Monday Jan 29, 2024

Monday, January 29, 2024

San Juan

Star

The

DAILY 50¢

White House Blames Iran-Backed Militia for Strike That Kills US Service Members P12

‘Doing Nothing Is Not an Option’

Summit Called to Address Latest Surge of Fatal Violence Against Women P4

Groups, Businesses Object to PREPA Debt Deal

Jiménez Pérez Is New President of Dignity Project

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NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL P 16

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2 Monday, January 29, 2024

The San Juan Daily Star

GOOD MORNING 3

January 29, 2024

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.

Groups, businesses submit objections to PREPA debt deal

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ndividuals and businesses have come out against the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s (PREPA) debt adjustment plan, citing the impact it will have on their finances if it is confirmed.

In March, the Title III bankruptcy court will hold a hearing to determine whether or not to confirm the debt adjustment plan that would restructure PREPA’s $9 billion debt. Individuals, businesses and creditors are objecting to the plan.

The Cooperative Movement, represented by the League of Cooperatives, in a motion last week said it generates 3,457 direct jobs and more than 5,000 indirect and induced jobs. Savings and credit cooperatives impact 33% of all families in Puerto Rico and have 1 million clients that constitute about 48% of the legal age population of Puerto Rico, the league said.

In 2022, cooperatives captured savings of $10.6 billion and granted $6.2 billion in loans.

“Anything that affects the economic viability of the sector has the enormous potential to create a dislocation in the well-being of a considerable sector of our population,” the League of Cooperatives said. “We had estimated that the (Fourth) Amended Title III Plan of Adjustment would have meant that cooperative members would pay between $231.7 million and $347.5 million more for electricity. Adjusting those numbers for the currently proposed Legacy Charge, we estimate that the current plan will result in total bills between $216.6 million and $325 million for our members.”

“But even if a considerable number of cooperative members are exempted from the charge, they will still be severely impacted as member-owners of cooperatives,” the league added. “The Legacy Charge will make the entire production chain of services more expensive.”

The proposed legacy charge would be collected to ensure sufficient cash flow required for PREPA’s debt service on certain new bonds to be issued under the plan.

Although the actual plan reduces the fixed charge on certain commercial (GSP 212) customers from $800 to $50, it increases the volumetric charge from $0.0145 to $0.0236 per kilowatt-hours (kWh). It also imposes new payments to the bondholders for legal and administrative fees. Altogether, those fees increase the cost of the plan of adjustment by an additional $500 million to $1 billion, the league said.

Selectos Supermarket, which also presented an objection, said the legacy charge can represent a monthly increase of between $1,700 and $2,300 in the electricity bill of many supermarkets in the food industry such as Selectos.

“The Plan of Adjustment will affect Puerto Rico’s

economy and ratepayers, such as Selectos,” the supermarket chain said. “Therefore, PREPA will not be able to generate enough revenue and comply with its obligations to creditors or to the people of Puerto Rico. Because of this, the Plan of Adjustment is not feasible.”

PV Properties/Windmar Renewable Energy said PREPA’s debt deal has to be much more than a financial plan because it is a major public institution linked to economic development in Puerto Rico.

“As a matter of logical consequence, the Plan at a minimum must consider the fiscal implications to PREPA following the promulgation of the Puerto Rico Energy Public Policy and rejection of any course of action contrary to the public policy and consider the impact on Puerto Rico’s reality, economic, and social,” the firm said.

Several environmental groups such as Comité Diálogo Ambiental Inc., El Puente de Williamsburg Inc., Enlace Latino de Acción Climática, Comité Yabucoeño Pro-Calidad de Vida Inc., Alianza Comunitaria Ambientalista del Sureste Inc., Sierra Club Inc. and its Puerto Rico chapter, Mayagüezanos por la Salud y el Ambiente Inc., Coalición de Organizaciones Anti Incineración Inc., and Amigos del Río Guaynabo Inc., urged the bankruptcy court to reject the plan because it violates energy policies and is unfeasible.

“The plan relies on a Legacy Charge that will render electricity costs on the island even more unaffordable,” the environmental groups said. “Puerto Ricans’ energy burden is already far higher than the burden for the average American. Every single family in Puerto Rico with 0 to 80% of the median income is already energy poor because their “share of wallet” expense of electricity and gas is at or above 6%. The Legacy Charge would force that energy burden past a point of tolerability.”

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

Senator calls for summit to address violence against women

By THE STAR STAFF

S

en. Keren Riquelme Cabrera has called for a meeting on Wednesday with the chief justice of the Puerto Rico Supreme Court, the women’s advocate and the secretaries of Justice and Public Safety to evaluate possible changes in the system of action and protection of victims of domestic violence in the face of the tragic slayings of four women this month.

The at-large senator also called on the women’s advocate and the Justice Department to launch a mass media campaign on options that exist to help victims of domestic violence, while the Courts Administration office is conducting, as a matter of urgency and speed, a study on the causes behind Puerto Rico’s lowest rate in the United States of final protective orders issued.

“The tragic events last week inYauco, as Sen. Keren Riquelme Cabrera well as those that have arisen [elsewhere] this month, have to make us reflect and those failures are and correct them so that change course and improve where neces- no woman has to go through the same thing sary,” Riquelme Cabrera said. “It is obvious and provide as much security as possible that we need a different approach. It’s not to the victims. It’s time to act, change and sitting around thinking that the system implement initiatives that stop this pattern failed, it is that we have to look for where that has ruined the future of so many people

in a short period of time.”

“Doing nothing is not an option,” the senator added. “We are looking for campaigns to be initiated by the media informing victims about their rights, how they can ask for help, and the availability

of the same. Meanwhile, we want to know the reason why in Puerto Rico there are fees for issuing final protective orders, after the stage of an ex parte hearing, [for which Puerto Rico has the] lowest [rate] in the nation. For example, in the Caguas region in 2021-2022, 1,401 orders were requested, of which only 470 were issued, less than 50 percent.”

“Everything has to be reviewed,” Riquelme Cabrera insisted. “As it is, the system has failed some victims and if that has led to the loss of [life for some of them], it is unforgivable. We want to hear from these officials their ideas, real and applicable, in order to stop these failures that cause a victim to be left unprotected. We want these changes that will be proposed to be evaluated and implemented as soon as possible. We need to act now, as a matter of urgency.”

She added that today, Supreme Court Chief Justice Maite Oronoz Rodríguez, Justice Secretary Domingo Emanuelli Hernández, Public Safety Secretary Alexis Torres Ríos, and Acting Women’s Advocate Madeline Bermúdez Sanabria will be officially invited to the meeting.

San Germán mayor makes plea to value women’s lives

By THE STAR STAFF

I

n the face of the wave of homicidal violence perpetrated against women in recent days in Puerto Rico, San Germán Mayor Virgilio Olivera Olivera made an impassioned appeal Sunday to men on the island to value women’s lives.

“All men alike … Let us not forget that we, all of us, we come from a woman’s womb and that no one, no one, has permission from anyone to deprive any woman of life,” he said.

“That is why today I invite you, all of you equally, to love, respect, and respect yourself,” he said. “Let us value it as the work of art that is jealously guarded in the Museum of Life.”

“A few days ago, sadly, the front pages of all the newspapers and, likewise, the radio news and television in Puerto Rico only talked about the crime, so atrocious, that one man committed against three people, victims in our sister municipality of Yauco

[Lissette Vázquez Vélez, 51 years old, and her children, Linnette and Luis Miguel Morales Vázquez],” Olivera said.

“We are talking about the second massacre of 2024 and the fourth violent femicide by violence in 2024,” the mayor stressed.

“This has shocked our entire country. … It’s time to say: Enough!”

“We invite all men to unite and respect, more than ever before, the figure of woman, which gives life,” he said. “We send our message to all of Puerto Rico: we have to be respectful, supportive and empathetic, above all, with the figure of women. We have to value them!”

“Woman represents life,” the mayor continued. “At this very sad moment, we call on you to stop, immediately, violence against women throughout Puerto Rico. … It’s important that we lift up our voice, stronger than ever before, but more importantly, that we all come together as one in the same goal: to help, protect and value women.”

San Germán Mayor Virgilio Olivera

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

5

Jiménez Pérez becomes president of Dignity Project

By THE STAR STAFF

S

an Sebastián Mayor Javier Jiménez Pérez became the president of the Dignity Project (Proyecto Dignidad) on Saturday during its first general meeting held at the Costa Bahía Hotel Convention Center in Guayanilla.

“Today is definitely a historic day for Puerto Rico.

Hope will finally shine for Puerto Rico,” Jiménez, the party’s gubernatorial candidate, said in a written statement. “I am more than happy to preside over Proyecto Dignidad in this electoral process. We know it will be a close contest, but that is what we are preparing for. We are making giant steps with the party’s solidification, structuring, and organization. They are beautiful and committed people, eager to see real change and healthy governance. They know that’s why I’m here. Not only do I agree with each of its foundations and principles, but I have demonstrated through my municipal administration of 19 years of history that governing Puerto Rico with honesty and clear convictions can be truly achieved when the will is there.”

San Sebastián Mayor Javier Jiménez Pérez is the new president of the Dignity Project in addition to being the conservative party’s candidate for governor.

Proyecto Dignidad Vice President Juan Manuel Frontera Suau, meanwhile, rejected the idea that party regulations were amended to favor Jiménez Pérez.

“I wish to clarify to the people of Puerto Rico that at no time did the governing council, that is, any of its 15 members, amend or make any changes to the General Regulations established by our party,” Frontera Suau said. “It specifies that it can only be amended through an ordinary or extraordinary assembly with a quorum of its bonafide members.”

“Nowhere in our General Regulations or the Candidacy Regulations is there any requirement imposed regarding being a bona fide member for a predetermined period for any candidacy, including the governorship,” he added.

In addition to making Jiménez Pérez’s presidency official, Frontera Suau announced the closing of the filing of candidacies. The party has 420 certified candidates for political positions, including 45 mayors and their city assembly members, 15 senators, 30 district representatives, and two at-large lawmakers.

Agreement on pay raise for Medical Center workers requires fiscal board approval

By THE STAR STAFF

I

n the face of an imminent indefinite strike by the employees of the Río Piedras Medical Center affiliated with the General Workers Union (UGT by its Spanish initials), an agreement was finally reached late last week that grants union workers a salary increase of $800, under a unanimous agreement, after a negotiation process involving Labor and Human Resources Secretary Gabriel Maldonado González, Puerto Rico Medical Services Administration (ASEM by its Spanish initials) Executive Director Jorge Matta and UGT President Edwin Méndez.

“After many months of negotiation, nights of work and willingness to go on strike, we are pleased to announce that the bargaining committee reached a unanimous agreement in collective bargaining, in which a salary increase of up to $800 is guaranteed for our ASEM membership,” Méndez said at a press conference. “This victory is a victory for the working class, and this achievement demonstrates the power of unity and determination of a group of women and men who are not content with band-aids and who were not willing to tolerate any more disrespect. The willingness of these workers to go out and fight was a sign not only of love for the work, but also of self-love, love for service and desire to stay in Puerto Rico to take care of its people.”

The $800 raise will be awarded to employees who received less than an $800 raise as part of the compensation process. The amount will be prorated. Some 1,031 Medical Center employees will benefit.

“We want to congratulate each of the coworkers at ASEM for their dedication and effort in this process,” the union leader added. “They have shown that together we can achieve great things. We also want to congratulate

the members of the bargaining committee who went the extra mile after many nights of hard and extensive work, and who sacrificed time with their families to ensure that this agreement could be finalized with the best possible benefits for our membership.”

Matta expressed confidence in the process that must be initiated to request [approval from] the Financial Oversight and Management Board for the granted salary increase.

He noted that on the union side they will have to hold an assembly to ratify the agreement reached.

“This is not the first time that the Medical Center has been given funds that don’t come out of their funds,” Matta said. “Some of the funds for the purchase of equipment have been given to us by the Fiscal Control Board [sic] without us having asked for it.”

In the labor dispute at the Medical Center, the UGT disagreed with ASEM’s proposal to offer a salary increase of $800 a month for three years as a retention bonus. The bonus was offered to unionized employees who had not received a raise under the Classification and Compensation Plan implemented in December, or who had received less than $800 in raises. The UGT had asked for a $2,000-a-month increase in its collective bargaining agreement, but it was rejected by the oversight

board because of its high cost of $100 million over four years, an amount the government cannot finance.

The wage increase clause was the only point of contention in the collective agreement that negotiators committed to signing.

It was noted that if the ratification of the UGT and the consultation process with the oversight board are achieved, it could be an additional month before starting the payment.

If the board does not approve the increase, the union will have to renegotiate another agreement.

As a result of the agreement, it was announced that the work stoppage would be rescinded. At the Medical Center, outpatient clinics would resume their schedule as usual. However, selective surgeries will continue to be paralyzed, but will be rescheduled.

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Monday, January 29, 2024

The San Juan Daily Star

Performance metrics for LUMA Energy established by regulator

By THE STAR STAFF

T

he Puerto Rico Energy Bureau (PREB) announced a system of performance goals and metrics for LUMA Energy, the private operator of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s transmission and distribution system, that will be in place for three years.

The metrics are designed to guarantee efficiency, safety and reliability in the provision of electrical services.

Historical metrics will be starting points to measure LUMA’s performance and evaluate whether the electrical system’s performance has improved. They will be essential to assessing LUMA’s progress and compliance with the performance standards established by the PREB. The PREB has established different weights for the three general categories of metrics: customer service; technical, security and regulatory; and financial. In addition, the energy sector regulator decided to give greater weight to technical, security and regulatory metrics in LUMA’s operation with a weighting of 50%, assigning 25% each to the customer service and financial areas.

The PREB will play a crucial role in approving the incentive amount corresponding to LUMA for said year, based on compliance with the established performance goals. The process ensures that LUMA is rewarded only for meeting or exceeding performance expectations,

Puerto Rico Energy Bureau Chairman Edison Avilés Deliz

thus incentivizing high-quality service.

The energy regulator will conduct a transparent and publicly open annual review process for both the approval of incentives under the LUMA Energy contract

and the establishment of performance metrics for the following year.

PREB Chairman Edison Avilés Deliz said the agency “in its constant efforts to supervise and raise the quality of Puerto Rico’s electrical system, is committed to every action to move toward a more efficient, safe and reliable service for all citizens.”

“These measures we are implementing represent a significant step toward guaranteeing better electricity service for every Puerto Rican, intelligently using the incentive structure awarded as part of the LUMA Energy operating contract,” he said.

While the PREB maintains the proportional allocation of the total incentive fee at the performance metric category level, as well as percentage of 25% of the total fee to the customer service metrics, 50% of the total fee to the technical, safety and regulatory metrics, and the 25% of the total fee to the financial metrics, the regulatory body modified the allocation of base points and the effective weight of individual metrics within the customer service and technical, safety & regulatory categories. Those modifications in the distribution of base points between metrics were undertaken in the interest of several considerations to ensure that the overall portfolio of performance metrics is in the public interest.

Federal transportation agency distributes $729 million to states, Puerto Rico

By THE STAR STAFF

A

s part of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s coordinated approach to help states repair and rebuild roads and bridges, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) will allocate $729.4 million to 34 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

The funds will be used to support repair needs following natural disasters, extreme weather, or catastrophic events, such as hurricanes, flooding and mudslides. The events will receive federal reimbursement funding under the FHWA’s Emergency Relief (ER) program as the result of major disaster declarations.

“As the climate crisis accelerates, more Americans are feeling the consequences in the form of extreme weather that devastates communities and destroys vital infrastructure,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “These funds will help restore critical transportation connections across the country as communities continue to repair and rebuild infrastructure damaged by extreme weather.”

Puerto Rico is slated to receive some $32 million to cover the Oct. 26, 2022 storms and flooding and the

September 2022 damages caused by Hurricane Fiona.

FHWA’s Emergency Relief Program supports the Transportation Department’s priority of addressing climate change by providing funding to help states perform repairs following major natural disasters and extreme weather events.

“Climate change is devastating communities across the U.S., in every state. Our transportation system was not designed to handle the climate impacts we are seeing in the 21st Century,” said FHWA Administrator Shailen Bhatt. “Since January 2022, FHWA has distributed over $1.3 billion in Emergency Relief dollars to help states make repairs because of climate-related events. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is providing new programs and funding opportunities to help our transportation system be more resilient to climate change and get people and goods where they need to go safely.”

The program includes funding for continued repairs from the 2022 flooding in and around Yellowstone Park; 2022 Hurricanes Ian, Fiona, and Nicole; 2023 flooding and mudslides in Vermont; and other disasters across the country. The funding will be used to reconstruct highways and bridges and protect the traveling public from further damages and allow for resiliency improvements as dam-

ages are repaired.

The funds are part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s holistic approach to building more resilient infrastructure, in order to make U.S. transportation infrastructure better able to withstand damage from catastrophic events caused by climate change. Additional programs to address these challenges include the PROTECT Formula and Discretionary Grant programs, which cost $8.7 billion.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (Doug Mills/ The New York Times)

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

7

Democrats say Biden hasn’t ‘made the case’ on climate despite achievements

By LISA FRIEDMAN

P

resident Joe Biden has done more than any president to tackle climate change, but strategists are grappling with an uncomfortable fact: Voters don’t seem to know it.

Biden has orchestrated the biggest ever federal investment in clean energy and electric vehicles and has proposed what would be the first limits on planet-warming pollution from power plants as well as the tightest restrictions on tailpipe emissions. He is cracking down on methane, a potent greenhouse gas, that leaks from oil and gas wells. Taken together, these efforts could substantially reduce the country’s contribution to global warming.

But as he faces a bruising reelection campaign against the Republican frontrunner, former President Donald Trump many Democrats said the president is failing to communicate his most significant policy achievements.

In recent months, polls have found that most Americans are unaware of the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature climate law. Of those who have heard of the law — with a name that has nothing to do with climate — few know that it marks the federal government’s biggest attempt to cut the greenhouse gases that are dangerously warming the planet.

The 2022 law provides at least $370 billion to reduce carbon pollution by boosting the production of wind, solar and other renewable energy, and providing millions of dollars in tax credits to homeowners and consumers to move away from fossil fuels.

That’s consequential because nearly 7 out of every 10 people who voted for Biden in the last presidential election said climate change was very important to their vote. According to a poll last month from The Economist/ YouGov, 18% of those Biden voters from 2020 now list climate as their top priority.

“Climate voters could make or break Joe Biden in 2024,” said Nathaniel Stinnett, executive director of the Environmental Voter Project, a nonpartisan nonprofit that encourages environmentalists to vote.

A national poll conducted in fall 2023 found a majority of Americans support a number of Biden’s climate policies, including generating solar and wind energy on public lands (79% in favor), tax rebates for energyefficient vehicles or solar panels (74%), and funding for research into renewable energy (79%).

And 68% of those surveyed even backed a carbon tax on oil and gas producers — something the Biden administration has not suggested, for fear that it would be blocked in Congress.

But while polls indicate parts of Biden’s climate agenda are popular, “it’s really hard for people to feel really good about a policy when they don’t know about it,” Stinnett said.

On Friday, Biden imposed a temporary pause on permitting new liquefied natural gas export facilities in order to first analyze their impacts on climate change. In issuing the order, Biden promised he would “heed the calls of young people and front-line communities” who have criticized him for approving an enormous oil development in Alaska known as the Willow project and allowing continued oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters.

Michelle Weindling, an organizer with the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate activist group, said she wants to hear more just like that, and louder. “I want him to unapologetically run on behalf of solving the climate crisis,” Weindling said.

Young climate-minded voters helped Biden win in 2020 but he has been losing support from some of those voters over the war in the Gaza Strip.

With less than 10 months before the election, Democratic strategists, pollsters and analysts said the president needs to talk more often and with specificity about his climate policies.

“We haven’t really made the case,” said Simon Rosenberg, a veteran Democratic strategist.

Biden has been walking a tightrope when it comes to fossil fuels. Under his watch, the federal government is making record investments in electric vehicles and renewable energy. But the United States is also now the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas, as well as the leading exporter of liquefied natural gas. The president wants the country to transition away from fossil fuels at the same time he wants to keep gas and oil supplies abundant enough that prices at the pump and home heating bills are affordable.

When Biden talks about climate change, it is almost always in the context of jobs and the economy.

“I signed a historic law — the most significant investment combating the existential threat of climate change ever, anywhere in the world,” Biden said in November at a manufac-

A Venture Global liquefied natural gas facility on the Calcasieu Ship Channel in Cameron, La., on Dec. 12, 2023. Recent polls found that most Americans are unaware of Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, which is putting at least $370 billion toward reducing carbon pollution. (Brandon Thibodeaux/The New York Times) turing plant in Pueblo, Colorado, that produces towers for wind turbines and, because of the new law, is investing $200 million to double production and creating 850 jobs.

“Like I said: When I hear climate, I think jobs,” Biden said. It is a line he has repeated in multiple settings.

Some data suggests that might not be the winning message.

One of the biggest climate marketing studies of its kind, a public opinion poll across the United States and 18 other countries that was conducted last summer, found that “protecting the planet for the next generation” overwhelmingly beats out other arguments for taking climate action. Researchers found the so-called “urgent generational message” was 12 times more popular than the promise of creating jobs.

“At the heart of this is love,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, which conducted the study with other nonprofit groups including Potential Energy Coalition, the Meliore Foundation and Zero Ideas.

“People love particular people, places and things,” Leiserowitz said. “And those people, places and things are being threatened.”

When Biden presents climate action as a jobs program, “I don’t find it convincing,” he said. “And I think this data shows most people

don’t find it convincing, either.”

An economic argument has a place, said John Marshall, founder and CEO of the Potential Energy Coalition, a nonprofit focused on increasing public awareness of climate change.

But, he added, “our data really clearly says, ‘Go through the front door, look people in the eye, and tell them we all know and we all agree that climate change is a threat to our way of life and our kids, and we need to fix this particular problem.’”

Biden administration and campaign officials point out that the president does not exclusively focus on the economy. When nations at a United Nations climate summit agreed last month to transition away from fossil fuels, Biden called it “our collective responsibility to build a safer, more hopeful future for our children.” In announcing the freeze on gas export permits Friday, Biden said he “sees the climate crisis for what it is: the existential threat of our time.”

Biden still needs to tell voters what he would do in a second term to slow global warming and preserve the health of the planet, Stinnett said.

“The climate crisis is moving faster than our politics, and climate-concerned voters are desperate for a strong climate leader in the White House,” Stinnett said, adding, “I want to hear what’s next.”

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

In Las Vegas, Trump turns his focus back to Biden

By MICHAEL GOLD and KELLEN BROWNING

F

ormer President Donald Trump, who has been itching for months to focus on a likely matchup between him and President Joe Biden in November, previewed Saturday a likely general-election message, extensively attacking Biden at an event in Nevada, a critical battleground state.

Further proof of Nevada’s importance could be seen a mile away, where Vice President Kamala Harris cast the fight against Trump, should he wrap up the nomination, as a battle for democracy.

Though Trump was ostensibly visiting Las Vegas to encourage his supporters to turn out for the Nevada caucuses on Feb. 8, he devoted much of his speech to Biden’s handling of the surge of crossings at the southern border, which he called “a weapon of mass destruction” internally destroying the United States.

And Trump, who currently faces four criminal cases that he casts — without evidence — as attempts by Biden to wrest the election from him, wielded the language of the justice system to suit his purposes.

“What Joe Biden doing is a crime against our nation,” Trump said. He later added: “With your vote, he will be judged and convicted by the American people for this atrocity that he’s done.”

Saturday’s speech was in many ways a return to form after a month in which Trump had escalated his attacks against his rivals in the Republican presidential primary as he scored decisive wins in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Trump now seems to be marching to-

Former President Donald Trump addresses the crowd during a rally at Big League Dreams Sports Park in Las Vegas, Nev. on Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024. As much as Trump has sought to pivot to a general election message, his Republican opponent, Nikki Haley, is still in the race. But she won’t challenge him in Nevada.

(Jordan Gale/The New York Times) ward the general election, but he is not yet the party’s nominee, and his lone remaining rival for the nomination, Nikki Haley, is doing everything she can to remind him that she remains in the race.

Trump’s supporters Saturday said they had largely moved past the Republican contest, though Haley is still running. “It’s like the Kenny Rogers song — you need to know when to fold ’em,” Joe Sandoval, 74, said. “I don’t think she’s even a concern for him at this point.”

Trump and his team are preparing to

fight Haley in her home state of South Carolina, the site of their next electoral battle, on Feb. 24. The former president took glancing swipes at her Saturday, mostly accusing her of betraying Republican ideals and her conservative roots.

“Nikki Haley made a corrupt deal to sell out to the radical left, taking the Democrat money from donors,” Trump said.

But Trump’s victory in Nevada’s caucuses is a foregone conclusion. Haley is on the ballot for a presidential primary on Feb. 6 that will not count toward the GOP nomination, so she is skipping the state entirely. The caucuses — which will determine who gets the state’s delegate prize — feature Trump without a single major competitor.

“Nevada will certainly be a good messaging opportunity for Trump, because he’s going to win all the delegates here, and he will win unopposed,” said Jeremy Gelman, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Reno. “He will be able to say he swept Nevada.”

Still, those attending Trump’s speech in Las Vegas, held at Big League Dreams, a sports park, admitted to some confusion over the dueling contests, an issue Trump addressed.

“Don’t worry about the primary, just do the caucus,” Trump told his supporters.

Later, he delivered a more mixed mes-

sage. “Don’t waste your time on primary,” he said. “Waste all of your time on caucus.”

His phrasing, inadvertent or not, reflects the view of the primary that Trump, long the front-runner, has had for months: that it is a distraction delaying him from taking on Biden.

On Saturday, Trump attacked a Bidenbacked bipartisan immigration deal, saying it was “not designed to stop illegal immigration.” Trump has been pressing Republican senators to oppose a deal, and he told them in his speech to “blame me” if it failed.

He also signaled his intent to court Hispanic voters, a key constituency in Nevada, and an important part of the Democratic coalition. Polls have shown Trump gaining their support.

Trump charged that Biden had “devastated the Latino community” economically, and said Hispanics had been “better off” financially under his administration.

He also suggested that Black and Latino voters were the “single most affected people by what’s happening at our border,” but provided no specifics.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Biden’s reelection campaign, Ammar Moussa, said, “Donald Trump demonstrated tonight he’s campaigning against solutions for the American people, and is actively rooting against America,” adding that Biden was “the only candidate focused on governing and addressing the issues the American people demand action on.”

Both parties are looking to November: Outside Trump’s event, the Democratic National Committee flew a plane overhead with a banner reading “Donald Trump: Ban Abortion, Punish Women.” The party is expected to make abortion a central issue in November.

A mile away, Harris’ event felt like an alternative universe, with some voters wearing masks and voicing support for gun control while an Olivia Rodrigo song played and a local dance team performed.

Harris riled up the crowd with a list of the administration’s accomplishments and suggested that they contrasted with Trump’s priorities.

“In his comments today, as always, he made clear his fight is not for the people. His fight is for himself,” she said, as hundreds booed.

“Freedom is on the ballot, and our democracy is on the ballot,” Harris said. “This is about standing for the kind of country we want to live in.”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

9

Biden vows border shutdown, pressing Congress to pass immigration deal

By KAROUN DEMIRJIAN

P

resident Joe Biden fought late last week to save a bipartisan immigration deal from collapse in Congress, vowing to shut down the border if the plan became law even as the Republican speaker pronounced it dead on arrival in the House.

In a written statement that came as Senate negotiators scrambled to finalize a deal that former President Donald Trump is pressuring Republicans to oppose, Biden used his most stringent language yet about the border, declaring it “broken” and in “crisis” and promising to halt migration immediately if Congress sends him the proposal.

“What’s been negotiated would — if passed into law — be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country,” he said. “It would give me, as president, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law.”

The pending compromise would not give him much choice. Under the emerging deal, the administration would be required to shut down the border to migrants attempting to enter without prior authorization if encounters rise above 5,000 on any given day — a threshold that has been surpassed routinely in recent months.

Biden’s fresh efforts to salvage the deal came hours after Speaker Mike Johnson sought to choke off the last remaining glimmers of hope that it might survive, repeating that the agreement would almost certainly be a nonstarter in the Republican-led House.

“If rumors about the contents of the draft proposal are true, it would have been dead on arrival in the House anyway,” Johnson wrote in a letter to House GOP lawmakers.

It was the latest grim prediction for the proposed border agreement after the top Senate Republican conceded last week that Trump’s opposition had made the plan politically difficult for the party to embrace, all but killing its chances.

Biden’s Friday evening statement amounted to a counterpunch against Trump’s efforts to torpedo the deal, pitting the current and former commanders in chief against each other in a high-stakes fight over what is shaping up to be a central issue in the presidential campaign.

As the immigration plan teeters on Capitol Hill, the fate of additional aid for Ukraine hangs in the balance as well, with hard-right House Republicans also dug in against it and threatening to depose Johnson if he seeks to push it through over their objections.

In his letter, Johnson said the House would move ahead this week with its drive to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and doubled down on his demands that Congress embrace either an immigration crackdown bill the House passed last year or an equally severe measure.

“Since the day I became speaker, I have assured our Senate colleagues the House would not accept any counterproposal if it would not actually solve the problems that have been created by this administration’s subversive policies,” he wrote.

Biden’s words were unlikely to move the growing number of skeptical Republicans who have argued that the president already has the tools and the executive power he needs to dramatically restrict migration into the country — and refuses to use them.

“Many of our constituents have asked an important question: ‘What is the point of negotiating new laws with an administration that will not enforce the laws already on

the books?’” Johnson wrote in his letter.

“If President Biden wants us to believe he is serious about protecting our national sovereignty, he needs to demonstrate his good faith by taking immediate actions to secure it.”

The letter reflected a stance Johnson and other hard-right Republicans in the House have maintained for months, repeatedly dismissing the border enforcement measures under discussion in the Senate as insufficient. It came as Republican proponents of the deal in the Senate toiled to build needed GOP support to push it forward.

That task has grown much more difficult as Trump has gained ground in his quest for the party’s presidential nomination.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the minority leader, told fellow Republicans behind closed doors this week that Trump’s hostility to the plan and his growing dominance in the primary had put them “in a quandary.”

McConnell, a chief Republican proponent of sending more aid to Ukraine, has been a vocal supporter of the border deal that members of his party have insisted upon as the price of their backing for continued assistance for Kyiv.

The bipartisan team of senators that has been working for months to strike a compromise to crack down on rampant

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) departs his weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 17, 2024. The speaker said the emerging bipartisan immigration deal would be “dead on arrival” in the House, after senators conceded that the opposition of former President Donald J. Trump may have doomed it. (Michael A. McCoy/The New York Times)

migration and drug trafficking across the southern border with Mexico has come to an agreement in recent days on a set of policy changes. They include measures to make it more difficult to secure asylum and increase detention facilities.

The deal would also increase the number of available visas by 50,000, including many that would be green-card eligible, and set a goal of deciding asylum cases within 90 days.

The group has not yet agreed on how much money to devote to the effort.

Many Republicans are upset that the deal does not include a specific restriction on parole, the administration’s authority to let migrants not otherwise legally authorized to enter the country live and work in the United States on a temporary basis. In his letter Friday, Johnson repeated his demand for more restrictive changes, such as placing strict limits on parole and reviving the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy that forced migrants who could not be kept in detention facilities to wait outside the United States until their court dates.

Some Republican opponents of the border compromise have questioned the wisdom of bothering to consider it in the Senate if their counterparts in the House are determined to block or kill it.

“If you’re going to take a tough vote, you want it to actually accomplish something,” said Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio.

“If it’s not going to pass the House, then it doesn’t make a ton of sense to force a vote on your membership that isn’t going to accomplish anything from a policy perspective, and it’s going to cause a lot of problems politically.”

There were political risks for Biden and Democrats as well in embracing tough border measures that have enraged progressives.

Immigration advocates took Biden’s statement as a betrayal from a president who had campaigned on taking a humane approach to the border. Some warned him against entering a race with Republicans over who could outmuscle a border crackdown that the advocates said would lead to chaos and suffering.

“What does President Biden want his legacy to be?” said Heidi Altman, director of policy for the National Immigrant Justice Center. “The president is asking to trade the lives and rights of people seeking safety for a failed political strategy, and it’s shameful.”

10 Monday, January 29, 2024

The San Juan Daily Star

23andMe breach targeted Jewish and Chinese customers, lawsuit says

By REBECCA CARBALLO, EMILY SCHMALL and REMY TUMIN

T

he genetic testing company 23andMe is being accused in a class-action lawsuit of failing to protect the privacy of customers whose personal information was exposed last year in a data breach that affected nearly 7 million profiles.

The lawsuit, which was filed last Friday in federal court in San Francisco, also accused the company of failing to notify customers with Chinese and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage that they appeared to have been specifically targeted, or that their personal genetic information had been compiled into “specially curated lists” that were shared and sold on the dark web.

The suit was filed after 23andMe submitted a notification to the California Attorney General’s Office that showed the company was hacked over the course of five months, from late April through September 2023, before it became aware of the breach.

According to the filing, which was reported

by TechCrunch, the company learned about the breach Oct. 1, when a hacker posted on an unofficial 23andMe subreddit claiming to have customer data and sharing a sample as proof.

The company first disclosed the breach in a blog post Oct. 6 in which it said that a “threat actor” had gained access to “certain accounts” by using “recycled login credentials” — old passwords that 23andMe customers had used on other sites that had been compromised.

The company disclosed the full scope

Hackers were able to gain access to the personal information of about 6.9 million profiles of 23andMe customers, the genetic-testing company said last month. of the breach in an updated blog post Dec. 5, after the completion of an internal review assisted by “third-party forensics experts.”

By that time, according to Eli Wade-Scott, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, users’ personal genetic information and other sensitive material had been made available and offered for sale on the dark web for two months.

23andMe did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the lawsuit.

Jay Edelson, another lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said 23andMe’s approach to privacy and the resulting lawsuit signaled “a paradigm shift in consumer privacy law” as the sensitivity of breached data has increased.

“Now when we look at data breaches, our first concern will be whether the information will be used to physically harass or harm people on a systematic, mass scale,” Edelson

said in an email Friday. “The standard for when a company acts reasonably to protect data is now a higher one, at least for the type of data that can be used in this manner.”

A father of two in Florida who is one of the lawsuit’s two named plaintiffs said in an interview that the 23andMe kit he bought himself as a birthday present last year revealed that he had Ashkenazi Jewish heritage.

The man, who is identified in the complaint only by his initials, J.L., spoke on the condition of anonymity because he said he feared for his safety.

He was looking to connect with relatives, he said, so he opted in to a feature called DNA Relatives, where select information is shared with other 23andMe customers who might be a close genetic match.

The hacker gained access to this feature, and information from 5.5 million DNA Relatives profiles, 23andMe said in December.

The profiles may include a customer’s geographic location, birth year, family tree and uploaded photos.

The hacker was also able to access the profile information of an additional 1.4 million customers by accessing a feature called Family Tree.

After 23andMe informed J.L. and millions of other users that their data had been breached, J.L. said he feared that he could become a target as antisemitic hate speech and violence were surging, fueled by the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

“Now that the information is out there,” he said, “somebody could come in and decide that they’re going to take out their

frustrations.”

On Oct. 1, according to the lawsuit, a hacker who called himself “Golem” and used an image of Gollum from the “Lord of the Rings” films as an avatar, leaked the personal data of more than 1 million 23andMe users with Jewish ancestry on BreachForums, an online forum used by cybercriminals. The data included the users’ full names, home addresses and birth dates.

Later, in response to a request on the forum for access to “Chinese accounts” from someone using the alias “Wuhan,” Golem responded with a link to the profile information of 100,000 Chinese customers, according to the lawsuit. Golem said he had a total of 350,000 profile records of Chinese customers and offered to release the rest of them if there was interest, the lawsuit says.

On Oct. 17, Golem returned to the forum to say he had data about “wealthy families serving Zionism” that he was offering for sale after the deadly explosion at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, the suit said. Israeli officials and Palestinian militants blamed each other for the explosion, but Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies contend that it was caused by a failed Palestinian rocket launch.

The plaintiffs are seeking a jury trial and unspecified compensatory, punitive and other damages.

“The current geopolitical and social climate,” the lawsuit argued, “amplifies the risks” to users whose data was exposed. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., called for an FBI investigation into the breach this month, noting the focus on Ashkenazi Jews.

“The leaked data could empower Hamas, their supporters, and various international extremist groups to target the American Jewish population and their families,” Gottheimer wrote in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Ramesh Srinivasan, a professor in the department of information studies at UCLA, said it was inevitable that these types of breaches would continue.

The question, he said, is whether companies will address them by taking serious precautions — tightening security or limiting data retention, for instance — or whether they will simply apply a Band-Aid by promising to do better next time.

“We’re staring into the abyss when it comes to the datafication of our lives,” he said.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

11 Stocks

Fed, earnings and economic data to test US stocks near record highs T he U.S. stock market’s strong start to the year faces a major test next week in a stretch packed with big tech earnings, the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy meeting and the closely-watched employment report.

The S&P 500 is up nearly 3% since the end of December and stands near record highs, driven in part by expectations of a U.S. economic “soft-landing” in which growth remains stable while inflation cools.

A thicket of potentially market-moving events may test that optimism. Those include earnings from Alphabet and Microsoft on Tuesday, the conclusion of the Federal Reserve meeting on Wednesday, and Apple and Amazon results on Thursday. Friday closes out the week with the nonfarm payrolls report and earnings from Meta Platforms.

Through it all, “the market is going to be looking for confirmation that we’re in a soft landing,” said Jack Janasiewicz, lead portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions. “As long as growth remains in the sweet spot here ... the market will keep grinding up.”

Earnings will be a major focal point, with five of the massive “Magnificent Seven” growth and technology stocks that have powered markets higher for much of the last year reporting next week.

Collectively, the market capitalization of Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Meta account for nearly 25% of the S&P 500, giving them an outsize influence on the performance of the broader index.

While most of the group has continued to rise in 2024, shares of electric-carmaker Tesla are down more than 26% year-to-date, leaving it among the worst performers in the S&P 500 for the year so far. By the same token, chipmaker Nvidia has ridden burgeoning excitement over artificial intelligence to a nearly 23% gain this year.

“There’s not this monolithic performance among those stocks anymore,” said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. “If there is a downside to earnings … that could take the bloom off the rose” for the market as a whole.

Companies in the S&P 500 are reporting earnings 4.2% above expectations, in line with the long-term average and below the average of 5.7% for the prior four quarters, according to LSEG data.

The Fed meeting and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s subsequent press conference could also sway markets.

Some investors now reassessing earlier expectations for rate cuts this year following strong economic data and statements from Fed officials that suggested that rate cuts may not be as aggressive as expected, said Tiffany Wade, senior portfolio manager at Columbia Threadneedle Investments.

Investors have pushed expectations for the Fed’s first cut of the cycle to May, from March. Markets are now pricing 135 basis points in cuts by the end of the year, down from

MOST ASSERTIVE STOCKS

PUERTO RICO STOCKS

COMMODITIES

CURRENCY

over 160 basis points expected in December.

While the Fed is expected to leave rates unchanged next week, investors will be looking for signs of whether the central bank believes it has come far enough in its inflation fight to begin reducing borrowing costs sooner rather than later.

“The Fed commentary next week could create some risk of expectations for the first rate cut getting pushed out even further into the year, and that may be negative to where the

market is priced right now,” said Wade. “There is more confidence in the market that we are going to navigate through a soft landing. I’m still not totally convinced of that.”

Markets will also be looking for signs that the Fed is planning on making changes to its quantitative tightening program, which has contributed to monetary policy tightening by sapping liquidity in the Treasury market.

Investors will also watch for word from the Treasury Department over its estimates for future funding and auction sizes, which will come on Monday and Wednesday.

Concerns over Treasury supply due to deficit spending have helped lift bond yields. The 10-year Treasury has been hovering near its highest yield since mid-December.

12 Monday, January 29, 2024

The San Juan Daily Star

White House blames an Iran-backed militia for deadly strike

By ERIC SCHMITT

T

hree U.S. service members were killed in Jordan on Sunday and 25 others were injured in what the Biden administration said was a drone strike from an Iran-backed militia, the first U.S. military fatalities from hostile fire in the aftermath of Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip.

The attack happened at a base in northeast Jordan near the Syria border where the troops were based. Other details were not immediately available from the Pentagon’s Central Command, which issued an initial barebones statement Sunday.

But the deaths of U.S. service members will almost certainly put more pressure on President Joe Biden to respond more forcefully as turmoil grows in the Middle East after the Oct. 7 attacks that killed 1,200 people in Israel.

“Three U.S. service members were killed — and many wounded — during an unmanned aerial drone attack on our forces stationed in northeast Jordan near the Syria border,” Biden said in a statement Sunday.

“While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq.”

The drone strike came as Israel and Hezbollah, another Iranian ally, have traded fire

Syrian and Jordanians work in the Durra factory, at the Al-Hassan Industrial estate in Ramtha, Jordan, June 1, 2016. Three U.S. service members were killed in Jordan on Sunday and 25 others were injured in what the Biden administration said was a drone strike from an Iran-backed militia. (Tara Todras-Whitehill/The New York Times) across the Lebanese border. A Houthi militia in Yemen, also backed by Iran, has fired missiles and drones at commercial ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, calling it a retaliation for the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

The United States and its allies have fired back, striking inside Yemen multiple times.

And last Saturday, at least four U.S. service members stationed in western Iraq were injured when their air base came under heavy

rocket and missile fire from what U.S. officials said were Iran-backed militias. It was the latest in more than 150 strikes by Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq against U.S. troops there since the Oct. 7 attacks.

The United States has some 2,000 troops stationed at an air base in Azraq, Jordan, as well as Special Operations forces, military trainers and support personnel for the U.S. base at Al Tanf, Syria. The U.S. troops are there largely to assist in regional efforts to stamp out remnants of the Islamic State group.

In his statement, Biden called the U.S. troops in Jordan “patriots in the highest sense,” and said they were “risking their own safety for the safety of their fellow Americans, and our allies and partners with whom we stand in the fight against terrorism. It is a fight we will not cease.”

Last Sunday, the Pentagon declared two Navy SEALs dead after they disappeared 10 days earlier during an operation at sea to intercept weapons from Iran headed to Houthi fighters.

They were the first known U.S. fatalities in Washington’s campaign against the Houthis, who have launched dozens of attacks on ships in the Red Sea since November, roiling the global shipping industry.

The Americans killed Sunday were the first known fatalities from hostile fire in Yemen, Iraq or the surrounding areas and waters.

Protesters hurl soup at the Mona Lisa

By ROGER COHEN

T

wo protesters from an environmental group hurled pumpkin-colored soup on the Mona Lisa at the Louvre museum in Paris on Sunday, splashing the bulletproof glass that protects the most famous painting in the world, but not apparently damaging the work.

As the customary crowd around the 16th-century painting by Leonardo da Vinci gasped in shock, the protesters, two young women, followed up their attack by passing under a barrier and standing on either side of the artwork, hands raised in an apparent salute.

“What is more important? Art or the right to have a healthy and sustainable food system?” the activists said, speaking in French. “Our agricultural system is sick.” They were led away by Louvre security guards.

It was not immediately clear how the women got the soup through the elaborate security system at the museum, which borders the Seine and contains a vast art and ar-

chaeological collection spanning civilizations and centuries.

One of the women removed her jacket to reveal the words Riposte Alimentaire, or Food Response, on a white T-shirt. Riposte Alimentaire is part of a coalition of protest groups known as the A22 movement. They include Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, the group that poured tomato soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London in 2022.

The attack on the Mona Lisa came as French farmers have blocked roads, including approaches to Paris, in recent days to protest low wages and what they see as excessive regulation. Many new regulations in France reflect the attempt to forge a green, carbon-free European economy, an objective that the farmers consider too expensive and burdensome in the near term.

The protests by the two young women and the farmers appeared to reflect two starkly different views of agriculture and the appropriate priorities for European society.

Staff at the Louvre on Sunday tried to erect cloth screens to conceal the soup-splashed Mona Lisa, but the screens were not effective. Images of the attack quickly went viral on social media.

The Mona Lisa has been behind glass since the 1950s, when a visitor poured acid on it. In 2019, the museum installed glass of what it said was superior transparency.

Three years later, another environmental activist threw cake and cream at the painting. It was undamaged.

The latest attack will heighten security concerns ahead of the Paris Olympics.

The opening ceremony is just six months away and will take place on the Seine. A flotilla of boats will carry about 10,000 athletes to the foot of the Eiffel Tower, as nearly 500,000 spectators, including many heads of state, line the 4-mile route. The boats will sail past the Louvre as part of a ceremony conceived to showcase the beauty of Paris, but which has raised serious security issues that are still under review.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

13

Major donors pause funding for UN agency as scandal widens

By RAJA ABDULRAHIM, JULIAN E. BARNES, AARON BOXERMAN and PATRICK KINGSLEY

G

ermany, Britain and at least four other countries said Saturday that they were suspending funding for the United Nations agency that provides food, water and essential services for Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, many of whom have been described as being on the brink of starvation after 16 weeks of war between Israel and Hamas.

The countries joined the United States, which said Friday that it would withhold funding for the group, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, after a dozen of its employees were accused by Israel of participating in the Oct. 7 attacks.

The United Nations has not made public the details of the accusations against the UNRWA employees, who have been fired, but a senior U.N. official briefed on the accusations called them “extremely serious and horrific.”

The Israeli military said in a statement Saturday that its intelligence services had compiled a case “incriminating several UNRWA employees for their alleged involvement in the massacre, along with evidence pointing to the use of UNRWA facilities for terrorist purposes.” It did not elaborate on what that involvement entailed.

In announcing the pause in funding, the United States, the agency’s largest donor, said it was reviewing the allegations “and the steps the United Nations is taking to address them.”

The governments of Australia, Canada, Finland and Iceland also said they were suspending funding for the agency.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, called the suspension “collective punishment” for Gaza and warned that if funding were not restored it would adversely affect its humanitarian assistance program.

“It is shocking to see a suspension of funds to the agency in reaction to allegations against a small group of staff,” he said in a statement, “especially given the immediate action that UNRWA took by terminating their contracts and asking for a transparent independent investigation.”

For months, U.S. intelligence agencies have been aware of vague allegations that some among UNRWA’s 13,000 employees may have been working with Hamas or even potentially involved in the Oct. 7 terror attack. It was only this past week, U.S. officials said, that the United Nations and Israel shared

Flour is distributed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) at its headquarters in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Nov. 22, 2023. Britain, Finland and Australia became the latest countries to freeze additional funding to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees on Jan. 27, 2024, after it fired a dozen of its employees accused by Israel of participating in the Oct. 7 attacks. (Samar Abu Elouf/ The New York Times) detailed, specific intelligence with the State Department and White House, including the names of the individuals who were fired.

U.S. officials said the tough U.S. statement and action to withhold funding from the aid agency were not a result of any formal review of the Israeli intelligence by U.S. spy agencies. Officials said that the U.N. aid agency’s decision to fire the individuals was proof that the information provided by the Israelis was compelling.

Some donor countries, like Ireland and Norway, said the agency’s work was too important to cut off.

Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin wrote on social media that UNRWA’s staff members had provided lifesaving assistance “at incredible personal cost.”

Norway said that accusations against the staff members, if true, were “completely unacceptable” but that the agency was the “most important humanitarian organization” in Gaza and, like Ireland, vowed continued support.

“We need to distinguish between what individuals may have done and what UNRWA stands for,” the Norwegian delegation to the Palestinian Authority said on social media.

Israel’s accusations against the 12 U.N. employees are the latest episode of decadeslong friction between Israel and UNRWA. Israelis say that UNRWA’s existence sepa-

rate from the wider U.N. refugee protection system prevents Palestinian refugees from setting down roots elsewhere in the Middle East.

There have also been regular clashes between Israel and UNRWA over what the agency’s schools teach their students and UNRWA’s relationship with Hamas.

On Saturday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz welcomed the decisions by the United States and Canada, and called for UNRWA to stop its work in Gaza after Israel’s military campaign there was over.

Israel aims to ensure that “UNRWA will not be a part of the day after,” Katz said on social media, referring to the end of the war.

But the suspension of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in funding could not have come at a worse time for Palestinians in Gaza, who are faced with the continued bombardment by the Israeli military and an ever spiraling humanitarian catastrophe of hunger and disease, made more difficult by wintry conditions.

The agency, one of the largest employers in the enclave, has been a vital lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza for decades. It has played an even more crucial role in providing food, water, aid and services since the war in Gaza began.

Nearly 600,000 Palestinian residents of the territory are facing catastrophic hunger and starvation in Gaza, according to the World Food Program. More than 25,000 people have been killed in the territory since the war began in October according to Gaza health authorities, a toll that does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.

The Israeli military said Saturday that troops were sweeping through Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, which Israel has called a Hamas stronghold, and that it had killed “numerous terrorists in various encounters.” It came the day after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to ensure more aid and prevent genocide in the enclave but declined to call for an end to its campaign.

The continued fighting and the cold have exacerbated the plight of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza who have been on the

move and for whom finding safety has been elusive. Israel has ordered civilians sheltering in several densely packed neighborhoods of Khan Younis to flee, and the fighting has reached the vicinity of at least two hospitals — Nasser Hospital, a major medical complex, and the Al-Amal Hospital, run by the Palestinian Red Crescent.

On Saturday, Israeli troops bombarded the area near Al-Amal for a sixth consecutive day, the Red Crescent said. Some 7,000 displaced Palestinians are sheltering at the hospital, said Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Red Crescent.

U.N. officials are particularly worried about how they will fund the 150 UNRWA shelters housing roughly 1.2 million displaced Palestinians in Gaza, the official said, as well as UNRWA’s ability to distribute aid. UNRWA is the lead group coordinating the aid trucks that enter Gaza with humanitarian aid.

UNRWA has consistently stressed its neutrality, sometimes criticizing Hamas and calling out militants for using its facilities to store weapons.

In 2021, UNRWA reassigned its Gaza director, Matthias Schmale, after he was perceived to have complimented the “huge sophistication” of Israeli strikes on Gaza during a brief war that year. Late last year, the group accused Hamas of having “removed fuel and medical equipment from the agency’s compound in Gaza City,” before later removing the posts following a backlash.

14

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

Venezuela’s highest court bars opposition leader from running for president

By GENEVIEVE GLATSKY and ISAYEN HERRERA

V

enezuela’s highest court ruled late last week that a top opposition leader cannot run for president, dealing a crippling blow to prospects for credible elections that the government had agreed to hold this year in exchange for the lifting of crippling U.S. economic sanctions.

The court’s decision bars the opposition figure, María Corina Machado, from taking part in an election for 15 years, upholding the Venezuelan government’s decision to exclude Machado over what it claimed were financial irregularities that occurred when she was a national legislator.

The move comes after Machado overwhelmingly won an opposition primary election for president that was held in October without official government support and in which more than 2.4 million Venezuelans voted. Analysts say Machado poses the biggest electoral threat to President Nicolás Maduro.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Machado said Friday that Maduro and “his criminal system chose the worst path for them: fraudulent elections.” She added, “What is NOT ending is our fight to conquer democracy through free and fair elections.”

The Biden administration has tried to coax Venezuela’s authoritarian government into holding elections by relaxing some of the sanctions that have decimated the country’s oil industry, a vital source of income.

In October, the Maduro government reached an agreement with the opposition on steps toward a presidential vote, including allowing opponents to choose a candidate to run in elections that are supposed to be held

Maria Corina Machado, a top opposition leader, in Maturin, Venezuela, Sept.

21, 2023. Venezuela’s highest court ruled on Friday that Machado cannot run for president, dealing a crippling blow to prospects for credible elections that the government had agreed to hold this year in exchange for the lifting of crippling U.S. economic sanctions.

(Adriana Loureiro Fernandez/The New York Times) this year, though a date has yet to be set.

The Biden administration indicated that more sanctions could be lifted if the Maduro government allowed candidates who had been disqualified from participating in elections. And Venezuela did agree to allow candidates barred from running for office to appeal their exclusion to the country’s top court.

But Maduro’s government has also re-

peatedly undercut the opposition’s ability to mount a meaningful challenge.

The government has questioned the opposition primary’s legitimacy and has taken legal aim at its organizers.

The pressure has increased in recent days. Machado said her campaign headquarters had been vandalized and that three of her campaign officials had been arrested.

The United States on Tuesday said it was “deeply concerned” by arrest orders and detentions against at least 33 Venezuelans, including opposition members, journalists and former members of the military, according to a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia.

“We call for the end of politically motivated harassment, including attacks upon opposition campaign offices and all efforts to stifle the democratic aspirations of the Venezuelan people through fear and intimidation,” the statement said.

U.S. officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Venezuelan court’s decision.

Since Maduro took power in 2013, after the death of Hugo Chávez — founder of the country’s socialist-inspired revolution — a combination of growing oppression, rampant corruption and sanctions has made life much harder for ordinary Venezuelans, and millions have left the country.

The United States released a close ally of Maduro last month in exchange for 10 Americans imprisoned in Venezuela as another step to try to improve relations.

Venezuela’s economic collapse and political repression have fueled an exodus that has contributed to a record number of migrants congregating at the southern U.S. border, turning migration into a major crisis as

President Joe Biden seeks reelection in November.

Experts said the court’s decision Friday was not a surprise.

“The government was never going to let Machado run — her popularity makes her too much of a threat,” said Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow for Venezuela at the Atlantic Council, a research institution based in Washington.

It also presents a problem for the Biden administration, which will “face strong pressure from Congress to reverse, whether partially or completely, the sanctions relief it granted Maduro,” said Phil Gunson, an analyst with the International Crisis Group who lives in Caracas.

“As things stand, the likelihood of a semi-competitive election this year has clearly receded, but it is critical that the opposition maintain its insistence on the electoral route,” he added.

At the same time, he added, it puts Biden in a bind.

“The problem for Washington is that it’s essentially run out of ways to pressure Maduro,” Ramsey said. “How do you threaten a regime that’s endured years of crippling sanctions, multiple coup attempts and a failed mercenary invasion?”

The test, multiple analysts said, will be if the opposition is able to unite around another candidate.

“This is an opportunity for Venezuela’s famously divided democratic opposition to show its unity,” said Christopher Sabatini, a researcher for Latin America at Chatham House, an international affairs research group in London. “Can it rally behind a consensus candidate to ensure that democrats remain engaged in even corrupted democratic processes?”

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

15

Visiting the most important company in the world

By NICHOLAS KRISTOF

“I

f China takes Taiwan, they will turn the world off, potentially,” Donald Trump told Fox News recently, apparently referring to a potential seizure of one company that is central to, well, pretty much everything.

Indeed, it’s arguably the most important company in the world.

The company Trump alluded to, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC, is the only corporation I can think of in history that could cause a global depression if it were forced to halt production.

These days it seems impossible to have a conversation about geopolitics or economics without coming back to TSMC, which makes about 90% of the world’s most advanced chips. If the lights went out here in Hsinchu, in the company’s ultraclean and ultrasecure buildings, you might not be able to buy a new phone, car or watch.

Armies could run out of precision-guided missiles and hospitals could struggle to replace advanced X-ray and MRI machines. It might be like the COVID-19 supply chain chip disruption — times 10 — and TSMC, unfortunately, is situated in a region where war is possible and could threaten production.

“Taiwan Semiconductor is one of the best-managed companies and important companies in the world,” Warren Buffett said last year. But he sold his $4 billion stake in TSMC because, he said, “I don’t like its location.”

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Some believe — it appears this may be Trump’s view — that TSMC is so valuable that it might tempt China to try to grab Taiwan, and then bring the world to its knees.

“The more you talk about silicon, the less rational people become,” Mark Liu, the chair of TSMC, told me.

So let’s try to have a nuanced conversation about TSMC, its significance and its vulnerabilities.

For starters, TSMC’s factories, or fabs, would probably be useless to China after an invasion, even if engineers remained on the job and even if the fabs weren’t bombed

by American or Taiwanese defenders to keep them out of China’s hands. That’s because the chips are designed in other countries and require international networks to keep production going. To China, TSMC would be about as useful as a dead phone.

What happens in these fabs — 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the work is done by nonunion, unprotesting machines — is astonishing. TSMC has transformed an industry that now measures its work in nanometers (billionths of a meter). A human red blood cell is around 7,000 nanometers wide, and TSMC is now developing 1.4-nanometer chips.

“There’s nothing like the TSMC plants,” Matt Pottinger, a longtime Asia hand who was deputy national security adviser under Trump, told me. “It’s really black magic.”

But black magic requires enormous amounts of energy — TSMC single-handedly consumes perhaps 7% of Taiwan’s electricity — and that creates a risk. Even if China couldn’t take over TSMC fabs, it could disrupt production as a way of putting pressure on Taiwan and the West simply with cyberattacks on the grid.

“It’d be pretty easy for China to bring down the power networks,” Pottinger said. Alternatively, China could impose a partial blockade with the same effect. Either could quickly ripple through the global economy.

Which means it would also ripple through China’s economy. TSMC chips are crucial inputs for Chinese manufacturing, so Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, and others have described the chip industry as Taiwan’s “silicon shield” — meaning that China wouldn’t dare attack because that would destroy its own economy.

I’m as skeptical of this argument as I am of the notion that China will invade Taiwan to grab TSMC. The silicon shield reminds me of the 1909 bestselling book “The Great Illusion,” which was translated into 25 languages and predicted that Europe was so economically interdependent that warfare was obsolete. World War I and World War II killed its sales.

It’s definitely not optimal that the global economy depends on chips from an area vulnerable to earthquakes and war. That’s one reason America is investing some $39 billion through the CHIPS Act to manufacture chips domestically. But bringing a big chunk of advanced chipmaking back to America is already proving more difficult than passing the legislation.

It’s immensely challenging for America to replicate the

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (Lam Yik Fei/The New York Times) ecosystem in Taiwan that supports chip manufacturing, from the expertise in constructing fabs to the companies that clean the gowns worn inside them. And America is a plodding bureaucracy where it’s harder and more expensive to get environmental approvals and building permits than it is in other countries.

A sign of trouble: Both TSMC and Samsung have already had to delay plans for new plants in the United States. There’s some uncertainty about how advanced those American-made chips will be, and 18 months after President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS Act into law, the American subsidies are slow going out the door.

And a cautionary tale: TSMC built a fab in Washington state in the late 1990s, and for many years it was an expensive headache.

“It was just a series of ugly surprises,” Morris Chang, the founder of TSMC, said on a podcast in 2022. Despite enormous effort and 25 years of experience, the costs of production at that plant are still 50% higher than in Taiwan, Chang added.

Perhaps because he’s 92 years old and retired, Chang is candid about the challenges of the American strategy.

“I think it will be a very expensive exercise in futility,” he said of the U.S. efforts. “The U.S. will increase onshore manufacturing of semiconductors somewhat. But all of that will be very high cost increase, high unit cost. It will be noncompetitive in the world markets.”

Perhaps it makes sense for the United States to manufacture noncompetitive chips to safeguard access to them, but let’s recognize that there are trade-offs: The tens of billions of dollars spent on fabs subsidies would also boost American competitiveness if they were spent to reduce child poverty and improve American education.

If Americans were as good at math as the Taiwanese, our fabs might work better, too.

Given how difficult it is to move production, the best way to safeguard the manufacturing of chips may be to work harder than ever to deter and avoid war in the Taiwan Strait.

— (Contact Kristof at Facebook.com/Kristof, Twitter.com/ NickKristof or by mail at The New York Times, 620 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10018.)

16 Monday, January 29, 2024

The San Juan Daily Star

Encargada de Casa Blanca para asuntos de Puerto Rico es recibida en Ponce por alcaldes POR EL STAR STAFF ONCE – La alcaldesa interina de Ponce, Marlese P Sifre, junto al alcalde de Villalba y presidente de la Asociación de Alcaldes de Puerto Rico, Luis Javier Hernández, recibieron esta pasada semana a la encargada de Asuntos de Puerto Rico en Casa Blanca, Gretchen Sierra Zorita, para conocer de primera mano la importancia del Puerto de Ponce y la recuperación de La Guancha como los proyectos prioritarios de la administración municipal ponceña.

Sifre explicó que hace semana “estuvimos en la capital federal para atender varias reuniones relacionadas a los proyectos de reconstrucción, particularmente los relacionados a la Agencia Federal para Manejo de Emergencias (FEMA). Para nuestra administración municipal ponceña, los proyectos de reconstrucción son prioridad como parte de la agenda para propiciar el desarrollo económico de la región”.

La alcaldesa interina de Ponce señaló la importancia que Sierra conozca de primera mano “que aún con

todos esos asuntos de la reconstrucción, nuestra administración municipal no descansa en desarrollar a Ponce como un eje económico y destino turístico, que beneficia tanto a nuestra ciudad como a toda la región sur de Puerto Rico.

Por su parte, Hernández Ortiz añadió que en la labor de cabildeo que realiza la Asociación de Alcaldes de Puerto Rico “trabajamos para que todos los municipios sean beneficiados. Naturalmente la región sur tiene unas particularidades porque luego del huracán María, los terremotos de enero de 2020 causaron daños que aún se sufren. En ese sentido, el Consorcio del Sur (CONSUR), que maneja un fondo de $179 millones en asignaciones federales, sirve a la ciudadanía en iniciativas como ReSURge, mediante el cual se arreglarán o reconstruirán viviendas dañadas por los terremotos de 2020, para servir a Ponce, Peñuelas, Guayanilla, Yauco, Guánica y Lajas”.

El alcalde de Villalba expresó además que gracias a las visitas de la Asociación de Alcaldes a la capital federal, “fue que logramos cambiar el reglamento de

desembolsos de fondos que estuvo detenido por los primeros 4 años, desde el año 2021. De ahí la importancia que tiene continuar las gestiones de cabildeo y los canales de comunicación con los funcionarios encargados de los temas de Puerto Rico”.

Anuncian cierre por 3 meses para reparación de carretera en El Yunque POR CYBERNEWS

R

ÍO GRANDE – La Autoridad de Carreteras y Transportación (ACT), anunció el cierre de la PR-988, en los kilómetros 0.45, 1.1, 2.9 y 4.7, como parte de los trabajos de mitigación dirigidos a reparar los derrumbes en el área del Bosque Nacional El Yunque tras el paso del huracán María.

El cierre programado de la carretera iniciará este próximo jueves, 1 de febrero y se espera culminen el 27 de noviembre del año en curso. Estos trabajos forman parte del programa Emergency Relief for Federally Owned Roads (ERFO, por sus siglas

en inglés). Dada la complejidad de los trabajos, y con el fin de brindar acceso continuo al público, el contratista ha dividido los trabajos en tres fases, cada una con un tiempo aproximado de duración.

La primera fase consta de un cierre en la PR988 intersección con la PR-191 and PR-988 en el KM 1.5. Durante los trabajos se proveerá acceso al área de Puente Roto y Angelitos Trail a través de la PR-983 intersección con la PR-988. Esta primera fase tiene una duración aproximada de cinco meses.

La segunda fase consta del cierre entre la PR983 y la PR-988 en la intersección del Km 4.2. Du-

rante los trabajos se proveerá acceso a al área de Puente Roto y Angelitos Trail a través de la PR-191 intersección con la PR-988. Esta segunda tendrá una duración aproximada de dos meses.

La tercera fase consta del cierre de la PR-988 en el Km 2.7 y el Km 3.2. De igual forma, durante los trabajos se proveerá acceso a al área de Puente Roto a través de la PR-191 intersección con la PR-988.Para el área de Angelitos Trail, el acceso al público será por la PR-983 intersección con la PR-988.

Esta fase tendrá una duración aproximada de tres meses.

Aibonito celebra su bicentenario con dos grandes eventos POR EL STAR STAFF

A

IBONITO – El pueblo de Aibonito está de fiesta, pues este año se cumplen 200 años de su fundación. Para conmemorar esta fecha histórica, el municipio y su alcalde, Willie Alicea Pérez, han organizado dos actividades que prometen ser inolvidables.

La primera será el miércoles 13 de marzo a las 10:00 a.m., cuando se realizarán los actos protocolares en la plaza pública de Aibonito. En este evento recordaremos a las personalidades más destacadas del pueblo, así como a sus tradiciones y cultura. Se invita a todos los aiboniteños y aiboniteñas a participar de este acto cívico y patriótico, que contará con la presencia de los habitantes del pueblo y los estudiantes de las escuelas públicas. Durante este evento, historiadores habla-

rán sobre la historia de los 200 años de fundación de Aibonito, proporcionando un contexto histórico significativo. Además, se presentarán mensajes oficiales de directivos de empresas importantes en el desarrollo del pueblo. Un momento especial será la presentación del himno oficial de Aibonito, desarrollado por el artista local Iván Rivera, propietario del grupo Plenealo, quien ha reunido a un grupo de artistas para crear esta pieza única.

La segunda actividad será el sábado 16 de marzo desde las 12:00 del mediodía cuando se llevará a cabo la fiesta de pueblo en la plaza pública de Aibonito. Esta será una ocasión para celebrar en grande con la música de artistas aiboniteños como Obi Bermúdez, el grupo Plenealo, el salsero Luis Figueroa y, en una participación especial, Manny Manuel. Además, habrá kioscos,

artesanías, y muchas sorpresas más. Se espera la asistencia de miles de personas, tanto de Aibonito como de los pueblos adyacentes, que quieran compartir la alegría de este bicentenario.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

17

Justin Timberlake’s envious comeback, and 12 more new songs P op critics for The New York Times weigh in on notable new tracks.

Justin Timberlake, ‘Selfish’: “Selfish,” Justin Timberlake’s first new solo song in six years, covers a thematic terrain similar to Nick Jonas’ hit “Jealous” (2014), but swaps that tune’s bravado for muted melancholy.

“So if I get jealous, I can’t help it,” Timberlake croons, in a flatter approximation of Justin Bieber’s more successful forays into midtempo R&B. “I want every bit of you / I guess I’m selfish.” A fun, lightly carbonated beat keeps things moving forward — perhaps the only element of the song aware that it’s not quite as deep as Timberlake thinks. — LINDSAY ZOLADZ Marc Anthony, ‘Punta Cana’: The lilting, understated guitars and pattering bongo drums of Dominican bachata usually carry songs of restrained regret. But salsa singer Marc Anthony isn’t one for restraint.

In “Punta Cana,” named after the Dominican resort town, he’s a rejected boyfriend bitterly monitoring the happy photos posted by his ex — a scenario like the one in Maluma’s hit “Hawái.” From the first verse, he works up to throat-tearing rasps, trying to convince himself that one kiss would get her back, eventually deploying a horn section as his desperation grows. No wonder she’s keeping her distance. — JON PARELES Tierra Whack, ‘Shower Song’: The kaleidoscopically imaginative Philadelphia musician Tierra Whack returns with a bit of minimalistic funk on “Shower Song,” a playful ode to getting clean, ruminating on wild ideas and belting like no one else can hear. “I sound great when I’m singing in the shower,” Whack declares on this single from her forthcoming album “World Wide Whack.” “Soap and water give me power.”

As usual, it’s accompanied by a riotously colorful, “Pee-wee’s Playhouse”-esque music video showcasing the singularity of Whack’s world. — LINDSAY ZOLADZ Hiatus Kaiyote, ‘Everything’s Beautiful’: Australian band Hiatus Kaiyote revels in musicianly games like shifting meters, angular harmonies and leaping, zigzag melodies, adeptly drawing on jazz, funk, rock and psychedelia. “Everything’s Beautiful” is true to form: structurally tricky but ultimately just a romp, still blithely funky above

Justin Timberlake’s single “Selfish” is his first solo release in six years.

Ireland that can be chiming and consonant — but not in this song. Fuzz-toned guitars create a tolling, churning backwash as Pamela Connolly sings about a decisive breakup with someone who lied and took her for granted: “I was in your top five things to do,” she recalls as she moves on.

Now she gloats, “I’m someone else’s problem.” — JON PARELES Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, ‘Revelations’: River Shook matter-of-factly describes mental health turmoil in “Revelations,” a minor-key roots-rocker laced with twangy guitar and steel-guitar lines. “Good days I levitate off the ground / Some days I can’t get out of bed,” they sing, later adding, “Baby, I barely get through each day.”

There’s no happy ending, just perseverance and a steadfast beat. — JON PARELES John Leventhal Featuring Rosanne Cash, ‘That’s All I Know About Arkansas’: At 71, longtime musician, songwriter and producer John Leventhal — who has worked with Shawn Colvin, Marc Cohn, Sarah Jarosz and with his wife, Rosanne Cash — has released his first solo album, “Rumble Strip.” In “That’s All I Know About Arkansas,” Leventhal constructed a mandolin-topped string band in the studio to support a modal, Appalachian-tinged melody. Cash joins him on vocals, sharing a laconic narrative about a woman who just “took her dress and the shoes she wore” and left Arkansas behind, perhaps to become a singer; the outcome is unknown, but the music is stoic and sure-footed. — JON PARELES Megan Moroney, ‘No Caller ID’: Rising country upstart Megan Moroney receives a disruptive, middle-of-the-night phone call from a troublesome ex on the wrenching, well-written “No Caller ID,” which

finds her wrestling with her own reaction.

“Why do I want to? I shouldn’t want to,” Moroney sings with warmth, grit and a selfdeprecating sigh. — LINDSAY ZOLADZ Phosphorescent, ‘Revelator’: Country-rooted indie-rock singer-songwriter Matthew Houck — aka Phosphorescent — went quiet after the 2018 album “C’est La Vie.” His return, the title song of a coming album called “Revelator,” stays true to form: leisurely, layered, desolate but resigned. “Hey, I told you before, I needed you more,” he sings, “but you couldn’t even turn around.” The track puts a string section behind a country band topped with pedal steel guitar, while Phosphorescent stays serenely inconsolable. — JON PARELES El Perro del Mar, ‘Between You and Me Nothing’: El Perro del Mar — the recording name of electronic songwriter-singer-producer Sarah Assbring — questions a self-destructive obsession in “Between You and Me Nothing.” She sets up weightless electronic tones and faraway vocal harmonies as she wonders, “Why do I keep returning to something that’s long gone?”

The sound is meditative; the mood is both analytical and bereft. — JON PARELES Gary Clark Jr., ‘Maktub’: Tuareg electric-guitar music, from the nomadic North African people who live across the Sahara, has long been known as “desert blues.” Texas bluesman Gary Clark Jr. reinforces the connection in “Maktub,” Arabic for “it is written”; it’s from his exploratory, style-hopping new EP, “Jpeg Raw.” The modal, six-beat, distorted guitar riff echoes Tuareg musicians like Tinariwen and Mdou Moctar, and Clark sings and raps lines about being persecuted and mobile: “We gotta move in the same direction,” the chorus declares. — JON PARELES

its underlying math. — JON PARELES Ice Spice, ‘Think U the Shit (Fart)’: Ice Spice has a way with a hilarious, monosyllabic insult hurled like a blunt instrument.

First, there was “Munch.” Now, even more to the point, “Fart.” An insistent, skronky beat from producers RIOTUSA (who goes

by Riot), Synthetic and Venny inspire the nonplused Ice to go in harder than usual: “I got my foot on they necks / I can’t let up,” she raps, venomously. “She all on the floor / Told her, ‘Get up.’” — LINDSAY ZOLADZ Jade Bird Featuring Mura Masa, ‘Burn the Hard Drive’: Jade Bird sings about trying to leave behind both human and digital memories in “Burn the Hard Drive,” singing, “There’s nothing left to do but erase moments one by one.” A nimble, triplet-driven, nervousenergy track concoc•Venta • Instalación y Servicio ted by producer Mura Masa has instruments SU CENTRO DE PIEZAS PARA PUERTAS popping in and out like Y PORTONES ELÉCTRICOS those stubborn, unwanContamos con la línea más completa de Operadores ted thoughts. — JON Industriales, Comerciales y Residenciales.

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The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

Green Day gets loud again

By JON PARELES

P

raising a return to form is a barbed compliment at best. It implies recent missteps, a decline, the waning of youthful inspiration, the toll of a long career — perhaps all of them at once. It suggests that the sensible way forward is to double back. Still, “Saviors,” Green Day’s new album, is a decisive, even overdetermined return to form.

Ever since its beginnings in the late 1980s, Green Day has stayed contentious.

Billie Joe Armstrong has sung about personal grievances — including struggles with himself — as well as the ways they intersect with larger political currents, most ambitiously on the band’s 2004 concept album, “American Idiot,” which went on to be adapted into a Broadway musical.

The band can still cause a stir. In recent years, Armstrong has been performing the song “American Idiot” by changing the line “I’m not a part of a redneck agenda” to end with “the MAGA agenda” instead. But when he sang that phrase on broadcast TV this past New Year’s Eve, right-wing media seized on the line to raise a fuss.

“Saviors” finds contemporary targets. It opens with “The American Dream Is Killing Me,” which goes barreling ahead as Armstrong derides conspiracy theories and anti-immigrant attitudes, touches on homelessness and real estate exploitation and declares that as a nation, “We are not well.”

In “Living in the ’20s,” Armstrong confronts a decade that’s brought super-

An image from Emmie America shows from left: Tré Cool, Billie Joe Armstrong, and Mike Dirnt of Green Day. The band’s 14th studio album, “Saviors,” trumpets its connections to the band’s past. (Emmie America via The New York Times) market shootings and murder hornets. In the quick-strummed “Strange Days Are Here to Stay,” he sings about bleak expectations: “I can’t see this ending well/ Now that it’s too late.”

While Green Day has pushed against power structures, it has honored musical ones. With Armstrong on guitar and vocals, Tré Cool on drums and Mike Dirnt on bass, there has always been a virtuosic neatness behind Green Day’s blare.

Green Day arrived as a proud heir to the fast, blunt, tuneful, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes candid punk that the Ramones had formulated in the 1970s.

As Green Day’s catalog grew, it became clearer that the band was well aware of generations of guitar bands, from its grunge contemporaries back through Van Halen, Cheap Trick, Boston and Aerosmith to the Who and the Beatles.

Green Day invariably delivers precisely arranged songs with clear-cut verses, choruses and bridges. Its 1994 album, “Dookie” — with hits including “Basket Case” and “Welcome to Paradise” — heralded the commercial breakthrough of punk-pop that was simultaneously raucous and high-gloss.

“Saviors” trumpets its connections to Green Day’s past. For its international tour this year — to be joined along the way by bands including Smashing Pumpkins, Rancid and the Hives — Green Day has announced it will play all the way through both “Dookie” and “American Idiot,” coinciding with their 30th and 20th anniversaries. Green Day made “Saviors” with Rob Cavallo, a co-producer of both

albums, who last worked on Green Day’s three stripped-down 2012 albums “¡Uno!,” “¡Dos!” and “¡Tré!”

Green Day’s more recent albums had strained to be different: noisier, murkier and often using all its resources to simulate lo-fi recording. “Saviors,” by contrast, is forthrightly lavish. Guitars and vocals are multilayered, and the drum sound is gigantic; orchestral arrangements appear out of nowhere. The band proudly blasts again in songs such as the standout track, “Dilemma,” in which Armstrong — who entered rehab after an onstage tirade in 2012 — grapples with trying to stay sober. “I don’t want to be a dead man walking,” he proclaims over stadium-shaking guitar chords.

“Saviors” revisits the production approach of the so-called “loudness war” of the 1990s and 2000s, when it seemed studios sought to make, as Meat Loaf sang, “everything louder than everything else.”

The waveforms of nearly every song on “Saviors” measure as what recording engineers call “brickwalled” — pushed to a constant, flattened peak. On a playlist alongside tracks that include more ups and downs, that loudness is supposed to feel exciting. But on an entire unrelenting, 15-track album, it grows wearing.

Perhaps it’s inevitable that on Green Day’s 14th studio album, some of the songs have beats and chord progressions that can feel like retreads. On “Saviors,” the production often strives to offset familiarity with impact. Yet “Father to a Son” — in which an uncertain parent vows to try his best — unmistakably echoes “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” even with an orchestra now supplementing the power chords.

For sonic variety, Green Day flaunts its rock scholarship. “Bobby Sox” — with Armstrong singing about the homey comforts he’d offer a girlfriend, a boyfriend or a best friend — is an outright homage to Pixies, exploding from a quiet verse to a crashing chorus. And the depressive but stubborn “Goodnight Adeline” could almost have been an arena march from Oasis.

“Saviors” doesn’t hide its craftsmanship or self-consciousness, but they are a means to an end. Green Day is still angry, disgusted, worried and no longer so amused about the state of the world. This time, the band has decided to shout about it.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

19

The first secret asteroid mission won’t be the last

By JONATHAN O’CALLAGHAN

F

or generations, Western space missions have largely occurred out in the open. We knew where they were going, why they were going there and what they planned to do.

But the world is on the verge of a new era in which private interests override such openness, with big money potentially on the line.

Sometime in 2024, a spacecraft from AstroForge, an American asteroid-mining firm, may be launched on a mission to a rocky object near Earth’s orbit. If successful, it will be the first wholly commercial deep-space mission beyond the moon.

AstroForge, however, is keeping its target asteroid secret.

The secret space-rock mission is the latest in an emerging trend that astronomers and other experts do not welcome: commercial space missions conducted covertly. Such missions highlight gaps in the regulation of spaceflight as well as concerns about whether exploring the cosmos will continue to benefit all humankind.

“I’m very much not in favor of having stuff swirling around the inner solar system without anyone knowing where it is,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts. “It seems like a bad precedent to set.”

But for AstroForge, the calculation is simple: If it reveals the destination, a competitor may grab the asteroid’s valuable metals for itself.

“Announcing which asteroid we are targeting opens up risk that another entity could seize that asteroid,” said Matt Gialich, AstroForge’s chief executive.

Increased activity Asteroid mining entered the doldrums in recent years after two startups proposing to prospect the solar system went out of business in the late 2010s. But now several companies in the United States, Europe and China are taking another stab at the endeavor. Even a congressional committee held a hearing on the subject in December.

The renaissance is fueled by a new wave of commercial space exploration, driven largely by SpaceX, the company founded by Elon Musk that flies reusable rocket boosters and has reduced the cost of reaching space.

With that increased activity is also increasing secrecy.

In 2019, the Israeli-built commercial Beresheet lander crashed while trying to land on the Moon. On board, kept secret until after the failed landing, were a few thousand tardigrades, microscopic animals supplied by the nonprofit Arch Mission Foundation. The crash raised concerns about potentially contaminating the moon with the hearty creatures and led to an investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration.

More recently, the suborbital spaceflight firm Virgin Galactic has withheld the identities of the people on board its space plane until after the missions are completed, a practice not seen before with human spaceflight. And some satellites hitching rides to space with lots of other orbital craft, in what are known as ride-share missions, have also been kept secret.

“We’re seeing frequent launches where we don’t know what the satellites are that were deployed until some time af-

September at an estimated cost of $1.16 billion.

AstroForge is confident in its financial prospects. “We expect that we can return materials at a high margin,” Gialich said. “We created our business model by leveraging ride shares and partnerships to make each mission as economically viable as possible.”

Akbar Whizin, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, said he understood the motivation to keep the asteroid a secret. He formerly worked for Planetary Resources, a mining startup that never reached any asteroids, and it, too, was coy about its targets.

“This is a commercial enterprise,” he said. “You wouldn’t go telling people, ‘I know where the gold is.’”

But some scientists think asteroid miners should be more forthcoming about what they seek. M-type asteroids give huIntuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander at the company’s manity a window into the chaotic early solar system 4.5 billion facility in Houston on Feb. 1, 2023. AstroForge’s Odin years ago, when objects frequently smashed together and the mission is to share a ride to space with Nova-C. (Bran- planets were born. That means anything AstroForge discovers don Thibodeaux/The New York Times) could be scientifically valuable, said Stephanie Jarmak, a planetary scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. terwards,” said McDowell, who maintains a public database of “I’m a pretty big proponent for open science,” said Jarspacecraft in orbit. mak, also the project scientist for NASA Science Explorer. “We For missions beyond Earth, there are no legal restrictions haven’t visited an M-type asteroid before, so there’s quite a bit against keeping a deep space mission’s destination secret as we can learn.”

AstroForge intends to do, said Michelle Hanlon, a law professor That could include “insights into the heating processes specializing in space at the University of Mississippi. that were going on early in solar-system history,” said Andy “We don’t have an actual process for deep-space mis- Rivkin, an astronomer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied sions like this,” she said, because “there is no licensing pro- Physics Laboratory who led NASA’s DART mission to impact an cess” in the United States. asteroid in September 2022.

Taking pictures “We will never get to Earth’s core,” he said. “So visiting AstroForge’s mission, Odin, would be the second space- these kinds of objects will give us information that we could craft it has sent to space. Its first in April, Brokkr-1, was a mi- extrapolate to learn more about Earth and apply that to differcrowave-size machine weighing about 25 pounds. The goal of ent planets.” that mission was to practice refining metals in the environment Benjamin Weiss, a planetary scientist at the Massachuof space. The spacecraft has encountered problems, however, setts Institute of Technology and the deputy principal investigathe company said on Dec. 11. AstroForge is in a “race against tor on the Psyche mission, said the true nature of M-type astertime” to get Brokkr-1 working before it is lost. oids was still unclear. While it had “always been the leading Odin, on the other hand, weighs a much heftier 220 assumption” that M-type asteroids were metallic, he said, we pounds. AstroForge plans for it to piggyback on a robotic mis- did not know for certain. sion to the moon in 2024 by the company Intuitive Machines In 2010, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft that is sponsored by NASA and being launched on a SpaceX flew past the asteroid Lutetia. Scientists discovered that it was Falcon 9 rocket. A launch date has not yet been set. not as metallic as suspected. That would make anything AstroDuring the journey to the moon, the plan is for Odin to Forge discovered all the more worthwhile, Weiss said. be released and to venture into deep space beyond lunar orbit.

Gialich said AstroForge would be transparent, except Within a year, according to AstroForge, the spacecraft will fly about the asteroid itself. “We are not keeping our mission sepast the mystery asteroid, taking pictures and looking for evi- cret,” he said. “We plan to share the images.” dence of metal.

He added that there were multiple targets AstroForge was AstroForge is aiming for what is suspected to be an M- considering. “We are actively tracking several asteroids that type asteroid. These are thought to be fragmented pieces of would be viable for our Odin mission should our launch date failed planetary cores and may be rich in valuable platinum- slip,” he said. group metals, which have a wide range of uses including in Even if the asteroid cannot be identified before the health care and jewelry. launch, McDowell noted that it might be possible for amaThe business case for grabbing metals from asteroids has teur astronomers on Earth to track the spacecraft after it was in not always been clear. It is difficult and costly to return mate- space and work out where it is going. rial to Earth; NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned only an esti“There are some practical issues,” he said. “But I certainly mated half-pound of material from an asteroid called Bennu in think there will be interest in tracking it.”

20 Monday, January 29, 2024

The San Juan Daily Star

The trick to the fluffiest muffins may already be in your kitchen

Lemon blueberry muffins, in New York, Jan. 9, 2024. Creamy yogurt makes these muffins the airy, tender treat you need this winter. Food styled by Monica Pierini. (Linda Xiao/The New York Times)

By GENEVIEVE KO

A

s winter set in this January, Sarah Kieffer recalled how it snowed for eight months last year in her hometown, Minneapolis. For weeks on end, the temperature dipped below minus 20. Surrounded by grayness, she baked blueberry muffins for the cheer of their bright pops of blue.

“It’s like when the hobbits got to Mordor, and Sam looks up and sees a bright shining star, and has a little bit of hope,” she said.

“That’s what a blueberry muffin feels like in February.”

Kieffer, the author of “100 Morning Treats” (and a self-described “super nerd”), grew up with box-mix muffins and has since created from-scratch versions for her popular baking blog and cookbooks. She prefers muffins that aren’t as hefty as some bakery ones and lightens the texture with almond flour.

This simple lemon blueberry muffin uses only all-purpose flour and relies on yogurt for an unparalleled airiness. Even though muffins as dense as coffee cake are delicious, they’re not quite right for a season of heaviness (wool coats, beef stew, existential crises).

This is when you want bites of sunshine, bites that feel like soft breezes.

Yogurt is the secret to achieving optimal muffin fluffiness and also gives the not-toosugary lemon cake batter even more tangy

complexity. If you don’t already keep plain whole-milk yogurt in the refrigerator, now is a good time to start. It can be the base for granola breakfasts, but also for quick savory sauces, marinades and dressings for lunch or dinner.

“The versatility is its best feature,” Cheryl Sternman Rule said. As the author of “Yogurt Culture” Rule celebrates its use across cuisines and especially in baking.

Yogurt is made by fermenting milk with a bacteria-based starter culture. That culture then produces lactic acid, which causes the milk protein to thicken into a creamy, slightly tart mixture. When whole-milk yogurt is used in muffin batter, it adds richness but also keeps the texture light because of its acid and liquid content.

To ensure a high rise for muffins that are still sturdy enough to stand with pockets of juicy berries, both baking soda and baking powder are whisked into the dry ingredients.

When baking soda, which is a base, hits the acid of yogurt, it quickly releases carbon dioxide gas and makes the batter bubble up quickly. That gives it both airiness and an extra-big muffin top. Baking soda also promotes browning, so that muffin slope burnishes to a deep coppery amber.

Because baking soda neutralizes acid, baking powder, which is also a base but includes acidic cream of tartar, is also used in the batter. Baking powder’s little bit of acid-

ity both bolsters the tartness of the yogurt and lemon juice in these muffins, and makes the crumb tender. Baking powder works more slowly, giving the batter a steady lift to ensure a perky, soft muffin.

Yogurt is ideal for its balance of natural sweetness and measured sourness, but mainly because it means you don’t have to make another trip to the store, especially in slush, ice or any messy wintry mix. If you happen to have only plain Greek yogurt or labneh on hand, simply thin it with enough milk to make it as runny as plain yogurt. Sour cream can be swapped for the yogurt and will give you a finer crumb. Buttermilk works too, but may take longer to bake through.

Whichever ingredient you use, you’ll be rewarded with a breakfast treat that feels warming and sustains until real warmth comes back around. As Kieffer said, “It’s like a little tiny beacon of joy.”

Lemon blueberry muffins Fluffy with big tops, these treats have the airiness of a lemon cupcake, but they’re not too sweet, making them ideal for breakfast. Lemon zest and juice bring the floral fragrance and tartness of citrus to the batter, which is creamy and light from yogurt. Melted butter will make the muffins even richer, while oil will keep them from drying out quickly. To make these muffins extra moist and to boost their lemony taste, mix 1/4 cup lemon juice with 1/4 cup sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Brush this syrup over the muffins as soon as they come out of the oven.

Yield: 12 muffins Total time: 50 minutes Ingredients: 1 3/4 cups/247 grams all-purpose flour 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon fine salt 2/3 cup/167 grams sugar 1 lemon 1 cup/241 grams plain whole-milk yogurt 1/4 cup/60 grams neutral-flavored oil, olive oil or melted butter 2 large eggs 1 cup fresh or thawed frozen blueberries (see Tip)

Preparation: 1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or generously grease. Either way, be sure to coat the top of the tin with butter or nonstick cooking spray to easily remove the muffin tops.

2. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

3. Add sugar to a medium bowl, and zest the lemon directly into the sugar. Rub together until the sugar is pale yellow. Squeeze in 2 tablespoons lemon juice, then add the yogurt, oil and eggs. Whisk until very smooth.

4. Toss the blueberries into the dry mixture until evenly coated, then add the wet ingredients and stir gently just until no traces of flour remain. It’s OK if the batter is lumpy.

5. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

6. Bake until golden brown on top, about 20 minutes. When you press the top of a muffin, it should almost feel like a soft pillow.

7. Cool for at least 5 minutes before removing from the tin. Completely cooled muffins can be frozen in an airtight container for up to 2 months. Thaw fully, then reheat in a toaster oven before enjoying.

Tips: You can use one 6-ounce container of fresh berries, which taste tangier and juicier, or a cup of frozen berries (4 3/4 ounces). Thaw frozen berries between sheets of paper towels to absorb excess water.

Lemon zest gently rubbed into the sugar gives these lemon blueberry muffins a more potent citrus aroma, in New York, Jan. 9, 2024. (Linda Xiao/The New York Times)

The San Juan Daily Star que le corresponda a la parte demandada o cualquiera de ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO ellos en el inmueble hipotecado DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- objeto de ejecución que se desNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA cribe a continuación: RÚSTICA: SALA SUPERIOR DE HUMA- Parcela marcada con el número CAO 173 en el plano de parcelación MASSACHUSETTS de la comunidad rural Pasto Seco del Barrio Rio del térmiMUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY no municipal de Las Piedras, con una cabida superficial de Demandante Vs. 357.67 metros cuadrados. En LA SUCESIÓN DE lindes por el NORTE, con la AIDA IRIS MARÍN calle número 9 de la comuniT/C/C AIDA I. MARÍN dad; por el SUR, con la parcela TOMASSINI T/C/C AIDA número 174 de la comunidad; IRIS MARÍN TOMASSINI por el ESTE, con la calle número 6 de la comunidad; y por el COMPUESTA POR FULANO Y FULANA DE OESTE, con la parcela número de la comunidad. Consta TAL COMO HEREDEROS 172 inscrita al folio 80 del tomo 248 DESCONOCIDOS CON de Las Piedras, finca número POSIBLE INTERÉS 13220, Registro de la Propie(ANTES), AHORA LA dad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Humacao. La hipoteca objeto SUCESIÓN DE AIDA IRIS MARİN T/C/C ADA de esta ejecución se encuentra inscrita al folio 80 vuelto del I. MARÍN TOMASSINI Tomo 248 de Las Piedras, finca T/C/C ADA IRIS MARÍN número 13220, inscripción 3a.

TOMASSINI COMPUESTA Propiedad localizada en: Lot POR CARMEN ZENAIDA 273 Pasto Seco Com. El Rio, Las Piedras, PR 00771, t/c/c MELÉNDEZ MARÍN, MONIQUE PÉREZ MARÍN, Bo. Rio Parc Nuevas, Carr.

ANTONIO PÉREZ MARÍN, 31, Las Piedras, PR 00771, Bo. Rio Parcelas Nuevas FULANO Y FULANA DE t/c/c #173, Com Pasto Seco, Carr.

TAL COMO HEREDEROS 31, Las Piedras, PR 00771. SeDESCONOCIDOS CON gún figuran en la certificación POSIBLE INTERÉS registral, la propiedad objeto de Demandados ejecución está gravada por las Civil Núm.: LP2022CV00068. siguientes cangas posteriores Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO a la inscripción del crédito ejeY EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTE- cutante: HIPOTECA en garanCA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. tía de pagaré a favor de Doral EDICTO DE SUBASTA. ESTA- Financial Corporation, h/n/c DOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, H.F. Mortgage Bankers, o a su EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ES- orden, por la suma principal de TADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO $9615.00 con intereses a razón LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUER- del 9.95% anual y vencimiento TO RICO, SS. el 1 de abril del 2016. Constituida por la Escritura 204 otorgaA: LA PARTE da en San Juan el 31 de marzo DEMANDADA, AL (A LA) SECRETARIO(A) DE del 2001 ante la notario Diana M. Ruiz Hernández. Inscrita HACIENDA DE PUERTO el 30 de septiembre de 2002 RICO Y AL PÚBLICO al folio 1 del Tomo 269 de Las GENERAL: Piedras, finca número 13220, Certificado y Hago Constar: inscripción 4a. Se entenderá Que en cumplimiento con el que todo licitador acepta como Mandamiento de Ejecución de bastante la titularidad de la proSentencia que me ha sido diri- piedad y que todas las cargas gido por el (la) Secretario(a) del y gravámenes anteriores y los Tribunal de Primera Instancia, preferentes al crédito ejecutanSala Superior de Humacao, en te antes descritos, si los hubieel caso de epígrafe procederá re, continuarán subsistentes. a vender en pública subasta El rematante acepta dichas al mejor postor en efectivo, cargas y gravámenes anteriocheque gerente, giro postal, res, y queda subrogado en la cheque certificado en moneda responsabilidad de los mismos, legal de los Estados Unidos de sin destinarse a su extinción el Amėrica al nombre del Alguacil precio del remate. Se establece del Tribunal de Primera Instan- como tipo mínimo de subasta cia, en mi oficina ubicada en el la suma de $39,673.00, según Tribunal de Primera Instancia, acordado entre las partes en el Sala de Humacao, el 12 DE precio pactado en la escritura MARZO DE 2024 A LAS 9:00 de hipoteca. De ser necesaria DE LA MAÑANA, todo derecho una SEGUNDA SUBASTA por título, participación o interés

LEGAL NOTICE

@

Monday, January 29, 2024 declararse desierta la primera, la misma se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Humacao, el 19 DE MARZO DE 2024 A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA, y se establece como mínima para dicha segunda subasta la suma de $26,448.67 dos tercios (23) partes del tipo mínimo establecido originalmente. Si tampoco se produce remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, se establece como mínima para la TERCERA SUBASTA, la suma de $19,836.50 la mitad (1/2) del precio pactado y dicha subasta se celebrará en mi oficina, ubicada en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Humacao, el 26 DE MARZO DE 2024 A LAS 9:00 DE LA MAÑANA. Dicha subasta se llevará a cabo para, con su producto satisfacer a la parte demandante, el importe de la Sentencia dictada a su favor ascendente a la suma de $22,056.79 de principal; más intereses al tipo pactado de 8.000% anual desde el 1ro. de enero de 2020, hasta la notificación de la sentencia; cargos por mora equivalentes a 4.000% de la suma de aquellos pagos con atrasos en exceso de 15 días calendarios de la fecha vencimiento los cuales continúan acumulándose hasta la notificación de la sentencia, los créditos accesorios y adelantos hechos en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca; más la suma de $3,967.30 por concepto de honorarios de abogado, posterior a la notificación de la sentencia acumulará el interés legal. Además de cualesquiera sumas de dinero por concepto de contribuciones, primas de seguro hipotecario y riesgo, los cuales continúan acumulándose hasta el saldo total de la deuda; así como cualquier otra suma que se haga en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca. La venta en pública subasta de la referida propiedad se verificará libre de toda carga o gravamen posterior que afecte la mencionada finca, a cuyo efecto se notifica y se hace saber la fecha, hora y sitio de la PRIMERA, SEGUNDA Y TERCERA SUBASTA, si esto fuera necesario, a los efectos de que cualquier persona o personas con algún interés puedan comparece a la celebración de dicha subasta.

Se notifica a todos los interesados que las actas y demás constancias del expediente de este caso están disponibles en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables para ser examinadas por los (las) interesados (as). Y para su publi-

staredictos@thesanjuandailystar.com

cación en el periódico The San Juan Daily Star, que es un diario de circulación general en la isla de Puerto Rico, por espacio de dos semanas consecutivas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre ambas publicaciones, así como para su publicación en los sitios públicos de Puerto Rico. Expedido en Humacao, Puerto Rico, hoy día 10 de enero de 2024. Jenisa García Morales, Alguacil Regional, Alguacil De Subastas, Tribunal De Primera Instancia, Centro Judicial De Humacao, Sala Superior. Jania Guasp Loza, Alguacil Auxiliar #653.

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

607-609 CONDADO ST., LLC. Demandante V.

SIXTO PÉREZ PICHARDO, LUCY VEGA MIRANDA Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Demandado Civil Núm.: SJ2022CV00783.

COBRO DE DINERO POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. AVISO DE PÚBLICA SUBASTA.

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

El Alguacil que suscribe por la presente anuncia y hace constar que en cumplimiento de una Sentencia dictada en el caso de epígrafe el 16 de septiembre de 2022, notificada el mismo día y publicada el 26 de septiembre de 2022, una Orden de Ejecución de Embargo emitida el 4 de octubre de 2023 y un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Embargo emitido el día 4 de octubre de 2023, que le ha sido dirigido por la Secretaria del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de San Juan, procederá a vender en subasta, y al mejor postor, por separado, de contado y por moneda de curso legal de los Estados Unidos de América, y/o giro postal, dinero en efectivo, cheque de gerente o cheque certificado a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal, o letra bancaria, con similar garantía de todo título, derecho o interés de los demandados de epígrafe sobre el inmueble que adelante se describe. Se anuncia por la presente que la subasta habrá de celebrarse el día 20 DE FEBRERO DE 2024; A LAS 11:30 DE LA MAÑANA, en mi oficina localizada en el Tribunal de Pri-

(787) 743-3346

21 mera Instancia, Sala Superior de San Juan, sobre el inmueble que se describe a continuación: URBANA: PROPIEDAD HORIZONTAL: OFICINA #211.

Colinda por el NORTE, en 21’, con pared exterior que lo separa de la colindancia de Rafael Matos; por el SUR, en igual medida, con pared interior que lo separa de la oficina #210; por el ESTE, en 12’4”, con pared exterior hacia el patio del edificio y por el OESTE, en igual medida, con pared interior que separa de pasillo común, hacia cuyo lado tiene su entrada y salida. Comprende un área de 260 pies cuadrados aproximadamente y tiene su entrada y salida hacia el Norte, por el pasillo común con el cual colinda en ese lado. La oficina descrita forma parte del segundo piso del edificio denominado Condominio Condado. PORCENTAJE: Elementos Comunes del Edificio: 0.0098%. FINCA NÚMERO: 4869-B, inscrita al folio 1 del tomo 151 de Santurce Sur (Sección I de San Juan).

Dirección física: 609 Condado St., Oficina 211, San Juan PR 00907. La subasta se llevará a cabo para con su producto satisfacer al demandante, total o parcialmente, según sea el caso, de la referida sentencia que fue dictada por la suma de $6,175.59, más intereses, penalidades y recargos que se continúen acumulando, más las costas y gastos; más la suma de $617.50, por concepto de honorarios de abogado. Esta subasta no tiene fijación de tipo mínimo por tratarse de una ejecución de sentencia por embargo. Y PARA CONOCIMIENTO DE LAS PARTES INTERESADAS y del público en general, se advierte que los autos de este caso y demás instancias están disponibles para ser inspeccionadas en la Secretaría del Tribunal de Primera Instancia Sala Superior de San Juan, durante las horas laborables.

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

La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. En testimonio de lo cual, expido el presente aviso, el cual firmo y

sello, hoy 16 de enero de 2024, en San Juan, Puerto Rico. PEDRO HIEYE GONZÁLEZ, 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 HUMACAO

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante Vs.

MARGARITA FELICIANO COLON

Demandada Civil Núm.: HSCI201700137.

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

Al: PÚBLICO EN GENERAL. A: MARGARITA FELICIANO COLON.

Yo, JENNISA GARCÍA MORALES, Alguacil de este Tribunal, a la parte demandada y a los acreedores y personas con interés sobre la propiedad que más adelante se describe, y al público en general, HAGO SABER: Que el día 22 DE FEBRERO DE 2024, A LAS 11:30 DE LA MAÑANA en mi oficina, sita en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Humacao, Humacao, Puerto Rico, venderé en Pública Subasta la propiedad inmueble que más adelante se describe y cuya venta en pública subasta se ordenó por la vía ordinaria al mejor postor quien hará el pago en dinero en efectivo, giro postal o cheque certificado a nombre del o la Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado, estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal de Humacao 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 29 DE FEBRERO DE 2024, A LAS 11:30 DE LA MAÑANA y en caso de no producir remate ni adjudicación, se celebrará una TERCERA SUBASTA el 8 DE MARZO DE 2024, A LAS 11:30 DE LA MAÑANA en mi oficina sita en el lugar antes indicado.

La propiedad a venderse en pública subasta se describe como sigue: URBANA: Solar radicado en la URBANIZACIÓN PALACIOS DEL MAR, localiza-

do en el Barrio Buena Vista del término municipal de Humacao, Puerto Rico, que se describe en el plano de inscripción de la Urbanización con el número, área y colindancias que se relacionan a continuación: Solar número Veintiséis (26) del Bloque “A”. Área de TRESCIENTOS PUNTO QUINCE (300.15) METROS CUADRADOS. En lindes por el NORTE, con la Calle Adriático, en una distancia de TRECE PUNTO CERO CINCO (13.05) METROS; por el SUR, con el solar número Uno (1) del Bloque “C” y con el solar número Seis (6) del Bloque “B”, en una distancia de TRECE PUNTO CERO CINCO (13.05) METROS; por el ESTE, con el solar número Veintisiete (27) del Bloque “A”, en una distancia de VEINTITRÉS PUNTO CERO CERO (23.00) METROS; y por el OESTE, con el solar número Veinticinco (25) del Bloque “A”, en una distancia de VEINTITRÉS PUNTO CERO CERO (23.00) METROS. En este solar se ha construido una vivienda de bloques y hormigón reforzado para una familia. La hipoteca se encuentra inscrita al Sistema Karibe, Registro de la Propiedad de Humacao, finca número 30,047 de Humacao, inscripción segunda. La dirección física de la propiedad antes descrita es: Palacios del Mar, A 26, Calle Adriático, Humacao, Puerto Rico. La Subasta se llevará a efecto para satisfacer a la parte demandante la suma de $119,022.42 de principal, intereses al 3.75% anual desde el 1ro. de agosto de 2016, hasta su completo pago; más la cantidad de $12,183.60 estipulada para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado y recargos acumulados, todas cuyas sumas están líquidas y exigibles. Que la cantidad mínima de licitación en la primera subasta para el inmueble será de $121,836.00 y de ser necesaria una segunda subasta, la cantidad mínima será equivalente a 2/3 partes de aquella, o sea, la suma de $81,224.00 y de ser necesaria una tercera subasta, la cantidad mínima será la mitad del precio pactado, es decir, la suma de $60,918.00. 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 Humacao, Puerto Rico, 9 de enero de 2024.

JENNISA GARCÍA MORALES, ALGUACIL REGIONAL. WILNELIA RIVERA DELGADO, ALGUACIL AUXILIAR #249, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA SUPERIOR DE HUMACAO.

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Parte Demandante Vs.

MIGUEL ÁNGEL VIVES LABOY T/C/C MIGUEL A. VIVES LABOY, ACRIES LYDIA MERCED COLÓN T/C/C LYDIA MERCED COLÓN Y LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: PO2023CV03650.

(406). Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA “IN REM”. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO.

22 ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS E.E.U.U., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

A LA DEMANDADA: ACRIES LYDIA MERCED COLÓN t/c/c LYDIA MERCED COLÓN, por sí y como parte de la SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA CON MIGUEL ÁNGEL VIVES LABOY t/c/c MIGUEL A. VIVES LABOY a sus últimas direcciones conocidas: URB. SANTA RITA, B4, JUANA DÍAZ, PR 00795; URB. SANTA RITA, 204 CALLE SAN ANTONIO, COTO LAUREL, PR 00780-2865; 4221 S 6TH ST LOT F40, MILWAUKEE, WI 532211794.

Queda usted notificado que en este Tribunal se ha radicado demanda sobre ejecución de hipoteca por la vía ordinaria en la que se alega que se adeuda las siguientes cantidades: $19,081.05 de principal, más intereses sobre dicha suma al 7% anual desde el 1 de diciembre de 2020 hasta su completo pago, más $82.24 de recargos acumulados los cuales continuarán en aumento hasta el saldo total de la deuda, más la cantidad estipulada de $4,836.40 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados, así como cualquier otra suma que contenga el contrato del préstamo, incluyendo pero sin limitarse a gastos de mantenimiento, inspecciones y otros adelantos “corporate advances”. La propiedad que garantiza hipotecariamente el préstamo es la siguiente: URBANA: Solar #4 del bloque B, radicado en la Urbanización Santa Rita, localizada en el Barrio Sabana Llana del término municipal de Juana Diaz, Puerto Rico, con área superficial de 353.42 metros cuadrados. En lindes por el NORTE, en 25.20 metros, con el solar #5 del bloque B de la misma urbanización; por el SUR, en 25.29 metros, con el solar #3 del mismo bloque B de la urbanización; por el ESTE, en 14.00 metros, con el solar #11 del mismo bloque B de la misma urbanización; y por el OESTE, en 14.00 metros, con la servidumbre de paso de una carretera municipal que la separa de terrenos de la Autoridad de Tierras. Sobre el antes descrito se halla construida una casa de hormigón y bloques para fines residenciales. Servidumbre: Afecta a servidumbre a favor de la Autoridad de Acueductos y Alcantarillados en un ancho de 3.0 metros a toda lo

largo de su colindancia Sur y a favor de la Puerto Rico Telephone Company de 1.52 metros de ancho a todo lo largo de su colindancia Oeste. Inscrita al folio 282 del tomo 394 de Juana Díaz, Finca 14824. Registro de la Propiedad de Ponce, Sección I. La hipoteca consta inscrita al folio 289 del tomo 394 de Juana Díaz, Finca 14824.

Registro de la Propiedad de Ponce, Sección I. Inscripción 2da. La demandante es tenedora por endoso en blanco, por valor recibido y de buena fe del referido pagaré objeto de la presente acción. La parte demandada deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal. Se le advierte que si no contesta la demanda, radicando el original de la contestación en este Tribunal y enviando copia de la contestación a la abogada de la Parte Demandante, Lcda.

Belma Alonso García, cuya dirección es: PO Box 3922, Guaynabo Puerto Rico 009703922, Teléfono y Fax: (787) 789-1826, (787) 708-0566 correo electrónico: oficinabelmaalonso@gmail.com, dentro del término de treinta (30) días de la publicación de este edicto, excluyéndose el día de la publicación, se le anotará la rebeldía y se le dictará Sentencia en su contra, concediendo el remedio solicitado sin más citarle ni oírle. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal, hoy, 9 de enero de 2024, en Ponce, Puerto Rico. CARMEN G. TIRÚ QUIÑONES, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. MARIELY FÉLIX RIVERA, SUB-SECRETARIA.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE BAYAMÓN SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante V.

JOSÉ NORORI GUTIÉRREZ

Demandado Civil Núm.: BY2022CV02411.

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

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

Instancia, Sala Superior, Centro Judicial de Bayamón, Bayamón, 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 4 de enero de 2024, y publicada el 7 de noviembre 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: Solar marcado con el número ochenta y siete en el Plano de Parcelación de la Comunidad Rural Buenavista de Barrio Buenavista del término municipal del Bayamón, con una cabida superficial de cero cuerdas con ochocientos noventa diezmilésimas de otra, equivalente a trescientos cincuenta metros cuadrados; en lindes: por el NORTE, con la Calle cuatro de la comunidad; por el SUR, con la parcela noventa y uno de la comunidad; por el ESTE, con la parcela ochenta y seis de la comunidad; y por el OESTE, con las parcelas número ochenta y ocho y número ochenta y nueve de la comunidad. Inscrita en la finca número 53,430, al folio 166 del tomo 1,204 de Bayamón Sur. Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección I de Bayamón. Propiedad ubicada, según el pagaré, en: 87 4 St. Bo. Buena Vista, Bayamón, PR 00956. 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: Aviso de Demanda de fecha 11 de mayo de 2022, expedido en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Bayamón, en el caso civil número BY2022CV02411, sobre cobro de dinero y ejecución de hipoteca, seguido por Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, contra José Norori Gutiérrez, por la suma de $53,692.45, anotado el día 25 de mayo de 2022, al folio tomo Karibe de Bayamón Sur, finca número 53,430, anotación A. El producto de la subasta

se destinará a satisfacer al demandante hasta donde alcance, la SENTENCIA dictada a su favor, el día 7 de noviembre de 2023, archivada en autos y notificada el 10 de noviembre de 2023, en el presente caso civil, a saber la suma de $53,692.45 por concepto de principal; más los intereses que se acumulen hasta el saldo total de la deuda y la suma de $6,349.26 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado. 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 29 DE FEBRERO DE 2024 A LAS 9:45 DE LA MAÑANA, en el cuarto piso, Oficina de Alguaciles de Subastas de Centro Judicial de Bayamón, Bayamón, Puerto Rico. Que el precio mínimo fijado para la PRIMERA SUBASTA es de $63,492.66. Que de ser necesaria la celebración de una SEGUNDA SUBASTA la misma se llevará a efecto el día 7 DE MARZO DE 2024 A LAS 9:45 DE LA MAÑANA, en el cuarto piso, Oficina de Alguaciles de Subastas de Centro Judicial de Bayamón, Bayamón, Puerto Rico. El precio mínimo para la SEGUNDA SUBASTA será de $42,328.44, 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 14 DE MARZO DE 2024 A LAS 9:45 DE LA MAÑANA, en el cuarto piso, Oficina de Alguaciles de Subastas de Centro Judicial de Bayamón, Bayamón, Puerto Rico. El precio mínimo para la TERCERA SUBASTA será de $31,746.33, equivalentes a la mitad (1/2) del tipo mínimo estipulado para la PRIMERA subasta. Si se declarase desierta la tercera subasta, se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si ésta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo de la tercera subasta, si el Tribunal lo estima conveniente; se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si esta es mayor, todo ello a tenor con lo dispone el Articulo 104 de la Ley Núm. 210 del 8 de diciembre de 2015 conocida como “Ley del Registro de la Propiedad Inmueble del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico”. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquiere libre de toda carga y gravamen que afecte la mencionada finca según el Artículo 102, inciso 6. Una vez confirmada la venta judicial por el Honorable Tribunal, se procederá

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

Que los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la secretaría del tribunal durante las horas laborables. b. Que se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes. Se entenderá, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. EXPIDO, el presente EDICTO, en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy día 12 de enero de 2024. MARIBEL LANZAR VELÁZQUEZ, ALGUACIL PLACA #735, DIVISIÓN DE SUBASTAS, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA SUPERIOR DE BAYAMÓN.

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

ORIENTAL BANK Demandante V.

ISABEL MALDONADO CANDELARIA POR SÍ Y COMO MIEMBRO CONOCIDO DE LA SUCESIÓN DE JUAN ANTONIO COLLAZO DUPREY; CARLOS ALBERTO COLLAZO, PEBLES COLLAZO Y RICARDO COLLAZO COMO MIEMBROS CONOCIDOS DE LA SUCESIÓN DE JUAN ANTONIO COLLAZO DUPREY; JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE COMO MIEMBROS DESCONOCIDOS DE

LA SUCESIÓN DE JUAN ANTONIO COLLAZO DUPREY

Demandada Civil Núm.: AR2022CV00340.

Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO, EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA E INTERPELACIÓN. LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE P.R., SS. AVISO DE PÚBLICA SUBASTA. El que suscribe, Alguacil del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Arecibo, hago saber a la parte demandada ISABEL MALDONADO CANDELARIA por sí y como miembro conocido de la Sucesión de JUAN ANTONIO COLLAZO DUPREY, CARLOS ALBERTO COLLAZO, PEBLES COLLAZO Y RICARDO COLLAZO como miembros conocidos de la Sucesión de JUAN ANTONIO COLLAZO DUPREY, JOHN DOE Y RICHARD ROE como miembros desconocidos de la Sucesión de JUAN ANTONIO COLLAZO DUPREY y al PÚBLICO EN GENERAL; que en cumplimiento del Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia expedido el 20 de diciembre de 2023, por la Secretaría del Tribunal, procederé a vender y venderé en pública subasta por el precio mínimo de $168,000.00 y al mejor postor, pagadero en efectivo, cheque de gerente o giro postal, a nombre del alguacil del tribunal, la propiedad que se describe a continuación: PR-681, KM 6.2, LOT 4, BARRIO ISLOTE, ARECIBO, PR 00612, y que se describe de la siguiente manera: El inmueble gravado mediante la hipoteca antes descrita es: Solar número 4: RÚSTICA: Radicada en el barrio Islote del término municipal de Arecibo, Puerto Rico, compuesto de 0.4432 cuerdas equivalentes a 1742.0779 metros cuadrados.

En lindes por el NORTE, con solar tres segregado; por el SUR, con Oreste Álvarez Maldonado; por el ESTE, con Epifanía Álvarez Maldonado y con Reynaldo Álvarez Maldonado; y por el OESTE, con faja de terreno dedicada a uso público. Finca 43166 inscrita al folio 135 del tomo 982 de Arecibo, Registro de la Propiedad de Arecibo, Sección I. La finca antes descrita se encuentra afecta a los siguientes gravámenes: (i) Hipoteca constituida en garantía de un pagaré, aff#. 2038, a favor de Doral Mortgage LLC, o a su orden, por $168,000.00, al 5 314%, vencedero el 1 de octubre de 2038, según Esc. #253, en San Juan, a 30 de septiembre de 2008, ante Ángel Omar Rodríguez Correa, inscrita al folio 96 del tomo 1025 de Arecibo, finca #43166, inscripción, Registro de la Propiedad de Arecibo, Sección I. La hipote-

ca objeto de esta ejecución es la que ha quedado descrita en el inciso (i). Será celebrada la subasta para con el importe de la misma satisfacer la sentencia dicta el 18 de agosto de 2022, mediante la cual se condenó a la parte demandada pagar a la parte demandante la suma de $131,391.96 de principal, más $9,443.85 de interés al 5.75% anual, al 1 de febrero de 2022, que continuarán acumulándose $20.6987 diario hasta el saldo total, $1,167.90 de otros cargos, $311.22 de cuenta escrow, $16,800.00 de costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado, más cualquier otro desembolso que haya efectuado o efectúe la parte demandante durante la tramitación de este caso para otros adelantos de conformidad con el Contrato Hipotecario, incluyendo primas de seguro de hipoteca, prima de seguro de siniestro y cargos por demora.

La PRIMERA SUBASTA será celebrada el día 20 DE FEBRERO DE 2024 A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en la oficina del Alguacil, sita en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Servirá de tipo mínimo para la misma la cantidad de $168,000.00, sin admitirse oferta inferior. De no haber remate ni adjudicación, celebraré SEGUNDA SUBASTA el día 27 DE FEBRERO DE 2024 A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar, en la que servirá como tipo mínimo, dos terceras (2/3) partes del precio pactado para la primera subasta, o sea, $112,000.00.

Si no hubiese remate ni adjudicación en la segunda subasta, celebraré TERCERA SUBASTA el día 5 DE MARZO DE 2024 A LAS 11:00 DE LA MAÑANA, en el mismo lugar en la que regirá como tipo mínimo, la mitad del precio pactado para la primera subasta, o sea, $84,000.00.

El Alguacil que suscribe hizo constar que toda licitación deberá hacerse para pagar su importe en moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América, de acuerdo con la Ley y de acuerdo con lo anunciado en este Aviso de Subasta. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables. Se entiende que todo licitador que comparezca a la subasta señalada en este caso acepta como bastante la titulación que da base a la misma. Se entiende que cualquier carga y/o gravamen anterior y/o preferente, si la hubiere al crédito que da base a esta ejecución continuará subsistente, entendiéndose, además, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción cualquier parte del rema-

nente del precio de licitación.

La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquirirá libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Por la presente se notifica a los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante o acreedores de 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, 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 subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante. Vendida o adjudicada la finca o derecho hipotecado y consignado el precio correspondiente, en esa misma fecha o fecha posterior, el alguacil que celebró la subasta procederá a otorgar la correspondiente escritura pública de traspaso en representación del dueño o titular de los bienes hipotecados, ante el notario que elija el adjudicatario o comprador, quien deberá abonar el importe de tal escritura.

El alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial al nuevo dueño, si así se lo solicita dentro del término de veinte (20) días a partir de la confirmación de la venta o adjudicación. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante u ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del deudor la ocupen. Y PARA CONOCIMIENTO DE LOS LICITADORES Y DEL PUBLICO EN GENERAL y para su publicación de acuerdo con la Ley, expido el presente Edicto bajo mi firma y sello de este Tribunal. En Arecibo, Puerto Rico, hoy 17 de enero de 2024. ÁNGEL DE JESÚS TORRES PÉREZ, ALGUACIL #770, TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA DE ARECIBO.

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Demandante V.

LUIS DANIEL BURGOS RODRIGUEZ

Demandado Civil Núm.: PO2023CV03699.

Sala: 406. Sobre: COBRO DE

The San Juan Daily Star DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, S.S.

A: LUIS DANIEL BURGOS RODRIGUEZ - 552 CARR. KM. 5 HN 2, JUANA DIAZ, PUERTO RICO, 00795; HC 5 BOX 5778, JUANA DIAZ, PUERTO RICO, 00795-9722.

Por la presente se le emplaza y notifica que debe contestar la demanda incoada en su contra dentro del término de treinta (30) días a partir de Ia publicación del presente edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://www.poderjudicial. pr/index.php/tribunal-electronico, salvo que el caso sea de un expediente físico o que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la Secretaría del Tribunal y notificar copia de la misma al (a la) abogado(a) de la parte demandante o a ésta, de no tener representación legal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el Tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el Tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente.

Además, se le apercibe que, en los casos al amparo de la Ley Núm. 57-2023, titulada Ley para la Prevención del Maltrato, Preservación de la Unidad Familiar y para la Seguridad, Bienestar y Protección de los Menores, entre los remedios que el Tribunal podrá conceder se incluyen la ubicación permanente de un (una) menor fuera de su hogar, el inicio de procesos para la privación de patria potestad, y cualquier otra medida en el mejor interés del (de la) menor. (Artículo 33, incisos b y f de la Ley Núm. 57-2023).

Se le advierte de su derecho a comparecer acompañado(a) de abogado(a) en los casos que proceda. Los abogados de la parte demandante son: ABOGADOS DE LA PARTE DEMANDANTE: Lcdo. Reggie Díaz Hernández RUA Núm.: 16,393 BERMUDEZ & DÍAZ LLP 500 Calle De La Tanca, Suite 209 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00901 Tel.: (787) 523-2670 / Fax: (787) 523-2664 rdiaz@bdprIaw.com EXTENDIDO BAJO Ml FIRMA y Sello del Tribunal, hoy, 16 de enero de 2024. CARMEN

Monday, January 29, 2024

G. TIRÚ QUIÑONES, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. MARIELY FÉLIX RIVERA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

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

VAPR FEDERAL CREDIT UNION Demandante Vs.

ALBY ORLANDIS ROSA MARTINEZ T/C/C ALBY ROSA MARTINEZ

Demandado Civil Núm.: SJ2023CV09465.

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

A: ALBY ORLANDIS ROSA MARTINEZ TAMBIÉN CONOCIDO COMO ALBY ROSA MARTINEZ.

POR EL PRESENTE EDICTO, se le notifica que se ha radicado en esta Secretaría por la parte demandante, Demanda sobre Cobro de Dinero Ordinario, en la que se alega adeuda la suma de $19,592.27 de principal, más $663.45 de intereses al 7.95% anual acumulados al 23 de agosto de 2023, y de esa fecha en adelante acumula intereses a razón de $4.26 diarios, hasta su completo pago, más un 30% del principal del Pagaré estipulado para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogado y recargos acumulados todas cuyas sumas están líquidas y exigibles. POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al tribunal su alegación responsiva dentro de los treinta (30) días de haber sido publicado este emplazamiento, excluyéndose el día de la publicación. 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: https:// www.poderjudicial.pr/index. php/tribunal-electronico/, salvo que el caso sea un expediente físico o que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la Secretaría del Tribunal y notificar copia de la misma al (a la) abogado(a) de la parte demandante o a ésta, de no tener representación legal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra sin más citarle

ni oírle y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda, o cualquier otro, si el tribunal, en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente.

Además, se le apercibe que, en tos casos al amparo de la Ley Núm. 57-2023, titulada Ley para la Prevención del Maltrato, Preservación de la Unidad Familiar y para la Seguridad, Bienestar y Protección de los Menores, entre los remedios que el Tribunal podrá conceder se incluyen la ubicación permanente de un (una) menor fuera de su hogar, el inicio de procesos para la privación de patria potestad, y cualquier otra medida en el mejor interés del (de la) menor. (Artículo 33, incisos b y f de la Ley Núm. 57-2023).

Se le advierte de su derecho a comparecer acompañado(a) de abogado(a) en los casos que proceda. La información del (de la) abogado(a) de la parte demandante es la siguiente: Lcda. Adela Surillo Gutiérrez, Bufete Collazo, Connelly & Surillo, LLC, P.O. Box 11550, San Juan, PR 00922-1550; Teléfono: (787) 625-9999.

Para publicarse conforme a la Orden dictada por el Tribunal en un periódico de circulación general. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente Edicto que firmo y sello en San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy 12 de enero de 2024. GRISELDA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, SECRETARIA. MARÍA COLÓN RIVERA, SECRETARIA DE SERVICIOS A SALA.

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

ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC, COMO AGENTE DE ACE ONE FUNDING, LLC Demandante Vs.

CYNTHIA DÍAZ ESTRADA

Demandado Civil Núm.: CZ2023CV00131.

Salón: 703. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO ORDINARIO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: CYNTHIA DÍAZ ESTRADA BO. PALMAREJO CARR 154 KM 15.5 COROZAL, PR 00783 / 10C/NIEVES, COROZAL, PR 00783.

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto.

Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y

Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal.

Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente.

El sistema SUMAC notificará copia a los abogados de la parte demandante, el Lcdo. Kevin Sánchez Campanero cuyas direcciones son: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 009368518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección kevin.sanchez@ orf-law.com, y a la dirección notificaciones@orf-law.com.

EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy día 10 de noviembre de 2023. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el 10 de noviembre de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. LUREIMY ALICEA GONZÁLEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

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

ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC, COMO AGENTE DE ACE ONE FUNDING, LLC. Demandante Vs.

DIANA L. NIEVES VILLEGAS

Demandada Civil Núm.: NJ2023CV00115.

Salón: 501. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

A: DIANA L. NIEVES VILLEGAS BO GUADIANA CARR 164 KM 1 HM 4 INT NARANJITO PR 00719 / PO BOX 349 NARANJITO PR 00719-0349.

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://

www.poderjudicial.pr/index. php/tribunal-electronico/, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia a los abogados de la parte demandante, el Lcdo. Gabriel Antonio Ramos Colón cuyas direcciones son: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 009368518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección gabriel.ramos@ orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orf-law.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy día 6 de diciembre de 2023. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el 6 de diciembre de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. NEREIDA QUILES SANTANA, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

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

ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC Parte Demandante Vs.

MARIA T RODRIGUEZ PELLOT

23

deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de la parte demandante, Kevin Sánchez Campanero cuya dirección es: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936-8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección kevin. sanchez@orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orflaw.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en AGUADILLA, Puerto Rico, hoy día 5 de diciembre de 2023. SARAHÍ REYES PÉREZ, SECRETARIA. ARLENE GUZMÁN PABÓN, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

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

ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC, COMO AGENTE DE ACE ONE FUNDING, LLC Demandante Vs.

YAHAIRA M. MORALES SANTIAGO

Demandado Civil Núm.: FL2023CV00042.

Salón: 105. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO ORDINARIO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS.

Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: AG2021CV01483. A: YAHAIRA M. MORALES Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. SANTIAGO - URB. ALTOS EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDIC- DE FLORIDA G-19 CALLE TO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE TITO RODRÍGUEZ, AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE FLORIDA, PR 00650.

DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, POR LA PRESENTE se le EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIAemplaza y requiere para que DO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. conteste la demanda dentro de A: MARIA T RODRIGUEZ los treinta (30) días siguientes PELLOT - COND. MUNEKI a la publicación de este Edicto.

II APT 1407, AGUADILLA Usted deberá presentar su alePR 00603 / HC 4 BOX gación responsiva a través del 43166, AGUADILLA, PR Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SU00603.

MAC), la cual puede acceder POR LA PRESENTE se le utilizando la siguiente direcemplaza y requiere para que ción electrónica: https://unired. conteste la demanda dentro de ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se los treinta (30) días siguientes represente por derecho propio, a la publicación de este Edicen cuyo caso deberá presento. Usted deberá presentar su tar su alegación responsiva alegación responsiva a través en la secretaría del tribunal. del Sistema Unificado de MaSi usted deja de presentar su nejo y Administración de Caalegación responsiva dentro sos (SUMAC), la cual puede del referido término, el tribunal acceder utilizando la siguiente podrá dictar sentencia en redirección electrónica: unired. beldía en su contra y conceder ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se el remedio solicitado en la derepresente por derecho propio, manda o cualquier otro sin más en cuyo caso deberá presentar citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en su alegación responsiva en la el ejercicio de su sana discresecretaría del tribunal. Si usted

ción, lo entiende procedente. constituida por Carmen Ana El sistema SUMAC notificará Hernández Marrero, soltecopia a los abogados de la par- ra en garantía de un pagaré, te demandante, el Lcdo. Kevin aff.#6362 a favor de Santander Sánchez Campanero cuyas di- Financial Services Inc., o a su recciones son: P.O. Box 71418 orden por $112,618.48, inteSan Juan, Puerto Rico 00936- reses al 8.81% anual y vence8518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 dero a la presentación, según a la dirección kevin.sanchez@ escritura número 7, otorgada orf-law.com, y a la dirección en Arecibo, el 25 de enero de notificaciones@orf-law.com. 2010 ante el notario Santiago EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA Mari Roca, inscrito al folio 51 y el sello del Tribunal, en Bar- del tomo 1085 de Arecibo, Finceloneta, Puerto Rico, hoy día ca 19702, inscripción 7ma. (ii) 5 de diciembre de 2023. En ANOTACIÓN DE DEMANDA. Barceloneta, Puerto Rico, el 5 Demanda del 7 de septiemde diciembre de 2023. Vivian bre de 2022, radicada en el Y. Fresse González, Secretaria Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Regional. Lourdes Agosto Ji- Sala de Arecibo, en el caso civil AR2022CV01621, seguido ménez, Secretaria Auxiliar. por Luna Performance II LLC. LEGAL NOTICE v. Carmen Ana Hernandez ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO Marrero, sobre Ejecución de DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU- Hipoteca, donde se solicita el NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA pago de la deuda garantizada SALA SUPERIOR DE ARECI- con la hipoteca relacionada en la inscripción 7ma., reducida BO ESTRELLA HOMES II LLC. a $97,690.42, anotada al Sistema Karibe de Arecibo, finca Parte Demandante V. #19702, el 3 de noviembre de CARMEN ANA HERNANDEZ MARRERO 2022, anotación C. La hipoteca objeto de esta ejecución es la Parte Demandada que ha quedado descrita en Civil Núm.: AR2022CV01621. el inciso (i). Será celebrada la Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOsubasta para con el importe de TECA. LOS ESTADOS UNIla misma satisfacer la sentencia DOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PREdictada el 13 de julio de 2013, SIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., mediante la cual se condenó a EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIAla parte demandada pagar a la DO DE P.R., SS. AVISO DE parte demandante la cantidad PÚBLICA SUBASTA. El que adeudada y vencida el 1 de suscribe, Alguacil del Tribunal agosto de 2021, ascendiente de Primera Instancia, Sala de a $97,690.42 de principal, más ARECIBO, hago saber a la intereses acumulados, que parte demandada, CARMEN continuarán acumulándose ANA HERNANDEZ MARREal 8.81% hasta el saldo total RO y al PÚBLICO EN GENEde la deuda, más cargos por RAL; que en cumplimiento del demora y otros cargos, más Mandamiento de Ejecución de costas, gastos y honorarios de Sentencia expedido el 25 de abogado, según pactado, más septiembre de 2023, por la Secualquier otro desembolso que cretaría del Tribunal, procederé haya efectuado o efectúe la a vender y venderé en pública parte demandante durante la subasta y al mejor postor patramitación de este caso para gadero en efectivo, cheque de otros adelantos de conformidad gerente o giro postal, a nombre con el Contrato Hipotecario. del Alguacil del Tribunal, la siLa PRIMERA SUBASTA será guiente propiedad con direccelebrada el día 21 DE FEción física: Calle A #9, UrbaniBRERO DE 2024, A LAS 9:30 zación Las Brisas, Arecibo PR DE LA MAÑANA en el Tribunal 00612 y que se describe como de Primera Instancia, Sala de sigue: URBANA: Solar número ARECIBO, Puerto Rico. Servirá 9 del bloque A de la Urbanizade tipo mínimo para la misma, ción Las Brisas, radicado en el la cantidad de $112,618.48 sin Barrio Hato Abajo del término admitirse oferta inferior. De no municipal de Arecibo, Puerto haber remate ni adjudicación, Rico, compuesto de 322.66 mecelebraré SEGUNDA SUBAStros cuadrados. Colindando por TA el día 28 DE FEBRERO DE el NORTE, en 13.00 metros, 2024, A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAcon la calle número 1 y camino ÑANA, en el mismo lugar, en la municipal; por el SUR, en 13.00 que servirá como tipo mínimo, metros, con la calle número 8; dos terceras (2/3) partes del por el ESTE, en 24.83 metros, precio pactado para la primera con el solar número 10 y por el subasta, o sea, $75,078.99. Si OESTE, en 24.81 metros, con no hubiese remate ni adjudiel solar número 8. Enclava una cación en la segunda subasta, casa de concreto. Finca 19,702 celebraré TERCERA SUBASTA inscrita al Folio 95 del Tomo el día 6 DE MARZO DE 2024, 476 de Arecibo, Registro de la A LAS 9:30 DE LA MAÑANA, Propiedad de Arecibo, Sección en el mismo lugar en la que I. La finca antes descrita se enregirá como tipo mínimo, la cuentra afecta a los siguientes mitad (1/2) del precio pactado gravámenes: (i) HIPOTECA para la primera subasta, o sea,

24 $56,309.24. El Alguacil que suscribe hizo constar que toda licitación deberá hacerse para pagar su importe en moneda legal de los Estados Unidos de América, de acuerdo con la Ley y de acuerdo con lo anunciado en este Aviso de Subasta. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento incoado estarán de manifiesto en la Secretaría del Tribunal durante horas laborables.

Se entiende que todo licitador que comparezca a la subasta señalada en este caso acepta como bastante la titulación que da base a la misma. Se entiende que cualquier carga y/o gravamen anterior y/o preferente, si la hubiere al crédito que da base a esta ejecución continuará subsistente, entendiéndose, además, que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de estos, sin destinarse a su extinción cualquier parte del remanente del precio de licitación. La propiedad para ejecutar será adquirida libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Por la presente se notifica a los acreedores que tengan inscritos o anotados sus derechos sobre los bienes hipotecados con posterioridad a la inscripción del crédito del ejecutante o acreedores de 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, 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 subrogados en los derechos del acreedor ejecutante.

Vendida o adjudicada la finca o derecho hipotecado y consignado el precio correspondiente, en esa misma fecha o fecha posterior, el alguacil que celebró la subasta procederá a otorgar la correspondiente escritura pública de traspaso en representación del dueño o titular de los bienes hipotecados, ante el notario que elija el adjudicatario o comprador, quien deberá abonar el importe de tal escritura. El alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial al nuevo dueño, si así se lo solicita dentro del término de veinte (20) días a partir de la confirmación de la venta o adjudicación. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante u ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del deudor la ocupen. Y PARA CONOCIMIENTO DE LOS LICITADORES Y DEL

PUBLICO EN GENERAL y para NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA su publicación de acuerdo con SALA SUPERIOR DE GUAYla Ley, expido el presente Edic- NABO to bajo mi firma y sello de este BANCO POPULAR DE Tribunal. En ARECIBO, Puerto PUERTO RICO Rico, hoy 17 de enero de 2024.

Demandante V. ÁNGEL DE JESÚS TORRES MANUEL JOSE PÉREZ, ALGUACIL #770, ALCARVAJAL DE JESUS GUACIL DEL TRIBUNAL DE T/C/C MANUEL J. PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA CARVAJAL T/C/C DE ARECIBO.

MANUEL JOSE CARVAJAL, SU ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO ESPOSA IVELISSE DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUURRUTIA RENTA T/C/C NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA YVELISSE URRUTIA Y LA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE HUSOCIEDAD LEGAL DE MACAO SALA SUPERIOR DE HUMACAO BIENES GANANCIALES APEX BANK COMPUESTA POR Demandante V. AMBOS; SECRETARIO PALMIRA DE LA VIVIENDA Y TORRES MENDEZ DESARROLLO URBANO; Demandado(a) ESTADOS UNIDOS DE Caso Núm.: HU2023CV01461.

AMÉRICA (Salón: 205). Sobre: EJECULEGAL NOTICE

CIÓN DE HIPOTECA: PROPIEDAD RESIDENCIAL. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. FRANCISCO J. FERNÁNDEZ CHIQUÉS, FFC@FFCLAW.COM.

A: PALMIRA TORRES MENDEZ - DIRECCIONES: PO BOX 1052 LARGO FL 33779-1052; URB. VISTA VERDE A-6 CALLE RUELLIA NAGUABO PR 00718.

(Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 18 DE ENERO DE 2024, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha de 22 de enero de 2024. En Humacao, Puerto Rico, el 22 de enero de 2024.

EVELYN FÉLIX VÁZQUEZ, SECRETARIA. DALISSA REYES DE LEÓN, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

LEGAL NOTICE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBU-

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

Demandados Civil Núm.: GB2020CV00526.

Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EDICTO DE SUBASTA. LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS EE.UU., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO, SS. Yo, ALG. HUGO BASCÓ MEDINA, PLACA #807, Alguacil del Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala de Guaynabo, al público HAGO SABER: Que en cumplimiento de un Mandamiento de Ejecución de Sentencia que se me libró con fecha de 1 de diciembre de 2023, por la Secretaria de este Tribunal, en el caso de epígrafe, venderé en pública subasta y al mejor postor con dinero en efectivo, cheque de gerente y/o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal o letra bancaria con similar garantía, todo título, derecho o interés de la parte demandada de epígrafe sobre la siguiente propiedad perteneciente a la parte demandada, la cual se describe a continuación: “URBANA: Propiedad Horizontal: Apartamento número 3-J, en el inmueble sometido al régimen de la Propiedad Horizontal conocido como Condominio Gardens Hills States, Torres Sur, localizado en el Barrio Pueblo Viejo del Municipio de Guaynabo, Puerto Rico y colindante en su frente Oeste con la carretera estatal número diecinueve en su frente Norte, con la calle número tres de la urbanización Mansiones de Garden Hills y en su frente este con el área de parque de la Urbanización Mansiones de Gardens Hills. Esta construido de concreto reforzado y bloques de concreto, con un área de piso de 121.11 metros cuadrados más o menos, la cual comprende el área entre la cara interior de sus paredes exteriores. Dicho apartamento está localizado al Sur este del vestíbulo del elevador en el

piso número tres. La entrada principal de este apartamento está localizado frente de la sala comedor y comunica inmediatamente con el vestíbulo del elevador que es uno de los elementos comunes del edificio y conduce a la calle número 3 de la Urbanización Mansiones de Gardens Hills. Colinda por el NORTE, en 6.33 metros más o menos con la cocina y la lavandería del apartamento número tres I, en 12.07 metros cuadrados más o menos, con el pasillo que comunica con el vestíbulo del elevador; por el SUR, en 18.39 metros cuadrados más o menos, con la pared exterior; por el ESTE, en 8.41 metros cuadrados más o menos, con la pared exterior este en 0.93 metro cuadrado más o menos, con el pasillo de acceso al apartamento; por el OESTE, en 1.71 metros cuadrados más o menos, con el pasillo de acceso al apartamento en 0.53 metros más o menos, con el pasillo entre el vestíbulo del elevador y la escalera en 2.34 metros más o menos, con la escalera en 0.81 metros más o menos, con el cuarto de baño de servicio en 1.83 metros más o menos, con la pared exterior. Este apartamento será usado para propósitos residenciales y contiene lo siguiente: sala, comedor, cocina, lavandería tres dormitorios con sus respectivos guardarropas, un pasillo que comunica a los dormitorios, dos baños, un guardarropa de cama y un balcón. Le corresponde un porcentaje en los elementos comunes generales de 0.607% y el área de estacionamiento marcado con el número A-106. Inscrita al folio 140 del tomo 694 de Guaynabo, Registro de la Propiedad de Puerto Rico, Sección de Guaynabo, finca número 27,970. Dirección física: Apt. 3-J, Cond.Garden Hills Estate, Torre Sur, Bo. Pueblo Viejo, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico 00966.

La finca 27,970 está gravada con la siguiente hipoteca cuya ejecución se solicita en la subasta objeto de este edicto: Hipoteca en garantía de un pagaré a favor de Popular Mortgage, Inc., o a su orden, por la suma principal de $270,000.00, con intereses al 7% anual, vencedero el 13 de mayo de 2086, constituida mediante la escritura número 103, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 12 de junio de 2009, ante el notario lleana Corral Lizardi, e inscrita al folio 82 del tomo 1,423 de Guaynabo, finca número 27,970, inscripción 13ª. La propiedad está afecta a los siguientes gravámenes: A. Hipoteca revertida en garantía de un pagaré a favor de Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, o a su orden, por la suma principal de $405,000.00, con intereses al 7% anual, vence-

dero el 13 de mayo de 2086, constituida mediante la escritura número 104, otorgada en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el día 12 de junio de 2009 ante la notario lleana Corral Lizardi, e inscrita al folio 82 del tomo 1,423 de Guaynabo, finca número 27,970, inscripción 14ª. B. Aviso de Demanda de fecha 26 de agosto de 2020, expedido en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Guaynabo, en el Caso Civil número GB2020CV00526, sobre Cobro de Dinero y Ejecución de Hipoteca, seguido por Banco Popular de Puerto Rico; versus Manuel José Carvajal de Jesús, también conocido como Manuel J. Carvajal y como Manuel José Carvajal; Ivelisse Urritia Rentas también conocida como Yvelisse Urrita y la Sociedad Legal de bienes Gananciales compuesta por ambos; Secretario de la Vicienda y Desarrollo Urbano; por la suma de $359,874.91, más intereses y otras sumas adicionales o en su defecto la venta en Pública Subasta, anotado el día 13 de enero de 2021, al tomo Karibe de Guaynabo, finca número 27,970, Anotación “A”. La venta se llevará a cabo para con su producto satisfacer a Banco Popular de Puerto Rico; por la hipoteca de $270,000.00 total o parcialmente. 1. La venta se llevará a cabo para con su producto satisfacer a Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, total o parcialmente el importe de la Sentencia emitida el 23 de agosto de 2023, notificada y archivada en autos el mismo día. El importe de la Sentencia dictada en el caso de epígrafe, asciende a las siguientes cantidades: $449,230.10 de principal al 28 de febrero de 2023, más intereses al tipo pactado de 7% anual, los cuales continúan acumulándose hasta el pago total de la deuda. Además, la parte demandada adeuda los créditos accesorios y adelantos hecho en virtud de la escritura de hipoteca; y los cos os, gastos y honorarios de abogado equivalentes a $27,000.00. El precio mínimo de licitación con relación a la antes descrita propiedad y la fecha y hora de cada subasta es como sigue: PRIMERA SUBASTA: Se celebrará el día 5 DE MARZO DE 2024 A LAS 9:20 DE LA MAÑANA. PRECIO MÍNIMO: $270,000.00. SEGUNDA SUBASTA: Se celebrará el día 12 DE MARZO DE 2024 A LAS 9:20 DE LA MAÑANA. PRECIO MÍNIMO: $180,000.00. TERCERA SUBASTA: Se celebrará el día 19 DE MARZO DE 2024 A LAS 9:20 DE LA MAÑANA. PRECIO MÍNIMO: $135,000.00. Las subastas de dicha propiedad se llevarán a efecto en mi oficina situada en el local que ocupa este Tribunal

en el Centro Judicial de Guaynabo, advirtiéndose que el que obtuviere la buena pro de dicha propiedad consignará en el acto del remate el importe de su oferta en moneda legal, en adición a los gastos de la subasta, siendo éste el mejor postor. En cualquier momento luego de haberse comenzado el acto de la subasta, el Alguacil podrá requerir de los licitadores que le evidencien la capacidad de pago de sus posturas. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante el título del inmueble y las cargas o gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes al crédito del ejecutante, si los hubiere, continuarán subsistiendo, entendiéndose que el rematante los acepta y queda responsable de los mismos sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Se le apercibe a los tenedores de gravámenes posteriores al que se ejecuta que, para proteger cualesquiera derechos que tengan sobre el inmueble, deberán comparecer a la subasta, pues de no hacerlo así y de no igualar el precio de venta del gravamen hipotecario que se ejecuta, el Tribunal ordenará la cancelación de todos los gravámenes posteriores. La propiedad a ser ejecutada se adquiere libre de cargas y gravámenes posteriores. Si se declara desierta la tercera subasta se adjudicará la finca a favor del acreedor por la totalidad de la cantidad adeudada si ésta es igual o menor que el monto del tipo mínimo de la tercera subasta, si el Tribunal lo estima conveniente. Se abonará dicho monto a la cantidad adeudada si ésta es mayor. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento del caso de epígrafe están disponibles en la Secretaría del Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala Superior de Guaynabo, durante horas laborables. Para conocimiento de la parte demandada y de toda persona que tenga interés inscrito con posterioridad a la inscripción del gravamen que se está ejecutando, si alguna, y para la concurrencia de licitadores y para el público en general el presente edicto se publicará en un diario de circulación general en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico una vez por semana por un término de dos (2) semanas con un intervalo de por lo menos siete (7) días entre cada publicación. Se fijará además, en tres (3) lugares públicos del Municipio donde ha de celebrarse la subasta, estos lugares serán la Alcaldía, el Tribunal y la Colecturía de dicho Municipio. Se notificará a la parte demandada copia del edicto de subasta mediante correo certificado con acuse de recibo a su dirección que obra en autos. Una vez efectuada la

correspondiente venta judicial, otorgaré la escritura del traspaso al licitador victorioso, quien podrá ser la parte demandante, cuya oferta podrá aplicarse a la extinción parcial o total de la obligación reconocida por la Sentencia. Colocaré al licitador victorioso en posesión física de la Propiedad mediante el lanzamiento de los ocupantes en el término legal de veinte (20) días desde la fecha de la venta en pública subasta. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el Tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante o ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del deudor la ocupen. El Registrador de la Propiedad cancelará, libre de derechos, todo gravamen posterior a la fecha en que se otorgó la hipoteca que ha sido ejecutada mediante esta acción, y procederá a la inscripción de la venta a favor del comprador en subasta libre de todo gravamen posterior a la fecha en que se otorgó la hipoteca que ha sido ejecutada mediante esta acción. Expido el presente edicto bajo mi firma y sello del Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala de Guaynabo. En Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, a 11 de enero de 2024. ALG. HUGO BASCÓ MEDINA, PLACA #807, ALGUACIL DEL TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA, SALA SUPERIOR DE GUAYNABO.

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

COMPU-LINK CORPORATION D/B/A CELINK Demandante Vs.

Civil Núm.: CA2023CV03956.

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

A: YANICE BATLLE FLORES, KENETH BATLLE FLORES; JOHN DOE Y JANE DOE COMO POSIBLES MIEMBROS DESCONOCIDOS DE SUCESION MARIA ESTER FLORES CARRASQUILLO T/C/C MARIA ESTER FLORES DE BATLLE T/C/C MARIA ESTHER FLORES CARRASQUILLO.

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza para que presente al Tribunal su alegación responsiva a la demanda dentro de los treinta (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: http://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberé presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaria 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.

Greenspoon Marder, LLP Lcda. Frances L. Asencio-Guido R.U.A. 15,622 TRADE CENTRE SOUTH, SUITE 700 100 WEST CYPRESS CREEK ROAD FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 33309 Telephone: (954) 343 6273 Frances.Asencio@gmlaw.com Expedido bajo mi firma, y sello del Tribunal, en Carolina, Puerto Rico, hoy día 12 de enero de 2024. LCDA. KANELLY ZAYAS ROBLES, SECRETARIA. KEILA GARCÍA SOLÍS, SUB-SECRETARIA.

GUILLERMO BATLLE OLIVO T/C/C GUILLERMO JOSE BATLLE OLIVO POR SI Y EN LA CUOTA VIUDAL USUFRUCTUARIA; SUCESION MARIA ESTER FLORES CARRASQUILLO T/C/C MARIA ESTER LEGAL NOTICE FLORES DE BATLLE ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO T/C/C MARIA ESTHER DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUFLORES CARRASQUILLO NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA COMPUESTA POR SALA SUPERIOR DE LARES YANICE BATLLE FLORES, BANCO POPULAR DE KENETH BATLLE PUERTO RICO FLORES; JOHN DOE Parte Demandante Vs. Y JANE DOE COMO SUCESIÓN DE POSIBLES HEREDEROS LEONARDO RAMOS DESCONOCIDOS; ACEVEDO COMPUESTA ESTADOS UNIDOS DE POR SU HIJA AMERICA; CENTRO ANABEL RAMOS Y DE RECAUDACION DE MENGANO DE TAL, INGRESOS MUNICIPALES POSIBLE HEREDERO Demandados DESCONOCIDO;

The San Juan Daily Star

SUCESIÓN DE EUGENIA ARCE MARTÍ COMPUESTA POR SU VIUDO JAIME ANTONIO CORRETJER MAISONET Y SUS HIJOS JAIME CORRETJER ARCE, SANDRO CORRETJER ARCE, IVÁN CORRETJER ARCE, REINALDO CORRETJER ARCE T/C/C REYNALDO CORRETJER ARCE, NELSON CORRETJER ARCE T/C/C NELSON CORRETGER Y PERENCEJO DE TAL, POSIBLE HEREDERO DESCONOCIDO; DEPARTAMENTO DE HACIENDA POR CONDUCTO DE LA DIVISIÓN DE CAUDALES RELICTOS; CENTRO DE RECAUDACIÓN DE INGRESOS MUNICIPALES (CRIM)

Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: LR2023CV00358.

(10). Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA POR LA VÍA ORDINARIA. EMPLAZAMIENTO E INTERPELACIÓN POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS E.E.U.U., EL ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO.

A: ANABEL RAMOS, HEREDERA DE LEONARDO RAMOS ACEVEDO, REINALDO CORRETJER ARCE T/C/C REYNALDO CORRETJER ARCE Y NELSON CORRETJER ARCE T/C/C NELSON CORRETGER, HEREDEROS DE EUGENIA ARCE MARTÍ A LAS ÚLTIMAS DIRECCIONES CONOCIDAS: 129 RD, KM. 20.3, BO. CALLEJONES, SECTOR VÉLEZ, LARES, PR 00669 (PARCELA C), HC 1 BOX 4010, LARES PR 00669-9635, SECTOR PEPE TORRES, #1 CALLE ALEJO ORTIZ, BAYAMÓN, PR 00953, URB LOMAS VERDES A3 #15 AVE. LOMAS VERDES, BAYAMÓN, PR 00956-3134, HC 01 BOX 650, FLORIDA PR 00650, BO. CORTÉS, 129 CALLE ESPÍRITU SANTO, MANATÍ, PR 00674, RR 2 BOX 8166, MANATÍ, PR 00674-9630, URB. LUCHETTI, 40 CALLE VIRGILIO DEL POZO, MANATÍ, PR 00674-6041,

Monday, January 29, 2024 URB. LUCHETTI, 42 CALLE PEDRO MUNIZ RIVERA, MANATÍ, PR 00674-6029, 16672 SUNBURST LAKE ST, WIMAUMA, FL 335985565.

MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLE HEREDERO DESCONOCIDO DE LEONARDO RAMOS ACEVEDO Y PERENCEJO DE TAL, POSIBLE HEREDERO DESCONOCIDO DE EUGENIA ARCE MARTÍ.

Queda usted notificado que en este Tribunal se ha radicado demanda sobre ejecución de hipoteca por la vía ordinaria en la que se alega se adeuda las siguientes cantidades: $35,319.34 de principal, más intereses sobre dicha suma al 7.95% anual desde el 1 de mayo de 2023 hasta su completo pago, más $564.73 de recargos acumulados, los cuales continuarán en aumento hasta el saldo total de la deuda, más la cantidad estipulada de $5,500.00 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados, así como cualquier otra suma que contenga el contrato del préstamo, incluyendo pero sin limitarse a gastos de mantenimiento, inspecciones y otros adelantos “corporate advances”. La propiedad que garantiza hipotecariamente el préstamo es la siguiente: RÚSTICA: Parcela de terreno en el Barrio Callejones de Lares, Puerto Rico, compuesta de 935.739 metros cuadrados identificada en el plano de inscripción aprobado en la Administración de Reglamentos y Permisos con la letra C. En lindes por el NORTE, con área dedicada a uso público; por el SUR, con remanente de la finca principal de la cual se segrega; por el ESTE, con remanente de la finca de la cual se segrega; y por el OESTE, con área dedicada a uso público. Inscrita al folio 217 del tomo 253 de Lares, Finca 13322. Registro de la Propiedad de Utuado. La hipoteca consta inscrita al folio 15 vuelto del tomo 365 de Lares, Finca 13322. Registro de la Propiedad de Utuado.

Inscripción 5ta. La demandante es tenedora por endoso, por valor recibido y de buena fe del referido pagaré objeto de la presente acción. Se interpela a los herederos que acepten o renuncien a la herencia de los causantes dentro de los 30 días subsiguientes a la fecha que fuesen emplazados o requeridos que contesten, para darle cumplimiento al Artículo 959 del Código Civil de Puerto Rico del 1930 y del Artículo 1578 del nuevo Código Civil de Puerto Rico, entendiéndose que, si no

se expresan dentro de dicho término, aceptan la herencia de los causantes; la renuncia se hará por instrumento público o por escrito judicial. La parte demandada deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://unired. ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal. Se le advierte que si no contesta la demanda, radicando el original de la contestación en este Tribunal y enviando copia de la contestación a la abogada de la parte demandante, Lcda. Belma Alonso García, a: PO Box 3922, Guaynabo PR 00970-3922, Teléfonos (787) 789-1826 y (787) 708-0566, correo electrónico oficinabelmaalonso@gmail.com, dentro del término de treinta (30) días de la publicación de este edicto, excluyéndose el día de la publicación, se le anotará la rebeldía y se le dictará Sentencia en su contra, concediendo el remedio solicitado sin más citarle ni oírle. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal, hoy, 11 de enero de 2024 en Lares, Puerto Rico. DIANE ÁLVAREZ VILLANUEVA, SECRETARIA. YANELLY PÉREZ SOTO, SUBSECRETARIA.

FL 34769-4229.

a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https://www.poderjudicial.pr/ index.php/tribunal-electronico/ salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia a los abogados de la parte demandante, Lcdo.

Edwin Serrano Peña cuyas direcciones son: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 009368518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección edwin.serrano@ orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orf-law.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Bayamón, Puerto Rico, hoy día 11 de diciembre de 2023. En Bayamón, Puerto Rico, el 11 de diciembre de 2023. LCDA. LAURA I. SANTA SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA. LUREIMY ALICEA GONZÁLEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR.

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Manejo y Administración de Casos (SUMAC), la cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: unired. ramajudicaI,pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia al abogado de la parte demandante, Kenmuel J. Ruiz Lopez cuya dirección es: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 009368518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección kenmuel.ruiz@ orf-law.com y a la dirección notificaciones@orf-law.com.

EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en JUNCOS EN CAGUAS, Puerto Rico, hoy día 23 de octubre de LEGAL NOTICE 2023. IRASEMIS DÍAZ SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA INTERI- ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO NA. ENEIDA ARROYO VÉLEZ, DE PUERTO RICO TRIBULEGAL NOTICE NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA SECRETARIA AUXILIAR. SALA DE CAGUAS ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO LEGAL NOTICE DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUISLAND PORTFOLIO NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO SERVICES, LLC. COMO SALA DE JUNCOS EN CA- DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUAGENTE GESTOR DE GUAS NAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA

ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC COMO AGENTE DE FAIRWAY ACQUISITIONS FUND, LLC Parte Demandante Vs.

EDWIN GONZALEZ TORRES, IRIS V. GOMEZ PANET & LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS

SALA DE BAYAMÓN

ISLAND PORTFOLIO SERVICES, LLC, COMO AGENTE DE: ACE ONE FUNDING, LLC. Demandante Vs.

JOSE MARRERO PENALOZA

Demandado Civil Núm.: BY2023CV03851.

Salón: 703. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL Parte Demandada PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTACivil Núm.: JU2023CV00185. DOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LISobre: COBRO DE DINERO. BRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDIC- RICO, SS. TO.

A: EDWIN GONZALEZ TORRES, IRIS V. GOMEZ PANET & LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE GANANCIALES COMPUESTA POR AMBOS - URB SENDEROS DE JUNCOS 40 CALLE MANDARINA, JUNCOS PR 00777; 2021 17TH ST, SAINT CLOUD,

A: JOSE MARRERO PENALOZA - RES. VIRGILIO EDIF 50 APT 466 BAYAMÓN, P.R. 00959.

POR LA PRESENTE se le emplaza por la deuda reclamada de $2,004.85 y requiere para que conteste la demanda dentro de los treinta (30) días siguientes a la publicación de este Edicto. Usted deberá presentar su alegación responsiva

ACE ONE FUNDING, LLC. Demandante Vs.

LUIS G RIVERA DE JESUS

25

salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del tribunal. Si usted deja de presentar su alegación responsiva dentro del referido término, el tribunal podrá dictar sentencia en rebeldía en su contra y conceder el remedio solicitado en la demanda o cualquier otro sin más citarle ni oírle, si el tribunal en el ejercicio de su sana discreción, lo entiende procedente. El sistema SUMAC notificará copia a los abogados de la parte demandante, Lcdo.

Edwin Serrano Peña cuyas direcciones son: P.O. Box 71418 San Juan, Puerto Rico 009368518, teléfono (787) 993-3731 a la dirección edwin.serrano@ orflaw.com y a la dirección notificacionesorf-law.com. EXTENDIDO BAJO FIRMA y el sello del Tribunal, en Caguas, Puerto Rico, hoy día 11 de diciembre de 2023. En Caguas, Puerto Rico, el 11 de diciembre de 2023. Lisilda Martínez Agosto, Secretaria. Marta E. Donate Resto, Secretara Auxiliar.

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

DENNISSE MELVA ALVAREZ ACEVEDO Demandante V.

ORIENTAL BANK, COMO SUCESOR EN DERECHO DE PAN AMERICAN FINANCIAL CORPORATION, JUAN DEL PUEBLO Y JUANA DEL PUEBLO Y CUALESQUIERA PERSONA DESCONOCIDA CON POSIBLE INTERÉS EN LA OBLIGACIÓN CUYA CANCELACIÓN POR DECRETO JUDICIAL SE SOLICITA

Demandado Civil Núm.: CG2023CV02388.

Salón: 705. Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR EDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMÉRICA, EL Demandados PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTACivil Núm.: SJ2024CV00252.

DOS UNIDOS, EL ESTADO LISobre: CANCELACIÓN DE BRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. EMRICO, SS. POR EDICA: LUIS G. RIVERA DE PLAZAMIENTO TO. ESTADOS UNIDOS DE JESUS - URB. TURABO AMÉRICA, EL PRESIDENTE GNDS R13-45 CALLE 34 DE LOS EE.UU., ESTADO LICAGUAS, P.R. 00725. BRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO POR LA PRESENTE se le RICO, SS. emplaza por la deuda reclaA: PAN AMERICAN mada de $4,910.98 y requiere FINANCIAL para que conteste la demanda CORPORATION; JUAN Y dentro de los treinta (30) días JUANA DEL PUEBLO. siguientes a la publicación de Por la presente se le notifica este Edicto. Usted deberá preque ha sido presentada en este sentar su alegación responsiva Tribunal una Demanda en su a través del Sistema Unificado contra en el pleito de epígrafe. de Manejo y Administración En este caso la parte demande Casos (SUMAC), la cual dante ha radicado una Demanpuede acceder utilizando la sida para que se decrete judicialguiente dirección electrónica: mente el saldo de (1) pagaré https://unired.ramajudicial.pr, hipotecario: pagaré a favor PAN

AMERICAN FINANCIAL COR- Y SELLO DEL TRIBUNAL, en PORATION, o a su orden, por San Juan, Puerto Rico, hoy a la suma de $163,922.00, con 17 de enero de 2024. GRISELinterés al 7%, y vencedero 1 de DA RODRÍGUEZ COLLADO, febrero de 2032, según cons- SECRETARIA REGIONAL. ta escritura # 50, otorgada en MYRIAM RIVERA VILLANUEGuaynabo el día 31 de enero VA, SUB- SECRETARIA. de 2002, ante el notario Pedro LEGAL NOTICE J. Diaz Garcia, inscrita al folio 25 del tomo 658 de Rio Piedras ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO Sur finca # 6052 inscripción 9; DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL sobre la propiedad que se des- GENERAL DE JUSTICIA TRIcribe a continuación: RÚSTICA: BUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANParcela de terreno designada CIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE con el número 2 según el Pla- GUAYAMA SALA SUPERIOR no de Inscripción de lotificación BANCO POPULAR DE simple de la finca propiedad de PUERTO RICO la Sucesión Matos Sandoval Demandante V. sita en el Barrio CUPEY BAJO NEIDA GONZÁLEZ ORTIZ de RIO PIEDRAS compuesta Y ROBERT MEDINA de cero punto ocho mil tresRODRÍGUEZ Y LA cientos cuarenta y tres milésiSOCIEDAD LEGAL DE mas de cuerda equivalente a tres mil doscientos setenta y BIENES GANANCIALES ocho punto noventa y seis meCOMPUESTA POR tros cuadrados, en lindes por AMBOS el Norte, en ciento cuarenta y Demandados ocho punto veintiocho metros Civil Núm.: GM2023CV00921. con la parcela número uno que Sobre: COBRO DE DINERO aquí se segrega; por el Este, Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTEen veinticuatro punto sesenta y CA. EMPLAZAMIENTO POR seis metros con franja de terreEDICTO. ESTADOS UNIDOS no dedicada a uso público; por DE AMÉRICA, PRESIDENTE el Oeste, en treinta y cinco punDE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS, to diez y nueve metros con teESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO rrenos de Harry Braschi; por el DE PUERTO RICO, S.S. Sur, en ciento treinta y un punto A: NEIDA GONZÁLEZ ochenta y seis metros con las ORTIZ Y ROBERT parcelas tres y cuatro que aquí se segregan. Finca Número MEDINA RODRÍGUEZ Y 6,052 inscrita al Folio 25 del LA SOCIEDAD LEGAL DE Tomo 658 de Rio Piedras Sur, BIENES GANANCIALES Registro de la Propiedad de COMPUESTA POR Puerto Rico, Sección IV de San AMBOS - LA CARMEN, Juan. La parte demandante 187 C/MUÑOZ RIVERA, alega que dicho pagaré ha sido SALINAS, PR 00751; saldado según más detallada4764 ROCKVAL DR., mente consta en la Demanda radicada que puede examiKISSIMMEE, FL, USA, narse en la Secretaría de este 34758.

Tribunal. Por tratarse de una Por la presente se le emplaza obligación hipotecaria y pudien- y notifica que debe contestar la do usted tener interés en este demanda incoada en su contra caso o quedar afectado por el dentro del término de treinta remedio solicitado, se le empla- (30) días a partir de la publicaza por este edicto que se publi- ción del presente edicto. Usted cará una vez en un periódico deberá presentar su alegación de circulación diaria general de responsiva a través del Sistema Puerto Rico. Usted deberá pre- Unificado de Manejo y Adminissentar su alegación responsiva tración de Casos (SUMAC), al a través del Sistema Unificado cual puede acceder utilizando de Manejo y Administración de la siguiente dirección electróCasos (SUMAC), al cual puede nica: https://www.poderjudicial. acceder utilizando la siguiente pr/index.php/tribunal-electrodirección electrónica: https:// nico, salvo que el caso sea de unired.ramajudicial.pr/sumac, un expediente físico o que se salvo que se represente por de- represente por derecho propio, recho propio. Debe notificar con en cuyo caso deberá presentar copia de ella a la abogada de su alegación responsiva en la la parte demandante a la Lcda. Secretaría del Tribunal y noAlyssa Rivera Rivera, a la direc- tificar copia de la misma al (a ción P.O. Box 19815, San Juan, la) abogado(a) de la parte deP.R. 00910. Teléfono 787-400- mandante o a ésta, de no tener 7269, dentro de los treinta (30) representación legal. Si usted días siguientes a la publicación deja de presentar su alegación de este Edicto. Se le apercibe responsiva dentro del referido que, de no hacerlo así dentro término, el Tribunal podrá dicdel término indicado, el Tribu- tar sentencia en rebeldía en su nal podrá anotar su rebeldía y contra y conceder el remedio dictar sentencia concediendo solicitado en la demanda, o el remedio solicitado en la De- cualquier otro, si el Tribunal, en manda sin más citarle, ni oírle. el ejercicio de su sana discreEXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA ción, lo entiende procedente.

26 Además, se le apercibe que, en los casos al amparo de la Ley Núm. 57-2023, titulada Ley para la Prevención del Maltrato, Preservación de la Unidad Familiar y para la Seguridad, Bienestar y Protección de los Menores, entre los remedios que el Tribunal podrá conceder se incluyen la ubicación permanente de un (una) menor fuera de su hogar, el inicio de procesos para la privación de patria potestad, y cualquier otra medida en el mejor interés del (de la) menor. (Artículo 33, incisos b y f de la Ley Núm. 57-2023).

Se le advierte de su derecho a comparecer acompañado(a) de abogado(a) en los casos que proceda. Los abogados de la parte demandante son: ABOGADOS DE LA PARTE DEMANDANTE: Lcdo. Reggie Díaz Hernández RUA Núm.: 16,393 BERMUDEZ & DÍAZ LLP 500 Calle De La Tanca, Suite 209 San Juan, Puerto Rico 00901 Tel.: (787) 523-2670 / Fax: (787) 523-2664 rdiaz@bdprlaw.com EXTENDIDO BAJO MI FIRMA y Sello del Tribunal, hoy, 17 de enero de 2024. MARISOL ROSADO RODRÍGUEZ, SECRETARIA REGIONAL. MARÍA M. COTTO AMARO, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

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

SUN WEST MORTGAGE COMPANY, INC. DEMANDANTE VS.

SUCESIÓN DE CARMEN RITA PUJOLS T/C/C CARMEN RITA PUJOLS MACHIN Y SUCESIÓN DE JUAN RAMÓN CRUZ MEDINA COMPUESTAS POR SUS HEREDEROS CONOCIDOS ANA R. CRUZ PUJOLS, JUAN R. CRUZ GOUGLAS, GLORIA ESTHER CRUZ GOUGLAS, JUAN R. CRUZ, JOSE RAMON CRUZ PUJOLS, GERARDO A. CRUZ PUJOLS Y RAFAEL CRUZ PUJOLS; FULANO DE TAL Y SUTANA DE TAL COMO HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS Y/O PARTES CON INTERÉS EN DICHAS SUCESIONES

DEMANDADOS CIVIL NÚM.: CG2023CV00044.

SOBRE: DE DINERO Y EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA. EDICTO ANUNCIANDO PRIMERA, SEGUNDA Y TERCERA SUBASTA. El Alguacil que suscribe, funcionario del Tribunal de la Sala Superior

de Caguas, Puerto Rico, por la presente anuncia y hace saber al público en general que en cumplimiento con la Sentencia dictada en este caso con fecha 26 de septiembre de 2023, y según Orden y Mandamiento del 11 de enero de 2024 librado por este honorable Tribunal, procederé a vender en pública subasta al mejor postor, y por dinero en efectivo, cheque certificado o giro postal a nombre del Alguacil del Tribunal con todo título derecho y/o interés de la parte demandada sobre la propiedad que se describe a continuación: RÚSTICA: Parcela radicada en el barrio Florida del término municipal de San Lorenzo, con una cabida superficial de dos cuerdas, y en lindes por el NORTE, y ESTE, en cuarenticinco metros con quinientos milímetros y en ciento sesentinueve metros con noventicinco milímetros respectivamente con la finca principal de la cual se segrega; por el SUR, en cuarentiseis metros con ochentiocho milímetros con la carretera número novecientos veintiocho; y por el OESTE, en ciento setentiseis metros con cuatrocientos treintitres milímetros con Sara Hernández.

Estructura de hormigón armado consistente de dos plantas con un área total de 3,110.064 pies cuadrados. Dicha estructura consta de: A- Primera planta ocupa un área de 1,695.633 pies cuadrados y consta de una terraza, balcón, área para lavado de ropa (laundry). B- Segunda planta, balcón, 4 dormitorios, 2 baños, cocina, salacomedor, 4 closets y un pasillo ocupando todas estas facilidades un área total de 1,414.431 pies cuadrados. FINCA NÚMERO: 10,420, inscrita al folio 246 del tomo 198 de San Lorenzo, sección II de Caguas. Dirección Física: BARRIO FLORIDA PR928 KM 4.1 SAN LORENZO PR 00754. Se anuncia por medio de este edicto que la primera subasta habrá de celebrarse el día 26 de febrero de 2024, a las 9:00 de la mañana, en mi oficina sita en el edificio que ocupa el Tribunal Superior de Puerto Rico, Sala Superior de Caguas. Siendo ésta la primera subasta que se celebrará en este caso, será el precio mínimo aceptable como oferta en la Primera Subasta, eso es el tipo mínimo pactado en la Escritura de Hipoteca para la propiedad, la suma de $210,000.00. De no haber remanente o adjudicación en esta primera subasta por dicha suma mínima, se celebrará una segunda subasta el día 4 de marzo de 2024, a las 9:00 de la mañana, en el mismo lugar antes señalado en la cual el precio mínimo serán dos terceras (2/3) partes del tipo mínimo pactado en la escritura de hipoteca, la suma

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

de $140,000.00. De no haber remanente o adjudicación en esta segunda subasta por el tipo mínimo indicado en el párrafo anterior, se celebrará una tercera subasta en el mismo lugar antes señalado el día 11 de marzo de 2024, a las 9:00 de la mañana, en la cual el tipo mínimo aceptable como oferta será la mitad (1/2) del precio mínimo pactado en la escritura de hipoteca, la suma de $105,000.00.

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

Con el importe de esta venta se habrá de satisfacer el balance de la sentencia dictada en este caso el cual consiste en el pago de $135,722.41 de principal, más intereses convenidos al 5.0600% anual más recargos hasta su pago, más el pago de lo pactado en la sentencia para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados. Se dispone que una vez celebrada la subasta y vendido el inmueble relacionado, el alguacil pondrá en posesión judicial a los nuevos dueños dentro del término de veinte (20) días a partir de la celebración de la Subasta. Si transcurren los referidos veinte (20) días, el tribunal podrá ordenar, sin necesidad de ulterior procedimiento, que se lleve a efecto el desalojo o lanzamiento del ocupante u ocupantes de la finca o de todos los que por orden o tolerancia del demandado/deudor la ocupen. El Alguacil de este Tribunal efectuará el lanzamiento de los ocupantes de ser necesario. Si la subasta es adjudicada a un tercero y luego se deja sin efecto, el tercero a favor de quién se adjudicó la subasta solo tendrá derecho a la devolución del monto consignado más no tendrá derecho a entablar recurso o reclamo adicional alguno (judicial o extrajudicial) contra el demandante y/o el acreedor y/o inversionista, dueño pagaré y/o su abogado.

Si se anula la venta, el comprador tendrá derecho a la devolución del depósito de la venta judicial menos los honorarios y costos incurridos en el proceso de venta judicial. No tendrá ningún otro recurso contra el acreedor hipotecario ejecutante ni la representación legal de éste. Por la presente, también se notifica e informa a Fulano de Tal y Sutano de Tal, personas desconocidas que puedan tener derechos en la propiedad o título objeto de este edicto.

La Venta en Pública Subasta de la referida propiedad se verificará libre de toda carga y gravamen posterior que afecte

la mencionada finca, a cuyo efecto se notifica y se hace saber la fecha, hora y sitio de la Primera, Segunda y Tercera Subasta, si eso fuera necesario, a los efectos de cualquier persona o personas con algún interés puedan comparecer a la celebración de dicha Subasta. Se entenderá que todo licitador acepta como bastante la titularidad y que las cargas y gravámenes anteriores y los preferentes, si los hubiere, al crédito del ejecutante continuarán subsistentes. Se entenderá que el rematante los acepta y queda subrogado en la responsabilidad de los mismos, sin destinarse a su extinción el precio del remate. Los autos y todos los documentos correspondientes al procedimiento del caso de epígrafe están disponibles en la Secretaría de este Tribunal durante horas laborables y para la concurrencia de los licitadores expido el presente Edicto que se publicará en un periódico de circulación diaria en toda la Isla de Puerto Rico por espacio dos (2) semanas y por lo menos una vez por semana y se fijará, además, en el Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Alcaldía y la Colecturía de Rentas Internas del Municipio donde se celebrará la Subasta y en la Colecturía más cercana del lugar de la residencia de la parte demandada. EN TESTIMONIO DE LO CUAL, expido el presente que firmo y sello, hoy día 24 de enero de 2024.

Angel Gomez Gomez, ALGUACIL, SALA SUPERIOR DE CAGUAS.

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

BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO Parte Demandante Vs.

LA SUCESIÓN DE RADAMÉS VEGA BÁEZ COMPUESTA POR SU NIETO DANIEL ALEXI VEGA SANTOS, FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL, POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS; ELIZABETH ORTIZ IRIZARRY

Parte Demandada Civil Núm.: CG2022CV02346.

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

A: FULANO Y MENGANO DE TAL,

POSIBLES HEREDEROS DESCONOCIDOS DE RADAMÉS VEGA BÁEZ CON IDENTIDAD Y DIRECCIÓN DESCONOCIDA.

Queda usted notificado que en este Tribunal se ha radicado demanda sobre ejecución de hipoteca por la vía ordinaria en la que se alega se adeuda las siguientes cantidades: $277,234.01 de principal, más intereses sobre dicha suma al 6.25% anual desde el 1 de agosto de 2019 hasta su completo pago, más $1,857.49 de recargos acumulados, los cuales continuarán en aumento hasta el saldo total de la deuda, más la cantidad estipulada de $31,000.00 para costas, gastos y honorarios de abogados, así como cualquier otra suma que contenga el contrato del préstamo. La propiedad que garantiza hipotecariamente el préstamo es la siguiente: RÚSTICA: Porción de 25.00 cuerdas, o sea, 9 hectáreas, 82 áreas y 60 centiáreas, en dicho barrio San Salvador del término municipal de Caguas. en lindes por el NORTE, con Gabriel Medina y Juan Mártir Martínez; por el SUR y OESTE, con resto de la finca del vendedor Medina; por el ESTE, con Juan Mártir Martínez. Enclava una casa de concreto y madera. Segregados de esta finca 3.00 cuerdas a favor de Estados Unidos de América sin que se describa remanente. Luego de la segregación de 3.00 cuerdas, la cabida quedó reducida a 22.00 cuerdas. El remanente luego de la segregación se describe a continuación: RÚSTICA: Barrio San Salvador de Caguas.

Solar: Cabida: 22 cuerdas. Linderos: NORTE, con Adeline Del Valle Torres y Emilio Martínez; SUR, con Carlos Aponte y Carmen Medina; ESTE, con Juan Martínez; y al OESTE, con Julia Ríos. Inscrita al folio 136 del tomo 197 de Caguas, Finca 5981, Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección I. La hipoteca consta inscrita como asiento abreviado al folio 228 del tomo 1793 de Caguas, Finca 5981, Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección I. Inscripción 11ma. La modificación de hipoteca consta inscrita al tomo Karibe de Caguas, Finca 5981, Registro de la Propiedad de Caguas, Sección I. Inscripción 12ma. La demandante es tenedora por endoso, por valor recibido y de buena fe del referido pagaré objeto de la presente acción. Se interpela a los demandados para que acepten o renuncien a la herencia del causante dentro de los 30 días subsiguientes a la fecha que fuesen emplazados o requeridos que contesten, para darle cumplimiento el Artículo 1578

del nuevo Código Civil de Puerto Rico, 31 L.P.R.A. § 11021, entendiéndose que, si no se expresan dentro de dicho término, aceptan el caudal relicto; la renuncia se hará por instrumento público o por escrito judicial. La parte demandada deberá presentar su alegación responsiva a través del Sistema Unificado de Administración y Manejo de Casos (SUMAC), al cual puede acceder utilizando la siguiente dirección electrónica: https:// unired.ramajudicial.pr, salvo que se represente por derecho propio, en cuyo caso deberá presentar su alegación responsiva en la secretaría del Tribunal. Se le advierte que si no contesta la demanda, radicando el original de la contestación en este Tribunal y enviando copia de la contestación a la abogada de la parte demandante, Lcda. Belma Alonso García, a: PO Box 3922, Guaynabo, PR 00970-3922, Teléfonos: (787) 789-1826 y (787) 708-0566, correo electrónico: oficinabelmaalonso@gmail.com, dentro del término de treinta (30) días de la publicación de este edicto, excluyéndose el día de la publicación, se le anotará la rebeldía y se le dictará Sentencia en su contra, concediendo el remedio solicitado sin más citarle ni oírle. EXPEDIDO bajo mi firma y el sello del Tribunal, hoy, 19 de enero de 2024, en Caguas, Puerto Rico. LISILDA MARTÍNEZ AGOSTO, SECRETARIA. SANDRA CARRASQUILLO, SUB-SECRETARIA.

terarse 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 23 de enero de 2024. En Carolina, Puerto Rico, el 23 de enero de 2024. KANELLY ZAYAS ROBLES, SECRETARIA. DENISSE MINERVA TORRES RUIZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

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 22 de enero de 2024.

En Humacao, Puerto Rico, el 22 de enero de 2024. EVELYN FÉLIX VÁZQUEZ, SECRETARIA. ARSENIA MARTÍNEZ SÁNCHEZ, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

LEGAL NOTICE

Demandado(a) Caso Núm.: CG2022CV02500.

(Salón: 801). Sobre: EJECUCIÓN DE HIPOTECA: PROPIEDAD RESIDENCIAL. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. FRANCES L. ASENCIO GUIDO, FRANCES.ASENCIO@GMLAW.COM.

ESTADO LIBRE ASOCIADO DE PUERTO RICO TRIBUNAL DE PRIMERA INSTANCIA CENTRO JUDICIAL DE HUMACAO SALA SUPERIOR DE HUMACAO

TRUST MORTGAGE CORP Demandante V.

JOHN DOE Y OTROS

Demandado(a) Caso Núm.: HU2023CV01712.

(Salón 205). Sobre: CANCELACIÓN O RESTITUCIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. NOLEGAL NOTICE TIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA Estado libre asociado de PuerPOR EDICTO. to Rico tribunal de primera insJORGE GARCIA RONDON, tancia CENTRO JUDICIAL DE JAFGRONDON@GMAIL.COM. CAROLINA SALA SUPERIOR A: APEX BANK DE CAROLINA

DIRECCIÓN: 9721 FIRST AMERICAN TITLE SHERRILL BLVD STE 200, INSURANCE COMPANY KNOXVILLE TN 37932.

Demandante V. JOHN DOE - DIRECCIÓN: R&G MORTGAGE DESCONOCIDA. CORPORATION, RICHARD ROE HOY FEDERAL - DIRECCIÓN: DEPOSIT INSURANCE DESCONOCIDA. CORPORATION (FDIC); (Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) Y OTROS

Demandado(a) Caso Núm.: CA2023CV03842.

(Civil: 407). Sobre: CANCELACIÓN O RESTITUCIÓN DE PAGARÉ EXTRAVIADO. NOTIFICACIÓN DE SENTENCIA POR EDICTO. SANDRA DE L. TOUS CHEVRES, STOUS@BUFETETOUS.COM.

A: FULANO DE TAL Y MENGANO MAS CUAL.

(Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 16 de enero de 2024, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted en-

EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 19 de enero de 2024, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o

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

REVERSE MORTGAGE FUNDING LLC Demandante V.

LUZ MARIA GALVEZ Y OTROS

A: LUZ MARIA GALVEZ T/C/C LUZ M. GALVES ORTIZ.

(Nombre de las partes que se le notifican la sentencia por edicto) EL SECRETARIO(A) que suscribe le notifica a usted que el 22 de enero de 2024, este Tribunal ha dictado Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución en este caso, que ha sido debidamente registrada y archivada en autos donde podrá usted enterarse detalladamente de los términos de la misma. Esta notificación se publicará una sola vez en un periódico de circulación general en la Isla de Puerto Rico, dentro de los 10 días siguientes a su notificación. Y, siendo o representando usted una parte en el procedimiento sujeta a los términos de la Sentencia, Sentencia Parcial o Resolución, de la cual puede establecerse recurso de revisión o apelación dentro del término de 30 días contados a partir de la publicación por edicto de esta notificación, dirijo a usted esta notificación que se considerará hecha en la fecha de la publicación de este edicto. Copia de esta notificación ha sido archivada en los autos de este caso, con fecha 23 de enero de 2024.

En Caguas, Puerto Rico, el 23 de enero de 2024. LISILDA MARTÍNEZ AGOSTO, SECRETARIA. SANDRA TRINIDAD CAÑUELAS, SECRETARIA AUXILIAR DEL TRIBUNAL.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

27

FIFA convictions are imperiled by questions of US overreach

By REBECCA R. RUIZ and TARIQ PANJA

N

early a decade after police officers marched world soccer officials out of a luxury hotel in Zurich at dawn, revealing a corruption scandal that shook the world’s most popular sport, the case is at risk of falling apart.

The dramatic turnabout comes over questions of whether American prosecutors overreached by applying U.S. law to a group of people, many of them foreign nationals, who defrauded foreign organizations as they carried out bribery schemes across the world.

The U.S. Supreme Court last year limited a law that was key to the case. Then, in September, a federal judge, citing that, threw out the convictions of two defendants linked to soccer corruption. Now several former soccer officials, including some who paid millions of dollars in penalties and served time in prison, are arguing that the bribery schemes for which they were convicted are no longer considered a crime in the United States.

Emboldened by the vacated convictions, they are asking that their records be wiped clean and their money returned.

Their hopes are linked to the September cases, in which the two defendants benefited from two recent Supreme Court rulings that had rejected federal prosecutors’ application of the law at play in the soccer cases and offered rare guidance on what is known as honest services fraud. The defendants in the soccer trial had been found to have engaged in bribery that deprived organizations outside the U.S. of their employees’ honest services, which constituted fraud at the time. But the judge ruled that the court’s new guidance meant that those actions were no longer prohibited under U.S. law.

That blow to the case, which federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, are contesting, could turn the story of world soccer’s deep-seated corruption — detailed in a 236-page indictment and proved through 31 guilty pleas and four trial convictions — into one equally about the long arm of American justice

Law enforcement agents use sheets to shield the identities of officials with FIFA, the global soccer governing body, arrested on corruption charges, outside the Baur Au Lac Hotel in Zurich, May 27, 2015. Nearly a decade after police officers marched world soccer officials out of a luxury hotel in Zurich at dawn and revealed a corruption scandal that shook the world’s most popular sport, the case is at risk of falling apart. (Pascal Mora/ The New York Times) reaching too far.

“It’s quite significant,” said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor and professor of law at Columbia University, “since the judge rejected the government’s basic theory.” He called the opinion “surprising but well reasoned.”

Prosecutors for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York are preparing to push back. “This office will vigorously defend the convictions,” a spokesperson, John Marzulli, said last Thursday, “and will not remain on the sidelines if the wrongdoers seek to retake the millions of dollars of ill-gotten gains.”

In a court filing this month, prosecutors argued that the federal judge who presided over the FIFA cases, Pamela Chen, had misread the Supreme Court.

The foreign defendants, they said, had “substantial U.S. ties and activities” and had shown they knew what they did was a crime.

The legal debate comes amid growing concern that global sports organizations like FIFA, the global soccer governing body headquartered in Switzerland, operate in a world of their own, untouchable by authorities. The systemic corruption among global soccer’s top leaders was widely documented, but until the Justice Department built its complex case and filed indictments in 2015,

no government had risked taking it on so ambitiously, with charges that touched three continents.

Once public, the FIFA investigation became one of the largest cross-border corruption cases in U.S. history. It required cooperation from authorities abroad, who helped make arrests and extradite defendants to the United States, and revealed decades of bribery; accusations of secret contracts, cash drops and courtroom intimidation; and official confirmation that millions of dollars in cash had swung the votes to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar.

The case was a boon to white-collar lawyers and a shot across the bow of international sports. It boosted the profiles of American prosecutors, who were praised for creatively applying U.S. law on honest services wire fraud, which prohibits people from betraying their employers by engaging in bribery and kickback schemes that funnel money into their own pockets. The legal strategy was widely seen as a novel way to go after foreign commercial bribery.

The charges led to an overhaul of FIFA’s leadership, including the ouster of its longtime president Sepp Blatter, and made celebrities out of key players in the case. Loretta Lynch, the U.S. attorney general at the time, was nicknamed

FIFA-Jägerin, or the FIFA hunter, by the German news media.

The case was far from the first time the Justice Department filed complicated charges with global angles. But its scope and outsize focus on other parts of the world drew questions of why federal prosecutors in Brooklyn had chosen to pour years of resources into the investigation. As justification, prosecutors pointed to the defendants’ use of U.S. banks and, more broadly, the “affront to international principles” that Lynch said their schemes represented.

Now, as American prosecutors prepare to defend their work before a federal appeals court, the idea that U.S. law could apply where others were unable or unwilling to act is in question. That has opened the door to a dramatic possibility: that prominent sports officials and businesspeople who were found to have solicited or accepted bribes could see their convictions set aside and their fortunes returned.

In an interview last week, former Paraguayan soccer official Juan Ángel Napout said he had been convicted to set an example. “Why me?” he said. “They needed somebody, and it was me.”

Napout paid more than $4 million to the U.S. government, which has so far forwarded more than $120 million in forfeited money to FIFA and pledged to release tens of millions more. Back home in Asunción since his release from prison last summer, Napout, 65, is asking the U.S. to vacate his conviction and return his money.

Napout was incarcerated for longer than anyone else implicated in the sprawling case, his once-luxurious lifestyle upended as he became a cook in a Florida prison. He said he had not considered an appeal until hearing of the acquittals in September and is proceeding only at the behest of his family “so my record will go clean.”

Even as the government’s appeal of the recent acquittals is pending — an open question to be resolved before Napout’s request is addressed — he is not alone in seizing the chance to seek a clean slate.

Continues on page 28

28

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

From page 27 In recent weeks, José Maria Marin, a former Brazilian soccer official who also served time in prison and paid millions in penalties, and Alfredo Hawit, a former top soccer official from Honduras who pleaded guilty and cooperated with the government, have made similar requests.

In their legal filings, they are reprising some of the arguments made when they were first charged, when lawyers objected to what they called U.S. prosecutors’ overzealous use of a vague law. At the time, some emphasized that in countries like Brazil, paying bribes in a private business transaction to secure a deal or contract is not uncommon — or illegal.

As the legal fight continues, prominent adversaries in the case have moved on. The soccer organizations implicated have new leaders. In 2019, four years after Lynch issued a stern warning to as-yet-unindicted figures in the case — “You will not wait us out” — she joined the Ameri-

can law firm Paul, Weiss and became a booster of the new FIFA. At least twice in recent years, she has addressed FIFA directly, praising the organization’s “renewed commitment to transparency and ethical behavior.”

Lynch did not respond to a request for comment.

But recently, FIFA has come under renewed scrutiny for bypassing standard processes, as when it effectively awarded the valuable hosting rights for the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia without competitive bidding. FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, who ascended after Blatter’s ouster, has explored extending limits on his time in the top job.

The result of the new appeals, to be argued before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, could have implications not only for convicted defendants like Napout but also for those who were charged but have remained at large, safely out of reach of U.S. authorities. They include longtime FIFA power broker Jack Warner of Trinidad and Tobago; Argentine television executives Hugo and Mariano

Jinkis; and former Brazilian soccer chiefs Marco Polo del Nero and Ricardo Teixeira.

At least $200 million paid by those convicted is also at stake; a portion of that has been pledged to FIFA, which was deemed a victim of the corruption in its own house, and earmarked for causes including soccer programs for women, youth and disabled people. FIFA said $50 million had been allocated to projects already.

Paul Tuchmann, a former prosecutor on the case now at the law firm Wiggin and Dana, called the decision acquitting two defendants “a hiccup” but said that no matter what the appeals court decides, “you can’t go back in time and erase the impact.”

Still, Tuchmann added, undoing the government’s work would have broad consequences — within global sports and beyond it.

“For people with a certain amount of wiliness, they’ll understand the U.S. criminal justice system isn’t going to touch them,” he said. “And I think it’s unfortunate.”

Statue of Jackie Robinson stolen from Kansas park

Jackie Robinson with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1954 (Bob Sandberg/Wikipedia)

By AIMEE ORTIZ

A

uthorities in Kansas are searching for the vandals who stole a life-size bronze statue commemorating Jackie Robinson, the first Black Major League Baseball player, after they cut it off at the ankles, leaving behind just the statue’s shoes and base.

Police in Wichita, Kansas, were notified of the theft about 12:50 p.m. last Thursday after getting a call from League 42, the Little League nonprofit that installed the statue in McAdams Park, Andrew Ford, a police spokesperson, said Saturday.

He estimated that the statue weighed

at least 100 pounds.

“I don’t know what the motivation is,” Ford said. “All considerations are being looked into.”

Ford said police had surveillance footage of the statue being cut down and being placed in the bed of a truck that was pulled up or parked “at least in a way where it can be, you know, discreetly hidden.”

He said that at least two people were believed to be involved. Ford said the theft occurred early Thursday morning. He declined to specify what was used to cut the statue because that was part of the investigation.

Robinson, who had been a young star with the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro leagues, broke the color barrier and became the first Black player to play in MLB when he stepped onto Ebbets Field during his debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947.

Robinson became a symbol of hope for racial equality in the country. After he retired from baseball, he continued working on civil rights issues and went on to break barriers in advertising, broadcasting and business.

Robinson “used his prestige as a star athlete to garner support for the civil rights movement,” according to the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute. King said that Robinson “made my success possible,” according to the Baseball Hall of Fame. “Without him, I would never have been able to do what I did.”

Bob Lutz, the executive director of League 42, which takes its name for the number Robinson wore, said it was a challenge to get the statue erected because the

group had to raise money and needed approvals to use his name and likeness.

The statue, which has an estimated value of $75,000, was installed in April 2021, he said.

Lutz said he believed that the theft was an isolated incident and that he had no idea what could have been a motive for the theft.

“I’m hopeful that this was a purely ignorant decision made by ignorant people,” he said. “That they didn’t know any better.”

The Wichita police chief, Joe Sullivan, said during a news conference Friday that he was “frustrated by the actions of those individuals who had the audacity to take the statue,” noting that the theft occurred just before February, which is Black History Month.

“Our city wants the statue returned,” the chief said. “We also want the individuals who robbed our community of a treasure to be held accountable for their actions, and I assure you they will.”

Bronze plaque stolen from baseball park in San Sebastián

By THE STAR STAFF

P

olice on Saturday were investigating the theft of a bronze plaque from the parking lot at Juan José “Tití” Beníquez Stadium in San Sebastián.

According to the police report, the

stolen plaque is 3 feet by 2 feet. The value was not estimated.

The case was investigated by municipal police officer William Rodríguez and referred to the Puerto Rico Police Bureau’s Property Crimes Division in Aguadilla.

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

Sudoku

GAMES

29

How to Play:

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

Sudoku Rules: Every row must contain the numbers from 1 through 9 Every column must contain the numbers from 1 through 9 Every 3x3 square must contain the numbers from 1 through 9

Crossword

Wordsearch

Word Search Puzzle #Q469PC

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Filtered

Answers on page 30

Frame

Gunshots Leash Leper

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Reassure Resisted Risen Rites

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HOROSCOPE 30 Aries

(Mar 21-April 20)

Drastic shifts in your emotions might be causing you to doubt certain instincts or feelings you have, Aries. Instead of getting frustrated by your inability to make rational sense of these emotions, enjoy the ride that they’re offering you. Having these emotions and being able to express them freely is a great gift. Don’t try to hide or suppress anything you feel. If it seems like you’re on a roller coaster today, don’t try to jump off halfway through the ride.

Taurus

The San Juan Daily Star

Monday, January 29, 2024

(April 21-May 21)

Today is one of those days in which you just want to lie on your back on the ground and look up at the clouds, Taurus. Your artistic mind can easily spot one that looks like a dragon, one that is a chair, and one that looks just like your mother. Pull someone down onto the grass with you and show that person what you see. There is a reason why your brain draws attention to certain shapes and not others.

Find important clues in this information.

Libra

(Sep 24-Oct 23)

Keep your fun-loving spirit pure, Virgo. Be careful that you aren’t making witty conversation or entertaining jokes at someone else’s expense. This type of behavior is likely to come back around and haunt you later. Keep things positive at all times, especially when you’re tempted to spread information about someone that isn’t exactly flattering. Today is one of those days in which you could easily slip and get your foot stuck in your mouth.

Scorpio

(Oct 24-Nov 22)

Make your time spent with others much richer by contrasting it with time spent absolutely alone, Scorpio. You’ll find that the more energy you can focus on yourself and your own thoughts for a while, the more you will have stored up in your emotional battery to share with others when you’re with them. Be more selfish with your energy in terms of making sure that your inner sanctuary is being tended to regularly.

Gemini

(May 22-June 21)

Sagittarius

(Nov 23-Dec 21)

Cancer

(June 22-July 23)

Capricorn

(Dec 22-Jan 20)

You’re most likely going to be very drawn to the things that you can’t have, Gemini. Instead of getting upset and frustrated by the fact that you aren’t getting what you want, look for the lesson in the situation and the reason why you really don’t need those things at all. Things with extremely high sentimental value may seem very important to you right now, but maybe there is an important reason why you need to let go and move on from that particular sentiment.

You may find yourself staring at a blank page for what seems like hours on end while you try to get down on paper what you really want to say, Cancer. Perhaps your motivation is flagging. Your mind is soaring in the clouds today and it may be hard for it to keep on task. However, once you start the act of writing or whatever job you need to finish, things seem to flow to completion on their own.

Leo

(July 24-Aug 23)

Attend a lecture or some sort of intellectual discussion in which people are actively expressing their ideas and strong opinions, Sagittarius. It’s important for you to feel the passion of another who is incredibly focused on his or her dream. Get inspired today by those who speak with passion even though you might not necessarily agree with what they’re saying. If you don’t, feel free to respond with an equally passionate retort.

Your imagination is in all likelihood drawing you to faraway places, Capricorn, and you may find yourself daydreaming constantly. At times, these dreams may seem to get in the way of your usual rational, linear way of dealing with everyday life. Remember that these dreams have been sent to you for a reason and that you should try to comprehend and consciously integrate their messages into your everyday waking life.

Aquarius

(Jan 21-Feb 19)

If you find yourself needing to do something in order to escape your life for a while, Leo, then maybe you need to examine your life more closely. Instead of trying to figure out the best means of escape, try to figure out the best means for making your life more enjoyable. Make sure you’re happy with yourself and the things that you’re doing. If you aren’t, it’s time for a change.

Remember that there is a spirit in everything around you, Aquarius. Just because we can’t perceive something with our eyes, ears, nose, mouth, or fingers doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Pay respect to the force field that surrounds us, and to the animate and inanimate forms that exist in our everyday life.

You are apt to perceive life as if it were a prayer today.

Virgo

Pisces

(Aug 24-Sep 23)

Keep your fun-loving spirit pure, Virgo. Be careful that you aren’t making witty conversation or entertaining jokes at someone else’s expense. This type of behavior is likely to come back around and haunt you later. Keep things positive at all times, especially when you’re tempted to spread information about someone that isn’t exactly flattering. Today is one of those days in which you could easily slip and get your foot stuck in your mouth.

(Feb 20-Mar 20)

Share more of your passion, love, and happiness with the people around you, Pisces. Put your energy toward a group project and work to co-create something much more magical and meaningful than anything you could create on your own. You aren’t alone in this world, and you will find that you have a great deal to learn from working in close relationship with other people who share similar ideals.

Answers to the Sudoku and Crossword on page 29

Monday, January 29, 2024

31

CARTOONS

Herman

Speed Bump

Frank & Ernest

BC

Scary Gary

Wizard of Id

For Better or for Worse

The San Juan Daily Star

Ziggy

32 Monday, January 29, 2024

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