores lanzados del referido inmueble. Y para la concurrencia de licitadores y para el público en general, se publicará este Edicto de acuerdo con la ley, mediante edicto, en un periódico de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, una vez por semana, por espacio de dos (2) semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones, y para su fijación en tres (3) lugares públicos del municipio en que ha de celebrarse la venta, tales como la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía, y se le notificará además a la parte demandada vía correo certificado con acuse de recibo a la última dirección conocida. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente Edicto de Subasta para conocimiento y comparecencia de los licitadores, bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, en San Juan, Puerto Rico, a 15 de febrero de 2023. ERIK F. OSUNA ACEVEDO, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR, ALGUACIL DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE SAN JUAN.
****
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE CAGUAS
BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO
Demandante Vs. SUCESIÓN DE JOSÉ LUIS MÉNDEZ QUINTANA
COMPUESTA POR SUS HEREDEROS CONOCIDOS GLENDA LIZ MÉNDEZ NOA, JOSÉ LUIS MÉNDEZ NOA Y JOSÉ FRANCISCO MÉNDEZ NOA; FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS Y/O PARTES CON INTERÉS EN DICHA SUCESIÓN
Demandados
Civil Núm.: CG2022CV04254. Sala: 801. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS.
A: FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE JOSÉ LUIS MÉNDEZ QUINTANA.
URB. SANTA ELVIRA I-20 CALLE SANTA ISABEL, CAGUAS, PR 00725. POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los 30 días a partir de la publicación de este edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. Se le apercibe que conforme al artículo 1578 del Código Civil, 31 L.P.R.A. §11021, usted tiene 30 días para aceptar o repudiar la herencia desde la publicación de este edicto. A esos efectos, de no rechazarla, se tendrá la herencia por aceptada. Representa a la parte demandante, la representación legal cuyo nombre, dirección y teléfono se consigna de inmediato: BUFETE FORTUÑO & FORTUÑO FAS, C.S.P. LCDO. JUAN C. FORTUÑO FAS RÚA NÚM.: 11416 PO BOX 3908, GUAYNABO, PR 00970 TEL: 787-751-5290, FAX: 787-751-6155
E-MAIL: ejecuciones@fortuno-law.com
En Caguas, Puerto Rico, a 23 de febrero de 2023. LISILDA MARTÍNEZ AGOSTO, SECRETARIA. SANDRA J. TRINIDAD
CAÑUELAS, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO LIME HOMES, LTD.
Plaintiff Vs. LUIS BONNET MERCIER; EDNA NAZARIO FIGUEROA AND THEIR CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP; ENTERTAINMENT UNLIMITED, INC.
Defendants
Civil No.: 19-CV-01756. Re: COLLECTION OF MONIES, FORECLOSURE OF MORTGAGE. NOTICE OF SALE.
To: LUIS BONNET MERCIER; EDNA NAZARIO FIGUEROA AND THEIR CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP; ENTERTAINMENT UNLIMITED, INC., AND ANY OTHER PARTY WITH INTEREST OVER THE PROPERTY MENTIONED BELOW, GENERAL PUBLIC.
WHEREAS: Judgment was entered in favor of plaintiff to recover from defendants the sum of $538,326.68 in principal, interest rate of 3.50% per annum since April 1st, 2015. Such interest will continue to accrue until the debt is paid in full. In addition, the defendants owes the Plaintiff the late charges amounting to 5.000% of each and any monthly installment not received by the note holder within 15 days after the installment was due. The Defendants also owe the Plaintiff all of the advances made pursuant to the provisions and/or dispositions of the Mortgage Note and the Mortgage Deed. The Defendants also woe an amount equivalent to 10% of the original principal balance as liquidated amount to cover costs, expenses and attorney’s fees. 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, 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 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 office of the Clerk of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, Room 150 – Federal Office Building, 150 Carlos Chardón Avenue, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, to cover the
sums adjudged to be paid to the plaintiff, the following property (as described in the Property Registrar in the Spanish language): Property located at: Torre del Mar Condominium, Apt. 2307, 1477 Ashford Ave., San Juan, PR. URBANA: PROPIEDAD HORIZONTAL: Apartamento residencial denominado “Pent-house” número dos mil trescientos siete (2307), de dos niveles, localizado en la vigésima cuarta (24) planta del Edificio Torre del Mar, en el Sector Norte de Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico, con una cabida total privada de tres mil seiscientos sesenta (3,660) pies cuadrados, equivalente a trescientos cuarenta (340.00) metros cuadrados. El primer nivel de este apartamento lo constituye la caja de la escalera privada de entrada a la parte superior o nivel superior. La escalera privada que forma parte de la unidad de vivienda se encuentra situada en el extremo del corredor común del piso y tiene los siguientes linderos y medidas: por el NORTE en trece pies y seis pulgadas (13’6”) con el corredor común del piso, dando ésta la puerta de entrada de esta escalera; por el SUR, en trece pies seis pulgadas (13’6”) con el apartamento número dos mil trescientos uno (2301); por el ESTE, en siete pies y nueve pulgadas (7’9”) con el apartamento número dos mil trescientos uno (2301); y por el OESTE, en siete pies y nueve pulgadas (7’9”) con el apartamento número dos mil trescientos uno (2301). Esta escalera constituye la entrada de este apartamento y forma parte del mismo. El nivel superior (segundo nivel) tiene una medida de cincuenta y seis pies (56’) en su mayor longitud de sesenta y seis pies y diez pulgadas (66’10”) en su parte más ancha. Consta de escalera de entradas, foyer, sala, comedor, cocina, con mesa de trabajo, estufa, gabinetes de pared, fregadero y calentador de agua, gimnasio con su medio baño, cuarto de lavandería, dormitorio principal con su vestidor, un baño y su closet, vestidor, dos cuartos dormitorios con sus closets y un baño para uso de ambos, cuartos de servicio con su baño y closet, terrazas al Norte, Oeste, y Sur. Colinda por el NORTE en cuarenta y siete pies y dos pulgadas (47’2”) con el patio exterior separado por baranda de la terraza y pared exterior y en trece pies cinco pulgadas (13’5”) con la unidad familiar o apartamento número dos mil trescientos tres (2303) separado por paredes interiores; por el SUR, en cincuenta y seis pies (56) con el espacio exterior que mira hacia la Avenida Ashford, separado por pared exterior; por el ESTE, en treinta y un pies (31’00”) con el apartamento número dos mil trescientos dos (2302), separa-
do por pared de carga en una línea irregular de treinta y cinco pies y diez pulgadas (35’10”), con baño común del piso corredor central y cuarto de servicio de la unidad familiar o apartamento número dos mil trescientos tres (2303) separados de ellos por paredes inferiores; y por el OESTE, en una distancia de sesenta y seis pies y diez pulgadas (66”10”) con el espacio exterior que mira hacia la calle Nairm, la puerta de entrada de este apartamento se encuentra en la escalera que conduce al nivel superior y desemboca en el foyer y por esta escalera privada se comunica con el corredor común limitado por el cual se sale al exterior. Le corresponde un porcentaje de uno punto cinco mil ochocientos seis por ciento (1.5806%) en los elementos comunes generales. Finca 29047, Inscrita al Folio 81 del Tomo 861 de Santurce Norte, registro de la Propiedad de San Juan, Sección Primera. The mortgage is recorded at page number page number 86 of volume number 861 of Santurce North of property number 29,047, 14th recording in the Registry of Property of San Juan, Section I.
On August 30th, 2013, the note and Deed of Mortgage were modified pursuant to Deed of Modification of Mortgage number 582 executed before Notary Nestor Machado Cortes to decrease the principal balance to $551,629.77 and modify the annual interest rate. The Deed of Modification is recorded at Karibe page property number 29,047 of Santurce North, in the Property Registry San Juan, Section I, 15th inscription.
WHEREAS: This property is subject to the following liens:
Senior Liens: None.
Junior Liens: Sentencia del 25 de octubre de 2017, Orden del 18 de enero de 2018 y Mandamiento del 22 de enero de 2018 dictados en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala de San Juan caso civil #KCD20161516 (901) sobre Cobro de Dinero (Ley de Condominios Gastos Comunes) seguido por Consejo de Titulares del Condominio Torre del Mar representado por su Junta de Directores vs. Entertainment Unlimited, Inc. donde se anota Sentencia por la deuda de $37,582.97 en concepto de cuotas de mantenimiento, penalidades, intereses y primas de seguro comunal, anotada el 10 de agosto de 2022 en el tomo Karibe finca 29047 de Santurce Norte anotación “A”. 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, (ex-
go de sus colindancias Noreste y Suroeste, Avenida Pinos II y Calle E, respectivamente, por una franja de servidumbre de uno punto cincuenta (1.50) metros de ancho a favor de la Junta Reglamentadora de Telecomunicaciones de Puerto Rico. La escritura de hipoteca se encuentra inscrita al folio 151 del tomo 1326 de Arecibo, Sección Primera, finca número 52,587, inscripción primera. Modificada la hipoteca que grava la finca en cuanto a que se amplía en la suma de $7,306.65 para un nuevo principal de $174,619.65, con intereses al 3.75% y vencedero el día 1ro. de marzo de 2043, según la escritura número 17, otorgada en Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, el día 26 de febrero de 2013, ante la Notario Público Esther Rebeca Luzón Colón, inscrita al tomo Karibe de Arecibo, Registro de la Propiedad de Arecibo, Sección Primera, finca 52,587, inscripción 2da. La dirección física de la propiedad antes descrita es: Urbanización Los Pinos II, Calle Earina, E-4, Arecibo, Puerto Rico. La Subasta se llevará a efecto para satisfacer a la parte demandante la suma de $170,586.91 de principal, intereses al 3.75% anual desde el 1ro. de junio de 2014, hasta su completo pago; más la cantidad de $16,731.30 estipulada para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, más recargos acumulados, todas cuyas sumas están líquidas y exigibles. Que la cantidad mínima de licitación en la primera subasta para el inmueble será de $174,619.65 y de ser necesaria una segunda subasta, la cantidad mínima será equivalente a 2/3 partes de aquella, o sea, la suma de $116,413.10 y de ser necesaria una tercera subasta, la cantidad mínima será la mitad del precio pactado, es decir, la suma de $87,309.83. De declararse desierta la tercera subasta se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si esta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta, si el Tribunal lo estima conveniente. Se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si esta es mayor. La propiedad se adjudicará al mejor postor, quien deberá satisfacer el importe de su oferta en moneda legal y corriente de los Estados Unidos de América en el momento de la adjudicación y que las cargas y gravámenes preferentes, si los hubiese, continuarán subsistentes, entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. La propiedad a ser vendida en pública subasta se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Podrán concurrir como postores a todas las subastas los titulares de créditos hipotecarios vigentes y
posteriores a la hipoteca que se cobra o ejecuta, si alguno o que figuren como tales en la certificación registral y que podrán utilizar el montante de sus créditos o parte de alguno en sus ofertas. Si la oferta aceptada es por cantidad mayor a la suma del crédito o créditos preferentes al suyo, al obtener la buena pro del remate, deberá satisfacer en el mismo acto, en efectivo o en cheque de gerente, la totalidad del crédito hipotecario que se ejecuta y la de cualesquiera otro créditos posteriores al que se ejecuta pero preferente al suyo. El exceso constituirá abono total o parcial en su propio crédito. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente Edicto para conocimiento y comparecencia de los licitadores, bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal, en Arecibo, Puerto Rico, 24 de febrero de 2023. ÁNGEL DE JESÚS TORRES PÉREZ, ALGUACIL DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA SUPERIOR DE ARECIBO.
LEGAL NOTICE
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO GITSIT SOILUTIONS, LLC
Plaintiff Vs. CARMEN IRIS VEGA HOYOS, FOR HERSELF AND AS MEMBER OF THE ESTATE OF MANUEL RAMON ALVAREZ ARIAS
A/K/A MANUEL ALVAREZ ARIAS; JOHN DOE AND RICHARD ROE AS POSSIBLE UNKNOWN MEMBERS OF THE ESTATE OF MANUEL RAMON ALVAREZ ARIAS
A/K/A MANUEL ALVAREZ ARIAS; CENTRO DE RECAUDACION DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES
Defendant/s Civil No.: 3:19-cv-2074-DRD.
Re: FORECLOSURE IN REM. SUMMONS BY PUBLICATION.
To: MANUEL DE JESÚS
ALVAREZ ECHEVARRÍA, SUSANA ALTAGRACIA
ÁLVAREZ ECHEVARRÍA, CELESTE AIDA ÁLVAREZ ECHEVARRÍA, KEVIA
NAHEL ÁLVAREZ
DENNIS, AND MANUEL NAGEL ÁLVAREZ PACHECO.
The Plaintiff has filed proceedings for the foreclosure of mortgage executed by the defendant(s) on a property described in the Spanish language as follows: “URBANA: Solar radicado en el sitio conocido con el nombre de Barrio Obrero de San Juan, marcado con el número 5 de la calle 8 del plano de Urbanización trazado por el Departamento de Interior, que
tiene una superficie de 155.00 metros cuadrados Colindando por el FRENTE, en una extensión de 10.00 metros con la calle número 8; por el FONDO en una extensión de 10.00 metros con el solar número 7 de la calle 7; por el DERECHA entrando, en una extensión de 15.60 metros con el solar número 7 de la calle 8; y por el IZQUIERDA entrando en una extensión de 15.40 metros con el solar número 3 de la calle 8.” Recorded at page 174 of volume 45 of Santurce Norte, Property Registry of San Juan, Section I, property number 7218. The said property is subject to a mortgage which secures payments of a mortgage note payable to ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS CORPORATION D/B/A CITIFINANCIAL, or its order, for the principal sum of $131,385.00, interest at 12.035% per annum; lowered to 5.004%per internal agreement and $13,138.50 for costs, disbursement and attorney’s fees, which mortgage and mortgage modification appears recorded in the page 92 of volume 1140 of Santurce Norte of San Juan, Section I, Property Registry of Puerto Rico at San Juan, Section I, Section, property number 7218. Plaintiff intends to file a Lis Pendens on this property. This Court has entered an order providing for summons by publication in accordance with the provisions of Rule 4.6 of the Rules of Civil Procedure for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and pursuant Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(e) and Rule 4.6. THEREFORE, you are hereby SUMMONED to appear, plead or answer the Complaint filed herein no later than (30) days after publication of this Summons by serving original plea or answer in the United State District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, and serving a copy to counsel for Plaintiff:
ANDRES SAEZ MARRERO, Esq. TROMBERG, MORRIS & POULIN, LLC
1515 South Federal Highway, Suite 100
Boca Raton, FL 33432
Tel. 561-338-4101 /
Fax. 561-338-4077
Should you fail to appear, plead or answer to the Complaint as ordered by the Court and noticed by this Summons, the Court will proceed to hear and adjudicate this cause against you based on the relief demanded in the Complaint, and the court shall proceed to adjudication without further notice. Copy of the complaint in this case was sent to defendant’s last known address by certified mail, return receipt requested, within ten (10) days of the one and only publication of this judicial notice. In San Juan, Puerto Rico, this 20th day of December, 2022. AGNES L. FERRERAUFFANT, ESQ., ACTING CLERK OF THE COURT. VIVIANA DIAZ, DEPUTY CLERK.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC, COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC
Demandante Vs. BRIAN ENGELL RIVERA
Demandada
Civil Núm.: SJ2022CV04579. Salón de Sesiones: 908. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO POR SUMAC.
A: BRIAN ENGELL RIVERA - URB. SAN GERARDO 325 CALLE TEJAS SAN JUAN, PR 00926-3426.
EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 21 de febrero de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 22 de febrero de 2023. En San Juan, Puerto Rico, el 22 de febrero de 2023. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. LUCRECIA PAGÁN MORALES, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA SALA SUPERIOR DE SAN JUAN BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO
Demandante (a) Vs. SONIMAR CARDONA, COMO HEREDERA CONOCIDA DE LA SUCESIÓN DE JOSÉ EDUARDO CARDONA DÍAZ; JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS
DESCONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE JOSÉ EDUARDO CARDONA DÍAZ; CENTRO DE RECAUDACIONES DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM)
Demandado (a) Civil Núm.: GB2022CV00167. Sala: 201. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. A: SONIMAR CARDONA, COMO HEREDERA CONOCIDA DE LA SUCESIÓN DE JOSÉ EDUARDO CARDONA DÍAZ; Y “JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE” COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE JOSÉ EDUARDO CARDONA DÍAZ. 7-101 APTO. VILLEGAS ST. PÓRTICOS DE GUAYNABO, GUAYNABO, PR 00966; PO BOX 16119 SAN JUAN, PR 00908. EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 7 de febrero de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 23 de febrero de 2023. En Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, el 23 de febrero de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL INTERINA. ANGELA
M. RIVERA HERNÁNDEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA SALA DE LARES
LEGACY MORTAGAGE
ASSET TRUST 2019-PR1
Demandante V.
JUAN RIVERA
LOPEZ, ROSA MARIA RIVERA CRUZ Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL
DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA DE AMBOS
Demandado(a)
Civil Núm.: LR2022CV00188.
Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA
POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO.
A: JUAN RIVERA LÓPEZ - PO BOX 1367 LARES
PUERTO RICO 00669; SR
453 KM.11 INT CALLE J
LARES PUERTO RICO 00667.
ROSA MARÍA RIVERA
CRUZ - PO BOX 1367
LARES, PR 00669; SR. 453 KM. 11 INT CALLE J
LARES, PUERTO RICO 00667.
SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES - PO BOX 1367 LARES PUERTO RICO 00669. SR 453 KM.11 INT CALLE J
LARES PUERTO RICO 00667.
(Nombre de las partes a las que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 13 de febrero de 2023, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 23 de febrero de 2023. En Lares, Puerto Rico, el 23 de febrero de 2023. DIANE ÁLVAREZ VILLANUEVA, SECRETARIA. MARTILLAN PÉREZ RIVERA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.
LEGAL NOTICE
ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SALA DE BAYAMÓN REVERSE MORTGAGE FUNDING, LLC
Demandante Vs. SUCESIÓN DE JACINTO GONZÁLEZ TRÍAS, T/C/C VÍCTOR JACINTO GONZÁLEZ TRÍAZ COMPUESTA POR
IRIS VELÁZQUEZ, FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO
POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; SUCESIÓN DE IRIS
GARCÍA MÉNDEZ COMPUESTA POR FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO
POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; CENTRO DE RECAUDACIÓN DE INGRESOS
MUNICIPALES; Y A LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA
Demandados
Civil Núm.: BY2019CV05880.
Sala: 701. Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA.
AL: PÚBLICO EN GENERAL.
A: SUCESIÓN DE JACINTO GONZÁLEZ TRÍAS, T/C/C VÍCTOR JACINTO GONZÁLEZ TRÍAZ COMPUESTA POR IRIS VELÁZQUEZ, FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; SUCESIÓN DE IRIS
GARCÍA MÉNDEZ COMPUESTA POR FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANO DE TAL COMO POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; CENTRO DE RECAUDACIÓN DE INGRESOS
MUNICIPALES; Y A LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA.
Yo, EDGARDO ELÍAS VARGAS SANTANA, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR PLACA #193, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Bayamón, a los demandados, acreedores y al público en general con interés sobre la propiedad que más adelante se describe, y al público en general, por la presente CERTIFICO, ANUNCIO y HAGO CONSTAR: Que el día 27 DE MARZO DE 2023, A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en mi oficina, sita en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Bayamón, Bayamón, Puerto Rico, procederé a vender en Pública Subasta, al mejor postor, la propiedad inmueble que más adelante se describe y cuya venta en pública subasta se ordenó por la vía ordinaria mediante Sentencia dictada en el caso de epígrafe, la cual se notificó y archivó en autos el día 10 de noviembre de 2022. Los autos y todos los
documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado, estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría durante horas laborables. Que en caso de no producir remate ni adjudicación en la primera subasta a celebrarse, se celebrará una SEGUNDA SUBASTA para la venta de la susodicha propiedad, el 3 DE ABRIL DE 2023, A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA; y en caso de no producir remate ni adjudicación, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el día 10 DE ABRIL DE 2023, A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA; en mi oficina sita en el lugar antes indicado. Que en cumplimiento de un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que ha sido liberado por la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Bayamón, en el caso de epígrafe con fecha de 30 de enero de 2023, procederé a vender en pública subasta y al mejor postor, todo derecho, título e interés que tenga la parte demandada de epígrafe en el inmueble que se describe a continuación: URBANA: Solar cuarenta de la Manzana M en la Urbanización Bayamón Gardens en el Barrio Pájaros en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, con un área de 498 m.c. con 88 cm. En lindes por el NORTE, con los solares 11 y 12, distancia de 15 m con 30 cm; por el SUR, con la Calle 13, distancia de 15 metros; por el ESTE con solare 39, distancia de 34 metros con 82 cm y por el OESTE, con solar 41, distancia de 31 metros y un metros con ochenta cm. Contiene una casa de concreto reforzado para una familia. Finca número 25,316, inscrita al folio 217 del tomo 556 de Bayamón Sur, Sección I de Bayamón. Dirección de la Propiedad: M-40 13 St. Bayamón Gardens Dev, Bayamón PR 00957. La subasta se llevará a cabo para satisfacer, hasta donde alcance, el importe de las cantidades adeudadas a la parte demandante conforme a la sentencia dictada a su favor, a saber: de $$147,220.54 con interés al 2.75% anual, cual acumulan a un total de $173,138.99, los cuales continúan acumulándose, así como la cantidad líquida estipulada en los documentos del préstamo para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado en caso de reclamación judicial y que correspondan a intereses y cargos por demora posterior a dicha fecha, y la suma equivalente al 10% de la suma principal original pactada, estipulada para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado; más recargos acumulados hasta la fecha en que se pague la deuda; más cualquiera suma de dinero por concepto de contribuciones, primas de seguro hipotecario y riesgo, así como cualesquiera otras sumas pactadas en la escritura de hipoteca, todas cuyas sumas están líquidas y exigibles. La hipoteca a ejecutarse
By TYLER KEPNER
Major League Baseball wants a faster-paced game with more balls in play, more action on the bases and more athleticism from its players. Jazz Chisholm Jr., the lively second baseman turned center fielder for the Miami Marlins, has a feeling how this will play out.
Pitch clocks, bigger bases, restrictions on pickoff throws, elimination of the infield shift? Finally, a victory for the little guys.
“A lot of pitchers are going to make a lot of mistakes this year because they’re falling behind in counts and not focusing,” Chisholm said one recent morning by his locker at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida. “It’s going to get in a lot of guys’ heads, the pitch clocks.”
Chisholm went on to describe his vision: slap-and-dash hits by Luis Arráez and Jean Segura, stolen bases by him and Jon Berti, home runs by Jorge Soler.
“I feel like we’re just going to wreak havoc in every way,” Chisholm said. Could baseball’s new rules really prop up its perennial also-ran? This is the 20th anniversary of the last championship for the Marlins, who have reached the postseason just once since then, in the shortened 2020 season. Two of their National League East rivals won 101 games last season (Atlanta Braves and New York Mets), and another (Philadelphia Phillies) reached the World Series.
Yet, when Marlins general manager Kim Ng had a veteran to trade this winter, she did a very unusual thing. The franchise that dealt away Gary Sheffield, Mike Piazza, Josh Beckett, Miguel Cabrera and Giancarlo Stanton — and so many other stars — made a deal in hopes of a win-now payoff.
After going 69-93 last season with the lowest batting average in club history (.230), the Marlins acquired the American League batting champion, Arráez, from the Minnesota Twins for Pablo López, a dependable right-
handed starter. To replace López, they signed Johnny Cueto, a 15-year veteran coming off his best season since 2016.
“We feel like we’re ready to win,” said Berti, an infielder-outfielder whose 41 steals led the majors last season.
“We’re ready to take that next step forward. We’re going to miss Pablo — great guy, great teammate, great pitcher — but we were able to add some more length to our lineup, obviously, with the batting champ.”
Arráez hit .316 last season — keeping Aaron Judge, the runner-up at .311, from winning the AL Triple Crown — and will play second base, bumping Chisholm to center field. Chisholm was voted to start the All-Star Game at second last summer, before a back injury cut short his season, but he has eagerly embraced the change, working with former center fielders Juan Pierre and Jon Jay (a Marlins coach) and talking with luminaries such as Ken Griffey Jr. and Sheffield, who switched from infield to outfield in his Hall of Fame-caliber career.
“For me, it’s pretty easy to go from the infield to the outfield, especially as a guy who loves to go back and try to get fly balls all the time; in the games, I’m right there with the outfielders on
the fly balls,” Chisholm said. “So I trust myself to go out there, my teammates trust me to go out there and my manager trusts me to go out there.”
Ng hired Skip Schumaker as a firsttime manager, largely because of Schumaker’s experience playing and coaching for the detail-oriented St. Louis Cardinals. The Marlins went 24-40 in one-run games last season and believe their pitching will usually give them a chance.
Sandy Alcantara was the unanimous NL Cy Young Award winner, and the young starters behind him and Cueto seem poised for a breakthrough: Jesús Luzardo, Braxton Garrett and Edward Cabrera combined for a 3.32 ERA in 49 starts last season. Ng also added left-hander A.J. Puk, a power reliever, in a trade with the Oakland Athletics this month.
In other words, the Braves, the Mets and the Phillies cannot easily dismiss the Marlins.
“We’re in a tough spot, but anything is possible when you have pitching,” Ng said. “If you’re holding a good offense to two or three runs and you can squeak out a few runs — there are going to be a lot of close games.”
The Marlins had the NL’s worst
slugging percentage last season (.363) and need at least adequate production from their top power threats, Soler and Avisail García, to even flirt with contention. But with players such as Arráez, shortstop Joey Wendle and Segura, who signed a two-year, $17 million contract to play third base, they have several hitters with a strong aversion to strikeouts.
Arráez was the majors’ leader in at-bats per strikeout last season (12.7, well ahead of Cleveland’s Steven Kwan, at 9.4) and fanned only 43 times in 603 plate appearances.
“I hate strikeouts,” he said, simply, as does Segura, a former NL hits leader who flicked a ninth-inning, go-ahead single in the Phillies’ first playoff game last fall — on a pitch in the opposite batter’s box — to spark an unlikely run to the pennant.
“With a small thing, a big thing can happen,” Segura said. “A big run on a ground ball to second base with two strikes in the shadows — just put the ball in play and it opens up everything.”
Ng loves that approach — a former softball player at the University of Chicago, she struck out just once in 49 atbats while hitting .388 as a junior — but understands the imperfections of her lineup. Chisholm, Soler and García are prone to strikeouts, and even with fewer divisional games this season, there will still be plenty of punchless nights against the aces of the NL East.
But the Marlins are not conceding, and that is a good thing. They may not slay the beasts of their division, but it should be fun to watch them try.
“I think we owe it to the fans,” Ng said. “We can’t sit there and have the great building blocks that we do and just throw up the white flag before opening day. It doesn’t make sense. I think we managed to keep a lot of our prospects and still put a club on the field that’s going to compete, no matter how hard our division is.”
When Mikal Bridges was traded from the Phoenix Suns to the Brooklyn Nets in early February, he had to join his new team without stopping at home in Arizona first.
So it fell to Cameron Payne, one of Bridges’ close friends on the Suns, to break the news to their dogs, who are best pals, or so their owners say. The moment called for compassion and candor, and Payne brought both.
Bridges’ dog, Sonny, is a yellow Labrador retriever. Payne’s dog, Uno, is a 25-pound French bulldog. They were lazing around Bridges’ house in Phoenix when Payne approached them. He addressed his comments mainly to Sonny, whose routine would be most disrupted.
“Man,” Payne recalled telling the dog, “Uno’s staying, and, Sonny, I think you’re
leaving.”
Sonny and Uno seemed to consider this, or perhaps had no idea what was going on.
Payne told Sonny: “Mikal said he wanted you out there. Mikal’s leaving. He got traded.”
He tried to reassure the dog: “You and Uno are still going to be best friends forever.”
“He looked at me crazy,” Payne said. “It just made me laugh. I was like, they really humans for real. They know exactly what we’re saying.”
The trade brought Kevin Durant to the Suns, transforming them into championship contenders, and offered a professional upside for Bridges, who will have a bigger role on the Nets.
But trades can be hard on NBA players, who often develop close friendships during long hours together on the court and on the
road. Bridges and Payne lived in the same neighborhood in Phoenix. They hung out at each other’s homes. They talked about their schedules and the best shoe insoles and what they saw on Instagram.
So when Bridges was traded Feb. 9 while the Suns were in Atlanta, Payne went straight to his friend’s hotel room and said an emotional goodbye.
“I’m just going to miss just the funniness, the icebreaker making everything cool, always having a good time,” Payne said of Bridges. “Always smiling and stuff. Those type of things I’m going to miss. He always made every day at work happy.”
The two friends were bound together, too, by a love of dogs — Sonny and Uno, whose relationship involved car rides and tussles over toys and was chronicled on Instagram.
If the disruption of these friendships is not exactly a tragedy — Bridges and Payne are young millionaires who admit to spoiling their dogs — it gives a glimpse into how personal and poignant the business of sports can be.
Canine jealousy
Bridges, 26, who is from Philadelphia, was a first-round draft pick after helping Villanova win two NCAA championships. Known as a strong defender, he will earn $21 million this year. A self-described “people person,” he had a lot of friends on the Suns — “I’m going to miss them so much,” he said. But he is making friends quickly on the Nets.
Sonny, who is 7 and barks when he wants to play with someone, has been in Bridges’ family since his sophomore year of college, mostly staying with Bridges’ mother. During the 2020-21 season, Sonny came to live with Bridges for what was supposed to be two weeks. But he never really left.
In Phoenix, Bridges lived with a friend who sometimes walked Sonny before Bridges got out of bed. One of Sonny’s favorite tricks was to wait until Bridges got up, pretend he had been neglected and beg to go out again.
“He thinks he can outsmart humans,” Bridges said. “I watch him from a distance and I’m like, ‘Look at him trying to be so sneaky.’”
Payne, 28, was also a first-round draft pick, but he bounced around lesser leagues until finding a home with the Suns in 2020. Known as a high-energy guard, he is now an important role player in Phoenix.
Payne has had Uno, who is 4 and loves to run around, since he was a puppy
and takes him most everywhere. He took Uno to a game a few years ago when he played for the Texas Legends, a G-League team. Uno sat near the bench, and Payne notched his first ever triple-double and was delighted that his “son” was there.
When Payne gets ready to leave for trips, Uno sits by his suitcase. He has, in the past, sat inside Payne’s girlfriend’s travel bag, presumably to prevent her from leaving without him.
Bridges and Payne started playing together on the Suns in 2020. They became friends faster than their dogs did. Sonny and Uno were wary of each other at first, and neither liked it when his owner paid attention to the other dog.
Sonny even got jealous if Payne paid attention to his own dog, neglecting Sonny. This befuddled Bridges: “It’s like, ‘Bro, that’s not even — why are you jealous, man?’”
Tensions eased with time and more exposure to each other. Suns players and their dogs hung out at the team practice facility and the home of Suns star Devin Booker, whose Italian mastiff, Haven, is perhaps the most famous dog on the team, given that he is featured on Booker’s Instagram account, which has 5.4 million followers.
When the Suns lost to the Dallas Mavericks in seven games during the Western Conference semifinals last year, the dogs provided a kind of comfort. When Bridges got home after the series ended, Sonny immediately started whining for Bridges to pet him.
“Just told him, ‘Well, I’m going to be home with you every day now,’” Bridges said glumly as he remembered the day. “It kind of gets your mind off basketball. You come home; someone’s just excited to see you.”
Bridges and Payne will miss each other, but they said they — and their dogs — will remain close.
“C. Payne’s my best friend,” Bridges said, adding, “And Uno, he’s little.” Bridges pantomimed carrying a little dog the way a running back might carry a football.
“So when C. Payne flies, he can just tuck him with him. It’s a little easier for travel. But Sonny’s definitely going to miss his guy.”
Payne said he knew that Sonny’s move to Brooklyn would leave a hole in Uno’s life.
“That’s really been one of the few dogs that he’s been hanging around,” he said, adding, “I’ve got to get him a new friend from on the team.”
Fill in the empty fields with the numbers from 1 through 9.
Sudoku Rules:
Every row must contain the numbers from 1 through 9
Every column must contain the numbers from 1 through 9
Every 3x3 square must contain the numbers from 1 through 9
Answers on page 38
Aries (Mar 21-April 20)
Have something on your mind? Today’s Quarter Moon encourages you to talk about it, Aries. Just getting it out in the open could help you see it in perspective, and feel positive rather than mired in self-doubt. It can also bring you to the point where you’re able to make a decision. From here, you’ll have a clear path to implementing a solution and settling this for good.
Taurus (April 21-May 21)
The thought could enter your head that someone is worth getting to know because they are useful. Don’t feel bad Taurus, as all relationships work on this principle, even if it’s not immediately obvious. There’s nothing wrong with making the most of the opportunities available. Today’s Sun/Moon angle suggests that a friendship could benefit both of you.
Gemini (May 22-June 21)
It helps to be consistent if you’re involved in something important. The Moon in your sign, suggests that you could keep changing your mind and even going off on a tangent, which means progress may be delayed. It’s best to make a decision and stick to it, even if you can think of a hundred reasons why you’re wrong a few moments later. Follow through, and all will be well.
Cancer (June 22-July 23)
Trust your intuition, and don’t be bamboozled by facts which in your case, might be misleading. You could get caught up in the rights and wrongs of a course of action, and end up going round in circles. Your heart knows what’s best for you. The Quarter Moon in your spiritual zone, encourages you to go beyond your mind and know that the feelings you have are the right ones.
Leo (July 24-Aug 23)
If you’re going to team up with others, you may need to be more forthcoming and share some things that you’d prefer to keep private. Today’s lunation could find you keen to keep your cards close to your chest, when you’d be better to talk freely and not worry about others using your ideas for their own gain. Without trust this project may not work out, which would be a shame.
Virgo (Aug 24-Sep 23)
The Quarter Moon in your sector of ambition, is a chance to make sure everyone is on the same page before you commit to a goal. If there are any objections, this can be an opportunity to discuss them and find a way forward. With a strong emphasis on your sector of relating, your focus is more on others and their feelings. Still, it’s important to make your voice heard, Virgo.
Libra (Sep 24-Oct 23)
Ready to explore new paths that could take you out of your comfort zone? A lively lunar phase suggests this could be so good for you. It’s time to make new discoveries, seize opportunities and embrace the idea of personal growth. If something piques your interest, then follow it up. There’s no knowing where it might lead. But rest assured, you’ll enjoy the journey immensely.
Scorpio (Oct 24-Nov 22)
Been thinking about a short break? If so, travel plans might come together fairly fast, Scorpio. A dynamic blend of energies could spark ideas of places to go and things to do. And as if that weren’t enough to whet your appetite, you might get a good deal price wise too. Keen to have some company? A friend with connections could make an excellent travel companion.
Sagittarius (Nov 23-Dec 21)
Today’s Quarter Moon could involve a lot of conversations, as issues may need to be addressed so you can make a decision or move forward with an idea. Getting other people’s opinion could be crucial to the process of furthering your aims. If someone is being purposely vague, then you’ll need to put them on the spot with a few well aimed questions to avoid any delays.
Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 20)
Before you proceed any further, it’s wise to be clear in your own mind what you are doing. If you’re keen to make forward strides, today’s lunar phase suggests drilling down into the detail. There’s a chance you’ve missed something crucial that could cause a snarl up further down the line. Time spent today going over your plans, may reveal some awkward mistakes, Capricorn.
Aquarius (Jan 21-Feb 19)
A resourceful focus could inspire you to start a small business to earn some extra cash. If you have been toying with this idea recently, today’s Sun/Moon angle could find you keen to take things one step further. If you have artistic or creative talents, or entrepreneurial skills, then don’t wait too long. Soon you could be nicely supplementing your income and enjoying doing so.
Pisces (Feb 20-Mar 20)
Today’s Quarter Moon in Gemini, can coincide with a turning point regarding a family project. If after discussion everyone is happy, then it’s full steam ahead. If not, go back to the drawing board. In addition, sparkling influences can bring insights that are the result of an intuitive nudge or a dream. If you’ve had difficulty solving an issue, then positive solutions could emerge.
